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As such, the Christian teacher is also unlike the Christian preacher, notwithstanding that both differ from the Christian theologian in alike assuming the truth of the Christian witness and therefore also acknowledging the authority of scripture and tradition because or insofar as their formulations of this witness are authorized by the formally normative witness of the apostles. What the Christian preacher does on the basis of this assumption and acknowledgements, however, is to call directly for the decision as to self-understanding whose meaning the Christian teacher is concerned to clarify and to make explicit. Of course, the Christian teacher also calls for this decision indirectly in clarifying the self-understanding of faith and explicating its implications for belief and action. Given the assumption and acknowldgements acknowledgements on the basis of which she or he alone can teach, the whole point of clarifying the understanding of existence for which the Christian witness calls is to make possible a fully free and responsible decision for it; and the same is true of explicating its implications for Christian life-praxis or bearing Christian witness, which, being precisely witness of faith, is more than simply believing and professing even true beliefs and performing even right actions. But if the ultimate end of the Christian teacher is indeed the same as the Christian preacher's, her or his immediate end is different, even as, on the other side, the Christian preacher's responsibility to call directly for the decision of faith can hardly fail to involve her or his indirectly carrying out the Christian teacher's responsibility to further understanding of the meaning of this decision.

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