From One Reader:
Dear Pastor Jackson...
I want to express my thanks to God for the great blessings that He has given to me through you, Pastor Jackson, and your Ichabod website. I have been introduced not only to your own writings ("Catholic, Lutheran and Protestant" and "Thy Strong Word") but also to further readings of
Luther (Romans and Galatians Commentaries, "The Bondage of the Will"), Gerhard ("Annotations on the 1st Six Chapters of Romans", "Schola Pietatis, Vol. 1), Robert Preus ("Justification and Rome"), and Lenski. (Presently I am reading his Romans commentary and finding it immensely
rewarding.) And this has just been my reading in the last 8-9 months! You have also introduced me to "Zion on the Mississippi" and "The Error of Modern Missouri", both of which gave me insight into my own Christian/Lutheran background and increased my understanding of the apostasy found in so many of today's churches.
***
Lately I have been hearing from a number of people. Several younger men are in regular contact about Lutheran books to read and authors to avoid. I am getting three (3) boxes of books ready for some Lutheran book fans, which began with a fourth person buying a small library, scanning it, and giving the books to me to distribute.
That is why I began re-reading Chemnitz on Justification, translated by Jack Preus, a real treasure. More on that later. Some car issues slowed down my blogging but I read Chemnitz in the car repair shop.
My primary aim is to shock people into reading the classics of the Lutheran Reformation, starting there rather than having the pea-brains of today tell us what Lutheran doctrine is. The current Lutheran leaders have no clue and clearly hate Lutheran doctrine.
ELCA is obvious enough, but their "conservatives" did not discover the problems of their radical group until the 2009 vote. But keep them in mind, because the LCMS-WELS-ELS combine works with them all the time.
The handpicked zombies of the ELS-WELS-LCMS gathered to work on a more obvious unity, merger, and closing of schools in the future. They all agreed on repudiating Justification by Faith. They were thankful to God for agreeing on UOJ. That was no accident.
Matt the Fat could not manage to get an easy "doctorate" from a Missouri seminary, and his best pal in politics, Paul McCain, spent two extra years at Ft. Wayne without a "graduate" degree - STM or anything else. The Matt the Fat fanclub is impressed that their plump hero started a doctorate and never finished. Matt and Paul are in the sack with UOJ, so their merger group would be 100% UOJ, even though Missouri has never produced a UOJ catechism.
Mirthless Mark Schroeder (WELS) and Pope John the Malefactor (ELS) are so gonzo for UOJ that nothing more needs to be said. I just want Lutherans in this 500th celebration year to note all the UOJ essays being excreted from Mankato, Milwaukee, St. Louis, and Ft. Wayne.
Liz Eaton must be so proud of her dedicated followers.
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| I have heard of "conservative" Lutheran pastors who think this ELCA pastor is the greatest. |
One can easily run around and wonder, "Where do I start with Reformation Lutheran theology?" Here are some ideas:
- Luther's Large Catechism is really an edited set of his sermons.
- Luther's Galatians Lectures, starting at chapter 3 of Galatians. Read a paragraph and think about that for a time.
- Melanchthon's Augsburg Apology - on Justification, a brilliant and lucid lecture.
- Any given Chemnitz volume.
Walther borrowed a Latin phrase - "Not many books, but much of the same." That should be the guide. One row of good Lutheran books is better than a library gathering dust.
My books are available either as free PDFs or as Kindle e-books. Thy Strong Word will give anyone a good sample of what is going wrong among the Lutherans.
