Church and Ministry (Kirche und Amt) (English and German Edition)
(A translation of Walther's famous treatise on church and ...)
A translation of Walther's famous treatise on church and ministry, Die Stimme unserer Kirche in der Frage von Kirche und Amt (3rd edition) explains the theological foundation for the congregation and pastoral office. Walther offers 9 theses on the Chruch and 10 theses on the Ministry, supported from Scripture, the church's confessions, and patristic and confessional writers.
Translated by J. T. Mueller
The Proper Distinction Between Law and Gospel (American Lutheran Classics) (Volume 7)
(C.F.W. Walther's "The Proper Distinction Between Law and ...)
C.F.W. Walther's "The Proper Distinction Between Law and Gospel" is the Missouri Synod theologian's greatest theological work. This book consists of a series of thirty-nine lectures that Dr. Walther gave his seminary students at the end of his life on one of the foundational elements of Lutheran thought. In twenty-five theses, Walther expounds upon the distinction between the Law as God's demands upon his creatures, and the Gospel of God's free grace in Christ. Each thesis is defended by extensive Scriptural exegesis.
Sermons of C.F.W. Walther Vol. 1, 2 and 3 (Annotated)
(Enlivening and inspiring, Sermons of C.F.W. Walther inclu...)
Enlivening and inspiring, Sermons of C.F.W. Walther include 20 selected sermons for personal study and edification of Christians who truly hunger for the bread of life and thirst for the living water. Ideal for small house groups, meeting as in the days of the early church. A rousing call both to the indifferent and the blatantly straying ones drawing them gently but firmly back from their self-chosen ways, this world and life. A prolific writer, his works are still pertinent!
God's No and God's Yes: The Proper Distinction Between Law and Gospel
(This is a student transcript of CFW Walther's Friday even...)
This is a student transcript of CFW Walther's Friday evening "Luther Hour" lectures delivered between 9/2/1884 and 11/6/1885. Walther felt it his duty not only to make clear to his students the meaning of the doctrines of the Sacred Scriptures, but also "to talk the doctrine into their hearts" so that as pastors they would be able to "come forward as living witnesses with a demonstration of the Spirit and of power."
(Pastoral Theology was the first confessional Lutheran han...)
Pastoral Theology was the first confessional Lutheran handbook for the pastoral ministry published in the United States and remains, to this day, a very important work from a historical perspective. C.F.W. Walther explains the how and why of what a pastor does. This is the only complete translation of this influential work by Walther.
(This edition of the classic work of The Proper Distinctio...)
This edition of the classic work of The Proper Distinction Between Law and Gospel will make this powerful resource available in a format for all readers of the Bible. Offering a fresh look of the older translation, it will provide comprehensive notes and annotations to aid reader's understanding bringing to life the power and excitement of the original German lectures. This new unabridged edition restores Walther's witty, staccato fire, including text omitted in prior English versions. Read Walther's lectures like no one has since he originally spoke them. - Foreign-language terms are in footnotes - Encounter information on Lutheran history and theology that identifies concepts, events, and people - Maps, timelines and rare photos - References to Scripture, Lutheran Confessions, Luther and other sources appear in the margins - References to English sources have been added when possible - Transcription errors from the orighinal lecture notes have been corrected Listen to an audio interview with Pastors Charles Schaum, Editor, and Christian Tiews, Translator, as they describe the reader's edition of Law & Gospel: How to Read and Apply the Bible.
(The issue of church and office is too often a muddle amon...)
The issue of church and office is too often a muddle among us, and Walther can be most helpful if he is allowed to speak with the precision he intended.
Matthew C. Harrison
President of the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod
Matthew Harrison s new edition of this seminal writing by the first president of the LCMS restores Walther s precise language on the doctrines of church and ministry. As the subtitle of the original German edition states, The Church and The Office of The Ministry is a collection of testimonies . . . from the Confessions of the Evangelical Lutheran Church and from the private writings of orthodox teachers of the same. Professional church workers and interested lay members will find a wealth of insights from the Bible, the Confessions, ancient church fathers, Luther, the orthodox Lutheran fathers, and more on the key questions of what or who is the Church, what is and who holds the Office of the Ministry, and what are the powers and duties of each.
This New Study Edition Includes
new reader-friendly updated translation
footnotes explaining terms and history
side notes highlighting texts from the Bible, Lutheran Confessions and Martin Luther
marginal references to Johann Gerhard
glossary of key German and Latin terms
appendices including supporting documents
Scriptural index
topical index
free downloadable data charts
editorial introductions from Rev. Dr. Matthew Harrison
(A transcript of Walther's Friday evening 'Luther Hour' le...)
A transcript of Walther's Friday evening 'Luther Hour' lectures, delivered at Concordia Seminary, St. Louis, Mo., from Sept. 12, 1884, to Nov. 6, 1885. This represents perhaps Walther's greatest contribution to the church. Foreword by Jaroslav Pelikan.
Carl Ferdinand Wilhelm Walther was the first President of the Lutheran Church–Missouri Synod and its most influential theologian.
Background
Carl Ferdinand Wilhelm Walther was born on October 25, 1811 at Langenschursdorf, near Waldenburg, Kingdom of Saxony, the eighth of the twelve children of the local pastor, Gottlob Heinrich Wilhelm Walther, and his wife, Johanna Wilhelmina Zschenderlein.
Education
He attended the Gymnasium at Schneeberg, 1821-29, and at the age of eighteen felt himself "born for nothing but music, " but under pressure from his father matriculated at the University of Leipzig as a student of theology. Walther completed his studies at Leipzig in 1833.
Career
He became a private tutor at Kahla and was ordained in January 1837 as pastor at Bräunsdorf, but in the easy-going, mildly rationalistic atmosphere of the Saxon State Church he was thoroughly unhappy. In September 1838 Stephan, who was in trouble with both the civil and the ecclesiastical authorities, decided to emigrate to the United States and found an independent Christian community. Upwards of 700 people rallied to him, including six clergymen and various candidates for ordination. Among them were Walther, his older brother, Otto Hermann Walther, and several of their friends. The emigrants sailed from Bremerhaven in five ships, one of which was lost at sea. Walther himself landed at New Orleans on January 5, 1839, and proceeded to St. Louis, Mo. Some of the company settled there, but the greater number occupied a tract of 4, 440 acres in Perry County, Mo. , where Walther became pastor of the settlements called Dresden and Johannesburg. Shortly after their arrival in Perry County, the emigrants made the belated discovery that Stephan was a libertine and a rascal, deposed him from office, and expelled him from their domain. Out of the confusion following the discovery Walther emerged as the leader of the community. In December 1839 he and three associates - Ottomar Fuerbringer, T. J. Brohm, J. F. Bünger - opened a school in a log cabin at Altenburg. This school was moved to St. Louis in 1850 and named Concordia Theological Seminary. Long before Walther's death it had become the largest Protestant theological seminary in the United States. In 1841 Walther removed to St. Louis to succeed his deceased brother as pastor of the Trinity congregation. On September 7, 1844, he issued the first number of Der Lutheraner as the exponent of strict confessional Lutheranism. This journal was welcomed throughout the Middle West by scattered Lutheran clergymen holding similar convictions and led directly to the organization at Chicago April 26, 1847, of the German Evangelical Lutheran Synod of Missouri, Ohio, and Other States, which is commonly known as the Missouri Synod. Walther was its president, 1847-50 and 1864-78. In 1850 he became professor of theology in Concordia Seminary without relinquishing his position as chief pastor of the four Saxon Lutheran congregations in St. Louis. In 1855 he established a second periodical, Lehre und Wehre, more technically theological than Der Lutheraner and animated by the same militant orthodoxy. In 1872 the Missouri Synod entered into a loose confederation with several other Middle Western synods that agreed with it in doctrine. Walther was the first president of this Synodical Conference. The Missouri Synod was now the largest body of Lutherans in the United States and was organized and directed with an efficiency comparable to that of the Prussian Army. Walther dominated its every activity. Of his many publications the most important are: Die Stimme unserer Kirche in der Frage von Kirche und Amt (1852); Die rechte Gestalt einer vom Staate unabhängigen evangelisch-lutherischen Ortsgemeinde (1863); Die evangelisch-lutherische Kirche die wahre sichtbare Kirche Gottes auf Erden (1867); Amerikanisch-Lutherische Evangelien-Postille (1871); Americanisch-Lutherische Pastoraltheologie (1872); Lutherische Brosamen (1876); an edition of J. G. Baier's Compendium Theologiae Positivae (1879); Amerikanisch-Lutherische Epistel-Postille (1882). Since his death many of his prayers, sermons, lectures, occasional addresses, and letters have been published, and some of them have been translated into English. After the death of his wife, August 23, 1885, he felt his own end approaching, divested himself of many of his duties, but continued to teach and preach until compelled to take to his bed. He died at St. Louis after a long illness and was buried in Concordia Cemetery.
(C.F.W. Walther's "The Proper Distinction Between Law and ...)
Personality
During his university years he suffered poverty, illness, and doubts about his salvation, consorted with a group of pietistically inclined students, read deeply in Luther's writings, and sought advice successfully from Martin Stephan, of St. Johannes Church, near Dresden.
He did not look the masterful man that he was. He was of medium height, uncommonly slender, and never in robust health. By middle life he was toothless, and hairless above the temples, and as he refused to wear false teeth his goatee was in grotesque proximity to the end of his nose. But his magnetic personality exercised its spell over individuals and crowds alike. He was a winning speaker and a powerful debater; his memory was a veritable concordance to the whole corpus of early Lutheran theology; and his capacity for work was astounding. He took no thought for himself: the sale of his books enriched the synodical treasury; he did not take a penny in royalties, supporting his family on a meager salary. He had a genius for friendship, conducted an extensive correspondence, and was almost immeasurably hospitable. His one interest outside his work was music: he was an excellent organist and had a fine baritone voice. He displayed his greatest power, though not the most admirable side of his character, in theological controversy. Throughout a good part of his career he was engaged in a series of controversies with other theologians on the nature of the church and the ministerial office and on other matters, and in these controversies he evinced not only immense learning and acumen but bitter feeling, intolerance, and an over-weening belief in his own inerrancy. The climax of his career as a polemical theologian was a controversy over the nature of predestination that began as early as 1868, almost disrupted the Synodical Conference, and did not subside till after his death. As a theologian he was not consciously, it would seem, an innovator; he regarded himself as a pupil of Luther and the Lutheran scholastics, reproducing their thought for the use of his own generation. Actually, his was too vigorous a mind to be a mere receptacle for others' thought. His greatness, however, lay in his genius for organization and leadership.
Connections
On September 21 of that year, at Dresden, Perry County, he married Christiane Emilie Bünger, by whom he had six children.