# Beggars at the Feast **URL:** \ **Category:** Not in Vain\ **Created:** [September 29, 2025, 12:46am UTC](https://omnifora.com/t/beggars-at-the-feast/4518 "2025-09-29T00:46:35Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 3\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![mahler](https://omnifora.com/user_avatar/omnifora.com/mahler/32/7_2.png) [@mahler](https://omnifora.com/u/mahler)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2025, 12:46am UTC](https://omnifora.com/t/beggars-at-the-feast/4518/1 "2025-09-29T00:46:35Z")
Originally published at: [Beggars at the Feast | Corey J. Mahler Podcasts](https://podcasts.coreyjmahler.com/2023/02/beggars-at-the-feast/) ## Information - Subscribe here: [https://niv.coreyjmahler.com/](https://niv.coreyjmahler.com/) - Support the podcast: - [Recurring](https://coreyjmahler.com/#/portal/) - [Donation (Stripe, Wise, Crypto)](https://coreyjmahler.com/donate/) - [One-Time](https://coreyjmahler.com/donate/#/portal/support) ### Subscribe to All Updates from CoreyJMahler.com (including all podcasts) ## Show Notes … ## Transcript The transcript for this episode can be found here. Transcripts for all episodes can be found here. All transcripts are: 1. Machine generated. 2. Not checked for errors. 3. Probably not entirely accurate. ## Footer … ---
**Author:** ![mahler](https://omnifora.com/user_avatar/omnifora.com/mahler/32/7_2.png) [@mahler](https://omnifora.com/u/mahler)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2025, 5:49pm UTC](https://omnifora.com/t/beggars-at-the-feast/4518/2 "2025-09-29T17:49:21Z")
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**Author:** ![mahler](https://omnifora.com/user_avatar/omnifora.com/mahler/32/7_2.png) [@mahler](https://omnifora.com/u/mahler)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2025, 5:49pm UTC](https://omnifora.com/t/beggars-at-the-feast/4518/3 "2025-09-29T17:49:40Z")
## Transcript WEBVTT 00:00:01.600 → 00:00:11.460 On 15 February, 1546, an aging and ailing pastor climbed into the pulpit for what would be the last time. 00:00:11.460 → 00:00:18.420 The topic of that last sermon is surely worthy of consideration, but not here and not now. 00:00:18.420 → 00:00:27.140 Rather, let us follow this pastor to a nearby town, where he helped settle a dispute before retiring to his room with chest pains. 00:00:28.100 → 00:00:40.420 He prayed the traditional prayer of the dying, Psalm 31, verse 5, into your hand I commit my spirit, you have redeemed me, O Lord, faithful God. 00:00:40.420 → 00:00:42.640 And then he went to sleep. 00:00:42.640 → 00:00:50.900 Some hours later, around one in the morning, now the 18th, he awoke with more chest pain and was warmed with towels. 00:00:50.900 → 00:00:56.940 The pastor thanked God for revealing to him the son, in whom the pastor fervently believed. 00:00:57.720 → 00:01:12.280 Two of the pastor’s companions then asked him rather loudly, Reverend Father, are you ready to die, trusting in your Lord Jesus Christ, and to confess the doctrine which you have taught in his name? 00:01:12.280 → 00:01:15.180 The pastor replied, Yes. 00:01:15.180 → 00:01:21.680 This was his last spoken word, and he died of a stroke some hours later. 00:01:21.680 → 00:01:32.100 However, he left behind a note, his true last words, I trust you will indulge me if I update the German half from medieval to modern. 00:01:32.100 → 00:01:35.780 Wir sind betler, hoch ist werum. 00:01:35.780 → 00:01:37.340 We are beggars. 00:01:37.340 → 00:01:38.720 This is true. 00:01:39.740 → 00:01:42.740 That pastor, of course, was Martin Luther. 00:01:44.140 → 00:01:50.940 And so let me turn to the question, which you will already know if you read the show notes. 00:01:50.940 → 00:01:51.780 Why Lutheranism? 00:01:52.400 → 00:01:55.600 Or more specifically, why am I Lutheran? 00:01:55.600 → 00:01:58.640 Why should anyone be a Lutheran? 00:02:00.480 → 00:02:06.720 I have recounted elsewhere and more than once how I came back to Lutheranism. 00:02:06.720 → 00:02:14.380 I will decline to do so again here because I intend to focus on the actual question at hand. 00:02:14.380 → 00:02:21.220 I wish to be clear at the outset that I do believe that there are actual Christians in other traditions. 00:02:21.480 → 00:02:24.180 Lutherans have never held otherwise. 00:02:24.180 → 00:02:31.820 However, I do believe that other Christians have denied themselves the fullness of the faith. 00:02:31.820 → 00:02:34.440 We Lutherans are beggars. 00:02:34.440 → 00:02:36.140 All Christians are. 00:02:36.140 → 00:02:45.640 However, we are beggars who have found a rich man who has thrown open his home to all and has prepared a great feast. 00:02:45.640 → 00:02:55.060 Many scraps from this feast have been cast out here and there, and they can certainly nourish. 00:02:55.060 → 00:02:59.220 But such scraps are not the fullness of the feast. 00:02:59.220 → 00:03:14.660 At times, we have been content to remain at the feast, while so many others who have themselves been invited to the feast remain outside, content to survive on the aforementioned scraps. 00:03:14.660 → 00:03:28.520 And so, when I invite you to come to the feast, I stand to gain nothing, save the joy, of course, of seeing another brother come into the master’s hall. 00:03:28.520 → 00:03:34.220 You have been invited to the feast, and you are my brother according to the flesh. 00:03:34.220 → 00:03:45.980 The assumption is always one of partisan spirit, that the goal is to win or simply to score points or similar. 00:03:45.980 → 00:03:51.360 This may be true for some, but it is not true for Lutherans. 00:03:51.360 → 00:03:58.220 You are not a point in some ongoing contest with Rome or the Reformed or anyone else. 00:03:59.720 → 00:04:06.780 You are a fellow beggar, and I have an invitation to the feast with your name on it. 00:04:08.160 → 00:04:15.880 Now, the Lord is superabundant in His grace, in His mercy with His gifts. 00:04:15.880 → 00:04:23.180 It is not one place alone where we see or find available the forgiveness of sins. 00:04:23.180 → 00:04:25.700 It is not simply in the Word. 00:04:25.700 → 00:04:31.200 Now, that is what many will contend, and that is to say they are content with the scraps. 00:04:31.200 → 00:04:41.940 I do not mean to describe the Word of God as scraps, but the exegesis to which certain Christians hold turns the scriptures into scraps. 00:04:43.100 → 00:04:49.760 They make it seem as if God is miserly with His grace when He is in fact superabundant. 00:04:49.760 → 00:04:54.800 Because you have not just the scriptures, yes, of course, the forgiveness of sins, faith. 00:04:55.160 → 00:05:01.120 These good things are available in the scriptures, but they are also available in the sacraments. 00:05:02.160 → 00:05:03.540 What does Christ say? 00:05:03.540 → 00:05:07.420 What does scripture say of the cup? 00:05:07.420 → 00:05:11.400 Given and shed for you for the forgiveness of sins. 00:05:11.400 → 00:05:18.160 Forgiveness of sins is available in the Lord’s Supper as scripture clearly teaches. 00:05:18.160 → 00:05:19.560 God is superabundant. 00:05:19.560 → 00:05:23.520 There are multiple means of forgiveness of sins. 00:05:23.960 → 00:05:28.160 There are multiple means for the creation and maintenance of faith. 00:05:28.160 → 00:05:31.700 Important that point, the maintenance of faith. 00:05:31.700 → 00:05:35.760 The point of the Lord’s Supper is to strengthen your faith. 00:05:35.760 → 00:05:37.100 It is part of the faith. 00:05:37.100 → 00:05:38.580 It is part of God’s goodness. 00:05:38.580 → 00:05:44.280 It is part of the superabundant grace of God’s gifts to man. 00:05:44.280 → 00:05:47.080 And the same holds for baptism. 00:05:47.080 → 00:05:49.620 Baptism now saves you. 00:05:49.620 → 00:05:51.420 A literal quote from scripture. 00:05:51.960 → 00:05:56.680 And, of course, there are those who will go on and read the rest of the verse as you very well should. 00:05:56.680 → 00:06:01.640 You should read the whole chapter, the book, the entirety of the collection of books that is scripture. 00:06:03.320 → 00:06:06.820 But they will fail to understand what is actually said there. 00:06:06.820 → 00:06:13.060 Because baptism is spoken of as antitupos, an antitype. 00:06:13.060 → 00:06:15.120 That verse is dealing with typology. 00:06:15.960 → 00:06:20.060 And, to go over typology again, I’ve done this elsewhere, but it is worth repeating. 00:06:21.840 → 00:06:25.680 When dealing in typology, you have types and the antitype. 00:06:27.000 → 00:06:34.260 Types, presaged, prefigure, are something pointing to the antitype. 00:06:34.260 → 00:06:36.540 The type is always lesser than the antitype. 00:06:36.540 → 00:06:40.180 The antitype is always greater than the types. 00:06:40.180 → 00:06:45.400 And so what is listed with regard to baptism as types? 00:06:45.400 → 00:06:48.200 Well, you have the flood. 00:06:48.200 → 00:06:50.520 From what did the flood save? 00:06:50.520 → 00:06:57.320 The flood saved, of course, from the wicked sinful world and temporal death. 00:06:57.320 → 00:07:00.040 You have the passage through the Red Sea. 00:07:00.040 → 00:07:03.960 From what did that passage, that type of baptism, save? 00:07:03.960 → 00:07:10.080 And again, of course, it is temporal death, in this case being pursued by the Egyptians. 00:07:11.680 → 00:07:20.400 And so if baptism is the anti-type of these types, well, what is greater than temporal death? 00:07:20.400 → 00:07:27.620 What is the only thing from which you can be saved that is more meaningful than temporal death? 00:07:27.620 → 00:07:29.500 Well, of course, it is eternal death. 00:07:29.500 → 00:07:35.740 That is the only thing that is a greater evil than temporal death. 00:07:36.640 → 00:07:41.660 And so baptism saves you from eternal death. 00:07:41.660 → 00:07:42.760 Well, what is eternal death? 00:07:42.760 → 00:07:45.300 Eternal death is hell. 00:07:45.300 → 00:07:55.280 And now there are some who will, of course, scream at this, that it is sola fide, it is, of course, by faith alone that you can be saved, by grace through faith, faith being the means. 00:07:55.280 → 00:07:56.680 And we do not deny that. 00:07:56.680 → 00:07:59.780 Don’t forget that it’s Lutherans who use those terms. 00:08:00.820 → 00:08:10.260 What we mean and what scripture means by baptism now saves you is that baptism is one of the means by which you can be given faith. 00:08:11.280 → 00:08:13.340 You are still saved by faith. 00:08:13.340 → 00:08:15.200 You are not saved by the water. 00:08:15.200 → 00:08:24.240 And we agree, the critique comes from our confessions that it would simply be a bath, because we speak of the water alone as being a bathkeeper’s baptism. 00:08:24.240 → 00:08:27.660 That is the critique leveled by Luther. 00:08:28.740 → 00:08:30.360 But of course, it’s not the water alone. 00:08:30.940 → 00:08:33.860 It is the water with the word. 00:08:33.860 → 00:08:37.340 And when you combine the two, it is a sacrament. 00:08:37.340 → 00:08:43.280 The same goes for the sacrament at the table, the Lord’s Supper communion, whatever you want to call it. 00:08:43.280 → 00:08:54.760 If you had only the bread and the wine, un-consecrated, which is to say, not paired with the words of Christ, the words of institution, they would in fact be simple, bread and wine. 00:08:54.760 → 00:09:01.200 But when they are paired with the words of institution, when they are paired with the word of God, they become a sacrament. 00:09:01.200 → 00:09:06.680 They are his true body and his true blood, as he says in his last will and testament. 00:09:09.260 → 00:09:15.260 And so that is what we want other Christians to have. 00:09:15.260 → 00:09:17.820 You are a beggar, the same as I. 00:09:17.820 → 00:09:20.680 Every other Christian is a beggar, the same as Lutherans. 00:09:20.680 → 00:09:35.100 But we want others to have the fullness of the faith that they neglect, the fullness of the faith that they deny due to faulty exegesis, due to a denial of what is clearly stated in Scripture. 00:09:36.140 → 00:09:51.700 And so we don’t want to take the position of the Baptists, who say that baptism does not save, a direct refutation of Scripture, who say that children should not be baptized, because if baptism creates faith, then of course you want to baptize children. 00:09:51.700 → 00:10:01.040 We don’t want to be the same as the Reformed, who deny the reality of Christ’s presence in the Supper, in, with and under the bread and wine. 00:10:01.040 → 00:10:07.180 Now, of course, I know that the Reformed teach what they call the real presence, but it is not the same. 00:10:07.180 → 00:10:10.760 They teach that you ascend to heaven and partake in a spiritual way. 00:10:10.760 → 00:10:12.200 That is not what Christ says. 00:10:12.200 → 00:10:15.700 He says, this is my body, this is my blood. 00:10:15.700 → 00:10:17.420 And so we simply affirm it. 00:10:17.420 → 00:10:21.540 I do not have to understand how the sacramental union works. 00:10:21.540 → 00:10:25.900 I do not have to understand how bread can be body and wine can be blood. 00:10:25.900 → 00:10:29.400 I affirm that that is true. 00:10:29.400 → 00:10:30.840 Because what does Christ say? 00:10:30.840 → 00:10:34.860 This bread, it’s bread, is my body, it’s his body. 00:10:34.860 → 00:10:40.020 This wine, it’s wine, is my blood, it’s his blood. 00:10:40.020 → 00:10:46.140 The God who spoke the universe into existence can most certainly do this miracle as well. 00:10:46.140 → 00:10:47.660 And I have no reason to doubt him. 00:10:47.660 → 00:10:48.600 He has always been true. 00:10:49.480 → 00:10:51.380 And so I believe what he said. 00:10:52.800 → 00:10:57.140 And also with baptism, this promise is for you and for your children. 00:10:58.340 → 00:10:59.820 Do not hinder the little children. 00:10:59.820 → 00:11:01.780 Let them come unto me. 00:11:01.780 → 00:11:04.860 The children are part of the church. 00:11:04.860 → 00:11:07.900 Children of believers are the next generation of the church. 00:11:07.900 → 00:11:10.540 They are to be part of the service. 00:11:10.540 → 00:11:13.060 They are to be blessed with God’s gifts. 00:11:13.060 → 00:11:20.000 Yes, scripture instructs us that we are to examine those, so they can discern the body and blood before they approach the table. 00:11:20.000 → 00:11:22.100 But there is no such restriction on baptism. 00:11:22.100 → 00:11:29.500 And so, yes, we baptize children, because that is good, because that is what God wants, because that is what scripture commands. 00:11:30.760 → 00:11:36.380 And you will see that in the Great Commission, because it says we are to disciple the nations. 00:11:36.380 → 00:11:37.800 And how are we to do that? 00:11:37.800 → 00:11:41.960 If you actually look at the grammar, it gives you what is supposed to be done. 00:11:41.960 → 00:11:43.940 First is baptizing. 00:11:43.940 → 00:11:45.080 Teaching isn’t listed first. 00:11:45.760 → 00:11:47.620 Baptizing is listed first. 00:11:47.620 → 00:11:53.000 These are the two ways you disciple the nations, by baptizing and by teaching. 00:11:53.000 → 00:11:54.680 That is what we are supposed to do. 00:11:54.680 → 00:11:56.900 It does not place a restriction on baptism. 00:11:56.900 → 00:11:59.780 It does not say that you baptize only adults. 00:11:59.780 → 00:12:03.860 It does not say that you baptize only those who have stood up and given a full confession of faith. 00:12:03.860 → 00:12:06.420 No, it says baptize and teach. 00:12:06.420 → 00:12:08.840 That is how we are to disciple the nations. 00:12:08.840 → 00:12:14.360 Now of course, when it comes to adults, we do in fact instruct them before we baptize them. 00:12:14.900 → 00:12:16.820 But that’s because we can. 00:12:16.820 → 00:12:19.540 We know how to instruct adults in the faith. 00:12:19.540 → 00:12:21.920 We do not know how to instruct infants in the faith. 00:12:21.920 → 00:12:23.660 That is something we leave to God. 00:12:23.660 → 00:12:26.720 We trust in him because of what his word says. 00:12:26.720 → 00:12:29.680 Baptism now saves you. 00:12:29.680 → 00:12:31.660 And so we baptize infants. 00:12:32.940 → 00:12:38.980 And so to return to the fact that we are the poor beggars. 00:12:38.980 → 00:12:53.880 When a poor beggar finds a rich man who is handing out food to all who come to him, who all who come to his hall, the true beggar seeks all of his friends to bring them into that hall. 00:12:53.880 → 00:12:59.140 Some will of course deny that any such rich man could possibly exist. 00:12:59.140 → 00:13:04.180 Some will state that they are content with the scraps they have found elsewhere. 00:13:04.180 → 00:13:07.780 And some will listen and join the feast. 00:13:07.780 → 00:13:13.760 Now I cannot make you believe my words, for in truth they are not my words. 00:13:13.760 → 00:13:19.900 I am repeating the words of the master of the hall, the master of the feast. 00:13:19.900 → 00:13:27.500 I am simply repeating what is said in God’s word, and I cannot make you believe those things. 00:13:27.500 → 00:13:29.380 That is the work of the Spirit. 00:13:30.960 → 00:13:43.120 You must listen to the words that are spoken to you from the word of God, whether they come to you when you read it, or when someone else speaks it to you, however those words come to you. 00:13:43.120 → 00:13:44.120 You must listen. 00:13:44.120 → 00:13:49.840 The Spirit of God will be active in those words, and God’s word does not return to him void. 00:13:49.840 → 00:13:51.760 Do not harden your heart. 00:13:51.760 → 00:13:53.020 Do not be impenitent. 00:13:53.020 → 00:13:55.420 Do not resist the Spirit. 00:13:58.900 → 00:14:12.560 Now the reason that I want you to be Lutheran, to answer the question that is actually the subject of this episode, I want you to be Lutheran, because I want you to come to the feast. 00:14:12.560 → 00:14:20.260 I want you to actually partake of the fullness of the bounty that God sets before us. 00:14:20.260 → 00:14:29.660 And what I’m saying is that I’ve been to the feast, and have seen the chair with your name on it, and it’s currently empty. 00:14:31.400 → 00:14:39.280 There’s a chair at the feast with your name engraved on it, and it’s empty. 00:14:39.280 → 00:14:42.940 I do not want it to remain empty.