# LCMS Convention Proceedings_St. Louis Missouri_1899_S37
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

Ninth Delegate Synod of Missouri, Ohio, and Other States, 1899. 37

...the church declares once and for all: This is what God's Word teaches; whoever
acts accordingly is a Christian; whoever does not act accordingly is a non-Christian and is
to be excluded from the fellowship of Christians. No, no! "Making God's Word
count" means, and includes, this: unceasingly teaching with the Word, publicly
and privately, rebuking, admonishing, and comforting, and then, indeed,
finally also excluding from Christian fellowship — but not the weak and the
frail, only those who set themselves in open, incorrigible enmity against
God's Word. Above all, the task is to teach with the Word. Our Christians can
and should demand of us, who are called to the office of the Word, that we
instruct them clearly from God's Word — more precisely, that we show clearly
from God's Word what is sinful in a given case. If we cannot do that, then we
may not make the matter in question a sin for them either. And we must not
only teach, and teach clearly, but also teach patiently. Some sins are so
obvious that anyone with even a spark of faith immediately recognizes them as
public scandals. There, no lengthy instruction is needed. But some sins are of
such a kind that even Christians must be held to instruction before they
recognize them as sins. This is especially the case when the matter itself is
somewhat complicated, and particularly when Christians, too, are caught up in
certain prejudices of the age that hinder calm judgment and cloud discernment.
Here the task is to teach with patience. Luther rebukes the hotheaded
preachers who want to jump out of their skin at once when their instruction is
not obeyed immediately. He says: "There are many anxious and hotheaded
preachers who burn and are hot-tempered and want to go straight through with
their heads; they do not know that planting and watering is one thing, and
giving the growth is another, 1 Cor. 3:6-7. As soon as they have said it, they
want it done as well."*)

Next, the task is not merely to teach with the Word of God, but also to
admonish with that same Word. When a Christian has recognized something as
right to do, he often grows weak because of the evil flesh that clings to him.
Then admonition with the Word is called for, so that the spirit may be
strengthened, and the strengthened spirit may put to death the doings of the
flesh. So it stands, for instance, when the question of belonging to labor
unions [*Arbeiterverbindungen*] arises — not infrequently the Christian says:
"I, too, truly do not like everything that is said and done in the unions, but
I also have a duty before God and man to support my family, and without union
membership I cannot get work." There the task is, through the word of
evangelical admonition, to strengthen the faith that relies on the word: "I
will not leave you nor forsake you." "Fear not, only believe." "Seek first the
kingdom of God and...

*) On Ps. 8:3. [St. Louis Edition] IV, 763.