Jesus death foreshadowed by Joseph’s carpenter tools

June 4, 2020EtcMatt Maldre

“The Shadow of Death” by Frederick Stacpoole, 1878 Since Joseph is a carpenter, it’s most likely that Jesus learned the carpenter trade from his earthly father. At the very least perhaps Jesus spent a lot of his life hanging around Joseph’s carpentry tools.… Read the rest

You can keep your Easter decorations up 50 days after Easter

April 17, 2020EtcMatt Maldre

My easter decorations The Easter season is technically 50 days long. Churches recognize every Sunday after Easter as “Second Sunday of Easter”, “Third Sunday of Easter”, etc, all the way until Pentecost. We can have Easter decorations up for 50 days after Easter! I know this, because I keep Lutheran & Catholic lectionary bookmarks in my Bible.… Read the rest

The favicon for Google Sheets looks like a cross

March 24, 2020EtcMatt Maldre

Whenever you open a new tab in Chrome, the favicon of the website appears in the tab. This favicon is a super-tiny icon for the website. A mere 15×15 pixels in size. The favicon for Google’s online spreadsheet program looks like a cross!… Read the rest

Spreading the love on baptism

March 12, 2020EtcMatt Maldre

Last year my wife and I were overjoyed to welcome our second daughter into the world. At her baptism, my twin brother made a baptism log. He carved a cross and dove into a birch log. (The home we grew up in had a birch tree in front of the house).… Read the rest

Your sports rival is a good team to root for

September 5, 2019EtcMatt Maldre

Hatred for your sports rivals just spreads more hate. Thus, I will not continue this practice. Both the Bears and the Packers are fine teams to root for. The Cubs, White Sox, Brewers, and Cardinals are all fine teams to root for.… Read the rest

Searching Lutheran podcasts for episodes about Baptism

May 20, 2019EtcMatt Maldre

It would be really cool if there was an online searchable archive of all the podcasts from Issues Etc, 1517 and Lutheran Hour Ministries. e.g. I would like to search “baptism” and come up with all the relevant episodes. But sine there isn’t a master search, here’s what you can do with each individual site. 1517 podcasts on baptism It looks like 1517’s website doesn’t have a searchable archive of podcast episodes.… Read the rest

Bible verse references in Formula of Concord

May 17, 2019Bible studyMatt Maldre

I love books with a ton of Bible verse references. The more verse references, the better. While listening to the Thinking Fellows podcast episode, “The Reformation: Conclusions“, they touched on how Lutherans are great for basing their doctrine on Scripture alone. At the 22:44 mark, one of the guys said, When was the last time you looked through the Formula?… Read the rest

Bible lectionary bookmarks for Lutheran and Roman Catholic church

January 14, 2019Bible studyMatt Maldre

Yesterday I finished my 2018-2019 lectionary bookmarks. I have five bookmarks; one for each of the readings: 1st reading, Psalm, Epistle, and Gospel reading (and one for the Alleluia). Whenever my daughter and I have breakfast, I like to read to her the Bible verses for the upcoming Sunday.… Read the rest

Weightless or grounded?

March 22, 2018EtcMatt Maldre

An uplifting song on Spotify:?Weightless by Natasha Bedingfield The sky is the limit And I just wanna float Free as a spirit on a journey of hope Cut the strings and let me go I’m weightless, I’m weightless Millions of balloons tethered to the ground Weight of the world tries to hold us down Cut the strings and let me go I’m weightless, I’m weightless, I’m weightless, I’m weightless… I love the positivity in this song, and the undertones of not worrying.… Read the rest

I pity the…

December 5, 2017Bible studyMatt Maldre

Just for kicks, one of these days I want to do a deep study on the word “pity” in the Bible. Just for Mr. T’s sake. For now, here is the frequency at which the word “pity” appears in various translations of the Bible: 30 times: KJV 33 times: NKVJ 43 times: NIV 41 times: ESV 28 times: NASB… Read the rest

Christian notebook

Thoughts on God from a Missouri Synod Lutheran artist