LCMS Convention Workbook St. Louis, Missouri — 2016, Page 10

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10

OFFICER, BOARD, AND COMMISSION REPORTS

the Lord has instituted or to put men into the office without being
called and ordained (see AC XIV). The Church does live in freedom
to create offices that assist those who are placed in the one divinely
mandated office of the ministry of Word and Sacrament. These helping offices (auxiliary offices) would include deacons, deaconesses,
evangelists, schoolteachers, catechists, cantors, parish nurses, workers of mercy, and the like. These are valuable offices of service to the
Body of Christ and the world, but they are not to be confused with the
Office of the Holy Ministry itself. The Office of the Holy Ministry
might be said to be the office of faith as Christ instituted it so that
faith might be created in the hearts of those who hear the preaching of
Christ crucified. Helping, or auxiliary, offices are the offices of love
for through these callings the love of Christ is extolled in word and
deed as His mercy is extended to those in need.
Those whom Christ through His Church has placed in the Office
of the Holy Ministry do not lord it over the priesthood of the baptized, but they stand among the baptized, as one of them, holding
an office of service, seeking only to give out the Lord’s gifts as He
intended (1 Cor. 4:1–2).
18. Worship: koinonia, freedom, catholicity, and the limits of
love. Questions of liturgical diversity and uniformity need to be set
within the context of the distinction between faith and love. Faith is
freed by the Gospel from all works of self-justification, but faith is
not freed from the Gospel or the means that Christ has instituted to
bestow the Gospel (the pure preaching of this Good News and the
right administration of the Sacraments according to the divine Word;
see AC VII). Preaching and Sacraments require form, and this form
is catholic rather than sectarian or self-invented. Lutherans gratefully
inherited the Western liturgical tradition filtered through the sieve of
justification by faith alone and honor it as our heritage (AC XXIV).
Lutherans make a distinction between what Christ has mandated and
what His Word prohibits. In between the two are “adiaphora” or “middle things,” which are neither commanded nor forbidden by God.
The middle category of adiaphora does not mean that these matters are unimportant or indifferent; they are to be evaluated by how
they confess the truth of the Gospel and Sacraments. In times when
a clear confession is called for, the Formula of Concord reminds
us, matters of adiaphora may cease to be adiaphora (see FC SD X).
Ludwig Adolph Petri notes that mission “must abstain from establishing confessions, accepting new customs in the divine service, uniting
separated confessions, and the like. As soon as mission begins to do
something like that, it is manifestly in the wrong, for none of those
tasks is charged or relegated to mission.”19 This is to say that matters of liturgical practice are not best left to the individual but should
reflect our confessional consensus so that both the freedom of faith
and the love for brothers and sisters is maintained. Love is always
given to patience and deference to the weakness of the fellow believer
(see Romans 14), but it may never be used as an excuse to compromise the truth of our confession. Liturgical diversity within the larger
catholic context will be guided by the need to maintain unity in both
faith and love (see FC SD X 9).
19. Visitation. Sometime after his first missionary journey, “Paul
said to Barnabas, ‘Let us return and visit the brothers in every city
where we proclaimed the word of the Lord and see how they are’ ”
(Acts 15:36). So the Church today—following also the example of
the apostles, Luther, Melanchthon, and others—engages in evangelical visitation, appointing people to the task so that we encourage
and assist one another in the confession of Christ before the world.
In our Synod, we come alongside one another to advise one another
from the Word of God. The focus of our visitation of one another is
faithfulness both to the mission of Christ through the Church to the
world and to our clear confession of Christ’s saving work. Visitors
are enjoined to come to the pastors and congregations and mission
2016 Convention Workbook

stations as a brotherly adviser, reminding them of the joy of serving
in the mission and ministry of the Church. Visitation is a continuing
task in the Church, carried out through all segments of the Church’s
life together. When we visit our partners around the world, it must
also be in the same Christ-centered spirit as the Lord’s apostle who,
before his visitation with them, writes to the Romans, “I long to see
you, that I may impart to you some spiritual gift to strengthen you—
that is, that we may be mutually encouraged by each other’s faith,
both yours and mine” (Rom. 1:11–12).
20. Two kingdoms/discipleship. Luther observed that the kingdom of Christ is one of hearing, while the kingdom of the world is
one of seeing. Discussions of the place of the church in the public
square inevitably lead us to reflect on how the triune God is active in
His creation. Luther’s teaching on the two kingdoms does not segregate God’s activity into the holy sphere of church leaving the world
to its autonomous devices. God is at work in the world in two different ways, with different means and with different ends. Hence Luther
can use the imagery of the ear to indicate God’s right-hand governance whereby He causes His Gospel to be preached to bring sinners
to faith in Christ and through faith inherit eternal life. On the other
hand, the left-handed work of God is identified with the eye, with
seeing. In this kingdom, God uses Law to measure and curb human
behavior so that His creation is not plunged into total chaos and so
that this world, subjected to futility (Rom. 8:20), is preserved until
the Last Day. Authorities in the kingdom of God’s left hand evaluate
on the basis of evidence that is observable. Here distributive justice
is the order of the day. But in the kingdom of His right hand, God’s
verdict is the absolution, the proclamation of a forgiveness of sins
not achieved by merit or worth. When the two kingdoms are mixed
or muddled, Law and Gospel are confused.
Lutherans are concerned to keep the teaching of the two kingdoms
straight and clear for the sake of the Gospel, which alone gives forgiveness of sins and eternal salvation. Luther fumed that the devil is
incessantly seeking to “brew and cook” the two kingdoms together.20
Satan would like nothing better than to dupe folks into believing that
salvation comes through secular government or conversely that the
Church is the institution to establish civil righteousness in the world.
Either confusion displaces Christ and leaves sinners in despair.
The teaching of the two kingdoms is necessary for the sake of the
Gospel. This teaching guards us from turning the Gospel into a political ideology. The Gospel works eschatologically not politically as it
bestows pardon to sinners and establishes peace with God. It is a faithcreating word of promise heard with the ear, trusted in the heart, and
confessed with the tongue. Christians, who live by faith in this promise, also live in this world where we use our eyes to see, to discern, to
evaluate. The realm of the political is not to be dismissed as ungodly
or unworthy of the Christian’s involvement. God is at work here too.
But He is at work here to protect and preserve His creation, making
it a dominion where life can flourish. God’s left-handed work is not
to be confused with salvation, but it is a good gift of daily bread to be
received with thanksgiving by those who know the truth.
So Lutherans neither put their trust in political processes nor do
they eschew political involvement. The teaching of the two kingdoms
is an indispensable gift in an age beset by temptations both to secularism and sectarianism.
21. Stewardship. The question of stewardship begins not with
what I have but with what the Lord has given me. Therefore, stewardship begins with the gifts of the triune God. This is reflective of the
way that the apostle Paul deals with stewardship in 2 Corinthians 8.
Paul does not start with an assessment of the resources of the congregation or with legalistic instructions about how much they should be
doing to meet their quota. Rather, he begins with God’s grace, with
God’s undeserved gift in Christ. Christians give not to win God’s