# Der Lutheraner_St. Louis Missouri_1854 11 21_S52
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

52
carnal things?"" As between the temporal and the eternal, so also between bodily and spiritual goods there is no comparison. Therefore a hearer has no cause to complain as if he suffered loss in this exchange. As instruction through the Word does not take place without great labor and displeasure, so it also deserves much thanks and good.

Now God knows how unwillingly I press the passages which speak of the maintenance of preachers, and Your Love knows too that I seldom come to it, for it looks, when one treats such passages with diligence, as if one did it for the sake of avarice, as, besides, among scoffers the cowl has the credit of discontent. But you know well that I have never desired anything of yours, but have wholly sacrificed myself and mine in your service. I have not sought to become rich among you, but to make you rich in the Lord. If it had mattered so much to me about earthly dung, I might have chosen the ways which God showed me elsewhere, where more hundreds were offered me than I have fives among you; and since others also among you share in this power, that they take your confession-money, I too could have made use of such power; but I rather bear all things, that I may not put a hindrance in the way of the Gospel of Christ. I have learned, in whatsoever state I am, therewith to be content, I am instructed in all things and everywhere both to be full and to be hungry, both to abound and to suffer need. I can do all things through Christ who strengtheneth me; I have desired no one's silver, or gold, or apparel of yours, for ye yourselves know that my own goods have ministered to my necessities and those of mine. But since the world thinks that it does God service by letting poor preachers worry and sigh for bread, it is necessary that one set before its eyes the duty by which it is bound to the preachers. I know some who say they owe their preachers nothing. Such shameless fellows the Spirit puts to shame here, when He admonishes through Paul: ""Let him that is taught in the word communicate unto him that teacheth in all good things."" The command of God is there; you are bound to keep it. Besides, we do not preach to the dead, but to the living. Let the dead bury their dead, and provide for your pastors who instruct you. As a regularly called preacher is bound, by office and conscience, to set the Word before you, so you are bound, by office and conscience, to impart all manner of good things to him. Those who do not provide for their preachers, says Dr. Luther, are worse than heathen and Turks. How bound you are to provide for your teachers Christ shows, Luke 10: ""The labourer is worthy of his hire."" When you hire one for your work, you give him his wages after the work is finished, and do right in it, for if you do not, you raise a cry in heaven against you. But tell me, which labor is the hardest: the labor of the hands or of the head, the labor of the body or of the souls, the labor of the cow and swineherds or the labor of the shepherds of souls? Does not the Scripture compare the labor of the preaching office with the labor of the oxen that drag at the yoke, and of the oarsmen who must pull the little ship forward with all their strength? We labor for you with our body, when we stretch all our powers to the office and break our body and life in pieces through a divine zeal for your salvation in our sermons. Are not our powers weakened for your sake by fasting and watching? Does not much preaching make the body faint and weary? Believe me, that many a preacher goes to the pulpit as to the grave, and so exerts himself in his service that he might sink down and spew out his soul with the words. You see that, and does it not go to your heart? You give him hardly a little piece of bread, to say nothing of his having a refreshment for his weary body. We labor for you with our souls, are anxious day and night for your salvation and often do not know where to turn for anguish. While you sleep sweetly in a soft bed, we must watch, pray and fight with the devil, that he may not devour you; we must contend with him for your soul, as Michael contended with him about the body of Moses. Ah! if the pulpit could speak, it would tell of many thousand drops of sweat with which we have wet it in your service; if our bed could speak, it would tell of many thousand tears of the poor preachers whom you let suffer want. Do you not think that the drops of sweat and the tears of your preachers accuse you before God and raise a cry of woe against you? ""Obey them that have the rule over you, and submit yourselves,"" says the Epistle to the Hebrews, chap. 13, ""for they watch for your souls, as they that must give account, that they may do it with joy, and not with grief: for that is unprofitable for you."" It is not good for you if your preachers must worry about the daily bread; it is not good for you if they consume what is theirs and must put their wives and children into the utmost misery; it is not good for you if they must sigh and weep themselves full; it is not good for you if they must throw their hungry children tears instead of bread; it is not good for you if they fall sick and have not wherewith to tend their sick body; it is not good for you if they die of distress, and leave behind so little that they cannot be buried decently; it is not good for you if their widows and orphans must eat the bread of tears and become other people's footstools. Would to God I were a false prophet in this. Dear city, dear city,*) it will not go well with you; for your teachers sigh, and the withheld wages cry to God in heaven! But thou, merciful Father, spare thy people, for the sake of the wounds of Jesus!

*) Rostock in Mecklenburg. Ed. of the L.

How necessary it is that you provide for your preachers, you have heard; how right it is, Paul teaches, 1 Cor. 9: ""Do ye not know that they which minister about holy things live of the things of the temple? and they which wait at the altar are partakers with the altar? Even so hath the LORD ordained that they which preach the gospel should live of the gospel. Who goeth a warfare any time at his own charges? who planteth a vineyard, and eateth not of the fruit thereof? or who feedeth a flock, and eateth not of the milk of the flock?"" Here you are to regard the preachers as spiritual sacrificing priests, who present Christ with his holy atoning sacrifice to the congregation and also prepare it for the sacrifice that is living, holy and acceptable to God; as soldiers who must fight with Michael against the devil for your salvation; as vinedressers who must prepare you, that you may bear lovely fruits for your Savior; as shepherds who care for you and feed your soul with the comfort of the divine Word. Now was it right that the priests of the O. T. received their portion from the offerings? Is it right that a soldier receives his pay, that a vinedresser enjoys the fruits of his vineyard, and that a shepherd has wool and milk from the flock? So it is much more right that you provide for your preachers, who fight for you, labor on you and provide you with spiritual nourishment. But who believeth our report? In the kingdom of Antichrist they have heaped it up for the false spirits by the heap; in the kingdom of Christ his servants are just as rich as he himself was. The world does the faithful preachers, who show it the way to heaven, no good, but lets them suffer hunger and sorrow for their faithful service. The devil, who is a lord and god of this world, does not permit his subjects to throw a farthing to those who destroy his kingdom. I wonder that God still gives the world a faithful preacher, since with it a dog-knave and swineherd is esteemed almost higher than an upright servant of God. But God is very long-suffering, besides He wills that the world shall have no excuse. Yet I fear that upon this shameful ingratitude a dreadful famine will one day follow. What has ruined the congregations in Galatia, Corinth and other places, but that they held their faithful teachers so contemptibly and hardly granted them the dear bread? Whoever will not give our Lord God a farthing, from whom he yet has all manner of good and eternal life, it serves him right that he give the devil florins for it, from whom he must expect nothing but misfortune and eternal death. Whoever will not serve our Lord God in a small matter to his great benefit and profit, let him serve the devil with great hard toil and labor to his greatest harm, says Dr. Luther." —