Har­ri Vä­hä­jylk­kä

So com­men­ted pa­rish pas­tor Sam­po Luuk­ko­nen from Loh­ja du­ring one of the fi­nal speec­hes kept on Tu­es­day. Mee­ting ot­her [be­lie­ving] pas­tors [or­dai­ned in the Evan­ge­li­cal Lut­he­ran Church of Fin­land] and peer sup­port is es­pe­ci­al­ly im­por­tant when one at ti­mes feels lo­ne­li­ness in their work. The pre­sen­ta­ti­ons, de­vo­ti­ons, wors­hip ser­vi­ce and many dis­cus­si­ons of ti­me­ly to­pics cau­sed many to say as they left for home: “It was worth it to come.”

God’s po­wer is dy­na­mi­te

In the ope­ning de­vo­ti­on Ai­mo Hau­ta­mä­ki spoke of the gos­pel, which ac­cor­ding to Apost­le Paul is God’s po­wer un­to sal­va­ti­on for all who be­lie­ve (Rom 1:16,17). Hau­ta­mä­ki re­cal­led the ori­gin of the word “po­wer,” which is “dy­na­mis” in Greek. Hau­ta­mä­ki said that this is al­so the root word for the exp­lo­si­ve dy­na­mi­te. The gos­pel is dy­na­mi­te, the spe­a­ker no­ted. It had the po­wer to chan­ge Paul’s en­ti­re life. Paul was blind both tem­po­ral­ly and spi­ri­tu­al­ly. The rock of self-righ­te­ous­ness, upon which Paul had built his sal­va­ti­on, was crus­hed when Je­sus ap­pe­a­red to him. Paul’s ey­es were ab­le to be ope­ned when he he­ard the word of the gos­pel through Ana­ni­as. Paul was not as­ha­med of the gos­pel, for he had seen its po­wer in his own life. Hau­ta­mä­ki re­cal­led the ad­vi­ce of an old pre­ac­her for him as a yo­ung pas­tor. The brot­her had en­cou­ra­ged him to al­wa­ys pre­ach the for­gi­ve­ness of sins be­fo­re le­a­ving the pul­pit. There may be so­me­o­ne among the lis­te­ners who per­so­nal­ly re­cei­ves strength from the gos­pel to be­lie­ve.

God’s care is cor­rect

Two pre­sen­ta­ti­ons were kept at the Pas­tor’s mee­ting. Ur­po Luok­ka­la pre­sen­ted the to­pic ”The Holy Spi­rit cre­a­tes the cong­re­ga­ti­on” and Kyös­ti Pie­vi­läi­nen pre­sen­ted the to­pic “Righ­te­ous­ness of faith.” One examp­le in Luok­ka­la’s pre­sen­ta­ti­on was Je­sus’ pa­rab­le of the true vine. He al­so used a hor­ti­cul­tu­rist’s pers­pec­ti­ve to help exp­lain the pa­rab­le.

– The branc­hes of the vine are al­wa­ys di­rec­ted down­ward and sup­port each ot­her. The vine is a fruit-be­a­ring plant, not an or­na­men­tal plant. The in­tent is that the plant would pro­du­ce as much fruit as pos­sib­le. The gar­de­ner con­ti­nuo­us­ly watc­hes the le­a­ves to know what the con­di­ti­on of the tree is. In the pa­rab­le, care is fo­cu­sed on pru­ning the plant. This ac­ti­va­tes growth, but one can­not cut too much at one time. “Suc­kers” may al­so ap­pe­ar in the plant. This name is ap­p­lied to branc­hes that do not bear fruit, but draw ener­gy away from the growth of the plant. These are mer­ci­les­s­ly cut away, Luok­ka­la sta­ted.

Know­led­ge is be­ne­fi­ci­al, but the Holy Spi­rit gi­ves birth to faith

Speec­hes con­si­de­red the so­ve­reign ac­ti­vi­ty of the Holy Spi­rit. God acts through His spi­rit where and when He wil­ls. He awa­kens man to feel his sin­ful­ness in many dif­fe­rent ways, but jus­ti­fies or ma­kes one righ­te­ous on­ly by the gos­pel proc­lai­med from God’s cong­re­ga­ti­on. Ac­cor­ding to Apost­le Paul, faith co­mes by he­a­ring, and he­a­ring co­mes by the word of Christ (Rom. 10:17).

Pau­li Ki­vi­o­ja no­ted that the righ­te­ous­ness of life needs to be spo­ken of along­si­de the righ­te­ous­ness of faith.

Val­de Pa­lo­la no­ted that in the end, the doct­ri­nal qu­es­ti­ons of faith do not comp­le­te­ly open through the met­hods of sys­te­ma­tic the­o­lo­gy.

– We are al­wa­ys left be­fo­re a mys­te­ry, or even pa­ra­do­xes. Scho­lar­ly the­o­lo­gi­cal stu­dies are be­ne­fi­ci­al, but they are not ac­cep­tab­le as text­books of faith in God’s cong­re­ga­ti­on.

Spe­a­king of the re­la­ti­ons­hip bet­ween the­o­lo­gy and faith, Mat­ti Kont­ka­nen sta­ted that we need God’s pro­tec­ti­on so that we would not fall in love with that wis­dom that we have our­sel­ves. Je­sus than­ked God that the mys­te­ry of faith has been re­ve­a­led un­to the child­li­ke.

Un­ders­tan­ding and care in mu­tu­al faith

SRK in­vi­ted LLC rep­re­sen­ta­ti­ves to at­tend the gat­he­ring. LLC sent Sam Roi­ko and Jon Bloom­quist to at­tend. They spoke about the he­re­sy that has ta­ken place in the midst of North Ame­ri­can Chris­ti­a­ni­ty. Dis­cus­si­ons that have ta­ken place for ye­ars in smal­ler and lar­ger gat­he­rings have not res­to­red uni­ty. At the con­ti­nent-wide mee­ting in May 2021, both si­des ack­now­led­ged that there were two groups wit­hin North Ame­ri­can Zion. Af­ter a long dis­cus­si­on at the LLC An­nu­al Mee­ting in the sum­mer of 2022, cong­re­ga­ti­on de­le­ga­tes pro­po­sed that the Min­ne­a­po­lis and Wolf Lake cong­re­ga­ti­ons would be re­mo­ved as or­ga­ni­za­ti­ons from LLC mem­bers­hip. This was the de­ci­si­on of the an­nu­al mee­ting. In this way, the pre­vi­ous­ly ex­pe­rien­ced di­vi­si­on be­ca­me vi­sib­le. The mem­bers of these two cong­re­ga­ti­ons have been in­vi­ted to at­tend ser­vi­ces at ot­her ne­ar­by cong­re­ga­ti­ons.

Du­ring the dis­cus­si­ons, par­ti­ci­pants as­ked qu­es­ti­ons about the cur­rent si­tu­a­ti­on. In their speec­hes many touc­hed on he­re­sies, their cau­ses and signs. In the fi­nal speec­hes, as well as in ot­her con­ver­sa­ti­ons, many exp­res­sed re­lief to per­so­nal­ly hear about the si­tu­a­ti­on and to ex­pe­rien­ce the uni­ty of faith ac­ross na­ti­o­nal bor­ders.