The readings after Pentecost relate to application of Christian living, motivated by the Gospel of Christ and our new life in Him. The connection among this Sunday’s Scripture readings is obedience to the Law (Third Use) as a necessary characteristic of Christian life—not necessary for our salvation, but necessary as our witness of hope in Christ and our privilege to proclaim the…

Martin Luther wrote, “Faith is that foundation of the apostles and the prophets on which, as the apostle writes in Eph 2:20, we are built and the ‘foundation that has been laid,’ of which he speaks in 1 Cor 3:11. Thus Christ Himself says in Matt 16:18: ‘On this rock I will build My church,’ that is, on the firmness of faith”…