Thank, Praise, Serve, and Obey: The Joys of Piety

Piety has fallen on hard times. Some associate it with its evil twin, pietism, and reject piety based on the incorrect assumption that the two are one and the same. Pietism is inward focused, obsessed with carefully following spiritual to-do lists and rules. Piety, rather, fights against that inward focus, turning our attention out toward God and His promises and toward our neighbor in love and care.

Piety is simply the cultivation of godly habits--habits that befit the household of God, the family of our heavenly Father. It grows from Baptism, grounded in the gracious adoption that God bestows on us with water and the name of the blessed Trinity. These habits mark how we, as children of the heavenly Father, live in this world as we wait for our Lord's return.

Martin Luther's Small Catechism and the Book of Concord serve as our trusty road maps as we explore how to properly hear in the Scriptures our heavenly Father summoning us to the joy and freedom of living and growing as His beloved children through Jesus Christ.