Who Said That?

"What is there greater than the word which persuades the judges in the courts, or the senators in the council, or the citizens in the assembly, or at any other political meeting?-if you have the power of uttering this word, you will have the physician your slave, and the trainer your slave, and the money-maker of whom you talk will be found to gather treasures, not for himself, but for you who are able to speak and to persuade the multitude." 

Leave your guess in the comments section below.  Please, no guesses or google searches.  Answer to follow in one week.

Update on Friday, January 8, 2010 at 01:33PM by Kim Riddlebarger

This is an excerpt from Plato's dialogue with Gorgias.  Sounds to me like a power Obama might possess?

Comments

[John Yeazel]

Lloyd:

I have heard some Calvinists complain that the Book of Concord is not as succinct and clearly written as the Heidelberg Catechism and the Canons of Dort- that it gets laborious and confusing on some of the doctrines. You are right though Calvinists seem to be all over the place on doctrinal issues. You can say the same about Lutherans though too- except those who are true Lutherans and seek to stay faithful to the Book of Concord and the scriptures. Scott Clark and others have tried to deal with that issue in Clarks Recovering the Reformed Confessions. So, both camps have those who seek to remain faithful to their respective confessional statements. At least with confessionalists of any persuasion you are able to argue from the various clearly thought out confessional statements and you end up knowing where you differ with a greater degree of understanding. That is not the case with most evangelicals who are more interested in religious experience then clear doctrine. It seems to me that Paul fought very diligently for doctrinal unity among all Christians and was persecuted severely for it. Can we expect any thing different?

[John Yeazel]

Correction- evangelicals are concerned with religious experience and transformation of character and behavior through others means then those of Word, Sacrament and discipline. They want a quick fix to their character and behavioral problems and go to drastic means to try to deal with them or lie to themselves that they have solved the sin problem by their own wills. This causes all sorts of problems in these Church's and they end up biting and devouring one another. That seems to happen in all our relationships without the proper means of grace.

[Gil Fisher]

I don't understand why some people here think that Dana Plato would have said this.

[Lloyd I. Cadle]

John:

Yes, the Book of Concord takes quite a while to read. And, it could be a little confusing for some to read, unless they enjoy reading theological books or confessions. Remember, that we live in a society where most learn their theology in reading pamphlet's or doing quick google searches (microwave theology), rather then actually turning the T.V. off, studying their Bibles and reading books.

Regarding your second comment about some Lutherans, may perhaps, be slightly all over the place unless they stick to the confessions: You made my argument for me on that. If they don't stick with the Book of Concord, they are not Lutherans and they are not confessional. It is extremely easy to know what Lutherans believe, because we only have one set of confessions; the Book of Concord. We don't have several different confessions with different doctrines.

Recently, a Baptist told me that he doesn't believe in confessions. I told him that he does believe in confessions because he had just confessed to me that he didn't believe in confessions--which was his confession.

He then went on to try to explain his Baptist theology to me, and why he was right and Lutheranism was wrong, but he didn't know his Spriptures. I actually had to give him the Scriptures that the Baptists use, and show him where they had taken them out of context. (I love doing this, by the way!)

Then I explained Lutheranism to him for about 30 minutes, but I never mentioned Luther or Luthernism to him even once. All I did was give him Scripture after Scripture for 30 minutes, showing him where he was wrong, and he was pretty much speechless.

That's why I love Lutheranism so much. I can discuss it for hours on end, and use nothing but Scripture. All of the vast components of it, all of its teachings on all matters of doctrine square with the 66 books of the Bible.

Other systems of theology will either play up, or play down certain passages of Scripture in order to make it fit their particular systems. As we all know, Luther always stated that if you could show him where he was in error on the Scriptures, he would "recant." He had a heart that he would take on the whole world in order to defend and to articulate the truth's of the Word of God.

[Lloyd I. Cadle]

John:

You'll get a kick out of this:

The other day, a lady that I work with, left her church bulletin at work. She is always talking about her church.

So, I picked it up and checked it out. In it, the pastor instructed the folks in his congregation, that if they had to get up and walk around, please do so during his message. However, he forbid them to move around during the altar call!

I guess, to this fellow (I won't call him a pastor), the Word of God comes back void, but the altar call doesn't.

Ahhhhh. American brand Christianity!

[Lloyd I. Cadle]

Correction from yesterday:

Calvin had a little spark of the Cov't of Grace in his writings.

Later, Berkhof and other Reformed theologians added the Cov't of Works and incorporated it into their system.

I don't want to misrepresent my Reformed friends or their position.

Peace!

[Timothy Kilgore]

Plato