https://larryherzogjr.com/Confessional Lutheran author and teacher. Books, Bible studies, and the Ordinary Means newsletter.Hugoen-usWed, 15 Jul 2026 00:00:00 +0000https://larryherzogjr.com/essays/depart-unclean-spirit/Wed, 15 Jul 2026 00:00:00 +0000https://larryherzogjr.com/essays/depart-unclean-spirit/Luther cut the salt, the spit, the oil, and the candle from the baptismal rite. He kept the exorcism. Two centuries later his heirs kept everything he had cut and dropped the one thing he refused to. This essay asks what went out with it.https://larryherzogjr.com/questions/what-is-the-unforgivable-sin/Tue, 14 Jul 2026 00:00:00 +0000https://larryherzogjr.com/questions/what-is-the-unforgivable-sin/The sin against the Holy Spirit is final, settled, unrepentant rejection of the Gospel—it is unforgivable because it refuses forgiveness, not because God ran out.https://larryherzogjr.com/questions/is-suicide-forgivable/Tue, 14 Jul 2026 00:00:00 +0000https://larryherzogjr.com/questions/is-suicide-forgivable/Suicide is a real sin against the Fifth Commandment—and it is not a sin with a special exemption from the cross.https://larryherzogjr.com/essays/the-text-the-church-copied/Sun, 12 Jul 2026 00:00:00 +0000https://larryherzogjr.com/essays/the-text-the-church-copied/A fair-minded walk through the Majority Text (Byzantine priority) position — its strongest arguments for liturgical continuity, manuscript counts, and early attestation — and a confessional Lutheran case for the eclectic critical text that locates preservation across the whole record, not in one stream.https://larryherzogjr.com/questions/how-much-should-a-pastor-make/Sun, 05 Jul 2026 00:00:00 +0000https://larryherzogjr.com/questions/how-much-should-a-pastor-make/Scripture settles this, and the answer surprises: the concern is not that a pastor earns too much, but that a faithful one is starved. The rule is double honor—not a ceiling.https://larryherzogjr.com/essays/double-honor/Sun, 05 Jul 2026 00:00:00 +0000https://larryherzogjr.com/essays/double-honor/We reflexively want to cap what a pastor earns. Scripture worries about the other ditch entirely: do not muzzle the ox. On double honor, the wages of the ministry, and the congregation's own investment in the Word among them.https://larryherzogjr.com/essays/the-antichrist/Sat, 04 Jul 2026 00:00:00 +0000https://larryherzogjr.com/essays/the-antichrist/Pop-culture prophecy imagines the Antichrist as a single sinister world-ruler waiting in the wings of history. Scripture and the Lutheran Confessions describe something both broader and closer to home: a spirit, a pattern, and an institution that opposes Christ from within.https://larryherzogjr.com/essays/sola-scriptura/Sat, 04 Jul 2026 00:00:00 +0000https://larryherzogjr.com/essays/sola-scriptura/Sola Scriptura is one of the most misunderstood words in Protestantism—by its critics and by many of its friends. It does not mean 'me and my Bible alone.' It means Scripture is the one norm that norms every other authority in the church.https://larryherzogjr.com/essays/theology-of-the-cross/Sat, 04 Jul 2026 00:00:00 +0000https://larryherzogjr.com/essays/theology-of-the-cross/God does not show up where we expect Him—in strength, success, and glory—but where we least want to look: in weakness, suffering, and a cross. This is the theology of the cross, and it changes how you read your whole life.https://larryherzogjr.com/essays/law-and-gospel/Sat, 04 Jul 2026 00:00:00 +0000https://larryherzogjr.com/essays/law-and-gospel/Nearly every confusion in the Christian life comes from mixing up two words God speaks—the Law that demands and the Gospel that gives. Learn to tell them apart, and Scripture opens.https://larryherzogjr.com/essays/real-presence/Sat, 04 Jul 2026 00:00:00 +0000https://larryherzogjr.com/essays/real-presence/On the night He was betrayed, Jesus took bread and said four words that have divided the church ever since: 'This is my body.' Lutherans take Him at His word—and find in the Supper not a symbol to remember but a Savior who comes to give.https://larryherzogjr.com/essays/lutherans-and-other-protestants/Sat, 04 Jul 2026 00:00:00 +0000https://larryherzogjr.com/essays/lutherans-and-other-protestants/Lutherans share much with other Protestants—but one difference runs underneath the rest. Where much of Protestantism looks inward for grace, to the sincerity of a decision or the intensity of an experience, Lutherans look outward, to the places God has promised to hand grace over: His Word and His Sacraments.https://larryherzogjr.com/essays/the-proof-of-the-cup/Fri, 03 Jul 2026 00:00:00 +0000https://larryherzogjr.com/essays/the-proof-of-the-cup/The claim that 'proper communion is wine only' sounds like high sacramental seriousness. But pressed even gently, it relocates the power of the Lord's Supper from Christ's promise to the chemistry of the cup — and that is a trade no Lutheran should want to make.https://larryherzogjr.com/questions/is-preservation-synergistic/Fri, 03 Jul 2026 00:00:00 +0000https://larryherzogjr.com/questions/is-preservation-synergistic/No—mediation is not synergism. The means of grace are God's instruments, not a second contributor; faith receives the gift without adding to it, so preservation runs through the means without running through us as agents.https://larryherzogjr.com/questions/how-can-i-be-sure-my-faith-will-last/Fri, 03 Jul 2026 00:00:00 +0000https://larryherzogjr.com/questions/how-can-i-be-sure-my-faith-will-last/Not by looking inward at the strength of your faith, but outward—to your Baptism, the Absolution, and the Supper, where Christ's grip on you is delivered from outside yourself. Your assurance is His hold on you, not yours on Him.https://larryherzogjr.com/essays/held-not-holding/Fri, 03 Jul 2026 00:00:00 +0000https://larryherzogjr.com/essays/held-not-holding/Confessional Lutheran perseverance holds monergism and the real danger of apostasy together: God preserves through Word and Sacrament without our cooperating as a second agent, so assurance rests extra nos — on Christ's hold on you, not yours on Him.https://larryherzogjr.com/questions/does-the-lords-supper-require-wine-with-alcohol/Fri, 03 Jul 2026 00:00:00 +0000https://larryherzogjr.com/questions/does-the-lords-supper-require-wine-with-alcohol/Wine is the historic norm and best practice, but the Supper's power rests in Christ's Word joined to the fruit of the vine—not in alcohol content.https://larryherzogjr.com/questions/can-a-true-believer-fall-away/Fri, 03 Jul 2026 00:00:00 +0000https://larryherzogjr.com/questions/can-a-true-believer-fall-away/Yes—confessional Lutheranism rejects Calvinism's 'perseverance of the saints.' Genuine faith can be genuinely lost, which is why Scripture's warnings against falling away are real warnings, not riddles.https://larryherzogjr.com/questions/should-a-christian-be-cremated/Thu, 02 Jul 2026 00:00:00 +0000https://larryherzogjr.com/questions/should-a-christian-be-cremated/Cremation isn't sinful and is no barrier to the resurrection, but burial best confesses the body's dignity and resurrection hope—permitted, not preferred.https://larryherzogjr.com/essays/love-the-sinner-hate-the-sin/Thu, 02 Jul 2026 00:00:00 +0000https://larryherzogjr.com/essays/love-the-sinner-hate-the-sin/The phrase has a real Christian pedigree, but in popular use it has drifted a long way from Augustine and the New Testament. The trouble is not that it's false. The trouble is what it displaces.