Below is a listing of DOXOLOGY’s lectures and videos from our Spotlight on Ministry- April, 2013- Columbia, IL.
1. Don’t Open That Book: It’ll Kill You Dr. Robert Kolb
Robert Kolb opens his study of reaching the “nones” by insisting God is a God of conversation and community who speaks reality into being and recreates sinners through His Word. He argues that faith is fundamentally trust (fiducia), the anchor of human identity, and that everyone trusts something, so the task is to bring people from false gods to the true God who became flesh in Jesus. Distinguishing Luther’s two kinds of righteousness, Kolb frames our core identity as the alien righteousness God gives, gift not performance, illustrated by the parable of Luther arriving in heaven with only his baptismal certificate. He treats the Word as performative: as gospel it is a promise that elicits trust and, when spoken personally in the “for you,” actually delivers a new identity as God’s child. He commends narrative induction, leading outsiders into God’s true story, while cautioning that the Bible is a dangerous book that kills the old sinner and raises up a new creature. Watch the lecture and read the transcript →
2. Making Sense: Law and Gospel in a Senseless World Dr. Robert Kolb
Robert Kolb profiles the “nones” as people of no single pattern, shaped by an American story of individualism, freedom-as-autonomy, materialism, and compartmentalization that reserves a corner of town and an hour of the week for God while liberating the rest. He surveys their common objections to the church and uses Maslow’s hierarchy to note that physiological, security, community, and esteem needs can dull or open people to the message, so believers must first build trust by simply being present in workplaces, coffee shops, and communities. Kolb stresses that the law inevitably accuses even when preached as instruction, and that its deepest work is to kill, so the gospel can bury the old sinful identity and raise a new one. Against the doubt that God could forgive one’s past, he presses forensic justification as God’s reality-making Word, not a legal fiction, since Christ has claimed our sin and put it in His tomb. The remedy for both Satan’s accusations and our uncertainty is to keep repeating the gospel, imaginatively and often. Watch the lecture and read the transcript →
3. “Telling Our Story” – Dr. Lucas Woodford – Doxology Spotlight – April, 2013
Lucas Woodford diagnoses a postmodern culture that rejects any grand narrative and drifts into meaninglessness, illustrated through modern versus postmodern art and shows like Seinfeld, while entertainment and technology intentionally form people’s affections and breed a narcissism epidemic of self-esteem without substance. Against this, he sets the Word that gives meaning: the gospel is a narrative, the story of Christ’s life, death, and resurrection into which the Creed’s “I believe” draws the hearer, so that to believe is to belong. He centers everything on third-article theology, that no one comes to faith by his own reason or strength but the Holy Spirit calls through the gospel in Word and Sacrament, and this same power that converted us is the power for evangelism. Woodford critiques the Great Commission being turned into a slogan and material principle, tracing church-growth, emergent, and missional movements that promised results yet failed to make disciples because they let culture position theology rather than the reverse. His constructive model is liturgical living: gathered around Word and Sacrament to be forgiven, discipled, and dispersed, Christians share the gospel intentionally within their everyday vocations. Watch the lecture and read the transcript →