I freely, without reservation, with joy, gave up my right to "choose" how I will interpret the Scriptures when I promised to teach nothing, publicly, or privately, contrary to the confessions of the Evangelical Lutheran Church because I confess them to be a true and faithful exposition of the Word of God. I gave my solemn oath before God to be faithful to these Confessions precisely because they are a faithful confession of God's Word. I am very happy to be able to join with my fathers in the faith who concluded the Solid Declaration of the Formula of Concord by asserting:
These and like articles, one and all, with what pertains to them and follows from them, we reject and condemn as wrong, false, heretical, and contrary to the Word of God, the three Creeds, the Augsburg, Confession and Apology, the Smalcald Articles, and the Catechisms of Luther. Of these articles all godly Christians should and ought to beware, as much as the welfare and salvation of their souls is dear to them. Since now, in the sight of God and of all Christendom [the entire Church of Christ], we wish to testify to those now living and those who shall come after us that this declaration herewith presented concerning all the controverted articles aforementioned and explained, and no other, is our faith, doctrine, and confession, in which we are also willing, by God's grace, to appear with intrepid hearts before the judgment-seat of Jesus Christ, and give an account of it; and that we will neither privately nor publicly speak or write anything contrary to it, but, by the help of God's grace, intend to abide thereby: therefore, after mature deliberation, we have, in God's fear and with the invocation of His name, attached our signatures with our own hands.
I pray that I will, as God blesses, continue to grow in my understanding of His Holy Word, but never grow past it, or out of it, nor ever place myself above it as judge, but place myself always underneath the Word of God. I do not wish to understand, so I can believe, but I wish to understand, because I believe. I confess freely that I am a sinful man who doubts and questions many things, but with Blessed Saint Peter, I too cry out to my Master Christ, "Lord, I believe, help my unbelief."
I have studied all the major schools of theological thought and try to keep current on the "latest thing" out there, but I come back, again and again, to the fathers of the Church and to the faith once delivered to the saints. I believe there has never been in any period of the chuch's history a more clear and penetrating grasp of the very heart of the Scriptures as there burst forth and flowered during the Reformation. I cherish all who have spoken the truth before and after Luther and our Lutheran fathers. I cherish the gift of knowing that Lutheranism is not a "movement" or an "approach" but is nothing more, and certainly nothing less, than the confession of the faith of the one, holy, catholic and apostolic faith. I find much blessing in reading the writings and studies of our Lutheran fathers and early church fathers. I do not find as much value in reading the speculations of men who do not confess, without reservation, the Creeds and Confessions of the Church.
If that is what you want to regard as my "lens" through which I read Scripture, that would be ok by me.
