Language Matters
This short popped up in my feed, and I think it is illustrative of why we are so divided in the LCMS. It’s part of a longer Unite Leadership Collective podcast (below) that demonstrates that our problem is one of language. We use the same words, but we are not using the words in the same way. And I think the best construction is that it is a problem of linguistic ignorance. For if it’s not ignorance, then it is subversion and malice. I’m going to stick with the former unless there is real evidence of the latter.
To see how this is a linguistic issue, I want to refer to a different podcast (below) called The Red Letter Disciple.
This second video deals with the controversy of how we should be forming pastors in the LCMS. There is a lot of debate about whether our priority should be on our residential seminary MDiv programs, or whether we should give greater leeway to alternative routes to the ministry: whether expanding the SMP program, offering a non-residential MDiv (perhaps in conjunction with non-LCMS Lutherans), or even some kind of congregation-based “raising up leaders locally” (whatever that means).
In the Red Letter Disciple podcast, the Rev. Zach Zehnder interviews the Rev. Frank Hart, an SMP pastor. Pastor Hart is of the opinion that not only is SMP as good as residential formation, but it is actually better.
Everybody thinks the way they did it is the way it ought to be done. And by the way, at the end of this conversation, I'll bet you that's the impression that I give. The SMP program, that's the way it ought to be. That's the best way. It's the right way. Everyone should do it that way. It's better. I will say that I do believe that.
Of course, he is entitled to his opinion, but it’s going to be a hard sell. SMP’s academic requirement for ordination is 16 courses. It is between 40% and 50% of the course work for the MDiv. The Biblical languages are removed from the SMP curriculum, which means the exegetical courses that have Greek and Hebrew as prerequisites can also not be taken, or they must be modified for those students that lack the languages. There is also the issue of non-classroom formation that happens at other times and places that SMP students get but a taste of twice a year during intensives. Why are SMP advocates so quick to dismiss this as being meaningless?
Pastor Hart downplays the languages, arguing that neither our confessions nor Walther say anything about biblical languages. It’s a curious argument, since the Reformation was, in part, powered by the ad fontes movement to recover the biblical languages, as a lot of doctrinal gems found their renaissance in the recovery of Greek and Hebrew - which were emphasized, alongside with the ubiquitous use of Latin in the academic setting - by the reformers. In fact, until 1921, men training for the ministry in the LCMS only had the German and Latin Book of Concord. Walther wrote mainly in German, and much of what he wrote remains untranslated. Pastor Hart argues that languages may be okay for some pastors, but for most, it’s just a waste of time. I would argue that one doesn’t know what one doesn’t know. He goes so far as to call pastors formed by residential training “ivory tower pastors.” Here he is in his own words:
I would just remind us of our confessions and and the teachings of Walther, like Greek and Hebrew and MDiv, they don't mention those things at least in my understanding, a man who does Word and Sacrament ministry, they call him a pastor. And so, is it good to learn Greek and Hebrew? Yeah, I'm I'm sure it is. I'm sure that would be great. Does every local congregation need a guy who can parse the verbs and translate Job? I'm not sure that every local congregation needs that. I think that some do, and I think that I don't want to lose our ability to read languages. Of course not. But that's kind of a secondary issue.
The best construction for his argument is not that “ignorance is strength” (with a nod to George Orwell), but rather that the investment of time and effort to learn Greek and Hebrew is greater than the benefit that flows from it. It is a matter of “opportunity cost.” He seems to believe that the kingdom is best served by most men studying in English only, and getting out into the field quicker - especially in his vocation as a church planter.
On a side note, I checked out his argument that his congregation (NewChurch) is liturgical, even if they don’t follow LSB to the letter, that they use both modern “praise” songs and traditional hymns. You can go check it out for yourself. I did. I found the service to be basically 50% soft-rock concert, with the rest being essentially a non-denominational service: ex corde prayers, no confession and absolution, no Kyrie, no Gloria (maybe it’s because of Lent?), no collect, no creed, no Nunc Dimittis. There was one Bible reading. And since there was no Eucharist, there was also no Preface, Proper Preface, Sanctus, or Verba. They did do the Lord’s Prayer without any butchery (Deo gratias!), and they did one hymn: the Common Doxology. The pastor did the Aaronic Benediction with a little bit of improv. So I’m kind of skeptical of what is being claimed about this being a liturgical congregation.
We do have some free videos they can watch if they are interested in having actual liturgical worship.
But my main reason for pointing this out is that language matters. There is always a loss in translation. Words have a range of meaning, and it is important to know the context in which they are used. And the original languages provide much of that context. And again, you don’t know what you don’t know.
Back to this “priesthood of all believers” topic. Contrary to the assertions of Neo-Evangelicals - and Lutherans who imitate, read, and worship like they do - this is not a major teaching of Lutheranism. 1 Pet 2:9 only appears in the Book of Concord one time, in Tractate 69, which is not making the argument that “everyone is a minister,” but rather that the “church… certainly has the right to elect and ordain ministers.” 1 Pet 2:9 is not used to blur the line between the clergy and the laity, but to demonstrate that we retain the ordained ministry among us (unlike the Anabaptists and others). The vocation of pastor exists for the sake of ministry (service) to the laity.
Contrary to Jack Kalleberg’s assertion, Luther’s teaching on this topic was not a “revolution.” Both the Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox communions also teach the priesthood of the baptized, and always have. The Catechism of the Catholic Church speaks of the “common priesthood of all the faithful” (Ch 3 Part 1535). And the East speaks of the “universal priesthood of believers.” There are simply different priesthoods. In the Old Testament, we see not only the Levitical priests, but we see Moses’s father-in-law in priestly service. We also see Melchizedek, priest of Salem, who is not of the Levitical priesthood. But the linguistic element that is overlooked by the participants of the Unite Leadership Collective podcast is that Peter is not establishing a new “priesthood of all believers” in the New Testament. For the Old Testament church also had the priesthood of all believers. Peter was quoting Ex 19:6 in 1 Pet 2:9. And this requires delving into the Biblical languages.
In the ESV, 1 Pet 2:9 reads:
But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood (Greek NT: βασίλειον ἱεράτευμα), a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light.
In the ESV, Ex 19:6a reads:
and you shall be to me a kingdom of priests (Greek LXX: βασίλειον ἱεράτευμα) and a holy nation.
Notice that Peter is quoting, as the apostles often do, the Greek Old Testament (LXX).
“Royal priesthood” and “kingdom of priests” are two ways to translate βασίλειον ἱεράτευμα. So the narrative that the Old Testament Levitical priesthood yielded to the New Testament universal priesthood ignores the universal priesthood that already existed among the “holy nation” of the Hebrews, the Old Testament church.
Jesus Himself makes the distinction between those disciples who are called to be apostles (sent) and those who are not sent to preach and “make disciples” (Matt 28:19). This becomes apparent in the Greek verb “to send” (ἀποστέλλω - apostello). Dr. Ahlman is engaging in a straw man argument when he argues that some Lutherans oppose the laity telling friends or coworkers about Jesus. Maybe he should rename his program the Tim Strawman Podcast. Nobody denies that the woman at the well and the demoniacs told people about Jesus. Nobody is arguing that the laity ought not teach their kids the faith. This is all nonsense. Nobody argues that pastors are some kind of “elite class.”
But our Augsburg Confession addresses the distinction between those who are sent out to preach (pastors) and those who are not, by referring to an “office.” In our English translation of Article 5, this office is called the “Ministry of teaching the Gospel and administering the Sacraments” (AC 5:1 Triglot). This is a rather straightforward rendering of the Latin “ministerium docendi evangelii.” And, of course, we might be tempted to lump schoolteachers and pastors together, since rostered Lutheran schoolteachers are also “teaching the gospel” - and they are “ministers of religion - rostered” per our parlance. But a look at the original German throws a monkey-wrench into the “Everyone a Minister” canard. For it speaks of the “Predigamt.” This is a compound word that translates as “preaching office.” And unlike the passively-voiced Latin, the German explicitly ascribes the establishment of this “office” to “God” (Gott). The Anabaptists, by contrast, do not confess an Office of the Holy Ministry, that is, a Preaching Office of Word and Sacrament. And in fact, we condemn (“damnant” - Latin) them (werden verdammt - German) for their false doctrine. But without knowing the original languages, it’s easy just to argue that there really is no divinely created office, falling back on the god of the American Interim, equality, and the many contexts and lexical usages of the English word “ministry.”
We see this distinction between the pastoral office and the laity in Article 14 as well, as our English translation says:
Of Ecclesiastical Order they teach that no one should publicly teach in the Church or administer the Sacraments unless he be regularly called. (AC 14:1 Triglot).
The McCain Edition says “without a rightly ordered call.”
Of course, this is also a source of linguistic confusion, since we issue “calls” not only to pastors, but also teachers, DCEs, deaconesses, and a host of other lay offices. Moreover, we use the terms “minister” and “ministry” to both pastors and laity alike. And here again, it says “teach.” Once again, the original languages clarify the ambiguity.
The German uses the term “ordenlichen Beruf” (“orderly call”). But the Latin gives us a little more insight by using a term from canon law: “rite vocatus.” If a man was “rite vocatus,” he was properly placed into the pastoral (priestly) ministry, being validly ordained. The word “rite” is the adjectival form of “ritus” (which is where we get the English words “rite” and “ritual.” The word “vocatus” means “called” - and is obviously where we get the English word “vocation.” So “rite vocatus” means “called ritely” or “called according to the rite.” It is no accident that this canon law term was used. For again, we did not abolish ordination as the radical reformers did.
However, relying on our English translation has led to confusion. By way of a personal example, my first call was to be a campus pastor of a Lutheran high school. The principal was a rostered layman. He wanted more liturgical “diversity” in our chapel services, and reduced me to preaching and conducting worship once or twice a month in my own call. He would often preach and conduct services himself (sometimes with a large SpongeBob doll and other goofy props), or would have a lay teacher do it (one would curiously don a black suit and white tie when he was “impastoring”), or would bring in a DCE with a boombox playing bowdlerized Eminem lyrics with the f-words changed to something Jesusy. Yes, it really was that kind of a you-know-what show. At any rate, being that the principal was a rostered church worker who had taken vows to norm his teaching by the Bible and the Book of Concord, I asked him about Article 14. He wasn’t familiar with it. I showed it to him. He said, “I have a call just like you.” And when I explained that our calls were different, he asked me “Where is that in the Bible?” as if I were obliged to defend the Lutheran confessions against him and his implication that our Augsburg Confession is not biblical.
All of this mischief was spawned because of the “Everyone a Minister” spirit of the age, and a lack of any knowledge of the German and Latin contexts of the Book of Concord. And this man had a Master’s Degree from a Concordia. How is it possible? It was not that long ago when high school kids learned Latin. I had parishioners who went to public high school here in the Deep South in the 1930s, and four years of Latin was required. Now we have people with theological Master’s and even Doctorates that can’t even hack their way through the German and Latin of the Book of Concord - not even with the Triglot’s English to help them through. There is no excuse for this. And I’m not exempting myself. I taught Latin to middle school kids, but I am nowhere near where I should be as a pastor with two Master’s degrees - much to my shame.
Maybe this linguistic ignorance about calls and ministry is why one of the hosts of the Unite Leadership Collective podcast, Mr. Jack Kalleberg, a layman, preaches at the “contemporary” services of his congregation. The responsibility really falls on his pastor, who should know better. And this does not reflect well upon his seminary professors. Why does this happen under his pastoral oversight? It is his vocation to preach. Why doesn’t he do it himself? He is in the Predigamt.
And now, we are getting pushback for requiring that pastors read Greek and Hebrew.
Linguistic ignorance has also led to other problems. For example, we in the English-speaking LCMS often call lay assistants “elders.” But our modern translations of Scripture use the word “elder” to translate “πρεσβύτερος” - presbuteros (or presbyter). This explains why my congregation, decades ago, had the Board of Elders lay hands on a pastor at his installation. But hey, “everyone a minister,” right? Equipping the saints? A pastor who served his vicarage here locally was even subjected to having the lady presidentress of his congregation “lay hands on him” at his vicarage installation. Sometimes the LCMS is the ecclesiological version of the movie Idiocracy.
There is also a general ignorance about how the English word “priest” is derived from the word “πρεσβύτερος” - presbuteros. Sometimes those who create a special Lutheran doctrine of the “priesthood of all believers” explicate a narrative that the Roman Church calls their ministers “priests,” but we Lutherans don’t. We call the laity “the royal priesthood.” However, this not only betrays a linguistic ignorance, it also shows a lack of familiarity with the Book of Concord. The term “priest” is the most common term for the pastor in the Lutheran Confessions. This is why Article 23 is called “Marriage of Priests” or “Sacerdotal Marriage,” and paragraph 2 speaks of “our priests” - (Priester bei uns (German), Sacerdotes apud nos (Latin)). By recognizing the priestly role of the pastor, we are not denying the universal priesthood of the laity (just as Rome and the East do not, nor did the Hebrews of the Old Testament). In fact we are being biblical, as St. Paul refers to his own “priestly service” (Greek: ἱερουργοῦντα). Moreover, if our “missional” friends were truly “missional,” they would recognize that Lutherans all over the world refer to their pastors as priests: Finland, Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Iceland, Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, Ukraine, and Russia - as well as in African counties evangelized by Nordic missionaries.
There is also a lot of bamboozlement regarding the words “minister” and “ministry.” For there are both broad and narrow uses of these words. The Bible and the Book of Concord both speak of the pastoral ministry, as well as a broader use of the word “minister” to mean the rendering of service. This is why when our ESV translation speaks of the women “ministering” to Jesus, this doesn’t mean they put on collars, albs, and stoles, and preached sermons and administered sacraments. While our popular culture talks about music ministers and basketball ministry, we have to be contextually clear. I’m afraid the “Everyone a Minister” faction benefits by muddying these waters.
There is another example of linguistic confusion in this Unite Leadership Collective interview with the Rev. Dr. Robert Scudieri. In the video, he defends the Atlantic District’s female deacon program - which is different than the synod’s deaconesses. These female deacons (so-called) wear albs and stoles and participate in the liturgy. This has been going on for decades. Dr. Scudieri defends this practice based on linguistic ignorance. He asserts that St. Phoebe was a “deacon”:
There is no term deaconess in the Bible. Phoebe is called a deacon. In our church in New Jersey, we had deacons and some of them were women and it was a biblical approach to missions.
At this point, both Dr. Ahlman and Mr. Kalleberg awkwardly try to bail out Dr. Scudieri. Kalleberg correctly points out the linguistic range of the Greek word διάκονος (diakonos) - translated as “servant” by the ESV regarding Phoebe, and Ahlman tries to explain the grammatical peculiarity of the Greek word to give Scudieri a bit of a fig leaf.
The truth of the matter is that the word translated as “deacon” can be rendered into English in several ways according to context. And, it is also the case that the Greek word diakonos is a “common gender” noun, meaning it is grammatically masculine or feminine depending on the antecedent, even though it is grammatically inflected like a masculine noun. When you combine the range of meaning of diakonos with its common gender, this is not an argument for, as Dr, Scudieri asserts, vesting women in albs and stoles and having them serve in clerical roles in the parochial Divine Service. This kind of linguistic gender issue is not all that unusual, as even first year Latin students are familiar with first declension masculine words that inflect as if they were feminine, words like “nauta” (sailor), “poeta” (poet), and “agricola” (farmer). Even though they are first declension words that inflect like feminine words, these words are all masculine in gender, and take the appropriate pronouns.
We have an analogous situation in English, as we have sadly replaced the older gendered politically-incorrect words “waiter” and “waitress” with a gender neutral “server.” And interestingly, this is one of the meanings of diakonos: a man or woman who waits tables. We do the same thing with the biblical term “steward” (οἰκονόμος - oikonomos), since we no longer speak of stewards and stewardesses in favor of the more dehumanizing “flight attendant.” Interestingly, οἰκονόμος is also a common gender word that can be either masculine or feminine, though it inflects following a masculine paradigm.
Language is important.
While it is understandable that advocates of the SMP program have a vested interest in downplaying the need for the study of biblical languages, words matter. Grammar matters. Verbal precision matters. Original languages matter. And I would argue that instead of removing Greek and Hebrew from our pastoral formation, we should keep them, and bolster them. And we should also add Latin and German as well: at least to be able to read basic confessional texts, even if alongside of the English translation.
It is a blessing that the restoration of classical education in the LCMS is now a quarter century old, and it is exploding! Many of my students - and others who are studying in classical Lutheran schools (including homeschools) and colleges - are achieving fluency in biblical and classical languages. Many of them are now entering the teaching profession and the preaching office. They will not be bamboozled, and neither will their children and their students!
Linguistic ignorance has caused enough mischief in our synod. And if the ignorance is widespread enough, we will open ourselves up to willful subversion with no real defense against it.