Faithful to the Scriptures

and the Lutheran Confessions

A Statement from The Office of the President
The Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod
1333 South Kirkwood Road
St. Louis, Missouri 63122
United States of America

Our Lord Jesus Christ said, "If you continue in My Word, you are truly My disciples, and you will know the truth and the truth will make you free" (John 8:31-32). These words from Holy Scripture are what this, the fourth point in the five-fold vision statement, is all about. Faithful-ness to the Word of God and to the Lutheran Confessions is what makes it possible for our beloved Synod to remain a confessing Lutheran church. For without faithfulness to the Word and to the Lutheran Confessions, our Synod will become only one among many denominations.

As you read in our Synod's Constitution, the first objective of our Synod is to "...conserve and promote the unity of the true faith...." Our Synod was not established for the sake of administrative structures, programs, various boards or committees and commissions, important as all these surely are. No, our Synod was founded to help our congregations be faithful to the Scriptures and the Confessions. Our Synod was founded to make it possible for our congregations to do things that alone they would not be able to do. This naturally causes us to ask the question, "Why? What's the point?" I need to share with you the fact that it troubles me when some in our Synod express the feeling that our Synod is too concerned about doctrine and that all we need to do is emphasize the Great Commission more.

If we begin to put a concern for faithfulness and a desire for outreach in opposition to one another we are making a grave mistake. Faith-fulness and outreach must always go together. They are not separate concerns, nor should they ever be. We need to say with boldness, confidence and conviction, "Yes! We are committed to being faithful-absolutely faithful-to the Holy Scriptures and to the Lutheran Confessions. And, yes we are committed to aggressive and bold outreach."

How then do we as a Synod remain faithful to Scripture and to the Lutheran Confessions? It must start in our own individual lives. We must continue to be nurtured on the Word of God. We must continue to study and learn more of our precious Lutheran theology. As we grow in the knowledge of Scripture and of our Lutheran Confessions, so also will our Synod grow in its faithfulness to Scripture and to the Confessions.

It is particularly important that our pastors, teachers, DCEs, deaconesses and other church workers spend quality time studying the Scriptures, the Lutheran Confessions and other faithful teachers of our church. But it does not stop with our church workers.

Faithfulness is to be taught in our homes. Our families are where the first seeds of faithful-ness to the Word are planted. St. Paul reminded young Pastor Timothy that he had come to know the Scriptures "from infancy" (2 Timothy 3:14-15). This is truly a model for our families today. Wherever possible, the father, as the head of the family, needs to take an active interest in making sure his family studies the Scriptures and is instructed in the Small Catechism. Where this is not possible, the faithful mother takes on this role. No matter what the family situation, parents must give a very high priority to bringing their children up in the knowledge of Scripture and the Small Catechism.

Faithfulness to the Scriptures and to the Lutheran Confessions must likewise be sustained in the congregation. There is no national or district program that can be a substitute for faithful ministry in the local congregation. We recall the Lutheran Confessions' keen insight that the church is "...the assembly of all believers among whom the Gospel is preached in its purity and the holy sacraments are administered according to the Gospel" (AC VII.1).

Thus, an active program of child, youth and adult education in the local congregation is essential for our Synod's faithfulness to Scripture and to the Lutheran Confessions. I sense that our people very much do want to know why they are Lutherans and what it means to be orthodox and confessional Lutherans. They want to understand the teachings of the Lutheran church. They want to know in more detail what the Lutheran Confessions teach and why they are important. The key here is faithful doctrinal instruction.

I am growing increasingly concerned by the fact that we are losing sight of the need for complete and thorough doctrinal instruction. We have done our Synod a grave disservice with this decreasing emphasis on doctrine. There needs to be a marked increase in youth and adult catechetical instruction. Adult membership instruction needs to be more than simply a few sessions of "once over lightly" sorts of classes.

As our secular culture grows increasingly hostile to genuine Scriptural Christianity, and as a generic Protestant/Reformed church culture grows in opposition to a genuinely confessional Lutheranism, it becomes even more important for our congregations to give a high priority to adult instruction. Our instruction classes, sermons and educational programs need to emphasize doctrine. If this is not done, and if our people are not adequately indoctrinated, then we should not be surprised when they move to another community and join non-Lutheran or non-Missouri Synod Lutheran congregations. If they cannot see the differences in a church body's doctrinal positions, then the blame for this rests on our shoulders.

You can tell I feel very strongly about the need for solid, thorough congregational programs of teaching and instruction in the Lutheran faith. I am convinced that this issue, more than any other, is the key for the ongoing faithfulness of our church body to God's Word and to the Lutheran Confessions.

As we move into a consideration of how we as a Synod remain faithful to Scripture and to the Lutheran Confessions on a national level, we need to recognize that the national synodical structure exists to serve our congregations, not the other way around. The important things we do as a synodical family take place in our congregations. Sometimes I hear talk which seems to be motivated more by a fear for the institution, than by a bold confidence in our Lutheran confession and the desire to remain faithful to it and reach out with it. Therefore, we as a Synod must not permit ourselves to lapse into an "institutional survival" mentality.

Away with such "doom and gloom" sort of talk! Our Synod needs to remain absolutely com-mitted to faithfulness to the Word of God and to the Lutheran Confessions. Our goal is not to try to "get by" with the least amount of faithfulness. Instead we must look for every possible opportunity to express our faithfulness to all the teachings of Scripture, no matter what the subject. This means that at times we will fly in the face of what our popular culture, and, sadly even what other church bodies consider to be true.

Therefore, as confessional Lutherans, we must not permit emotionalism and subjectivity to take the place of Jesus Christ and His Sacraments in our church life. We must not surrender the authority of Scripture to the opinions of human beings. We must not backtrack in our trust in Scripture's inerrancy and infallibility. We must not move away from the Scriptural and Confessional principles of church fellowship to which we have pledged ourselves as members of the Synod. We must not abandon the clear teaching of Scripture that God has given men alone the responsibility for the pastoral office. We must not let the Biblical vision of human sexuality and the family be overshadowed by what is popular in our culture today.

We must not back away from our commit-ment to be and to remain a genuinely confessional and orthodox Lutheran church body, in both doctrine and practice. Our Synod does not need to be afraid of being truly Lutheran. We have many temptations before us in this country to assume certain styles and practices which are more in keeping with non-Lutheran understandings of Scripture.

It is a temptation our church will continue to face in America, since so much of the ecclesiastical culture in our land has been shaped by Reformed Protestantism and the various expressions which flow from that sort of theology and practice. There is no need for us to fear standing tall for a clear Lutheran identity in this country. There is no need for apology here, but rather a spirit of humble thanksgiving to God that He gives us the opportunity to confess and to practice His Word in all of its truth and purity. Now let's take a closer look at the last point of the five-fold vision statement.