The Chief End Of Man Is To Receive...
We not only assimilate theologically speaking but we also assimilate into a proscriptive pattern and church environment. While this proscriptive pattern is not an authoritative list that mandates outward practice, it is a pattern that tends to result from the proclamation of the Christ-centered Word of Christ-crucified.
Through the continual proclamation of the Word, both Law and Gospel, a church culture of receptivity will develop. More specifically, through the work of God’s law, mainly the second use[1], people that are a part of the parish will be continually be confronted with their own sinful condition.[2] The work of the Law will continually kill and bring the hearer to the place of receptivity or make them give-able to. The purpose of the Law is to kill the listener so that they might die to the Law in order that they might live for God. The very fact that the Law kills is a gift. Not a comfortable gift or even one we desire but one that is truly a gift that serves the Gospel. The Law essentially opens the door (i.e. gift of repentance) for the gift of the Gospel to be received by faith. As previously noted, parishioners will develop a disposition of being receivers; receivers that continually receive the gift of God’s grace in Christ through faith.
[1] In the Smalcald Articles (http://www.bookofconcord.org/smalcald.php ~ February 3rd of 2011) from the reformation, Luther speaks about the Law saying, “The foremost office or power of the law is that it reveals inherited sin and its fruits. It shows human beings into what utter depths their nature has fallen and how completely corrupt it is.” This is the 2nd Use of the Law
[2] The Law is meant to reveal sin (Romans 3:20), stop our mouths from self-righteous justifying (Romans 3:19), bring forth the terrors of hell, bring forth the terror of death and bring forth the terror of God’s wrath (Romans 4:15). In the most simplistic terms the Law is not meant to reform us but to kill us
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