Breakthrough

To say the least, I am delighted with your December issue entitled "This Is Life." I appreciate your effort to be helpful on a congregational level. How to use the great Reformation doctrines in a layman's arena of life, and our own too, is a huge undertaking, but I think you are accomplishing it. You have influenced my thinking, even though I have always been taught historic conservative Lutheranism.

I really feel "This Is Life" is a breakthrough for modern man instead of just an effort to "save his soul."

Sigmund Hillmer, Lutheran Pastor
Indiana

Reading Project

I appreciate your December issue, "This Is Life," and would like to use it as a reading project for my high-school class. I believe it will help them in facing some of their many questions about life in general.

Although I do not subscribe to your theology completely, I do believe that you take a sincere and honest approach in your material.

Comer D. Hall, Jr., Church of Christ Minister
Arkansas

Dumbstruck

With your recent issue entitled "This Is Life," I was dumbstruck to find that your publication appears to have fallen from a journal of theology to that awful level of literature found on our supermarket shelves with such titles as "Dieting with Jesus." Forgive me for being so blunt, but I am truly astonished. I will only make a brief comment on "This Is Life": "It is not what goes into a man but what comes out of him that defiles him," and "the kingdom of God is not food and drink but righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit; he who thus serves Christ is acceptable to God and approved by men" (Matt. 15:11; Rom. 14:17, 18).

Peter Dunstan
Canada

Superb

Your December issue, "This Is Life," is absolutely superb for my "Spiritual Life" course when we deal with the Christian's stewardship of the human body.

Loren Fischer, Seminary Professor
Oregon

Unique Approach

I'd like to try the "You Too Can Live" program announced in your December issue. I was most impressed by this unique evangelistic approach and couldn't put down the issue until I had read it through.

Robbin Tisdale, Lutheran Pastor
Iowa

Fantastic Method

The "You Too Can Live" Life Risk Profile Questionnaire is a fantastic method for reaching others. Health is a subject so many folks are interested in. And it is a fine way to get them interested in spiritual things. The survey is a ''wise as a serpent and harmless as a dove" method for missionary work.

Margaret Kearnes
Minnesota

Sound and Refreshing

Having received your journal for several months and scrutinized it for cultic tendencies (since I don't know who "down under" is reliable), I've concluded that it is both sound and refreshing in its rancorless challenge of those errors that have cheapened the gospel by an "evangelical" form of indulgences.

Roger Wm. Bennett
Arizona

Accusation

Regarding the letters' section in the August issue of Present Truth, I am amazed at the people who viciously accuse one of their brothers in Christ of being a heretic. Maybe at times the editor is guilty of splitting theological hairs, but that should give no rise to accusations as serious as "heresy." Surely those who write articles are entitled under God to their own responsible interpretation of the Scripture. I wonder if the test of salvation—according to some—is a strict line of doctrine with no deviation from the position they hold. I hope not.

I am thankful for fresh, exciting and challenging interpretations of the Scriptures. I am thankful that we have not arrived at our destination concerning learning. May God always allow us to be meek (teachable).

M. Terry Hall, Baptist Pastor
Oklahoma

Ironic

Since receiving your journal, I have truly been blessed by your emphasis on justification by faith.

A college student brought up an interesting point when he said that many of the Protestant churches which for so long have criticized the Catholic Church for adding works to the gospel of Jesus Christ are themselves doing the very thing they have been so quick to attack. They are saying the gospel is Christ plus something else. Catholics still have a long way to go in this area, but many I have talked to are becoming aware of the doctrine of justification by faith. How ironic!

Mark Godshall, Pastor
California

Objective Gospel

The great advantage I have gained through reading and studying your journal is to learn the objectivity of the gospel. It would seem to me at the present time that the problems in all our churches, from the Roman Catholic down to the Pentecostal, is that they are following a subjective interpretation instead of realizing that the gospel is an objective fact outside of themselves, already existing no matter what they do.

Clarence B. Foster, M.D.
North Carolina

Church Adrift

I praise God for having stumbled onto your journal. I don't remember how I came to have it, but it has been a blessing. I do remember that at the time I was completely wrapped up in Hal Lindsey and his The Late Great Planet Earth, and your issue on "New Testament Eschatology" straightened me out. I am now looking for Christ in hope, not the antichrist in the form of Kissinger or other such nonsense—as you say, "carnal speculation."

I am enjoying your issue on "Theology and Body". Again and again you hit the mark. I am terrified by the condition of the church. It seems we are so far adrift from the truth—so many weeds have cropped up in less than two thousand years—that it sometimes makes me despair. I am certain that Paul would "freak out" if he could see what has happened. It seems that churches are more concerned about just living their lives out day after day rather than reading the Word for themselves and acting accordingly. I became a believer and had myself baptized simply by reading the Word. I also avoided the spiritual hypocrisy of the Pentecostals by simply reading Corinthians. But the doctrine of justification by faith I have had to wrestle with like Jacob with the Angel. You have helped me in this struggle. Thank you, God bless you, and keep writing!

David Pickens
North Carolina

One Criticism

Thank you for your publications. Seldom have I seen so clear an analysis of the doctrine of justification by faith as set forth by the Reformers and, in particular, the emphasis of Luther. I liked what I read, and that for one good reason: it is thoroughly scriptural. We need, as you state, a revival and reemphasis of this glorious truth in an age when souls by the multitudes are being submerged in the broad sea of religious subjectivism.

Just one word of constructive criticism. If you wish to gain and retain the confidence of people who adhere to the absolute authority and complete integrity of the Bible as the Word of God, I would strongly advise that you stick to the King James Version (or your own literal rendering) rather than using any of the modern versions so prevalent today. The N.E.B., Phillips, etc., are translations made by thorough-going liberals and are not trustworthy. If I remember rightly, I also saw a reference to Paul Tillich—a religious renegade if ever there was one! The subject matter in your publication is so tremendously vital that it left me somewhat dismayed to find it adorned with references of this nature.

Hayes Minnick, Pastor
Florida

Bible-Based

Your journal is appreciated very much. It has a good, clear, Bible-based message, is very encouraging, and has an excellent format. May the Lord continue to bless your work.

John Roodenburg, Minister
Australia

Heretics Offended

Many thanks for your journal I have benefited greatly from its teaching. Even the letters' section is educational. Every issue is studied, documented and carefully filed for future reference.

While your publication is obviously directed principally at ministers of religion and students of theology, there is much to commend it to the lay churchman like myself. With little instruction outside of the Scriptures themselves and your journal, I was recently able to preach a sermon on "The Centrality of the Gospel". Not a few people were amazed at where this "rookie" received his teaching, and not a few heretics were offended—thanks be to God and your journal.

D. C. Kidson
Rhodesia

Disturbed

I feel you have lost touch with mainstream Christianity. I appreciate very much your justification emphasis, but your lack of practicality disturbs me. You must find ways to return your journal from the intellectual deep to the realm of the everyday believer. Truth is good. But if it is truth, it must be relevant to one's situation!

David Musick
Tennessee

Understandable

Your explanations in theology are nicely compact, and even we simple laymen can understand them with a little effort. Thank you for your explanation of the Reformation gospel, which truly is the rediscovery of God's pure Word.

Bob Zinke
Michigan

Christian Teacher

Thank you for a really professional publication. It is quite enriching to my scholastic needs and responsibilities as a teacher in the Christian education field. The material is challenging and well presented, though I am not always one hundred percent in accord with some of your articles. The "reform" approach assures an openness which is refreshing.

Maryanne Robinson, Teacher
Pennsylvania