Joe Krohn Weighs In with Attacks on Justification by Faith and Lenski's Scholarship. Dozens Cheer. Boycott the Emmaus Conference

I would have to agree with Warren on the point of Lenski. Since Lenski denied Objective Justification, his works should be suspect since Justification is the pillar of Lutheran doctrine. What is ironic to me is that Lenski is even defended here by a WELsian since the view of some hold such a view of OJ that it skews their view of The Keys...

Mr. Krohn: That's absurd. It's one paragraph out of 12,000 pages, in a different volume, on a different book of the Bible, dealing with different doctrine. One lousy paragraph where Lenski expresses a theological opinion, on a matter that is not really a textual issue anyway (and that is why people read Lenski: because of his facility with the Greek and deep research of the text, not for his dogmatic insight). Lenski is absolutely wonderful, THE best available commentary at this fine level of detail. Wisconsin Lutheran Quarterly (WELS) calls it "one of the great commentaries on the New Testament". The Northwestern Lutheran (Forward in Christ, WELS) said "Dr. Lenski presents the message of the book with clarity and convincing force. The book breathes the spirit of reverence for the Inspired Word and of faith in the Savior and zeal for his cause." Concordia (LCMS): "The book should be gratefully received by the Lutheran Church."

But, oh, Joe Krohn disagrees! Because Lenski rendered a different opinion on one verse--more controversial now than then--out of the entire blessed New Testament. The very same Joe Krohn whose own thinking on that verse swung like a pendulum over the space of weeks and months--and absurdly is even now somehow convinced that WELS and the LCMS teach differently on it!--dismisses the whole corpus of a true expert's scholarship on the entire New Testament for his perceived error in the analysis of a single verse.

In short, if Lenski is "suspect" in your mind then everyone else who wrote a comprehensive New Testament textual commentary (or lexicon, or...) must be deeply and irretrievably flawed (since essentially none of them are Lutheran at all). And then you're left with no outside scholarly sources whatsoever, just your own presumably infallible wits and whatever your professor's notes say. Nothing could be more WELSian than that! Are you sure you've left us?

Really? I'll stick with Kretzmann for the most part.

You know it's interesting, Melanchthon (Anonymous...oh how brave you can be there at your keyboard in anonymity...) that you would choose such a 'handle'; wishy washy as he really was...a sell out to the reformed...kind of like Lenski...who was off on Election too!

Mr. Krohn:

You realize that these volumes are on nearly every WELS pastor's shelf? Why do you think that is? So they can mock him? Decorative paperweights? Enjoyment of the color green?

Kretzmann (which already existed at the time Lenski did his work) is great, I agree! But he is also not by any means a substitute for Lenski since the work is not done at the same level of textual detail. For starters, he covers the New Testament in about 1200 pages and does not really get into the underlying language. Lenski takes 12,000 and dissects literally every Greek word.

But all of this is a moot point. Why? KRETZMANN AGREES WITH LENSKI ON THE VERSE IN CONTENTION. Don't believe me? Crack yours open--I just did. Kretzmann's treatment of Titus 3:10 is identical to Lenski's (I mean, without all of the discussion of the Greek, of course, since Kretzmann doesn't get into that, and in one paragraph instead of five pages--but the conclusion is the same: "heretic")!

So, in conclusion, thank you for helping me make my point. You may now resume your regularly scheduled ad hominem.

Melanchtymous, please. Is it possible to lob ad hominem on the anonymous? It seems you want your cake and to eat it too. If you can’t stand the heat, then you probably shouldn’t light the oven.

“You realize that these volumes are on nearly every WELS pastor's shelf?”

So what. For a theologian so well versed in Greek as you say and yet is off on Justification and Election, in my mind taints his work. You should read this: http://www.wlsessays.net/files/GeigerLenski.pdf

As far as Kretzmann is concerned; you said: “…then everyone else who wrote a comprehensive New Testament textual commentary (or lexicon, or...) must be deeply and irretrievably flawed (since essentially none of them are Lutheran at all).” I was simply countering your assertion there were no authoritative Lutheran commentaries. I know, I know…nothing could come out of the LC-MS that would stand up to the standards of the WELS.

And to your ad hominem: “The very same Joe Krohn whose own thinking on that verse swung like a pendulum over the space of weeks and months--and absurdly is even now somehow convinced that WELS and the LCMS teach differently on it!”

I do believe there are some in the WELS who do not teach Objective Justification correctly just like there are probably some in the LC-MS that do not either and vice versa. My contention was with a certain pastor and his preaching on the Keys. In the final analysis, I did find out where he stood as I found myself out of fellowship until I repented of ‘false doctrine’ and a critical spirit; without a fair hearing. He liked to eat his cake and have it too.

No, Mr. Krohn, your ad hominem was against Dr. Lenski, not me. "Ad hominem" doesn't mean "saying something really mean or blunt" it means "arguing against THE MAN rather than the man's arguments". Which is precisely what you are doing by insinuating that Dr. Lenski should be "suspected" of not having gotten Titus 3 right because you don't like the way he treated a verse in Romans several volumes over on the shelf.

I have, of course, read the essay you cite. Have you, actually? It acknowledges that: "Lenski’s commentaries are generally accepted in all conservative Lutheran circles as the finest New Testament commentaries. It is a scholarly work, issued by a man who loved the Lord and His verbally inspired Word, and it is found in the libraries of many of our pastors."

Which is true. EVEN WITH THE JUSTIFICATION CAVEATS, Lenski is STILL "generally accepted as the finest available New Testament commentary in all conservative Lutheran circles," whether LCMS, WELS, or ELS. This is not a slam on Kretzmann, because Kretzmann is not a comprehensive commentary in the same sense. Kretzmann is the proto-"People's Bible", a gloss and explanation aimed at the level of the lay family, rather than a textual analysis based on the original language aimed at scholars and pastors. Reading Kretzmann provides no special insight into whether a particular Greek word in Titus 3 should be understood one way or another; reading Lenski does (though it's worth noting that Kretzmann does of course render it just as Lenski does, he provides no reasoning or reference to the Greek).