# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_M rz 1863_S80
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

80 The Old Lutheran Teachers on Slavery.

if you can, with your master's favor; so that it shall count the same for your conscience whether you become free or remain a serf, wherever you can do so with God and with honor. For the Christian faith does not teach us to take from another what is his, but rather to render every duty, even to those to whom we owe nothing and who have no claim upon us.

V. 22: For he that is called in the Lord, being a servant, is the Lord's freedman: likewise also he that is called, being free, is Christ's servant.

That is as much as to say: it counts the same before God whether you are free or a serf; just as circumcision and uncircumcision count the same: neither hinders faith and salvation. Just as if I were to say: in faith it counts the same whether you are poor or rich, young or old, handsome or ugly, learned or unlearned, a layman or a cleric. For he who is called poor is rich before God; he who is called rich is poor before God; he who is called young is old before God; he who is called ugly is handsome before God. And again, he who is called unlearned is learned before God; and again, he who is called a layman is a cleric before God. All this, because faith makes us all equal before God and lets no distinction of person or estate count for anything. So too here: he who is called a servant is a freeman of the Lord — that is, it counts before him just as much as if he were free and no servant. And conversely: he who is called free is Christ's servant — that is, he is no better than one who is a servant. For here it goes as St. Paul says, Gal. 3:28: "There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female, but all are one and altogether Christ's." For there is the same faith, the same good, the same inheritance, and everything the same. So you might also say: he who is called a man is a woman before God, and he who is called a woman is a man before God. Therefore the word here, "a servant of Christ," cannot be said of the service one renders to Christ, but rather means a servant among men on earth; because that same person belongs to Christ and is under him, he counts just as much as a free man, and a free man counts just as much as a servant; and he remains Christ's own in that he is a servant.

V. 23: Ye are bought with a price; be not ye the servants of men.

What is meant by this? He has just taught that one should remain a servant, and that it does not hinder Christian faith; but here he forbids that one should become a servant. He says this, without doubt, as a general saying against the doctrines of men, which would bring to nothing such freedom and equality of faith, and which constrain the conscience narrowly.. That this is indeed his meaning is proven by the fact that he says: Ye are bought with a price. By this he means Christ, who has bought us and made us free with his own blood from all sins and laws, Gal. 5:1. Now this purchase does not proceed in a worldly manner, nor does it touch the obligation that exists among men themselves — such as that of a servant toward his master, or of a wife toward her husband. Such obligations he lets all remain, and would have them