Concordia: The Lutheran Confessions

by Paul Timothy McCain

of leaving. We know that God’s commandment forbids leaving wife and children. God’s command to leave is different, that is, when power or tyranny pushes us either to leave or to deny the Gospel. Here we are commanded to bear injury and should rather allow not only wealth, wife, and children, but life to be taken from us. Christ approves of this kind of leaving, and so He adds for the Gospel’s “sake” [Mark 10:29]. He does so to illustrate that He is speaking not of those who injure wife and children, but who bear injury because of the confession of the Gospel. [42] For the Gospel’s sake we should even leave our body. Here it would be ridiculous to hold that it would serve God to kill oneself and to leave the body without God’s command. So, too, it is ridiculous to hold that it is a service to God without His command to leave possessions, friends, wife, and children.