# Synodical Conference Convention Proceedings_St. Louis Missouri_1886_S51
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

of the Ev. Luth. Synodical Conference of North America. 1886. 51

phets and apostles is called, without more ado and simply, the Word of God.
Mark 7:10 the LORD Christ says: "Moses said: Honor thy
father and thy mother." But that the Pharisees set this word
aside, he rebukes not as a violation of Moses' word, but he
says in v. 13: "Making the Word of God of none effect through your traditions." Also
St. Paul calls his preaching the Word of God, when in Acts 13:46
he says to the Jews of Antioch: "It was necessary that the Word
of God should first have been spoken to you"; and when he writes in Titus 1:2 f.: "God . . .
hath in due times manifested his Word through the preaching which is
committed unto me." Also when it is said in Acts 11:1: "And the
apostles and brethren heard, . . . that the Gentiles had also received the Word of God,"
what is meant is Peter's preaching of the Savior of the world who appeared in
Christ Jesus; for the Word of God of the Old
Testament concerning the Savior who was to come Cornelius had already
received earlier, with his whole household; otherwise St. Luke
would not have written of them that they were "devout and God-fearing,"
and his prayer and alms would not have been acceptable to God.
Cf. Acts 10:2 ff. St. Peter also calls his preaching the
Word of the LORD, when he writes in 1 Pet. 1:25: "The Word of the LORD
endureth forever. And this is the Word which among you is
preached."

That the assertion of divinity applies no less to their written preaching
to all the world until the end of days than to their
oral preaching goes without saying; yet we have for this also
abundant testimony in Holy Scripture. In 1 Cor. 14:37 the apostle writes:
"If any man think himself to be a prophet, or spiritual,
let him acknowledge that the things that I write unto you are the commandments of the LORD."
In 2 Thess. 2:15 he exhorts: "Therefore, brethren, stand fast, and
hold the traditions which ye have been taught, whether by word or
epistle." Accordingly, both were to be equally binding for the Christians at Thessalonica
and to be held fast as divine doctrine, both what
St. Paul had delivered to them orally and what he had set before them
in his letters. His book of Revelation "John" writes
"to the seven churches which are in Asia," Rev. 1:4; but of what he writes
there, as he was commanded, v. 11, he says repeatedly that it is what the
Spirit says to the churches, when he writes in chap. 2:7, 11, 17, 29; 3:6, 13, 22:
"He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches."
— That he and the other apostles placed their oral preaching and their
writings on one line, St. John also indicates at the beginning
of his first letter, where it says in vv. 3 and 4: "That which we have seen
and heard declare we unto you..... And these things
write we unto you." So also St. Paul repeatedly refers in his
letters to his oral preaching, for example 2 Thess. 2:5, where he writes: