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Today, someone wrote - There's so much information in the book, it must have taken you years to put it all together. As you said in the preface, the book can be used as a reference source for documentation regarding the efficacy of the Word.
Thanks for writing it.
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Top customer reviews
February 28, 2018
Format: Paperback|Verified Purchase
Gregory L Jackson, PhD is a leading figure in confessional Lutheran theology today, the principles of which are found in the writings of Martin Luther and the Lutheran reformers and in the Book of Concord. A key Lutheran doctrine is that the Holy Spirit is an active, vital force which works through the preaching and hearing of the God's Word. God's Word is “quick and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit” Hebrews 4:12.
Dr. Jackson stated his reason for writing this book in the preface:
“I have written Thy Strong Word for one purpose: to teach the Biblical doctrine of the efficacy of the Word and thereby utterly destroy the Church Growth Movement in the Lutheran Church. ... Until recently the efficacy of the Word was taken for granted by all Lutheran, even by the liberals ... Now we have a generation or two of pastors and laity who cannot refute the Reformed errors cunningly promoted by their own synodical leaders and seminary professors.”
Using his decades of experience in teaching and the ministry, Dr Jackson chronicles the erosion of the centrality of the Lutheran confessions in the preaching of the conservative synods (ELS, LCMS, and WELS). He traces the erosion to the influence of rationalism and Reformed doctrine, which caused the synods to turn away from faith in the effectiveness of preaching and teaching God's Word. This goes with the Reformed idea that God's Word needs man's help to be effective.
Rationalism and Reformed doctrine diminished the vitality of the conservative synods beginning in the 20th century and accelerating in the 21st century. The symptoms include declines in membership, infiltration of various false doctrines, and synod hierarchies more interested in prestige and perks than the preaching the Gospel.
Dr Jackson shows how synod leadership reacted not by restoring sound doctrine, but instead by adopting Madison Avenue sales techniques and gimmickry (known as the Church Growth Movement or CGM) with the hope that these would put people into the pews of their emptying churches.
Dr Jackson begins his critique of CGM by presenting the principles of Lutheran doctrine: the authority of the Bible, justification by faith alone, the efficacy of the Word of God, and the power of the Sacraments.
Then, Dr Jackson presents quotes from CGM leaders and contrasts them with quotes from Luther and Lutheran foundational documents to illustrate how the principles of CGM are non-Lutheran, or anti-Lutheran, in nature.
This book is 533 pages, the information is detailed, the sources are foot-noted. This isn't a book that you should expect to read in one sitting. The dust jacket calls it a textbook for Lutheran biblical theology. You can consider it a teaching tool as well as a reference source. Dr Jackson includes a suggested reading list consisting of 3 pages of book titles. That being said, his writing style presents the information in an interesting and engaging manner, so you shouldn't find yourself becoming bogged down, as you might when reading a dry textbook on theory.
If you want to understand the foundational principles of confessional Lutheranism, then you should read this book. If you want to understand the problems of present day confessional Lutheranism and what the solutions are, then you should read this book.
Dr Jackson discusses the problems of present day Lutheranism on his internet blog, Google ichabodthegloryhasdeparted for the URL. He conducts a weekly Lutheran worship service via the internet, the blog has a link to the broadcast site which also has archived broadcasts. If you want to hear solid, scripture-based, Lutheran sermons, you'll find them in his worship services.
Dr. Jackson stated his reason for writing this book in the preface:
“I have written Thy Strong Word for one purpose: to teach the Biblical doctrine of the efficacy of the Word and thereby utterly destroy the Church Growth Movement in the Lutheran Church. ... Until recently the efficacy of the Word was taken for granted by all Lutheran, even by the liberals ... Now we have a generation or two of pastors and laity who cannot refute the Reformed errors cunningly promoted by their own synodical leaders and seminary professors.”
Using his decades of experience in teaching and the ministry, Dr Jackson chronicles the erosion of the centrality of the Lutheran confessions in the preaching of the conservative synods (ELS, LCMS, and WELS). He traces the erosion to the influence of rationalism and Reformed doctrine, which caused the synods to turn away from faith in the effectiveness of preaching and teaching God's Word. This goes with the Reformed idea that God's Word needs man's help to be effective.
Rationalism and Reformed doctrine diminished the vitality of the conservative synods beginning in the 20th century and accelerating in the 21st century. The symptoms include declines in membership, infiltration of various false doctrines, and synod hierarchies more interested in prestige and perks than the preaching the Gospel.
Dr Jackson shows how synod leadership reacted not by restoring sound doctrine, but instead by adopting Madison Avenue sales techniques and gimmickry (known as the Church Growth Movement or CGM) with the hope that these would put people into the pews of their emptying churches.
Dr Jackson begins his critique of CGM by presenting the principles of Lutheran doctrine: the authority of the Bible, justification by faith alone, the efficacy of the Word of God, and the power of the Sacraments.
Then, Dr Jackson presents quotes from CGM leaders and contrasts them with quotes from Luther and Lutheran foundational documents to illustrate how the principles of CGM are non-Lutheran, or anti-Lutheran, in nature.
This book is 533 pages, the information is detailed, the sources are foot-noted. This isn't a book that you should expect to read in one sitting. The dust jacket calls it a textbook for Lutheran biblical theology. You can consider it a teaching tool as well as a reference source. Dr Jackson includes a suggested reading list consisting of 3 pages of book titles. That being said, his writing style presents the information in an interesting and engaging manner, so you shouldn't find yourself becoming bogged down, as you might when reading a dry textbook on theory.
If you want to understand the foundational principles of confessional Lutheranism, then you should read this book. If you want to understand the problems of present day confessional Lutheranism and what the solutions are, then you should read this book.
Dr Jackson discusses the problems of present day Lutheranism on his internet blog, Google ichabodthegloryhasdeparted for the URL. He conducts a weekly Lutheran worship service via the internet, the blog has a link to the broadcast site which also has archived broadcasts. If you want to hear solid, scripture-based, Lutheran sermons, you'll find them in his worship services.
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April 14, 2007
Format: Hardcover|Verified Purchase
I am a layman, not a theologian, but I have read fairly widely in the literature of Lutheranism, my heritage faith, so I do not hesitate to praise with the highest encomia possible this very fine and much-needed book that refutes the errors of latter-day North American Lutheranism, alike the unbelieving "liberalism" of the E.L.C.A. and E.L.C.i.C. as well as the pseudo-conservatism (which falsely poses as Confessional) of the denominations deriving from the old Synodical Conference (most notably the L.C.M.S., W.E.L.S., E.L.S., and the L.C.M.S.' sister sect, the Lutheran Church Canada), which have betrayed genuine Confessional Lutheranism with their bizarre speculations embodied in the theological paradigm of "Universal Objective Justification and Subjective Justication" (U.O.J.), which Ptr. Dr. Gregory Lee Jackson anathematises and disproves, as well he should do, showing these heinous false speculative ideas to be being neither Scriptural nor Confessional, and, hence, not genuinely Lutheran at all. (Coming back to this review to revise it some, I would point out that Jackson has written and published a separate book, one that handles the matter suberbly, on the U.O.J. heresy, titled "Luther versus the U.O.J. Pietists: Justification by Faith".) Jackson also scathingly and realistically savages the venal "Church Growth Movement" tendencies in all forms of this hemisphere's Lutheranism, liberal and pseudo-confessional alike.
There are magnificent defenses of "genesio-Lutheran" Confessional teaching versus the claims of what Ptr. Dr. Jackson calls the "Reformed" (by which he includes all non-Lutheran Protestantism and sectarianism, rather than only, more properly, the teaching of other genuinely Protestant churches that follow the doctrinal teachings of Martin Bucer, especially, and of Jean Calvin, as well as the Three Forms of Unity and Westminster Standards that so principally, soundly, and moderately codify them confessionally). Jackson's defense of the Lutheran and hence Orthodox Christian "Means of Grace" is a stunning refutation of the claims of Baptists, Pentecostals/Charismatics, the loud-mouthed "Fundamentalists" who are so fundamentally wrong, the so-called "Neo-Evangelicals", Campbellites/"Restorationists", and other "cheap white [or black] theological trash") by explicating from the Scriptures (using, wisely, the Authorised "King James" Version, free of the sectarian bias that afflicts to one degree or another the modern versions in English of the Bible) the true Lutheran and biblical teaching about Holy Baptism and the Eucharist (Holy Communion, Mass). For the fine defense of Lutheran sacramental theology alone this book would be worth the purchase, but there is so much more as well!
A fault, a minor but nonetheless somewhat irritating one, is Jackson's intemperately vituperative assaults on other Lutherans and their squabbles and peccadillos over relatively minor matters of turf, petty corruption, and so forth which, really, are of only passing interest or importance compared to the major issues that this book addresses, something that inevitably will cause this book become a bit dated in that regard. (That said, though, Jackson`s comments on such matters are reasonable and, I believe, true.) Dr. Jackson's book is already a classic of Lutheran exegesis and sound doctrinal teaching.
A note of warning is in store for those who purchase the book second-hand; the earliest printing of this book had some pagination and binding irregularities, but even a copy with these defects is worth having, since they do not affect any of the most important passaages of the book.
There are magnificent defenses of "genesio-Lutheran" Confessional teaching versus the claims of what Ptr. Dr. Jackson calls the "Reformed" (by which he includes all non-Lutheran Protestantism and sectarianism, rather than only, more properly, the teaching of other genuinely Protestant churches that follow the doctrinal teachings of Martin Bucer, especially, and of Jean Calvin, as well as the Three Forms of Unity and Westminster Standards that so principally, soundly, and moderately codify them confessionally). Jackson's defense of the Lutheran and hence Orthodox Christian "Means of Grace" is a stunning refutation of the claims of Baptists, Pentecostals/Charismatics, the loud-mouthed "Fundamentalists" who are so fundamentally wrong, the so-called "Neo-Evangelicals", Campbellites/"Restorationists", and other "cheap white [or black] theological trash") by explicating from the Scriptures (using, wisely, the Authorised "King James" Version, free of the sectarian bias that afflicts to one degree or another the modern versions in English of the Bible) the true Lutheran and biblical teaching about Holy Baptism and the Eucharist (Holy Communion, Mass). For the fine defense of Lutheran sacramental theology alone this book would be worth the purchase, but there is so much more as well!
A fault, a minor but nonetheless somewhat irritating one, is Jackson's intemperately vituperative assaults on other Lutherans and their squabbles and peccadillos over relatively minor matters of turf, petty corruption, and so forth which, really, are of only passing interest or importance compared to the major issues that this book addresses, something that inevitably will cause this book become a bit dated in that regard. (That said, though, Jackson`s comments on such matters are reasonable and, I believe, true.) Dr. Jackson's book is already a classic of Lutheran exegesis and sound doctrinal teaching.
A note of warning is in store for those who purchase the book second-hand; the earliest printing of this book had some pagination and binding irregularities, but even a copy with these defects is worth having, since they do not affect any of the most important passaages of the book.
October 25, 2016
Format: Kindle Edition
This is one of the best modern Christian polemics books out there. Pastor Jackson does an excellent job of teaching God's Word and exposing the false teachings of men in the various Lutheran sects. It is very edifying to Christ's Church to have this publication to share with laity and Pastors alike. Most Lutheran laity I have met are uniformed that their Church leaders reject the efficacy of the Word and teach a damnable false gospel of Universal Objective Justification. Much like the polemic publications of the church fathers during the reformation, (1500's) Jackson's "Thy Strong Word" serves to the posterity of God's people in guarding against false doctrine.
