This opening Matins service centers on a homily by Pastor Fleming preaching Revelation 12 alongside the Genesis 1 reading that God made humanity male and female in his image. Fleming lays out five points from Revelation 12: Christ’s decisive victory as the incarnate Son born of the Virgin Mary, Satan’s failed attempt to destroy him, […]

This closing prayer office is built around Psalm 4 and a brief meditation on the created goodness of the body. Praying David’s cry, “how long will you turn my glory into shame,” the preacher borrows Bruce Wolfmiller’s image of Satan’s “snicker strategy,” recalling a chapel demonstration in which a student is mocked for correctly answering […]

Ryan Anderson, president of the Ethics and Public Policy Center, argues the case for man-woman marriage on philosophical rather than strictly theological grounds, aiming to equip listeners to speak with people who don’t share their scriptural starting points. He first diagnoses the revisionist view that reduces marriage to an intense emotional bond with one’s “number […]

Ryan Anderson examines the transgender movement in three movements: its underlying worldview, its medicine, and its public policy, then evaluates each. He shows that the claim “a person is whoever they identify as” is a metaphysical assertion dressed up as medical science, citing expert testimony that gender identity should override chromosomes, hormones, and anatomy. He […]

Ryan Anderson contends that religious liberty, while a real and God-given right, is necessary but not sufficient for a well-ordered society, and cautions against making it the only line of defense. He surveys four recent Supreme Court wins (Espinoza, Little Sisters of the Poor, Our Lady of Guadalupe, and Fulton), explaining why each matters and […]

Lucas Woodford, president of the LCMS Minnesota South District, frames the passing on of sexual virtue and biblical identity within baptism, opening with Ephesians 5 to show that Paul uses the gospel to clarify marriage rather than the reverse. He grounds a “baptismal virtue ethic” in which whose you are determines who you are and […]

In this roundtable, Ryan Anderson and Lucas Woodford field questions from pastors on applying the day’s teaching in families and congregations. Asked for their greatest source of hope, both point to knowing how the story ends in Christ, with Anderson adding that many secular voices, feminists, and even LGB groups now object to transgender medicine […]

This opening prayer office for the pastors’ seminar features a short homily on Genesis 2, where the Lord forms the man from the dust and breathes into him the breath of life. The preacher dwells on the creaturely truth that Adam, Eve, and every person are God’s own handiwork, and that complete dependency on the […]

In this first session of the pastors’ seminar, Lucas Woodford equips pastors to care for souls wounded by a sexually disordered culture, opening with two detailed case studies, a woman named Autumn who was both a victim and agent of grievous sexual and spiritual abuse, and a young man named Jefferson exploring same-sex relationships, to […]

Continuing his pastors’ seminar on baptismal virtue ethics, the presenter frames the baptized life as one lived in faith, hope, and love, and turns it toward the families in the congregation—equipping parents and grandparents through carrying conversations, rituals, biblical devotions, and service rather than a single blunt sermon. After fielding questions on tolerance, pronoun use, […]

The presenter resumes the theology-of-the-body material, first coaching pastors on how to reclaim the language of virtue and sexuality gradually—through parent workshops, Bible class, and lectionary preaching—without shocking a poorly prepared congregation. He surveys how the culture disorders the body medically, sexually, and emotionally, and argues that because the marital one-flesh union signs our union […]

This closing service centers on a first-person sermon in the voice of Paul charging young Timothy to preach the Word amid the idolatry, false teachers, ritual prostitution, and entertainment-hungry culture of Ephesus. Again and again the refrain ‘preach the Word’ answers each obstacle, because only the Word gives the atonement and reconciliation between God and […]

Anthony Esolen opens by confronting the stock objection that every generation imagines its own decline, then answers it three ways: decline need not be universal to be real, cultures demonstrably do collapse (Sparta, Athens, Rome, the British Empire), and the decay can simply be shown. Drawing on his collection of 1889 issues of Century magazine—where […]

Esolen diagnoses modern man as alienated, contrasting him with Boethius, who wrote the Consolation of Philosophy in prison awaiting execution yet remained rooted in a living tradition of learning, in his duty to country, and above all in his Christian faith. Modern man, by contrast, sits in a ‘cave’ before screens, believes only in choice […]

In his remedies talk, Anthony Esolen insists one cannot give what one does not have, so Christians must deliberately build communities of prayer, healthy family life, and real education rather than wait for them to arise. He commends the Benedict option of intentional community, the Boethius option of taking up the distasteful work of politics […]

The closing dialogue takes questions from the pastors, covering how the church might reclaim the family’s proper responsibilities from the state, why modern schooling so often inoculates students against Shakespeare and the great books, and the formative power of memorized poetry for both preacher and hearer. Esolen recalls Rodney Stark’s account of how an obscure […]

John Kleinig surveys the wreckage of the post-1960s sexual revolution and argues that Christian marriages and celibate singles serve as visible counter-witnesses in a disordered society. Drawing on 1 Corinthians 6, Philippians 2, the Large Catechism, and the early church historian Kyle Harper, he locates chastity not in physical virginity but in purity of heart, […]

Dr. John Kleinig takes questions from participants following his lecture series on Christian marriage at Doxology’s 2018 Insight event. He addresses cohabitation through Walter Trobisch’s Genesis 2 framework of leaving, cleaving, and one-fleshing; pastoral options after Obergefell regarding state marriage licensure; celibate friendship and singleness in the church; arranged marriage; and pornography’s damage to marital […]

John Kleinig opens the 2018 Doxology Insight event “Male and Female He Made Them” by grounding Christian sexuality in creation and redemption. He argues from Genesis 1-2 that God assigns sex and gender, not the individual, and that marriage was instituted before the fall for companionship and one-flesh union. The second half traces Christ’s incarnation […]

John Kleinig lectures from Hebrews 13:4, 1 Thessalonians 4, 1 Timothy 4, and Ephesians 5, arguing that holy matrimony is not traditional marriage but a state sanctified by the Word of God and prayer. He defines the biblical category of porneia in its Old and New Testament senses, distinguishing it from moral self-improvement and tracing […]

John Kleinig opens his study on joy by distinguishing joy from happiness: happiness is a fleeting, self-focused mood that excludes sadness, while joy is a lasting state of the whole person, given from outside us by God and able to coexist with sorrow—as Paul is sorrowful yet always rejoicing. He announces a sweep from Ecclesiastes […]

Kleinig continues through Ecclesiastes’ observations on enjoyment, stressing that everything is beautiful in its time, so joy depends on right timing and on living in the present moment rather than chasing future possessions or freezing a good moment forever. He explains ‘eternity in their hearts’ as the God-given restlessness that keeps leading us from lesser […]

Kleinig works through the closing counsel of Ecclesiastes, treating its call to eat, drink, and rejoice in one’s labor as God’s own recommendation rather than resignation. He unpacks the picture of wearing a wreath every day—living the whole of ordinary life under God’s approval—and the seven and eight instructions that follow: keep walking through life, […]

Kleinig turns from earthly to heavenly joy, tracing exultation through Isaiah, the Psalms, and Zechariah. He reads Psalm 16’s fullness of joy in God’s presence as fulfilled in Christ, who passes through death to life at the Father’s right hand and shares those gifts with the church. Isaiah 25’s feast of rich food and aged […]

Kleinig follows the theme of joy through the New Testament, noting the shift from a word meaning good mood to one naming the deeper gift Christ brings. He moves from the angels’ gospel of great joy and the doxology of Luke, through Mary, John the Baptist, the wise men, Zacchaeus, and the entry into Jerusalem, […]