Luther’s Large Catechism, pages 5-13
Questions for Thought and Discussion
on
Luther’s Large Catechism
August 12 – Preface, pages 351-358
August 19 – Commandments 1-3, 359-370
August 26 – No class, Pastor and Family at Camp Shiloh
September 2 – Commandments 4-6, pages 370-384
Sept. 9 – Commandments 7-10 and Conclusion, pgs 384-398
September 16 – The Apostles Creed, pages 399-407
Sept. 23 – Lord’s Prayer: Intro-2nd Petition, pgs 408-415
Sept. 30 – The Lord’s Prayer: Petitions 3-7, pages 415-423
October 7 – Baptism, pages 423-431
October 14 – Sacrament of the Altar, pages 431-440
October 21 – Confession, pages 649-653
The Preface to Luther’s Large Catechism, pages 351-358
1. What classes of people aroused Luther’s high and healthy anger because of their attitude toward the teaching of Christian doctrine?
2. What was Luther’s personal habitual use of the Catechism?
3. What benefits would any Christian today experience from a similar habit?
4. What directive does Luther find for us in Deuteronomy 6:7-8?
5. What promise can be made to those who diligently use the Catechism?
6. What is Luther’s admonition to family heads in his shorter preface?
7. For which adults first of all did Luther intend his Catechism?
8. For the benefit of which two kinds of beginners in Christianity should adults learn and use the Catechism?
The Ten Commandments – First, Second, and Third, 359-370
1. Does the wording of the First Commandment support the statement that “decent godless people” nevertheless do have gods whom they serve?
2. What does it mean to “have” a god? What does God mean when He says we are to have Him alone as our God? What is our attitude towards Him to be?
3. Describe some of the popular false gods of our generation and how idolatrous hearts feel and behave towards them.
4. Is it true that the world practices nothing but false worship and idolatry? Support your answer. How do you reconcile that with the fact that worship of graven images is quite rare today?
5. What is works-righteousness, or self-righteousness? Why does Luther call works-righteousness the “height of idolatry”?
6. The Catechism lists a great many kinds of good things that come to us from God. Add to the list other and modern things that are real blessings. Trace any of the blessings you enjoy back through their various sources and keep asking who is to have the credit and get the appreciation. If in your heart you give credit and your real appreciation to someone or something else than the true God, what are you guilty of?
7. What examples from our times show that the anger and punishment of God is directed against those who despise Him? Apply Romans 1:18ff to this situation. Find other similar divine threats in the Bible.
8. What divine promise in Exodus 20:5-6 is stronger than the threats of divine wrath? Compare Romans 3:21-26, 5:8-10, 18-21, and 6:23. Find other such Gospel promises in the Bible.
9. How do our observations sometimes seem to contradict what God says in His threats and promises? What is the explanation for the seeming contradiction between what God has said and what we observe?
10. What is the aim of the Second Commandment?
11. What does it mean to misuse God’s name? Give some examples from today.
12. In summarizing the ways God’s name is misused, what specific sins does Luther name?
13. What is the positive side of the Second Commandment, what does God command us to do?
14. Is taking an oath forbidden, commanded, or both? Explain. Give positive and negative examples from the Bible and modern life of oath-taking.
15. What connection is there between the teaching of the true doctrines of God’s Word, prayer, and the Second Commandment?
16. Discuss ways of applying Luther’s principles for training children in reverent use of God’s name.
17. What was the “external observance” of the Sabbath in the OT? What is it today?
18. Give two reasons for observing “holy days” in the New Testament. How does a Christian respond to the thought that some days are more sacred than others? Where in the NT did Christ and the apostles abolish the external regulations connected with the Third Commandment?
19. How are holy days kept holy?
20. What makes a person’s whole life and labor God-pleasing and holy? How does answering that correctly relate to the Third Commandment in the NT?
21. How does Luther see people breaking the 3rd Commandment? What are some modern counterparts?
22. Luther talks about apathy and indifference in those who appear externally to be keeping the Third Commandment. What is he talking about and what is he warning us against?
The Ten Commandments – Fourth, Fifth, and Sixth, pages 370-384
1. What value does God place on the parental state as compared to other stations in life?
2. Why is honoring more than loving?
3. How are parents God’s earthly representatives?
4. Give modern instances of the blessings that a child’s obedience brings to his parents; to the child himself; to society.
5. What connection is there between parental authority and other kinds of authority?
6. How does the Fourth Commandment relate to you after you leave home and start your own family?
7. Does the Fourth Commandment imply any duties and responsibilities on the part of parents and other superiors? What sinful attitude do parents often have towards children? masters and employers towards employees?
8. Why does the Fifth follow the Fourth Commandment?
9. Read Matthew 5:20-26. How does this help us understand the Fifth Commandment?
10. When is anger not forbidden by the Fifth Commandment, but actually a duty?
11. What kinds of killing does Luther describe as transgressing this commandment? Does the world see these in the same way?
12. How does Luther prove that neglecting to help someone in need amounts to the same thing as killing them?
13. Prove that kindness, even to enemies is commanded in this commandment. Give Bible examples of love for enemies. Read also Romans 5:10 and apply it to this commandment.
14. How does Luther explain the emphasis of the Sixth Commandment on adultery as representing all forms of unchastity?
15. Compare and contrast the current negative attitudes towards marriage with God’s regard for it as something splendid and a means of highest service to the world.
16. If medieval religion (and some still today) promoted chastity outside of marriage, what kind of life-styles detrimental to marriage are promoted in modern non-religion (and religion) today?
17. Within marriage, what is the key for maintaining a chaste and healthy appreciation and use of sexuality in one’s thinking, speech, and behavior?
The Ten Commandments – Seventh, Eighth, Ninth, Tenth, and Conclusion, pages 384-398
1. How is stealing defined? List some of the types of stealing Luther mentions.
2. How does the language of the Large Catechism reflect the wrath of God against thieving rascals and cheating scoundrels?
3. Since most theft goes undetected, how can it be said that they will “get paid in kind,” for what they’ve done? Give some modern examples of personal misery and a deplorable end for godless gougers and thieves.
4. How does a Christian treat those who have robbed and cheated him?
5. How far does the responsibility of the Church go in opposing dishonesty and thievery? What is the responsibility of the government and law-enforcement?
6. What is the positive side of this commandment? Offer some Biblical examples. Can you think of modern examples of divine blessing poured out upon those who seek their neighbor’s material welfare?
7. What are the implications of the 8th commandment for our everyday conversations?
8. Name and examine in the light of God’s Word various kinds of false and pernicious uses of the tongue.
9. When is it a grave sin, and when, on the other hand, is it a solemn duty to publicly judge and reprove another person’s sin?
10. How do you respond to the argument, “Why can’t I talk about it if it’s true?”
11. Why may, and must, civil authorities, preachers, and parents judge and condemn current sins?
12. What guidance does Matthew 18:15-17 offer? How do we apply this to someone who comes to tell us about someone else’s faults?
13. What are some specific maneuvers and shrewd practices approved by the world that come under the divine judgment of God in the 9th and 10th commandments? Think in terms of marriage, the workplace, business and industry.
14. What is often our attitude and feeling when the neighbor succeeds, prospers, and finds happiness? What does our Father in heaven want our attitude to be?
15. Is it a moral requirement, that is, is it God’s will that we take positive action to help our neighbor in matters of money and property or is it optional? Offer Biblical examples.
16. What divine threat and what divine promise does God attach to the Ten Commandments?
17. Why is the 1st commandment called the fountainhead and source of the rest?
The Apostles’ Creed – pages 399-407
1. Why is it essential to learn the teachings of the Creed if one wants to know God? Why is the same thing necessary if one wants to take the Ten Commandments seriously?
2. If someone asks you to describe God, how might your answer begin?
3. What words in the Creed imply the whole caring, protecting, preserving activity of God? List aspects of this activity. Discuss God’s motive for all this and the kind of God this shows Him to be.
4. What evidence is there to show us that humans rarely put their trust in the truth confessed in the First Article?
5. What does it mean to say that the Son of God poured Himself out completely for us not withholding anything of Himself from us?
6. What does it mean that Jesus Christ became my Lord? Describe the various foes from whose terrible lordship Christ redeemed you in order to become your gracious Lord.
7. What four aspects of meaning does Luther find in the word “redeemer”? Explain each one.
8. The rest of the Second Article is said to explain and underscore the manner and means by which the redemption came about. Take each part separately and on the basis of Scripture consider what role each part plays in Christ’s work of redemption.
9. What is meant by the work of sanctification? Through what means does the Holy Spirit accomplish it?
10. In and through what company of people does the Holy Spirit work in order to bring individuals to Christ? What is the one and only means through which He does that?
11. What is the Good News that the Gospel proclaims?
12. Do the benefits of Christ’s redeeming work reach anyone without the Gospel? Prove it.
13. What is the Spirit’s work in connection with Gospel proclamation? What does He offer and give in and through the Gospel?
14. Explain how the Christian Church is the mother of every Christian.
15. What happens to the Spirit’s work whenever the preaching of the Gospel is shoved under the bench? What happens if “holy works” are promoted despite the absence of the Holy Spirit and His Gospel?
16. What various meanings of the word “church” must we distinguish?
17. On what is our faith in the existence of a definite number of true believers in Christ based? What are the marks and evidence of the presence and activity of this Church of all believers?
18. Christ died for the world. Why, then, does nobody outside of the church possess God’s forgiveness?
19. In what way is the Apostles’ Creed a dividing line between the two parts of the human race?
20. What is the great difference between the Commandments and the Creed?
The Lord’s Prayer – Intro, First and Second Petitions, pages 408-415
1. How does the Lord’s Prayer relate to the Creed and the Commandments?
2. How does genuine prayer differ from babbling and droning and external repetition?
3. When Christians find perverse thoughts about prayer arising in the heart, how are they to counteract such thinking? Do any of God’s commandments give us guidance in this matter? Which use of the Law (remember the 3?) is this?
4. What are some of the hindrances to prayer? Who is the most bitter foe of prayer and why? What weapon against this foe did Jesus teach us to use?
5. Since God’s name is always holy by itself, what is the purpose of the First Petition?
6. What are the two ways it becomes evident whether we are brining disgrace or honor to the name we bear as children of God?
7. When does “Christian” preaching and teaching bring disgrace and dishonor to God? When do hearers and learners become guilty of perpetuating that dishonor?
8. What other tongue-sins do people attach God’s name to?
9. How are the Ten Commandments a means of testing whether a given act or mode of behavior by a professed believer of God disgraces His name or not?
10. What is the very close connection between the first petition and the second commandment?
11. What is the nature of the kingdom or rulership of God that has been established by Christ and is being spread by the Holy Spirit?
12. What is the means the Holy Spirit uses to extend God’s reign over a human heart and life? When does that reign begin?
13. What is the value of the blessing for which we pray in the Second Petition? How can a believer’s enjoyment of the blessing be increased during his life on earth? Describe the change that eternity will bring to his enjoyment of this blessing?
14. What is the point of the illustration in which an emperor orders a beggar to ask for anything he may wish, at which the beggar requests nothing but a ladle of soup?
The Lord’s Prayer – Third, Fourth, Fifth, Sixth, and Seventh Petitions, Amen, pages 415-423
1. Why is the devil so intent on obstructing the fulfillment of the first two petitions?
2. How do both our sinful nature and the Christless world serve as allies of the devil in trying to hinder God’s will from being done?
3. Describe the Christian self-denial and cross bearing that must follow when we receive the treasures we ask for in the first two petitions.
4. What’s the connection between the Third Petition and the Third Commandment?
5. List the kinds of things that the fourth petition covers. Expand on Luther’s list with modern examples or equivalents.
6. Why is it probably one of our greatest needs to pray for the civil government in connection with the Fourth Petition?
7. How does this petition connect with the Ten Commandments? What connection does it have with the Gospel in Word and Sacrament?
8. Why do I have to pray this petition, if the Good News tells me that I am daily and richly forgiven all my sins?
9. How does the Fifth Petition break our pride and foster humility?
10. How does this petition help me stand happily, with a clear conscience before God?
11. Does this petition imply that we are forgiven by God on account of the forgiveness we grant our neighbor? Carefully explain your answer. Why are these two types of forgiveness linked together?
12. What are the three chief sources of temptations, according to Luther? List and discuss some temptations associated with each source.
13. A/D – Jesus means with this petition that we will never feel temptation again, and if we do, somehow we aren’t really Christians anymore.
14. List some successful and unsuccessful battles against temptation in the Bible? What do they have in common?
15. Is the 7th Petition about “evil” or the “Evil One”? Does it matter? What comfort do we receive from this petition in this place in the Lord’s Prayer?
16. Who, ultimately, is the source of evil in the world? In what sense are all kinds of disasters caused by him?
17. What is the assurance of God’s love and concern in the Seventh Petition?
18. What does “Amen” mean?
19. Why must we be able to say “Amen” to this prayer?
The Sacrament of Baptism, pages 423-431
1. What words of Christ form the foundation for our teaching on Baptism?
2. Why is Baptism not optional?
3. What’s the point of the comparison Luther makes between the works the world devises and God picking up a piece of straw?
4. How can a handful of water help a soul?
5. Explain Augustine’s definition of a sacrament.
6. What does Titus 3:5 teach us about Baptism?
7. How would you answer someone who says, “Faith alone saves, therefore Baptism does nothing”?
8. What baptized people receive the benefits of Baptism? Which ones throw it away? How do you know?
9. How is a person to regard and rightly use his Baptism day by day? What does such use do for body and soul? How do you explain Baptism’s wonderful effects?
10. How does Luther defend the validity of infant baptism?
11. On what does the validity of a Baptism depend?
12. Should a person be rebaptized if since his Baptism he despised the treasure of forgiveness, life and salvation it had given him? What about if he was baptized for the wrong reasons initially? Having finally learned the truth about Baptism, what should he do?
13. On what basis are infants brought to be baptized?
14. What are the two daily events in a Christian’s life that are symbolized in the baptismal action?
15. Explain this statement, “If you live in repentance, you are progressing in your Baptism.”
16. How long does a person’s Baptism remain in force? What happens if someone falls from the faith after having been baptized?
17. Explain when Luther says about someone who has fallen away from the faith, from His Baptism, “At once swim for the ship again.”
18. Is your Baptism your “everyday wear”? Tell why you should and why you want to wear it constantly every day.
The Sacrament of the Altar, pages 431-440
1. What is the source of the Supper’s power and validity? Why do we insist that it is not the faith of the recipient (or the distributor) that gives it its character?
2. How does the Lutheran answer this question: What is the Lord’s Supper?
3. Is Christ’s body and blood present if an unbeliever receives it? distributes it? How do we know? In other words, do unbelievers eat the body and blood of Christ?
4. What is the power and benefit of the Lord’s Supper? How do we know?
5. Why is the Lord’s Supper called “food for the soul”? How does this strengthen and sustain in us a living faith in Christ? What effect does it have on our new lives of obedience? On our resistance to the Devil’s temptations?
6. How do you answer the objection, “Bread and wine can’t forgive sins”? How do we distinguish between the place where forgiveness is won and the place where forgiveness is distributed?
7. When is a person “worthy” to receive the Lord’s Supper? What about fasting, meditation, reading the personal preparation questions, and other outward acts?
8. What causes some people to neglect the Sacrament? What must we say about those who absent themselves long from the Table?
9. What is the inevitable final result of staying away repeatedly from the Lord’s Supper? What is the alternative?
10. What is the mistake of someone who says, “I’m too sinful to eat today”? What will happen is a person waits to go until his conscience doesn’t bother him?
11. Who are those to be excluded from the table?
12. Comment on the mistake of concentrating more on our own feelings than Christ’s command in relation to the Sacrament.
13. How can we impress this great need for the Sacrament on our hearts and the hearts of others?
14. How often is “as often as you do this”?
15. Who received the sacrament to their harm? What is the good word for those who feel their personal problems hanging about their necks, are heavy laden with sins, fears, and temptations, and long for rescue?
16. Comment on Luther’s encouragement to “pinch ourselves” when we feel no need for the Sacrament.
17. What can we do to impress the importance of the Sacrament on ourselves and the generations to come?
A Brief Exhortation to Confession, pages 649-653
1. What was wrong with the Pope’s way of practicing confession? (at least three aspects need to be mentioned)
2. What’s the pendulum swing when such a tyranny is exposed?
3. What is Luther’s answer to those who want cheap grace while rejecting the strenuous truth about their responsibility?
4. What kinds of confession does Luther discuss in this section? Pros and Cons of each?
5. Discuss the confession sins to God built into the Lord’s Prayer.
6. Describe the confession of sins to our neighbor built into the Lord’s Prayer.
7. What is the difference between those two kinds of confession and a confession made privately before a single fellow Christian?
8. What are the two parts of private confession? Which is more important?
9. What is the difference between our part and God’s part in confession? Define absolution.
10. What Scripture passages give God’s people authority to apply His forgiveness in Christ directly to individuals for removal of the guilt of specific sins?
11. Describe the sense of need that should urge a person to accept the invitation of God and receive the precious and magnificently splendid treasure in God’s absolution as it’s available in private confession.
12. Agree or disagree – Private confession and absolution is something the Church should offer more publicly and openly.
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