# LCMS Convention Proceedings_St. Louis Missouri_1956_S125
# Machine transcription, uncorrected — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

SEMINARIES AND COLLEGES

The Report of the Special Committee
on Colloguy Matters :
Adopted February 1, 1956, St. Louis, Mo.

(Report 131)

The committee appointed by the President of Synod to study
the problem of applications for admission to the ministry in Synod
from men who have not had complete seminary training and to
present recommendations for the necessary Handbook provisions
for procedure in such cases submits the following:

I. The Basic Biblical Principle for Qualifying Men for the
Ministry of The Lutheran Church — Missouri Synod

1. The office of the ministry is not a mere human arrangement,
invented by the church for the orderly dispensation of the means
of grace. It is a divine institution, authorized and established by
the Triune God (1 Cor. 12:28; Eph. 4:11; Acts 20:28).

2. Every believer is a royal priest (Rev. 1:6), and as such is
to show forth the praises of Him who hath called him out of
darkness into His marvelous light (1 Peter 2:9). This means that
every believer has the right, privilege, and duty to confess Christ
before men, to invite the unchurched to the Word, to reprove the
erring, and to denounce falsehood and sin. Within the domestic
circle or among fellow believers he puts the privileges which are
his to use in prayer and intercession, in teaching, exhorting, and
comforting. Under certain circumstances it may be his duty to
pronounce absolution and to administer the sacraments, and what-
soever he does in these things is as valid and as certain as if an
ordained minister had done them, for as a priest of God he is
the possessor of the Office of the Keys.

3. There is, however, one restriction placed upon the believer
in the use of his inalienable rights as a priest of God. He may
not exercise them publicly, i.e., officially, as a representative of the
church and in the name of the church, unless he is specifically
authorized to do so (1 Cor. 12:29). Christ has reserved the public
exercise of the priesthood of the believers for the incumbents: of
a distinct office which He has instituted for this purpose. The
Apostles who taught the believers all things whatsoever the Master
had commanded them instructed the congregations they had
founded to appoint functionaries for the public performance of
the duties of the church (Acts 14:23). Paul enjoins upon Titus
“to set in order the things that are wanting, and ordain elders
in every city” (Titus 1:5). Moreover, the New Testament addresses
many exhortations to the churches with reference to the proper