tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6329600504016968888.post560894575104566592..comments2024-03-27T15:47:46.091-05:00Comments on Pastoral Meanderings: Meeting people where they are; leading people to where they are not yet.Pastor Petershttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10653554256101480140noreply@blogger.comBlogger8125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6329600504016968888.post-51434978087973595782015-06-22T20:06:11.525-05:002015-06-22T20:06:11.525-05:00Excerpted from Four Hundred Years: Commemorative E...Excerpted from <a href="http://www.forgottenbooks.com/readbook_text/Four_Hundred_Years_1000497831/177" rel="nofollow"><i>Four Hundred Years: Commemorative Essays on the Reformation of Dr. Martin Luther and Its Blessed Results, in the Year of the Four-Hundredth Anniversary of the Reformation</i></a>, by W. H. T. Dau (St. Louis, Mo.:Concordia Publishing House, 1916, pp.168-9): <br /><br />"By urgent request of the town council of Wittenberg, Luther became an assistant in the [St. Mary's] parish church in 1514. Nicolaus Eabri de Grueneberg was parish priest from 1508 to 1515. He was followed by Simon Heinsius, who remained until 1523, and then came John Bugenhagen, whose services became most valuable in the sphere of church organization."<br /><br />Luther remained as pastor at St. Mary's until his death in 1546.<br /><br />As the Reformation progressed, Martin Luther wrote in his "Notes [<i>Verlegung</i>] on the Twelve Articles of the Peasants" (1525, St. Louis edition, 16:65):<br /><br />"A whole congregation should have the power to choose and depose a pastor. This article is correct only if it is done in a Christian way (though the marginal notes do not add anything to suggest this). If then the goods of the pastor come from the government and not from the congregation, then the congregation may not give these same goods to the pastor whom it elects. For that would mean to rob and steal. But if it desires a pastor, then first of all it should humbly request him of the government. If the government refuses, let the congregation choose its own and let it support him from its own goods, leaving to the government its goods or acquiring them rightly from it. But if the government will not tolerate such a called and supported pastor, then let him flee into a different city, and let anyone who desires it flee with him, as Jesus teaches. That means to choose and have one's own pastor in a Christian and evangelical way. Whoever acts differently, acts in an unchristian way as a robber and blasphemer." [Excerpted from <i>Church and Ministry</i>, C.F.W. Walther, trans. J.T. Mueller, 1987, CPH, pp. 222-3)]Carl Vehsehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00348831096001668813noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6329600504016968888.post-50626532229409059722015-06-22T08:25:03.484-05:002015-06-22T08:25:03.484-05:00But the 164 year old position of the LCMS is not i...But the 164 year old position of the LCMS is not in isolation from Lutheran orthdoxy (Chemnitz, Gerhard) or Augustana XIV to which the Romans had not that much to say, thus indicating both in intent and in interpretation that ordination is not adiaphora but the rite conferring the authority of the office. BTW show me where Luther ever got a call from a congregation, deliberated over it. accepted the call, and then was ordained as a way of externally showing what the call had already conferred?Lutheran Lurkernoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6329600504016968888.post-89605585916593198952015-06-20T16:16:13.056-05:002015-06-20T16:16:13.056-05:00Who? Me? I'm just a lovable little Lutheran...Who? Me? I'm just a lovable little Lutheran fuzzball.<br /><br />I used the non-pejorative word, "compared," and gently provided the reference for the translated theses that are part of a 164-year-old position of the Missouri Synod. <br /><br />And for that I'm called a "nitpicker" and a "pain" by a non-Lutheran?!?Carl Vehsehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00348831096001668813noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6329600504016968888.post-59474497705770011592015-06-20T10:36:53.895-05:002015-06-20T10:36:53.895-05:00He may be caustic, but he is also correct. He may be caustic, but he is also correct. Pastor Rich Balvanzhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09678328605626203971noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6329600504016968888.post-55964424466503357562015-06-20T08:48:45.948-05:002015-06-20T08:48:45.948-05:00Rick, you must be an acquired taste. If you are t...Rick, you must be an acquired taste. If you are this caustic in person, I am glad we have never met.Pastor Petershttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10653554256101480140noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6329600504016968888.post-56371917474327940782015-06-19T17:09:59.636-05:002015-06-19T17:09:59.636-05:00Anonymous is obviously not a Lutheran (much less a...Anonymous is obviously not a Lutheran (much less an ordained LCMS member) because he labels a person as "nitpicker" for posting a comparison of a statement about the ordination conferring the office of public ministry with "the definitive statement under the Holy Scripture and the Lutheran Confessions of the Synod’s understanding on the subject of Church and Ministry." <br /><br />Since Anonymous is not Lutheran, the rest of his whining is predictable, but irrelevant.Carl Vehsehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00348831096001668813noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6329600504016968888.post-51468020109052963702015-06-19T15:56:53.963-05:002015-06-19T15:56:53.963-05:00Only a nitpicker would read the words of this blog...Only a nitpicker would read the words of this blog post and come out with a complaint like this. Whoever you are, you are a pain and I wish you would stop commenting. Really, Pastor Peters must have the patience of Job to put up with you but I don't!Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6329600504016968888.post-20986439886132099672015-06-19T12:05:13.906-05:002015-06-19T12:05:13.906-05:00"It is ordination time. Seminarians who have...<i>"It is ordination time. Seminarians who have spent years preparing for this day will in one moment be conferred with the authority of the keys, the authority to preach the Word, the authority to administer the Sacraments, and be given responsibility for the various tasks that belong to the ordained."</i><br /> <br />This claim about ordination may be compared to the following theses from C.F.W. Walther’s <i>Die Stimme unserer Kirche in der Frage von Kirche und Amt</i> as "the definitive statement under the Holy Scripture and the Lutheran Confessions of the Synod’s understanding on the subject of Church and Ministry," "the official position of the LCMS," and “that which all pastors, professors, teachers of the Church and congregations honor and uphold... and teach in accordance."<br /><br />Thesis VI on the Ministry: The office of the ministry is transferred [<i>übertragen</i>] by God through a congregation, as the possessor of all church power or the keys, and through its call, which is prescribed by God. Ordination with the imposition of hands on those who have been called is not of divine appointment but is an apostolic church ordinance and merely a public and solemn confirmation of the call.<br /><br />Thesis VII on the Ministry: The holy office of the ministry is the authority to exercise the rights of the spiritual priesthood in a public office in behalf of all, which authority is transferred by God through a congregation as the possessor of the priesthood and of all church power.<br /><br />Theses translations excerpted from C. F. W. Walther, “Theses on the Church and the Ministry,” in <i>Lutheran Confessional Theology in America</i>, 1840-1880, ed. Theodore G. Tappert, New York:Oxford University Press, 1972, pp. 229-234.Carl Vehsehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00348831096001668813noreply@blogger.com