Resources
Everything on this page is free. Take what serves your congregation, your class, or your own reading — and if these are useful to you, Ordinary Means is where new material is announced first.
Start with these
- New to confessional Lutheranism? What It Means to Be Confessional Lutheran
- Teaching an adult class? the Bible studies and Teacher's Guides
- Untangling dispensationalism? the field guide
- Want Greek helps? the Greek Word Explorer
Position papers for lay teachers
Short, plain-language papers on questions that come up in adult Bible class.
- What It Means to Be Confessional Lutheran
- Distinguishing Law and Gospel
- The Sacrament of Holy Baptism
- The Lord’s Supper
- Confession & Absolution
- Where Non-Lutheran Assumptions Creep In
New papers are announced in Ordinary Means first. Subscribe to Ordinary Means.
Essays
Longer-form essays on the confessional Lutheran faith — free to read, share, and hand on.
- A Word From Outside Us — Why the Anxious Conscience Needs a Faith It Did Not Invent
- The Leaderboard — How a Copyright Service Quietly Decided What the American Church Would Sing (adapted from “The Hollow Altar”)
- Two Kingdoms, One Lord — The Two Kingdoms Doctrine in Confessional Lutheran Perspective
- No One Takes This Honor for Himself — The External Call, the Enthusiast's Error, and the Comfort of Rite Vocatus
- Love the Sinner, Hate the Sin — A Saying That Isn't There, and the Harder Thing the Gospel Actually Asks
- The Proof of the Cup — Where the Power of the Sacrament Actually Lies, and Why the Wine-Only Argument Misplaces It
- Held, Not Holding — Perseverance, the Means of Grace, and the Ground of Assurance
- Law and Gospel — The One Distinction That Unlocks the Bible
- The Theology of the Cross — How God Hides in Order to Be Found
- Is Christ Really Present in Communion? — Taking Jesus at His Word
- What Sola Scriptura Actually Means — The Bible Above Everything, Not the Bible and Nothing Else
- Who or What Is the Antichrist? — A Confessional Reading Against the Prophecy Charts
- How Are Lutherans Different from Other Protestants? — The One Difference Behind All the Others
- Double Honor — What a Congregation Owes Its Pastor
- The Text the Church Copied for a Thousand Years — The Majority Text Position, Fairly Presented, and Why I Do Not Finally Hold It (adapted from “Ad Fontes”)
- Depart, Unclean Spirit — What the Lutherans Lost at the Font
- The Wordless Book and the Baptized Child — Why Child Evangelism Fellowship Cannot Be Made Lutheran
- You Are Egypt — Why the Disney Princess critique lands — and why it lands somewhere other than the Lutheran confession
New essays are announced in Ordinary Means first. Subscribe to Ordinary Means.
Teacher's Guides
Every Bible study volume has a free Teacher's Guide for congregational use.
Subscribers to Ordinary Means hear about new guides first. Subscribe to Ordinary Means.
Dispensationalism — a field guide
A free, in-depth web guide to dispensationalism, the rapture, the millennium, Israel and the Church, and Christian Zionism — what the system teaches, and what confessional Lutherans confess instead. No download; read it in your browser.
Ad Fontes — online Sunday school study
An introduction and four plain-language lessons on New Testament textual criticism, with class assignments, complete citations, a glossary, and a corrections log.
Class handouts — Dispensationalism & American Evangelicalism
A six-week adult-class study of dispensationalism and the American evangelical tradition. One student handout per week, free for congregational use.
- Week 1: Historical Origins
- Week 2: The Hermeneutical Divide
- Week 3: Eschatology
- Week 4: Decision Theology and the Altar Call
- Week 5: The Sacramental Vacuum
- Week 6: Practical Apologetics
New study material is announced in Ordinary Means first. Subscribe to Ordinary Means.
Other free studies and resources
Class handouts and standalone studies, free for congregational use.
- The Dispensational Landmines — A Confessional Lutheran Overview
- Once for All Delivered — A Greek Word Study of the Letter of Jude
- The Knowledge of Him — A Greek Word Study of the Second Letter of Peter
- No Other Gospel — A Greek Word Study of the Letter to the Galatians
- That You May Believe — A Greek Word Study of the Gospel of John
- Worthy Is the Lamb — A Confessional Lutheran Commentary on the Revelation of St. John