LCMS Convention Workbook St. Louis, Missouri — 2019, Page 374

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IX. 2016 RESOLUTION 13-01A TASK FORCE REPORT

1 Tim. 5:17, 19; Titus 1:5). He also refers to deacons as an office (1 Tim.
3:8–13) who are required to be “tested” with regard to their faith and
life, although their duties are not detailed further. It should also be noted
that Paul refers to Timothy as “a good servant of Christ Jesus” (καλός ἔσῃ
διάκονος Χριστοῦ Ἰησοῦ). One might question the ESV decision to render
diakonos as servant, rather than deacon.
122 For a discussion of Office of the Ministry in the pastoral epistles,
see Johann Gerhard, Commentary on 1 and 2 Timothy, trans. Joshua J.
Hayes (St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 2017).
123 KW 39–40. For the historical background of AC V, see Lief Grane,
The Augsburg Confession: A Commentary, trans. John H. Rasmussen
(Minneapolis: Augsburg Publishing House, 1987), 69–80 and Wilhelm
Maurer, Historical Commentary on the Augsburg Confession, trans. H.
George Anderson (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1986), 174–204. Also see
Jobst Schoene, “Church and Ministry Parts I and II” in A Reader in Pastoral Theology, ed. John T. Pless (Fort Wayne: CTS Press, 2001), 11–27.
124 See Ap IV 48, KW 128: “But the faith that justifies is not only
a knowledge of history; it is to assent to the promise of God, in which
forgiveness of sins and justification are bestowed freely on account of
Christ.” For a penetrating discussion of the necessity of “this promise
being given” through the proclamation of the Word, see Oswald Bayer,
“Preaching the Word” in Justification Is for Preaching, ed. Virgil Thompson (Eugene, OR.: Pickwick Publications, 2012), 196–216.
125 That is, “the ministry of teaching the gospel and administering the
sacraments,” Latin, KW 41.
126 “Solchen Glauben zu Erlangen oder uns Menschen zu geben, hat
Gott eingesetzt das Predigambt oder mundlich Wort, naemlich das Evangelion, durch weliches er solichen Glauben und seine Macht, Nutss und
Frucht verkundigen laesst” BSLK 59.

132 See Ap XIV 1 and 3: “We have clear consciences on this matter
since we know that our confession is true, godly, and catholic. For this reason, we dare not approve the cruelty of those who persecute this doctrine”
(KW 222–223).
133 Ap XIV 4, KW 223.
134 Tr 67, KW 341. The logic is clear. If, in emergency, a layperson
may absolve (one of the most distinctive acts of public ministry), then
church must retain the right to choose and ordain someone for the public
Office.
135 XXVIII 5–8, KW 92 (from the German).
136 On the matter of a wide and narrow sense of ministry, see below.
137 KW 220. KW translates from the Latin octavo edition. Justus
Jonas’ German translation of Ap (found in BSLK, not KW or Tappert),
which follows the octavo fairly closely (see note in KW 109), translates
the Latin ministerium verbi with das Predigtamt. : Denn das Predigtamt
hat Gott eingesetzt und geboten, und hat herrliche Zusage Gottes, Röm.
1...” (“For God has established and commanded the preaching office, and
[it] has God’s wonderful promise” Ap XIII 10). This same narrow sense
of Predigtamt appears in Luther’s original translation of Colossians 1:25
into German which reads: “. . . deren Diener ich geworden bin nach dem
göttlichen Predigtamt, das mir gegeben ist unter euch, daß ich das Wort
Gottes reichlich predigen soll” (“. . . of which I became a servant according to the divine preaching office which is given to me, that I should richly
preach the Word of God”).
138 We should add that both in the Confessions and in Walther, the
narrow—or as it may also be termed—proper sense of ministry (ministri
or Predigtamt ) is the sense that appears in the overwhelming majority of
cases. Thus, in our everyday speech still today, when the term “minister” is
used, most people think of a pastor.

127 C&O 169, in defense of Thesis II on the Office as established by
God. Walther also here refers back to Luther’s Schwabach Articles. Walther summarizes the distinction between the abstract and concrete concepts
of the Preaching Office by a reference to J. H. Hoffmann (a reference in
which Kurt Marquart suggests that Walther “over-interpreted” Hartmann,
although Matthew C. Harrison expresses a reservation about Marquart’s
view [see footnote 4 in C&O, 169]). Walther reads as follows (brackets
and italics in the original):

139 See KW 365 for the first, and the Synod’s Luther’s Small Catechism with Explanation for the second.

This statement, of course, does not speak of the preaching office in
concreto or of the pastoral Office but of the office in abstracto, of which
[Johann] Ludwig Hartmann, among others, rightly reminds us in his pastoral theology: “The ministry [ministerium] [of the Word] may be treated
in two ways: (1) in an abstract way inasmuch as the state [Stand] itself
and the office itself is subject to Christian consideration, as Article V of
the Augsburg Confession treats it; (2) in a concrete way, or in view of the
persons who are found in this holy office, as Article XIV of the Augsburg
Confession treats it” (Pastorale evangelicum [Nürnberg, 1697], 4:25).
On Walther’s view of AC V one may also see the article by Roland
Ziegler, “Walther and AC V,” Concordia Theological Quarterly 76 (July/
October 2012): 313–334.
128 FC SD XII 30, KW 659; italics added. See below for additional
material from Walther on the abstract and concrete dimensions.

143 From Thesis III on the Office, that the office is not optional, C&O
183; italics and bold in the original. Walther also refers to AC XXVIII
in C&O, Thesis IV on the Church, 38–40 as he defends the truth that the
Church. “... is the proper and only possessor and bearer of the spiritual, divine, and heavenly gifts, rights, authority, offices ... .” There Walther again
illustrates the consistent linkage of church and Office (C&O 40): “Therefore, wherever there is a small group of believing Christians or wherever
a true Church is found, there also this church has the mandate to preach
the Gospel. But if it has this mandate, then thereby it naturally also has the
power, even the duty, to ordain preachers [Prediger] of the Gospel.”

140 See LC I 158–166, KW 408–409.
141 AE 13:332, italics added. See similar comments in To the Christian Nobility of the German Nation, AE 44:129.
142 Letter to Wolfgang Brauer, 1536, Halle 10:2736–39, C&O
163–164, italics added, bold in the text.

144 C&O 170, italics, bold and brackets in the original.
145 Francis Pieper, Christian Dogmatics, vol. 3 (St. Louis: Concordia
Publishing House, 1953), 439.

129 C. F. W. Walther, Convention Essays (St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 1981), 166.

146 Eugene Klug, Church and Ministry: The Role of Church, Pastor,
and People from Luther to Walther (St. Louis: Concordia Pub. House,
1993), 135–136.

130 KW 46. The quote is from the first printing of KW. A later printing
omits the term in brackets, “[public].” The German original is ordenlichen
Beruf and the Latin version is rite vocatus (BSLK 69).

147 Samuel H. Nafzger, et al., Confessing the Gospel: A Lutheran
Approach to Systematic Theology, vol. 2 (St. Louis: Concordia Publishing
House, 2017), 987.

131 Canonical ordination refers to ordination according to the canons
(rules) of the Roman church, so that the ordination would be by a bishop
appointed by the pope. This is not a rejection of ordination itself, which
AC XIV indicates that the Lutherans affirmed. See Arthur Carl Piepkorn’s
summary of the Book of Concord understanding of ordination: “The Sacred Ministry and Holy Ordination in the Symbolic Books of the Lutheran
Church” in The Church Selected Writings of Arthur Carl Piepkorn, ed. M.
Plekon and W. Wiecher (Delhi: NY: ALPB Books, 1993), 53–76.

2019 Convention Workbook

148 Ibid., 989.
149 The Ministry, 11, www.lcms.org/ctcr.
150 C&O 175.
151 C&O 213, italics added. By “immediately” he means directly from
Christ and by “mediately” he means from Christ through the Church.
152 LSB Agenda, 161, 165. These quotations are from the rite of ordination. The rite of installation is nearly the same.