The Blessing That the Pastor Himself Gets from His Office

A paper presented to the Northeastern Special Conference of Nebraska and submitted by A.

Bergt by resolution of the same.

Translated by David Juhl & Matthew Carver.

The preaching office is as much a difficult office as it is one of great responsibility. We need not
be amazed, therefore, when we hear how Moses responded when he was called to this office: “O
LORD, send whom You wish to send” (Ex. 4:13), nor that, when Jeremiah was issued the call to
this office, he tried to excuse himself, saying, “Ah, LORD God! Behold, I cannot speak, for I am
too young” (Jer. 1:6). Even Luther, when Dr. Staupitz asked him to ascend the pulpit for his first
sermon, replied, “You’re killing me! I won’t last three months!” [Translator’s note: Staupitz’s
reply was, “Well, in God’s name! If that be so – how shall you do that to Him? Our Lord God
has a great business and needs clever people up there too.”]
But above all, what makes the preaching office such a difficult office is that the preachers of
the world, both in general and in all entrusted to his pastoral care, must speak the truth. For that
terrifying proposition that God once spoke to the prophet Ezekiel applies to every preacher
without exception: “When I say to the wicked, ‘You shall surely die,’ and you give him no
warning, nor speak to warn the wicked from his wicked way, to save his life, that same wicked
man shall die in his iniquity; but his blood I will require at your hand” (Ezek. 3:18). And the
apostle Paul says in Titus 1:9 regarding each and every bishop or pastor, that they should be able
to admonish with sound doctrine and convict those who deny it. In fact, we preachers are also
here to punish individuals. This is our office, our special assignment. To this end God instituted a
live, personal preaching office. The office of the preacher is to apply the true Word of God to
individual persons. It is precisely because of this commanded duty to rebuke that the preaching
office is so extremely difficult. For if a preacher executes this part of his duties faithfully and
conscientiously, if he addresses wrongdoing without the fear of men and without seeking to
please men, he will reap nothing from them but hatred. It would, to be sure, be remarkable and
scarcely explainable if we did not know how thoroughly corrupt and wicked and perverse the
heart of man is. Fallen man simply does not know what serves for his own peace, for his own
good. Rebuking is nothing else than convicting, showing what is wrong, and warning someone
of what is harmful to him. In earthly matters, when a man does something that causes him some
injury, or if he physically goes the wrong way and is in danger, and someone tells him so and
warns him, friendship is formed, and the one who gave the warning receives favor, love, and
gratitude. But things are quite different with regard to spiritual matters. There warning and
rebuke generally do the exact opposite. For no one likes to hear the truth. Veritas est molesta, and
Veritas odium parit, the ancient Romans said. Such the fearless and faithful chaplain of King
Herod, John the Baptizer, learned as well. As long as he only made known to the king the sweet
teaching that the Messiah had appeared, the wicked King was glad to listen to him. But when
John rebuked him and said to his face, “It is not right that you have your brother’s wife,” their
friendship was finished, and this sermon cost him his head. And so it is today. These days,
though it may not cost a preacher his head to rebuke his people any more, it does, as a rule, cost
him a friend and adds tot his enemies new ones—if not public ones, then private ones, who
cannot cannot soon forget that their preacher rebuked them. This noble service of love
[Freundschaftsdienst] is seen by many, even among Christians, as one of antagonism.1 The
world, even the world within our congregations, refuses to be corrected. It rewards faithfulness
to the disciplinary office with hatred and persecution, and cries out for vengeance should a
preacher dare to lay a finger on one’s sore spot, such as lodge membership or dancing. When we
preachers use God’s Word to stem the tide of worldliness encroaching on our congregations, to
confront and rebuke public offenses in a public manner so as to drive them out, to sound our
voices like trumpets and make the congregations aware of their transgressions, to push for
children to be educated and brought up in a Christian manner, etc.—how quickly then, when not
every congregation is instantly increased, and many rather decreased by the removal of
unfaithful members, we are regarded in the carrying out of our office as disturbers of the peace
and as hindrances to unity and growth.
Yet our office also has a further difficulty in the profound accountability laid on us in the
preaching office. According to God’s Word, Hebrews 13:17, we preachers are to watch over the
souls of those entrusted to us, and will one day have to give an account for them before our God.
If we consider this rightly: every soul in my flock is bound upon my conscience, they must not
perish by my fault, God will call me to account for the administration of my office, for every
inattention, for every breach of trust—if we consider all of this rightly, do we not vividly see
how much accountability there is in our office? And this accountability makes it difficult for one
above all. To be sure, there is tiring office work, writing and memorizing sermons, running the
school, traveling through storm and gale, and the like. But what is all this compared to the weight
of accountability felt in the holy office? What faithful and conscientious pastor would not
confess: Yes, the dreadful accountability that I have made in taking on this office and which I am
aware of every day is above all what makes my office a difficult one—very difficult.
But our office is not only difficult; it is also delightful and glorious. The Holy Spirit explicitly
tells us so through Saint Paul when he says, “This is most certainly true: If a man desires the
office of a bishop, he desires a delightful work” (1 Tim. 3:1). Now this office is especially so at
first because of the lofty task that it has. According to 1 Timothy 4:16, this consists of saving
men. For here in this passage the holy apostle [Paul] writes to Timothy, and to every faithful
servant of the Word: If you persist in taking heed to yourself and to the doctrine, “you will
save…those who hear you.” To the words of Luther in his sermon Keeping Children in School,
that the use of the preaching office is “to raise the dead, cast out devils, make the blind see, the
deaf hear, lepers clean, the dumb speak, and the lame walk”— to these words of Luther’s,
Professor F. Pieper (according to mimeographed lectures under the theme, “How Does One
Study Theology?” p. 19) said the following:

Is the preacher really making the blind see, the deaf hear, lepers clean, and the sick well? At
first, only in a spiritual sense, through the preaching of the Gospel; but eventually also in a
physical sense. When we and all believers rise again on the last day, our bodies will be
completely whole. None of us is “completely whole” here in this life. We all suffer from
physical ailments, but all these ailments will be done away with in the next life. We will all
be perfectly formed; on this you can rely. All defects—diseases, deformities, etc.—are but
the consequences of sin, and hereafter sin will be blotted out of us completely. We will all

1
After Dr. Walther, from an evening lecture in 1877.
 have a perfect body, and shine like the sun, as the Savior says. And how do we get to have
such physical glory on the Last Day? By being converted through the service of the Gospel,
the preaching office, and coming to faith in Christ. For those who come to faith in Christ in
this life will take part in the glorious resurrection to eternal life. Luther alludes to this when
he says, ‘If at present He does such great wonders and works spiritually, it follows that He
also does them physically.’ That is certainly so. A preacher’s call, therefore, is infinitely more
important than the call of, e.g., a doctor. The best a doctor can do, when it comes down to it,
is help the patient to be relatively healthy in this life. But if nothing further happens than that
the doctor serves him as a doctor is able, the patient will face eternal shame and disgrace on
the Last Day. On the other hand, he on whom the preaching office accomplishes its purpose
will take part in the resurrection to eternal life and be healed in body and soul forever. This is
the glory and importance of the preaching office in contrast to all other labors and
occupations in the world.

Yet the splendor and glory of the preaching office is not only found in its lofty task of which
we have just heard somewhat, but also in the blessing that the one who holds this office
personally gets from it. And to expand on this is the task that I have appointed for myself.
Accordingly, let us now briefly discuss the blessing that the pastor himself gets from his office.
That a spiritual and not an earthly blessing is meant by this is obvious enough. Sure, those who
hold the preaching office are provided with some temporal advantages too. Even if the preaching
office is despised by most, and the preaching of the Gospel (itself the proper work of the holy
preaching office) contrary to the world’s affections, nevertheless, as Professor Pieper once said,
“The world offers preachers a certain civic respect, especially here in America.” Further: it is
likely “obvious that no one will get rich in the preaching office. The preacher’s salary is modest
in most cases, and in a few cases very modest”; but the salary offered to preachers is in most
cases secure, which can be an advantage, particularly in times when businesses are closing.
(Pieper.) Finally, one might also add to the advantages and earthly blessings that the office brings
with it the fact that in our office we are continually learning more and more, including in an
academic sense, and the horizon of our knowledge in many fields continually broadens through
ongoing study. Spiritual activity indeed has an interesting facet!
As stated, however, our discussion here is not on such earthly advantages and blessings,
which also accompany our office to some extent. It is the spiritual blessings that the pastor gets
from his office that will be discussed in the following Theses and their explanation.

THESIS 1.
Our office entails, and God’s express will is, that we preachers especially should be closely
engaged with God’s Word.

Our office is “the office of the Word,” as the holy apostles call it in Acts 6:4, in contrast to other
offices—even those in the church, such as the almoner or our elder [Vorsteher]. “But we will
persist continually in prayer and the office of the Word,” says the apostle. Here they call the holy
preaching office the “office of the Word” because the Word, the Word of God, is the only means
by which this office can be carried out. Just as the office of a judge or jurist, then, entails that he
deal heavily with human legal codes, so our office entails that we deal heavily with God’s Word
which is the “tool of our trade,” if one may put it that way. When preparing for the many
sermons and addresses that we have occasion to give, Sunday and Festival sermons, addresses in
the confessional, at a wedding, or at a funeral; preparing for catechesis in the church, school, and
in confirmation class; preparing for our sick calls, communion registrations, and possible
conference duties; reading our church journals, doing other private studies, or fulfilling our office
in some capacity or other; teaching, preaching, exhorting, warning, consoling, or baptizing;
distributing Communion, visiting the sick, or otherwise making pastoral home visits—we always
deal with God’s Word and spiritual, divine things. For our office is precisely the office of the
Word, the Word of God. Hence Dr. Walther once said in his Brosamen, p. 331, “The study of
God’s Word, and nothing else, is the main thing, the middle point, the center around which
everything revolves for a theologian, the mean of all means.”
And the fact that we deal with God’s Word even more than other Christians, and not only
when we are, as it were, compelled by our office, such as when we have to prepare for our
sermons, but much more, that we also continually study and interpret and apply God’s Word and
other writings and books—this, too, is God’s express will and command to the servant who
proclaims God’s Word. For example, He says through Paul in 1 Timothy 4:13, to Timothy and to
every preacher, “Be devoted to reading.” On this point Dr. Walther said in a pastoral sermon
(loc. cit., pp. 333–5):

What is a preacher supposed to read when [Paul] says to [Timothy] in our text, “Be devoted
to reading”? There can be no doubting on this. True, the holy apostle does not name the
book, yet it is precisely because he does not name it that it is all the more certain that he
means nothing other than the Word of God, which is called “the Bible,” that is, “the Book,”
or “the Scriptures,” because it is the Book of Books which alone of all books deserves to be
called a book. Yet the apostle does not only say, “Read,” but, “Be devoted to reading,” and
thereby indicates, first, the time when a preacher should read the Word of God. He is not
only to read it now and then, but unceasingly; not merely every day with his family in the
morning, noon, and evening, for his and his family’s needed edification, like all Christians,
but continually, undistracted by the other business of an earthly calling. Every moment that a
preacher is not compelled to perform another equally sacred duty, the reading of the Word of
God is to be continued. What the Lord said to Joshua pertains to the pastor as well: ‘Let the
book of this law not depart from your mouth, but meditate on it day and night’ (Joshua 1:8).
The Word of God is not only to be the daily sustenance of his soul, but, as it were, the air that
his soul constantly breathes in and out. A theologian should not merely carry the Book in his
hands but also by memory in his soul. Likewise, he should not only read it (whenever
possible) with his physical eyes but also ceaselessly with the eyes of his mind, wherever he
goes. That above all is what the apostle means when he says in our text, ‘Be devoted to
reading.’ O blessed privilege! O magnificent office!
Yet there is even more in this. With the words “Be devoted,” the apostle does not merely
refer to the “when” but also to the “how” of reading the Scriptures. A servant of the church
really ought to study them properly. Indeed, the Lord calls all Christians not simply to read
but to “search the Scriptures.” And of the Berean Christians it says not only that “they read,”
but “they searched the Scriptures daily to see whether these things were so” (Acts 17:11). In
a much higher sense the apostle demands this of the servants of the church when he calls
them to “be devoted to reading.” With this the apostle calls for just such an immersion of the
preacher in the Scriptures, whereby his knowledge of scriptural truths becomes ever purer,
clearer, fuller, and more alive; through which the doctrines themselves become ever more
deeply apparent to him, along with their interconnectivity, their mutual relationship, their
 correct application, the necessary conclusions derived from them, and the errors that cause
conflict with them in their unconformity with Scripture. This is in no way to suggest that, by
the exhortation, “Be devoted to reading,” i.e., the Scriptures, the apostle means that a
preacher should not take time out to read human writings as well. Rather, with the words “Be
devoted,” he is urging him also toward the most crucial ones. Consider this: the apostle
plainly says in another passage, “Are all able to interpret?” [1 Cor. 12:30]. He expects the
answer “No!” For elsewhere [1 Cor. 12:8, 10] he adds, “to one is given the word of wisdom
through the Spirit, to another the word of knowledge through the same Spirit…to another
prophecy,” that is, the interpretation of Scripture. Now the same apostle also says that gifts
are given to the individual “for the common good,” and St. Peter writes, “Serve one another,
each with the gift that he has received, as good stewards of the manifold grace of God’ (1
Peter 4:10). But if the gifted are to serve us with all their gifts, including the gift of
interpretation, we also ought to allow ourselves to be served by them.
Hence it is in vain for a preacher to claim that he reads Scripture eagerly if in the process
he makes use of his own gifts but prefers to leave untouched those treasures of interpretation,
of the right understanding of Scripture, and of the right use of Scripture which God has given
His church in the writings of Augustine, Luther, Chemnitz, Gerhard, and other highly gifted
teachers. “Be devoted—be devoted to reading,” says the apostle, including in this the faithful
and eager use of those aids available to the preacher to unlock the pantry and armory of
Scripture and to go deeper and deeper into it. Thus the apostle testifies before every servant
of the church that, once he has been installed into office to teach, he should never stop
desiring to learn, for that is precisely when he must continue all the more faithfully and
eagerly to learn and study Holy Scripture and, by the same token, all those writings that
provide him with the key to Scripture and its application. The apostle excludes no one. It
does not matter whether a preacher has already achieved the knowledge of a Timothy and is
already an eloquent man, mighty in the Scriptures like Apollos, or is weak in both
knowledge and gifts; whether his ministry is in a cosmopolitan city or a despised Bethlehem;
whether the congregation entrusted to him is a large one, a mixture of people from all walks
of life, or a small one composed of a few simple souls; whether he occupies a higher or
lower office in the church—to each of them the apostle cries, “Be devoted to reading.”

Furthermore, after Luther made his famous remark, “Oratio, meditatio, tentatio faciunt
theologum,” he wrote, on the second and chief means of being a true theologian, “Secondly, you
ought to meditate, that is, not only in the heart but also externally. Always press and rub the
verbal expression and literal words in the book, reading them over and over with diligent
attention and reflection on what the Holy Spirit means by it,” etc. (Cited in Dr. Walther’s
Pastorale, p. 7.)
Let us again call to mind here those classic words of Luther’s in his preface to Johann
Spangenberg’s Postils. After chastising the lazy pastors and preachers, who were relying solely
on postils, for taking their sermons from them, and for not praying, studying, or looking up
anything in Scripture, he writes these famous, beautiful words:

In truth, you cannot read Scripture too much, and what you read you cannot read too
carefully, and what you read carefully you cannot understand too well, and what you
understand well you cannot teach too well, and what you teach well you cannot live too well.
Experto crede Ruperto [Believe a man who has found this out]. It is the devil, the world, and
our flesh that are raging and raving against us. Therefore, my dear brothers, pastors, and
preachers, pray, read, study, be diligent. Truly, these wicked, scandalous times are not the
 time for being lazy, sleeping, and snoring. Use the gift that has been entrusted to you, and
make known the mystery of Christ.” (ibid., p. 10)

We are especially reminded here of our conferences. In them we come together mainly for
the purpose of seriously engaging the Word of God and spiritual things, and to share what God
has given individuals so that it may become common property. It is certainly good for us to have
this system wherein those of us who are preachers, pastors, are also quite as a matter of course
part of the conference and obligated to appear, and in the event that they cannot come, are
required to give an excuse. If we only met to arrange for social entertainment or just to relax by
getting away or taking a trip in the company of brothers and friends, then one could avoid the
conference without further scruple. But since the main purpose of our conferences is to study the
Word of God together, it is certainly a great sin to miss a conference without an emergency. For
this reason Dr. Walther was very adamant that regular attendance of conferences be observed on
the part of pastors. Thus he once said that if a pastor stays home from a conference without an
emergency, his congregation really ought to tell him, “Dear Pastor, you have a pastor’s
conference! What are you doing here? Are you so wise that you don’t need anyone else? Or are
you afraid that something will be made public?”2

THESIS 2.
Such constant engagement with God’s Word is full of blessings. By it, according to 2 Timothy
3:16 and Romans 15:4, one is taught, reproved, corrected, trained, and comforted.

Here it is first asserted that this constant engagement with God’s Word that we undertake because
of our call, and also according to God’s express command—whether happening in the study, in
the school, in confirmation class, in church from the pulpit, or at conferences and synodical
conventions—is rich in blessings, blessings for us. That the diligent use of the Word on our part
is of benefit and serves as a blessing to our hearers, too, while certainly true, is not the subject at
hand. First and foremost, we gain benefit and blessing if and to the extent that we diligently
occupy ourselves with God’s Word. Let it be remembered that it is God’s Word that we
constantly deal with. And God’s Word is, as He Himself says, “Spirit and Life,” (John 6:63); “the
power of God,” (1 Cor. 1:18), and indeed, “the power of God to save all who believe in it” (Rom.
1:16). It is “fruitful,” (Col. 1:6); it does what is pleasing to God, and it succeeds in that for which
God sends it (Is. 55:11). The Word of God is a word of life that creates new life (Phil. 2:16); it is
“a sharp sword” (Is. 49:2); it “is living and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, and
pierces even to the point of dividing soul and spirit, and marrow and bone, and is a discerner of
the thoughts and intents of the heart” (Hebrews 4:12). The Word of God kills and makes alive (2
Cor. 3:6); it is like a fire and like a hammer that breaks the rock in pieces (Jer. 23:29); the Word
of God cuts to the heart (Acts 2:37); it works faith (John 1:7; Rom. 10:17); it instructs “unto
salvation through faith in Christ Jesus” (2 Tim. 3:15); it regenerates us and makes us children of
God (James 1:18; 1 Peter 1:23); by it we grow spiritually (1 Peter 2:2); it makes our souls

2
See the whole passage concerning the necessity and importance of pastor’s conferences in the first report of the
Iowa District, pp. 88–92.
disciplined (1 Peter 1:22); it enables us to admonish and rebuke those who contradict it (Titus
1:9); it makes us wise and certain, and refreshes us (Ps. 119:25; 104; 133); it makes us equipped
for every good work (2 Tim. 3:17); in short, it saves (1 Cor. 15:2, James 1:21).
All of what has been said here concerning the blessings, benefits, fruits, and effects of God’s
Word is briefly contained in two verses of Scripture which are especially cited in our thesis and
which form the basis for its development: 2 Timothy 3:16 and Romans 15:4: “All Scripture,
having been inspired by God, is useful for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in
righteousness,” etc.; and: “Whatever things were written before were written for our instruction,
that we through the patience and comfort of the Scriptures might have hope.” On the basis of
these words our thesis further asserts that by these means, by this constant engagement with
God’s Word, we are “taught, reproved, corrected, trained, and comforted.”
Thus as we diligently occupy ourselves with God’s Word, we are, first of all, constantly being
taught by it. For if, as the apostle says, Holy Scripture is useful for teaching, then it also
continually teaches those who make diligent use of it. As bread has the property of nourishing, as
yeast has the characteristic of leavening, so, too, whenever Holy Scripture, God’s Word, is used,
read, and meditated upon, it has the characteristic and property of teaching. So since we
preachers occupy ourselves with God’s Word so much, we are also perpetually taught by it, that
is, instructed, made wiser regarding the highest and most important things that there are for us
men. We are instructed in the “eternal thoughts of God’s heart revealed to us men for salvation,”
in the “divine truths, counsels, and mysteries of the faith concealed from the world but made
known to us through the writings of the prophets and apostles” (Walther), in time and eternity,
angels and demons, God and men, in the narrow way that leads to life, and in the broad way that
leads to damnation. As diligent students of the Word of our God we gain insight after insight into
the questions that arise in every thoughtful heart of man, and to which the whole world with all
its knowledge and skill can give no satisfactory answer, e.g., who that God is of whose existence
our conscience bears us witness and the whole creation proclaims to us so loudly; what He
demands from us; how He is disposed toward us and how we can come to Him; what the source
is of sin and every terrible thing resulting from it, such as sickness, pain, adversity, and, finally,
death; what kind of relationship it has with life after death; whether there is another world
besides this visible one, and similar questions.
On this Professor Pieper told his students, “By theology you gain the most interesting and
satisfying insights into the problems that occupy all the thinkers of the world, e.g., the formation
and dissolution of matter, the historical phenomena in the world and the Church. What the most
learned in the world have taught and written about these problems is (sit venia verbo) [if I may
say so] real rubbish, yea, real foolishness in comparison to the answers that the theologian
provides from Holy Scripture.”3
Yet the Holy Scriptures, in the words of the apostle in 2 Timothy 3:16, are also useful for
reproof (πρὃς ἔλεγχον), that is, for persuasive rebuke, or for refutation of error. Accordingly,
when Holy Scripture is diligently studied and read, it gives and always increases in one the
ability to examine doctrines, to identify and reject false doctrines, and to distinguish between all
manner of spirits, including truth from falsehood. And this comes about by the fact that the one
who diligently occupies himself with God’s Word acquires a good knowledge of that Word,
3
“How Does One Study Theology?” p. 12.
which is the only truth that there is, and consequently a sound judgment as well, and a subtle
sensitivity to any deviations from God’s Word in doctrine. This is also said elsewhere in
Scripture, especially in Psalm 119. There in verse 104, for instance, it says, “Your Word makes
me wise; therefore I hate every false way.” He who diligently occupies himself with God’s Word
is made wise in God’s Way, so that he promptly identifies every false way; not just some, not just
a few obviously false ones, no, but every false way that men have fabricated as a way to heaven.
And he not only identifies such ways as false and wrong, but also hates them, and therefore
cannot but testify against them. Verse 113 says, “I hate the fluttering spirits, and I love Your law.”
The fluttering spirits are without a doubt such people as the unionists and other sects today who
are uncertain of their own doctrines and matters, whose hearts are unfixed in relation to the
doctrines which they teach and preach. But he who loves the law, the Word of God, and therefore
diligently studies it, receives a steadfast heart, a divine conviction in regard to doctrines,
including those about which the fluttering spirits, sects, and fanatics helplessly flutter and rave.
Such a man also hates the fluttering spirits; he opposes fickleness and uncertainty in doctrine.
Thus, diligently searching and examining God’s Word, he not only knows what is truth, but also
what is error, namely, everything that conflicts with the revealed Word and contradicts the truth.
What a blessing, what an advantage it is to possess the truth and to be able to discern error with
ease! And this blessing, this advantage belongs to us preachers, us Lutheran preachers! It is the
result of our constant engagement with God’s Word, through which we are perpetually
“rebuked,” that is, made more and more able to test doctrine so as to distinguish truth from error.
Our thesis states further that, through our constant engagement with God’s Word, we are
continually corrected, according to the words of St. Paul in 2 Tim. 3:16: The Scriptures are also
useful “for correction,” Gk. “πρὃς ἐπανόρθωσιν,” which means “for the restoration, for the
correction of mankind.” The Word of God is the means to restore the corrupt man. Of course we
know how Holy Scripture does this. It does not do it by giving the spiritually dead man all sorts
of moral rules that he cannot follow. No, when Holy Scripture wishes to correct a man, it first
makes him a poor sinner, holding the divine law before him like a mirror to show him that he is
unable to reform himself by his own powers, and that his true nature is an abomination before
God. And then in the Gospel it shows him his cure, the Savior, and thus works faith, rebirth, and
renewal. Without a prior, living knowledge of sin, without repentance and faith, no one can be
corrected, no one can be a truly pious, virtuous man. Only when the fallen man has been
reconciled through faith is he corrected, only then are his works pleasing to God. “Through the
constant study of God’s Word we are continually corrected,” accordingly means that through this
process, we are constantly reminded of our sin; through this process we constantly renew and
deepen our knowledge of ourselves, and especially of the sins of our hearts, so that, as Dr.
Walther once said, “The result is that everyone must confess that his heart is a whorehouse, a den
of thieves, and a pit of murderers,” and we learn to be afraid ourselves, and to let go of all
confidence in ourselves, and time and again to seek refuge in Jesus, the Savior of sinners, and in
His grace. And if as poor, needy sinners, hungry for grace, we are thus driven to Christ, time and
again we not only receive His grace and the forgiveness of all our sins, but also a new heart
which out of gratitude to its gracious God and Savior both desires and is able to leave its former
sins and amend its ways. For by faith we begin once more to fulfill the first and greatest
commandment: to make God our God and trust in Him above all things, to fear and love Him
rightly, in such fear and love to use His holy name rightly, to call on Him in faith, to praise and
thank Him from the bottom of our heart, and to let His Holy Word be our highest prize and
richest treasure; and yet, at the same time, to amend our lives after the second table of the holy
Ten Commandments: to love and serve our neighbor sincerely and without hypocrisy.
Thus it is plain that the Holy Scriptures correct man by bringing him to faith, to the faith, the
inevitable fruit of which is the correction of the heart, mind, attitude, and every faculty. And as
we pastors diligently devote ourselves to God’s Word, this correction continues in us of its own
accord, [and] we are improved. In other words, as said before, God’s Word makes us poor
sinners again and again, abasing us, while at the same time showing, bringing, and giving us
Christ and His grace and the Holy Spirit and making new, better people out of us, who want (and
even begin) to do what is good, God-pleasing, and divine, and to accomplish truly good works—
works done solely to God’s glory and the benefit of the neighbor—until that good work which
God began here He completes in eternity, where the epanorthosis will be perfected by the
complete restoration of the divine image.
Closely associated with this epanorthosis (“correction”) is the next item that our thesis refers
to when it further asserts that we are also trained by God’s Word, that is, brought up to holiness
of life. And again, we see this above all in 2 Timothy 3:16, where it ends by saying, “The
Scriptures are useful for training in righteousness,” in Greek, πρὸς παιδείαν τὴν ἐν
δικαιόσυνῃ, literally, “for the bringing up that is in righteousness.” God’s Word is thus the
means to educate a man in righteousness, that is, in a righteous, holy life. For there is no matter
of inquiry—whether it concerns man’s behavior toward God, himself, or his neighbor—for
which the Word of God does not have a sufficient answer. There is no virtue that man must
pursue that is not commanded in God’s Word. There is no vice, no sin, no wrong that man must
abhor and avoid that is not forbidden in God’s Word. There is no vocation on earth among men
that does not find its particular duties mandated in God’s Word.
So whenever we pastors are engaged in the Word, we are being continually trained by it. At
first, we grow increasingly deeper and more sensitive in our knowledge of how we ought to live
our life, how our faith ought to display and prove itself. God’s Word shows us every Christian
virtue: universal and brotherly love, humility, gentleness, peacefulness, compassion, generosity,
heavenly-mindedness, chastity, moderation in all things, patience under the cross, caution in the
use of Christian freedom—in short, every facet of a godly way of life. In fact, God’s Word tells
us that in all these things we preachers are and ever shall be examples to the flock, [and] are to
light the way ahead of them with holy conduct (1 Peter 5:3). But God’s Word not only shows and
impresses in us our duties as Christians, but also our duties of office—in teaching, preaching, in
caring for souls, and in watching, praying, and struggling on behalf of those commended to our
care. Yet the Word not only relates and displays to us all of these things pertaining to the
righteousness of life, but we are also trained by it as it exhorts, encourages, provokes, and
emboldens us, and fills us with the desire and ability to do these things; indeed, it works and
creates them in us. As God’s Word creates new hearts, as it corrects, even so it creates new
obedience. God’s Word, with which we are so often engaged, makes us increasingly holy in our
mind, life, and conduct. It works hatred for sin and love for good.
Some examples may help to illustrate how, when we are often occupied and engaged with
God’s Word, at home as well as at conferences, it educates us toward the righteousness of life
and correction.
Imagine that a pastor has not taken the regular confession of his parishioners very seriously.
He attends a conference and hears a presentation about how, as the true stewards of God’s
mysteries, we preachers should and could establish regular confession and make proper use of it.
During the discussion on this topic his conscience is oppressed with the knowledge that he has
not consciously done this enough before now. He hears this Word of God from the lips of his
brothers under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, and by it is compelled to beseech God to make
him more faithful in this matter, and to give him the necessary skill and requisite courage to do
it. And, behold, he does not pray in vain—things will improve in this respect.
Or imagine that a pastor has not taken the Eighth Commandment very seriously for a long
time, especially compared to his brethren in the office. Then, in the silence of his study, he reads
the article “Mutual Conduct Among Pastors According to the Eighth Commandment,” published
in the Magazin—he reads about the things that brethren in the office should not and must not do
to each other, according to this commandment of God’s, and he considers with horror how he has
so often done them before: he has lied deceitfully to his fellow pastor, betrayed him, spoken evil
behind his back, and slandered him before others and given him a bad reputation. Continuing on,
he reads what kind of mutual conduct is commanded of us pastors in accordance with the Eighth
Commandment: how we should forgive one another, speak only good of one another, and put the
best construction on everything, even that which seems suspicious. And he cannot help but cry
out to God that he has failed to do this so many times, that he is still wholly lacking in the proper
attitude, and in cordial, brotherly love for and self-denying humility toward his fellows in the
faith. Thus, as a poor, defeated sinner, he turns to his Savior and implores Him nevertheless to
forgive all the sins that he has committed in thought, word, and deed against the holy Eighth
Commandment, and to give him such grace that he might more earnestly watch, pray, and fight
against those sins in the future, and to help him claim one victory after another over his
suspicious and uncharitable heart and the temptations of his wicked flesh. Furthermore, by
contemplating the Word of God, he is trained in righteousness in keeping with the Eighth
Commandment. And as soon as his flesh and the devil, or false brethren, tempt him to do one of
these sins, he recalls by the power of the Holy Spirit the Word that he read and the good
resolutions that he made while meditating on it, and so finds strength to keep and carry out his
resolutions—albeit in great weakness and imperfection—and in this way wins one victory after
another over his wicked heart.
Finally, the Word of God is always comforting us. We preachers, too, are in constant need of
the consolation of God’s Word—above all, of the consolation for the sin that clings to us and that
we still commit. For we preachers, too, are and remain till death just as much weak, frail men
and poor sinners as our congregants, and like them we daily sin much. Hence we are just as
much in need of comfort for our sins as they are, even if we may differ from them in having an
awakened conscience and an opened eye of understanding toward our sinful corruption.
Along with this, we preachers are also constantly forced to deal with the fact that, because of
sin, the earth is a vale of tears, where frequent distress, anguish, grief, sickness, death, scarcity,
mistake, misfortune, and other plagues appear by the thousand, and where evils of body and soul,
property and honor exist and affect us. In addition to these so-called worldly ills, we also have a
distinct cross that we must bear—the cross that Christ means when He says, “If anyone would
come after Me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow Me” [Matt. 16:24 par.], and
about which it is written, “All who desire to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will suffer
persecution” [2 Tim. 3:12]; and again, “The righteous man must suffer much” [Ps. 34:19].
“Through many tribulations we must enter into the kingdom of God” [Acts 14:22].
But we pastors not only share in the general tribulations of all people, nor only in the distinct
troubles of the children of God, but we also have another distinct cross—the cross of the office—
which we will talk about more extensively in one of the following theses. Thus it is certain that
we pastors, too, are always in need of comfort—rich, powerful comfort. But the world has no
real comfort for us. Neither do we find no real comfort in ourselves. Yet if we but engage God’s
Word with due diligence, we will find continual comfort in it. For God’s Word has in richest
measure the right and true comfort for every pain. Holy Scripture itself testifies to this. To cite
just a few passages, Romans 15:4, quoting from the Old Testament, says, “But whatever was
written before was written for our instruction, so that through the patience and comfort of the
Scriptures we might have hope.” This is confirmed most often in the Psalms. Psalm 19:7: “The
law of the LORD is without turning, and refreshes the soul.” Psalm 94:19: “I had many cares in
my heart, but Your comforts delight my soul.” Psalm 119:50: “This is my comfort in my
affliction; for Your Word refreshes me.” Psalm 119:92: “Unless Your law had been my comfort, I
would then have perished in my affliction.” King Hezekiah says in Isaiah 38:17, “Behold, for
comfort I was in great anguish; but You lovingly took up my soul,” namely, O Lord, through
Your Word that You sent me by the prophet Isaiah. Jeremiah 15:16: “Sustain Your Word for us
when we receive it; and that Word of Yours is the joy and comfort of our heart.” And Paul writes
in 2 Corinthians 1:3-4, “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of
mercies and God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our tribulation.” He does not comfort us
without means, of course, but through His Word.
Holy Scripture has such power to comfort because it is inspired by the Holy Spirit, the
highest Comforter in every need, and because Christ is its Heart and Center. In fact, it is Christ
and His dear merit, and the wonderful promises of our God made effective in Him, which
console, reassure, delight, and refresh us in every affliction, even the greatest: in the distress of
sin, in sickness, in pain, in shame, in contempt, and in death. When we are challenged by our
sins, when we are in anguish for comfort, when our sins (or a particular one, such as a certain sin
related to the office) is weighing heavily on our conscience, and we read the Holy Scriptures—
oh, how many verses we find showing, sharing, and sealing in us the Savior, His perfect merit,
His all-availing righteousness, the full forgiveness of our sins, and our certain salvation through
Him, and in this manner truly consoling us in the distress of our sin. Or if a cross or suffering
presses us, or we walk around sighing in physical or spiritual troubles and trials, then we only
need diligently occupy ourselves with the Word of our God, which drips with comfort, and we
too are always filled and overflowing with rich, lavish comfort. There is indeed no suffering and
misery for which the Holy Scriptures do not richly offer the right, most certain, abundant,
sweetest consolation. There is no wound for which the holy Scripture does not have the remedy
and bandage. And we, who are so frequently engaged with the Scriptures, also experience this in
ourselves when we are otherwise only in need of comfort; we are constantly receiving true and
abundant comfort from the Holy Scriptures. Oh, what a blessing!

THESIS 3.
The main blessing that we get from our office is the one that God’s Word brings to those who
diligently study it, e.g., a good knowledge of the Word of God, of the law as a mirror and rule, of
the Gospel, of the distinction between them, of justification; the right interpretation of the
present time, etc.
What is said in this thesis follows necessarily from what we have heard. Since true engagement
with God’s Word is always beneficial, and since we are constantly engaged with it in our office,
it follows then that we too must get a blessing and advantage from it. And this blessing will now
be our focus in this thesis. The first thing mentioned here is a good knowledge of the Word of
God. How could it be otherwise than that we, who each day are diligently engaged with God’s
Word, the Holy Scriptures, and such books and writings as lead us deeper and deeper into Holy
Scripture, should be brought to clearer and clearer knowledge of God’s Word and will, and
possess an excellent knowledge of Christian doctrine. Neither in this regard does the Word that
went forth from God’s mouth and is now found in His Scriptures return empty, but it furthers and
deepens this salutary knowledge in those who diligently and faithfully engage with it. And what
a blessing, what an advantage a good knowledge of the Divine Word is! Let us listen to how our
blessed teacher Dr. Walther tells us this. In his convention sermon he said:

“No extensive knowledge is necessary to for salvation. Whoever knows no more than that he
is a sinner in need of grace and believes in Christ as his Savior has enough knowledge to be
saved. On the first Christian Pentecost, when Peter preached and some three thousand souls
were baptized, the vast majority of them likely had but a very weak knowledge, and yet,
even then, they were without doubt saved men. The child who knows nothing more than that
he is a poor child of sin, yet Christ’s Blood and righteousness is his beauty and his glorious
dress—such a child has just as much a saving faith as any Christian, even those who, like
Paul, were blessed by the highest revelations. In fact it may happen, and often does, that he
who has grasped only the most fundamental elements of the divine Word has a world-
conquering faith and is God’s dear child, while the one who has great knowledge, yet whom
knowledge puffs up, lacks faith and is a child of hell. Not knowledge, but faith saves. But we
would be greatly mistaken if on this basis we concluded that a thorough knowledge of the
truth is somehow extraneous. Rather, when a man comes to faith, he is all the more in danger
of losing both soul and salvation, and for this the only sure antidote, along with God’s
preserving grace, is a thorough knowledge of the truth; and this is the danger of being
seduced by false doctrine… Even during the time of the apostles there were those who, as
Paul writes, posed as Christ’s apostles and by smooth words and flattery deceived naive
hearts [Rom. 16:18]. And this trick of posing as an apostle of Christ has been employed by
false teachers throughout time; yet in no time was this more the case than in our own.
Nowadays every heresy is dressed up one of several dazzling guises: one in the guise of
necessary progress, great wisdom, and profound insights into the apostolic or prophetic
Word; another in the guise of great holiness and devotion; a third in the guise of great charity
and peaceableness; a fourth in the guise of great works; a fifth in the guise of exclusively
apostolic origin, greatest age, greatest unity, greatest diffusion, and—who could name all of
the masks in which deceivers crop up these days?! Hence every Christian is in such great
danger of falling prey to false teachers that, as Christ has prophesied, even the elect may be
led into error, if it were possible.—What, then, is the only thing that, along with God’s
preserving grace, can protect a Christian but this good foundation of clear knowledge [of the
Word of God].”4

Our thesis will now mention a few particular things belonging to such good knowledge.
Among these we first count a clear knowledge of God’s law. To be sure, this knowledge is
different from that of the Gospel. For while no man by nature has any notion, let alone any
knowledge, of the Gospel, on the other hand, the law is not completely manifest to natural man,
4
Brosamen, pp. 424-426.
either. Yet how insignificant his knowledge of the divine law and will is! We see this in the
pagan, as well as in those so-called Christians and children of the world who have reverted to
paganism. Their knowledge of the law is limited to a few of the commandments of the second
table, and even then only to a few of those commanded, outward works and a few forbidden
gross sins and vices. In fact, the natural man’s knowledge of the law is so pitiful that in many
cases he thinks that he can be saved by fulfilling the law. What a blessing and advantage it is to
have a good, thorough-going knowledge of the law, of its spiritual sense—the knowledge that
God in His law prohibits not only outward, gross sins, but also the most secret, deepest, sinful
impulses and desires and thoughts of the heart; and that He demands not only this and that
outward good work, but also requires of us a very pure and holy heart and nature. When we
rightly discern the divine law in this way and know ourselves but a little, namely, our great
sinfulness, our complete inability to satisfy every word of even one commandment—how then
will the law, our pedagogue, not repeatedly and constantly drive us to the Lord Jesus, our
Righteousness? The more deeply we penetrate to the spiritual sense of the law, the more easily
then, as we realize the wretchedness of our sin, we will learn that we cannot be justified before
God or saved through the law, and daily flee back to Christ and from Him receive grace upon
grace. How important it is therefore to remain a believing Christian, to have a good and thorough
knowledge of the law, and to use it every day as a mirror.
But there is another blessing and advantage mentioned in the thesis: the knowledge of the
divine law as a rule. We Christians have a constant need for the divine law in order to be
reminded over and over again what the will of God or proper good works are. Of course, insofar
as we are born-again Christians and have a new heart, we know God’s will and do it without any
external law and commandment—insofar has the law been given to us and is written on our heart
(Jer. 31:33). But the Christian is still accompanied by the old man, who is and remains blind and
perverse as regards the will of God. Hence when we do not keep earnest watch over ourselves,
we all too easily go astray and try to serve God with self-chosen works. Every Christian knows
this from his own tragic experience, and we see this also among the heretics. Just think of the
monks in the Roman Catholic Church and of the self-chosen works of the Enthusiasts,
Prohibitionists, etc. What a great blessing it is, therefore, when we preachers possess a good
knowledge of God’s will. How sure and certain the foot is that walks in the way of God’s
commandments. How content we can be when we know for certain, “This is God’s will!”
Yet our thesis further maintains that the chief blessing that we get from our office, as a result
of our diligent study of God’s Word, also includes a good knowledge of the Gospel, of the
distinction between law and Gospel, and of the doctrine of justification. Without a doubt, this is
the best and greatest blessing in our office, and it begins with a good knowledge of the precious
Gospel of Christ, the only Savior, in respect to His person, office, and work. However deep one’s
knowledge of the law is, what good is it without a clear and right knowledge of the Gospel?
Without that knowledge, the vivid and effective knowledge of the Law drives a man to despair;
for the Law kills. Just what a great and praiseworthy grace our having and knowing the blessed
Gospel is will be immediately clear to us if we think a little about how we would fare if we only
had knowledge of the law. We would know that there is a God. We would also probably know
that this God is a holy and righteous God and a consuming fire for sinners while we are
damnable sinners. But we would not know how to be reconciled to God. Because of the curse in
our heart and conscience ,we would die. And the better we knew the law and its demands, the
more ill-fated we would be, and (whether in loud or speechless despair) depart at last, and perish
forever in body and soul. So thanks and praise be to God that we also know the Gospel of Christ
and the gracious forgiveness of sins through faith in Him!
Just as necessary and important as the mere knowledge of law and Gospel is, so, too is the
knowledge of the distinction of both, which we possess by God’s grace. In such knowledge we
know that the doctrinal content of Holy Scripture has two parts that differ in every way. First,
God orders, commands, terrifies, and damns men in His Word, and this is the law. But then God
also speaks very kindly and graciously, announces a Savior, talks about the forgiveness of sins
and salvation in Him, and this is the Gospel. We also know that when God orders, commands,
terrifies, and damns in the preaching and teaching of the law, this is not His final Word. Rather,
He does this so that we would open our eyes to ourselves and know ourselves and our great
corruption because of sin. But we also know that, in the Gospel, when God addresses us kindly,
forgives us our sins, and promises us heaven and salvation in Christ, this is His final Word, on
which we should and can rely forever.5 Only by such knowledge of the distinction between law
and Gospel, or more precisely, by the practical application of such knowledge, are we Christians,
and do we so remain. For “a Christian is a man who by the working of the Holy Spirit is
convinced of two things: (1) that he is a damnable sinner in God’s sight, and (2) that God
forgives all his sins for Christ’s sake. In other words, a Christian is a man who knows how to
distinguish law and Gospel. He lets the law have its full force, for he lets his sins reveal
themselves through the law. He does not say that the demands and threats of the law are not
meant in earnest. No, he lets the demands of the law stand as they read. He not only admits with
words but also in his heart, “I am a damnable sinner.” Through the law he gains knowledge of his
sin and damnable estate, and there he lets the law stand. The question of how he can be saved he
allows only to be answered by the Gospel. He believes that, in the Gospel, God has absolved him
of the sins that He revealed to him in the law… Thus a Christian is a man who lets both law and
Gospel have their effect on him, but also knows how to distinguish them both… And only in this
way can he remain a Christian. Every day a Christian must still own himself guilty of
condemnation and, counter to the law’s accusations and his own conscience, be raised up again
by the Gospel. Should he allow himself to fall back into a position of mixing law and Gospel,
should the true opinion of his heart revert to being that he hopes to be justified by the works of
the law, then his faith in Christ, the Savior of sinners, will cease, and with it his being a
Christian. This is the danger in which the Galatians stood, which is why Paul wrote his letter to
them. Galatians 5:4: “You have lost Christ—you who would be justified by the law—and have
fallen from grace.” Thus a man is a Christian and remains a Christian by the daily applying the
distinction of law and Gospel.”6
What a blessing it is, then, that by the diligent study of God’s Word we have also learned this
skill in our office, and become more and more adept at it.
The thesis goes on to make particular reference to the doctrine of justification in order to
show what a great blessing it is for us to possess a good knowledge of it. The Christian doctrine
of justification is, briefly, this: that we, as Paul says in Romans 3:28, are justified χωρὶς ἒργων
νόμου (“apart from the works of the law”), “…and so apart from all that God requires of us in
His law: apart from the works of the First Commandment, apart from the works of the Second
5
After Zorn, Manna, p. 462.
6
Fourth Report of the Kansas District, pp. 22ff.
Commandment, apart from the works of the Third Commandment, apart from the works of all
the commandments that God’s law contains as revealed in Holy Scripture. Apart from the works
of the law, and so not only apart from the works done before the conversion of unbelievers, but
also apart from the works done by believers after conversion… Everything that is a work of man,
be it a good thought internally, or a good word, or a good external, i.e., visible work, in short” all
that he has “is excluded as a basis and cause of justification. We men are in such a state that we
have kept not even one of God’s commandments. This certainly does not aid our justification, yet
neither does it hinder our justification in the slightest. Why not? Because we are justified χωρὶς
ἒργων νόμου, apart from the works of the law, completely independent from keeping or not
keeping God’s commandments.”7 The justification that God works happens by grace, apart from
our own merit, δωρεάν (Rom. 3:24), i.e., as a gift, through faith. This is the doctrine of
justification in brief. And we Lutheran pastors have a good knowledge of this doctrine. We have
learned it well and can defend it against all objections and attacks. And this is a great blessing
and benefit. The doctrine that says that God forgives sin and saves us by His grace alone for
Christ’s sake is not only the heart and center of all of Christian doctrine and religion, but also the
only thing that is actually comforting, yea, salvific, in it. For only through this doctrine does God
forgive sins and grant salvation, and, as Luther says, “this article alone can uplift and uphold us
in the face of aggravation, as well as console us in all manner of trial and persecution.” When our
sin vexes us, when it makes us anxious and distressed, when Satan seeks to harm us, to cast us
into despair, the article of justification tells us that there is a grace of God apart from the works
of the law. All the sin that you have ever committed does not separate you from the grace of God
in Christ Jesus. Whatever wrong you have done in your life, it does not impede justification by
grace for Christ’s sake.8 Truly, to have a good knowledge of this doctrine is a glorious and
blessed thing.
Another thing that our thesis refers to as a blessing is had by the one who is diligently
engaged with God’s Word: he becomes more and more capable of assessing and interpreting the
time in which he lives, the signs of the time, and anything at all that he sees or hears in the world,
according to God’s Word. The longer we are in God’s Word, the more our senses are, by reason
of use, exercised to discern both good and evil. As Hebrews 5:13–14 says, “For he who must still
be given milk is unskilled in the word of righteousness, for he is a babe. But solid food belongs
to those who are full-grown, that is, those who by reason of use have their senses exercised to
discern both good and evil.”
Among these full-grown, mature Christians who are skilled and adept at testing everything
against God’s Word, pastors without a doubt belong. And what a wonderful advantage there is in
this aptitude for applying everything that one learns from God’s Word to all of life’s situations, to
individual specific cases, and for judging on the basis of God’s Word what is good or evil. This
aptitude is regularly lacking in those Christians who possess only an imperfect knowledge of
Christianity, and have not had much experience in it. They are in grave danger of being easily
seduced into false doctrine or ungodly living. Those Christians whose knowledge is poor are
frequently unable to spot the world’s sinfulness with speed and certainty, e.g., lodges, the sinful

7
Franz Pieper, “How Does One Study Theology,” p. 78f.
8
Franz Pieper, cit. unkn.
aspects of many worldly amusements, theater, dances, etc. It is different with us pastors. By
constant use of God’s Word we have acquired the habitus, or aptitude, for evaluating our age and
its particular sins and scandals, and to judge and decide on the basis of God’s Word whether this
or that is true or false, good or evil, right or wrong. What a blessing and advantage firm, sure,
and steady steps can make in this area! How many enemies of our soul, how many dangers to our
salvation we recognize more quickly and are better able to watch out for than the one who is
lacking in knowledge and inexperienced.

THESIS 4.
We can also obtain a wonderful blessing and benefit from our duties and experiences in the
office: when we preach, administer the Sacraments, exhort, discipline, and comfort individuals,
visit the sick, prepare the dying for a blessed departure, and the like.

We can get a wonderful blessing and benefit from our official duties. If we remain in the faith,
not carrying out our tasks as though running a business, we will surely get a great blessing from
the official duties that we perform. Without doubt that is what the holy apostle means when he
writes to Timothy and to all faithful servants of the Word, “in doing this you will save yourself”
(1 Tim. 4:16). Of course, it is not as if we were our own savior and redeemer and had no need of
the Savior of the world, Jesus Christ. No, preachers, too, are saved according to John 3:36: “He
who believes in the Son has everlasting life.” They, too, are included in “by grace alone.” After
all, even the most faithful administration of the office by the best preacher is still so imperfect
that he can never earn heaven and salvation by it. Every faithful preacher obtains a wonderful
blessing—indeed, “saves himself,” as the Holy Ghost says—by his official duties only insofar as,
through all his faithful and conscientious teaching, instructing, preaching, admonishing, and
consoling, he appropriates with increasing breadth and depth the salvation that Christ won even
for him. The more liberally we draw from the living fountain of Holy Scripture for others as we
preach and teach, the more our knowledge of sound doctrine grows as well. The more
persuasively we make an effort to preach the law for repentance and the Gospel for faith, the
more persuasively they both will be, inasmuch as they first enter our own heart to work and
multiply repentance and faith in ourselves. When we describe for our hearers and students the
sinful corruption of the human heart in our sermons, membership classes, and confirmation
classes, we ourselves will be forced to make close examination of every nook and cranny of our
own sinful heart as well. Likewise, when we describe for our hearers the wondrous person of the
Savior, and His glorious work and office, and seek to bring them to faith, will this not make the
Savior and His work more and more familiar to us, and in turn bring us more and more
powerfully toward faith and unwavering confidence in Him? When we publicly exhort our
parishioners to holiness and every good work, we ourselves will be exhorted and drawn to these
at the same time.
Neither will we be able to handle the Holy Sacraments without ourselves being filled with
life, comfort, and joy. When we celebrate Holy Baptism, we will be vividly reminded of our own
baptism. When we distribute the Lord’s Supper, we will, if we are in the right condition, receive
the Lord Jesus spiritually by faith as the guests the Supper partake of Him sacramentally; and
such a sincere desire will arise in us after partaking of the precious Body and Blood of Christ in
the Sacrament that we will have a sense of what the poet Johann Franck expressed in the words,
“Ah, how hungers all my spirit,” etc. [TLH 305:4].
Finally, when with a faithful heart we pronounce the benediction, we will not depart without
a blessing, either.
Yet our thesis is not strictly concerned with the public acts of office, but also with the
particular, private ones. For our thesis further maintains that we also obtain a wonderful blessing
and benefit when we “exhort, discipline, and comfort individuals,” etc. Of course, these duties of
the office go hand in hand with the experiences of the office also mentioned in our thesis.
Therefore let us address both of these in this connection, namely, how by these duties we
constantly have such experiences as are a great blessing to us.
To begin with, it is asserted that we can have a wonderful experience in the task of
disciplining, exhorting, and comforting individuals. When we are required to rebuke this or that
person privately for certain sins and transgressions, for contempt of the Word and Sacraments,
for drunkenness, worldliness, irreconcilability, and the like; or when we exhort others to certain
good works and virtues, or comfort others still in all sorts of crosses, adversity, and sadness, we
regularly have a twofold experience that cannot but redound in blessings for our own Christian
life: (1) when those who are rebuked, exhorted, and given comfort do not accept God’s Word
when we bring it to them. If someone resists the rebuking, exhorting, or comforting Word of
God, if someone looks for all sorts of justifications and excuses for his evil deeds, if someone
grumbles about God’s wondrous way of leading [Ps. 4:3], if someone is about to lose hope in the
midst of distress and danger—then these experiences that we have cannot but serve for our good
as well. As we are confronted with such denying of sin, such defiance and resistance, such
human despair, we ourselves will then behold as in a mirror our own defiant and desperate or
resistant heart, the deep corruption of our whole nature—and this must constantly bring us to a
deep humility before God again and again. In such instances we cannot allow ourselves to be
puffed up in pharisaic pride and arrogance, and perhaps reason and say, “That’s not how I am.
I’m far superior.” No, in such cases we should gratefully acknowledge what God’s grace has
done for us, saying, “Naught can be counted good in me, but what proceeds alone from Thee.”9
In and of ourselves we are no whit better than a bald-faced sinner. Or else, we may exhort, warn,
rebuke, and console an individual, and the Word is received and embraced with meekness, yea,
with joy, even when it pierces his heart with rebuke and chastisement; he confesses his sin, is
sorry, and believes in Christ, heeds the warning, changes his ways, and brings forth righteous
fruits of repentance. In another case, someone is really and truly comforted by God’s Word. Such
experiences in turn cannot but work together for our good. With joy we repeatedly recognize
from such occasions the great power of the Word of our God to console us—power to soften and
win over the hardest heart, power to keep bringing people back to repentance toward God and to
faith in their Savior, power to give true comfort in sorrow and trial. And from such experiences
we will joyfully perceive over and over again that God still has a hold of his own, and for our
consolation even lets us see this fact from time to time and feel it with our hands, as it were.
What wonderful, faith-strengthening experiences there are in the office, such as when God lets us
see and learn how He contrives, through the wretched instruments that we are, to crush all the
self-righteousness of so many who once despised Jesus and His Word, and even raged and fumed
against it, so that they are horrified of their shameful wickedness and, submitting themselves to
9
From the hymn “Vor deinen Thron tret ich hiemit,” KELG 315:8; see ELHB 35:8. [—M.C.]
the Lord Jesus by the power of the Gospel, are actually turned from raging, ravenous wolves into
Jesus’ gentle lambs! What Pastor has not experienced many examples of such a blessing in his
office?
Yet from time to time we have experiences that are rich in blessing in connection with other
things. When, for instance, we find that the children whom we taught and confirmed have
remained faithful to their Savior and His church, are serious about their Christian faith, love
God’s Word, hear it diligently and with devotion, deny the world and its pleasures, sacrifice the
flower of their youth to their God, always act humbly, peacefully, and kindly, and faithfully
confess Jesus, whom they carry in their hearts—how encouraging it is for us, their pastors!
Sometimes in our office we also have occasion to work with particularly insightful members,
persons of deep spiritual experience and honest piety, Christians anointed with truth and well
seasoned and tried in the school of the cross. We often learn more from them than they from us,
and thus we receive great blessing and encouragement from them in our Christian faith.
It still remains for us in this thesis to discuss the blessing that we can obtain from our sick
calls and at deathbeds. As difficult as the pastoral care of the sick may be, the blessing and
benefit to our spiritual life that we gain from it is just as great. For it is with the sick and dying
that the power of God’s Word (the law for repentance as well as the Gospel for bold faith)
regularly manifests itself most clearly. “And tribulation alone gives knowledge to discern the
word” (Is. 28:19). Hence a funeral sermon is right when it says, “If one cannot say whether a
certain man has true faith in the Lord Jesus and His Word or not, it will be revealed in the hour of
his death. Then it is proven, then it is manifest that the faith wrought by the Holy Spirit is in a
man’s heart, when with joy he awaits death as his final, full, and glorious release, and can
exclaim with Paul, ‘I have a desire to depart and be with Christ!’”10 Indeed, it is in sickness and
death that we see, as it were, the world-conquering, death-defeating power of the Christian faith.
Besides this, that is when we often see what wonderful fruit faith produces. In those with long
and agonizing illnesses we are often amazed to see great patience and resignation to the will of
God, true joy in affliction, and an ardent desire to be released and be with Christ. In those times
we also see and note how frequently a sick person, not having deigned to make an explicit
confession of His Savior or an open statement in regard to the condition of his soul while he was
well, will then relinquish a beautiful confession on his hospital deathbed. What strength for our
faith and what blessing and encouragement such experiences offer us. One pastor, for instance,
tells of a dying man whose true spiritual condition he had never been quite sure about. When he
asked him, “Do you know me?” the man replied with his dying lips, “Of course, it’s through you
that I came to the Lord Jesus. Pray that I may dwell with Him!” And how edifying so many
sickbeds and blessed endings are!11

THESIS 5.

10
Hom. Mag., vol. 8, p. 159.
11
For examples, see Dr. Sihler's Lebenslauf, vol. 2, pp. 226ff.; Der Tod des Frommen und der Tod des Gottlosen,
[The death of the righteous and the death of the wicked], pp. 11, 25.
 Since our office brings with it a particular cross, the so-called cross of office, yet in each
cross there is a blessing, therefore in this respect, too, we get rich blessings from our office in
this world and the next.

Here it is first asserted that our office brings with it a particular cross, the so-called cross of
office. What does this consist of? Properly speaking, not of the toils and labors and afflictions
inherent to the preaching office. True, a servant of Christ is frequently a diversely afflicted man
as a result of his various office-related duties. His mental faculties are strenuously exerted in
study, preaching, congregational assemblies, pastoral care, and even sometimes in teaching
school on top of it all. When preaching (which is physically exhausting) becomes too much,
especially on high holy days and in times of death; when he must visit the sick, including those
suffering from a contagious disease, and often at night time when others are lying quietly in bed;
or when he must walk or ride himself to exhaustion in order to bring back the fallen, straying,
and rebellious, or when the care of more than one congregation weighs upon on him; when he is
forced to fight the encroach of the spirit of the world, or a false spirit arising from within the
congregation itself—these all are a part of the toils and labors and afflictions inherent to the
preaching office, yet, as stated, it is not of these that the cross of office in our present discussion
consists. What it is, the term “cross of office” itself suggests; namely, the cross, the suffering,
that we must take up because of the fact that we bear the holy office of the Word.
Every Christian’s confession brings cross, sorrow, and persecution. How much more must we
who publicly bear the office of the Word suffer for its sake? For this Word that we preach has
many enemies, and for its sake we must have the same enemies that it has itself. And these
enemies fashion for us a great deal of suffering; they effect the cross of office. Hence when Paul
was called by Christ into the holy office of preaching, the Lord said to Ananias concerning him,
“I will show him how many things he must suffer for My name’s sake” (Acts 9:16). That it is
precisely for the sake of God’s Word that the servants of the Word are made to suffer ridicule and
scorn and affliction, Jeremiah testifies of himself, “O LORD, You persuaded me, and I was
persuaded; You were too strong for me, and prevailed; but I am in derision daily because of it,
and everyone mocks me. For since I spoke, cried, and proclaimed concerning the plague and
destruction, because of the LORD’s Word I am made a reproach and a derision daily” (Jer. 20:7–
8).
The first enemy that we have because of the Word that we confess and teach is Satan. He is
especially hostile to preachers because of the Word that they preach, for by its converting power
it deprives him and his kingdom of many men who by nature find themselves in his infernal
kingdom. How the devil stalks preachers especially we learn from the example of Peter, to whom
Jesus said, “Simon, Simon, behold, Satan has asked for you, that he might sift you as wheat”
(Luke 22:31). All preachers of the Gospel experience this phenomenon of being sifted and
shaken in the sieve of sorrow to a lesser or greater extent, according as God allows Satan to
plague them. Luther once said, “To preach God’s Word means nothing else than to invite the rage
of all of hell and Satan on oneself.” He seeks to prepare all sorts of sufferings for us, internal and
external, physical and spiritual, in order to weaken and weary us in our office.
Yet Satan also has a strong ally in the world, which is similarly hostile to preachers because
of the Word. Of this Christ warned His disciples, particularly His apostles and messengers. “The
time is coming,” He says in John 16:2, “that whoever kills you will think that he is doing God a
service.” And the holy apostles experienced this hatred, to be sure. What a heart-rending lament
from the apostle Paul we find in his letter to the Corinthians about what he and his fellow
apostles suffered because of the world’s hostility to the Word in his office!12
The world, which causes us preachers to suffer all sorts of afflictions, especially if we are
faithful and conscientious in our office—this world, I say, is threefold: (1) the openly unbelieving
world, (2) the heterodox world, and (3) the world inside our own congregations. The unbelieving
world hates the Word, particularly the pure Gospel, and this hatred is accordingly extended to all
those who preach [the Word and pure Gospel]. They get a sense of that hatred whenever the
considerations of business do not forbid the world to exhibit it in the form of ridicule, contempt,
slander, and even persecution. The lodges and their adherents are certainly to be placed among
this faction of the world. — In addition, the heterodox world, comprising the sects and false
Lutherans, hates uses, often proving itself to be our greatest enemy and giving us many a bitter
grief. The heterodox like to accuse us, who have remained faithful to God’s Word, of a lack of
charity, and describe us as defiant, stubborn dogmatists. And this is painful to us! — Finally, we
always have a fair bit of the world in our own congregations. There we find false brethren,
hypocritical Christians who are quick to slander us, who make every attempt to hurt us, to restrict
our earthly provisions, to sow the dragon’s seed of discord in the congregation, and who then cry
out to us, “You troubler of Israel!”—in short, those who do all they can to make our office
difficult and disagreeable. And how often our life is filled with bitterness even by the folly and
the flesh of true Christian as well!
Yet in addition to these enemies, the devil and the world, there is also our own sinful flesh,
which is recoils at the cross and refuses to suffer for the sake of the Word, and creates a great
deal of conflict and tribulation for us. As a result, things may get to the point where a pastor will
honestly wish, “If only I had not become a preacher!” or where he longs for a way out of his
current call. Indeed, in times of struggle and unrest in his congregation, he will often fall into
such sadness and discouragement as a result of the weakness and despondence of his own flesh,,
that he may not want to be seen by anyone anymore. Often a pastor’s own congregants and
family-members are unaware of the pain in his heart. In short, the faithful preacher is one of the
greatest cross-bearers of any Christian. Solomon says, “He who must instruct much must suffer
much” (Eccl. 1:18).
Here, however, our thesis further maintains that in each cross there is a blessing, that is,
something good and salutary. What every Christian experiences we pastors also experience over
and over again with our own cross of office. It is God who sends us and our cross and imposes it
on us. God could take away everything that we encounter from the devil and the world, and the
tribulation that results from the weakness of our flesh. He apart from whose will not even a
sparrow falls from a roof, who has numbered every hair of our head, who is in every respect just
as concerned about the least and most insignificant as He is about the greatest and most
important, and holds and governs everything in the palm of His hand—He could protect us and
spare us from the cross of office. He could so arrange it that, despite all the raging and fury of
Satan and the world against the Word that we preach, we would still not be caused any
tribulation or affliction. But that would not be completely good and salutary for us. “Good days
take strong legs,” the old proverb rightly says. Thus God sends us the cross of office. He allows
us to have bitter experiences in our office—allows the devil, the world, false brethren, and the
flesh in our own congregants to rage against us, and in the process allows us to become
12
See 1 Cor. 4:9–13.
despondent and dejected. But every cross that we meet our God and Savior first takes hold of in
His own hand and transforms into blessing, sheer blessing, and imposes on us for our temporal
and eternal good. For a child of God there is absolutely no cross in which a blessing is not
contained, since all things—including all crosses, and with them the cross of office—work
together for good to those who love God. And if something strikes us faithful preachers that
torments and oppresses us and causes us anguish, that looks and tastes just like an evil thing, it is
only the bitter yet wholesome medicine of our heavenly Physician, and the knife of our heavenly
Vinedresser with which He prunes His vines so that they bear all the more fruit. How much God
would love to have us experience nothing but happiness; “for He does not willingly afflict or
grieve men” (Lam. 3:33). But we—even we pastors—cannot go long without cross and sorrow.
Pastors are in certain respects in even greater danger of their soul than are their hearers—the
danger of being proud, arrogant, and self-righteous. They are in danger of being proud and
arrogant as a result of the honor that they enjoy among Christians and the acclaim that they may
be given. They are in danger of becoming self-righteous because for the most part they lead a
restrained, blameless, and decent life in the sight of men. How necessary it is, then, for us to
have this blessed cross as a counterweight, this cross that does such a good job at humbling us
over and over again, or at least keeps us in proper humility and thus in Christ. How right the
blessed Scriver was when (among other things) he wrote, “When our Lord chooses a righteous
servant, He ordains for him, along with a certain measure of gifts, the cross as well. The cross is
a condition of the preacher’s vocation, so that nature may prove no hindrance to grace, nor flesh
to the spirit. A little clock inside a house does not need as heavy a weight as a clock on a high
tower that must serve the whole city by ringing the hours” (cit. Magazin, vol. 15, p. 256).
Thus there are certainly good reasons why we preachers usually have more sadness and
affliction than other Christians. “There is no other way. If God wants well-behaved children, He
must make diligent use of the rod. If He wants to carry out His will, He must break ours. If we
are to learn to trust Him, no other support can be left us any longer; and if we are to be lifted
back up on the soaring of prayer, we must be so hemmed in that we absolutely cannot go any
farther. If we are to rejoice, we must first mourn. In short, we need the cross like we need bread”
(35th Report of the Michigan District, p. 69).
Yet by virtue of this cross of office we not only get many blessings from our office here on
earth, but, as the conclusion of this thesis asserts, beyond in eternal life as well. For “if we
endure, we shall also reign,” (2 Tim. 2:12). In fact, the longer and more liberally we have sown
with tears here, the more abundantly we will someday reap with joy beyond. For here, too, this
saying applies: “He who sows in blessing will also reap in blessing” (2 Cor. 9:6). Of course, it is
not as if we merited something from God by carrying our cross of office. But God is so faithful
and good that He will by grace not only bestow an eternal reward for everything done in faith,
but also for everything suffered in faith. (Matt. 5:11-12; Dan. 12:3; Is. 64:4; Matt. 25:21; 1 Peter
5:1, 4; Rev. 2:10.)

THESIS 6.
We will, however, only get this manifold blessing from our office if we have faith and remain
in the faith.
We have heard about the manifold blessing that we get from our office. And now our thesis
maintains that we will only get this manifold blessing from our office if we have faith.” It is
certain that the blessing that we have discussed is of a spiritual type and nature; we can only
acquire it by faith. It is not such that, if we simply study God’s Word, if we are merely active in
our office, preaching, baptizing, absolving, administering the Sacraments, etc., we will get and
obtain blessings—spiritual, eternal blessings and benefits—in every instance. No, there is no
magical power in the study of God’s Word or in our office with its various duties, such that we
only have to do these things and we will receive a blessing from them no matter what. Whoever
really wishes to enjoy the blessing of the preaching office must personally be a Christian, a man
who has been born again. This is the conditio sine qua non. That preacher who is still a natural
man, or has become one again by unbelief and sin against conscience, is not able to get any
blessing from the office that he bears, neither from his study of the Word of God, nor from his
acts and experiences in office, nor even from the strains that he may endure because he is a
preacher. The blessing attendant to the holy office has as its prerequisite conversion and rebirth
—or to put it briefly, faith. No matter how diligently a preacher may handle God’s Word and the
things of God, no matter how busy and active he may be in his office, no matter if he preaches
every sunday, and with beauty and orthodoxy at that—if he does not himself believe, he remains
empty-handed. However much he may point others the right way, he himself does not take it. He
is like a signpost on a highway which is of service to others but of no use to himself. Alas, such a
pastor preaches to others and is himself rejected, since he lacks true faith. Faith is precisely the
receiving hand that apprehends and appropriates the blessing that lies in the faithful execution of
the holy office. Hence Galatians 3:14 says, “So that the blessing of Abraham might come to the
heathen in Christ Jesus and we thereby receive the promise of the Spirit through faith.” And St.
Paul writes to the Thessalonians, “When you received from us the word of divine preaching, you
welcomed it not as man’s word, but as it truly is, as God’s Word; which also works in you who
believe” (1 Thess. 2:13). No matter how much a man, a preacher, may study God’s Word and the
things of God, unless, like the Thessalonians, he believe the Word of God, God cannot work in
him, cannot offer and convey to him any blessing or any good thing through these means of
grace. Nor does a faithless preacher get any blessing from distress, from the cross of office.
When trouble strikes him, he only feels its pain, but of any blessing that God intended for him
through that trouble he experiences nothing. He is one of those concerning whom the prophet
Jeremiah laments, saying, “You strike them, but they do not feel it; You afflict them, but they do
not amend their ways. They have a face harder than rock, and refuse to be turned.” (Jer. 5:3). In
these words the prophet is describing just such men, who encounter all sorts of calamity and
affliction, yet being without faith, receive no blessing from their cross and sorrow. This is clearly
evident from the fact that he introduces the verse by using the words: “O LORD, Your eyes
search for faith.” The prophet means to say: Those who do not possess true faith may well be
chastened by God, yet without receiving any benefit or blessing from it. The apostle Paul writes,
“And we know that for those who love God, all things work together for good” (Rom. 8:28).
Here the apostle plainly states who the only people are for whom all things—including
tribulation, of course, and the cross of office—work together for good, for blessing: namely,
those who love God, by which, however, only the faithful are meant. For only they have started
to fulfill the highest commandment, which is to say, the First, and to make God their God again,
and to love Him sincerely, and above all things. So let us keep this firmly in mind: we will get no
blessing whatsoever from our office—neither from our constant study of God’s Word, nor from
our own experiences in office, nor from our so-called cross of office—if we lack true faith, if we
harden our hearts in unbelief, and if we are faithless, unconverted men. And that is not all. For in
this case, we will not only fail to get any blessing from our holy office, which is so rich in
blessings, but simply be cursed all the more. An even greater condemnation will await us then.
For this much is certain: the more bountiful the grace is that God shows a man, the greater the
debt is that that man takes upon himself if he does not rightly acknowledge and use that grace.
The more bountiful the opportunity is that God gives a man to acquire faith and salvation, the
greater and heavier the condemnation will be for him who did not take advantage of that
opportunity, and thus did not come to faith and salvation. Thus Christ says in Luke 12:47-48,
“That servant who knows his master’s will and has not prepared himself nor done according to
his will will have to suffer many stripes… For to whom much is given, of him much will be
asked, and to whom much has been committed, of him much will be demanded.” And if there are
any who know the Lord’s will anywhere on earth, it is we pastors of the synodical conference. To
us pastors, as once to the cities of Chorazin and Bethsaida, there has been given a particularly
large measure of grace. We have God’s pure Word and we study it constantly. Woe to us,
therefore, if through it we cannot be brought to faith and true piety! We will then be cast down
into the lowest depths of hell. Woe to us if we Lutheran pastors do not do our Lord’s will,
especially in having sincere faith in the Son of God. We would truly have to suffer many stripes
for ever and ever.
So if we wish to gain the rich, manifold blessing of our holy and glorious office, if we do not
wish to receive the curse instead of blessing, then we are compelled by necessity to conduct our
office in true faith.
But our thesis further adds that we will only get a blessing from the holy office if we “remain
in the faith,”—persevere in it until our blessed end. Certainly this, too, is needed in order for us
finally to obtain the full, complete blessing of our office. For if we have faith for a season, and by
such faith possess utter blessings from our office, such as the certainty of the forgiveness of sins,
the inheritance of heaven, and the spiritual and glorious benefit and blessing of our cross of
office which we again came to know, as well as the most glorious one by promise in heaven, and
in salvation—and yet at last fall away from the faith and die as apostates and hypocrites, then
every blessing would be gone, in fact, transformed into curse and eternal damnation. In vain,
then, as far as we are concerned, would be all our fine knowledge and constant study of God’s
Word; in vain the administration of our office and the many blessed experiences that we had in it;
in vain all the crosses and sorrows that we suffered on account of our office. Gone would be the
beautiful crown of honor and glory reserved for the victors in heaven; gone the unspeakable,
glorious reward of grace that God will deliver to those who endure to the end for all their
afflictions and deeds done in faith.
This should first move us to examine ourselves with all seriousness to see whether we have
ever experienced this blessing before, [and] whether we are converted, believing Christians. This
is a very important, even necessary, question. We must not wholly assume it is as a matter of
course that we have a thoroughly believing ministerium. God grant that it may be! Yet only keep
in mind that, as certain as it is that Christ, the omniscient Lord, who alone knows His own and
examines the heart and inward parts, was compelled to liken His kingdom of heaven on earth to a
net in which not only good fish, but bad ones, too, are caught; or to a field in which, among the
wheat, a great many tares are found as well—it is equally certain that the ministerium of our
Synod is no exception. It is also just as certain that even among us pastors there are hypocrites
who have the appearance of godliness but deny its power. Already some in our synod have been
revealed to be such. — Oh, how necessary it is, then, that we pastors carefully examine ourselves
to see whether hold the faith!
But in what ways can this be recognized? This important question was answered by Professor
F. Pieper in an evening lecture to his students as follows: “You know that you are sinners; you
know from experience that you have a corrupt heart that wants to take the wrong way. You are
also aware of your many actual sins in thought, word, and deed. Now therefore, if in view of
your sins you humble yourself before God, prostrate yourself before Him, and confess that with
them you have merited God’s wrath and displeasure, temporal death, and eternal damnation, that
if it were left up to you you would have to perish, and if in the misery of your sins you therefore
flee to Christ and cry out: O Lord Jesus, have mercy on me, be gracious for the sake of your shed
blood—then your heart has saving faith, the work of the Holy Spirit by which Christ’s merit is
taken hold of and accounted as righteousness.”13
In his book, Ansprachen und Gebete, the blessed Dr. Walther answers this important question
of how to tell whether one is a true Christian as follows:

“A true Christian is he alone who in his heart believes in Christ. And this faith in Christ is
possessed only by that man who has vividly recognized that he needs a Christ, a Savior,
[and] a Redeemer from sin, that without Christ he is likewise a lost and condemned sinner
who does not therefore regard his sins as trivialities, but is grieved and saddened by them,
and in his heart is concerned for his salvation. But this concern for his salvation must also
have driven him to make Christ—namely, Christ’s life, suffering, death, and merit—his only
consolation, and thus in his heart to believe in Him. There are, however, many who have
experienced all of this, and yet, either all of a sudden or by degrees, have inwardly fallen
away. So in what ways can a man tell if he still holds the faith and has not fallen away? The
most important clues are these: A true Christian sincerely loves God’s Word. A true Christian
does not affiliate with the world; he neither joins it in its vanities nor behaves according to its
principles. A true Christian not only hears and reads God’s Word, but also searches it, and
whenever he gains clearer insight into the things of God, he counts it as an exquisite treasure.
Neither is a true Christian ashamed of his faith before the world, but confesses it before the
world and gladly bears a Christian’s shame. A true Christian may still be surprised by many
sins of weakness from day to day, but he no longer loves sin. Instead, he is ready to die
rather than to sin knowingly, and therefore avoids the opportunity for sin. A true Christian
has more love for those whom he perceives to be pious at heart. A true Christian not only
prays his morning prayer, table prayer, and evening prayer regularly, but is often compelled
to kneel before God and call on Him fervently in his many concerns. A true Christian does
not seek to become rich or lay up treasures, but is content with what God grants him, and the
more God causes earthly goods to come to him, the more freely he gives them away. A
Christian is not proud, does not seek to raise himself above any man, does not seek honor
from man, but quite the opposite, counts himself the chief of sinners and welcomes the
chastisement of his brethren.” (p. 27)

We see three points in particular by which I have the opportunity to examine myself in order
to find out whether I truly believe and am not a hypocrite but rather a true Christian with a living
faith. Can I truly say: O Lord, You, who examine the heart and the inward parts, know that my
sins are not of little account to me, that I consider them great and terrible things, and that they
cause me many sorrows and heartaches and force from me many a sigh; yet, O God, You also
13
Sept. 11, 1896.
know that I only take comfort in what Christ my Savior has done for me; and yet also that I do
not want to continue in sin, but eventually by Your strength to amend my ways, that I do not
want to remain in any sin or serve it any longer, but that I hate them all? Indeed, this last part
must be there, too. For the true faith regenerates man and brings the Holy Spirit into our heart,
who urges us and makes us capable of resisting every sin so that none has dominion over us any
longer. For God’s Word says that sin will not be able to have dominion over those who are under
grace (Rom. 6:14). Even if there were only one sin that had dominion over us, such as a
conscious, intentional unfaithfulness to our office, or an occasional intemperance in the use of
strong drink in the last year, or this hatred for children alleged in the last volume of Der
Lutheraner (No. 2), where for the sake of our wives, to accommodate their aversion to their
cross, we have sought to prevent pregnancy—or perhaps a domineering arrogance concerning
our personal talents, assets, and achievements, or ambitiousness, anger, hatred, a lack of
forgiveness, etc. Alas, in such a case, despite all our fine knowledge of the way of salvation and
an ever so dazzling appearance of godliness we would still lack true faith, and would be such
miserable hypocrites, and as such gain no blessing whatsoever from the office that we administer.
Oh, how terrible it would be for him if even one hypocrite were found among us pastors! Can
there be a hell deep and painful enough for a preacher who has the right knowledge of the way to
salvation, yea, who correctly points others to it, and does not himself believe in it? Preachers,
that is to say, Lutheran preachers, know the Lord’s will; but if they have not done His will, then,
they will be made to suffer many stripes in accordance with the threat of Him who judges the
world. On that terrible day of judgment, preachers who have died in unbelief will receive from
Christ’s lips a sentence not unlike that of the cities of Chorazin and Bethsaida: “Woe to you! If
the Holy Spirit had labored as much on this or that man as He has on you, such a man would
have repented in sackcloth and ashes and truly been converted! Woe to us, therefore, if we
should preach to others and ourselves be rejected; if we should not have faith and remain in the
faith. For who in the whole world besides us Lutheran pastors ever had a better opportunity to
come to faith and remain in it? Who ever had a better opportunity to obtain blessing, rich
blessing, for time and eternity?
Therefore let us stir up and encourage each other, while at the same time seeing to it that we
obtain the entire, full blessing of our office. And let us endeavor until the end to meditate on the
Word of God continually and for our own edification, and to guard ourselves against carrying out
our office in an officious manner.
We cannot and must not administer our office officiously or mechanistically. If we want to
get a blessing from it, we must administer it in such a way that, as we do it, we are continually
meditating on God’s Word for our own edification—that we are faithfully attending to our own
soul and working out our salvation with fear and trembling. And in addition to this, let us also
encourage and exhort each other from God’s Word, which impresses this very thing on preachers
in many passages. Thus St. Paul admonished the preacher Timothy, “Take heed to yourself and to
the doctrine; continue in these. For if you do this you will save both yourself and those who hear
you” (1 Tim. 4:16); and, “you, O man of God, flee such things” (namely the sins that he just
listed) “and pursue righteousness, godliness, faith, love, patience, gentleness” (1 Tim. 6:11). And
the apostle Paul writes of himself, “I beat my body and subdue it, lest I should preach to others
and myself be rejected” (1 Cor. 9:27). Let us keep this in mind, too. And let us meditate on God’s
Word continually, whenever we are dealing with it, for our own edification, so that by it we may
increase in the knowledge of ourself and of our Savior, and in greater and greater holiness.—
Because of our office, there lies in our constant preoccupation with the Word of God and the
things of God a great danger for us if we do not at the same time earnestly and faithfully take
heed for ourselves—a danger, namely, of using the Word of God primarily or only as an
instrument of our vocation, and not enough or not at all for our own edification—the danger of
executing the duties of our office in an officious manner. It is certainly right as well as necessary
that, while reading and studying, we should always be thinking of our office and the souls
entrusted to our care; that whenever we discover something during our reading and meditation,
we should consider, How can I use this for the blessing and benefit of my congregation? But at
the same time, of course, we cannot and must not forget about ourselves. If the salvation of our
soul is at all dear to us, as it ought to be, then we should see to it that our own existence in faith,
too, constantly gains true blessing whenever we are occupied with God’s Word, whenever we
perform the duties of our holy office. Thus we should always study in such a way that we are first
and foremost attending to our own soul. We should always first taste and satiate ourselves with
the honey that we as diligent readers collect from the flowers of God’s Word and our fathers’
writings, especially those of Luther and Walther, as well as the fine reports of Synod. Every
spiritual food that we prepare for others should also nourish and strengthen the spiritual man in
ourselves. And finally, we should also take that Word of God that we have preached and taught
and keep it in a good heart, and bear fruit with patience. Let every sermon that we have delivered
or heard at conferences or conventions resound in our hearts and effect there what they are
supposed to effect and bring about according to God’s intention!
Yet one more thing. We should and ought not be focused on obtaining and enjoying merely
any blessing, but rather the full, complete blessing of our office. For that is the one that God has
intended for us Lutheran preachers. “As good it is,” Dr. Walther once said, “to be frugal in
earthly things, that is, to be satisfied with little, so wrong is it for a Christian to be frugal in
spiritual, heavenly things—for him not to be intent on acquiring as much as possible.” So God’s
own exhortation to the faithful, “Open your mouth wide; let Me fill it” (Ps. 81:10) is especially
valid to us preachers. We are constantly seated at the source of every spiritual blessing. It is only
right, then, that we should make sure to obtain this blessing to the fullest degree. We should not
rest until we have received the whole fullness of the grace and gifts of our God. We are not to be
merely saved, as by the skin of our teeth, but to be glorified as well. We are not to be some sort
of weak, frail Christians, but it should be our goal to become the best Christians. God should
have as His pastors the kindest, sincerest, humblest, most virtuous, and most upright Christians.
Or is this not so? Are we not to be examples to the flock of Christ? We who show others the way
of holiness ought also to take that way ourselves and precede others in every good—and that
includes the eagerness for every good. And from this we will in turn gain all the greater blessing,
even here on earth. “For God is not unjust, as if He should forget your work and labor of love
which you have shown toward His name” (Heb. 6:10). And the Holy Spirit says, “Godliness is
profitable for all things, and has the promise of this life and the one to come” (1 Tim. 4:8). If we
walk in faith and godliness, God will avow us here, and will certainly not forsake us, His dear
children, not even in physical things, but will grant us earthly blessings insofar as they are not
harmful to our soul’s salvation. Indeed, we may even come to know the truth of those words,
“When the LORD is pleased by a man’s ways, He makes even his enemies to be at peace with
him” (Prov. 16:7). In any case, our faithful God will so bless us in spiritual things through His
Word that we will continue to grow richer in divine knowledge and heavenly wisdom, stronger in
faith, more victorious in the struggle with our flesh, Satan, and the world, and thus taste and learn
what blessedness the children of God already partake of here in this world’s vale of tears.
But what will that be in the end, when we have finished our course here and kept the faith,
and the holy angels have carried our souls redeemed to the heavenly Jerusalem, “to the golden-
streeted city”?14 Only then will we fully comprehend and partake of the blessing that we have
gained from our office. And then, too, we will also certainly see that God had caused us to
become pastors not only that we might be saved [or blessed], but glorified as well. And the
greater the spiritual blessing that we have received and made faithful use of in our office here,
the greater and more glorious a blessing we will enjoy for all eternity. For every work done in
faith, for every denial of self and world, for every battle overcome, we will receive an
unfathomable reward of grace and unimaginable glory (see Dan. 12:3; Rom. 8:18; 2 Cor. 9:6-7; 1
Cor. 3:8).
So let us make diligent and faithful use of the means of grace—the Word of God for our own
edification, and the Holy Supper for the diligent strengthening of our faith and the support of our
spiritual life—calling often and earnestly on God, that He might bless us more and more with
every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places through Christ; that to that end He might fashion
us into true empty vessels to be filled again and again; and into poor, needy sinners to be
refreshed with His divine consolation. And thus it will be that we will save ourselves and those
who hear us. God grant it!

14
From the hymn “Laßt mich gehn, laßt mich gehn” (G. Knack, d. 1878), st. 4, line 3. [—M.C.]