# Synodical Conference Convention Proceedings_St. Louis Missouri_1884_S58
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

56 Proceedings of the tenth convention

says: Do not despise men in the church when they teach, someone might easily come to think: One should also have respect for the pious teachers even when they teach what is erroneous. Therefore he adds at once: "But test everything and hold fast what is good."

Further we read John 4:39–42: "And many of the Samaritans of that city believed on him for the saying of the woman, who testified: He told me all that ever I did. So when the Samaritans came to him, they besought him that he would abide with them; and he abode there two days. And many more believed because of his own word. And said unto the woman: Now we believe, not because of thy saying; for we have heard him ourselves, and know that this is indeed the Christ, the Saviour of the world." Remarkable! First it says: they believed because of the woman's saying, which the evangelist evidently wants to bring out first. Christ came, namely, as an entirely strange man to the well of the Samaritan city of Sychar, and when a woman from the city comes, he enters into a conversation with her about the coming of the Messiah. When the Lord now tells her everything she has done, which no one outside Samaria could know, and testifies to her that He is the One promised, she not only believes but hurries at once into the city and tells there everything she has just experienced. Many inhabitants also draw the conclusion at once: This must be the Messiah. But when they heard Jesus himself, they say: "Now we believe, not because of thy saying; for we have heard him ourselves, and know that this is indeed the Christ, the Saviour of the world." They had, then, already believed because of the woman's saying with a human faith; but when they had come through Christ's own word to a divine faith, they let the woman's saying go entirely. Why are we told this? So that we may learn to build our faith finally on no man's saying. We should indeed be very thankful for the sayings and writings of godly men when they lead us into Scripture. But then we are to believe not for their sake, but because we have found it in Scripture. With us too it should be said: we now believe no longer for the sake of a Luther, of a Gerhard, of a Quenstedt, Hunnius, Heshusius, Calov, Dannhauer and others, but because we have read it in Scripture.

1 Cor. 10:15 says: "I speak as to wise men; judge ye what I say." That goes beyond everything. Paul was, as the Corinthians knew very well, a servant of God immediately enlightened. And yet he says to them: "Judge ye what I say." He thus himself submits what he says to the judgment of the Corinthian Christians and wants them to agree with him in clear conviction. If an apostle does this, what are other teachers, that they may demand blind assent to everything they say?