When Pity Is Wrong

I have found that the Martin Luther Day by Day devotional book from CPH is a good resource to introduce lay people to very brief sections of Luther’s writings. Every now and then I will use it for morning devotions with our teachers here at St. Paul’s. The writing for August 19 is taken from Luther’s Works 21:123-24 on The Sermon on the Mount. It is a good reminder for pastors who are serious about the Office of which they are a part (especially those who have been elected to offices of oversight). And while we want to speak the truth in love (Ephesians 4:15), that love does not mean that we don’t “have teeth in our mouth.” This correction not only applies to our own people but also to pastors who are in error and are potentially leading their own people into false doctrine by way of bad practice.

“It is necessary carefully to distinguish the teaching that pertains universally to each individual person from the teaching that pertains to persons in an office, whether it be spiritual or secular, whose task it is to punish and resist evil. Therefore, even though personally they may be gentle, yet administering justice and meting out punishment is their official work; and it has to go on. It would be wrong if their pity moved them to neglect this; for that would be tantamount to helping, strengthening, and encouraging the evil. It is as if I were to say to our enemies…who are persecuting the Gospel and trampling its poor adherents underfoot: ‘Gentlemen, may the dear God reward you! You are pious people and holy fathers’; or as if I were to keep quiet, pay them homage, and kiss their feet. No, dear brother, this is what I ought to say: ‘I am a preacher. I have to have teeth in my mouth. I have to bite and salt and tell them the truth. And if they refuse to hear, then in the name of God I have to excommunicate them, lock them out of heaven, consign them to the fire of hell, and turn them over to the devil.”