LCMS Convention Proceedings St. Louis, Missouri — 1965, Page 36

Transcription machine transcription, uncorrected

⤓ Download .txt · copy text

36 DOCTRINAL-DEVOTIONAL ESSAYS

to live. This is the method our gracious Lord gave to
His church.

These are the three objectives of the church in its
teaching program, to become ever better teachers of
the Law, better teachers of the Gospel, and better
teachers of the life in Christ.

Who Shall Teach?

In this connection another question must be an-
swered, Who shall teach? A few moments ago you
heard the.chaplain of this morning read that marvelous
passage from Deuteronomy 6. “And thou shalt teach!”
In these words our gracious Lord, through the voice of
Moses in his farewell address to Israel, bound it upon
the conscience of every father in the nation to make
sure that his fireside is a pedagogical fireside, that
every home is a teaching institution, that every house-
hold is God’s seminary which sends out into the world
the little preachers who preach their sermons of love
by their very lives. This is primary.

The Parents

Why does this convention of the Missouri Synod
want to concern itself with educational institutions,
with parish education programs, with higher educa-
tion unless we first resolve to let every father and
mother affiliated with our Synod know that they have
a terrific task? We are to reemphasize to them that
they are God’s faculty. They are the God-appointed
teachers in the church. They are the ones to whom the
Lord looks to employ the method by which He wants
to win the world for Himself.

Pastors and School Teachers

So that fathers and mothers get help and are
equipped for their work, our gracious God provided
assistants. This help He gave in the form of pastors
and teachers in our congregations. Strange as it may
sound, God made me an assistant. God put me into my
congregation as pastor, so that the fathers and mothers
would have a helper in their work as educators. I don’t
have first rank in my congregation. God didn’t say,
“You come ahead of everybody else.” He didn’t. He
said, “You are an assistant. You come second. The
fathers and mothers stand in the front line of the
teaching activity of the church.” It would be well for
us pastors and teachers to remember what we are in
the congregations we serve.

Instructors at Our Colleges and Seminaries

And so I am a teacher of the church’s teachers. To
be a teacher of teachers is not easy. Even I need help.
Where do I look? I look to those whom the church
has chosen to devote their time to the preparation of
teachers of teachers. I am speaking of our faculties
at all our colleges and seminaries and terminal schools.
We thank God for them. They are our scholars. And
we say of them, if you want scholarship in depth, you
need not go far afield in your search. You can find
scholarship in depth right at our own schools and
seminaries. Please note, I used the plural.

We like the product they send us — the students and
graduates. In the 37 years of my ministry I have had
the distinct privilege of having 10 vicars. I don’t know
how it happened, but all of them came from our Saint
Louis seminary. I hope some day to get a vicar from
Springfield. Among those 10 vicars I have not found
one who was not solid, solid in knowing what his goal
in life is, solid in knowing what the Gospel stands for,
solid in knowing that he has a threefold obligation in
his future ministry, the obligation of getting into the
heart of man to show him his sin, the obligation of
picturing Jesus Christ as the only Savior of mankind,
and the obligation to equip the servants of God, as
they go out into their daily work as truck drivers and
secretaries and housewives, to be in the world as wit-
nesses of the Word. These vicars knew that time is
running out for the church. They knew that God sends
them into the world as teachers of the church, and
therefore they must equip themselves by constant re-
search work, for they are the communicators of God’s
thoughts, thoughts gained from God’s Word, and words
are their basic study. We need scholars to train our
students and vicars.

I, too, need the scholar to help me understand words.
Where do I go when I’m in doubt? Yes, I may go to
my dictionary. Even there I sometimes have trouble.
The very simplest words sometimes escape me or are
not clear to me. Have you ever looked in the dic-
tionary for the meaning of the word f-a-l-1? I think
I know what that little word means. But notice, there
are 23 definitions for the verb alone. And then I’m only
half finished. There are 19 definitions when the word
is used as a noun. Here I have more than 40 definitions.
Am I so brilliant that I always know the precise mean-
ing of every word? I need scholars to help me.

And then, when I get into Greek and into Hebrew,
I need them still more. I need scholars. As I am busy
searching for souls and getting them ready for heaven,
I lack two things: one is time, the other is the ability
to be a research man. I think we have men at our
schools whom we can trust, men who will not mislead
us. It’s your and my job to keep on praying for them.
It’s so easy to throw brickbats. It’s much more difficult
to fold our hands and say, “O God, be with these men
whom we have chosen, that they, being teachers of the
teachers of the church, might remain faithful to Thee.
Help them, as they delve ever deeper into Thy mys-
teries, that they never lose sight of the cross.” Pray
for your Christian scholars.

The Meaning of Christian Scholarship

What is a Christian scholar? To me a Christian
scholar is a child of God who has a grubbing axe in
one hand and a torch in the other hand. He is con-
stantly digging, searching, grubbing, and as he digs
he comes up with nuggets of gold through his scholar-
ship which he places into my hand. He knows it is the
nighttime of the world. Therefore this Christian scholar
holds in his other hand the torch to light the way.
“Thy Word is a lamp. Thus saith the Lord.” Here is

PARAS URAN IHL RALIS POR SRINAGAR Es Hh a