# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_Mai 1858_S130
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

130 On the Divisions in the Lutheran Congregations Here.

-tian church (Galatians 4:26); for we are indeed all begotten and reborn of one spiritual seed, of God's Word, washed from sin through one and the same bath, holy Baptism, fed and given drink with one and the same food and drink, the body and blood of Christ, and fight under one banner against the spiritual and bodily enemies — and did not the faithful Savior Jesus Christ pray so inwardly and earnestly that all who through the apostles' word come to believe in him should be "one, even as the Father is in him, and he in the Father, that they also may be one in them"? (John 17:21) — Is it not now a dreadful sin when individual members in the congregations, led astray by the devil and their own sinful flesh, thrust away from themselves brotherly love, which covers a multitude of sins, and in shameful arrogance despise the admonition of the holy apostle, Philippians 2:3: "Do nothing through strife and vainglory, but in lowliness of mind esteem each other better than yourselves. And let each look not on his own things, but on the things of others" — when they cannot and will not bear anything in patience, nor make allowance for any failing in their neighbor; but instead, through a spirit of quarreling and contention, wrath and stubbornness, envy and slander, disturb the peace in the congregation, trample underfoot the high-priestly prayer of Jesus, break their holy calling, and hinder and destroy the kingdom of Jesus. When the apostle Paul recounts the greatest sins of the blind heathen, he also mentions that they were "full of malice, of murder, of debate" — to show that those who live in contention and hatred are no Christians, but godless, blind heathen. He testifies that they are not spiritual people, reborn through the Spirit, but carnal people, who either have not yet been reborn, or have lost again the grace of rebirth; wherefore he, Galatians 5:20, counts strife and discord among the works of the flesh, through which a man is excluded from the kingdom of God and the fellowship of the church and the believers; therefore he also says, 1 Corinthians 11:16: "If any man seem to be contentious, let him know that we have no such custom, neither the churches of God" — and Romans 2:8 threatens and proclaims to those who are "contentious" that "tribulation and anguish, indignation and wrath" await them in God's judgment.—

That the blessing and the effectiveness of the holy preaching office must suffer quite especially under strife, division, and separation, we already recognize from the earnestness and zeal with which the apostle Paul rebukes this carnal disposition in his congregation at Corinth, and calls out to them, 1 Corinthians 3:16-17: "Know ye not that ye are the temple of God, and the Spirit of God dwelleth in you? If any man defile the temple of God, him shall God destroy!" How this destruction of the temple of God comes about, we learn from Paul's admonition, 1 Corinthians 1:10: "Now I beseech you, brethren, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that ye all speak the same thing, and that there be no divisions among you, but that ye be perfectly joined together in the same mind and in the same judgment. For it hath been