LCMS Convention Proceedings St. Louis, Missouri — 1971, Page 75

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THE CONVENTION ESSAY 75

distribution.” The solution was to appoint seven men
to care for the poor.

The twelve apostles indicated that they would con-
tinue to concentrate on preaching. Note the language:
“It is not right that we should give up preaching the
Word of God to serve tables” (6:2). They indicated
their intention to “devote ourselves to prayer and to the
ministry [service] of the Word” (v.4). You see that
aid te widows and orphans was a part of the work of
the apostolic church. It had to be taken care of. But
the apostles knew themselves to be sent particularly as
witnesses to the Gospel.

In Kittel’s Theological Dictionary of the New Testa-
ment we read under ministry (service, diakonia): “The
Word of God is offered as the bread of life. The true
service of the preacher is with view to the salvation of
his brethren to whom he must render the diaxoviay
this xatadhayij¢ by proclaiming to them the word of
reconciliation (2 C. 5:18 £.).” 73

Thus our prime work as a Synod is to follow the
apostolic pattern, to serve as ambassadors for Christ,
to serve our fellowmen in every need, but to be aware
that their greatest need and our highest ministry is
the ministry of Word and sacrament, to proclaim as
Paul did to the Corinthians, “Be reconciled to God.”

So Christ has equipped us as His ambassadors by
making us new creatures, by orientating our will to
serve Him and all those for whom He died. He has
given us the service of the ministry. And with it comes
what Paul calls the “word of reconciliation” (2 Cor.
5:19). Ambassadors of God do not carry their own
message, but the Lord’s. God’s message to man is the
word of reconciliation. Paul says that God has deposited
into his charge the Word, the message of reconciliation.
The Spirit of Christ came to the apostle in special ways.
In his letters Paul refers several times to the special
revelation he had received. Although he had not been
one of the original Twelve, Paul knew Christ directly
as the One who came to him on the Damascus road.
This One, Christ, had deposited with the apostle, en-
trusted as to a bank, the precious message of recon-
ciliation.

Logos is the term used by Paul and translated as
word or message. It is an interesting vocable, which in
the classical Greek meant either the word or the out-
ward form by which a given thought is expressed, or
the inward thought itself. The Greeks sometimes used
logos to describe the mind of God at work. Plato, for
example, said that the logos of God kept the planets on
their courses.

The Jews had a dynamic concept of word. A word
did things. In the Targums, the translation of the He-
brew Old Testament to Aramaic, the Jews spoke not
of God, but of the Word, thus using Word as a designa-
tion for God.

In the Old Testament the Hebrew terms for word
were used in a unique way. Gen. 1:3 states, “God said,

Let there be light.” Repeatedly the creation account
states, “God said,” thus stressing the power of His word.
Isaiah 55:11 speaks dramatically of the power of God’s

word, “So shall My word be that goes forth from My
mouth; it shall not return to Me empty, but it shall
accomplish that which I purpose.” God’s word carried
God’s power.

Indeed the Hebrew vocable for word, dabar, has
a dynamic quality. The etymology of the term is that
of something standing behind and pushing forward. It
is used over 200 times in passages that speak of the
word of God coming to man in prophetic revelation. The
importance of the word is emphasized in Deut. 32: 46-47
where the people are told: “Set your heart unto all the
words which I testify among you this day .. . all the
words of the Law, for it is not a vain word to you,
because it is your life and through this word you shall
prolong your days.”

In the New Testament logos (word) is almost a syn-
onym for the Christian message. Jesus “preached the
word” to the crowds (Mark 2:2). The “sower sows the
word,” in the parable (Mark 4:14). Paul and his col-
leagues “spoke the word” on his missionary trips. (Acts
14: 25)

Moreover this logos (word) is identified repeatedly
as the “word of God.” “Almost the whole city gathered
together to hear the word of God” (Acts 13:44). It is
the “word of the Lord.” Paul reassures the Thessalo-
nians concerning the resurrection of their dead by say-
ing, “This we declare to you by the werd of the Lord”
(1 Thess. 4:15). It is the word of Christ, both about
Him and from Him. “Let the word of Christ dwell in
you richly as you teach and admonish one another in
all wisdom.” (Col. 3:16)

In the highest and ultimate sense the logos, the word,
is identified with Jesus Christ who not only revealed
the love of the Father and the mysteries of the Kingdom
but who Himself is the Word of power. We are all
familiar with John’s great statement in the opening of
his Gospel, “In the beginning was the Word, and the
Word was with God, and the Word was God” (John 1:1).
And then a little later, “The Word was made flesh and
dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, the glory as
of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and
truth” (v.14). It is indeed this incarnate Word of God
that is the very Word of Reconciliation. He is the one
who calls us to be ambassadors and equips us with the
word, the message of the Gospel.

Paul and the other apostles of Jesus are gone now.
We who are now to be the witnesses, the ambassadors,
do not know Jesus as the apostles knew Him face to
face. We have not viewed His miracles with our eyes
nor heard His voice with our ears. Nor do we have
the promise that our every word is by inspiration of the
Holy Spirit. But we do have the word of reconciliation
nonetheless. Paul told the Corinthians that he imparted
the message “in words not taught by human wisdom,
but taught by the Spirit” (1 Cor. 2:18). Taught by the
Spirit were the prophets, the apostles, the evangelists —

all the authors of the Old and New Testament canon.
Therefore we identify this legacy of the Holy Scriptures
as God’s word.

As Lutheran Christians we confess with the authors

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