LCMS Convention Workbook St. Louis, Missouri — 2016, Page 11

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OFFICER, BOARD, AND COMMISSION REPORTS
favor but on account of His prior gift, salvation in Christ Jesus. In
2 Corinthians, stewardship is connected with assisting those in need,
in showing mercy.
This is the pattern of Christian stewardship. Just as in Romans
12, Paul makes his appeal to Christians that they present their bodies as living sacrifices by the mercies of God, so here Paul wants his
hearers to know first of all about God’s grace. Anchored in the unmerited riches of God’s mercy for sinners in Christ, the Macedonians are
eager—yes, begging—for the opportunity to take part in the offering.
They exceed the apostle’s imagination or expectation. What do they
do? They give themselves first to the Lord and then, Paul says by the
will of God, they give themselves to us.
Lutheran missions seek to be good and faithful stewards of the
resources the Lord has given to His church. Faithful stewardship seeks
to build capacity in partners while not creating harmful dependencies. In this way, the entire Body of Christ may be strengthened in
its stewardship. We recognize that we are accountable to one another
in our mutual confession of the faith and in our handling of valuable
resources—human, financial, and property. The financing of missions and use of funding requires transparency at every level lest the
witness of Christ be diminished, mercy be overshadowed by greedy
self-interest, and our life together fractured.
22. Lutheran identity. Mission, as with the entire life of the
Synod, will be guided by confessional identity and integrity. Bound
to the Holy Scriptures as the infallible Word of the triune God and
convinced that the Book of Concord confesses what the Bible teaches,
we will joyfully and without reservation make this good confession
before God and the world in light of the Last Day (see Matt. 10:32;
2 Tim. 4:1–8). We will not be ashamed to be Lutheran in all that
we do. Like our forefathers at Augsburg, we will speak God’s testimonies before kings and not be put to shame (Ps. 119:46). We will
teach this theology without duplicity at home and globally to any
and all who are open to hear our confession. Given the seismic shifts
in world Lutheranism away from the historical confession of the
Lutheran church, we will seek to strengthen lonely and disenfranchised Lutherans who seek to be faithful in doctrine and practice.
23. Theology of the cross. The “theology of the cross” (see 1
Cor. 1:18–2:5) stands in sharp contrast to the prevailing theology—
the “theology of glory.” The theology of the cross shows God at work
under opposites giving life through death, showing mercy in wrath,
making Himself known in His hiddenness, and manifesting strength
in weakness. The theologian of glory attempts to access God by way
of various ladders: moralism, rationalism, or mysticism. The theologian of the cross confesses God condescending to humanity in the
weakness of the baby of Bethlehem and the man of Calvary. The
theologian of glory would judge a church successful on the basis
of how well it accomplishes certain goals defined by the tenets of
this world. The theologian of the cross recognizes that the Church is
hid-den under suffering and defeat.
Christ’s Church faces many enemies from within and without.
She bears the mark of the holy cross, not as an identifier for its own
sake, but as a consequence of bearing witness to and proclaiming the
Gospel of Jesus Christ. The Church in every place bears the Holy
Cross to some degree. The Church in some places bears what appears
to be a smaller cross than the Church in other places, yet no matter how small or big the cross it serves the same purpose: a witness
(martyria) to the world and, as Formula of Concord XI confesses,
“to conform us into the image of the crucified Son of God.” It should
not surprise us, the Lord’s people, that His Holy Church takes on the
appearance of the crucified Son of God. In fact, it is a great honor and
joy that the Lord conforms us into His image. This is why St. Paul
says in Romans 8, “I know all things work for good.” The life of the
Church is cruciform in shape. The apt words of Hermann Sasse ring

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true: “All that we think and do in the church has to be cleansed by the
theology of the cross if we are to escape the perils of a theology of
glory.”21 The theology of the cross will forever be a litmus test of the
genuineness of Witness, Mercy, Life Together in our midst.
Notes
1. Witness, Mercy, Life Together is an attempt to describe what the
Church always has done—proclaim the Gospel, care for people’s bodily
needs, and have fellowship and community together as the Church.
Whatever titles are given to these activities or terms used to describe them,
these basic activities have been a part of the Church since the beginning.
See Albert B. Collver’s Witness, Mercy, Life Together: Bible Study (St.
Louis: Concordia Publishing House), 2011. In Mission from the Cross:
The Lutheran Theology of Mission (St. Louis: Concordia Publishing
House, 2009), Detlev Schultz describes both the Trinitarian nature of
mission as well as the activities of the Church and Christians that could
be described in terms of Witness, Mercy, Life Together. Schultz uses the
terms “proclamation, confession, and witness,” the church’s diakonia, “a
new community … an ecclesial reality for mission.”
2. Robert Kolb and Timothy Wengert, eds. Book of Concord
(Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2002), 41.
3. Ibid., 42.
4. Ibid., 41.
5. Ibid., 174. (Compare with Ignatius, “The Epistle of Ignatius to the
Smyrnaeans”: “Where Christ Jesus is, there is the catholic church,” 8).
6. C. F. W. Walther. “The Mission Society Established by God,” in
The Word of His Grace (Lake Mills: Graphic Publishing Co., 1978), 20.
7. Martin Luther. “Lectures on Zechariah” (1527) in Luther’s Works,
vol. 20, ed., Walther Miller, trans. Hilton Oswald (St. Louis: Concordia
Publishing House, 1973), 213.
8. Martin Luther. Luther’s Works, vol. 20: Lectures on Galatians,
1535, Chapters 5–6; 1519, Chapters 1–6, eds. Jaroslav Jan Pelikan, Hilton
Oswald, Helmut Lehmann (St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 1999),
2:10.
9. Tertullian. Vol 3: Apology 39.6 Ante-Nicene Fathers, eds. Alexander
Roberts and James Donaldson (Peabody: Hendrickson Publishing, 1996),
46.
10. Martin Luther. Luther’s Works, vol. 26: Lectures on Galatians,
1535, Chapters 1–4, eds. Jaroslav Jan Pelikan, Hilton Oswald, Helmut
Lehmann (St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 1999), Ga 2:9.
11. Werner Elert. Structure of Lutheranism (St. Louis: Concordia
Publishing House, 1962), 386.
12. Friedrich Wilhelm Hopf. “The Lutheran Church Plants Lutheran
Missions,” trans. Matthew C. Harrison and Rachel Mumme. Unpublished,
2013.
13. Oswald Bayer. “Theology as Askesis,” in Gudstankens aktualitet, trans. E. M. Wiberg Pedersen, et al. (Copenhagen: Forlaget ANIS,
2010), 49.
14. Walther, 24.
15. Martin Luther. Luther’s Works, vol. 35: Word and Sacrament I,
eds. Jaroslav Jan Pelikan, Hilton Oswald, Helmut Lehmann (Philadelphia:
Fortress Press, 1999), 36.
16. Hermann Sasse. We Confess the Sacraments, trans. Norman Nagel
(St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 1985), 151.
17. Mimesis means “imitation, mimicry.”
18. The Missouri Synod has used different nomenclature to express
the idea of closed Communion at various times in her history. Different
terms have been used to describe the same doctrine and practice. The terms
“closed Communion,” “close Communion,” and “close(d) Communion”
are equivalent terms. Art. VI of the Missouri Synod’s Constitution states
as a condition of membership in the Synod, “Renunciation of unionism
and syncretism of every description.” Art. VI 2 (b) provides additional
clarification by defining unionism and syncretism as “Taking part in the

2016 Convention Workbook