# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_Mai 1863_S149
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

Why do I obey my church government? 149

...been said, and all the effort which the Kirchenblatt likewise devoted to
this in the past year, to prove the contrary, did not reach its goal."

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Why do I obey my church government?

To this question an answer is found in the "Kirchenblatt für die ev.-luth.
Gemeinen in Preußen" [Church Paper for the Evangelical Lutheran Congregations
in Prussia], published by Consistorial Councillor J. Nagel in Breslau and
representing the Oberkirchenkollegium [Supreme Church Council] of that place,
for the month of February — an answer which shows that the party of the
Oberkirchenkollegium ascribes a divine authority to the church government
even where it does not hold forth God's Word and command, provided only
that it demands nothing contrary to God's Word. The answer reads as
follows:

"Answer: Because the LORD has commanded me: Thou shalt honor thy father
and thy mother.

I am to honor father and mother, that is, I am to 1) not despise them,
2) not provoke them to anger, 3) serve them.

I despise father and mother when I regard them as lesser, and consider
myself wiser, more experienced, more discerning than they.

I provoke father and mother to anger when I do not obey them. Thus the
triune God commands me in the fourth commandment obedience toward my
neighbor.

I serve father and mother when I render to them what I am obliged to
render, support them in their labor, and hold them dear and worthy until
their last end.

How, then, is my church government comprised within the name of father
and mother?

So answers the Heilsordnung, a good old exposition of Dr. M. Luther's
Small Catechism, on the question: What does the fourth commandment
command? ""That one honor parents, masters, magistrates, teachers, and all
superiors, and obey them."" Since the men who conduct the church government
are my superiors, the church government too is comprised within the name of
father and mother.

But did not our fathers separate from the Pope precisely because he
claimed for himself, as vicar, an obedience for God's sake?

Certainly father and mother, and therefore also everyone who is comprised
within the name of father and mother, stand in God's stead for children and
subordinates. But men can stand in God's stead in quite different relations.
For example, he who feeds you stands to you in God's stead; for God gives
all their food in due season and satisfies everything that lives with
good pleasure. Accordingly your employer is comprised within the name of
father and mother; for father and mother feed