From Finland.
I´ve been a believer for decades and belong to the Luth church. I suppose I been seeing some differences between the two groups...I suppose hair-splitting differences between Reformed and Luth in major doctrinal areas.
Since English is my mother tongue it is really difficult for to converse with Finnish pastors because of their lack of English theological conversation skills, so I started to listen to online audio and "live" services from sermonaudio.com....mainly from the Free Presbyterian in northern Ireland and the States.
At this time, let us narrow it down to the issues some of the major issues where the two differ. Thank you.
In Him, david.
PS I just found couple of days ago Monergism as a wealth of info
Well, the critical historic departure was over the sacraments.
Lutherans defended strongly the view of Christ's actual physical Presence in the bread and wine. Wider Reformed views varied on this, and Lutherans saw them as a slippery slope away from the sacredness of the sacraments (and history has affirmed something of the kind, at least in the US).
I must say in my case the slippery slope has been back from the inefficacy of the sacraments toward a view of their efficacy. But I've never embraced the idea that Christ's Body and Blood physically accompany the bread and wine. I consider the Spirit of God to be directly present in the sacrament, empowering those who come to it according to His Will, and grinding to powder those intents that are against His Will.
But Reformed views fall all along this range, including Zwingli's symbolic view.
Reformed concentrations an emphases are different, too. I've found Lutherans to say Reformed believers are more "ivory tower" thinkers than Lutheran practicality. But again I think that's part of the Reformed group they're talking about -- people in the pew seem very concrete about their beliefs.
The Law/Gospel split often gives way in Reformed thought to other splits. Law/Grace and works/faith are emphasized, and the relationship between the Law and the Gospel are slightly different, giving space to verses like Rom 3:31 & 8:4.
There could be some differences in the way we look at responsibility, conscience, and behavior.
