The Holy Scriptures require a humble reader who shows reverence and fear toward the Word of God and constantly says, 'Teach me, teach me, teach me!' The Spirit resists the proud. Though they study diligently and some preach Christ purely for a time, nevertheless God excludes them from the church if they’re proud. Wherefore every proud person is a heretic, if not actually, then potentially. However, it’s difficult for a man who has excellent gifts not to be arrogant. Those whom God adorns with great gifts he plunges into the most severe trials in order that they may learn that they’re nothing. Paul got a thorn in the flesh to keep him from being haughty… …Pride drove the angel out of heaven and spoils many preachers. Accordingly it’s humility that’s needed in the study of sacred literature.
The Holy Scriptures require a humble reader who shows reverence and fear toward the Word of God
Filed under Bible, Devil, Education, Pride, Temptation
Ah, praise God, this is wonderful weather! God is merciful and grants it to us without our deserving it.
Ah, praise God, this is wonderful weather! God is merciful and grants it to us without our deserving it. Would that we might also become more godly! If this happened we’d have paradise and heaven right here. All pains and troubles would be ended. Caterpillars, ants, and all sorts of worms would no longer harm our fruit, but everything would grow green and ripen in a delightful way. However, the punishment of original sin goes out into the whole world and falls on all creatures. — April 25, 1539
From heaven the angel troop came near, and to the shepherds plain appear:
From heaven the angel troop came near,
And to the shepherds plain appear:
A tender little child, they cry,
In a rough manger lies hard by.
In Bethlehem, David’s town of old,
As Prophet Micah has foretold;
’Tis the Lord Jesus Christ, I wis,
Who of you all the Savior is.
And ye may well break out in mirth,
That God is one with you henceforth;
For he is born your flesh and blood—
Your brother is the eternal Good.
What can death do to you, or sin?
The true God is to you come in.
Let hell and Satan raging go—
The Son of God’s your comrade now.
He will nor can from you go hence;
Set you in him your confidence.
Let many battle on you make,
Defy them—he cannot forsake.
At last you must approval win,
For you are now of God’s own kin,
For this thank God, ever and aye,
Content and patient all the day. Amen
Dear God, with what difficulty these things happen! They’re like fables, except that they’ve been confirmed by great miracles.
He must have had strange thoughts about his bride. With the permission of her fiance she had gone to the mountains, had stayed there a full quarter of a year, and had now returned pregnant. It’s as if she had gone on a pilgrimage to Eicha. He took her to be an adulteress. This was a serious suspicion, and the Scriptures can’t hold this against him. An angel compelled him to put off any action against her and to postpone judgment. Dear God, with what difficulty these things happen! They’re like fables, except that they’ve been confirmed by great miracles.
…I would rather scare you away from accepting Christ and chase you to hell with blood sausage.
Now St. James nevertheless does it very moderately; he disregards the whole Mosaic law concerning sacrifice and all the other items that had to be observed in Jerusalem and in the country and takes up only the four items which offend the Jews dispersed among the Gentiles. These dispersed Jews could not but see the Gentiles’ ways, live among them, and at times eat with them; so it was vexing, and also wrong, to place blood sausage, rabbits cooked in blood, blood jellies, and meat sacrifices to idols before a Jew, especially if one knew that he abhorred it and took it as an insult. It would be the same as if I said, “Listen, Jew! Even if I could bring you to Christ by refraining from eating blood sausage or from serving it to you, I would not do it. I would rather scare you away from accepting Christ and chase you to hell with blood sausage.” Would that be kind, not to mention Christian? Must not everyone at times keep silent and refrain from an action for the benefit of another human being, when he sees and knows that words and deeds would work his neighbor’s harm, especially if this silence does not offend God? Now, at that time, the Gentiles were very antagonistic to the Jews, and very proud because they were their masters. The Jews, on the other hand, were intolerant, believing that they alone were God’s people—as many histories clearly testify.
Therefore this good advice of St. James was the very best means to peace, indeed, even to the salvation of many; since the Gentiles had attained Christ’s grace without law and merit, they should now, on their part, show themselves helpful in a few matters so that the Jews, as the sick and erring folk, might attain the same grace. For it did not harm the Gentiles before God to avoid the external custom of eating blood, strangled meat, and meat sacrifices to idols in public (since grace had liberated their conscience from all that) and to desist, for the benefit and salvation of the Jews, from giving willful offense; besides, in the absence of the Jews they could eat and drink what they wished, without jeopardy to their conscience. And the Jews, too, would be equally free in their conscience, but could not change the old external customs so suddenly—“Custom is second nature,”especially when it has grown from God’s law. Thus fairness and reason also teach that one should not spite nor hinder, but rather serve and help them in accord with the command, “You shall love your neighbor,”
…The New Testament was written by real Jews, for the apostles were Jews…
Dear God, what people those were! This David was a husband, king, warlord, almost crushed by political affairs and submerged in public business, and yet he wrote such a book!
In like fashion the New Testament was written by real Jews, for the apostles were Jews. Thus God indicates that we should honor the Word of God in the synagogue. We Gentile Christians have no book that has such authority in the church—except Augustine, who is the only doctor in the church of the Gentiles who stands out above others. Accordingly we Gentiles are in no way equal to the Jews. Paul therefore makes an excellent distinction between Sarai and Hagar and their two sons. Hagar was a woman, too, but far from the equal of Sarai. It was therefore terrible temerity on the part of the pope to dare, as a man without Scripture, to oppose the Holy Scriptures. — Martin Luther March 20, 1539
A son is born an heir, is not made one, and inherits his father’s goods without any work or merit…
A son is born an heir, is not made one, and inherits his father’s goods without any work or merit. Meanwhile, however, the father commands and exhorts his son to be diligent in doing this or that. He promises him a reward or a gift in order that in return for it he may obey more readily and freely: ‘If you’re good and listen, if you study diligently, I’ll buy you a nice coat. Come here to me and I’ll give you a beautiful apple.’ In this way the father helps his son in his weakness, although the inheritance belongs to him on other grounds. This is done for the sake of pedagogy.
“God also deals with us in this way. He coaxes us with promises of spiritual and physical things, although eternal life is given freely to those who believe in Christ as children of adoption, etc. So it ought to be taught in the church that God will repay good works, save in the article of justification which is the origin and source of all other promises. One should say, ‘Believe and you will be saved; do what you will, it won’t help you [to be saved].’ Accordingly we should remember that those promises and rewards are the pedagogy by which God, as a very gentle father, invites and entices us to do good, serve our neighbor. — Martin Luther June 18, 1537
There must be law in the administration of the household and of the government
There must be law in the administration of the household and of the government, for sin should not be tolerated. But if sin is committed there should be forgiveness; otherwise everything is ruined. A husband ought to overlook many things in his wife and children, but he ought not give up the law. It is so in all stations of life. There is forgiveness of sins in all creatures. Not all the trees grow upright, not all the streams flow in a straight line, the soil is not the same everywhere, etc. The judgment is therefore right: he who does not know how to dissemble does not know how to rule. This is clemency, One must be tolerant without giving up all restraints. As they say, ‘Neither everything nor nothing.’ — Martin Luther 1532
Filed under Law and Gospel
If Adam were to return and see our life, food, drink, dress, etc., oh, how he would wonder about it!
If Adam were to return and see our life, food, drink, dress, etc., oh, how he would wonder about it! He would say, ‘I have never been in this world. Perhaps some other Adam has been in this world first.’ [So he would think] because he drank water, ate of the fruit of the trees, put up a hut with four gable walls, had no knife and no iron, and put on a covering made of hides. Now, however, there are immense expenditures for food and drink and we have palatial houses and highly ornamented garments. The ancients lived frugally. It was as Boaz said, ‘Dip your bread in vinegar. Strengthen your heart with bread.’ The lands were populous, as we see in the book of Joshua, and therefore the multitude of people produced thrift. — Martin Luther between December 11, 1532, and January 2, 1533
Filed under Uncategorized
Fear of death is death itself and nothing else.
Fear of death is death itself and nothing else. Anybody who has torn death from deep down in his heart does not have death or taste it.
For this reason I say that the greatest thing in death is the fear of death. It is written in the Epistle to the Hebrews , ‘that by the grace of God he might taste death for every one.’ We are blessed if we don’t taste death, which is very bitter and sharp. How great the pain of tasting death is we can discern in Christ when he said, ‘My soul is very sorrowful, even to death.’ I regard these as the greatest words in all the Scriptures, although it is also a great and inexplicable thing that Christ cried out on the cross, ‘Eli, Eli,’ etc.. No angel comprehends how great a thing it was that he sweated blood. This was tasting and fearing death. Creation consoles the Creator and the disciples noticed nothing of these things. — Martin Luther September 1542
Filed under Uncategorized
