# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_September 1856_S282
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

282 How a Preacher Should Read the Bible and Pray.

...have themselves contributed their share to it, in that, while indeed presenting the Lutheran doctrine of the Supper in school and church, they otherwise pressed for Lutheran-churchly decisiveness neither in doctrine nor in life, and indeed occasionally even contended against it?

3. Should one not, therefore, be grateful to Consistorial Councillor Ebrard for having brought the matter to a clear decision and for having pressed that the union should also become a truth, once it is to be and is meant to be one — which can happen in no other way than that the confessions of both sides be given up and merged into a new one? — and that thereby an end was made to the seductive and pernicious hybrid nature of a Prussian-style unionism?

Freimund.

How a Preacher Should Read the Bible and Pray.

On this subject Luther once set down for the godly Spalatin (as early as the year 1519) the following brief rule:

"In the evening always take something from Holy Scripture with you to bed, that you may chew on it again like a clean animal and fall gently asleep. Not much, however, but a little, well weighed over and understood; so that in the early morning, upon waking, you may find it as a holy remnant left over from the day before. And in all study of Scripture or divinity one must utterly despair of one's own understanding and labor, and ask for understanding from God alone, with fear and humility. Therefore, when you draw near to the Bible, lift up the eyes of your heart and body first to Christ, and beg Him, in a brief sigh, for His grace; which one must also often do while reading, so that you think and say: Ah, Lord! grant, indeed, that I may rightly understand this and, still more — do it. But guard yourself above all else against wishing merely to know and understand (for I do not, after all, take you for so coarse as to seek honor, gain, or renown), nor even against wishing to teach others. Let this thought be firmly fixed in you, for vain ambition can lurk quite secretly hidden; and seek nothing but the honor of God, so that you may be minded thus: Behold! dearest Lord Jesus, if this is not to Thy honor, then let me understand not one syllable of it; but give me as much of it as seems to Thee fitting to redound to Thy honor through me, a poor sinner."

"Remember that you are a priest, that is, a common and public servant; therefore pray not so much for yourself as for the sheep, especially for the superiors of the Church, namely the bishops and rulers, since their welfare is the welfare of us all."

(Luther's Works, Halle ed., vol. XXI, 633.)