# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_M rz 1859_S79
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

79

(Contributed.)
How should a pastor conduct himself at the sickbed of
his parishioners?

That is a question deserving of all attention; it touches so deeply on the
duties of office that no preacher can excuse himself from it; and because
of the diversity of human hearts, the cases are so manifold that even a
faithful pastor is at times at a loss. The Lord God requires of preachers
that they, "whether it be in season or out of season," continue "in
preaching, reproving, rebuking, exhorting, with all patience and
doctrine"; further, that they discharge their office "faithfully." They
should therefore seek the welfare of the flock committed to them, so
that, if God grants grace, all their parishioners may be saved through
their ministry, and it not lie at their door if, nevertheless, not all attain
to repentance toward God and faith in Jesus Christ and are saved. Now
it is doubtless beyond dispute that public preaching is the proper chief
means of promoting people's "profit and salvation" temporally and
eternally — for godliness holds the promise of this life and of that
which is to come; yet no preacher should stand in the ruinous delusion
that, by preaching publicly in church, he has done enough for his office,
and that he may now quiet his conscience that he has discharged his
office "faithfully." For he is a preacher and pastor not only in the
pulpit, but everywhere; and it is his duty and his high calling to win
souls for Christ, above all to feed, tend, nourish, and strengthen with all
patience and doctrine the flock committed to him, and, God willing, to
bring it to salvation. This befits a godly preacher, and should at all
times be his earnest endeavor, though he reap for it in part thanks or
ingratitude, love or hatred. For this we have also the example of our
Lord Christ, who not only in his public discourses and sermons, but on
every occasion, urged his disciples and the people toward saving faith
in him, and did not disdain to speak with individual persons about the
way of salvation, as for example with Nicodemus and Mary, the sister of
Lazarus. And his beloved apostle Paul presents himself as an example
at once deeply humbling and yet inspiring to faithfulness, when in Acts
20 he reminds the elders of the Ephesian congregation that he had kept
back nothing that was profitable, that he had not failed to declare it to
them and to teach them publicly and from house to house; and he
admonishes them to remember that for three years, night and day, he
had not ceased to warn every one with tears.

Now if there is any place and occasion suited to following Paul's
example, it is the sickbed, to which the preacher comes either with or
without being summoned. As a rule the heart of the sick is more
receptive to God's Word than that of the healthy; and even where it is
not, necessity here requires that special care be taken for the soul of the
one lying sick. It shall not now be the purpose of this essay to...