(2) Interview Questions, Key Phrases

Q1. Key phrase — Confessional subscription?

Quia, not quatenus — Scripture is the norming norm; the Confessions are the normed norm.

Q2. Key phrase — Authority of Holy Scripture?

Scripture alone is the only rule and norm by which all teachings and teachers are judged.

Q3. Key phrase — Sequence of AC Articles I–VI?

God → Sin → Christ → Justification → Means of Grace → New Obedience.

Q4. Key phrase — Faith in the Lord's Supper?

Faith does not make the Sacrament; faith receives Christ's promised gifts.

Q5. Key phrase — Infant Baptism?

Infants need salvation, are included in all nations, and can receive God's gift of faith through Baptism.

Q6. Key phrase — Predestination?

Election is God's gracious choice in Christ unto salvation — no double predestination.

Q7. Key phrase — Law and Gospel?

The Law shows our sin and condemns; the Gospel shows our Savior and gives forgiveness.

Q8. Key phrase — Justification by faith alone?

For Christ's sake, through faith, apart from works.

Q9. Key phrase — Justification and sanctification?

Justification is God's declaration; sanctification is the Spirit's ongoing renewal. Good works follow justification, never cause it.

Q10. Key phrase — Ordination of women?

The pastoral office is Christ's institution, and the apostolic mandate reserves its authoritative teaching office to qualified men.

Q11. Key phrase — Close(d) Communion?

Communion is both receiving Christ's body and blood and confessing unity in doctrine.

Q12. Key phrase — Righteousness of God?

Christ's righteousness is imputed to the sinner and received through faith, not earned by works.

Q13. Key phrase — Person of Christ?

One person, two natures — true God and true man, without separation or confusion.

Q14. Key phrase — Ecumenical creeds and their errors?

The Creeds safeguard the Trinity and Christology by confessing the truth and rejecting contrary errors.

Q15. Key phrase — Creation?

God created and preserves all things by His Word; creation is good, and humanity is made in His image.

Q16. Key phrase — Preaching the Trinity?

One God in three persons — neither divide the substance nor confuse the persons.

Q17. Key phrase — Luther's aim in the Smalcald Articles?

A clear confession of what Lutherans could and could not compromise at a council.

Q18. Key phrase — What is the Gospel?

Christ has done everything for our salvation; forgiveness is freely given to sinners for His sake.

Q19. Key phrase — Millennialism undermining the Gospel?

Christ's kingdom is already present through the Gospel — our hope is His final return, not a future earthly kingdom.

Q20. Key phrase — Two governments/two kingdoms?

God rules the temporal realm through Law and civil authority and His Church through Gospel and the Means of Grace.

Q21. Key phrase — One holy Christian Church?

One holy Church = all believers in Christ, called and gathered by the Holy Spirit through the Gospel.

Q22. Key phrase — Original sin?

We are conceived without true fear, love, and trust in God — sinful and spiritually dead from conception.

Q23. Key phrase — Freedom of the will?

Free in earthly matters; bound in spiritual matters — conversion is God's work alone.

Q24. Key phrase — Office of the Keys?

Forgive the repentant; retain the sins of the unrepentant as long as they do not repent.

Q25. Key phrase — Authority in the Church?

Church authority is ministerial, not coercive — pastors exercise Christ's authority through Word and Sacrament.

Q26. Key phrase — Order of the six chief parts?

Law reveals our need → Creed gives God's saving work → Prayer asks for His gifts → Sacraments deliver them.

Q27. Key phrase — Private confession and absolution?

Confession is for the sake of Absolution — hear Christ's forgiveness personally spoken to you.

Q28. Key phrase — Repentance?

Contrition through the Law + faith in the Gospel; fruits of repentance follow.

Q29. Key phrase — Faith?

Faith is Spirit-created trust that receives Christ and His promises.

Q30. Key phrase — Adiaphora?

Neither commanded nor forbidden — free unless confession of the Gospel is at stake.

Q31. Key phrase — Immanent and economic Trinity?

Immanent: God as He eternally is in Himself; economic: God as He reveals Himself and works for us.

Q32. Key phrase — Third use of the Law?

The Law guides the regenerate by showing what God's good and gracious will is.

Q33. Key phrase — Doctrine and practice?

Doctrine determines practice; what the Church believes shapes what the Church does.

Q34. Key phrase — Synergism?

Conversion is God's work alone — adding human cooperation destroys Gospel certainty.

Q35. Key phrase — Gift character of the Lord's Supper?

The Sacrament is God's gift to us, not our sacrifice to God for forgiveness.

Q36. Key phrase — Errors condemned in AC XVII?

No earthly millennium and no universal salvation — Christ returns once for resurrection and final judgment.

Q37. Key phrase — Theology of the cross?

God reveals His saving glory under suffering and weakness, above all in Christ crucified.

Q38. Key phrase — Descent into hell?

Christ descended as victorious Lord, not as a suffering victim.

Q39. Key phrase — Christ's ascension?

The ascended God-man fills all things; His human nature is not confined to a distant heaven.

Q40. Key phrase — Atonement in the Second Article?

Christ redeemed me, a lost and condemned person, with His holy, precious blood and innocent suffering and death.

Q41. Key phrase — Created male and female?

Male and female are God's good creation — equal in dignity and genuinely distinct by God's design.

Q42. Key phrase — Husband and wife?

One flesh and equal heirs of grace — husband: sacrificial headship; wife: willing submission and respect.

Q43. Key phrase — Homosexual thoughts, words, and acts?

God reserves sexual union for male-female marriage and calls everyone to sexual purity in thought, word, and deed.

Q44. Key phrase — Theology of prayer?

God commands prayer, promises to hear, and invites us to ask as dear children ask their dear Father.

Q45. Key phrase — Baptismal regeneration?

Baptism saves — the washing of regeneration gives new birth, forgiveness, and the Holy Spirit.

Q46. Key phrase — Sacramental union?

Christ's true body and blood are truly present and received with the bread and wine: “This is My body…This is My blood.”

Q47. Key phrase — Theological significance of the liturgy?

God serves us through Word and Sacrament; we receive His gifts and respond with prayer, praise, and thanksgiving.

Q48. Key phrase — Third Article and missiology?

The Church proclaims, baptizes, and teaches; the Holy Spirit calls, gathers, enlightens, sanctifies, and keeps.

Q49. Key phrase — Enthusiasm?

Seeking the Spirit apart from the external Word and Sacraments.

Q50. Key phrase — Office of the Holy Ministry?

Christ's divinely instituted public office for preaching the Gospel, administering the Sacraments, and exercising the Keys.