In this episode, we interview the Rev. Isaac Machado and the Rev. Allison Henn, alliance missionaries in Spain. Alliance missionaries are called by LCMS partner church bodies to serve as missionaries for the LCMS in an LCMS mission field, with the full support and guidance of the LCMS. For the full story, please read the summer edition of Lutherans Engage the World. To learn more about alliance missionaries, read this downloadable FAQ. Photo credit: LCMS Communications/Erik M. Lunsford For more ...
Jun 24, 2025•30 min
In this episode, we interview the Rev. Tyler McMiller, LCMS missionary in Italy, to learn about the work of the Confessional Lutheran Church of Italy (CLCI). McMiller serves a number of house churches across the peninsula and recent developments — the ordination of two new local pastors — have greatly expanded the ability of the CLCI to proclaim the Gospel across the nation. Watch engage.lcms.org for the full story in the fall issue of Lutherans Engage. Photo credit: LCMS Communications/Erik M. ...
Jun 23, 2025•40 min
We have now come through Lent and the Easter season, including the Ascension of Jesus to His Father’s right hand, and in June we celebrate Pentecost. In these studies, we have explored messianic prophecies in January through April, with an introduction to messianic typology last month. This month’s study will deal with a prophecy that is not exactly messianic, but features prominently in the New Testament: in Peter’s sermon on the day of Pentecost. We also will explore the Old and New Testaments...
Jun 05, 2025•27 min
“Type” has to do with forms, shapes, patterns, images. People demonstrate “typical” behavior when they act in a similar pattern time and again. In typesetting, a block with a typographic character on it makes an image of that character on the page. Our first four Bible studies in this year’s series have focused on straightforward messianic prophecies, which abound in the Old Testament. However, Jesus and His church are prefigured in other ways in the Old Testament. This is known as typology — se...
May 06, 2025•25 min
Jesus says of the Old Testament Scriptures that “they … bear witness about Me” (John 5:39). This is especially true of two central messianic prophecies, Isaiah 52:13–53:12 and Psalm 22, which feature prominently in Holy Week services. In Isaiah 52–53, we gain remarkable details about Jesus’ crucifixion from a prophecy that was written more than 700 years before His death. In Psalm 22, the Holy Spirit inspired David, about 1,000 years before Jesus’ birth, to record words that apply in part to Dav...
Apr 03, 2025•25 min
On Ash Wednesday (March 5), the church enters the holy season of Lent, in which we focus on Christ’s righteousness, sufferings and death, and the new testament in His blood. Much ink has been spilt over the decision of St. Jerome to translate the Greek "diatheke" as "testamentum" in his Latin Vulgate, which ultimately influenced the King James Version’s selection of “testament” as a translation of this term. This, in turn, led to our common division of “Old Testament” (2 Corinthians 3:14) and “N...
Mar 05, 2025•27 min
On the Epiphany of Our Lord (January 6), we followed the Wise Men as they brought gifts (Matthew 2:11) predicted by the Old Testament (Isaiah 60:6) to Jesus, “He who has been born king of the Jews” (Matthew 2:2). The Wise Men even found Christ using the Old Testament: at first, through the fulfilled prophecy of Numbers 24:15–19 concerning a star and a king’s scepter in Israel; ultimately, through the fulfillment of Micah 5’s words about the Good Shepherd of Judah being born in Bethlehem (Micah 5...
Feb 04, 2025•27 min
The Old Testament is about Jesus, which is reason enough for us to open our Bibles and read it regularly. “And beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, [Jesus] interpreted to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning Himself” (Luke 24:27). Jesus opens our minds to understand the Hebrew Scriptures (Luke 24:45) and teaches us how to read them. “Everything written about Me in the Law of Moses and the Prophets and the Psalms must be fulfilled... Thus it is written, that the Christ should su...
Jan 08, 2025•27 min
This issue of LW focuses on the community of family. Peter reminds us that Christians have a much larger family, our “brotherhood throughout the world” (1 Peter 5:9). Paul says something similar in 1 Corinthians 1:2: “To the church of God that is in Corinth, to those sanctified in Christ Jesus, called to be saints together with all those who in every place call upon the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, both their Lord and ours.” While we properly focus most of our attention on our local communitie...
Dec 05, 2024•28 min
This issue of LW focuses on the LCMS community, which is made up of “flock[s] of God” (1 PETER 5:2) under “the chief Shepherd” (1 Peter 5:4), who sends men to shepherd His holy people (in Latin, pastor means “shepherd”). If both preachers and hearers heed Peter’s advice, congregations will be blessed with peace and concord; if they don’t, dissension and conflict will ensue. Peter encourages humility for all Christians (1 Peter 5:6–7). Although he doesn’t mention the example of Jesus in this pass...
Nov 06, 2024•24 min
Hear about our Lutheran brothers and sisters in Christ in Chile! In our special crossover series "From Wittenberg" with The Lutheran Witness Podcast, the Rev. Roy Askins (Executive Editor of The Lutheran Witness) speaks with President Rev. Juan Pablo Lanterna of the Confessional Lutheran Church of Chile / Iglesia Luterana Confesional de Chile (ILC-Chile). In this conversation, President Lanterna discusses the history of the church, its current state, and its challenges. The church was founded 70...
Nov 04, 2024•13 min
Hear about our Lutheran brothers and sisters in Christ in Kenya! In our special crossover series "From Wittenberg" with The Lutheran Witness Podcast, the Rev. Roy Askins (Executive Editor of The Lutheran Witness) speaks with Archbishop Joseph Ochoa Omolo of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Kenya (ELCK). In this conversation, Archbishop Omolo discusses the history, growth, and mission of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Kenya (ELCK). He shares insights into the church's formation, its current...
Oct 31, 2024•14 min
Hear about our Lutheran brothers and sisters in Christ in South Africa! In our special crossover series "From Wittenberg" with The Lutheran Witness Podcast, the Rev. Roy Askins (Executive Editor of The Lutheran Witness) speaks with Bishop Helmut Paul of the Free Evangelical Lutheran Synod in South Africa (FELSISA). In this conversation, Bishop Paul discusses the FELSISA and its history, growth, and collaboration with other Lutheran churches. They explore the challenges and opportunities faced by...
Oct 31, 2024•13 min
What are the challenges facing Global Lutheranism? Beginning our special crossover series "From Wittenberg" with The Lutheran Witness Podcast, the Rev. Roy Askins (Executive Editor of The Lutheran Witness) speaks with the Rev. Dr. Matthew C. Harrison (President of The Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod) and the Rev. Dr. Jonathan Shaw (LCMS Director of Church Relations) from the 2024 International Church Relations Conference (ICRC) held in Wittenberg, Germany. This conference brings together Lutheran...
Oct 24, 2024•13 min
This episode of The Lutheran Witness podcast was recorded in Brazil. The Rev. Airton Schroeder, the Rev. Ross Johnson, the Rev. James Sharp, and Erik Lunsford discuss the flooding that occurred in Brazil this summer and the historic response of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Brazil (IELB). To learn more, visit https://engage.lcms.org/disasters-fall-2024/. Photo: LCMS Communications/Erik M. Lunsford For more information on The Lutheran Witness or to subscribe to the magazine, please visit wit...
Oct 10, 2024•52 min
This issue of the Lutheran Witness focuses on the Christian church as a confessing community. 1 Peter 4:7–19 teaches how we confess our faith through words, works and, perhaps surprisingly, through suffering as Christians (1 Peter 4:16). Jesus had promised this would happen to His followers: “If the world hates you, know that it has hated Me before it hated you. If you were of the world, the world would love you as its own; but because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, ...
Oct 02, 2024•28 min
Most of Peter’s First Epistle is straightforward in meaning, but this month’s reading contains two difficult passages: 1 Peter 3:18–20 and 4:6. Consulting a faithful and reliable resource such as The Lutheran Study Bible is advisable when you are faced with challenging texts. For the first difficult passage, one should ask, “What else could this refer to other than Christ’s victorious descent into hell to proclaim defeat over sin, Satan and the enemies of God?” This is the proper meaning, as we ...
Sep 04, 2024•27 min
This issue of LW focuses on the church as a teaching and learning community. Peter encourages Christian education oriented toward apologetics, the defense of the Christian faith: “Always [be] prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you” (1 Peter 3:15). Lutherans have a wonderful resource for apologetics in the Small Catechism, which is a foundation and guide for deeper knowledge of the Holy Scriptures. Peter does not encourage Christians to force th...
Aug 05, 2024•27 min
Numerical growth is not promised to the church. But even when numbers decline, the Christian church clings to the promise that Jesus promised to build His church, and so He does. For more information on The Lutheran Witness or to subscribe to the magazine, please visit witness.lcms.org. Sound effect obtained from zapsplat.com.
Apr 09, 2024•6 min
Hannah is the eponymous narrator of Wendell Berry’s novel Hannah Coulter, which is set in the small fictional town of Port William in rural Kentucky. The storyline is simple: Hannah, now an old woman, gives an account of her life. Though her narrative focuses on her day-to-day life, eternity is her most constant theme. For Hannah, the daily and the eternal are in no tension with each other, so long as she is thankful and looks on everything in love. Read the article. Cover image: “View of Benjam...
Apr 02, 2024•8 min
Almost every freshman in America reads Harper Lee’s classic novel, To Kill a Mockingbird, in English class. And it is good that so many people read it — the novel is an excellent expression of what it means to love your neighbor, the vocation to which every Christian is called. Read the full article. For more information on The Lutheran Witness or to subscribe to the magazine, please visit witness.lcms.org. Sound effect obtained from zapsplat.com.
Mar 26, 2024•9 min
Cantor Phillip Magness wrote a three-part series on worship. Part 1 focuses on how the Holy Spirit creates and sustains the Christian community through the Word and Sacraments. Part 2 discusses the alien nature of worship. As God’s people receive His alien righteousness, so also the community of the church is alien to this world. In Part 3, Magness reminds us that worship, while remaining God’s work, is incomplete without you. For more information on The Lutheran Witness or to subscribe to the m...
Mar 22, 2024•6 min
Cantor Phillip Magness wrote a three-part series on worship. Part 1 focuses on how the Holy Spirit creates and sustains the Christian community through the Word and Sacraments. Part 2 discusses the alien nature of worship. As God’s people receive His alien righteousness, so also the community of the church is alien to this world. In Part 3, Magness reminds us that worship, while remaining God’s work, is incomplete without you. For more information on The Lutheran Witness or to subscribe to the m...
Mar 20, 2024•7 min
Cantor Phillip Magness wrote a three-part series on worship. Part 1 focuses on how the Holy Spirit creates and sustains the Christian community through the Word and Sacraments. Part 2 discusses the alien nature of worship. As God’s people receive His alien righteousness, so also the community of the church is alien to this world. In Part 3, Magness reminds us that worship, while remaining God’s work, is incomplete without you. For more information on The Lutheran Witness or to subscribe to the m...
Mar 18, 2024•7 min
This issue of LW encourages us to be a hopeful community. In current English usage, “hope” usually expresses a wish about something yet to be determined, such as, “I hope I don’t have cancer,” or “I hope the Astros win the World Series.” In the Bible, hope does not convey mere wishfulness; rather, it conveys expectation — patiently waiting for God’s reliable promises in His Word to be fulfilled, since He “has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ fr...
Mar 05, 2024•25 min
The February issue of the Lutheran Witness explores a broken community. Peter summons Christians to gather as a holy community — consecrated by and set apart for the One who alone is holy, God the Holy Trinity. Whenever Christians fall short of this calling, they inevitably revert to “the passions of [their] former ignorance” (1 Peter 1:14) and “the futile ways inherited from [their] forefathers” (1 Peter 1:18), whether the Gentile proclivity for idolatry and licentiousness or the Jewish inclina...
Feb 06, 2024•25 min
Rev. Anthony Oliphant, pastor of Redeemer Lutheran Church in Elmhurst, IL, joins Andy and Sarah to talk about the “Searching Scripture” feature in the December 2023 issue of the Lutheran Witness titled "Grace Be With You" on Philippians 4:8-23. This is the final "Searching Scripture" feature for 2023 on the book of Philippians. Stay tuned for a new study in 2024 to follow along and search Scripture with us! Find online exclusives of the Lutheran Witness at witness.lcms.org and subscribe to the L...
Dec 05, 2023•26 min
Rev. Anthony Oliphant, pastor of Redeemer Lutheran Church in Elmhurst, IL, joins Andy and guest co-host Jordan Harms to talk about the “Searching Scripture” feature in the October 2023 issue of the Lutheran Witness titled "Pressing on Toward the Goal" on Philippians 3:12-16. This year, "Searching Scripture" will study the book of Philippians, so stay tuned each month for a new Bible study. Follow along and search Scripture with us! Find online exclusives of the Lutheran Witness at witness.lcms.o...
Oct 05, 2023•25 min
Sarah Reinsel joins The Lutheran Witness podcast to discuss her article in the September issue of the magazine. In the article, she explains the manuscript traditions of the Greek New Testament and how, in the end, we can be confident in the text we have received. Look the table of contents for the September issue of LW. Subscribe or learn more about the flagship periodical of The Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod. For more information on The Lutheran Witness or to subscribe to the magazine, please...
Sep 20, 2023•26 min
The Rev. Dr. David Adams stopped in to talk with The Lutheran Witness about the limits of archaeology. Sometimes we expect that it will tell us more than it can. Adams explained that archaeology is about uncovering facts. The interpretation of those facts can vary dramatically from one archaeologist to the next. See the table of contents for the September issue of The Lutheran Witness. For more information on The Lutheran Witness or to subscribe to the magazine, please visit witness.lcms.org. So...
Sep 15, 2023•57 min
