Arts and Humanities Commons^™

The Holy Spirit As The Undiminished Giver In The Early Church, Kyle Weeks

Grapho : Concordia Seminary Student Journal

At one time or another, virtually every churchgoing Christian is bound to hear the moniker of “Sanctifier” applied to the Holy Spirit. In this role, the Spirit is often described as dwelling within believers to make them holy, so that they might produce the “fruit of the spirit” as they lead good and godly lives.2 To that end, the Spirit is said to effect a complete “regeneration and renewal” of the individual, empowering them with the strength, grace, virtues, and other “spiritual gifts” requisite for Christian life.3 In denominations such as Lutheranism, faith itself is proclaimed to be impossible without …

The Beginnings Of Jewish Missions In The Lcms, Jaron Melin

Grapho : Concordia Seminary Student Journal

Mission is the theological account of the relationship between the church and the world. Where are the Jews in this relationship? If the church and the Jews had a relationship status on Facebook, then it might say, “It’s complicated.” This may be true of any kind of missions, but this shows itself to be especially true in Lutheran history and in particular LCMS-history. I look at the histories as recorded by Meyer, Lieske, Cohen, Parviz, and others on the early history of Jewish Missions in the LCMS, and I reflect on the context and theology behind them using missiologists like …

A Lutheran Perspective On Righteousness In China, Futao (Gary) Liu

Grapho : Concordia Seminary Student Journal

The recent history of China cannot get away from the impact of western thoughts and industrialization, including Democracy, Marxism, Republicanism, etc. For two millienium or so, the Chinese philosopher, Confucius (551–479 BCE), had dominated Chinese society through his philosophy (commonly called Confucianism) in every respect, from the hierarchical structures of governments and states to familial relations. Confucianism met its real challenge only in the recent history of China. At the collasping edge of the last feudal society (the Qing Dynasty which fell in 1911), patriotic Confucians had tried to bring what is useful of the West into traditional values and …

Almsgiving In Early Christian Catechesis, Ben Vanderhyde

Grapho : Concordia Seminary Student Journal

To say simply that almsgiving was a part of early Christian catechesis would not say much that is new to the Lutheran church today. Our own catechism includes this idea in its explanation of the 5th commandment: “We should fear and love God so that we do not hurt or harm our neighbor in his body, but help and support him in every physical need.” It is not so much significant that the Apostolic Fathers taught almsgiving but how they did so. Almsgiving played such a central role in the life of the early church that it came to be …

Learning The Liturgy With Mr. Miyagi: The Case For Liturgical Catechesis, Benjamin Leeper

Grapho : Concordia Seminary Student Journal

Using the narrative of The Karate Kid as a guide, I will demonstrate that Christian formation is a matter of recontextualizing liturgical practices in the daily life of the believer, so that she knows when, where, and how to use the precogni¬tive spiritual habits formed by Word and Sacrament in Christian worship. This understanding challenges prevalent liturgical theology, which tends to assume an automatic connection—or worse, no connection at all— between worship and daily life, by highlighting the necessity of locating for believers the telos of the church’s rites and ceremonies in discipleship. Finally, I will provide concrete examples of …

Tradition: Handing Down The Light To The Next Generation, Kristen Einertson

Grapho : Concordia Seminary Student Journal

When my husband and I found out that I was pregnant with our first child, we started discussing the ways we hoped to hand down the faith to our children one day. Initially, the things that our own parents had done when we were younger helped us to come up with a pretty familiar list of activities: getting them baptized soon after they arrived, going to church regularly, teaching them to pray before mealtimes and bedtime, reading Bible stories, and familiarizing them with the church’s hymns. If there was one nearby—and we wanted to get a little crazy—maybe we would …

Christian Sexuality: Five Session Small-Group Study, Christian Dollar

Grapho : Concordia Seminary Student Journal

Christian sexual ethics have always set the Church apart from the world. The division between Church and world goes deeper than its incongruence with its early Greco-Roman context of sexual slavery and pervasive homosexuality. Jesus’ teaching on sexuality was shocking to his Jewish context as well. Jesus’ radical commitment to the integrity of marriage left his disciples questioning the feasibility of the institution, all the more since the teaching contradicted the pattern of divorce instituted by scripture (Matt 19:1-10). Behind Jesus’ vision of human sexuality stood God’s original design for marriage rooted in the creation of sexed bodies designed for …

Sanctification And Ecclesiology, Gregory Moffitt

Grapho : Concordia Seminary Student Journal

The question of the nature of the Christian community is complex, with farreaching implications. For instance, the way in which we conceive the Christian community impacts how we think about questions such as the sanctification of the individual as he or she lives out their vocation as a part of the community. In this paper I will examine how Dietrich Bonhoeffer discussed the Christian community, focusing particularly upon how he discusses questions concerning ecclesiology and sanctification in his Discipleship and Life Together.

Faithfully Unmasked, Cody Macmillin

Grapho : Concordia Seminary Student Journal

The Church has found herself in a difficult situation these past twelve months. Wrestling with the practical concerns of gathering safely and legal restrictions on worship, many Christians have found themselves in some form of spiritual exile. They have been isolated from the people who would otherwise demonstrate God’s love and care. The voices that once sang together in their sanctuaries have since been muted for fear of feedback in their monitors, and the Christians who have found the courage to attend in-person worship are now met with floating eyes over choking cloth. Indeed, the oft-debated and dreaded drapery which …

How Embodied Human Creatures Converse Online, David Edwards

Grapho : Concordia Seminary Student Journal

Have you ever noticed just how much you can learn about what a person has going on in life without asking them a single question? All you have to do is hop on Facebook, scroll through twitter, or scan Instagram and you can see updates on everything! From the birth of a first child to the death of a loved one, from their favorite new show to Fantasy Football failures, it is pretty easy to learn a lot about a person and their life today with only so much as a couple of clicks on a screen or a keyboard.

Mythical Typology In The Lord Of The Rings, Andrew Jones

Grapho : Concordia Seminary Student Journal

When considering potential gospel patterns in J. R. R. Tolkien’s work, every critic is met with two conflicting realities. Firstly, the presence of gospel patterns is abundantly apparent in Tolkien’s work. Secondly, Tolkien himself stated rather emphatically that he did not intend to create a Christian allegory. Clyde S. Kilby writes, “The story, says [Tolkien], is ‘not ‘about’ anything but itself ’ and certainly ‘has no allegorical intentions, general, particular or topical, moral, religious or political.’ [Tolkien] declares in fact that he has a ‘cordial dislike’ of allegory.”1

A Map Key To Martin Luther King Jr, Jordan Voges

Grapho : Concordia Seminary Student Journal

When and if one hears the name Martin Luther King Jr. at a confessional Christian school like Concordia Seminary, it is often only in passing. The most well-known leader of the African-American civil rights movement is treated much like a roadside monument to a rare geological anomaly: something worth pointing out on the way to somewhere else, worth looking at and reading a paragraph or two about, but hardly a destination for contemplation in and of itself. In addition to the casual manner with which his presence is noted along the highway of theological dialogue, most references to the man …

Easter 2 • 1 John 1:1–2:2 • April 12, 2015 Drawn Into God’S Fellowship, Henry Rowold

Concordia Journal

The Christian fellowship is a humbler fellowship, namely the fellowship of the forgiven children of God—and it’s not a solitary walk, but a fellowship with each other and with the God who guides us in his light.

Trance: From Africa To Pentecostalism, David M. Beckmann

Concordia Theological Monthly

The author, a student at Concordia Seminary, St. Louis, studied indigenous religious movements in Asia and Africa during 1969-70 as a John Courtney Murray Fellow of Yale University. His book about indigenous churches in Ghana, Eden Revival is in the process of publication. Observations of indigenous Afro-American churches in the Caribbean during 1971 were made possible by a partial grant from the World Mission Institute of Concordia Seminary.

The Future Of Christian Education In The Missouri Synod: A Matter Of Self-Understanding, Stephen A. Schmidt

Concordia Theological Monthly

Permit me to outline the remarks. I will trace briefly the historical benchmarks of our cultural and ecclesiastical past. Secondly, I will develop candid suggestions about the revitalization of that heritage for our present and future. Naturally in the second enterprise one ceases to be historian, risking rather the role of prophet, a dubious undertaking for any person doing history. But there is some comfort in the words of the British philosopher of history, W. H. Walsh, who writes: "Historians may not be prophets but they are often in a position to prophesy."

How The Gospel Works, Richard R. Caemmerer Sr.

Concordia Theological Monthly

In the long plan of God we can imagine one good issue emerging from this debate. That is that the meaning of the Gospel becomes clearer and its preaching to the church and the world more apt and timely.

Justification And Anthropology, Wenzel Lohff

Concordia Theological Monthly

The author suggests that contemporary difficulties with respect to understanding the article of justification arise in large measure from the fact that justification has been separated from its anthropological rootage. At the same time, Dr. Lohff argues that the doctrine of justification offers great help to modern man, who often feels trapped in his very humanness. Furthermore, justification, when proclaimed properly, makes Christian unity possible. He describes justification briefly as the right and unequivocal determination of a human practice: to always live anew the life of faith in the Gospel.

What In Scripture Speaks To The Ordination Of Women?, John Reumann

Concordia Theological Monthly

"Ordination," it is well to remember, does not appear, full-blown and in our sense of the term, in the Scriptures.

Open Letter To Charismatic Lutherans, Paul F. Hutchinson

Concordia Theological Monthly

The author is pastor of Christ Lutheran Church, St. Louis, Missouri, and has been actively involved in aspects of the charismatic movement.

The Christianizing Of Abraham: The Interpretation Of Abraham In Early Christianity, Robert L. Wilken

Concordia Theological Monthly

The author traces through various interpretations of the significance of the story of Abraham in the early church in support of his thesis that each generation interprets the Scripture from the perspective of its own historical circumstance.

Luther On Christ And The Old Testament, James S. Preus

Concordia Theological Monthly

Careful reading of this article will contribute to getting the hermeneutical debate in our Synod beyond the present impasse that has been created by a non-Lutheran posing of the alternatives by so many who are involved in the debate.

The Eschatological And The Political In Moltmann's Theology, Kenneth Heintz

Concordia Theological Monthly

In this article he analyzes Moltmann's increasing interest in "political theology while at the same time he explores the connection between his political and eschatological thought.

The Other Understanding Of The Inspiration Texts, Traugott H. Rehwaldt

Concordia Theological Monthly

In this article the author evaluates the notes of Franz Pieper on the inspiration of Scripture, presents a summary of Herman Sasse's view on inspiration, and then offers certain counsel concerning the proper understanding of the inspiration of the Scriptures.

Toward Preparing Equippers, Herbert M. Zorn

Concordia Theological Monthly

Twenty-four years in India, sixteen of in seminary teaching, might sound like good credentials. Put differently, the credentials wilt: 24 years working within 100 miles of land's end of this vast country, reasonably fluent in only one of India's 18 official languages, barely conversant with another, in contact with nationwide theological education only recently, a member of the steadily diminishing group of expatriate seminary instructors.

Theological Education: The Ecumenical Dimension, Thomas Coates

Concordia Theological Monthly

This article was originally presented as a lecture al the Consultation on Ecumenical Affairs of The Lutheran World Federation, Tokyo, Japan, May 5, 1971.

The Relationship Between Graduate Theological Education And The Worldwide Mission Of The Church, William J. Danker

Concordia Theological Monthly

In spite of a desk piled high with other work, this writer could not find it in his heart to refuse an editor requesting an essay on a topic of such potential significance and excitement as "The Relationship Between Graduate Theological Education and the Worldwide Mission of the Church."

Doctrinal Emphases In The Missouri Synod, Erwin L. Lueker

Concordia Theological Monthly

The Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod has had the same doctrinal basis for 125 years. It is remarkable that within that period of time the loyalty of no group in Synod to that basis as given in the constitution could be seriously challenged. This, however, does not mean that there were no variations in emphases. This study is a brief synopsis of such variations. It is not concerned with difference, uniformity, contradiction, or inconsistency in doctrine (although some of these factors may be present) but with coordinating stresses. Examination of consistent adherence to basic insights is also beyond the scope of this …

Polygamy And The Christian Church, Nathaniel G. Inyamah

Concordia Theological Monthly

On the basis of personal experience, the author argues that the church's general rejection of polygamy is not required by Scripture and is descriptive of African society.

Ethical Individualism In Clement Of Alexandria, David Paulsen

Concordia Theological Monthly

It has been noted that Clement of Alexandria (ca. 150-215 A. D.) diverges sharply from primitive Christianity in important respects, such as his views on eschatology and the significance of the Law. It is my contention that Clement also diverges from almost the entire previous Christian tradition as far as we know it in the matter of ethics, in that he places individual perfection above communal concerns such as love and justice.

Adolf Stőcker: A Christian Socialist Advocate Of The "Free Folk Church.", Ronald L. Massanari

Concordia Theological Monthly

The author discusses the importance of Adolf Stoecker’s understanding of the Gospel in sociopolitical terms as it affected the "free folk church" movement in 19th-century Germany.

Readers will note but perhaps not agree with Stőcker's design for the church's social ministry. Students of 19th-century Germany will remember with distaste Stőcker's and-Semitism.