# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_Mai 1855_S159
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

Excerpts as Contributions to Pastoral Casuistry. 159

He can never adequately fulfill his office and calling unless he tends the soul of this one individual with the same particular faithfulness as he does the entire church and congregation together. It may be concluded with certainty that if he does not sincerely care about the one soul and seek to preserve it, he will never sincerely care about the whole church or make the preservation of all its members his particular concern. If he is not faithful in little, he will never be faithful in much. His preaching and teaching, his rebuking and comforting, his entire ministry, and everything he does do not touch his heart and are not a serious matter to him; rather, he does them merely to pass the time, solely for the benefit of his idolized belly, so that he may preserve it amid easy days and an Epicurean, swinish life.

Therefore, whoever wishes, with God’s assistance, to fulfill his office and calling in the holy preaching ministry as fully as possible must care for one little sheep alone just as faithfully as for the entire flock together; and indeed, according to Christ’s instruction in Luke 15, a fallen sinner is to be given more careful attention than ninety-nine righteous persons.

Furthermore, every preacher is bound to do this under threat of the severe punishment that God has proclaimed in His Word, if he wishes to escape it. In Ezekiel 33 He says that He will require the shed blood of the ungodly from the hands of the unfaithful preacher; likewise in Ezekiel 34: You son of man, prophesy against the shepherds of Israel; prophesy and say to them: Thus says the Lord GOD: Woe to the shepherds of Israel who feed themselves! Should not the shepherds feed the flock? But you eat the fat and clothe yourselves with the wool and slaughter the fattened animals, but you do not wish to feed the sheep. You do not tend the weak; instead, you rule over them sternly and harshly, and My sheep are scattered and wander astray here and there upon the mountains and the high hills, and they are scattered throughout the whole land, and there is no one who asks after them or attends to them. Therefore, you shepherds, hear the Word of the LORD: As surely as I live, says the Lord GOD, because you allow My sheep to be plundered and My flock to become food for every wild animal, because they have no shepherds, and because My shepherds do not ask after My flock, but are shepherds who feed themselves and do not wish to feed My flock; therefore, you shepherds, hear the Word of the LORD. Thus says the Lord GOD: I am against the shepherds, and I will require My sheep from their hands, and I will put an end to their being shepherds, so that they shall no longer be shepherds or feed themselves. I will rescue My sheep from their mouths, so that they shall no longer devour them. In Luke 6 Christ says that the blind man and the guide of the blind will both fall into the pit. Malachi says in chapter 2: The Lord will root out from the tents of Jacob the one who does such a thing, both master and pupil. And Isaiah 9 says: The leaders of this people are deceivers, and those who allow themselves to be led are lost.

Thus a preacher must also be sincere and faithful in this matter.