LCMS Convention Workbook St. Louis, Missouri — 2001, Page 458

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458 ADDITIONAL THEOLOGICAL DOCUMENTS AND REPORTS—OFFICE OF THE PRESIDENT

Show concern for them as a family. Provide adequately for your
pastor’s needs. Yes, we are talking about his salary. Assume and
fulfil] those responsibilities given to you by the congregation. Take
seriously the tasks you have agreed to do. When you take on a job
or responsibility within the congregation, do it. Do not think, “If !
do not do this, the pastor or someone else will cover for me.” Re-
member your pastor daily in your prayers. When you are tempted
to criticize your pastor, instead pray for him. Ongoing criticism
only tends to cripple, while encouragement empowers. Let your
pastor know that he is really is in your prayers.

Tensions in the relationship between the royal priesthood
and the pastor.

There are any number of tensions in the relationship between
the royal priesthood and the office of the public, pastoral ministry.
It is painfully apparent that there is a great lack of understanding on
the part of our congregations as to what precisely the pastoral office
is all about. This leads to any number of difficulties and troubles
for our Synod. For example, we have noticed an increase in what I
and others refer to as a “hire and fire” mentality on the part of our
congregations over against the pastoral office. One of the essays
we find in The Abiding Word recognized this as a problem and
warned against it. In discussing problems in understanding the pas-
toral office, the author of the article notes:

The second aberration . . . changed the position of trust into a job.
According to it, the bishop is nol a trustee or manager, but a common
employee who can be hired and fired, engaged and dismissed as is done
in any secular business. This view rested upon a misconception of the
term “servant,” often used by Scriptures to name a minister of the
Gospel. It has caused much harm in the church. In obedience to it, con-
gregations have sometimes stooped to haggling over the salaries to be
paid their pastors and teachers and, as is the practice in business, sought
to pay their servants of the Lord just as little as possible or in accor-
dance with the special gifts or powers which, in their judgment, they
possessed. Long ago the Apostle Paul wrote to the Corinthians, “Be ye
not the servants of men” (1 Cor. 7:23); that is, slaves, employees,
hirelings.°
] am sure you join me in recognizing that we do have a tension

point on this matter in our Synod. It is not the case that a pastor
who is in trouble with his people is always the one at fault. Con-
gregations of the LCMS cannot demand or require their pastor to
act contrary to the vows he took at ordination and the promise he
made when he joined the Missouri Synod. For example, congrega-
tions cannot demand that their pastors marry persons living to-
gether, who have not repented of their sin. Nor can they demand
pastors practice open communion, or participate in other activities
contrary to Article VI of the Synod’s Constitution.

I believe that when unfortunate problems arise in a parish, due
to the fault of the pastor, this only intensifies the congregation’s
low regard for the pastoral office and only increases among us the
“hire and fire” mentality. But having said that, we must also rec-
ognize that there are very serious misunderstandings in many of
our laypeople’s mind about the pastoral office. Because so many
of our people work in situations where employees are hired and
fired as a matter of routine, it is all too easy to slip into this same
sort of attitude in regard to their pastor. Our congregations must
recognize that the office of the public, pastora] ministry is not just
a job and the pastor not just an employee who can be fired at the
will and whim of the congregation, but rather a called servant of
Christ placed in their midst under the guidance of the Holy Spirit.

A second tension we encounter in the relationship of the royal
priesthood and the pastoral office is keeping clear the distinction
between the two. The Missouri Synod always has understood that
the royal priesthood is not to be confused with the office of pastor.
You will recall Walther’s Church and Ministry, which was adopted
formally by our Synod and ordered published in 1851] because of
its value in explaining the doctrine of church and ministry. Walther
wrote, “The pastoral office or pastoral ministry is an office distinct

2001 Convention Workbook

from the priesthood of all believers.”’ It would be good for us to
recall Walther’s explanation of this thesis:

Although Holy Scripture attests that all believing Christians are
priests (1 Peter 2:9; Rev. 1:6, 5:10), it at the same time teaches very ex-
pressly that in the church there is an office to teach, feed, and rule,
which Christians by virtue of their general calling as Christians do not
possess. *

John Gerhard, in his locus on the holy ministry, wrote:

Just as one can by no means conclude from the fact that believers
are called ‘kings’ that any one of them at all can perform the duties of a
magistrate without a calling, so also one cannot conclude from the fact
that believers are called ‘priests’ that any one of them at all can pertorm
the ministry of the church without a call, since this is likewise speaking
about spiritual priests . . . they are called ‘spiritual priests’ not with re-
spect to ecclesiastical office . . . they are called spiritual priests rather
with respect to their spiritual sacrifices to God. Such sacrifices are:
praying, thanksgiving, doing good to the poor, the mortification of the
old man, martyrdom received for Christ’s sake. All the devout can offer
such sacrifices as spiritual priests. The preaching of the Gospel is also
related to spiritual sacrifices; nevertheless, from the title ‘spiritual
Priests’ given to all the devout one cannot infer that this spiritual sacri-
fice, namely, the preaching of the Gospel undertaken in the public as-
sembly of the church, is related to all. . . All believers are spiritual
priests. Nevertheless, they do not all immediately become teachers or
prophets since not all have been equipped with the gift of prophecy, nor
have they all been called to the ministry of the church . . . just as all are
not prophets or apostles, so also all are not pastors and teachers. ... We
must make a distinction between the general mandate and call which
all the devout receive when they are about to become Christians; by
which they are required to give due praise to God; by which they are
called into the fellowship of the church; which they confess by word
and deed, by which they establish their own households in true devo-
tion, by which they take care that the Word of Christ dwells richly
among them as they teach and address each other, by which they com-
fort each other in the Word of God. I say, we must distinguish between
that call and the special call by which the administration of the ministry
of Word and Sacraments in the public assembly of the church is to be
entrusted to certain persons suitable for this work by the public consent
of the church. This calling is not common to all Christians. . . . To this
special call is related the administration of the Sacraments; no where is
the administration of the Sacraments commanded or permitted to be
loaned to all the faithful. Therefore, the public ministry of the Word
does not pertain to all.”

The royal priesthood is distinct from the pastoral office. We are
baptized and are made God’s chosen people, a royal priesthood, a
holy nation (1 Pet. 2:9). Out of this group of Christians, God calls
qualified men to fill the pastoral office. Francis Pieper, in his clas-
sic treatment of Lutheran doctrine, also notes the clear distinction
between the royal priesthood and the pastoral office. For instance,
in Volume III of Christian Dogmatics Pieper writes, “Scripture
distinguishes sharply between the spiritual priesthood and the pub-
lic ministry... . Luther sharply distinguishes between the general
priesthood of believers and the public ministry” (Pieper.
111-440-441).

There is yet a third tension in the relationship between the royal
priesthood and the pastoral office that I have run across down
through the years. With our very proper understanding of the duties
and responsibilities of the pastoral oftice. I find that it may be
tempting for some of the laypeople of our church to think that all
they have to do is to stand on the sidelines and let the pastor do all
the work—-sometimes cheering him on and sometimes doing the
opposite. We never want to create the attitude that the duty of the
laity is simply to “pray, pay and obey.” How tragic if this is the im-
pression our proper doctrine of the ministry creates among the laity.
This is certainly not the intention of our proper distinction between
the pastoral office and the royal priesthood. There are members of
our congregations who view the pastor as the one “paid” to do the
“spiritual things” and consequently they think that they do not have
to be all that concerned about the work of the congregation. They
think that since they are not pastors, they do not have to become
informed and educated about the Faith beyond their basic confir-