I did the initial format changes to Luther's Large Catechism. I see that more needs to be done.
I haven't heard so much noise from Appleton since Katy Perry became a free woman.
I marked sections in blue that are especially clear about the efficacy of the Word. Those are the best passages on that topic. The efficacy of the Word is so basic to Luther and the Scriptures that many more places could be marked in the Large Catechism.
I decided to visit a favorite UOJ passage, the Fifth Petition of the Lord's Prayer.
And forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us.
This part now relates to our poor miserable life, which, although we have and believe the Word of God, and do and submit to His will, and are supported by His gifts and blessings is nevertheless not without sin. For we still stumble daily and transgress because we live in the world among men who do us much harm and give us cause for impatience, anger, revenge, etc. Besides, we have Satan at our back, who sets upon us on every side, and fights (as we have heard) against all the foregoing petitions, so that it is not possible always to stand firm in such a persistent conflict.
Therefore there is here again great need to call upon God and to pray: Dear Father, forgive us our trespasses. Not as though He did not forgive sin without and even before our prayer (for He has given us the Gospel, in which is pure forgiveness before we prayed or ever thought about it). But this is to the intent that we may recognize and accept such forgiveness. For since the flesh in which we daily live is of such a nature that it neither trusts nor believes God, and is ever active in evil lusts and devices, so that we sin daily in word and deed, by commission and omission by which the conscience is thrown into unrest, so that it is afraid of the wrath and displeasure of God, and thus loses the comfort and confidence derived from the Gospel; therefore it is ceaselessly necessary that we run hither and obtain consolation to comfort the conscience again.
The blue section is quoted with great joy and fervor by the UOJ spin-doctors. I have to call them spin-doctors, because they specialize in spin rather than Christian doctrine. With tedious, robotic consistency they repeat the blue section as if it stands alone as the high point of the Christian Church, although its gnostic mysteries were not revealed until Walther followed his syphilitic bishop to mosquito-bitten bay of New Orleans.
Alas and alack, the blue section is preceded by the red section. "our poor miserable life...is not without sin." That contradicts the nefarious wisdom of the UOJ cultists. They claim to be born without sin (E. Preuss) and to be saved in their pre-existent life (divine or human nature, both?). They never tire of blaspheming the Holy Spirit, who never works apart from the Word. And yet they call justification by faith blasphemy.
They pixelate every instance of atonement in Luther's words or the Book of Concord - even in Romans 4 and 5. They find the phrase that satisfies their itching ears and rest on that alone.
No wonder the publication of the Confessions sends them back to their Twelve-Step programs, begging for help from their fellow addicts.
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quercuscontramalum (http://quercuscontramalum.myopenid.com/) has left a new comment on your post "The Large Catechism Has a Special Format":
"I haven't heard so much noise from Appleton since Katy Perry became a free woman."
My screen and keyboard need a tarp to protect it from my Cinnamon-flavored Starbucks via sinu-nasal spewment disorder.
