# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_August 1856_S237
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

Sermon Preparation from Dr. Luther. 237

We can confidently assert that through such practice one becomes master especially of expression, and attains, both in doctrine and in language, to that firmness and assurance which makes preaching a true delight of the heart. The members of the congregation themselves, too, before whom we have never concealed our preparation from Luther, rejoice heartily to see their preacher carrying on one and the same discourse with Holy Scripture and Dr. Luther's Postils, and are in this way driven not merely into the Postils but, in particular, into the Scripture itself, and are guided and equipped for its understanding. Never yet has anyone accused us, for the sake of this preparation, of laziness or of decking ourselves out in another's feathers; rather, thanks and joy in noble fruits have been the writer's harvest for it, though he is still only a beginner in this kind of work.

I have spoken in this essay only of sermon preparation from Luther, since I have not yet gathered my own experience concerning Pastor Keyl's counsel to make the study of Luther the center of the whole of theological study. For this, however, I can also vouch: that through that sermon preparation alone, one's own knowledge and study already gain a firm hold, order, and clarity, and that much learning which otherwise lies unused becomes usable, as it were fluid, so that for one who, for lack of time, can equip himself out of Luther's writings only for preaching and instruction, Keyl's counsel proves well-founded and sound. Even if the work described were nothing but a vigorous exercise of the mind, it would already for that reason have great importance for us, as our fathers testify, who took such pains with excerpting from individual significant writings and knew nothing at all of the aimless nibbling, now so popular, at vast masses of books. But that labor has far greater worth than this; it instructs, and — not the least thing — it edifies. How often, indeed, does the preacher feel so unedified in spirit, just when he is to step into the pulpit or to the beds of the sick to edify others! Anxiety instead of reverence, faintheartedness instead of courage, uncertainty instead of firmness weighs down his poor soul, and often, indeed, his anxiety, his faintheartedness, his uncertainty fasten less upon the content than upon the arrangement of his sermon. Now, I do not say that Luther makes one careless about preaching; on the contrary — his student becomes, through him, all the more truly aware of the loftiness of the work that God wills to accomplish through him; but this we learn from him: to leave both the honor and the effect of the sermon to the gracious God, while ourselves preaching with joy what is written, not what might perhaps please the hearers. The arrangement and disposition can, in this, cause one the very least anxiety and trouble, for if it is set out after Luther's model, one need only glance at the text to have it constantly before one's eyes. Luther himself leads us into the Bible; what do we, who are called to lead others into the Bible, need more, and more earnestly? —