A Missouri Synod pastor called me "Johnny One Note" for writing about justification by faith, as I mentioned before. Let's do a Groeschel quiz. The Reformation was based on ____________ . No fair looking it up on Wikipedia.
A pastor who says he is devoted to sound doctrine warned me about "biting and devouring" in regards to his quasi-demi-semi-UOJ stance.
"Error loves ambiguities," as Henry Eyster Jacobs wrote. We often use the Jacobs hymn for Holy Communion. The Word teaches the Real Presence. There is no compromise language allowed to bridge the gap between the Scriptures and the Zwinglian denial of the Real Presence.
Likewise, the recent Pietistic formulations about an imaginary universal absolution are not in harmony with the Scriptures and are definitely at odds with the Book of Concord. The struggles to connect Luther or the Confessions with UOJ would be comical if they were not tragic.
When anger erupts because of the Scriptures, the truth of God's Word is displaying its effectiveness. The personal attacks only underline that efficacy. A weak argument is never advanced by name-calling, but that does not keep false teachers from trying. Intimidation and manipulation are also tools of their Father Below.
Threats do not work well against someone with nothing material to take away. Threats also fall on deaf ears when the Word of God is everything.
KJV Philippians 3:8 Yea doubtless, and I count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord: for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and do count them but dung, that I may win Christ, 9 And be found in him, not having mine own righteousness, which is of the law, but that which is through the faith of Christ, the righteousness which is of God by faith:
2 comments:
I had an exchange recently with a self proclaimed confessional pastor...no not that one...we were having a conversation about justification...he said in the matters of theology, it is relatively easy to become like the composer who got the A note stuck in his head. He could hear and think of nothing else. I said, but justification is that doctrine that the church stands or falls...I am not holding my breath anymore for a response....
I never knew composers could get one note stuck in their heads. That sounds like someone who knows nothing about music. WELS pastors are famous for admonishing others for being interested in sound doctrine. "Pay, pray, obey." No one would know that Paul said these things must be brought out into the open, to discern what is the will of God. We should not confuse the WELS essay files (which include an atheist's writing in favor of Church Growth) with the canonical Scriptures.
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