In this episode Pastor Fisk gives the best and most concise explanation of the differences between Calvinism and Lutheranism that I’ve ever heard (or seen). It basically comes down to how the two groups view reason – and how they handle paradox.

What’s in the Bible? is, in a nutshell, an attempt to address declining biblical literacy in the North American church. VeggieTales was an amazingly effective way to teach individual Bible stories, but not abstract concepts like sin, redemption, or God’s grace. Yet these concepts are the core of a meaningful faith. Christian colleges report that incoming freshmen—even those from Christian homes—know less about the Bible each year. And partly as a result of a lack of meaningful knowledge about their faith, 65 percent of Christian kids are walking away from the church as soon as they leave high school.

So, What’s in the Bible? is a new 13-part series that will walk kids all the way through the Bible, from Genesis to Revelation. Call it “Christianity 101”—a crash course in our faith, presented with the same wit and whimsy as VeggieTales.

A number of introductory videos can be found here:  http://whatsinthebible.com/

I was curious as to what you all think of this sort of thing.

My first inclination is to think that, despite their good intentions in trying to address widespread Biblical illiteracy, this sort of thing actually contributes to that by trivializing the Bible and putting it on par with the latest whimsical animated Disney movie. It seems to me to be the product of a philosophy that says kids can’t learn unless they are being entertained/amused. The problem is – how does this prepare kids for serious instruction when they are older? How does one transition to something as ordinary as the Small Catechism, or serious topics like apologetics, after a steady diet of stuff like this? I’m having a hard time imagining kids taking the subjects of sin, redemption, suffering, death, and hell too seriously with this kind of presentation.

Maybe my fears are unfounded? Any thoughts?

While Zwingli's view of the Scriptures rests mainly on the doctrine of Augustine, a certain influence of Origen and his allegoric interpretation of the Bible is noticeable.  The clarity of the Bible, however, does not mean that everyone can understand it; the Scriptures are clear and intelligible to the faithful only.  Now, faith comes from the Word of God, but only if and when the Holy Spirit moves the human soul.  Such faith is the true master of a correct understanding of the Divine Word.  Thus, Zwingli, in spite of his Augustinian biblicism, recognizes something as higher than the letter of the Bible.

Here a strong contrast between Luther's and Zwingli's understanding of the Word becomes evident.  For Luther the content of the Word is bound up with the letter.  The Holy Spirit comes to us in the external word.  In Zwingli's opinion, the external word (the letter) in itself has no power over the human soul.

Not the content of the Word as such overpowers the soul by virtue of the Spirit that dwells in the Word, but the Spirit contacts the soul directly and thus enables the soul to understand the real meaning of the Word –

So Reinhold Seeberg puts it, and underlines the parallel existing between the understanding of the Word and the Sacrament.  According to Luther, the meaning of the sacramental words can be found in those words only, since they are the words of Christ and, therefore, words in which the Holy Spirit dwells.  For Zwingli they cannot be understood from the letter, but by the Spirit, who makes the believer understand the words when he compares Scripture with Scripture and asks for the analogy of faith (pp. 116, Revised Edition, emphasis mine).

So for Luther, God's words themselves convey the Holy Spirit, but for Zwingli, the Word may or may not be accompanied by the Spirit.  Not only does this work itself out in their radically different views on the Lord's Supper, but it seems also to have very serious implications for their respective theological descendants. This is an issue of certainty – how do I know the Holy Spirit is working in my life?

For Luther it was a no-brainer – the Holy Spirit is always accompanied by the Word, and the Word is never unaccompanied by the Holy Spirit.  The two are inseparable.  For Luther Baptism was efficacious because of the Word of God in and with the water, and where the Word of God is, there is the Holy Spirit.  We receive the true body and blood of Christ in the Lord's Supper because of the Words of Christ.  The Word of God creates what it says.  It is living and active because it is always accompanied by the Spirit.  The person him/herself may reject that Word, but the Spirit is always present in it.

For Zwingli and Calvin et al, however, this is not necessarily the case. One might hear the Word of God, but the Holy Spirit may or may not accompany it.  The Spirit is not necessarily in the Word, but works directly upon a person's heart.  So we cannot really know with certainty that the Holy Spirit is working when one hears the Word, is baptized, or receives the Lord's Supper. 

This is basically where non-Lutheran Protestantism finds itself.  The problem with this is the resulting subjectivity.  I can hear the Word being preached.  I can see a person being baptized.  I can taste the bread and the wine in the Lord's Supper.  I cannot see the Holy Spirit working directly on a person's heart.  

As a Lutheran, I know the Holy Spirit is working because the Word is being preached and the Sacraments are being administered according to Christ's command.  If the Holy Spirit is separated from the Word of God, how can one know with certainty the Holy Spirit is working?  Only through subjective, inward-looking means.  This is true whether one is Calvinist or Arminian.  It is true whether one is Pentecostal, evangelical or fundamentalist.  The precise nature of the navel-gazing may differ from group to group but it is still navel-gazing.

The ministry of Jesus was quite simple: He traveled from town to town in Galilee for two and half years teaching the people and performing miracles as signs that the new creation had dawned.  Then He turned His face to go to Jerusalem for the final miracle, where through death He took on Himself all sickness and sin, and through His resurrection He demonstrated in His resurrected body what we shall one day become.

Teaching and miracles – that's what Jesus' ministry is all about.  And those same two activities of Jesus continue in the Church today as the Lord continues to teach His people through the Word that is read and preached in our Divine Services.  Through the miracle of Baptism we enter into the Body of Christ, His Church, so that we might partake of the Body of Christ in the miracle of the Lord's Supper.  Sacraments are the new miracles of Jesus in the world today because they testify to the bodily presence of Christ in His creation bringing in the new creation.  In Baptism, Christ is present in water through Word and Spirit where He turns sinners into saints, taking us across the boundary of death into a life that never ends, delivering us from darkness into His light.  In the Lord's Supper, Christ is present in, with, and under bread and wine to give us the very same body and blood that was crucified on Calvary and raised again on the third day.

The teaching and miracles of Jesus, therefore, continue in the Church today through the liturgy of Word and Sacrament.  We hear the voice of Jesus in His Word and we take Him into our bodies in body and blood for our health and salvation.  How remarkable that these are the very same structures of table fellowship – Word and Meal – in which we experience now a foretaste of the heavenly feast with angels, archangels, and with the whole company of heaven.  Our liturgy is nothing more and nothing less than table fellowship with Jesus.

From Heaven on Earth: The Gifts of Christ in the Divine Service by Arthur A. Just Jr.  Concordia Publishing House: 2008, pp. 93-94.

Thus says the Lord of hosts: "Do not listen to the words of the prophets who prophesy to you, filling you with vain hopes.  They speak visions of their own minds, not from the mouth of the Lord.  They say continually to those who despise the word of the Lord, 'It shall be well with you'; and to everyone who stubbornly follows his own heart, they say, 'No disaster shall come upon you.' "

For who among them has stood in the council of the Lord to see and to hear His word,
Or who has paid attention to His word and listened?
Behold, the storm of the Lord!
Wrath has gone forth, a whirling tempest;
It will burst upon the head of the wicked.
The anger of the Lord will not turn back
Until He has executed and accomplished the intents of His heart.
In the latter days you will understand it clearly.

"I did not send the prophets, yet they ran;
I did not speak to them, yet they prophesied.
But if they had stood in my council,
Then they would have proclaimed My word to My people,
And they would have turned from their evil way,
And from the evil of their deeds.

"Am I a God at hand, declares the Lord, and not a God far away?  Can a man hide himself in secret places so that I cannot see him? declares the Lord.  Do I not fill heaven and earth? declares the Lord.  I have heard what the prophets have said who prophesy lies in My name, saying, 'I have dreamed, I have dreamed!'  How long shall there be lies in the heart of the prophets who prophesy lies, and who prophesy the deceit of their own heart, who think to make my people forget My name by their dreams that they tell one another, even as their fathers forgot My name for Baal?  Let the prophet who has a dream tell the dream, but let him who has My word speak My word faithfully.  What has straw in common with wheat? declares the Lord.  Is not My word like fire, declares the Lord, and like a hammer that breaks the rock in pieces?  Therefore, behold, I am against the prophets, declares the Lord, who steal My words from one another.  Behold, I am against the prophets, declares the Lord, who use their tongues and declare, 'declares the Lord.'  Behold, I am against those who prophesy lying dreams, declares the Lord, and who tell them and lead My people astray by their lies and their recklessness, when I did not send them or charge them.  So they do not profit this people at all, declares the Lord."

This sounds like it could have been written yesterday to the church in America.