# Synodical Conference Convention Proceedings_St. Louis Missouri_1884_S12
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

12 Proceedings of the tenth convention

A clear proof that one should not despise good human writings and sermons either, but thank God for them and use them faithfully, is also Acts 18:24–28: "And a certain Jew named Apollos, born at Alexandria, an eloquent man and mighty in the Scriptures, came to Ephesus. This man was instructed in the way of the Lord, and spoke with fervent spirit, and taught diligently of the Lord, knowing only the baptism of John. And he began to speak boldly in the synagogue. When Aquila and Priscilla heard him, they took him to them and expounded unto him the way of God more diligently. And when he was minded to pass into Achaia, the brethren wrote, exhorting the disciples to receive him. And when he was come, he helped them much who had believed through grace. For he mightily convinced the Jews, and that publicly, showing by the Scriptures that Jesus was the Christ."

Apollos therefore had the gift of making people certain: this and no other is the sense of Scripture. So they thought in Ephesus: Wait, he must go to the great city of Corinth, where the struggle over doctrine is fierce; he will overcome the opponents. As we also see, that Apollos soon gained so great an authority in Corinth that a party clung to him idolatrously and called itself after him Apollonian. Wrong as this was, we nevertheless see from it this much, that the dear Christians in apostolic times also perceived what a great gift of God it is to have men who can expound Holy Scripture clearly and plainly and make their hearers certain of it, and that such gifts are to be used and not despised.

And what a great treasure of "prophecy" we possess, we especially, in comparison with the ancient Church! One need only make a comparison of what existed in Christian antiquity and how extraordinarily great the theological literature is today. From every orthodox dogmatician one can learn something, and of each the word holds: Do not despise it! God does not even want earthly gifts to be despised. Children are to accept bread from their parents with thanks and not wait for God to provide for them without parents. A sick man is not to despise medicine. How much more does this hold of spiritual gifts! We Germans in particular should take this to heart, we who, before other nations of the earth, are so richly blessed with theological literature. Nor should one throw away the old teachers of the Church because here and there something wrong is found in their writings. Many wonder that in the present doctrinal controversy we will not let certain statements of the dogmaticians stand, whereas we formerly cited these teachers so often. Indeed, our opponents abuse this by exclaiming: There you see that these people have entered upon an entirely new way