LCMS Convention Workbook St. Louis, Missouri — 2004, Page 395

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THEOLOGICAL DOCUMENTS—COMMISSION ON THEOLOGY AND CHURCH RELATIONS 395

7 The Greek term used here, synkataps ephizomai, has the sense
of being “enrolled.”

8. Johnson, 111.

9. In Acts the gesture accompanies the bestowal of the Spirit in
baptism (8:17, 19; 19:6), healings (9:12, 17; 28:8), and commis-
sioning for ministry (13:3). It appears in sacrificial rites (Ex 29:10,
19; Lev 1:4; 4:15; 16:21) and in Num 8:10 as part of the ordina-
tion of priests. Also, through this gesture authority was transferred
from Moses to Joshua (Num 27:18-23; Deut 34:9). People were
then to obey Joshua.

10. Barrett, 1:304.

11. See Johnson, 220, 225-226.

12. Eduard Schweizer, Church Order in the New Testament
(Naperville, ILL: Alec R. Allenson, Inc., 1961), 25c. See also Ed-
uard Lohse, Die Ordination im Spatjudentum und im Neuen Testa-
ment (Gottingen: Vanderhoeck & Ruprecht, 1951), 71-74.

13. We might note that Paul also uses the word cheirotoneo to
refer to the selection or appointment of Titus as a representative of
the churches in 2 Cor 8:19.

14. In classical Greek this word was used in several instances
for “expressing agreement in a vote” (Eduard Lohse, Theological
Dictionary of the New Testament [TDNT], s.v. cheir, 9:437.). Bar-
rett notes that cheirotonein, “to stretch out the hand,” was used to
designate voting in a deliberative assembly (e.g., Plutarch, Phocion
34 [758], for acquittal or condemnation), and voting as in an elec-
tion for the appointment of a person to an office (e.g., Xenophon,
Hellenica 6.2.11). Barrett concludes, “From this kind of democratic
appointment the word came to mean an appointment by an author-
ity (e.g., Lucian, De Morte Peregrini 4]....); so here. Paul and
Barnabas provided the elders for the disciples whom they were
thereby helping to withstand the troubles they were sure to en-
counter (v. 22).” Barrett, 1:687.

15. Barrett, 1:687.

16. Johnson, 255.

17. See Charles P. Arand and Paul Raabe, “Evangelical and
Catholic Ecclesiology for Tomorrow,” Lutheran Forum 31 (Spring
1997): 19-22.

18. Arthur Carl Piepkorn, “The Sacred Ministry and Holy Or-
dination in the Symbolical Books of the Lutheran Church,” in
Lutherans and Catholics in Dialogue IV: Eucharist and Ministry
(LWF, 1970), 114.

19. See Conclusion to Part I of the AC, The Book of Concord,
ed. Robert Kolb and Timothy J. Wengert (Minneapolis: Augsburg
Fortress, 2000), 58-60.

20. Piepkorn refers to the Ordination Register at St. Mary’s
Church in Wittenberg that provides data on 1,979 clergymen or-
dained between 1537 and 1560. He notes that at least 1,025 of these
were recruited from other professions and crafts. “The Sacred Min-
istry,” 112.

21. On the confessional use of de jure divino and de jure hu-
mano, see Paul L. Schrieber, “Church Polity and the Assumption of
the Authority,” Concordia Journal 26 (October 2000), 326-33. It
might also be noted that here the reformers had Jerome on their
side, which explains why Trent stepped softly around this issue.
See also Thesis 8 “Concerning the Holy Ministry or the Pastoral
Office” in C. F. W. Walther, Church and Ministry, trans. J. T.
Mueller (St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 1987), 289-302.

22. Piepkorn, 109.

23. See Holsten Fagerberg, A New Look at the Lutheran Con-
fessions, 1529-1537, trans. Gene J. Lund (St. Louis: Concordia
Publishing House, 1972), 236-38.

24. See Gerhard Forde, “The Ordained Ministry,”chap. in
Called and Ordained: Lutheran Perspectives on the Office of the
Ministry, ed. Todd Nichol and Marc Kolden (Miinneapolis:
Fortress Press, 1990), 117--36. Forde notes that in confessional
Lutheranism ordination “involves not just one but at least four op-

erations: the call; the examination; the laying on of hands; and
prayer” (130).

25. Synecdoche is a figure of speech by which a part is put for
the whole or the whole for a part.

26. Piepkorn, 114. In footnote 23 on this page Piepkorn cites
Luther in a sermon of 1524: “‘But we who already have ministries
will recommend [others] into our ministry. . . . If... we know a de-
vout man, we take him out and by virtue of the Word that we pos-
sess we give him the authority to proclaim the Word and to admin-
ister the sacraments. This is what it means to ordain’ (WA 15, 721,
I-5).”

27. See Ap XIII. Gerhard Forde has a helpful discussion of what
ordination involved and meant over against a Roman Catholic un-
derstanding. See “The Ordained Ministry,” 128-35.

28. Luther (“Concerning the Ministry” [1523], Luther’s Works,
American Edition [Philadephia: Fortress Press, 1958], 40:36) trans-
lated by Norman Nagel, in “The Office of the Holy Ministry in the
Confessions,” Concordia Journal 14 (July 1988): 291. This entire
issue of Concordia Journal is devoted to the subject of the office
of the public ministry and has several excellent articles on the topic.

29. Forde, “The Ordained Ministry,” 131.

30. Die evangelischen Kirchenordnungen des XVI. Jahrhun-
derts, ed. Emil Sehling et al., I (Leipzig: Reisland, 1902), 226.

31. Sehling, 313, 321.

32. Sehling, 377-80.

33. The best known of Walther’s writings on this subject is The
Voice of Our Church on the Question of Church and Ministry (Die
Stimme unserer Kirche in der Frage von Kirche und Amt). It con-
tains nine theses on the church and ten on the pastoral office.
Walther presented these theses and the outline of a book to the syn-
odical convention in 1851, which discussed and approved them.
From this followed Walther’s best-known book on the subject,
Kirche und Amt, in 1852. In his later work The Proper Form of an

_ Evangelical Lutheran Local Congregation Independent of the State

(Die Rechte Gestalt einer vom Staat unabhangigen Evangelisch-
Lutherischen Ortsgemeinde [St. Louis: Aug. Wiebusch u. Sohn,
1963]) Walther applied the theology of the earlier book to the prac-
tical life of the congregation.

34. For an analysis of Rechte Gestalt, see Norman E. Nagel,
“The Divine Call in Die Rechte Gestalt of C. F. W. Walther, Con-
cordia Theological Quarterly 59 (July 1995): 161-90.

35. Nagel, 170.

36. C. F. W. Walther, The Form of a Christian Congregation:
Presented and Published by Resolution of the Ev. Luth. Pastoral
Conference of St. Louis, Mo.,trans. John Theodore Mueller (St.
Louis: Concordia Publishing House, Second Unchanged Edition,
1864), 62-97. The title of Mueller’s translation, which is used in
the text of this document, is rendered in shortened form (see note
33). In the paragraphs that follow in this section the page references
are given in the text in parentheses.

37. See “Note 1” for Walther’s rationale on pastoral guidance
for the congregation in the process (65-66).

38. This is the most frequently quoted text in the Lutheran Con-
fessions on the subject of the office of the public ministry.

39. See the German edition, Die rechte Gestalt, 70. N. Nagel
renders the German of the last sentence of this quote as follows:
“There follows public ordination, as apostolically ordered, wherein
he is declared to be the one properly called, has the obligations of
the office laid on him, and is declared placed in the office.” Nagel,
167.

40. Instead of the term Recht, the Treatise (65) uses rata (sure,
authorized, put in effect): Manifestum est ordinationem a pastore in
sua ecclesia factam jure divino ratam esse. -

41. C. F. W. Walther, Americanisch-Lutherische Pastoralthe-
ologie (St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 1906), 427.

2004 Convention Workbook