Lutheran Publication Society

“The Lutheran minister has three special activities. He is, first of all, a preacher of the Word, the whole Word, its Law and its Gospel. He is always and everywhere a seelsorger, a pastor, an under-shepherd, seeking the lost, feeding and caring for those in the fold, knowing them by name, carrying on his heart their woes, their wants and their welfare, looking after them individually and collectively.

“This weightiest chapter ever penned by Inspiration yields up its lessons best when literally understood, and when explained by the laws of common sense. “The secret of recent assaults upon the Bible is the restiveness of the modern spirit… so eager is the desire for anything new, that even the destruction of all that is precious and venerable is hailed on account of the morbid excitement thereby aroused.

“In these godless and worldly times we must earnestly and diligently preach conversion. We must insist on its necessity. We must reason, exhort, convince, beseech, and plead; ‘Turn ye, turn ye; why will ye die?

“In the Church… influential men (opposed) genuine Lutheranism. They clung ardently to the name, and gloried in their ecclesiastical ancestry; but they held that under that name they could be Calvinists, Zwinglians, or Arminians.

Many people have opinions about Martin Luther, but few have actually read his words. This small volume includes what church scholars Henry Wace and C. A. Buchheim consider Luther’s three primary works.

Charles A. Stork came of a line of preachers. His grandfather, Carl August Gottlieb Storch, had been sent from Germany in the year 1788, as a missionary to the Lutheran Church in North Carolina, where he labored faithfully until his death in 1831.

“There are many of us who believe; we are convinced; but our souls do not take fire at contact with the truth. Happy he who not only believes, but believes with fire.

In 1893 an attempt was made by liberal elements in the General Synod to remove Dr. Luther Gotwald from Wittenberg Seminary. He was said to be guilty of teaching the Augsburg Confession as, “a correct expression or exhibition of fundamental divine truth”.

“A good deal is said in these days about how to preach. In the days of Christ and Paul, what to preach seemed of vastly more importance. How to listen, what preparation of mind and heart is needful, what attitude toward the truth, what appreciation of the truth, these are more important questions than extempore or written preaching.

The Burning Of The Old Lutheran Church, On The Night Of September 27th, 1854, a message delivered In The Evangelical Lutheran Church, Winchester, Va., The Nineteenth Sunday After Trinity, 1854.

Ruth forsook father and mother, country and friends, to cast in her lot with the people of God, and her name is linked with that of the greatest king of Israel, and with that of the great Redeemer of mankind.

“When the minister comes from the altar, he must not forget that he now bears a message from the Lord to the waiting congregation. It is not a prayer; it is not man’s word; it is in no sense a subordinate act.