Wednesday, March 16, 2022

Anonymouse WELS Clobber-Head Explains What He Does Not Know about the Text. His Masterpiece Is in Royal Purple



Tischendorf just happened to find sheets from Codex Sinaiticus ready to be burned by or in the library, at a monastery where they protect and restore ancient writing. He called it Aleph, the "oldest Bible in the world." He was the first to promote Vaticanus, which he also dubbed "oldest Bible in the world."



Westcott and Hort were unbelievers who jumped on the Tischendorf finds and generated a bunch of fake rules about the texts that nobody believes anymore. They promoted their Greek New Testament with no justification for any of the changes (no critical apparatus to explain their radical and stupid ideas) - like the WELS writer below.

 Kurt Aland and his lovely second wife Barbara became the heirs of the Nestle-Aland style of Greek New Testament, constantly changing and beholden to Tischendorf-Westcott-Hort.


The part below in purple is copied and pasted, not one of my delightful satires:


Lord’s Prayer Doxology

I've done some research on why we include the "long ending" to the Lord's Prayer. I'm writing an article about this and want to make sure I state things as "WELS accurate." 🙂 Specifically, why don't Catholics include it and others do? I read one response that said at the time of the Reformation it was added so the Catholic church, not wanting to identify with Luther et al, made the decision to not include it when said during mass.

We find the Lord speaking the prayer that bears his name twice: in the sermon on the mount (Matthew 6:9-13) and on the occasion of his disciples asking for guidance on how to pray (Luke 11:2-4). The reality we face is that the original manuscripts of Matthew’s gospel and Luke’s gospel are not extant. That is the case with all original manuscripts of Bible books. We have copies and copies of the original manuscripts.*

The copies of Luke’s gospel do not contain a doxology. Some copies of Matthew’s gospel contain a doxology, other copies do not. Consequently, we cannot say with certainty whether or not Jesus spoke the doxology.**

In that regard, then, it is not a matter of right or wrong to speak or omit the doxology. Churches have freedom in which “version” they use. If Jesus did not speak the doxology, those words that are reminiscent of 1 Chronicles 29:10-11 could very well have been a liturgical addition by the early Christian church.*** Our Holy Communion liturgy from the 1941 hymnal reflected that when the pastor spoke the address and petitions of the Lord’s Prayer and the congregation sang the Doxology.

It is interesting to note that the Small and Large Catechisms that Martin Luther wrote contained the Lord’s Prayer without the Doxology. The Doxology was added to the Catechisms after Luther’s death. Also, when Luther revised the Mass, he included an instruction that “After the sermon shall follow a public paraphrase of the Lord’s Prayer.” That paraphrase did not include a Doxology.

God’s blessings on your writing!



Mid-Week Lenten




Mid-Week Lenten Vespers, 2022

Pastor Gregory L. Jackson

  

Bethany Lutheran Worship
7 PM Central Standard

 Vimeo player will appear here:

 

The Hymn # 240             Father Most Holy     
The Order of Vespers                                             p. 41

The Psalmody            Psalm   14                           p. 124
The Lection             
  
The Sermon Hymn #179   On My Heart  

 I AM the One Witnessing about Myself

The Prayers and Lord’s Prayer                         p. 44

The Collect for Peace                                        p. 45

The Benediction                                                 p. 45

The Hymn # 558            All Praise to Thee

 

In Our Prayers

  •  Kermit Way, serious eye problem. Pastor Jim Shrader, Chris Shrader, Peggy and Callie, and C.
  • Our country, military justice, and DEP Trump.

 


I AM One that bear Witness of Myself

18 εγω ειμι ο μαρτυρων περι εμαυτου και μαρτυρει περι εμου ο πεμψας με πατηρ

 

KJV John 8:13 The Pharisees therefore said unto him, Thou bearest record of thyself; thy record is not true. 14 Jesus answered and said unto them, Though I bear record of myself, yet my record is true: for I know whence I came, and whither I go; but ye cannot tell whence I come, and whither I go. 15 Ye judge after the flesh; I judge no man. 16 And yet if I judge, my judgment is true: for I am not alone, but I and the Father that sent me. 17 It is also written in your law, that the testimony of two men is true. 18 I AM one that bear witness of myself, and the Father that sent me beareth witness of me. 19 Then said they unto him, Where is thy Father? Jesus answered, Ye neither know me, nor my Father: if ye had known me, ye should have known my Father also. 20 These words spake Jesus in the treasury, as he taught in the temple: and no man laid hands on him; for his hour was not yet come.

This chapter of John’s Gospel is often given a lot of attention at the beginning, because the much later, dubious codices did not have the story of the adulterous woman. The ending is quite dramatic, with the ultimate declaration, Before Abraham was, I AM.”

In between are two important declarations of divinity – “I AM the Light of the World,” (8:12) and this one.

18 I AM one that bear witness of myself, and the Father that sent me beareth witness of me.

            This is a message about the Holy Trinity, which is abhorrent to the rationalists and apostates. They not only teach the humanity of Jesus without the divinity, but also reject the Trinity and scoff at it. As Jesus said so many times, the Word blinds and deafens the people who resist and reject the truth.

            That is also why the Fourth Gospel is so comforting. Where there could be doubt or puzzlement, John’s Gospel reveals the important points that unify and clarify the message of all four Gospels and the Apostle Paul’s message, plus the other apostolic witnesses. John’s Gospel is easy reading because the vocabulary and words are simple. It can be easily translated into any language. As one of our editors said, “I think God planned it that way.”

            Yes, the Trinity is a difficult topic to teach and discuss, because – like the other mysteries – is apprehended only through faith. Those children are blessed when they are baptized and taught gradually the meaning of these mysteries:

·         The Trinity

·         The divinity and human nature of Jesus Christ

·         Miracles performed by Jesus

·         The cross

·         The Resurrection and Ascension of Jesus

This language of the Son and the Father witnessing together is another example of enraging the opponents. Immediately they begin to ask about His father, lower case, because they want to undermine Jesus.

            If a man heals the sick and raises the dead, performing other miracles as well, the issue is not His power but what the establishment is going to do about that. We have seen a similar reaction to a good leader who improved many things as once, kept the world peaceful, and went after world-network crimes like child trafficking. Somehow that was all evil while a blustering Altzheimer’s patient is a fine president.

            I have seen this many times, when something should be taught, there are angry outcries and personal attacks to change the subject. This will continue, but the Gospel Word breaks through. Every time we understand a Biblical concept better, it enlightens us about so many more.

            Just as many neglect or deny the divinity of Christ, so they also neglect or deny the work of the Holy Spirit. People comment on how the religious of today give no credit to the always powerful and effective Spirit at work in the Word (preaching, teaching, and the Means of Grace). The Spirit is a witness too in this John 8 dialogue. The Spirit directed the Apostles to write down what happened, as Jesus predicted. All things would be remembered. And where is that? – in the latter part of John’s Gospel.

            A simple way of teaching the Trinity is to say – the unity of the Three, the three-ness of the One. St. Patrick is credited with teaching the Trinity with the clover, since there are three leaves, but one clover.

            When any aspect of the Trinity is slighted or removed, the entire nature of the mystery, the Biblical doctrine, is lost. And that is what the apostates want. What they cannot have – faith – is to be filtered into believing hearts so the faithful become faithless.

            George Barna, the PR guy for Fuller Seminary and others, has released a poll saying only 40% of parents teach their children about God. (Public polls are bought for a reason, to create opinion. Private polls with the facts are kept secret.) Although I think it is an attempt to increase enrollment at Fuller Seminary, there could be truth to these so-called facts. How could there be parents teaching children about faith in God if the clergy are faithless themselves. That is not only clear in the mainline denominations of the National Council of Churches (the same ones who own the RSV and ESV paraphrases) but also in the “conservative” groups where the clergy and professors are infected with the same rationalism and apostasy.

            What is simple to teach and believe in the Gospel of John is too difficult and opaque for the clergy and seminary professors. We deal with the older Lutheran writers all the time and with the change in Bibles. There is a chasm between one age, which began in the 1800s and now, where we think we know so much.

·  



Justification Finally Discovered in Calvinist News But Read the Wording,
The Same as ELCA

 The article says Schulz has two PhDs, but he only has a DMin from Ft. Wayne's OJ hive, and a PhD from the Jesuit school, Marquette. 

“While there is no systemic racism at Concordia because we are committed to Christ incarnate and His universal justification of all human beings without exception, there certainly is systemic Woke-ism,” Schulz writes in the article. 

CN, March 21, 2022, p. 19.

***

GJ - "Universal" is often tossed in by WELS, but they are all the same in teaching, whether LCMS, WELS, ELS, CLC, or ELCA.



+++


Bengel in his commentary on 1 Corinthians 1, remarks: “Election is the judgment of the divine grace in Christ, having taken from the common ruin of men those who by faith have accepted the call. Every one called becomes an elect person, from the first moment that he believes.”

From “The Lutheran Doctrine Of Election: Its Scriptural Evidence And Proof. By Rev. P. Eirich, Hoboken, N. J. Article II.” in The Columbus Theological Magazine, Vol 1, 1881, Matthias Loy, editor. LutheranLibrary.org

Leupold - Cap Seminary

 Loy - President of Cap Seminary, Pastor,
Hymn Writer and Translator, etc.

 Lenski has a "Lenski Room" cubbyhole
at Capital's Library. Conservatives still read him and prize his work. Cap's bookstore was not selling his books when I visited and asked.


"The horrid doctrine of Missouri, that whilst God rejected some on account of unbelief, He accepted or elected others who were in the same condition, is absurd. If this were true, we could well hold, that although God condemns some men because they believe not, He might yet save some who are of the same class. In short, Missouri’s singular doctrine, that the same cause which prevented God from electing some did not prevent Him from electing others, is contrary to the whole Bible, and our salvation would then not be by faith in Christ, but would be the result of God’s supreme will merely, rejecting some for one cause and accepting others to whom the same cause applied."

From “The Lutheran Doctrine Of Election: Its Scriptural Evidence And Proof. By Rev. P. Eirich, Hoboken, N. J. Article II.” in The Columbus Theological Magazine, Vol 1, 1881, Matthias Loy, editor. LutheranLibrary.org