# LCMS Convention Proceedings_St. Louis Missouri_1848_S37
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

— 37 —

...demands submission to man-made ordinances. A servant of men, then, is
only the preacher who, out of fear of man or a desire to please men, does
not faithfully serve Christ, who departs from God's Word in doctrine or
practice, and preaches whatever tickles his hearers' ears. But precisely
where the preacher is given only the power of the Word — yet the full power
of that Word — where the congregation, as often as it hears Christ's Word
from its preacher's mouth, receives it as God's Word, there the preacher
stands in the right relationship to his congregation; he stands among them
not as a hired wage-servant, but as an ambassador of God the Most High; not
as a servant of men, but as a servant of Christ, who teaches, exhorts, and
rebukes in Christ's place. It is precisely there that the apostolic
exhortation is truly obeyed: "Obey your leaders and submit to them, for
they are keeping watch over your souls, as those who will have to give an
account. Let them do this with joy and not with groaning, for that would be
of no advantage to you." The more a congregation sees that the one set over
it in the Lord desires nothing except that the congregation be subject to
Christ and his Word; the more it sees that he does not wish to rule over
it, indeed that he watches jealously over the congregation's own freedom,
the more willingly it will listen to his wholesome proposals, even in
matters God has left free; it will follow him in this not as a taskmaster,
because it must, but as its father in Christ, because it wants to, gladly,
for its own good.

Our synodical body, too, has this same prospect of a wholesome
influence, when it seeks to work by nothing but the power of the Word. To
be sure, struggles await us there as well, but they will not be those
petty, disheartening struggles over obedience to human laws, but those holy
struggles for God's Word — that is, for God's honor and kingdom. And the
more the congregations recognize that we desire to exercise no power over
them other than that divine power of the Word which saves all who believe
it, the more open a door our counsel, too, will find among them. It is true
that those who do not love the Word will separate from us; but to those who
do love it, our fellowship will be a comforting refuge; and when they
accept our resolutions, they will not bear them as a foreign burden imposed
on them from outside, but will esteem them as a benefit and a gift of
brotherly love, and will uphold, defend, and preserve them as their own
possession.

So although we may possess no power but that of the Word, we can and
should still carry on our work with joy. Let us, then, dear and honored
sirs and brothers, exercise this power rightly. Let us above all and in
everything take care that the pure doctrine of our beloved Evangelical
Lutheran Church becomes ever more fully known among us, prevails in all our
congregations, and is kept safe from every corruption and held fast as the
most precious treasure. Of what the Word demands, let us not yield one
iota; let us bring this to full sway in our congregations and give up
nothing of it, whatever it may cost us, as God wills; here let us be
unbending, here let us be iron. If we do this, we can be unconcerned about
the success of our labor; even should it seem to be in vain, it cannot then
be in vain, for the Word does not return empty, but accomplishes that for
which the Lord sent it. By the Word alone, without any other power, the
church was once founded;