One reader looked at the Lutheran reading list I drew up and asked, "All those?"
Some readers are much younger than I am, so they appreciate a little guidance for a lifetime of reading.
Some are my age and need to be nudged back into the Luther orbit. At the very least, Luther's sermons and Luther's writings in the Book of Concord should be primary for all clergy.
How odd to have CFW Walther, Bachelor of Arts, the final authority on all things doctrinal, all practical applications, all cultural matters!
That is quite a sleight of hand, misdirection of the brain cells, to talk up
Luther-an doctrine and use a poorly educated, unethical, dishonest cult follower like Walther as the ultimate, the ruling norm.
The yahoos running the LCMS, WELS, and ELS would be laughed off the stage if the somnolent clergy actually knew Luther's sermons and his Book of Concord writing. But this is why that never happens. No one enforces this statement of Luther.
Luther, Introduction, Large Catechism, Book of Concord
12] And what need is there of many words? If I were to recount all the profit and fruit which God's Word produces, whence would I get enough paper and time? The devil is called the master of a thousand arts. But what shall we call God's Word, which drives away and brings to naught this master of a thousand arts with all his arts and power? It must indeed be the master of more than a hundred thousand arts. 13] And shall we frivolously despise such power, profit, strength, and fruit-we, especially, who claim to be pastors and preachers? If so, we should not only have nothing given us to eat, but be driven out, being baited with dogs, and pelted with dung, because we not only need all this every day as we need our daily bread, but must also daily use it against the daily and unabated attacks and lurking of the devil, the master of a thousand arts.
14] And if this were not sufficient to admonish us to read the Catechism daily, yet we should feel sufficiently constrained by the command of God alone, who solemnly enjoins in Deut. 6:6ff that we should always meditate upon His precepts, sitting, walking, standing, lying down, and rising, and have them before our eyes and in our hands as a constant mark and sign. Doubtless He did not so solemnly require and enjoin this without a purpose; but because He knows our danger and need, as well as the constant and furious assaults and temptations of devils, He wishes to warn, equip, and preserve us against them, as with a good armor against their fiery darts and with good medicine against their evil infection and suggestion.
15] Oh, what mad, senseless fools are we that, while we must ever live and dwell among such mighty enemies as the devils are, we nevertheless despise our weapons and defense, and are too lazy to look at or think of them!
Eighth Commandment
I have noticed that the citation of the Eighth Commandment has receded a bit, because many are quite willing to quote this from the Large Catechism:
The Church Growth Movement has crept up under the cover of the Eighth Commandment, like the Roman soldiers who interlocked their shields as they approached their targets. With the shields overlapping, they were a mobile, armored division.
So when I quoted Paul Kelm at a conference meeting, where I was invited ot speak, Forrest Bivens (Fuller Seminary alumni) became Jumpin' Jack and sprang up to cite the Eighth Commandment. He was so quick to call me a slanderer! Bivens, "I want to protect the good name of Paul Kelm." He solemnly doubted whether that was a gen-you-whine quotation.
Someone asked, "Do you have proof Kelm said this?" I opened my briefcase and got out the brochure where Kent Hunter (Fuller Seminary grad) quoted Paul Kelm (Fuller Seminary grad) on some Church Growth program they were hatching. Of course, I just made up quotations! And the picture of Paul Kelm in the brochure.
Someone offered, "How do we know Kelm actually wrote that?" So now Kent Hunter, who produced the brochure, was the liar who made up quotations!
Later, I asked Kent Hunter (Fuller Seminary grad) if Paul Kelm (Fuller Seminary grad) actually wrote those words. He said, "I asked him for a recommendation and Paul gave me one."
As readers might recall, if they have memorized 14,000 posts, Bivens bragged about studying at Fuller Seminary and denied it to his gullible students at Mequon. No wonder he said he said his students were not very bright. When he denied what I published about his study at Fuller, he was calling me a liar, which is ... fill in the blank.
DP Seifert denied twice that Bivens talked about studying at Fuller Seminary, then agreed when I reminded him. I did not give him a chance to deny the truth three times - too Biblical for a future DP.
Larry Olson (DMin, Fuller Seminary) bought a drive-by degree at Fuller Seminary but had a pal from WELS question in
Christian News whether that was true. I had the physical proof of his love affair with Fuller, because I found his article in a Church Growth journal, where he gushed about meeting McGavran.
Likewise, David Valleskey showed obvious signs of Fuller intoxication when he gave his odious Spoiling the Egyptians paper, subsequently published in WELS' hideous journal of false doctrine. I asked him to his face, and he denied studying at Fuller. Later, he admitted it to David Koenig, CLC Church Growther and friend of Gutsche.
Valleskey was furious with Koenig for telling the truth, and Koenig was furious with me for quoting him.
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Gutsche has been a WELS pastor too, according to his LinkedIn profile,
which I copied into this blog. |
Falsehood requires refutation. Otherwise, we are simply condoning it.
Romans 16:17-18King James Version (KJV)
17 Now I beseech you, brethren, mark them which cause divisions and offences contrary to the doctrine which ye have learned; and avoid them.
18 For they that are such serve not our Lord Jesus Christ, but their own belly; and by good words and fair speeches deceive the hearts of the simple.
