Collection › LCMS Convention Proceedings (St. Louis, Missouri) › 1973 · 50th Convention › Page 88
LCMS Convention Proceedings St. Louis, Missouri — 1973, Page 88

Scan: The Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod
Transcription machine transcription, uncorrected

88 THE CONVENTION ESSAY

Friends, allow the scales to fall from your eyes as they
did from Saul’s, and permit the power of the Holy
Spirit to change and remake you into a Paul. Then,
and only then, do we have the privilege —yes, the
prerogative — to preach Jesus Christ the same yester-
day, today, and forever.

As did the entire convention in 1857 when it emerged
from its first internal theological dispute, so we ought
to go down on our knees in the depth of repentance to
ask for forgiveness for our sins: our resentments against
and suspicion and fear of, one another; our trying to
bend the wills of others; of playing God, or trying to
manipulate Him, of our resistance to all forms of author-
ity, and our ego worship. May the words of St. Paul
in his first letter to the Corinthians, Chapter 3, work
a responsive chord in our hearts:

Fellow Christians ... when you are jealous, quarreling

and forming different parties, aren’t you following your

flesh and acting like other people? When one of you
says, “I belong to Paul,” and another, “I belong to

Apollos,” aren’t you just ordinary people? What is

Apollos anyhow? Or what is Paul? Men by whose help

you came to believe and each helped only as the Lord

gave him the ability. I planted, Apollos watered, but God

made it grow. Now then, the one who plants isn’t any-
thing, or who waters, but God who makes it grow... .

We are God’s men, working together. You are God’s
field... .

Don’t deceive yourself. If anyone of you imagines he is
wise in the ways of the world, he should become a fool
to become really wise. God considers this world’s wis-
dom to be foolish... . [1 Cor. 3:1-23]

St. Paul provides us with the blueprint for immedi-
ate action in his first letter to the Thessalonians (5:14-
24) on which I cannot improve as a conclusion to these
presentations:

We urge you fellow Christians, warn those who are dis-
orderly, cheer up those who are discouraged, help the
weak, be patient with everybody.

Don’t let anyone pay back wrong for wrong, but always
be eager to help one another and everybody.

Always be happy. Never stop praying. Whatever hap-
pens, thank God, because that is what God in Christ
Jesus wants you to do.

Don’t put out the fire of the Spirit. Don’t despise God’s
Word when anyone speaks it. But test everything and
cling to what is good. Keep away from every kind of evil.
The God of peace make you holy in every way and keep
your spirit and life and body sound and without a fault
when our Lord Jesus Christ comes. You can depend on
Him who calls you — He will do it.

Amen.

Aucust R. SuELFLOw