Doctrine

The way language changes right under your feet is a source of both frustration and pleasure at the same time. The pleasure of it is similar to that of irony: proof that there really is something wrong with the world, and it's not just me.

So the term "Ministry" in our time has such a proliferation of uses that the word itself has become fairly useless without a lot of context. Don't you just love it?

Martin Luther often wrote about the Carthusians (a monastic order) and how they like to invent ways to serve God better than regular folk could. Read the Large Catechism on the Ten Commandments, and count how many times Luther challenges the Carthusians to come up with a good work that pleases God as thoroughly as obedience to one of His commandments.

We don't run into Carthusians every day, at least in the Northwest. But we do run into a lot of people who are trying to please God in ways of their own invention. Christians are no exception. Among Christians, it seems that a lot of people really want to please God. I suppose that's good. But instead of learning and living by His Commandments, many of them are trying to discover or develop their particular "gifts of ministry" so that they can really serve God in their lives. Did I say that we don't run into Carthusians every day? Maybe I was wrong.