# Synodical Conference Convention Proceedings_St. Louis Missouri_1904_S10
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

10 Proceedings of the twentieth convention

He shows that He is speaking not only of an existing quarrel and strife, but means everything by which one sins against the brother and which, like a quarrel, can be settled by a reconciliation, adjusted, and brought into a condition pleasing to God and into the order God requires. This is to happen first, before one comes to the altar of the LORD. The thief is to restore what he has stolen, the man who has abandoned his wife is to return, the man who has lied to anyone is to confess the truth to him, etc.

That one must not take the τὶ κατὰ σοῦ [something against thee] too narrowly one sees from the Ἐὰν οὖν [If therefore]: "If now, if therefore, accordingly"; hence "if." Οὖν [therefore] always refers to something that has gone before. To what does the LORD refer? In the preceding verses He has expounded the Law. He has taught His disciples a righteousness better than that of the scribes and Pharisees. Not only is he a murderer, for example, who kills his brother, but also he who is angry with him, who hates him, threatens him. So they are now to examine themselves not only by the coarse, literal, but also by the fine, spiritual sense of the divine Law, before they betake themselves to the altar of their God. If in such reflection you now find, with regard to your neighbor, τὶ κατὰ σοῦ, says the LORD, then go and put it in order, and then come and offer your gift. One should not think that it suffices, that it is possible, to ask one's God for forgiveness for a sin against the neighbor without settling matters with him, when for the sake of the sin he has something against us. One cannot ask forgiveness for a lie or a theft and let the lie stand and keep the unlawful possession. Indeed, even things that in the eyes of an unspiritual man are trifles become, for the conscientious disciple of Christ, a hindrance to appearing before his God unless he has first removed them from the world. ὕπαγε, πρῶτον διαλλάγηθι [Go first be reconciled]. According to Greek usage the πρῶτον [first] is better taken with διαλλάγηθι [be reconciled]. Nor should one suppose that one could put off such a step of cleansing and setting right to a later, more convenient time. No: first settle with your brother, first make good, put in order again, where and so far as something can be done according to human strength and in a manner fitting the nature of the offense.

"It was said to them of old: Thou shalt not kill! But I say unto you," says Christ. What was said to them of old, to that even the natural understanding of man gives roughly its assent. Higher, finer demands it is hostile to. That seems to it too much, too high a thing demanded. Therefore, with an ἐὰν οὖν [if therefore] it is a matter of thinking of the Master's ἐγὼ δὲ λέγω ὑμῖν [but I say unto you] and of answering as Peter did with "At Thy word, LORD, I will do it!"

For practical life, especially for the approach to Holy Communion, there arises from this passage for the Christian the duty to set right a relationship with his brother or his congregation disturbed by sin