✠

Scripture, taught seriously.

Confessional Lutheran Bible study, taught live every Sunday at Our Saviour Lutheran Church in Baltimore and published here for anyone to read, download, and teach. Every study is free. Nothing is sold.

Sundays, 9:45 to 10:45 am Eastern

In person at 3301 The Alameda, Baltimore, or online from anywhere.

Join via Google Meet Course catalogue

No Google account is needed. Dismiss the sign-in prompt and join as a guest. Sessions may be recorded.

Reclaiming the Solas: The Grammar of the Gospel, Confessed at Augsburg. Shafts of golden light fall through a dark interior.

Beginning October 4  ·  Five Sundays

Now studying

October 4 through November 1

Reclaiming the Solas

The grammar of the Gospel, confessed at Augsburg

The solas were not a checklist invented by the Reformers. They are the grammar of the Gospel itself, and each one answers a specific question about how sinners are reconciled to a holy God: by what authority, from what source, through what means, on what ground, and to whose glory. Five sessions read Scripture first and then the Augsburg Confession, the Apology, the Catechisms, and the Formula of Concord, ending on Reformation Sunday. Each week has its own student guide and a poster that puts the whole session on one page.

Series page, student guides, and posters

  1. I
    Sola Scriptura

    Where do we go to hear God’s voice? The norm that norms all doctrine.

    2 Timothy 3 with the Formula of Concord  ·  October 4

  2. II
    Sola Gratia

    Dead, not sick: salvation begins entirely in God.

    Ephesians 2 with Augsburg Confession II and IV  ·  October 11

  3. III
    Sola Fide

    Justified by faith alone, but the faith that justifies is never alone.

    Romans 4 and James 2 with Augsburg Confession IV and VI  ·  October 18

  4. IV
    Solus Christus

    One Mediator, true God and true man, and no other name.

    Acts 4 and Hebrews 7 with Augsburg Confession III  ·  October 25

  5. V
    Soli Deo Gloria

    Not to us, O Lord: the principle that directs all the others.

    Romans 11 and Psalm 115 with the Large Catechism  ·  November 1, Reformation Sunday

Coming this fall

The Greater Exodus: the parted sea with a path of dry ground between two walls of water.
November 8, 15, and 22  ·  Three Sundays

The Greater Exodus

The Lamb, the sea, and the blood of the covenant

Three Exodus types followed into their New Testament fulfillment, as Paul himself directs in 1 Corinthians 10: the Passover lamb and Good Friday, the Red Sea and Baptism, Sinai and the better covenant.
Advent in the Minor Prophets: a cross-shaped star blazing in the night sky above the first light of dawn on the horizon.
November 29 to December 20  ·  Four Sundays

Advent in the Minor Prophets

The witness of the Twelve on the threshold of the Incarnation

The Twelve heard as Advent preaching, from the eighth-century prophets through the silence after Malachi, each class read beside its fulfillment in the Gospels and Acts. The last class, placed closest to Christmas, asks why God wants His people at all.

 Every Sunday after Matins  ·  October

After Matins: The Book of Concord

Confession, headship, the Person of Christ, and marriage

A year-long reading of the Lutheran Confessions, one locus a week, set beside the Psalm and reading appointed for Matins. October runs from private confession and the one Head of the Church to the undivided Person of Christ and the married estate as a holy vocation.

Seventeen series and ninety class sessions are planned through Advent 2027. Full course catalogue Printable catalogue (PDF) Session calendar

The library

Bible studies

Course catalogue and student guides

All seventeen series planned from Lent 2026 through Advent 2027, with the sessions of each, and complete student guides for every series already taught. Each study places the text in its biblical and confessional context.

Seventeen series · Ninety sessions · Free to teach Lectionary primers

Prepared for the Divine Service

Two-page guides to the Sunday readings, the hymns and their histories, and the liturgical context of the day, for anyone who wants to arrive at worship knowing what is about to be given.

Forty Sundays and feasts Hymn stories

The hymns we sing

Histories of the hymns sung at Our Saviour, written for the lectionary project: who wrote them, what they confess, and the Sundays we have sung them. Browse by name or by hymnal number.

178 hymns · More as written Book of Concord

After Matins

Fifty-two weekly handouts pairing a single confessional text with the Psalm and reading appointed for Matins. Two sides of one page, meant to be read and argued over for half an hour.

May 2026 through April 2027 Consider Lutheranism

Why the Confessions still hold

Five essays for readers arriving from Rome, from Orthodoxy, or from nowhere in particular: the liturgy, the history, the Real Presence, the moral seriousness, and a certainty grounded in the finished work of Christ alone.

Five-part series After Optimism

DRIFT: Romans and the failure of systems

Confessional theology set in direct conversation with the thinkers young men are reading now. Foucault, Butler, Nietzsche, and Camus are taken seriously, followed to the point where each collapses, and answered from Romans.

Essay series in progress Alia

Questions from the room

Short topical guides written in answer to real questions raised in class: justification, the sacraments, vocation, timekeeping in the Roman world, the date of the Passover, and whatever else the congregation brought to the table.

Topical guides
Why Is He Still on It? poster Why Are We Called Christians? poster
From the church walls

Posters from the lobby and classroom at Our Saviour, each with a page you can read here and a 24 by 36 file any congregation may print.

Why is He still on it?Why are we called Christians?All posters

Who makes this, and why it is free

Everything here is written for the adult Bible class at Our Saviour Lutheran Church in Baltimore, Maryland, and taught there first. The class is small. The material seemed too good for only ten people to see, so it is published here as it is produced.

The 1580 Book of Concord is the doctrinal norm. Luther, Walther, Lenski, and Franzmann are the exegetical foundation. Law and Gospel are distinguished, the means of grace are not reduced to symbols, and justification by grace through faith alone is not negotiated.

Pastors and teachers may print, distribute, assign, and adapt any of it without asking. More about the site and its three intended readers.

The Gospel does not belong to any single building. Neither does this library.

From the About page

Request a Bible study

Send any theological topic and receive a complete confessional Lutheran study within two weeks, with a personal reply to coordinate delivery. The library grows with every request.

Submit a topic
Join Bible study on Google Meet