LCMS Convention Workbook St. Louis, Missouri — 2013, Page 411

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Specific Ministry Pastor (SMP) Task Force
p. 16). David Adams writes of the challenge that today’s preachers
of the Gospel are facing:
If our proclamation of the person and works of Yahweh in Jesus
Christ is an offense to our culture, then it is the skandalon that Jesus
said it would be. If... it is intolerant to declare in the public square that
Yahweh is the only true God, that His teaching is the only ground for
morality, and that receiving His grace in the death and resurrection of
Jesus Christ is our only way to be made right with God, then we shall
have to bear the cross of being thought intolerant. God has gone to great
extremes to reveal His name and the deeds associated with it so that we
might know and worship Him properly. We cannot allow God to become
anonymous. (The Anonymous God, pp. 39–40)

This is the culture into which the church today sends its mission
developers and church planters. The American culture is becoming
more and more hostile toward true Christianity. The church does not
need insipid and superficial proclamation. Needed are preachers with
the best and most extensive preparation that the church can provide.
Preachers under attack need courage and boldness and confidence to
keep proclaiming the Gospel under today’s conditions. Only a bold
preacher steeled in the voice of God, His Word, will preach with the
prophetic voice of God in the face of stormy attacks.
But facing overt hostility is by no means the only important challenge today’s Gospel preacher must face. The majority of preaching
today, including some Lutheran preaching, has as its goal greater obedience—obedience to the law and the Great Commission—not faith
in the Savior. A constant and life-long challenge for all proper preachers, therefore, is the proper distinction of Law and Gospel, especially
in our day. Less or minimal training will only less or minimally prepare a preacher to preach nothing more or less than the Gospel itself,
which alone creates, sustains, and expands the Church. Said Luther,
I am making such a point of all this to keep anyone from supposing that the doctrine of faith is an easy matter. It is indeed easy to talk
about, but it is hard to grasp; and it is easily obscured and lost. Therefore let us with all diligence and humility devote ourselves to the study
of Sacred Scripture and to serious prayer, lest we lose the truth of the
Gospel... Whoever knows well how to distinguish the Gospel from the
Law should give thanks to God and know that he is a real theologian.
(American Edition, 26:115)

Recognizing its importance for new pastors, C.F.W. Walther
devoted a lengthy series of seminary lectures to the proper distinction
between Law and Gospel. The same urgency is echoed by our seminary professors today. Lutheran preachers must be steeped in good,
sound Lutheran Law-Gospel theology in order that preaching does
not turn into a “how to” approach to true and authentic spirituality.
In Lutheran theology the Gospel cannot be preached in such a way
that the Gospel’s real purpose is the production of good works. Good
works are preaching’s result. Justification remains its only purpose.
The Gospel is a complete message itself. Good works result from the
preaching of the Gospel, to be sure, but there can be no suggestion that
the Gospel is to be preached if its ultimate purpose were to bring them
about... The Gospel is not an opportunity for reinstating the religion of
the law. (David Scaer, Concordia Theological Quarterly 49, p.

194)
The actual sequence of Third Article, Second Article, First Article.
The Holy Spirit with the means of grace bestows the salvation gifts won
for us by Christ. These gifts are received in faith. The life of faith is living begiftedly, and so on then through the First Article and all its dona
creata.” (Normal Nagel, Concordia Journal, 18, p. 236)

Paul Jacobs, after tracking the context of theological education in
the past 70 years, writes of another ingredient in the discussion of the
training offered by theological institutions today: the background out
of which current students come to seminary training.
Today many of the students in our theological institutions have matured in a postmodern society. Whether consciously or not, they speak
the language of postmodernism. They know the values and customs of
postmodernism. Their families have been affected by the ravages of

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secularism and humanism endemic to a postmodern society. They are,
in their hearts, a product of a postmodern society...
From this culture emerges the contemporary seminarian and the future of the clergy. They come out of the “culture wars” of society bruised
and battered... Many are caught in the trap of pornography addiction.
They come from broken homes and blended families. Many find themselves divorced. Homosexuality is viewed as merely another lifestyle
and any sort of putative homophobia (or almost any kind of “intolerance”) is denounced as the worst kind of “sin”...
When these students graduate from our institutions, hopefully, they
will be able to articulate our evangelical theology. They will have taken
Old and New Testament survey courses. They will know some Greek
and Hebrew and perhaps some Aramaic. They will know some church
history. Even so, while we may be able to take the postmodern citizen
out of his or her culture for the time of their enrollment, can we take
the postmodernism out of the citizen?... We must promote in this new
generation not a theological career, but a love of theology. (American
Theological Inquiry, pp. 138–139)

The solution, again quoting Aleshire, is the “community of scholarship,” i.e., a well-educated clergy:
At one time, the church needed communities of scholarship to copy
sacred texts, to preserve them, and to pass them on; we don’t need that
kind of scholarship now... The church needs scholarship to guide it
through the tendency to assume that only the practical counts and that
personal perceptions are sacred truths...
The church needs leaders who have sat with scholars, asked them
questions, and been challenged by their answers. It needs leaders who
have developed capacities related to the cure of souls and the care of
congregational communities. The church needs leaders who have read
the solutions that faith has reasoned for old problems and the ability to
discern their implications for new problems. It needs leaders who have
learned to think with discipline, who have the wisdom that accrues from
reflecting theologically on ministerial work, and who know the story
of faith intimately. The church needs leaders who have been to school,
learned their stuff, and who love the sacred [texts] they have learned.

B. About Contextual v. Residential Education
Such education takes time and immersion in a community, listening first to God over a period of time, thereby subjecting oneself
to His Holy Spirit, listening more than speaking, learning to preach
with fewer words, learning that preaching is not about oneself and
personal life experiences. In James Bollhagen’s words: “Here is the
epitome of wisdom: listening, not speaking, and listening above all
to God himself—to his Word and the promises with his sacraments”
(Ecclesiastes, p. 190). Robert Kolb adds,
So also regarding their new creation the children learned that there is
no such thing as an individual believer. Not only are the people of God
always in community and conversation with God himself; they are also
in conversation and community with others... Understanding the Bible
requires a village and more.” (Concordia Journal 36, p. 334)

The temptation exists, for congregations and pastors, to isolate
themselves from the larger community, to be shaped in their own
image, which is believed to be the best. The healthiest ecclesiology
is when the church is committed to training her ministerium with the
maximal amount of exposure to the larger community. “The individualist can never quite understand that one can realize oneself and live
in the deepest richness by being totally immersed in the fellowship of
the Church” (Bo Giertz, Christ’s Church, p. 72). A formational path
for those training for the preaching office which has minimal contact with a constellation of mentors is dangerous for the church in the
long run. The church must prepare its ministerium for the marathon of
faith, which requires rigorous learning within the community. Again
Aleshire, on this topic:
Leaders who are characterized by these qualities are not educated
solely by the transmission of facts or training in practices, although both
are part of it. They require educational settings with sustained, inte-

2013 Convention Workbook