Pastor William Weedon has done some very nice research collecting quotations from church fathers supporting classic Lutheran positions. The Lutheran Reformers did not see themselves as innovators. We teach nothing new, but only what has been said before. Here is Pastor Weedon’s blog. Here is the same material presented with Pastor Weedon’s kind permission in a pdf format.

Thanks to Rev. Paul McCain for bringing this to our attention.

Saint Paul once instructed a young pastor, “Devote yourself to the public reading of Scripture, to preaching and to teaching” (1 Timothy 4:13).This apostolic direction is hard to follow today. If someone is to read, preach and teach, then the rest of us are to listen and hear. But we live in an age of seriously short attention spans. We grumble if the preacher is long-winded. A friend once said of my preaching, “Verbosity is an atrocity.” Or as one professor here has been known to demand, “Get to the point.” O.K. Fair enough. It is important to be concise. However, it is tempting for the church to mirror the unwholesome values of the culture and resort to soundbite theology, to reduce the Ministry of the Word to repetition of religious-sounding slogans or principles or steps. Many people today, deeply shaped by the rapidly flashing images of a TV screen, have virtually lost their ability to listen and hear the spoken word unless it is as brief as a hamburger commercial. What shall we make of the words of Jesus today, “He who has ears, let him hear”?

Christianity is counter-cultural in the sense of being highly verbal, oriented around authoritative speech and texts. The Church cares about words, specifically God’s Word. As the Savior said, “Man shall . . . [live] on every Word that proceeds from the mouth of God” (Matt. 4:4).

But God’s Word is never mere chat. It is alive and active. The Divine Speech which long ago brought all things into being from nothingness still today brings order to chaos and reverberates in the Divine Service to create new life and usher us into a renewed fellowship with God. Each day we recall that “the Word became flesh.” Never a mere intellectual abstraction, God’s Word entered the concreteness of our existence through Mary, the virgin, for our redemption. His incarnation speaks new realities into being.

Because of this emphasis on the Word of God, we also assign great importance to the Office of the Ministry of the Word of God. Speaking God’s speech is constitutive of the Holy Office. CTS, as a place where pastors are formed, is devoted to Divine Speech. Our community life is structured around the Word of God. We devote ourselves as seminarians and pastors to the intensive and reflective study of the Sacred Texts. We mine these treasures in the classroom using the original languages, and we gather daily to hear the Scriptures read and proclaimed in public worship. We receive Him weekly in the Holy Supper. All of this is part of a program that molds the seminarian into a Servant of the Word.

As pastors, chief among our tasks is to bring people into communion with the Body of Jesus Christ. This we do through administering God’s Word in oral proclamation (reading, preaching and teaching) and Sacrament. In this Ministry, the blessings of Divine Speech are conveyed, namely, life and forgiveness. May Christ bless you as you pray and consider entering this life of speaking God’s speech.

The Lord be with you.

From Volume 2, Issue 1, January/February 1998 of Pilgrimage

September 11, 2001, was a catalyst for significant change in our nation. It instigated the global war on terror, forced our government to revitalize national security, and opened up a national debate on civil liberties and immigration. It also caused many people to think more seriously about religion.

The nature of Islam and the tradition of jihad have since drawn much attention. And it has become quite clear that establishing Islam as the dominant religion is a prominent theme in the Quran.

This can and has been done several ways, from persuasion to outright conflict. Muhammad himself, just before he died in 632, told his followers that he had been ordered by God to pursue the world until all people accepted the creed of Islam: there is no god but Allah, and Muhammad is his messenger.

The current struggle with violent expressions of Islam is nothing new for Christians. The church has been dealing with it for centuries. After Muhammad’s death, Muslims followed their prophet’s path. They began to overrun the lands surrounding the Mediterranean Sea. Syria, Palestine, Egypt, North Africa, and even Spain, were all conquered by 732.

Fortunately the Muslim armies were unable to prevail over Europe. It was from Europe, after the pope learned of Christian persecution across the Mediterranean, that the church responded to Islam with the crusades (beginning in 1095). Eventually they even began to send missionaries to Muslims. These missionaries experience some success, and the crusades held the Muslim forces at bay for a few centuries. But Islam was able to muster up enough strength to begin expanding again just before the reformation.

What has been referred to as the greatest jihad took place throughout the 15th and 16^th century in the eastern regions of Christian Europe. Around the time that Martin Luther was writing his small catechism Turkish Muslim armies were even poised to take control of Germany. But the European armies were able to halt their advance at Vienna in 1529. The damage was already done, though. Muslims now dominated much of Europe east of Hungary. So the church began to renew its call for a crusade in order to deal with the threat of Islam.

Martin Luther found problems with the idea of a crusade, and loudly objected to this solution. Warfare was not the business of the church. He certainly endorsed a military response to the Muslim occupation of Eastern Europe. But he argued that it was to be carried out by the secular rulers of Europe, not the church. So what could Christians do in this war against the jihad on Europe? They could certainly serve in the military. Those choosing to do so were counseled not to see this as a religious vocation. Instead, it was a secular one, a way to love the neighbor by protecting and defending them. And while the secular forces of Germany went about pushing back Muslim expansion into Europe, the church, he argued, should be busy praying for their troops and, ultimately, a peaceful resolution to the conflict.

One of the most striking things about Luther’s writing at the time, though, is his appeal that Christians strengthen their faith through catechesis and learn about the religion of Islam. Luther actually envisioned a day when Christians would be forced by circumstance to live alongside Muslims. And even though he despised Islam, he did not lose sight of God’s mission in Christ to seek and save the lost. He strongly advocated that all Christians prepare to engage Muslims with the gospel.

We live in a very different age, but Luther’s advice for dealing with Islam is instructive. In responding to violence inspired by the Quran, we must pray that our political and military leaders respond resolutely and justly. But we must also be prepared to live alongside Muslims, and recognize the numerous opportunities this presents for sharing the gospel with those for whom Christ died. As the numbers of Muslims in America continues to increase now is the time to bolster up your faith by studying the scriptures so that you too may be prepared to respond to the Muslim “who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you” (1 Peter 3:15).

Dr. Adam S. Francisco is Guest Professor of Historical Theology at Concordia Theological Seminary, Fort Wayne, Indiana.

Why did Jesus die on the cross? I wrote a blog post on that question a while back and it is by far the number one most viewed post on this blog still to this day. Not that I wrote something so terrific. But I still get Google hits on it daily. And that is because people all over the world are asking and debating that question. [Go here to see that old post.]

The Mel Gibson movie brought this discussion to the surface and I was astonished (I was naive) at the number of commentators on the film saying that it is wrong to focus so much attention on the death of Jesus, as if the crucifixion were merely the unfortunate demise of an otherwise promising young man.

Concordia Theological Seminary is conducting an in-depth series of lectures on the subject of the atonement. Classic understandings are being dismissed, even in traditionally evangelical circles. What a delight it is to be part of a major institution that still boldly maintains the central truths of Jesus Christ and His salvation.

Register now to attend the Symposia, January 15 – 18, 2008. Engage with world-class theologians from our institution and elsewhere. David Scaer, William Weinrich and many others.