How To Detect False Teachers in the Lutheran Church. False Teachers and Ideas Are Conveniently Identified in Red. Biblical Terms and Teachers Are in Soothing Blue

 John Sparky Brenner says the Justification of the World was the key issue in the Synodical Conference breakup. He is correct about that, but sides with the false teachers.

False teachers in the church are easy to detect, but people shy away from doing so. Jesus ended the Sermon on the Mount with warnings about wolves in sheep's clothing. The Good Shepherd chapter in John's Gospel (chapter 10 for Mordor graduates) contrasts the Good Shepherd with thieves, robbers, wolves, and hired hands.

Likewise, Paul warned his congregations about the characteristics and actions of false teachers.

Luther elaborated in his Sexagesima sermon that I will post at the end.

First - Look at Their Authorities
One way or another, people give away their authorities through quotations, footnotes, and laudatory references.

1. Some start and stop with Walther, Pieper, and their fellow travelers. Any dead person in this circle is beyond criticism.
2. They may cite figures from the past whom they admire. That serves as a guide to their thinking. Rauschenbusch is a marker among Lutherans for socialists and Marxists. C. Peter Wagner, McGovern, and Win Arn are the original Shrinkers, along with Robert Schuller.
3. Others are obsessed with the power of the synod and the political actions taken through resolutions.
4. The Church Shrinkers flit from fading blossom to fading blossom. Search the names they use and see how many are directly connected to Fuller Seminary, Willow Creek, and Mark Jeske. Although this blog is fairly young, several of their superstars have already blown up or faded away.

Bonus Section - Who are the Bad Guys?

Even the false teachers follow the classic confessional formula of stating their beliefs and anathematizing the errorists. By observing the bad guys cited, we can see where the writer or speaker is with Christian doctrine.

• The Anti-Lutherans treat Luther, Melanchthon, Chemnitz, and the Concordists as bad guys. They are ignored or pilloried as irrelevant.
• Gausewitz is never mentioned by the UOJ faction.
• Lenski is a bad guy - that needs to be mentioned whenever his name comes up. "He is not good on justification."
• The great leaders of ELCA's distant past are forgotten by ELCA and by the devious Synodical Conference: Jacobs, Krauth, Loy, Lenski, Schmauk, and Reu.
• In case anyone wonders - I am a BAD GUY to the UOJ/Shrinkage people who hate Luther.

Second - Take Note of Their Religious Phrases

What we read comes through in what we communicate. There are no thoughts without words. Try that some time.

1. Faithful Lutherans realize that the efficacy of the Word in the Means of Grace is foundational. Isaiah 55:8ff.
2. Faithful Lutherans also realize the work of the Church is to convict the world of sin, because "they do not believe on Me." John 16:8ff.
3. Every version of cell group is a marker for Pietism and Church Shrinkage: small, share, care, koinonia, affinity, home Bible study. These people hate pipe organs and love praise bands. Their favorite music is subjective, all about me.
4. Mission goals may sound religious but they come from Drucker's Management by Objectives, which Fuller Seminary and the apostate Lutherans love.
5. Spoiling the Egyptians was first used by Augustine, then borrowed by a Fuller intellectualoid, subsequently borrowed by David Valleskey.
6. Instead of writing about the treasure of the Atonement, they speak of the Justification of the World (John Sparky Brenner), Universal Objective Justification (Valleskey), Objective Justification (Webber, Buchholz, et al.), General Justification. They pretend they are talking about the Atonement, but they define their term otherwise, because it is "God's declaration of the entire world forgiven and saved."
7. Instead of writing about Justification by Faith, they use their term from Woods, the Calvinist - Subjective Justification. John Sparky Brenner cannot bring himself to write Justification by Faith, but uses this circumlocution - Individual Appropriation of Forgiveness. So JBFA is garlic for your dogma, Sparky? Sad.
8. Numbskulls - or liars - you choose, call Universal Objective Justification the "Chief Article of Christianity" and apply various phrases for JBFA to their hobby horse, UOJ.

 Frosty Bivens plagiarized Zarling's awful essay to argue that
UOJ is the Chief Article. I am seeing red, and that makes me blue. See the graphic below for the Chief Article, endorsed by Luther, Melanchthon, and the Formula of Concord.

 Melanchthon, Luther, and the Formula of Concord agree.

 Mark Zarling declared UOJ to be the "diamond" of Christian doctrine (his term) and the Chief Article, a designation he stole from sincere Christians, the Book of Concord.

 Valleskey and Bivens have two favorite dogmas - Church Growth and Universal Objective Justification.

Luther's Description of False Teachers - Based on Paul's Text for Sexagesima Sunday

PAUL’S DESCRIPTION OF FALSE TEACHERS. Sexagesima Epistle Sermon. Lenker.

9. Note the master hand wherewith Paul portrays the character of false teachers, showing how they betray their avarice and ambition. First, they permit true teachers to lay the foundation and perform the labor; then they come and desire to do the work over, to reap the honors and the benefits.

Glende had to have the right building for his ego, so he sold this one
for a song and went on synod welfare.

Jeske and Brug got Glende his big church building,
which Glende abandoned before the structure was finished. Now it is a thriving Baptist church that added onto Glende's original Cathedral for Coffee.

They bring about that the name and the work of the true teachers receive no regard and credit; what they themselves have brought — that is the thing. They make the poor, simple-minded people to stare open-mouthed while they win them with flowery words and seduce them with fair speeches, as mentioned in Romans 16:18. These are the idle drones that consume the honey they will not and cannot make. That this was the condition of affairs at Corinth is very clear from this epistle — indeed, from both epistles. Paul continually refers to others having followed him and built upon the foundation he has laid. Messengers of the devil, he terms them.

10. And such false teachers have the good fortune that all their folly is tolerated, even though the people realize how these act the fool, and rather rudely at that. They have success with it all, and people bear with them.

But no patience is to be exercised toward true teachers! Their words and their works are watched with the intent of entrapping them, as complained of in Psalm 17:9 and elsewhere. When only apparently a mote is found, it is exaggerated to a very great beam. No toleration is granted. There is only judgment, condemnation and scorn. Hence the office of preaching is a grievous one. He who has not for his sole motive the benefit of his neighbor and the glory of God, cannot continue therein. The true teacher must labor, and permit others to have the honor and profit of his efforts, while he receives injury and derision for his reward. Here the saying holds true: “To love without guerdon, nor wearying of the burden.” Only the Spirit of God can inspire such love. To flesh and blood it is impossible.

Paul here scores the false prophets when he says, “Ye suffer fools gladly”; in other words, “I know the false preachers often act as fools, nor can they help it, because their teaching is false; yet ye excuse them.”

Kelm copied Fuller Seminary slavishly,
and his Church and Changer group accused everyone else of not being with it,
not being creative, not hard-working like them,
not caring about Holy Mother WELS' future.

11. In the second place such teachers are disposed to bring the people into downright bondage and to bind their conscience by forcing laws upon them and teaching work-righteousness. The effect is that fear impels them to do what has been pounded into them, as if they were bond-slaves, while their teachers command fear and attention. But the true teachers, they who give us freedom of conscience and create us lords, we soon forget, even despise. The dominion of false teachers is willingly tolerated and patiently endured; indeed, it is given high repute. All those conditions are punishments sent by God upon them who do not receive the Gospel with love and gratitude. Christ says ( John 5:43): “I am come in my Father’s name, and ye receive me not: if another shall come in his own name, him ye shall receive.” The Pope, with his spiritual office, became our lord, and we became his captives, through his doctrine of human works. And our present-day schismatics pursue the same object with their fanciful doctrine concerning their works.

DP Jon Buchholz replaced another DP noted for kicking pastors out,
and he began doing the same thing - bu the Changers are spared.
Buchholz lied to the New Mexico congregation and then
tried - and fail - to steal their property through foreclosure.

12. In the third place, false teachers flay their disciples to the bone, and cut them out of house and home, but even this is taken and endured. Such, I opine, has been our experience under the Papacy. But true preachers are even denied their bread. Yet this all perfectly squares with justice! For, since men fail to give unto those from whom they receive the Word of God, and permit the latter to serve them at their own expense, it is but fair they should give the more unto preachers of lies, whose instruction redounds to their injury. What is withheld from Christ must be given in tenfold proportion to the devil. They who refuse to give the servant of the truth a single thread, must be oppressed by liars.

Bad enough to steal the property of a church just kicked out,
but to grab what was long ago thrown out?

Funny how often Mark Jeske's name comes up
in WELS/LCMS examples of false doctrine and perfidy.

13. Fourth, false apostles forcibly take more than is given them. They seize whatever and whenever they can, thus enhancing their insatiable avarice.

This, too, is excused in them. Thus, the great establishments of the Pope did not suffice for him; with various artifices, bulls, laws and indulgences, he has brought under his power land and people and all they possess, exhausting the world by usury. And so it should be, for this state of affairs was richly deserved by men for despising the Gospel and its preachers.

Mark and Avoid Jeske
teaches self-love and fellowship with everyone except Lutherans,
so Thrivent Insurance pays him $140k for being on the board and
making things worse.

The Institute of Lutheran Theology, ELCA-based,
trains women for ordination
and ELS Jay Webber for the ELCA dogma of universal salvation.
Thrivent Choice - a hint at their pro-abortion stance
or a reference to choice meat being second-rate?

14. Fifth, these deceitful teachers, not satisfied with having acquired our property, must exalt themselves above us and lord it over us. Not only do they possess all property, but they must for that very reason become our superiors; must have precedence and receive honor. We bow our knees before them, worship them and kiss their feet. And we suffer it all, yes, with fearful reverence regard it just and right. And it is just and right, for why did we not honor the Gospel by accepting and preserving it?

What can anyone say, except,
"What did WELS do to deserve these clowns, bullies,
camp-followers, and con-artists?"

15. Sixth, our false apostles justly reward us by smiting us in the face. That is, they consider us inferior to dogs; they abuse us, and treat us as footrags.

I venture to say we became sensible of such treatment when, under the Papacy, we were readily put in the van, cursed, condemned and delivered to the devil. We endured it all, suffered most patiently, and yielded up property, honor, body and soul. Fault in a sincere teacher, however, could by no means be tolerated. Very well, then; God is just, and it is his judgment that we must honor the messengers of Satan a thousand times more than his own, and do and suffer everything. “I speak by way of disparagement [speak as concerning reproach], as thought we had been weak.”

The congregations he kicked out or hated out
are begging to return, hoping the terms of surrender
are not too burdensome.
Thus the hirelings feed their sheep to the wolves.