Efficacy Is the Doctrine That Dare Not Speak Its Name - In WELS-LCMS-ELS-ELCA.

The Smells and Belles bishops have left a profound, bad impression on ELCA, scattering the flock, electing more she-wolves, Liz Eaton even supplanting the bishop who was ahead of her Ken Sauer.

KJV 1 Thessalonians 2:13 For this cause also thank we God without ceasing, because, when ye received the word of God which ye heard of us, ye received it not as the word of men, but as it is in truth, the word of God, which effectually worketh also in you that believe.

1 Thessalonians 2:13 δια τουτο (On account of this) και ημεις ευχαριστουμεν τω θεω (we also thank God) αδιαλειπτως (without ceasing)  οτι παραλαβοντες λογον ακοης (which when receiving the Word-of-hearing) παρ ημων του θεου εδεξασθε (you received of God from us) ου λογον ανθρωπων (not the word of man)  αλλα καθως εστιν αληθως (BUT as it truly is)  λογον θεου (the Word of God)  ος και ενεργειται (which is also effective - energized)  εν υμιν τοις πιστευουσιν (in you who are believers). Jackson Interlinear NT For Seminarians Who Slept Through Greek and Became Professors/Fuller Graduates.

    More than one person has told me, even among others, "I never heard of the efficacy of the Word until I came upon your blog." I was not shocked, because in searching for the disgusting origins of Church Growth, the efficacy of the Word was central and yet missing from Biblical and Lutheran scholarship. Although the words for efficacy are found repeatedly in the Greek New Testament - even giving us the origin of the word "energy" - the concept barely exists in all the literature, in Kittel or the dictionaries.

    Efficacy is not just a word-group, but a central doctrine of Bible - from Genesis 1 and Isaiah 55 - to John 16 and all references to the Spirit at work in the Word of God. Needless to say - but I will anyway - efficacy is absent in Calvinism and the Church of Rome. Those who have read and studied F. Pieper realize that he was a hybrid, a Calvinist adopting the words of Luther but adoring the soul of Halle Pietism (Calvinism for the ignorant).

    Luther, Melanchthon, Chemnitz, and the Book of Concord are saturated with the efficacy of the Word, simply because they were Biblical theologians, not dogma tyrants (Walther, Pieper, Waldo Werning, Otten, Hale). Hale even declares that I once embraced his beloved Objective Faithless Justification, dreaming of an apostasy that belongs to him and his crew alone.

    The Lutherans of various stripes, secret codes, and GA graduation will never get out of their spiraling abyss until they repudiate their shameful dogma. Some fly to Pasadena, others to 

monasteries where the quiet is profound and the monks handsy.

Do Not Believe the Numbers - Not That Many Care

 

Many secular actions follow the same path as found in the denominations and parishes today. For instance, to enhance the lawn, people have nitrogen compounds sprayed on, sometimes with green dye added. For very little money they can mow leaves into the last grass cutting and build the soil.

The church leaders follow the spray on method. They promote enthusiasm - in the classic and current forms - and extol their excitedness. Luther's Biblical concept of enthusiasm is declaring doctrine apart from the Scriptures - as in Objective Justification aka General Justification aka Universal Justification aka The Justification of the World aka Universal Objective Justification (extra dye). Without the faith generated by the Gospel Word, there is no grace, no forgiveness, no eternal life.

The self-promoting "conservative" Lutherans want to comfort themselves and their victims by declaring they are good and noble while the rest are apostates. Boo, ELCA. But the "conservatives" agree with ELCA! What sign of apostasy is greater than denying the Chief Article of the Christian Religion? Note - not the Chief Article of Lutheranism, but the Chief Article of all Christians - Justification by Faith. What began in Genesis 15:6 is illustrated and fulfilled in all the Scriptures, Old and New Testaments.

KJV Genesis 15:5 And He brought him forth abroad, and said, Look now toward heaven, and tell the stars, if thou be able to number them: and He said unto him, So shall thy seed be. 6 And he believed in the Lord; and He counted it to him for righteousness.

But the "conservatives" deny this in Romans 4 and its summary in Romans 5:1-2. In their drunken stupidity, so full of themselves and fermented drinks, the "conservative Lutherans" try to make the rest of Romans 5 argue against the entire Bible. 

Luther, Melanchthon, and Chemnitz emphasized the Chief Article, embedded in the Book of Concord. The greatest spiritual leaders of the Christian Church - Luther, Melanchthon, Chemnitz - hardly get a nod. But the WELS-LCMS-ELS-CLC bow, scrape, and slobber over the fetid Calvinism of Fuller Seminary and Trinity Divinity School. They have no faith, so they have no growth.

 The cowardice of WELS is monumental.

Great Aim - At the Wrong Target

 "Here is our new Youth Pastor. He is so creative!"

Visiting gave me some insight about the quadrilateral collapse of the Lutheran sects - ELCA-WELS-LCMS-ELS. They aimed at the wrong target and hit it square - "relevant entertainment so we can keep the youth in the church."

They all decided to preserve the image of "youth ministry" by having large meetings with celebrity guests of some type.

What I heard - from an ELCA and a Missouri perspective - was the incompetence and poor leadership at these ELCA or LCMS events. 

I saw the same things at the WELS event I suffered through in Columbus, Ohio. The Wisconsin sect is much smaller in numbers, but they mismanaged just as poorly, such as having the adults in a different building than the youth occupied. Naturally that OSU leadership was the Skestos gang of Zehms, Stolzenburg, and Schroeder - all four divorced. They had Pastor Stadler (divorced) and the gang. Stadler gave a children's sermon where he made water in a jug go black and then clear again. A professor's son said to me, "Greg, thanks for not puking on me during Stadler's sermon."

I am looking at St. James now. They had an "alter guild" in 1955. I hate to ask.

Marc Schroeder, whose Prince of Peace church was kicked out of WELS, was the vicar at St. James, which was also kicked out of WELS.

So how did the great Columbus youth conference become loaded with divorced pastors and deafened by a no-talent rock band? Skestos' son was in the rock band. 

I never went to an LCA national youth conference. The numbers never add up - tons of kids, poor supervision, a splash for the magazine and then done. An OSU staff member said the WELS conference was the worst behaved group of kids they had. One of WELS kids dropped a bottle on a vehicle, from an upper storey. The car or truck was delivering pizza; $800 damage; no one confessed. VP Paul Kuske was voted out of office by the Michigan District, a rare treat in hide-bound WELS. He and the late DP Robert Mueller achieved the genius level of punishing what was good and promoting what was evil.

Supreme Court Justice Kavanaugh Would Feel at Home in WELS-LCMS-ELS-ELDONA-CLC (sic)

 No, they sold you down the river so they could share the loot with ELCA. And you voted to keep them in their befouled office!

Various people and journalists are expressing dismay about the NY Times reviving a false accusation against Justice Kavanaugh and promoting a book based on the same slanders.

However, Kavanaugh would feel right at home in the WELS-LCMS-ELS-ELDONA-CLC (sic). I thought about repeating some of their whoppers, which they oink to each other, but why dignify the muted squeals of hogs looking for one more scrap of food?

Not only are the apostate "conservative" leaders far away from what they represent, but they are truly radical, obnoxious, and hateful. Yet they wonder why their weakened structures are melting away from their toxic leadership.

Don't worry - they have another Change or Die! conference coming up on October 10th, led by two epitomes of their alleged positions - in reverse.

1. They are hosting the seminary president representing his faculty's opposition to Creation by the Word, aka the Six Day Creation. 
2. And the audience will hear from women's ordination, nay gay ordination plus abortion-on-demand advocate Heidi Neumark. Change...or Die!

I miss the good old days when I would post some news about the "conservatives" being completely off the rails. The opponents would pepper me anonymously with all kinds of nasty comments. I could trace many of them back to Appleton, Wisconsin and Austin, Texas, both septic systems from Jeske's Time of Grace influence.

Two episodes are especially noteworthy and are connected.

I. All the WELS problems in Columbus, Ohio were my fault. The turmoil had nothing to do with three, notorious divorced Church Growth pastors. However, Columbus blew up after I left, as one person said, "Because you were not around to blame anymore."

II. Tim Glende (from Columbus) and drinking partner Ski and two staffers in Appleton took a man to court because he told the truth about them. As most people outside of WELS know, it is not against the law to tell the truth, nor is it wrong to come to a public meeting where facts are supposed to be discussed. Glende began complaining on the stand about a blog in Arkansas. The judge said, "What?" I guess that line of attack went nowhere. How does one blame a blog "nobody reads" when his drinking buddy is showing obscene photos and making lewd remarks to a lady on the staff? Yet Ski still wanted to sue when Glende's case was tossed out like last week's fish soup.

I could elaborate, but those who want more details can find them on the blog by using the label list on the left column. Tis more important and useful to realize - the leaders of these dying and dead sects never stop getting even for the truth coming out about them.

Write a letter? Ha - that is turned into a confession of sin by the letter-writer. Speak to them first? - that is how they begin their counter-attack lest a lawsuit land them in the red again. They have many lawsuits to settle, but they do their best to thwart them, hide them, deny them.

When the readers hear the Left raving about Kavanaugh and other targets of their fury, just remember - those are identical portrayals of your synodical leaders in action. And there are plenty more pastors and laity willing to share in the fun.

 As Spindletop reminded me, the faithful remain and encourage each other. I responded by saying the apostates energized me to study Luther, the Book of Concord, and the Scriptures.

***

GJ - One LCMS Facebook friend responded, "get real, Jackson! You are nuts, crazy, insane. Not all the cups fit into your cupboard, Fool!"

Recently I had written him, "Happy Birthday and God's Blessings."

CLC Pastor Nathanael Mayhew Teaches Grace without the Means of Grace - "Judas Is in Hell with His Sins Forgiven"

The Easter absolution of the world - without faith - is the version that Bishop Stephan, STD, taught CFW Walther. 

Genesis 15:6 And he believed in the Lord; and he counted it to him for righteousness.

GJ - Note that the Greek verb used in the Septuagint, Genesis 15:6 for counted, is the same verb used in Romans 4 for counted and imputed. Those terms mean the same thing - count, impute, reckon.

Romans 4 What shall we say then that Abraham our father, as pertaining to the flesh, hath found?

2 For if Abraham were justified by works, he hath whereof to glory; but not before God.

3 For what saith the scripture? Abraham believed God, and it was counted unto him for righteousness.

4 Now to him that worketh is the reward not reckoned of grace, but of debt.

5 But to him that worketh not, but believeth on him that justifieth the ungodly, his faith is counted for righteousness.

6 Even as David also describeth the blessedness of the man, unto whom God imputeth righteousness without works,

7 Saying, Blessed are they whose iniquities are forgiven, and whose sins are covered.

8 Blessed is the man to whom the Lord will not impute sin.

9 Cometh this blessedness then upon the circumcision only, or upon the uncircumcision also? for we say that faith was reckoned to Abraham for righteousness.

10 How was it then reckoned? when he was in circumcision, or in uncircumcision? Not in circumcision, but in uncircumcision.

11 And he received the sign of circumcision, a seal of the righteousness of the faith which he had yet being uncircumcised: that he might be the father of all them that believe, though they be not circumcised; that righteousness might be imputed unto them also:

12 And the father of circumcision to them who are not of the circumcision only, but who also walk in the steps of that faith of our father Abraham, which he had being yet uncircumcised.

13 For the promise, that he should be the heir of the world, was not to Abraham, or to his seed, through the law, but through the righteousness of faith.

14 For if they which are of the law be heirs, faith is made void, and the promise made of none effect:

15 Because the law worketh wrath: for where no law is, there is no transgression.

16 Therefore it is of faith, that it might be by grace; to the end the promise might be sure to all the seed; not to that only which is of the law, but to that also which is of the faith of Abraham; who is the father of us all,

17 (As it is written, I have made thee a father of many nations,) before him whom he believed, even God, who quickeneth the dead, and calleth those things which be not as though they were.

18 Who against hope believed in hope, that he might become the father of many nations, according to that which was spoken, So shall thy seed be.

19 And being not weak in faith, he considered not his own body now dead, when he was about an hundred years old, neither yet the deadness of Sarah's womb:

20 He staggered not at the promise of God through unbelief; but was strong in faith, giving glory to God;

21 And being fully persuaded that, what he had promised, he was able also to perform.

22 And therefore it was imputed to him for righteousness.

23 Now it was not written for his sake alone, that it was imputed to him;

24 But for us also, to whom it shall be imputed, if we believe on him that raised up Jesus our Lord from the dead;

25 Who was delivered for our offences, and was raised again for our justification.

 Unlike the old NIV, which was pretty bad, the New NIV (official Bible of the Wisconsin Sect) teaches that "all" are justified in Romans 3 - though the "all" is missing from all Greek texts. Nevermind, that is the dynamic equivalence of the Greek text, according to those who need Nida. 

***

GJ - Mayhew is another example of the brainwashed pastor (ELCA-WELS-ELS-LCMS-CLC sic) who reads his dogmatics textbook and uses that to replace and ridicule the Holy Scriptures.

Anyone can see from the plain meaning of the Scriptures that faith is not the opposite of grace. Note the ironic title of Mayhew's sect - Church of the Lutheran Confession (sic). In contrast, the Lutheran Confessions repudiate his cowardly demi-semi-Universalism.

Class - let's read out loud the one-volume Bible Commentary called the Book of Concord. What do Luther, Melanchthon, and the Concordists consider the Chief Article of Christianity? Bueller. Bueller. Anyone? Anyone?