# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_Februar 1855_S33
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

Lehre und Wehre.

Jahrgang I.               February 1855.               No. 2.

On the Doctrine of the Holy Office of the Ministry.
By Pastor D. Fürbringer.

Continuation and Conclusion.

We may now fairly proceed further and subject Wucherer's dicta probantia to a more exact examination and scrutiny. Having laid this foundation, it will be easy for us to understand Titus 1:5 rightly in the sense of the Holy Spirit, according to the analogy of Scripture. The latter cannot possibly contradict itself. Never could the apostle, nor his deputy in Crete, have injured the congregations in their holy right and possession of fulfilling the offices received in faith through the Word and of further ordering themselves; but Titus did install, by the laying on of hands, *) the men set apart for this purpose, who were to exercise, at each individual place, in the authority of Christ, but at the same time also on behalf of the congregation, the office common to all believers — that is, he publicly and solemnly delivered to them the call in the name of those who called them, ordained them — a custom which the Church freely took over from the Old Testament without divine command. The mandate which the apostle gives him in verse 5 is limited, according to the words of the text, to this: that he, with the free agreement of the congregations, should arrange everything completely — not merely in matters indifferent (for even what God has commanded ought to proceed from a willing spirit, and His kingdom is accomplished by no law, although the latter is established through faith **)) — and that these congregations, under his guidance and counsel, should provide themselves with preachers according to the gracious will of God.

How could the ordinands, together with Titus and Timothy (2 Tim. 1:6; 1:4, 14), have received the mandate of office to preach the Gospel and preside over the churches through the laying on of hands, since it did not come to the apostles themselves in this way? How can a ceremony which God has nowhere commanded convey a divine call? How can it at all, in

*) Note: Kathistanai in the passage cited is equivalent to cheirotonein, Acts 14:23.
**) Note: Cf. Luther's sermon "On the Kingdom of God," 1524. Acts 15:8.
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