Pieper tribute 4: Honoring the Ministry

      A few LC-MS theologians today sometimes honor Franz Pieper for his defense of the doctrine of the Ministry or what is called in German the term Amt, Office of Preaching.  But practically all of these do not defend all the Lutheran doctrines that Pieper taught.  Most glaringly, they do not teach and defend his pure Doctrine of Justification and the Doctrine of Inspiration.  This makes whatever praise they have for Pieper's teaching suspect.  — But in the following "tribute" from 1931, we hear one of the best testimonies of Pieper on this teaching:

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The Many-Sided Dr. Pieper.
Honoring the Ministry.

The Lutheran Witness, September 29, 1931, p. 327

“During the summer of 1888 I, then a student of the seminary, was serving the congregation at Carondelet in the absence of Rev. Achenbach. Rev. C. C. Schmidt asked me to conduct services for him in Holy Cross one Sunday afternoon. Before the service Dr. Pieper also came into the vestry and sat down. He was to christen a child after the sermon. When I arose to go before the altar or on the pulpit, Dr. Pieper quickly arose to open the vestry-door for me. Dr. Pieper always acted the gentleman; but I did not look upon this action of his as a mere act of courtesy, but rather as an act of reverence for the preacher of the Word of God, even though this preacher happened to be one of his students. This seemingly insignificant incident I always remembered.”

Rev. J. H. Todt, Manistee, Mich.

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The reverence Pieper held for the Ministry was truly a holy reverence. He believed God went with His Word. 

      My mother dearly wanted one of her boys to be a pastor, but none of us did.  I suppose when older ones chose the field of Engineering, that also held my interest. I chose the lesser field, by far. But I remember that after an older brother went to Valparaiso University and we also visited that campus to see him, I was almost shocked at how different their worship was, how different their overall attitude toward the Bible was, than my upbringing.  I remember how I determined then that I would NOT go to Valparaiso University because of this.  At least in this, I made the right choice, even if it was a state university (Purdue).

      This account of Pieper opening the vestry-door reminded me of another door, the Gates of Heaven, and how he labored to keep the pure Lutheran teaching of "The Open Heaven". — Further tributes from the 1931 issues of The Lutheran Witness will follow.