# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_April 1860_S105
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

On the Zeal of Preachers. 105

But furthermore, the Word of God is also to be dispensed pure and
without cunning and false-believing inventions. From God, nothing
without God. In doubtful matters one must always go back to his law and
testimony, Isa. 5:20. For it is not an oracle of Apollo or of some daemon,
but the true and living utterance of the living God. Therefore Moses,
when he came down from the mountain, brought not his own commands
but God's, Exod. 19:37, 18 [sic]. This Christ has commanded his apostles
and their successors. He bids them, Matt. 28:20, teach not human
traditions, not their own dreams, but everything that he himself
commanded, whether directly, while he was on earth, or indirectly through
the prophets and apostles. Hence the apostles held to what Christ had
commanded them, 1 Cor. 11:23: "I have received of the Lord that which
also I delivered unto you." 1 Thess. 4:2: "Ye know what commandments
we gave you by [the authority of] the Lord Jesus" — as if he would say: the
commandments which I have given you are not mine but Christ's; Christ
is the lawgiver, I am only Christ's servant and messenger. So it is said,
1 Pet. 4:11: "If any man speak, let him speak as the oracles of God" — the
teacher should be well instructed in the Word of God, and, as if from
God's own mouth, should utter trustworthy sayings: one may not plow
with the ox of God's Word and the ass of human traditions yoked together,
Deut. 20:10 [sic]. God is angry when men set their threshold beside his
threshold and their post beside his post, Ezek. 43:8. How do straw and
wheat agree together? How do the sayings of the false prophets agree
with the truth of God? Jer. 23:28. The inventions of men are like light and
empty down-feathers, without fruit and without spiritual sap; but the
Word of God is like full-grown wheat, which refreshes, strengthens, and
nourishes the heart. We are stewards over God's mysteries, not defenders
of our own inventions — servants, not lords, of the faith of the elect. The
apostolic doctrine we will spread abroad; a new one we will not hatch out.
Though we, or an angel from heaven, should bring another gospel, let him
be accursed, Gal. 1:8.

Finally, [preaching should be] clear and complete. The clearer, the
better. Where there is the greatest clarity, there too is the greatest effect.
For he is not a good preacher who merely reaches the ears, but he who
penetrates into the heart. Hence Paul declares that he would rather speak
five words in a known and familiar tongue than ten thousand words in a
foreign one, 1 Cor. 14:9. Let us preach the cross of Christ also in the style
of the cross, not with the plausible-sounding words of human wisdom, but
in demonstration of the Spirit and of power: not rhetorically but
apostolically, not eloquently but with power, so that in striving after
loftiness we do not fall into the pit of error and become entangled in the
snares of false doctrines. Let our language therefore be simple,
intelligible, and pure — not ornamented, decked out, affected, and
overloaded with pompous and effect-seeking words: so our words will be
like fiery arrows