Lutheran Librarian - Arndt's True Christianity PDF and Book

The Lutheran Library Publishing Ministry also offers Arndt's True Christianity as a free PDF.

The print copy of True Christianity can be purchased here.

One of the turning points in Christianity happened when Spener was invited to add a preface to Arndt's True Christianity.

Spener used the opportunity to promote his own approach, and that marked the beginning of Pietism, a blend of Calvinism and Lutheran doctrine, featuring doctrinal indifference and cell groups.

Pietism also emphasized charities and world missions, but quickly settled into rationalism.

Arndt is not to blame, so the original work should be read on its own.

I consider this bedspread a perfect example of what the Lutheran Librarian, Alec Satin, would use to keep warm while preparing his next dozen books.

 

Have You Heard Luther's Galatians? Audio Gutenberg!

One of the best ways to have Luther read is to have Luther heard. Among many other selections, our member Travis Cartee is recording Luther's Galatians.

Start here with all the selections of Audio Gutenberg. Subscribe - that gives the recordings prominence in your YouTube selections and more visibility for others.

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCx4pxF0ful6UXNC5WqT3C9A - For Mequon graduates

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Loy Reviewed on Amazon

Free Augsburg Confession by Loy PDF

-- Loy Reviewed for Amazon  1

Keep Up with the Lutheran Library Publishing Ministry - Alec Satin

The Lutheran Library Publishing Ministry

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“There are two things which Rome hates with an implacable hatred. They are the Bible and liberty. At any cost, Rome is bound to fight down these two things, till they are completely destroyed… Thanks to the betrayals of the politicians, and the delusions of the theologians, except God makes a miracle of it, the Bible and liberty are doomed in the United States…

“Whenever the Church of Rome has the power to do it she has persecuted the Protestants to her utmost capacity. She has sent them to jail, she has confiscated their goods, she has sent them into exile, or even put them to death. Before the conquest of Canada by the English, it was forbidden to Protestants to live in that country. They had the choice between going to jail or becoming exiles, if they persisted in their Gospel religion. In France, thousands have lost their lives, and have been forced to go and die in exile for becoming Protestants. In a single night, and the four or five months after the St. Bartholomew massacre, seventy-five thousand Protestants were slaughtered in France by the order of the Pope…

“In an important sense, I have written this book because I could not help it. The truth I have is not my own — it belongs to my heavenly Father, and the treasure in the earthen vessel I am bound to give to others as far as I can. With this feeling and purpose, I send forth this volume on its mission, hoping that it will be doing good after I am gone, and thus, though dead, I still may speak to others. — Charles Chiniquy

Luther's Galatians - From Audio Gutenberg

 

Luther's Galatians - Part VII. Ch. 3, v. 7-19.

LCMS-WELS-ELS-ELDONA Repudiate Inerrancy by Promoting the NIV-ESV Translations

The LCMS-WELS-ELS-ELDONA sects reject the ancient truth of Biblical inerrancy by embracing the NIV and ESV translations. 

These apostate factions get along well with ELCA because they share the same foundation - the modernized Greek text butchered by Hort-Wescott and further abused in its new disguise as the Nestle-Aland text. 

The traditional or received text (Textus Receptus for Latin 101 veterans) is not only consistent throughout, but exists in other forms as translations, church father quotations, and lectionaries. A lectionary can be dated one century and yet have a tradition going much earlier. As everyone knows - or should know - the publishing of Scripture is far more rigorous than ordinary books. 

Hort and Tiscendorf really wanted to derail the traditional text, so they took exceptions and made them the new norms. I have some interesting quotes about Hort's attitude and methods. In short, he did not reveal his new text until the English revision came out that matched it, 1881. Blowback was enormous because - suddenly - the Greek New Testament was quite different. 

This is a brief description of how this happened. Hort hated the traditional text and decided that later versions were identified by lots of extra words and verses. He liked the Vatican example (conveniently called Vaticanus) because so many words were missing. 

Here is the thinking - a manuscript gets more verbose over time, so we must find the original, clean copy. But that is nonsense. Apart from the overwhelming evidence behind the traditional text, there is this common sense answer to Hort. When we are writing or copying, what happens when an odious or troublesome term or event comes up? We avoid to edit that out or use circumlocutions. When one Yalie was told he would experience the worst pain in his life during one procedure, he explained, "It was everything they promised."

So - if an anti-Trinitarian does not like to equate Jesus with God, he will omit God and substitute a pronoun. 1 Timothy 3:16 is an example. And, the text may be worn and faded, which can yield the same result. 

Mark 16:9ff is beautifully in harmony with Matthew and Luke. One example of a manuscript dropping the ending has become faux-canonical already in the LCMS. (Seminex won!) In various modern translations, the ending is dropped to the footnote area or marked as dubious. "Some ancient witnesses say..."

There are hundreds of examples of this finessing, always reducing the text and its clarity.

Very few clergy know enough Greek to spot this, to follow the evidence, to care about the results. But the denominations and higher education have simply excluded anything KJV from the list. That is why Attempted Murder will be written to explain this so even a District President can understand.

Two fake doctors say, "And then we will remove the ending of Mark and still make a ton of money!"

After the Walther Book Is Done

 My first Greek New Testament was a Hort-Wescott.

A conversation with an MDiv made me consider the book to be written after Walther the American Calvin. I realized that a detective novel that I once planned was already on my bookshelves, ready to be written and released. The plot is simple - three men with a hidden agenda plot to get rid of the King James Version of the Bible and its text. Their labors were long, difficult, and packed with intrigues, lies, and Romanism. But they were not quite successful - Attempted Murder! - they longed to kill the traditional text of the Bible and its translation. They broke the foundations of Biblical understanding - as rationalists with chips on their stooped shoulders - and that provided the path for corrupt translations. Thus -

Attempted Murder: Broken Biblical Foundations and Corrupt Translations

The challenge is to gather information from my books on text criticism and translations. Next I need to explain matters so they make sense for those with little or no Greek and Hebrew - that is - the typical WELS-LCMS-ELS pastor.

My preference is always the King James Version, so I would like to see clergy and congregations move entirely away from the NIV-ESV broken Bibles. The text is the first, foundational issue for the Bible. If the text is butchered, as it is in the NIV-ESV, then the translation is an adiaphoron. Those heavily promoted and over-priced versions present a damaged product that reminds us of what the Bible once was. They are like Hollywood stars who have undergone far too many plastic surgery operations.

The evidence is there in black and white. The criminals let their laughable theories and fables remain in the archives, so the crime scene remains fresh and easy to examine.

This is just a sample. There is nothing wrong with the concept of text criticism, sometimes called Lower Criticism. The next stage was Higher Criticism, where the new ideas provided a basis for questioning the meaning of the Bible.

Text criticism looks for the best possible text. In the course of copying, there are easy to understand mistakes. Other mistakes come from careless copyists. Still other errors come from those with an agenda.

Wescott and Hort chose the worst sources for their Greek New Testament. As Bishop Wordsworth wrote, the two men changed 50 times as much as the project needed. What the pair loved most were the worst manuscripts, a tiny fraction of the thousands existing from ancient times. The overwhelming majority of texts are in complete agreement (minus the typos, or writos). Hort scorned them at the beginning and invented silly "laws" to explain his pernicious changes. Like arsenic, the poison was not immediately fatal but was slow acting.

Hort has his way now. Very few denominations allow the King James (and modern King James updates) to be discussed, let alone used. The Hort completely dominates all seminaries under the name Nestle-Aland edition - same style, same prejudice, same blunders, different brand.

Hence all translations begin with corruption.