# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_Februar 1863_S43
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

Preface. 43

let them not despise them (as a pretense) on the ground that they are brothers; but rather let them serve them all the more, since they are believing and beloved and partakers of the benefit." 1 Timothy 6:2. Far be it, then, from the servants of believing masters to think, according to the judgment of the Holy Spirit: My master is my brother in Christ, I am therefore equal to him, he ought therefore to set me free, and I therefore need serve him no longer; rather, according to the judgment of the Holy Spirit, they should think thus: My master is my brother in Christ, I am therefore his equal before God; he has no nobler Father in heaven, no more gracious Savior, no holier Spirit, no richer forgiveness, no better righteousness of grace, no greater hope than I have. Oh, then, for the sake of the slight bodily inequality in which I still stand toward him here below, I will not trouble myself about it, but will serve him, as a dear brother in the faith, all the more, all the more faithfully, all the more gladly. Hence the apostle also writes elsewhere: "He that is called, being a servant, is the Lord's freedman; likewise also he that is called, being free, is Christ's servant." 1 Corinthians 7:22.

It is remarkable, moreover, that in that same passage, 1 Timothy 6:1-2, the apostle, after having set forth the duties of servants toward both heathen and Christian believing masters, continues in the words addressed to Timothy: "These things teach and exhort. If any man teach otherwise, and consent not to the wholesome words of our Lord Jesus Christ, and to the doctrine which is according to godliness, he is proud, knowing nothing, but is diseased about questions and disputes of words, whereof come envy, strife, railings, evil surmisings, wranglings of such men as have corrupted minds and are destitute of the truth, supposing that godliness is a means of gain" (that is, a means of acquiring temporal advantage). "From such withdraw thyself." (1 Timothy 6:2-5.) Truly! How a believing Christian can read this and nevertheless say, with the humanists of this age, that civil servitude or slavery is in itself wrong, is to us utterly inexplicable. We hold that whoever still has a conscience for God's Word must find these words pierce his heart like spears and nails — indeed, that they must, like divine thunderclaps, startle him out of his slumber, if he has let himself be lulled into the abolitionist dreamings of our modern world. For here the holy apostle testifies, in the Holy Spirit, in clear and unambiguous words: that what he had said above concerning the honor and fidelity owed to their masters, every preacher of the Gospel should likewise teach and urge; and whoever teaches otherwise on this point as well is proud and knows nothing, however wise and enlightened he may consider himself, and a right-believing Christian should therefore shun him as a dangerous man! This must accordingly be a matter of no small importance, but of the highest weight, one on which God's honor and mankind's salvation and blessedness depend.