# LCMS Convention Proceedings_St. Louis Missouri_1899_S28
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

28 Proceedings of the 24th General, or

proofs of reason, made it acceptable to people. That is, in the first
place, impossible, and furthermore contrary to our commission. Christ
does not say, "Go and prove the gospel," but, "Go and preach the
gospel." The human word works by way of human persuasion and
argument — that is, by appealing to truths, and by bringing to life
truths that already lie within the human mind, or for which a person
naturally has some understanding. The divine word that the church has
to proclaim works quite differently. It works, as our forefathers
say, "by mere contact" with the human mind — that is, simply by being
received into the human mind. Once it is received into the human
mind, it testifies to itself as divine truth, because the Holy Spirit
is at work through the word. St. Paul teaches this when he writes:
"And I, brothers, when I came to you, did not come proclaiming to you
the divine testimony with lofty speech or wisdom. ... My speech and
my message were not in plausible words of human wisdom, but in
demonstration of the Spirit and of power, that your faith might not
rest in the wisdom of men but in the power of God" (1 Corinthians
2:1, 4-5).

To be sure, we do not reject so-called "apologetics" — that is, the
defense of Christian doctrine with arguments drawn from reason and
experience. But by this we do not mean to make God's word powerful in
the first place; rather, we mean only to clear away certain outward
obstacles to the outward hearing and outward consideration of the
word. All power and efficacy we expect from the word itself, which
testifies to itself as divine truth through the working of the Holy
Spirit, once it enters the human mind. Therefore our aim in our
educational institutions is this, above all: to train up people who
are capable of teaching God's word. With God's word the church is
able to accomplish everything it has been commanded to accomplish.
That was the third point to which I wished to direct our attention.

3.

With God's word the church can accomplish everything it has been
commanded to accomplish, both in the world and within its own midst.

As for its task toward the outside world, first of all, it is to
convert the world to Christ. That is, admittedly, a difficult task,
as has already been indicated. Christ crucified is a stumbling block
to the Jews and folly to the Greeks. If the world still wants to be
saved, it in any case does not want to be saved through Christ
crucified. Its religion is a different one: the religion of works. It
does not get beyond that. In this religion it is kept, by its natural
bent and by