# LCMS Convention Workbook_St. Louis Missouri_2019_S11
# Machine transcription, uncorrected — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

OFFICER, BOARD, AND COMMISSION REPORTS
and preached forgiveness through repentance, faith, and Holy
Baptism. This apostolic message is to predominate proclamation by called preachers within the community of believers, the
proclamation of evangelists to those outside the Church, and the
witness of every Christian in the context of his or her vocations in
life. It is the sacred task of preachers to know the Scriptures ever
more profoundly and constantly to seek to improve the craft of
preaching that the Gospel may be preached in its biblical fullness
and with clarity to its hearers. It is the sacred task of preachers to equip the saints to bear witness to Jesus to their friends,
family, and others who are placed before them in their daily vocations. The Word of God is equally effective for salvation, whether
proclaimed by Christ, the angels, called preachers, or shared by
common Christians among one another or with those who do
not yet know Christ’s forgiveness (Is. 55:11). In order to carry
on Christ’s witness into the world, the Church is entrusted with
training, teaching, and making pastors through theological education. This witness will accompany the Church’s corporate work
of mercy (the mercy is Christ’s) and will dominate the Church’s
life together. “Where Christ is not preached, there is no Holy
Spirit who creates, calls, and gathers the Christian Church, without which no one comes to Christ the Lord” (LC II 45).
Dr. C. F. W. Walther asked to whom the responsibility to
preach the Gospel among all people of the earth has been committed. He answered:
Here we see that it is the people of the New Testament, or the Holy
Christian Church, that God has prepared or established, to show
forth His praise in all the world. That means that the church is to
make known the great works of God for the salvation of men, or
that which is the same thing, to preach the Gospel to every creature. Even Isaiah gives this testimony, having been enlightened by
the Holy Spirit: The true mission society that has been instituted by
God is nothing else than the Christian church itself, that is the totality of all those who from the heart believe in Jesus Christ.6

7. Witness and confession. Witness and confession are two
inseparable aspects of the Church’s life in this world. Witness to
Christ is as simple as John 3:16 but as fulsome as the Gospel of
the incarnation; humiliation and exultation of Christ; His Baptism
and ours; Absolution; the Holy Supper; the doctrines of grace,
conversion, election, bound will, and more. The Gospel is, in fact,
replete throughout the Scriptures and to be applied pervasively
and winsomely in manifold ways according to the need of the
hearers. As confession, the witness of the Gospel rejoices in standing for the creedal truth as it is in Jesus. It is as simple as the earliest
confessions of the faith (“Jesus Christ is Lord,” Phil. 2:11; LC II
27) or the Small Catechism or as replete as the Nicene Creed or
the Formula of Concord. The Church’s goal is always witness unto
salvation in the simple message of salvation by the blood of Jesus
and growth into the full confession of the orthodox Lutheran
faith. The Lutheran Church rejoices that salvation is found wherever simple faith in Jesus and His merits is found, but it always
seeks a witness and confession consisting of the “whole counsel
of God” (Acts 20:27). Lutheran mission is creedal and catholic.
8. Mercy as sacred vocation. The Church is Christ’s Body, and
as such, she continues His life of mercy as a witness to the love of
God for body and soul. The Church has a corporate life of mercy
toward those within the orthodox fellowship of believers, toward
the broader community of Christians, and to those outside the
Church (Gal. 6:10). The Church can no more ignore the physical
needs of people than Christ could have refused to perform healings or persons can be separated into body and soul in this life.
Thus, the Early Church heartily and vigorously continued Jesus’

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ministry of healing and care for the needy (Acts 6; 2 Corinthians
8–9). This witness, through mercy accompanying the Gospel, has
been a missiological force of the Church in its great periods of
advancement, especially in times of desperate need and persecution. The care for the widows (Acts 6) and Paul’s collection for
Jerusalem (2 Corinthians 8–9) are the great prototypical models
for mercy for the Church for all time. We care for people in need
not with any ulterior motive, nor even in order to proclaim the
Gospel. We proclaim the Gospel and care for the needy because
that’s who Christ is, and that is who we are as the Church in this
world (John 14; Acts 4:12).
9. Life Together as bestowed and lived. Our Life Together in
Christ’s Church is not acquired by human decision or merit; it is a
gift. Just as one does not elect one’s own family, so we are brought
into Christ’s holy people by the action of the triune God. “God is
faithful, by whom you were called into the fellowship of His Son,
Jesus Christ our Lord” (1 Cor. 1:9). The Lord has called, gathered,
enlightened, and sanctified us through the Gospel to live together
as His Church. Life in this community is a gift that entails responsibility. We see this in Paul’s exhortation to the Ephesians to bear
with one another in love, “eager to maintain the unity of the Spirit
in the bond of peace” (Eph. 4:3), even as he is quick to add that
we were called into the one Body of Christ and faith in a singular Lord. We cannot create the unity of the Body of Christ; that
is given. But we are to be on guard against teachings and practices that would tempt us away from the one Lord, the one faith,
and the one Baptism that keep us in union with the one God and
Father of us all.
10. Witness, Mercy, Life Together in the apostolic Church. The
apostles testified to Witness (martyria), Mercy (diakonia), Life
Together (koinonia) in the apostolic Church. An example of this
can be found in Gal. 2:7, 9–10. The apostles divided up the task
of proclamation (witness) to the circumcised and the uncircumcised. The apostles remembered the poor (mercy). The apostles
extended the right hand of fellowship (life together).
“Bearing witness,” says Luther, “is nothing but God’s Word
spoken by angels or men, and it calls for faith.”7 In Acts 1:8, the
risen Lord says of His apostles that they will be His witnesses in
Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria and beyond those borders to the end of the earth. It is the apostles who with their own
eyes have seen the Lord, touched Him with their own hands, and
heard His voice with their ears (see 1 John 1:1–4) who are designated witnesses. We are witnesses only in the derived sense that
our words echo the reliable testimony of the apostles. To bear witness is to speak not of ourselves but of another—Christ Jesus. The
apostolic Church is sent to repeat the witness of the apostles that
Jesus Christ, true God and true man, is the only Lord who saves.
“You notice,” said Luther, “that concern for the poor is the
other work of the apostles.”8 St. Paul exhorts the Church to care
for the poor. In the third century, Tertullian wrote how the pagans
would say of the Christians, “See how they love one another.”9
The way that the Church cares for the needs of those within the
Church is a witness to the world. Yet the mercy of God does not
stay within the Church but goes out from the household of faith
into the entire world.
“We preach the Gospel,” said Luther while commenting on Galatians 2:9, “in unanimous consensus with you. There we are companions in doctrine and have fellowship in it; that is, we have the same
doctrine. For we preach one Gospel, one Baptism, one Christ, and
one faith. Therefore we cannot teach or command anything so far
as you are concerned, for we are completely agreed in everything.

2019 Convention Workbook