# LCMS Convention Proceedings_St. Louis Missouri_1853_S251
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

— 251 —

If two Christians quarrel with one another over property — mine and
yours — should we not admonish them, according to 1 Corinthians 6, to a
Christian reconciliation?

Suppose they had struck and insulted one another, because the one
owed the other something, and the other, whom the first would not deal
justly with, had taken something from him by force through unchristian
self-help.

Must we not admonish them: dear brothers, be reconciled. You who
took what belonged to your brother through unchristian self-help, give it
back; ask each other's forgiveness for all injuries, and forgive one
another; but as for the actual original quarrel — who was in the right —
either unite among yourselves alone in brotherly love, once the gross and
open wrong of the unchristian self-help and the striking and scolding
has been dealt with; or, if you cannot agree on the dispute itself, then, as
reconciled Christians, choose Christian arbitrators to settle your dispute,
and promise one another, in love and reconciliation, that whatever they
decide about the disputed matter according to their Christian judgment
shall stand between you.

So too the open, unchristian self-help of our sectarians, and of those
who have encouraged them in their self-appointed separation from their
church, must first be dealt with; then all wrongs must be mutually
forgiven and forgotten, our apostate church members admonished to
reconciliation and referred to their own church court. And finally, the
doctrinal dispute between the two synods can then, once the public,
undeniable, unchristian self-help and encroachment upon our office has
been dealt with, be carried on after Christian reconciliation, in Christian
love, without further insult and hatred, both in writing and in speech.
The bond of peace will open the way to the possibility of unity in the
Spirit.

In this way a theological dispute can be carried on without giving
offense or spiritual harm to our church members, and other Christian
Lutheran synods and faculties, deserving the trust of both parties, may
also be consulted.

To this Christian reconciliation we admonish you, for the sake of our
Lord Jesus Christ.

The wholesome benefit will be:

1. A Christian reconciliation.

2. The removal of the great scandal before the Church and the world.

3. The rescue of the erring souls of our apostate church members, so
far as it is possible for a Reverend Synod of Missouri to contribute to
this.

4. The Synod of Missouri will then be free of the responsibility and no
longer guilty of their blood, once it has itself, in penitence, shown them
the right way as well.

5. The hoped-for goal: the unity of the Spirit that then becomes
possible, in a doctrinal dispute conducted with a heart reconciled in
Christian love and finally brought to an end.

Against this stands the harm, if the Reverend Synod of Missouri
should also despise this Christian admonition and make itself further a
partaker in the dreadful sin of factionalism:

1. Injury to the conscience, which will awaken in its own time.

2. The great responsibility for the continuing scandal and
accumulated blood-guilt.

3. Breach of its own synodical resolution to leave nothing undone that
can serve the peace of the Church.