The peculiar duty of bishops and pastors

Genesis 45:15. And he (Joseph) kissed all his brothers and wept upon them; and after that his brothers talked with him.

AELW 8:54

"Accordingly, the example of Joseph is a true and clear picture of the resurrection of Christ. And such things happen daily in the church. For it is the peculiar duty of bishops and pastors to teach, buoy up, and comfort, not hardened and foolish persons who cannot be set right with words and should rather be left to the executioner and hangman, but tO apply the balsam of Holy Scripture to the afflicted and the distressed. “Do not fear! Have confidence, my son! Your sins are forgiven you!” (Cf. Matt. 9:2.) But how difficult this application is both my own experience and that of others testifies. I have read the Bible with the greatest zeal and diligence for about 30 years, but I have not yet been cured in such a way that I could with full confidence find rest in the remedies shown by God. I would desire to be stouter and stronger in faith and prouder in Christ, but I cannot be.

Therefore the wound is healed in the inn after oil and wine have been poured on it (cf. Luke 10:30–35). For the churches are nothing else than lodging places of this kind in which the people who feel sin, death, and the terrors and vexations of an afflicted and wounded conscience are healed. There, to be sure, faithful and diligent care must be exercised by the ministers by pouring on oil and wine. For sin is a very cruel disease, and conscience is a very delicate thing and a most tender wood grub, so to speak, as the old translator said about David in 2 Sam. 23:8. For this grub is destroyed even by a slight injury to the skin.

And a good little line teaches the same thing: “Reputation, faith, and the eye allow no jesting.” For just as faith, that is, conscience, is offended in a very brief moment, so the eye and reputation are most delicate things that can very easily be injured. From one little word imprudently uttered or wrongly understood, innumerable calumnies and slanders often arise. Thus, therefore, a reconciliation and healing of these brothers took place, even though they were not yet completely restored. And this is a clear example of the healing which customarily takes place in the church through ministers and teachers."