Why Lutheranism?

[filosofer]

Bottom line, Riff, is that when we confess the Christian faith as Lutherans it is clearly centered upon the grace of God in Jesus Christ, which we receive through what God has appointed. Thus, we disagree with RCC on marriage (among others. Yes, God instituted marriage, but not as a means of delivering his grace. On the other hand, we do believe that Preaching (Romans 10:17, etc.), Baptism (1 Peter 3:21; Acts 2:38-39), Confession/Absolution (Matthew 18:15-20, Ephesians 4:32, John 20:23), and the Lord’s Supper (Matthew 26:26-28 and parallels and 1 Corinthians 11:23-29) are instituted by God to deliver the forgiveness of sins.

Every other “system” gets one or more of those parts wrong according to the Bible. Thus, unless I can be shown from the Scriptures where any of the Lutheran teachings are wrong, I won’t budge (to paraphrase Martin Luther).

 

[Riff]

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[filosofer]

All denominations think that way though. What makes you think you are right out of all of them? This just makes me curious. Each thinks they are right and following Scripture perfectly while thousands of other denominations are wrong. Why do you think you found the needle in the haystack?

Well, as I noted in an earlier post, I have studied this from many perspectives, and was under the influence of some top notches preachers/teachers in denominations. But they all began to fall apart, often because the starting point was different. For instance, with Calvinists, justification by grace through faith is not central and bottom line, rather God’s sovereignty is. That makes a huge difference when approaching every other doctrine, and influences. Isn’t it interesting that when Calvin, who believed in double-predestination, struggled with 1 Timothy 2:4. His solution? In his commentary, he mistranslated it so that it would fit with his view on double predestination. (Calvin’s translation: “God desires all kinds of people to be saved.”)

So, yeah, it is good to look at all of them. Most people never investigate thoroughly and hence think “all are the same” or “they all claim the same thing.” They don’t all claim the same thing.

 

[LilLamb219]

Have you read the Proper Distinction Between Law and Gospel?

When I deal with other denoms' doctrines, I keep the basics of Law and Gospel in my head and from there I can see where some of the other denoms tend to stray off. They confuse Law with Gospel and Gospel with Law. This is one of the reasons I remain Lutheran. That and the fact that I when I tried to leave and searched out other denoms, I went and read the Bible from cover to cover in a very short amount of time. It was God's Word that gave me my beliefs and I realized that I should not quit being Lutheran.

 

[Luther073082]

All denominations think that way though. What makes you think you are right out of all of them? This just makes me curious. Each thinks they are right and following Scripture perfectly while thousands of other denominations are wrong. Why do you think you found the needle in the haystack?

For me its just this simple.

Only four major groups of Christians uniformly take Jesus at his word when he said "This is my body, this is my blood." The rest think its some sort of symbol. I'm sorry but I see nothing in the word indicating this is some sort of allegory.

Those are Roman Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, Oriental Orthodox and Lutherans.

Roman Catholics, Eastern Orthodox, and Oriental Orthodox rely on two things which I find highly suspect.

They rely on tradition which in the end is essentially telling someone that somthing is true just because you said so. Especially when one considers that they both count on tradition but they disagree on what the tradition is. What makes you belive that RCC tradition is right while Eastern Orthodox and Oriental Orthodox is wrong?

I don't accept that tradition can just create a doctrine from out of thin air. Tradition has its uses, it can be used as a great light from which to understand the scriptures. The works of the early church fathers are very important for this. But where we seperate from them is in their attempts to create entire doctrines from uninspired works or from out of thin air. Just because Iraneus (sp?) said something, doesn't make it true.