Ablaze!

An unlikely pair of voices spoke to me through their writings in the past week. The first is from one of my favorites, the first President of our Synod, C.F.W. Walther:

Whenever the Church wants to tackle a serious topic, it resorts to the ancient languages. Something on the order of when a doctor wants to impress you with the seriousness of whatever ails you and shifts into Latin to describe your condition. The same happens when lawyers rev up for a court challenge.

“Do the work of an evangelist.” At installations and ordinations, when verses are read as hands of blessing are laid upon the candidate, those words are sometimes spoken. “Do the work of an evangelist.” They were written to young pastor Timothy by St Paul. But what is Paul saying?

“We have often said heretofore that the Gospel, properly speaking, is not something written in books, but an oral proclamation, which shall be heard in all the world and shall be cried out freely before all creatures, so that all would have to hear it if they had ears; that is to say, it shall be preached so publicly that to preach it more publicly would be impossible. For the Law, which was of old, and what the prophets preached, was not cried out in all the world before all creatures, but it was preached by the Jews in their synagogues. But the Gospel shall not be thus confined; it shall be preached freely unto all the world.”

                         - Martin Luther, Gospel Sermon, Ascension Day (Lenker Edition, Vol XII, #3)

Have you ever heard it said that the church needs to do no outreach here in the United States because all anyone needs to do to hear the Gospel is go to one of the thousands of neighborhood churches to hear it?