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Three Aspects Of The Way Of Christ And The Church, Martin H. Franzmann

Concordia Theological Monthly

In 1 Cor. 1:9 St. Paul characterizes the members of the Church as those who have been called by God into fellowship (communion) with His Son Jesus Christ, our Lord. This fellowship is a total participation in the whole Christ, a participation which takes a peculiarly vivid and experiential form in Holy Communion (1 Cor.10:16 ff.).

The Growth Of Our Faith, W. F. Beck

Concordia Theological Monthly

Contrast a righteous but weak Lot with Abraham, the father of all believers. Lot is materialistic, timid, helpless; Abraham is unselfish, bold, royal. Lot has to run for his life; Abraham, alone, pleads with God for Sodom. Lot escapes from the burning city with the loss of everything, while Abraham lives peacefully with the Lord who made heaven and earth. Lot wants to hide in a cave, while Abraham rises like a lonely mountain peak, touching the clouds.

The Doctrine Of Predestination In Romans 8:28-39, Luther Poellot

Concordia Theological Monthly

The doctrine of predestination is presented as our highest and greatest comfort in suffering. The doctrine itself is set forth in vv. 28-30, while in vv. 31-39 Paul draws the conclusions which follow in regard to the power of the Christian religion, more specifically the doctrine of predestination, to support us in the trials and afflictions which come upon those whom God has elected to salvation.

The Apostolic Psha!, Martin H. Franzmann

Concordia Theological Monthly

Memory plays us scurvy tricks. I remember that Hilaire Belloc says somewhere that there are three things that a real man must be capable of saying. I remember also that the first one is: Credo in unum Deum, Patrem omnipotentem; and that the third one is: Psha!

God's Concurrence In Human Action, John Theodore Mueller

Concordia Theological Monthly

In presenting the doctrine of divine providence, the teachers of the Christian Church usually stress, in the first place, God's actual conservation of all created things, by which His creatures persist both in their being and their operation (in esse suo ac vi operandi). Should their categories at times appear as rather scholastic or academic, it is well to remember that they were endeavoring to clarify and preserve intact in its purity the somewhat mysterious Scripture doctrine of God's actual participation in creatural action against the two fundamental fallacies of erring human reason: fatalism and atheism.

God's Triumphant Captive Christ's Aroma For God. (2 Cor. 2:12-17.), Victor Bartling

Concordia Theological Monthly

The teacher to whom we offer this eucharisterion has lived and labored among us as "God's triumphant captive" and "Christ's aroma for God." In discussing the Scripture passage giving us this view of the ministerial office we hope to do so in a bit of the practical manner which has always characterized the Scripture interpretation of our colleague.

Before we take up the passage, it will be useful for us to look at the wider as well as the narrower context.

The New Creation In Christ, Walter Bartling

Concordia Theological Monthly

All modern studies of the ἐν χοιστψ̄ formula take as their starting point the fascinating dissertation of Adolf Deissmann, which appeared in 1892. It is hardly possible to overestimate the influence this book has had upon research in Pauline theology. Deissmann's basic conclusion, that the ἐν of the formula has throughout a local significance, rests, no doubt, upon a proper grammatical insight and has received but slight modification by later scholars.

Essays In Hermeneutics, Martin H. Franzmann

Concordia Theological Monthly

In the circle of language the interpreter seeks to master the language in which the Scriptures were originally written; in the circle of history he seeks to master the world in which and for which the Scriptures were originally written; he strives to envisage and to keep before himself, as concretely and as plastically as may be, the geographic, social, economic, and cultural pattern in which the original proclaimers and the first hearers lived and moved. This pattern, or complex, includes also the past of which the proclaimers and hearers were the inheritors, for by the very fact that a …

Keeping The Doctrine Pure, J, H. Fritz

Concordia Theological Monthly

In the year 1924 a book was published entitled Great Preachers As Seen by a Journalist. In closing the last chapter of the book the author said, ''I believe that the creeds within Protestantism are more shell-like and fragile than appears on the surface. Some of these ministers I have written about in this book were born in one creed and preach now in another. Ask me at the end of my work what conclusion stands out in my mind, and I must say, 'I have found plenty of signs that the Protestant Churches of America will one day be …

Christian Fellowship, C. August Hardt

Concordia Theological Monthly

After having dwelt at some length on the manifestations of Christian fellowship, we now come to consider restrictions upon such manifestations. Let us begin by stating the obvious: There are restrictions; not man-made, originating in the decrees of church councils or in synodical resolutions, to be sure, but imposed by God Himself, the Head of the Church. To us this may seem self-evident, yet it is not conceded by all who lay claim to the name "Christian." There are those who aver that Christian fellowship must be unrestricted.

Objective Justification, E. W. Koehler

Concordia Theological Monthly

The doctrine of justification is rightly regarded to be the central doctrine of the Scriptures. All other teachings of the Bible either point to it, or they radiate from it. We can understand neither the work of Christ's redemption nor the work of the Spirit's sanctification if we do not understand the doctrine of justification. Luther calls it "diesen einigen und festen Felsen," and says: "In meinem Herzen herrscht allein dieser Artikel, naemlich der Glaube on Christum, aus welchem, durch welchen und zu welchem alle meine theologischen Gedanken fliessen und zurueckfliessen." (Luthers Vorrede zum Galaterbrief, St. Louis, IX: 9.) Let …

The Right And Wrong Of Private Judgment, Th. Engelder

Concordia Theological Monthly

In his recent book Luther and His Work the Catholic writer Joseph Clayton says: "To this day Martin Luther is praised ... for bringing the gift of private judgment in faith and morals to all believers. On the other hand, among Catholics Luther is held in abhorrence as an apostate monk who drew countless souls into heresy and whole nations into schism; the evil of whose life has lived after him." According to Luther "No one, neither pope nor bishop, has any right to dictate to the individual Christian what he shall or shall not believe. . . The notion …

The Meaning Of The Formula Of Baptism, E. W. Koehler

Concordia Theological Monthly

The formula of Baptism is definitely fixed. Christ, who instituted Baptism, tells us that we should baptize "εις τὸ ο͂νομα τοῡ πατὁζ χαι το̄υ νιο̄υ χαι το̄u άψιου πνεύmatoζ,” Matt. 28:19, thereby distinguishing His Baptism from all others that in His days were to be found among both Jews and Gentiles. We have neither reason nor authority to change the wording of this formula. For further Information on this point we refer to Walther, Pastorale, pp.110-118, and to Pieper, Christliche Dogmatik, Vol. III, pp. 302 to 308.

Conscience, E. W. Koehler

Concordia Theological Monthly

But what may it mean that I have knowledge together with myself? Let us illustrate. If I know a secret together with my neighbor, then this means not only that we both know the secret, but also that each knows that the other knows it. If, then, I say that I know something together with myself, this means not only that I know something, but that I am cognizant of the fact that I know it.

Verbal Inspiration- A Stumbling-Block To The Jews And Foolishness To The Greeks, Th. Engelder

Concordia Theological Monthly

The moderns have a third grievance against the Bible as God gave it to us. They are scandalized at the many "trivialities" incorporated in it. Those portions of the Bible, they say, which treat of purely secular matters, common household affairs, petty concerns of men, and the like, do not belong to the Word of God. God's Word is too high and holy a thing to have these levicula mixed up with it. It is inconceivable that, when the Holy Ghost inspired the saving Word, He should have bothered about the marital affairs of Isaac and Rebecca. The moderns are …

All Israel Shall Be Saved, Rom. 11:26, V. Bartling

Concordia Theological Monthly

"All Israel shall be saved." What do these words mean? The sentence must not be isolated from its context and given a meaning which collides with what precedes and follows. Paul's letters have had to submit to torture since Peter's days (2 Pet. 3:16). The history of the interpretation of our particular passage along with its setting illustrates such exegetical torture. Again and again Paul's words have been manhandled and wrested from their context.

Lectures On Galatians, Wm. Dallmann

Concordia Theological Monthly

The saving Gospel we have been learning is also the social Gospel we shall be learning.

"Brethren, ye were called unto freedom. Only use not this freedom for an opening of the flesh." Freedom is to be used, not abused for a cloak of wickedness, 1 Pet. 2: 16. A frightful abuse of freedom was that of the Anabaptists at Muenster, in Westphalia, at the time of the Reformation.

Address At The Opening Of The School-Year In Concordia Seminary, St.Louis, Mo., L. Fuerbringer

Concordia Theological Monthly

''I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills, from whence cometh my help. My help cometh from the Lord which made heaven and earth." These words of the 121st Psalm come to my mind as I am about to speak the first word at the beginning of our new scholastic year, the 102d year in the history of our institution. I know of no better watchword for our students and for our instructors in these very serious and distressing times in the world, which affect also our Church and may affect our institution to a lesser or greater degree. …

Lectures On Galatians, Wm. Dallmann

Concordia Theological Monthly

Christ became a curse for us.

Why do you not jump up quivering from this electric shock?

Christ, the Only-begotten of the Father, in the bosom of the Father from eternity, in the glory of the Father-this majestic Christ became a curse for us.

A startling statement! What is it all about?

St. Paul On Social Relationships, Rthur Carl Piepkorn

Concordia Theological Monthly

There are in visible Christendom two types of social theorists who derive small comfort from a study of St. Paul's letters. The first group comprises the extreme mystical individualists, who think of Christianity as being exclusively an individual escape from the wrath to come, while the second is composed of the social theorists, who insist that the Church's chief reason for existence is to prepare the nations of mankind for the establishment by God through the Church of "a home, in history and in the world, in which men shall be brothers in Christ under the paternal arch of [God's] …

Lectures On Galatians, Wm. Dallmann

Concordia Theological Monthly

That majestic Lord gave Himself when He left His throne of glory in heaven for the lowly manger in Bethlehem in the days of Caesar Augustus, and Quirinius, the governor of Syria, and Herod the Great, the king of Judea.

Holy Scripture Or Christ?, Th. Engelder

Concordia Theological Monthly

In his History of Christian Doctrine G. P. Fisher points out that "among Protestants and Roman Catholics the old question respecting the seat of authority in religion is once more eagerly disputed. Since Coleridge and Schleiermacher insisted that the primary object of faith is not the Bible but Christ, there has been a growing tendency to regard the Scriptures less as an authoritative manual of revealed tenets in theology and morals than as the medium of disclosing to us the personal Christ and the import of His mission and teaching.

Notes On Chiliasm, Th. Engelder

Concordia Theological Monthly

The doctrine that the saints will be raised from the grave at the beginning of the millennium and the wicked at the end of that period is not found in 1 Thess. 4, 16 and 1 Cor. 15, 23 f., but only in the chiliatic glossaries of these texts. Nor can it be found in Rev. 20,1-8. The chiliasts indeed insist thot this text distinctly teaches it.

What Is Conscience?, A. W. Meyer

Concordia Theological Monthly

Luther does not offer a clear-cut theoretical definition of conscience, but he speaks very perspicuously on the functions of conscience, and we shall take occasion to quote him repeatedly. Hauff, in his Real- konkordanz, calls conscience "das deutliche Bewusstsein von der sittlichen Guete unserer Gcsinnungen und Handlungcn, den inneren Richter, den jeder im Busen traegt" Standard Dictionary: "Conscience is the activity or faculty by which distinctions are made between the right and wrong in conduct and character." The Schaff- Herzog Encyclopedia defines conscience as "the moral sense of the individual applied to his own conduct."

Objective Justification, Theo. Engelder

Concordia Theological Monthly

The lending article in the May issue of The Pastor's Monthly, entitled The Mediator of the New Testament, which was originally delivered by Dr. R. Lenski in the form of an address on Seminary Day at Columbus, contains, besides much valuable material, these statements: "2 Cor. 5, 18-20 is badly bungled by many, notably the Missourians. Preconceived notions violate the highly significant tenses.

Studies In Eusebius, E. G. Sihler

Concordia Theological Monthly

The slurs of Gibbon have been answered by many Christians, especially by Milman, Dean of St. Paul's. The chief aim of Gibbon was to belittle the motives and heroism of the martyrs, to call in question the accounts of witnesses like Lactantius and Eusebius, and to excuse or mitigate the action of those responsible for the persecutions. In the present paper my aim is to examine with care the procedure and methods of Eusebius.