Concordia Journal Summer 2015 Volume 41 | Number 3 Concordia Seminary Concordia Seminary Place 801 MO 63105 St
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Concordia Seminary Concordia Journal 801 Seminary Place St. Louis, MO 63105 COncordia Summer 2015 Journal volume 41 | number 3 Summer 2015 volume 41 | Word Alive! Connections and Conversations number The New Obedience: An Exegetical Glance at Article VI of the Augsburg Confession 3 Pietism on the American Landscape Sanctification COncordia Journal A BIBLICAL, (ISSN 0145-7233) LUTHERAN VIEW OF HIGHER EDUCATION publisher Faculty Dale A. Meyer David Adams Benjamin Haupt David Peter THAT’S President Charles Arand Erik Herrmann Paul Raabe Andrew Bartelt David Johnson Victor Raj Executive EDITOR Joel Biermann Todd Jones Paul Robinson ROOTED Charles Arand Gerhard Bode Jeffrey Kloha Mark Rockenbach Dean of Theological Kent Burreson David Lewis Robert Rosin IN THE Research and Publication William Carr, Jr. Richard Marrs Timothy Saleska EDITOR Anthony Cook David Maxwell Leopoldo Sánchez M. INTERACTION Travis J. Scholl Timothy Dost Dale Meyer David Schmitt Managing Editor of Thomas Egger Glenn Nielsen Bruce Schuchard OF FAITH Theological Publications Joel Elowsky Joel Okamoto William Schumacher assistant editor Jeffrey Gibbs Jeffrey Oschwald James Voelz Melanie Appelbaum assistants Exclusive subscriber digital access Andrew Hatesohl All correspondence should be sent to: via ATLAS to Concordia Journal & Andrew Jones CONCORDIA JOURNAL Concordia Theology Monthly: Emily Ringelberg 801 Seminary Place http://search.ebscohost.com St. Louis, Missouri 63105 User ID: ATL0102231ps 314-505-7117 Password: subscriber cj @csl.edu Technical problems? Email [email protected] Issued by the faculty of Concordia Seminary, St. Louis, Missouri, the Concordia Journal is the successor of Lehre und Wehre (1855-1929), begun by C. F. W. Walther, a founder of The Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod. Lehre und Wehre was absorbed by the Concordia Theological Monthly (1930-1974) which was also published by the faculty of Concordia Seminary as the official theological periodical of the Synod. Concordia Journal is abstracted in Internationale Zeitschriftenschau für Bibelwissenschaft unde Grenzgebiete, New Testament Abstracts, Old Testament Abstracts, and Religious and Theological Abstracts. It is indexed in ATLA Religion Database/ATLAS and Christian Periodicals Index. Article and issue photocopies in 16mm microfilm, 35mm microfilm, and 105mm microfiche are available from National Archive Publishing (www.napubco.com). Books submitted for review should be sent to the editor. Manuscripts submitted for publication should cph.org/christianuniversity conform to a Chicago Manual of Style. Email submission ([email protected]) as a Word attachment is preferred. Editorial decisions about submissions include peer review. Manuscripts that display Greek or Hebrew text should utilize BibleWorks fonts (www.bibleworks.com/fonts.html). Copyright © 1994-2009 BibleWorks, LLC. ANDThis LEARNING is an extremely illuminating book that will be of great help to our universities All rights reserved. Used with permission. and to the LCMS as a whole. At a time when synodical universities are struggling with The Concordia Journal (ISSN 0145-7233) is published quarterly (Winter, Spring, Summer, and Fall). The annual “Lutheran Identity,” this book serves as a template for faculty, administrators, boards, subscription rate is $25 (individuals) and $75 (institutions) payable to Concordia Seminary, 801 Seminary Place, and students for how that can be achieved and for how that identity can help colleges St. Louis, MO 63105. New subscriptions and renewals also available at http://store.csl.edu. Periodicals postage to be truly excellent at every level. paid at St. Louis, MO and additional mailing offices. Postmaster: Send address changes to Concordia Journal, Concordia Seminary, 801 Seminary Place, St. Louis, MO 63105-3199. — Gene Edward Veith, PhD, Professor of Literature, Patrick Henry College © Copyright by Concordia Seminary, St. Louis, Missouri 2015 www.csl.edu | www.concordiatheology.org © 2015 Concordia Publishing House Printed in USA 595247_02 595247_02 CJournalAd Sumr.indd 1 5/4/15 8:53 AM COncordia Journal CONTENTS EDITORIALs 189 Editor’s Note 190 Word Alive! Connections and Conversations Dale A. Meyer 195 Ronald R. Feuerhahn: Historian, Theologian, Churchman, Pastor Jon Vieker 198 Encomium for William Carr, Upon His Retirement James W. Voelz ARTICLES 201 The New Obedience: An Exegetical Glance at Article VI of the Augsburg Confession Michael P. Middendorf 220 Pietism on the American Landscape Martin E. Conkling 236 Sanctification David P. Scaer 253 HOMILETICAL HELPS 275 BOOK REVIEWS Summer 2015 volume 41 | number 3 editoRIALS COncordia Journal Editor’s Note This issue publishes the plenary presentations from the 2014 LCMS Theology Professors Conference, which centered around the theme of the “new obedience” of Article VI of the Augsburg Confession. The conference is a regular opportunity for the theologians of the Concordia University System and the two LCMS seminaries to engage in fruitful conversation, to learn from each other in continuing education and lifelong learning. We talk a good game about continuing education, but it doesn’t always seem to gain traction. What would it mean for clergy and church workers to be vitally engaged in lifelong learning? Or, perhaps a better way to put it, what would it look like? Educators and DCEs already know. They are engaged in continuing education as a natural, and in many cases mandatory, part of their vocation. On this score, clergy are behind the curve. Virtually all “learned professions” (the medical professions, law, engineering, et al.) have a process of continuing education built into the exercise of their work. Why not pastors? In a society and culture that is moving with so much velocity, in so many different directions, why would we even want to persist in the myth that every thing we need to know we learned, if not in kindergarten, then in the four years we spent—in what seems like a century ago—earning the degree that made us eligible for a call? We certainly wouldn’t want our primary care physicians to work that way. Why then those involved in the work of Seelsorge? At the heart of a profession that values lifelong learning—whether it is required, encouraged, apprenticed, or simply part of the job—is a deeply personal value for curi- osity. Those who recognize that learning is a formative lifelong process that only ends when they are six feet underground have a vital interest in understanding the world. I am becoming increasingly convinced that the loss of a sense of curiosity is one of the most tragic intellectual symptoms of what many have diagnosed as affluenza. And it happens every time we act as if we know the answer before the question is asked. For Christians, of course, our learning doesn’t even end when we’re six feet under. Its end (telos) is in the certain hope that one day we shall know as fully as we are already fully known (1 Cor 13:12). As such, it should be clergy who model the most vital sense of curiosity, because our curiosity doesn’t just seek to understand the world. We understand more than most that faith alone—fides quarens intellectum—seeks to understand not only the world, but the God who is at work in the world to make all things new. Travis J. Scholl Managing Editor of Theological Publications On the cover: Detail from The Good Samaritan (after Delacroix) by Vincent van Gogh (1890), from a significant body of copies van Gogh executed while he was institutionalized in Saint-Paul asylum in Saint-Rémy-de-Provence (image: Wikimedia Commons). Concordia Journal/Summer 2015 189 Word Alive! Connections and Conversations President Matthew Harrison recently reported to the Concordia Seminary Board of Regents that The Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod has lost 18 percent of its membership in the last forty years. To be sure, we’re not the only mainline American denomination in serious decline, and cultural and demographic reasons can be cited, but that’s little comfort to a church which has taken the Great Commission seriously since its founding. I’m not setting out on a guilt trip here. There may well be valid reasons why some congregations are not growing, like the decline of 160-acre family farms in rural America. Growth is not the only measure of congregational health, as Peter Steinke writes knowledgably in A Door Set Open.1 That said, decline in any congregation and in the general synod saddens us and challenges us to strategic thinking for the future, espe- cially in our seminaries as we prepare the pastors who will take our places. When groups talk about our decline, the amazing growth of Christianity in other places, especially Africa, is usually brought up, but in my experience these discussions usually end in res- ignation and the meeting proceeds. The 800-pound gorilla of decline lumbers off to sit silently in the back of the room and watches us vainly put our energies into lubricating the machinery of an institutional church we love but is in serious decline. I certainly don’t have a silver-bullet answer, no one does, but we can gain insight by comparing today’s culture to the culture of the early and growing church, which is one reason why our healthy, confessional seminaries are especially important in this time of decline. Professors who are scholars in cultures and historical times different than our own can help us understand the practical problems facing the church today. “Most of what we do in serious Bible study has to do with overcoming the gaps that separate us from the original audience of the scriptural documents.”2 Learning the differences between the cultures of the first and the twenty-first century can sharpen pastoral presentation of God’s gospel to all the baptized in sermons, Bible classes, and conversation. And the more insightful and incisive we are in our preaching, teaching, and visitation, the more our laity will be enabled to give persuasive reasons for the hope that is in them as they pursue their vocations in the world (1 Pt 3:15).