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I certainly won't speak for Addicted2weasels, but I, and I think the Orthodox, would absolutely agree with what you said. I am LCMS, but spent some time learning about the Orthodox and really gained an appreciation for their Traditions and have tried to incorporate it into my LCMS life.

I attended an Orthodox Catechism Class and I asked a similar question, and this is the response from the Father who was teaching the course:

>Holy Tradition is the whole Faith, the life of the Church. It is distinct from "human tradition," human-derived religious teaching. Tradition is also different from the many cultural "traditions" and customs. That Christ was born of a virgin is Holy Tradition. That we put up a Christmas tree is tradition.

>With regard to Holy Tradition, we see it in the Bible. All that is preached and taught by the Apostles is Tradition. The Bible, containing the written record of all these things, is Tradition. All that is not recorded in writing is also Tradition. As St. Paul said, "To this He called you through our gospel, so that you may share in the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ. Therefore, brothers, stand firm and cling to the traditions we taught you, whether by speech or by letter." The Church compiled the Scripture and has preserved its interpretation since ancient times. We know what is Holy Tradition because it is affirmed by the Church, the pillar and ground of Truth, which is guided by the Holy Spirit today as it has been since Apostolic times. We can see the stream of Tradition in the ancient writings and in the same Faith held by the Saints throughout the ages.

>Protestants can ask, "How do we know Tradition outside of the Bible is true?," but how do Protestants know that the Nicene Creed (based on a particular interpretation of Scripture) and New Testaments table of contents is correct? These were affirmed by the same bishops who held that the Bible is part of Tradition. In fact, those books placed in the Bible were in harmony with Tradition.

>To better understand the Tradition, I recommend Chapter V of Fr. Georges Florovsky's classic work on Bible, Church, Tradition. (The entire book is great.):
http://bulgarian-orthodox-church.org/rr/lode/florovsky1.pdf

>If you want to read more on Tradition and Bibilcal interpretation, I also recommend this book:
https://www.amazon.com/Souls-Longing-Christian-Perspective-Interpretation/dp/0990502961


In addition, Paul actually references the Church as the "pillar and foundation of truth." (1 Timothy 3:15). This of course makes sense because the Bible did not exist at that point in time.

My top suggestion would be the Book of Concord and exploring the Just and Sinner Podcast archive. You will get a fair, balanced, and orthodox take on Lutheranism.

As others have said, Spirituality of the Cross is one of the better, single serving overviews of what Lutherans believe, as well.

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Here is a list of other Lutheran resources:

Lutheran Theology Books

1. Book of Concord
   
2. The Saving Truth: Doctrine for Laypeople: Kurt E. Marquart
   
3. Law and Gospel - Walther
   
4. Justification - Chemnitz
   
5. Loci Communes - Melanchthon
   
6. Liturgical Worship: A Lutheran Introduction
   
7. Hand of Faith - Pr. Jordan Cooper
   
8. A Case for Character - Pr. Joel Biermann
   
9. Justification and Rome - Pr. Robert Preus
   
   ​
   
   Websites
   
   
10. Just and Sinner
    
11. Infant Theology
    
12. Around the World Theology - great mailing list with free resources and daily devotionals run by Pr. Bryan Wolfmueller
    
13. Cranrach - Gene Veith
    
14. Steadfast Lutherans Blog
    
15. Gottesdienst Crowd Blog
    
16. Pr. Mark Surburg Blog
    
17. Will Weedon’s Blog - great for patristics and liturgy
    
    ​
    
    Journals
    
    
18. Concordia Theological Quarterly - Fort Wayne: Tons of free research articles and talks
    
19. Global Journal of Classical Theology - Listed at end of Montgomery’s History, Law, and Christianity
    
20. Concordia Journal - St. Louis: Tons of free research articles and talks
    
21. Lutheran Witness
    
    ​
    
    Podcast
    
    
22. Just and Sinner
    
23. Issues Etc.
    
24. Cross Defense (KFUO)
    
25. Concord Matters (KFUO)
    
26. Thy Strong Word (KFUO)
    
27. Gottesdienst Crowd
    
    ​
    
    YouTube
    
    
28. Jordan Cooper - Just and Sinner
    
29. Lutheran Satire
    
30. Pr. Bryan Wolfmueller
    
31. WEtv
    
    ​
    
    Apologetics
    
    
32. Spirituality of the Cross - Gene Edward Veith
    
33. Tractatus Logico Theologicus - John Warwick Montgomery
    
34. History, Law and Christianity - John Warwick Montgomery
    
35. God’s Inerrant Word - John Warwick Montgomery Edited on inerrancy
    
    ​
    
    Courses
    
    
36. Christian Doctrine - Concordia Seminary iTunes U
    
37. Philosophy 101 - Pr. Gregory Schulz Concordia University Wisconsin
    
38. Philosophy Kata Christon - Pr. Gregory Schulz Concordia University Wisconsin

Okay so I'm a day late, but hopefully not a dollar short on this one. To answer your first question, no you aren't reading Formula wrong, but more on that in a hot minute. To the second question, there aren't any realities that need to be "squared" in this issue. What we need to do, to square ourselves is get some of the historical notions and forces in grasp and that should help us out in understanding how these two different approaches to the same question developed and now stand.

Let's first look at the rejection of transubstantiation from your first paragraph. You will find this exact logic and thinking all over Luther. The most accessible to a curious reader could be found in "The Babylonian Captivity of the Church" (quick note, I think Luther is wrong about John 6 here, and that matter is still openly debated in today's church). You will see his argument in exactly the same way as you mentioned.

Luther's opponents were Catholic in their understanding, heck, even Karlstadt pushed him on this. As such his argument was to distance himself from that understanding of the Lord's Supper. The important thing to note is that Luther's position, and truly, any Lutheran's position is one that is highly nuanced, which will lead to a complication for Luther, and one that still stands to this day.

The Reformation, unfortunately, did not reform the entire visible church on earth, and actually spawned a whole new thing: denominations, each with their own theological nuance. To cut this piece of history short we will just jump to Zwingly, because he will become the main antagonist in the argument here, and largely the basis for the controversy answered by Formula 7. (For more on this background check out: The Lutheran Confessions: History and Theology of the Book of Concord)

Basically Zwingly and his followers would argue against Lutherans heavily on the matter of Communion. Zwingly would even level the critique of Lutherans being cannibals! The main argumentative question of Luther's nuanced position is, "How isn't this transubstantiation?" It looks like it, sounds like it, and tastes like it, so it must be!

This is how we arrive at the Formula's exposition of belief on Holy Communion. It deals more heavily in the roots of Communion theology, that is to say the hypostatic union. The doctrines go hand in hand. Luther distances himself from the docetism-esque belief of the Catholics but now the post-Luther Lutherans must simultaneously distance themselves from the adoptionism-esque Zwinglian belief that the bread and the wine are just that and are merely special because God chooses them to be, but are in no way divine because the finite is not capable of the infinite, and also not fall back toward Rome or take up some weird quasi-arian belief about the supper. So in Luther's argument it's as iff he is shifting to the right, and in Formula, we are shifting a touch left, all while answering the same question.

The difference lies in who was doing the asking, and that understanding prompted the differences in belief. We don't believe in transubstantiation because of God's Word, and our acceptance of that, alone; which leads us away from making idols of bread and wine. We also aren't transubstantiationalist because we hold to real presence; upholding the presence of the divine in our midst.

TL;DR-I think the answer to your question lies in understanding the framing of the question. Yes the answers move in different directions and answer the same question, but that's because different people, with different intents asked the question.

I hope this was useful, and intelligible. Let me know if this pops up any other questions or is unsatisfactory. It was awesome to dust off a few things and read them again, thank you for that opportunity!

I recommend reading Love, Covenant & Meaning. It's a great book about this very topic. It was recommended to me by Pastor Will Weedon, Director of Worship and Chaplain at the LCMS International Center.

Ah fair enough. But again, even within the narrative content, it is clear that Moses assumes you already know the order of things, that God had already created the animals, but that even among these there was not a helper fit for Adam.

And, we would hold to the confession of scripture as it pertains to Judas.

I'm not in front of it right now, but this book is a good resource on this kind of thing: https://www.amazon.com/Bible-Difficulties-Seeming-Contradictions-William/dp/0758618468

If you're looking for supplementary books to read (beyond original sources like the Small Catechism), these are both solid options:

Lutheranism 101, edited by Kinneman and Lane

Hallmarks of Lutheran Identity, by Schmidt

Since you mentioned both Calvinism and Orthodox, I have two recommendations if you want to read two books where each of these debated and discussed their differences. That said, I do recommend the more 'basic' suggestions first as this isn't light reading. Not in the sense that these two will be hard to read. Rather they are theologically DENSE.

Lutheranism vs. Calvinism: The Classic Debate at the Colloquy of Montbeliard 1586

Augsburg and Constantinople: The Correspondence between the Tubingen Theologians and Patriarch Jeremiah II of Constantinople on the Augsburg Confession

https://www.amazon.com/Wholly-Citizens-Realms-Christian-Engagement/dp/1506420354

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This book really shaped the way I look at the matter.

On page 228 - 230 of this book which is probably the book you got when you started catechism classes.
It's talked about in the Office of the Keys near Confession and Absolution.

When I get a moment, i'll type out a few quotes for you, but i'm supposed to be doing something.