Rev. Dr. Daniel N. Harmelink: Navigating Church Decisions and Division

This episode of Christendom and the World Pastor Andrew Preus talks with Rev. Dr. Daniel N. Harmelink, tracing his vocational journey from parish ministry in California to his current work at the Concordia Historical Institute in St. Louis. Pastor Harmelink reflects on the significance of preserving the history of the Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod, particularly through times of crisis and change. The discussion explores the theological implications of church conventions, the authority of scripture, and the enduring relevance of law and gospel. With a focus on mission, identity, and faithful witness, this episode highlights the importance of deep theological engagement and the role of history in shaping the church’s present and future.

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
and Stonewall that way.
um So we got that.
Then we got we repealed the license like Deacon thing.
And then we voted that only men should serve as elders and distribute communion.

(00:20):
It was yeah.
And it was and I just remember going into one room um and everyone is just.
cloud nine, everyone's doing great.
And then someone else came and said, I just came from this other room and it's the exactopposite vibe.

(00:42):
yeah, but then you leave and you go back home and then you know, you're back to reality.
So, I mean, there are things that are accomplished, but.
Well, unfortunately, again, when I was in the parish, we sent out one of the elders and hehad never been at one of these things before.
He took it super seriously.
He was very, you know, I want to be a responsible delegate.

(01:03):
So he read, you know how much stuff you get in the mail, right?
He read all of it and he read he knew the convention uh so well that he was the guy thatpresented to the Winkle.
what was going on in the convention coming up.
The other pastors didn't know a lick about all this stuff, and he had all gone through itall.

(01:26):
But he came back.
This was the restructuring at the Texas...
Texas...
10, I think.
No, this was the restructuring.
Well, I guess it was restructuring, and then Harrison was elected.
So he came back and...
He said, I will never attend another Synod convention.

(01:52):
He was just completely unprepared for the fighting that was going on.
I think that blindsided him.
So he said, that's the last time I'll ever have anything to do with the Synod convention.
It's like, well, welcome to the church.

(02:12):
Yeah, no kidding.
Yeah, just part of the church militant.
Not that we revel in that kind of stuff, but I mean, it is necessary to stand.
Yeah.
So, yeah.
Are you about ready?
Yeah, we're good.
Oh, are we recording now?

(02:35):
Okay, so Reverend Dr.
Daniel Harmelink is our guest for today.
It's good to have you here.
if you.
So I wanted to I wanted to ask.
OK, so you were you're technically a second career.
Right.

(02:56):
Your third career.
Yeah.
we continue?
I'm second career.
Yeah.
Yeah, it's okay.
Right.
So I get this question all the time as far as, know, when did you decide to become apastor?
And it's just kind of, I just chuckle because I was one of those kicking and screamingguys.

(03:18):
m
Because you grew up in Michigan, is that right?
up in Kalamazoo, Out uh of high school for seven years, I was a graphic artist.
And then at the end of that, everything was going computer.
Everything was going CAD-CAM.
And I thought, how can I be creative with a mouse in my hand?

(03:38):
So I completely said, okay, time for a career change.
So this was at the time that in the Missouri Senate where you could be a social worker andbe rostered.
So uh I decided, okay, I'm going to go to a Lutheran college, be trained as a socialworker, and be on the roster of Missouri Synod.

(04:03):
So it came down to uh Ann Arbor or Irvine.
And so I chose Irvine.
Yeah, so you went out California way and were you married?
No.
the time so you you're able to just kind of pack your bag and go.
just took off.

(04:24):
But by the time I got done with those four years of undergrad, um enough professors hadsaid, you need to consider church work as a pastor.
I thought, well, they see something that I don't see.
So I reluctantly went to seminary.

(04:45):
Went to St.
Louis, MDiv at St.
Louis, and then I deferred the call.
and went to Fort Wayne for a PhD in missions in missiology.
Yeah, that, so was that like 93 or something?
I graduated from St.
Louis in 93 and then in 96 I took a call to Southern California.

(05:07):
Okay, so you spent three years at Fort Wayne doing your coursework and comprehensives andstuff like that.
And then you finished your dissertation, what, 2003?
later.
Well, I was in the parish.
You were in the parish.
Yeah.
So, so, so I want to, I want to ask you more about your, your studies in missiology, but,your time in California, uh, what, so you, you mentioned that, uh, Rod Rosenblatt was one

(05:43):
who was very influential on you.
Dr.
Rosemilat, Dr.
Manske, Bob Dargit, Bob Holtz was there.
All these people said, you really need to think about being a pastor.
I kept saying, no, not me.
Yeah.

(06:04):
What finally pushed you?
What was the, like, you know, this is a question that we're all asked, what made you wantto be a pastor?
ah Besides these external influences of people telling you to do it.
I think it was you know, a God-given love for learning theology.
also, I think it's kind of fourth commandment stuff that, okay, I have to honor the wisdomof these people who I revered, right?

(06:32):
Saying, need to take this seriously.
Yeah, that's interesting.
I'd never, I don't know if I've ever heard anyone connect that to the fourth commandment,but that, that makes sense.
You know, that you, take seriously what your elders, what, you know, whether you're, it'syour parents or other authorities in your life, tell you, cause often when we think of

(06:53):
fourth commandment, we think of it more in a negative way.
Like, you know, obey and do what you do, what you're told, stay in line.
Obey.
cooperate and graduate.
ah But for you it was more of a positive influence that they had that they reallyencouraged you to use your gifts.

(07:15):
And I get that, you know, it's the same kind of attitude or kind of orientation with thehistory of the Church.
One of the things that I argue is, you know, we have to...
keep our history, just like we keep the Word of God.
And again, you know, from the evangelical side, that only means obey.

(07:38):
And for me, it's like, no, keep, you know, again, look it up in the New Testamentdictionary.
uh Keep, the Greek there, is not obey, it's treasure and honor and respect.
And so this is kind of my attitude when it comes to the history of the Missouri Senate orhistory of Lutheranism in North America, is this history, we need to treasure it.

(08:02):
And I think this is the big...
I mean, I'm arguing with this on a daily basis as far as we've forgotten that or we'velost that as far as oh a treasuring of the history of the saints that have gone before.
it's kind of...
You could say that's...
That touches on the fourth commandment.

(08:24):
Yeah, yeah.
No, I would agree that my dad would have a, maybe not a dispute, but a discussion betweenhim and his friend uh Fritz Eckhart.
And they would ask, adopting the worship styles of the evangelicals and throwing out theliturgy, which commandment does that break?

(08:50):
And Fritz would say,
it breaks the fourth commandment because you are not honoring the fathers who came beforeyou to pass this down to you.
My dad would argue that it breaks the seventh commandment because you are stealing fromthe faithful the heritage of hymnody and liturgy that has been passed down to them.

(09:10):
So, ah So, when you, okay, so when you grew up in Michigan, did you grow up?
I assume you grew up Lutheran in the Missouri Synod?
you didn't.
Okay.
So how did you end up Lutheran?
m
So we're, so, you know, the Harmalink family, my folks and the four kids, we're Lutheransby choice.

(09:39):
So I was baptized in the Methodist Church.
But on the way to the Methodist Church on Sunday mornings, my folks would listen to theLutheran hour.
So um I'm the oldest, then comes my sister, and then we had a brother.

(10:02):
So he was born with a cancerous tumor on his spine.
The doctor said, this kid's not going to make it.
If you believe in baptism, get this kid baptized immediately.
He's not going to last two weeks.
So it was uh in this Methodist congregation that some very well-meaning but very

(10:26):
wrong-headed people told my folks that this is God's warning to you that you need to cleanup your Christian life because something's not right.
It's crazy.
So my folks, that of advice crushed my parents.
I bet.

(10:48):
So they were listening to Osmey Hoffman on the radio and things like that.
So they said, well, I think we need a new, to look for a new congregation.
And it wasn't until they came to a Missouri Synod congregation that the pastor basicallyhad a scriptural answer for why is this tragedy happening to our family?

(11:08):
So they said, sign us up.
So again, we're Missouri Synod.
by choice.
I, you know, my great, great grandfather was not a Lutheran pastor.
So, um, that's my, that's my, or that's my folks reason why, you know, I was confirmed andall that.

(11:31):
So then your brother was baptized at
Baptized and um God was gracious.
So he just retired.
He was uh part of the IT unit of Grand Valley College and uh had a great career and thingslike that.
And in some ways, he's the computer nerd in the family.

(11:55):
So again, know, God, we had to leave that, we had to put that into God's hands.
And I think um
That's another one of the strengths of the Lutheran Church is, you know, where God speaks,we speak, where God is silent or His will is not revealed, we don't make stuff up.

(12:16):
Yeah, yeah, that's right.
Yeah, that's great.
There's a similar thing happened, I think, on my mom's side.
my grandpa, if my mom were here, she could tell the story more accurately.
But my grandpa became a Lutheran.
So my mom's father, he became a Lutheran.

(12:37):
I believe it was his aunt who had decided that she was going to make sure that he wasLutheran.
and when his parents died.
And so he would have been brought up Lutheran.
um But then there was also my grandma, she came from a Dutch Christian Reformed backgroundin Michigan.

(13:01):
my folks family.
That's Reformed.
But the detail about both of them is that they were both deaf.
So they went to a deaf school and who has a really good deaf mission, the Missouri Synod.
And so my grandma became Lutheran largely because she was deaf.

(13:22):
And so my mom was raised in the Missouri Synod Church in Coldwater, Michigan.
And so she grew up Lutheran.
um And so God works through these ailments for His glory.
um So, okay, so when...
Just a quick aside is, you know, we're coming up, I think we're having a hundred yearanniversary of deaf ministry in the Missouri Synod.

(13:46):
So Concordia Historical Institute, we're trying to make plans for a book on this richhistory of deaf ministry in the Missouri Synod.
uh It's amazing.
um Again, often, you know, uh with the studies and missions, you always hear thesestereotypes that are out there and it's like, well, know, Missouri Synod, most people

(14:07):
don't care about missions and things like that.
ethnic ministry and that's a bunch of baloney.
is a bunch of baloney.
We're going through the autobiography of uh Rosa Young in our uh ladies Bible study.
We decided to just do a book and just read a chapter every week and talk about it.
And boy, that lady, uh if you're going to do mission work, that I think is a must read.

(14:33):
I mean, that the kind of the kind of legwork that she did, but also that uh pastor Baki.
from came from the Norwegian Synod that he was doing.
It was just really incredible.
And it shows that, your context is going to be different, but your substance, your andyour basic, you know, uh a form of teaching isn't going to change.

(15:00):
You're going to teach the catechism, you're going to teach the scriptures, you're going toteach hymns.
And that's one thing that she really appreciated a lot about the Lutheran Church was
the Lutheran hymnody.
One of her favorite hymns was by Zell Necker, that let me be thine forever.
You know, and that's, that's just, it's really cool to see that.
Yeah.
Well, maybe you guys, maybe if they want to interview my mom, she could probably tell thema little bit about her, her experience growing up with deaf parents and who were Lutheran.

(15:29):
And, but, uh, yeah.
So I, what, what I wanted to ask then is going back to, to Irvine then, did you,
Your love for theology, I think that's a great answer.
That's why I decided to be a pastor.
ah I think it really needs help.

(15:50):
I think that it really should start with that.
If it's starting with, I want to serve people, that's great.
And you really, that's vital.
You should be a pastor if you don't want to serve people.
But, you know, the first table of the law comes before the second.
And if you love God's word,
And you want, you love to learn it.

(16:12):
You love to talk about it.
You love to communicate it with people.
And I think one of the things for me that has been helpful for me, and it sounds like,like you've had a similar, similar experience in studying God's word is seeing how the
gospel is really at the center and that doctrine is not just this kind of linear uh listof rules.

(16:39):
that are somewhat detached from each other, but it's this body of doctrine and uh
it's like the perfect circle of linked rings, that, uh, Losey, right?
So, so getting back from, you know, the first year seminary, getting back for like aChristmas break or whatever, it's like reading, read, reading the book of Concord and

(17:01):
things like that.
It's like, now it's all falling in place.
Now all this blurry stuff, um, it, you know, it's coming into focus.
That was.
You know, some people say, you know, why did God send you to seminary?
It's like, well, maybe to straighten me out and, you know, save me.

(17:22):
It was that, it was that big a change.
Yeah.
Yeah.
David Peterson has made this, has made this comment in the past, that he, don't know ifI'm totally remembering exactly where he puts it, but that he was, yeah, or whenever this
airs, but that he, was saying that, that a lot of guys go into seminary, um, because theydon't want to go to hell.

(17:49):
And there, I think there's probably truth to that.
mean, I, I do, when I look at my
seminary training, it wasn't just training me to be a pastor, but it really was saving mysoul.
was helping, you when I read a sermon, I'm preaching to myself too, and I need the word ofGod to speak to me and be applied to me so that I can apply it to those who, you know, as

(18:18):
Paul says to Timothy, hold fast to the doctrine.
and you will save both yourself and those who hear you.
I tell the elders, I say, you know, who's the first person who hears the sermon on Sunday?
It reaches my ears before you.
Yeah, so when you went to Irvine, that help develop this appreciation of theology as thisbody, the rings kind of being held together, or did that kind of gradually come through

(18:52):
your studies at seminary?
No, I think it all started in Irvine.
But again, it was interesting.
So even going into the social work thing, um something was going on.
So I wrote the presidents of all the Lutheran seminaries in North America saying, youknow, hey, I'm getting an undergrad degree.

(19:16):
What do you suggest as far as preparations if I go to seminary?
And was interesting.
This was like 1983, right?
So almost to the letter, these presidents of seminaries wrote back saying, get as broad aneducation as you can.
Do not go pre-sem, which was very surprising.
um So that has its strengths and weaknesses as far as being outside this pre-sem program.

(19:42):
in generations past, those who
um either the families said, okay, you're going to be a pastor.
I mean, they started languages in the 10th grade.
Yeah.
So I didn't have that luxury at all.
So it was interesting.

(20:03):
at Irvine, my major was uh anthropology.
Okay.
So Irvine, I think, did both.
It gave me a hunger to dig deeper into God's Word, right?
and the theology of the 16th century Reformation, but it also emphasized pastors need toknow broadly about the world, even though it's a fallen and corrupt world.

(20:32):
We need to learn culture and language and things like that.
um
Would you say that that's sort of a liberal arts degree?
Yeah, I think so.
Or liberal arts approach to education.
No, I agree.
I'd say one of the things that seminary taught me besides helping me learn theology betterwas giving me a better appreciation for history.

(20:58):
Even for math, I remember sitting in Dr.
Ziegler's class when I went to Fort Wayne for my STM.
and he's explaining the...
because Luther would allude to mathematical jargon once in a while and Ziegler wouldexplain it to us and I thought, man, I wish I would have worked harder on math when I was

(21:23):
younger.
know, like the math
I tell people, they say, why are you a pastor?
said, well, because pastors only need to count up to 12 or 70 or something, you know.
Yeah.
So, well, that's great that those mathematical gifts can also be used by the Church,
Yeah, yeah, yeah and I was talking to my kids about this the other day and I often have todefer to my wife because when it comes to math because she's the math whiz uh but we were

(21:53):
talking about like how Luther will describe faith is like a mathematical point and amathematical point is one that you can approximate but you can never have you can never
pinpoint it exactly and it's it's a helpful way to understand what what faith is that youknow faith
When we try to pinpoint faith, like a lot of churches do where they say, when were yousaved?

(22:17):
When did you first have faith?
Well, I can pinpoint the object of my faith, and that's Christ and his saving death andresurrection, his promise given to me in my baptism in the gospel.
That's what my faith holds onto and where my faith comes from.
But uh to try to pinpoint exactly the phenomenon of faith is

(22:42):
you know, that gets you into some trouble.
Yeah, well Luther recognized that, right?
So when he says, you know, even a 70-year-old knows what the church is, it doesn't...
yeah, it's not a, many digits of pi can you memorize kind thing.
Yeah.

(23:03):
you, okay, so you went to, you then went to seminary.
um You, after graduating from Irvine, you worked, you did.
Worked in Japan for a little over a year, eliminated some school debt and then off to St.
Louis.
Okay, so you were technically second career, but you were kind of, it wasn't, it wasn'tthat long of a stretch before you went off a few years.

(23:31):
So.
I think again, you know, at the time, Concordia Seminary St.
Louis, uh if you were married, so got married in the next...
Next week I was in summer Greek.
in 1989, if you were married, you couldn't live on campus.
And the ratio of married seminary students was still very low.

(23:55):
And even second career.
So I was kind of an odd man out at seminary.
And the questions that I was asking in the classroom were a little different than the 24year olds.
So what were some of the questions you asked?
Well, I think they were more practical or more geared to, okay, situations that you'regoing to ultimately face in the parish instead of, okay, well, we're just going to ace

(24:25):
another exam and then move on to the next class.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Well, I mean, and with a second career guy, what I've noticed, I mean, you just met Jim,Will Susan, and he's second career guy.
was, he was a hog farmer for most of his life.
And I've noticed that you might have guys who come in and they just can't handle theacademic rigor and ah

(24:54):
that it's tough for them.
And some of them might even have kind of an attitude of, well, but I have my experienceand that's what's gonna carry me through.
ah But other guys I've noticed, and I would put Jim in this category, and others that Iwent to seminary with who were some of the best students.

(25:17):
because they were, they were mature.
So they understood that balance of the academic rigor as well as the, you know, theconcern for practical application.
Um, and these are the kinds of guys that I could sit and have a beer with and talktheology and not get tired.
You know, they wouldn't, they wouldn't get worn out.
Um, but, uh, but anyway, so, okay, so you, finished seminary and then you went to FortWayne, you studied your missiology stuff.

(25:45):
All right.
uh Your dissertation, I skimmed a little bit of it.
It's on
Yeah, if you have a sleeping problem, it's a good...
Yeah, I find it interesting.
So you're talking about kenosis, which is from the Greek word that's often translated inPhilippians 2, I believe it's verses 5 through 11, but I can't remember what verse says

(26:10):
that he emptied himself, but it's translated as the heat.
Two or seven.
Yeah, so he emptied himself and took on the form of a servant.
And your...
describing how that emptying Christ emptying himself and understanding that correctlyhelps us understand the mission of the church and the role of the missionary.

(26:36):
Right.
So at the time that I was uh beginning that dissertation topic, this kenosis was kind of ahot topic or kind of a faddish thing among mission circles, predominantly in the
evangelical mission community.
As far as, em again, um to be super stereotypical, know, lot of people take thatPhilippians too as, okay,

(27:06):
It begins, you know, it's mistranslated, you know, have the same mind that Christ had.
That's not what it says.
But people think, oh, okay, well, I have to imitate Christ.
And they take the whole thing that way.
And then as a missiologist, you say, okay, so Christ emptied himself.
So I have to empty myself.

(27:26):
Now, what am I going to empty myself of?
And it goes all goofy.
Okay.
So the dissertation topic was kind of a corrective as far as what is Philippians 2actually saying and how does that relate to the Christian when Christ has a unique, no one
else is called to be the Redeemer of the world.

(27:50):
So how do we follow, you know?
So what does Paul actually say?
Right.
So have the mind that you have in Christ Jesus.
That's a completely different thing.
Jesus did this, so now it's your turn.
Yeah.
Yeah, if I remember correctly, it's literally, think this as it is in Christ Jesus orsomething.

(28:15):
You have to kind of fill in some of the blanks or you have to fill it out.
So, self-emptying, know, what is it?
So, it was my position that Paul is leaning on the suffering servant of Isaiah 52 and 53,where it says, Christ poured out his lifeblood.

(28:40):
So I think it's a more helpful translation that Christ didn't empty himself of something,but he poured out his lifeblood.
oh This is what I believe Paul is getting at.
But this Christ him again in mission circles is like, okay, I have to empty myself of myAmerican identity to become a missionary.

(29:00):
It's like, that's not what Philippians 2 is all about.
So again, it was kind of a corrective, but...
uh
play into, because I've heard, I've heard this sounds, that sounds familiar.
I've heard this way of talking where you, you need to uh adopt their narrative or theirlived experience and stuff like that.

(29:26):
It becomes very sociologically driven um instead of theologically driven.
uh that I need to, uh even today you have recognized my privilege and all that kind ofstuff and the dealing with almost, you dealing with that paradigm of the oppressors and

(29:46):
the oppressed, the haves and the have nots.
Was that, did you, did you sense that kind of talking back then?
Yeah, it's just, it's used as a, as a pretext to, for, for any kind of, you know, socialwhatever that you want to put in there.
So, abuse of scripture.

(30:08):
if you draw that to its logical conclusion, which a lot of liberal church bodies have, youend up frankly being opposed to missions at all.
Because you're forcing on them your own kind of Western whatever, your ah Western uh

(30:34):
identity and you're taking away their identity.
that's going to draw the conclusion then that, well, maybe we shouldn't even do missionsat all because then we're just being oppressors if we do that.
So no, that's really helpful.

(30:56):
in the beginning of that Christ-him, Carmen Christie,
Right, exactly.
you have, he is in the morphē, tūtheū, right?
I think that's how the Greek goes, that he was in the form of God.
And I believe Luther says that the form of God, that's not the same thing, although someLutherans have translated it as the essence or nature of God, but it's not exactly the

(31:26):
same thing as his essence.
It's his
his appearance, his outward glory, his, um, and so he empties himself of his taking, youknow, he empties, he hides himself.
He hides.
puts it aside or he doesn't make use of it.
So we see this in the suffering of Christ that he doesn't often or in certaincircumstances, he doesn't make use of what he had.

(31:57):
But that doesn't mean he emptied himself.
Exactly.
And so again, we get into just out and out heresy when you say Christ became 80 % of
humanity and only 20 % of divin- you know, it's like, that's silly, that's silly talk.
That's where the mathematics is not helpful.

(32:18):
like he sees to be God.
ah So he empties himself, that is, he pours his life out.
He hides himself.
Jesus speaks in John chapter 10 where he says, no one takes my life from me.

(32:41):
I have the power presently, I have the power to lay it down, I have the power to take itup.
So he makes it very clear there that even in his state of humiliation, he still has all ofhis divine attributes.
So how would this then, how do we apply that then to so that Jesus hides himself, he pourshis life out, he's not just giving up certain social privileges, ah although certainly

(33:06):
that would be included.
uh
He made himself poor so that we would be rich.
How do we apply this then to the missionary?
And, and is there, is there a sense where there is some truth to this, where as anAmerican, let's say you're going into, you're going, you're going to Africa and you're an

(33:29):
American, you're Western.
And certainly you have to understand the differences there and become all things to allpeople.
So how would you apply this emptying of yourself to the missionary?

(33:50):
Yeah, I think it's less to do with what the missionary has to do to be a faithfulmissionary when it comes to my personal identity, then you're a bearer of Christ.
Like Christopher, right?
You're a Christ bearer, a banner of Christ.

(34:14):
So for me, that Philippians 2 has more...
You know, in a congregation that I'm a member of, last Sunday we sang, a lamb goesuncomplaining forth.
That's the kenosis of Christ.
And that the missionary is charged to present in a faithful way.

(34:35):
So it's more about the faithful announcement or proclamation of who Christ is and Hismission and what He's come to do.
And that then, oh,
I'm among people who are taller than me or shorter than me, so I need to have leg surgeryto fit in better.

(34:56):
I mean, I've talked to missionaries, so my, a lot of background is, you know, Japan,right?
So there are actually missionaries going into the Japanese culture that had surgery ontheir eyes or wear contacts and things like that with the hope that they will be more,
that they will be accepted.

(35:17):
And it's like,
Again, the basis of that is get the missionary's eyes off the missionary and get it on thegospel.
so did they learn karate too?
uh
idea, but you think, okay, that's, that's a sincere wish to, to, you know, to embraceanother culture or another language and all that.

(35:44):
Yeah.
But it's completely wrong headed.
Yeah, wow, I'd never heard of people doing that.
That's, yeah, that is very wrong.
Yeah, I mean, like what Paul says in Romans eight, I believe he's quoting from Psalm 116that we go as sheep before the slaughter, that we present ourselves as sheep before the

(36:09):
slaughter.
And.
it sounds to me like what you're getting at here, I had a conversation with my dad aboutthe ministry and you know that whole, that I don't know if it's a debate, it might be a
debate between the ontological view of the ministry and the functional view of theministry.

(36:30):
Yeah, well, I would make
the teleological?
Purpose, yeah, that's another, that's an academic way of saying the purpose of theministry.
The end goal.
goal of the ministry.
I would say that the ministry, the work of the ministry is just that, it's work.
It's an office.

(36:51):
That is, it's a function.
It's very much functional.
Now, obviously there's going to then follow some kind of ontological, you know, if you'redoing something, then the on-toss of that is going to...
is going to manifest itself.
But when you focus on the ontological aspect of the ministry, primarily, before you focuson the work that God has called you to do, that's when you fall into not only this kind of

(37:18):
sastrodotalism, but you also fall into this hyper-psychologizing of it, sociological view,where somehow you're going to have this ministry of presence and like your
your existence among them or affirming them and whatever narrative they want to portraythat that somehow is the work of the ministry.

(37:42):
But it sounds like what you're saying is, no, the work of the ministry is to proclaim thetruth and be willing to suffer for
the consequences.
So maybe it has more to do, you know, in some situations Jesus was silent and He didn'tdefend Himself.
Ultimately, that's on the cross, right?

(38:03):
But in other things He defended Himself.
So it's like only a Christ-led life.
Does the pastor or the missionary know when to say a clear word and to stand for thetruth?

(38:27):
We see this in the life of Luther too, and when to be silent.
Jesus says everything I did in public, ask them.
Yeah, yeah, that's right.
And that allows you then to have a good conscience and rest upon the Word and the workthat God has prepared and not make it about your own identity.

(38:52):
And that seems to be, know, our age today is very obsessed with self-identity and all thatkind of neat stuff.
So, okay, so you...
You eventually now, what was it, about 11 years ago, took a position as the executivedirector for Concordia Historical Institute.

(39:15):
How did that...
in the parish in Southern California for 17 years and then this call came to be directorat Concordia Historical Institute.
So was like, that was out of the blue.
everything in the parish was fine.
So I had no reason to leave.
and you're out in California.

(39:36):
I'm out in California, which is mission territory.
I always wanted to be a missionary.
Well, do parish work in Southern California.
That's mission territory right there.
uh But again, was like the finding myself at seminary, this call to come to the holiestcity of St.

(39:59):
Louis and work at Concordia Historical Institute.
This was not out of my radar.
So I thought,
Well, maybe this is God, this is the Lord, because again, this wasn't my dream.
So again, I thought, well, I have to take this seriously.
Yeah.

(40:19):
So what is your work like then?
Could you describe?
It's a.
Yeah.
But I think, again, know, um having a pastoral approach to the work of CHI is a healthyone.
um Being a steward of the history of not just the Lutheran Church, but it's the history ofChrist's work among

(40:53):
Missouri Synod Lutherans.
Talking earlier about...
We need to take that seriously, right?
you were talking earlier about like guarding that, like guarding that deposit, treasuringthat.
So like, what was it, 15 years ago, uh President Harrison came out with this book, In theHouse of My Fathers.
And again, it's this idea of the saints that have gone before um that narrative or thatstory or that history, and even the Reformation, the history of the early church, all of

(41:30):
that, we need to...
not put it in the safe lock box, you know, but to uh daily treasure it and to share it.
So now at the Concordia Historical Institute, have this kind of, it's like a two-prongeduh mission or ministry is to...

(42:00):
treasure our history, our common history, and to trumpet it.
know, again, we just, we didn't celebrate.
We commemorated the 50th anniversary of the walkout recently, this last February.
And uh it's amazing how many people have never heard that story or want to forget it.

(42:24):
Yeah.
Yeah.
And again, think one of the walkaways to that history is Missouri Synod shouldn't bearound today.
It has had not just that crisis, but so many crises in the 175 years plus of the MissouriSynod that this church body should have been dissolved or just fell apart generations ago.

(42:54):
Yeah.
Yeah.
No, think, I think you're right there.
It really is the only church body that was seeped in higher criticism that actually.
Survived it, backed out and was able to get out of it.
And it's really.
Right, usually it's the faith, you know, those faithful to the Word of God that leave.

(43:18):
And so it's like how that happened or how it turned out, it's like uh completelyunexpected.
And again, has, know, God was gracious to the Missouri Synod.
But in other aspects of that, that means that the
Some of the issues that were present 50 years ago have never really been resolved.

(43:41):
They just kind of went away.
If you know what I mean.
So there's still this kind of, I don't think Missouri Senate has processed what happenedon the Concordia Seminary campus.
Yeah.
Well, I'll give you an example of that.
I was uh recently giving communion to uh residents of a nursing home, and we have a decentpopulation of Missouri St.

(44:09):
Lutherans at the nursing home.
uh so, being who we are, being faithful to what the Scriptures teach about communion, wepractice closed communion.
We give it only to those who are members in good standing of
congregations that confess the same thing that we confess because that's what communion,among other things, communion is a confession of our shared doctrine.

(44:35):
So what I do is I just go around, when I get there, I ask who is...
Where do you all go to church?
And I find out, um most of them, I have one parishioner and the other, the rest of themare Jim's parishioners.
So you met Jim earlier, he's pastor of Bethlehem and Ebenezer.
that are just in the country here.

(44:58):
And uh once in while you'll have someone who's from another Missouri Synod Church.
But at any rate, so while I'm setting up for communion and I kind of announce forcommunion and then I'm setting up, I can hear the UCC ladies talking.
And I hear them say, well, it doesn't really matter as long as you, and it was some kindof reductionist sort of.

(45:21):
talk as as you believe in Jesus as long as you believe in Jesus and that so that thatgospel reduction is is still very much alive and well and even our members who are And I
would say the the people around here are pretty well trained on that You know, they'resurrounded constantly by friends relatives or roommates, you know who don't understand it

(45:50):
and
and they're operating with this reductionist mindset.
And you had written something for the Lutheran Witness uh maybe last year on this reallybeing the main issue during Seminacs was gospel reductionism.
And you were talking about how chefs will reduce the flavors.

(46:14):
Are you good in the kitchen?
I love to
No, I am in the kitchen.
love to But I've never done what you described there.
I want to try it.
Yeah, go for it.
Just make sure you have a smoke alarm in here.
Yeah, well we have a very sensitive one.
So could you describe that reducing of flavors?
So the funny thing is that in the three years of seminary instruction it was this gospelreductionism or the CTCR document scripture and the gospel that I completely could, I

(46:47):
couldn't get my head around it all.
So it's, God does have a sense of humor so it's like okay it fell on me to write thislittle article on gospel reductionism which is like how do you explain that?
So, yeah, okay, so I had to use some illustration.
So, yeah, I'm not a cook, but uh you hear this, you know, it's a reduction kind of thing.

(47:12):
So, it's like, okay, uh the cooking world has reductions, and in the kitchen this worksvery well, but in theology it doesn't work at all.
And...
uh
So what is it, what they do in the kitchen?
They take...
Like if you have a fruit or something like that, basically boil it down to make it moreintense.

(47:36):
So there's less water left and the more good stuff, more flavor.
You're going to burn it.
You're going to burn it.
Or you're just going to turn into a gloppy burn mess.
So it takes a lot of skill, a lot of art.
that.
Yeah, and so that got me thinking when you giving that analogy of reductionism and howthey try to do this with the gospel, but it inevitably turns into a gooey mess.

(48:07):
It is.
And so, I mean, one of the things that I thought of though when I was reading that is thatthere is such a thing, and we see this in the scriptures, Paul uses this all the time,
there is such a thing as shorthand, uh even theological jargon.
We have a wide meaning and broad meaning.
So sometimes gospel means the entire Word of God and sometimes it's more specific.

(48:32):
And same thing with the law, you know, the Torah, it can mean the entirety of the Word ofGod or it can be something more specific.
So again, it's like, you know, Paul talks about, you know, doing surgery with the Word ofGod, it's hard to do that with a club.
So some finesse or some

(48:53):
distinction is necessary or it's just going to become a big, big stinking mess.
Yeah.
And you mentioned that George Warwick Montgomery was the one to kind of coin that term.
he's the one that, you know, if he had to pay John Warwick Montgomery, the sainted JohnWarwick Montgomery right now, if he had to pay him a dollar every time he used that

(49:16):
phrase, you know, he'd be a millionaire.
But again, um for me, or I think for a lot of people, this is kind of a catchphrase.
like, that's gospel reductionism.
But it's like, OK, what does that actually mean?
Yeah, so yeah, let's get into it a little more then.
How would you describe gospel reductionism?

(49:38):
I think it's this temptation that when it comes to...
As uh Lutherans talk about this law gospel distinction, right?
So it's like, if you believe that the gospel has completely negated any use or anyinterest in the law, then you just throw the gospel word around.

(50:04):
and that's the answer to everything.
So when it comes to making these distinctions, uh no, we need the entire Word of God.
And this law of gospel isn't, you know, when I was younger, I kept thinking, why doesn'tConcordia come out with a study Bible?
And it's just all the law stuff is highlighted in brown, and then all the gospel stuff ishighlighted in yellow.

(50:32):
And it's like, it's not, it's...
This distinction, making this distinction, isn't like that.
Yeah, yeah, that's right.
That's right.
Yeah, no, that's that's
this reducing or making it oversimplification, it harms the work of Moses and it harms thework of Christ.

(50:53):
Luther has a really good sermon.
I think it's Trinity 18.
It's labeled a beautiful sermon on law and gospel or something like that, where he talksabout how law and gospel are distinct and yet they're also inseparable.
And so, we see this in the Sermon on the Mount where, for example, when Jesus says, ifsomeone takes your cloak, give them your tunic as well.

(51:18):
What Jesus is alluding to there is from Exodus chapter 22, where Moses is told if you takesomeone's coat as collateral, ah you might give someone a loan and then he gives you his

(51:39):
coat as a guarantee that he'll pay you back by the end of the day.
God says you must give him his coat back by the end of the day.
You must not allow him to be without it during the night because he's going to get cold.
That's his only covering.
And then he says, he's going to call out to me and I will hear him because I am full ofcompassion.

(52:01):
Now that's gospel.
God will hear you and he is full of compassion, but that's kind of snuggled in to this lawstatement.
So when Jesus says to you, if someone sues you for your coat, give him your tunic as well.
In other words, he's teaching you the law, but what's
hidden in there is Him teaching you faith, that you should be willing to be in thatposition of the one who needs God's mercy and to trust in it.

(52:30):
To try to take a highlighter and say, where's the law and where's the gospel in thisstatement, would completely miss that point and really tears apart the body of the
doctrine that is taught in Scripture.
So what pastor is going to say, okay, Sunday coming up, I'm going to preach an all gospelsermon this Sunday.

(52:50):
It's like, that's not the way it works.
You can have how many people in the congregation, and God's going to use that in differentways, depending on different people.
um one person may em come out of that after the sermon, out of the service saying,

(53:13):
That was, you know, they heard the law because they need to hear the law.
And others that are beat up and say, uh I'm beyond forgiveness, are going to hear allgospel.
It's like, how does that work?
Because it's the Word of God.
Yeah.
When I was, uh I did a funeral for this guy, one of my parishioners in Iowa.

(53:37):
And I was meeting with his children a couple of weeks later because his widow then died acouple of weeks after him.
So I was arranging the funeral and their daughter who didn't go to church,
said that she had a problem with one of the readings.

(54:00):
And I thought, well, which one?
the reading...
No, no, no, it wasn't.
ah One of the readings, the gospel lesson, turned out to be the gospel lesson from Johnchapter 10, where Jesus describes himself as the good shepherd.
And I thought to myself, that's insane.

(54:22):
Yeah, like that's what I was thinking.
So then I read it and Jesus talks about the hireling and the wolf coming and scatteringthe sheep.
And she thought that was just too negative.
And I thought, wow, I mean, to a Christian, that is one of the most gospel rich,comforting passages.

(54:43):
That Christ is our good shepherd, that we hear his voice, that he lays his life down forus.
But all she could hear was the negative
warnings of the enemy and the hireling.
That's why he's the good, that's why he's the noble, the beautiful shepherd is because notall shepherds are like that.

(55:06):
Well, that's, you know, again, different passages will hit different people differentways, but that obviously made her very uncomfortable.
Yeah, yeah.
So when this gospel reductionism is being pushed uh in the seminary, wasn't a guy namedSchrader?
Was that one of the guys who...

(55:27):
A Schrader?
Yeah.
ah I've heard that name.
He still, his website is still up if you want to be interested in some of his things.
But again, it's this, you know, the gospel has final word on everything, and thateviscerates any, I mean, you know, that eviscerates Moses and the law.

(55:52):
And again, this understanding that we as Christians here on earth, we have a
old will never believe nature and a new Christ-like nature and they need different things.
Doesn't it also beg the question, assuming that you know what the gospel is, like you comein as the one who knows the gospel, now you're going to scrutinize the scriptures to see

(56:18):
uh whether something passes the snuff if it has to do with the gospel, when really itshould be the other way around that while we are given that rule of faith and that simple
understanding of the gospel, first of all, we get that from scripture.
But second of all, we're continually growing in our understanding of the gospel from theauthority of the Word of God.

(56:43):
And like you pointed out that you can do this with the Lord's Supper then, which to anyLutheran, this should be confusing and really ridiculous that you would say, whether the
body and blood of Jesus is present in the Lord's Supper,
is not really important as long as we believe the gospel.

(57:04):
Like, well, hold on, but that is the gospel.
Like, that's part of the gospel that Jesus gives me His body and blood, or that my baptismsaves me.
ah But there are other issues too that are more that we would categorize more as firstarticle having to do with creation or the law.
So one of the issues that I suppose would come up with would be like women's ordination,right?

(57:28):
um
And so, so they're going to say, well, that doesn't touch on the gospel.
Therefore, that is an Adiaphron or something like that.
But it sounds like what they're doing is.
Well, everything's up for grabs after a while because I don't know if it was Ed Schraderor one of these guys.
It's like the gospel is defined as good news in a bad situation.

(57:49):
And with that, you can run anywhere you want.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
And so what you have around that same time, in the 1960s and 70s, you have the formulationof these types of liberation theology as well, that the gospel becomes transformed into

(58:10):
this social gospel, which I mean, we could trace that back probably to...
Roche and Bush in the 1920s.
And even before that, uh Ulbrich ritual, uh, you know, he, think he kind of got the ballrolling a lot more on that social gospel, but yeah, picked up in the, what the 1920s he

(58:30):
said.
Um, yeah.
So, I mean, that, that becomes a completely different gospel.
It's not the gospel at all.
And if the criteria is simply good news in a bad situation, well, the good news could be,Hey, you're not,
in debt anymore or something, you know, you're I paid off your debts like, okay, well,that's great, but that's not the gospel.

(58:52):
Well, now we have social justice, right?
So, if you want to see what happens to that social gospel 100 years ago, the full fruit ofthat is the Lutheran World Federation today, where the justification of sinners by the

(59:12):
lifeblood of Christ sacrificed on the cross, um
they would say, no, that's not it.
Justification as the doctrine by which the Church stands and falls, it's been completelyreplaced now.
Yeah.
So it is basically replaced with this, this concept of just affirming other people'snarratives and their lived experiences.

(59:38):
Uh, and so like we were talking earlier, it ends with not doing missions at all.
Like you end up abandoning the mission field.
Yeah.
Uh, yeah.
Now what they would say then is that the authority, they would also mix up two categories.
We'd call the formal principle and the material principle.

(59:59):
Or what I've learned to call it, the authority of what we teach and the power of what weteach.
So the authority of what we teach would be the scriptures.
That's the basis for everything that is to be taught in the church of God.
The power being the gospel, the power of God unto salvation.

(01:00:20):
But you have this, you'll hear this and sometimes you hear it in a very radical way.
And other times...
maybe a more subtle way where the scripture's authenticity is based upon the power of thegospel to give you faith.

(01:00:41):
And this ends up undermining the authority of scripture itself.
Now, one thing I find helpful, uh my grandpa's book, Inspiration of Scripture, talks aboutthis.
I find this helpful to
get into the disti—and Chemnitz talks about this too—the difference between the authorityof Scripture itself and the witnesses to its authority.

(01:01:09):
So you have external witnesses, so the early fathers bore witness to the authorship.
uh We also have internal witnesses, so the wisdom that is inherent in there, the gospel,the comfort that it gives you.
And so it's one thing to ask
How do you know the Bible is the word of God?

(01:01:31):
It's another thing to ask.
How is the Bible the word of God?
Right.
Why is the Bible the word of God?
And the first question you might say, well, I know it because my parents taught it to me.
um I, I believe the gospel, the Holy Spirit has strengthened my faith through that.

(01:01:51):
uh There's lot of wisdom in there and it bears witness to that.
But how is it the Word of God?
Well, because holy men spake as they were carried around, carried along by the HolySpirit.
And so it's certainly I'll compare it to how do know that your dad is your dad?
Well, there might be various, you know, witnesses to that.

(01:02:14):
He fed you, he clothed you, he gave you shelter, he raised you, he loves you, you know, heplayed football with you or whatever, you know, taught you how to do this or that kind of
thing.
And
And he remains faithful to you, but that's not why he's your dad.
Those are witnesses to his character as your dad, but he's your dad because he begat you.

(01:02:40):
And so the scripture's authority, I think is often subverted by the witnesses to itsauthority.
But the problem there is that then we...
we assume that we are the arbitrators of what makes God's Word God's Word.
And really what makes the gospel the gospel.

(01:03:02):
uh The gospel is simple.
It's simple enough for a child to understand for a seven-year-old.
ah But the gospel is also an ocean deep as well.
And sometimes we need it to be, to be, you know, more in the shallow and not shallow inthat,
What do they say?
The gospel in a nutshell is John 3.16.

(01:03:25):
all of that can, it, you know, if we would live 600 years, we'd still be unpacking.
Yeah.
And that's something that like Augustine says something in his Christian doctrine abouthow passages that are, you know, passages that are simple and straightforward are
essential help for the simple.

(01:03:48):
But there are others who are not as simple and they need to dig deeper.
And that, so when you have someone who he's never
growing in his understanding, but he wants to.
Well, he's going to go somewhere else.
He's going to go to some other disciplines.
And I think this gets to that advice that you were given that broaden your horizons, learnas much as you can, because that really is going to help you see how the scriptures are

(01:04:17):
relevant and speak to and give you insight and wisdom in all of these different ways inwhich your thoughts
are going.
And so you hold every thought captive to the obedience of Christ.
But when you first start with this kind of reduced view of the gospel, and then now you'rein the driver's seat of judging everything based on that, it actually becomes boring, you

(01:04:43):
know?
old like sermon illustration about, or it's a poem, right?
It's like, um just give me five cents worth of forgiveness, just enough to get me in thedoor.
And it's like, no, that's not the way it works.
So um this sense of interest in digging deeper into the scriptures, interest in diggingdeeper into history.

(01:05:12):
the lives and faith of the saints.
uh I think this is a gift from God.
Instead of just, give me enough theology that I can write a decent sermon and uh getpeople interested every Sunday.
It's like, no, that's not our approach.
Yeah.
When you see this with electionary where some, some Sundays are a lot morestraightforward, like the, the texts, the pericope, is a lot more straightforward and you

(01:05:43):
can have a, like I, I, I try on, on good shepherd Sunday, for example, I try to have thatbe very simple.
Um, but other, other, other times it calls for you to dig deeper.
and maybe it depends on the setting and who's there.
like Christmas Eve is going to be simple.

(01:06:03):
Yeah, we're Christmas morning.
congregation in its life.
So maybe you have to go a little different direction.
I mean the the pericodal system is there for our our well-being.
So it's good to have some guardrails but there's plenty there's plenty I mean there'splenty to feast on even with fences there.

(01:06:33):
Yeah.
Yeah, exactly.
Yeah.
Like the Quakers, know, good fences make good neighbors.
It helps with pastoral care then too, because if you can see how the scriptures are,they're simple when they need to be simple and they're deep when they need to be deep,
then you're meeting people at various different stages in their lives.

(01:06:56):
And if you ignore something and say, well, that doesn't really matter, then, well, whatabout the Christian who is struggling and grappling with
I don't know, the orders of creation.
that's something I think that we're seeing kind of come home to roost today.

(01:07:17):
Where when they in previous generations, when they say, well, women's ordination should beallowed because it's really the distinction between men and women and what the Bible says
there that's, know, historically.
And yeah, yeah.
And so that doesn't really matter.
smarter than those dumb people generations ago so they just didn't get it and we'resmarter than them.

(01:07:43):
well, and what we see today is we see both young men and young women who are at sea,they're lost and not just spiritually, but even just culturally and they're thirsting for
some kind of structure.
Like, what does it mean to be a man?
What does it mean to be a woman?
And when we spend so many generations ignoring that stuff or making people feel likethey're just Amish for even considering it.

(01:08:10):
then we're leaving them out to dry because God is our creator and He cares about thesethings.
And the gospel does apply.
Because that's the other thing I want to then maybe kind of conclude with here and ask youabout is that, okay, and this reveals kind of the irony of gospel reductionism is gospel

(01:08:30):
reductionism, eventually you lose the gospel.
But what we would say is that we still care about
how things are uh affected or attached to the gospel.
So we're not going to say that...
So why can...
Why do we only ordain women?

(01:08:53):
Or men?
do we only ordain men?
Well, the Bible says so.
Okay, well, it's also based on creation.
Okay.
But if you keep going, eventually you see how this does relate to the gospel.
that Christ is the God man.
He is the second Adam.

(01:09:14):
He is the head of his church, which the marriage is a reflection of, the husband being thehead of the wife.
Exactly.
Yeah.
And so you actually find that, we're not, because one of the things that we'd be accusedof, they conflate two things.

(01:09:36):
They call us
Biblists and they call us fundamentalists.
Now I'm fine with being called either of those things if that means that I believe thatthe Bible is true.
I will though, if I break it down, I won't technically admit to being a fundamentalist,but I will admit to being a Biblistist because I believe the Bible is true.

(01:09:58):
But with fundamentalism though, why are we not fundamentalists?
Historically, fundamentalism is the twelve fundamentals that came out and it's like, okay,with the introduction of this higher critical stuff and modern rational approaches to
Scripture, it's like, okay, we're going to take our stand with these twelve fundamentaldoctrines and let everything else go.

(01:10:24):
Exactly.
So even fundamentalism is a kind of reductionism.
Definitely.
It's like, okay, we're only going to die on these 12 hills, the seven day creation or thevirgin birth and everything else will let go.
And it's like, no, it's the word of God.
Yeah, yeah.
So fundamentalism is dealing with that kind of linear line upon line view of Christiandoctrine.

(01:10:52):
what we're fighting against, and when we fight against this gospel reductionism, and wewant to hold the biblical inerrancy and authority, what we're really holding onto is this
body of doctrine.
And like you mentioned, the rings all attached and held together with Christ as the chiefcornerstone.
uh

(01:11:13):
And that gives us a perspective then on like why we take all these other things soseriously.
The Word of the Lord endures forever, it's not the twelve fundamentals endure forever.
It's the Word of God.
So, say amen to all of it.
The Biblism though, as far as personal experience, this is where I'm attacked orcondemned.

(01:11:38):
this, oh, you're one of those, you've...
uh made, this is by, you know, people, higher critics saying, you have made the Bible youridol.
Well, kind of, not an idol, but I mean, it is God's word.
So, it's God's word, right?
As Isaiah 66 says that, is the one on whom I will look, he who is contrite and humble inspirit and who trembles at my word.

(01:12:07):
So, do I tremble before the word of God?
Yeah.
And do I tremble before the Bible?
Yeah.
I hope
Does that mean you don't have it all figured out?
know, that kind of thing.
So, again, getting back to Philippians 2, it's this, you know, one of the helpfuldistinctions is this magisterial use of reason and ministerial use of reasons.

(01:12:31):
uh So, being a servant of the Word versus, and I think one of the things that really...
really uh is disgusting as far as the time.
Yeah, Really gets me.
Is this arrogance at the time of the walkout that, oh, we figured scripture out.

(01:12:57):
We've dissected it and we know how it works.
And so now we're the masters of scripture.
And it's like, that's going to get you in a lot of trouble.
Yeah, no, that's right.
And it comes down to that failure to...
What did the Proverbs say in the Psalms say?

(01:13:18):
That the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.
How about that?
Yeah, the failure to tremble and humble yourself before the words of the living God.
I think we will continue to be condemned as far as, okay, we've made the Bible our Pope.
I mean, I think we have to have an answer to that because I think that's what these, thismodern approach to this, you know, unbiblical approach to the scriptures, this is the way

(01:13:47):
they see us as we no longer believe that the Bible is a idol.
And it's like, that's their attitude.
Well, I think what a lot of these issues come down to is our kind of eschatology, ah thatthat plays a big role into it, that we are waiting for Christ to come.

(01:14:12):
to judge the living and the dead, to uncover all things.
Nothing is hidden that will not be uncovered.
And this doesn't mean that we don't still make judgments today.
We still do that based on the clear words of Scripture.
But when you get into the questions of, okay, well, and the difficulties of, okay, well,people interpret the Bible in their own ways.

(01:14:34):
And so the Catholics are going to come along and say, therefore you need a magisterium.
And higher critics will come along, which often are also the Catholics, and say, well,therefore you need scientific investigation and you can't actually take the Bible for what
it is.
um Or you have some other post-modernists come along and say, well, really it's about yourown personal kind of narrative and your own kind of lived experiences and all this stuff.

(01:14:58):
And I think what they're all trying to do is they're trying to take these difficulties,which are there, that you need to grapple with.
and they're trying to bring down the final judgment.
They're putting themselves in the place of the judge.
And what we are called to do is simply to confess what the scriptures say, to teach them,and to let the Word of God accomplish what it sets out to do.

(01:15:26):
um You know, we don't rely as much as we make
whether we understand at all or not.
Yeah, yeah, and whether we have uh a well-oiled machine of an institution, I mean, God hasblessed the Missouri Synod with a lot of good resources, but we don't base our church's

(01:15:49):
identity upon the resources that
Yeah, no, this is again, this is why, you know, the Harmalink families in the LutheranChurch is we don't have to have an answer, a rational answer for everything.
uh We can say these are clear passages of Scripture and God wants to give us clear comfortand something and not proclamation.

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But at the end of the day, what Luther says, if you get to a hard passage,
then you retreat to a clear passage.
Yeah, because scripture is united.
It's scripture interprets itself.
And that, I so that's really the answer to the, the kind of magisterium or the highercritic uh or any kind of uh attempt to undermine the clarity and authority of scripture is

(01:16:42):
that scripture is its own interpreter.
And again, that's not going to be satisfying to, you know, it reminds me of what Paulsays, the Jews seek after signs.
and Greeks seek after wisdom.
And I think that, you he's speaking specifically of the children of Israel, according tothe flesh, who reject the gospel.

(01:17:04):
And they're always looking for more signs, ah even after Jesus just multiplied and thebread and fish.
But then he's talking about the green.
Exactly, yeah.
But I think today we see that still today where religious people always want more signs.
But then you also have the cohort of those who just like to, they like to have theirintellectualism tickled.

(01:17:29):
so Paul talks, you know, Luke talks about this in Acts 17, where they're in Athens andpeople just like to hear things that are new all the time.
so, so, so you're, you're all, you're neither of these two sides, whether Jew or religiouspeople, or the kind of philosopher thinker, if you're being driven by this,

(01:17:52):
by like the kind of uh desire for science or desire for wisdom, you're being driven byyour own reason.
And you're never going to be satisfied.
Even if I give you the best apologetics, you look at, know, speaking of uh the saintedGeorge Warwick Montgomery, you know, very few are at his level ah of being able to

(01:18:20):
to show the evidence of the scriptures, of the resurrection.
And yet, if people are not humbled before the living God, they're not going to besatisfied.
gonna get into the door, right?
And then the Word of God has to do what only the Word of God can do.
oh ultimately, it's interesting, Walter, at the end of his life, he never finished hisdogmatics text that he wanted to work on because of these controversies in the church.

(01:18:52):
But he's writing these essays to the Western District, which was...
You know, before we had 32, 35 districts, everything west of the Mississippi was theWestern District.
So he writes a series of essays, and ultimately he says it all comes down to whether adoctrine or a theological understanding is correct or not.

(01:19:15):
Does it give all glory to God or doesn't?
And I think that's a fantastic litmus test for anything.
that ultimately whether we understand it or not, does it give all glory to God when itcomes to our salvation.
Yeah, that's how the dogmaticians would, you would have learned that from the dogmaticiansthat they taught, you mentioned earlier about the teleological use of mission or ministry,

(01:19:44):
that they would always say, well, what's the goal?
What's the telos of every article of faith?
And it always came down to the salvation of man and the glory of God.
And that is helpful because giving God the glory, as Revelation 14 tells us,
uh is giving him all the merits and allowing him to sort it out and resting in what he'sactually said.

(01:20:05):
So people say, you know, how many solas are there?
Well, you know, Bach at the end or at the beginning of all his manuscripts, it's SDG.
So I think em ultimately for every Christian, that's where it's gonna end up.
Yeah.
No, that's very good.
Well, I appreciate you coming on today and, uh, yeah, yeah.

(01:20:26):
And we're, uh, maybe we'll have you on another time.
So yeah.
Yeah.
Thank you.