Never Study a Topic with Automatic Assumptions - They Are Often Wrong

 Note Walther's firm grip on his smartphone.

First, I will address the news, using my lost cell phone as a lesson for us all, about bad assumptions.

I use "call my lost cell phone" from the Net when we cannot find the cell phone, our only phone. Often the flip-phone has fallen to the floor or has been covered or obscured by something.

I used the service this weekend and thought I heard weak bleating for a second or two. I assumed, "It is under the bed." What followed was a thorough and heroic cleaning effort. After several days of no results, our Army Ranger neighbor began searching on his own while I was phoning the cell phone company for one of several solutions - using his phone, of course. Ranger Bob looked all over, in the fridge and freezer, and under the bed. I was ready to order the new phone. "Found it!"

Ranger Bob found it where I did not look. My assumption was that the phone was far away. In fact, it was inches away from my desk, eye level, with a very weak battery, behind a bottle of Sam's Club water.

The News
We should never assume that the drivel they market on the TV as news is anywhere close to the truth. First of all, it is too shallow to cover much of anything. Secondly, they rely on print news for all their stories.

Significantly, much of the so-called news is manipulative, self-serving, erroneous, and deceptive. A good example came in the mail just after the Presidential election, from Yale Divinity School.  The article assumed that everyone would be hailing President Hillary Clinton. The professor said, "Trump will still be remembered as an important person."

How patronizing! The vast majority in the ruling elite assumed Hillary would win in a landslide. They were repeating that assumption to each other, because their statistics told them that truth.

 The treachery  of the Concordia St. Louis faculty on Creation
is an example of departing from the efficacy of the Word.
Ditto their decades of jackass hee-hawing about the benefits of Fuller's Church Growth Movement.
Ditto - WELS, ELS, CLC (sic).

Christian Theology
Assumptions are equally misleading in theology - fatally misleading. Luther said one little error when magnified over time will bring everything down.

There are some basic, good assumptions - all subject to the ruling norm, the Scriptures.

1. The Bible is one Truth revealed by the Holy Spirit.
2. The difficult passages are illuminated by the passages clearest to us.
3. Problems for us are often a matter of bad translating.

Much more is implied by #1, such as the infallibility and inerrancy of the Scriptures, the efficacy of the Word. However, some rules become empty slogans, such as people separating the Word from the Spirit and signing a statement on Biblical inerrancy.

You say you firmly hold to inerrancy and yet reject infant baptism and traditional baptism, insisting on Spirit baptism proven by speaking in tongues? One Lord, One Faith, One Baptism... Ephesians 4 for Fuller alumni.

Walther suffered - or made us suffer - from his theses that he made the outline of his works. This thetical style was not derived from the Word of God and did not lead to the Word of God. Moreover, he trained his disciples the same way, for hours at a time.

Hoenecke was comparatively free of this malady, but he fell into it at times. John Sparky Brenner employed this bad habit while quoting Hoenecke's way of supporting Walther's error on election. One must line up election verses and not include anything else!?

Who judges that list? Clearly, the list will shape the results.

Some bad assumptions:

1. My synod is always correct and has always been correct.
2. My relatives were never wrong about anything, thus justifying hiring children and in-laws for faculty positions. "Thanks, Dad."
3. My sect does not need correction about anything. To do so would damage our claims of infallibility.
4. That is a gre-e-e-e-e-e-e-ey area of Scripture (false!) used to excuse a shifting and shifty position.