So tonight it was Apocalypse! With the Orthodox!

This is quite as much fun as you might think it (okay, probably more...). But it was quite a straightforward reading an interpretation of the text. In fact, it was much more like a proper Bible study than anything I've seen at any church I've been at since St. S. Ev. Lutheran... 15+ years ago...

And really, though Protestants like to talk about being Biblical, the real church emphasis is on so-called "sharing", topical discussion out of Protestant tertiary/quaternary sources, and "culture wars" / values / moralism, rather than straightforward exposition of Biblical texts. While some of those things might have a place in church life (some, and small), they must not displace the confrontation with the questions basic to Christian teaching: First, what does it say?, and second, what does it mean?

By no coincidence, this was emphasized tonight, which is why I'm all "w00" about it, instead of despairing. I did refrain from pointing how how foundational this grounding in the literal sense of the Scriptural text was for Luther, however...

And next time, I'm bringing our Greek/English NT!