Luther and Scripture

Transcription

1 Questions These questions are designed to help you start thinking about the material and how it applies to your life. How do you read Scripture? When? How often? Old Testament or New Testament? What passages? How many verses at a time? Do you read the Bible more in good time or bad times? How does the Bible help you in different periods of life? [This will all become relevant; I promise!] Reading Feel free to read this ahead of time or to wait until we discuss it together. I ve underlined the parts I think are most important or interesting for this week s study to aid in your reading, but you may find other passages that interest you or raise questions for you. Luther, Preface to the Wittenberg Edition of Luther s German Writings (1539) Luther was hesitant to let his works be published because he did not want his writings or any other writings to detract people from reading Scripture. In this preface, Luther highlights the importance of reading Scripture and suggests a way to read Scripture. He offers three aspects of reading the Bible, which he draws from Psalm 119. Oratio (prayer), meditatio (meditation), and tentatio or Anfechtung (suffering, struggle, adversity) are the three steps Luther identifies. If you read nothing else from this week s reading, I d suggest this passage which offers the outline of Luther s reading plan as well as examples of each step from Psalm 119. Moreover, I want to point out to you a correct way of studying theology, for I have had practice in that. If you keep to it, you will become so learned that you yourself could (if it were necessary) write books just as good as those of the fathers and councils, even as I (in God) dare to presume and boast, without arrogance and lying, that in the matter of writing books I do not stand much behind some of the fathers. Of my life I can by no means make the same boast. This is the way taught by holy King David (and doubtlessly used also by all the patriarchs and prophets) in the one hundred nineteenth Psalm. There you will find three rules, amply presented throughout the whole Psalm. They are Oratio, Meditatio, Tentatio. Firstly, you should know that the Holy Scriptures constitute a book which turns the wisdom of all other books into foolishness, because not one teaches about eternal life except this one alone. Therefore you should straightway despair of your reason and understanding. With them you will not attain eternal life, but, on the contrary, your presumptuousness will plunge you and others with you out of heaven (as happened to Lucifer) into the abyss of hell. But kneel down in your little room [Matt. 6:6] and 1

2 pray to God with real humility and earnestness, that he through his dear Son may give you his Holy Spirit, who will enlighten you, lead you, and give you understanding. Thus you see how David keeps praying in the above-mentioned Psalm, Teach me, Lord, instruct me, lead me, show me, and many more words like these. Although he well knew and daily heard and read the text of Moses and other books besides, still he wants to lay hold of the real teacher of the Scriptures himself, so that he may not seize upon them pell-mell with his reason and become his own teacher. For such practice gives rise to factious spirits who allow themselves to nurture the delusion that the Scriptures are subject to them and can be easily grasped with their reason, as if they were Markolf or Aesop s Fables, for which no Holy Spirit and no prayers are needed. Secondly, you should meditate, that is, not only in your heart, but also externally, by actually repeating and comparing oral speech and literal words of the book, reading and rereading them with diligent attention and reflection, so that you may see what the Holy Spirit means by them. And take care that you do not grow weary or think that you have done enough when you have read, heard, and spoken them once or twice, and that you then have complete understanding. You will never be a particularly good theologian if you do that, for you will be like untimely fruit which falls to the ground before it is half ripe. Thus you see in this same Psalm how David constantly boasts that he will talk, meditate, speak, sing, hear, read, by day and night and always, about nothing except God s Word and commandments. For God will not give you his Spirit without the external Word; so take your cue from that. His command to write, preach, read, hear, sing, speak, etc., outwardly was not given in vain. Thirdly, there is tentatio, Anfechtung. This is the touchstone which teaches you not only to know and understand, but also to experience how right, how true, how sweet, how lovely, how mighty, how comforting God s Word is, wisdom beyond all wisdom. Thus you see how David, in the Psalm mentioned, complains so often about all kinds of enemies, arrogant princes or tyrants, false spirits and factions, whom he must tolerate because he meditates, that is, because he is occupied with God s Word (as has been said) in all manner of ways. For as soon as God s Word takes root and grows in you, the devil will harry you, and will make a real doctor of you, and by his assaults will teach you to seek and love God s Word. I myself (if you will permit me, mere mouse-dirt, to be mingled with pepper) am deeply indebted to my papists that through the devil s raging they have beaten, oppressed, and distressed me so much. That is to say, they have made a fairly good theologian of me, which I would not have become otherwise. And I heartily grant them what they have won in return for 2

3 making this of me, honor, victory, and triumph, for that s the way they wanted it. (LW 34:285-87) Luther, Miscellaneous Sayings Beyond the above example, Luther does not discuss oratio, meditatio, and tentatio together. The quotes below are taken from a variety of writings, most from works on Scripture. Note the emphasis on prayer, meditation, and suffering/temptation/the devil in these passages. All are listed with their volume and page numbers in Luther s Works, most of which should be available in the Messiah library. Since I see that the devil is assailing us on all sides and that we do not have peace anywhere, we should bear in mind that God wants to keep us in His church, in which He has given us His Word. And we should understand that this Word of His is more powerful than all devils. For it is God s practice to join the cross and persecution to His Word, etc. Here the apostle attacks both evils and urges us to guard the Word and to love one another. Thus we shall never learn so much and be so perfect that need for the Word of God will not remain. For the devil never rests. Thus exhortation and the use of God s Word are needed everywhere. It is a living and powerful Word. But we snore and are lazy. It is the Word of life. But we are in death every day. And because we are never without sins and the danger of death, we should never cease to ruminate on the Word. (Lectures on 1 John, LW 30:219) But meditating on the Word of the Lord is the best remedy against sin. (Lectures on 1 John, LW 30:323) Cultivate the habit of falling asleep with the Lord s Prayer on your lips every evening when you go to bed and again every morning when you get up. And if occasion, place, and time permit, pray before you do anything else. In this way you get ahead of the devil by surprise and without warning, whether you are ready or not, before he catches up with you and makes you wait. For it is better to pray now, when you are half ready, than later, when you are not ready at all, and to begin to pray only to spite and vex the devil, even if you find it most difficult and inconvenient to do so. (Sermons on the Gospel of St. John, LW 24:287) To chew the cud, however, is to take up the Word with delight and meditate with supreme diligence, so that (according to the proverb) one does not permit it to go into one ear and out the other, but holds it firmly in the heart, swallows it, and absorbs it into the intestines. (Lectures on Deuteronomy, LW 9:136) 3

4 The highest work of godliness is to meditate on the Word of God in order that we may teach and exhort one another. (Lectures on Titus, LW 29:3) To believe in Christ, to be moved to compassion for the poor and the weak, and to persist in these things this is our religion, that is, the Christian religion. And if a cross follows, this is perfect Christianity. Godliness is to believe in Jesus Christ and to love one s brother. It belongs to this that faith should be trained through the Word. Here God is being served because habitations of the Spirit are prepared for Him. For this godliness great exercise of the body, such as fasting, is not required; what is required is that I meditate diligently. This is the work of the soul, and speaking is the highest exercise of the body. (Lectures on Titus, LW 29:9-10) Therefore let every faithful person work and strive with all his might to learn this doctrine and keep it, and for this purpose let him employ humble prayer to God with continual study and meditation on the Word. Even when we have done ever so much, there will still be much to keep us busy. For we are involved, not with minor enemies but with strong and powerful ones, who battle against us continually, namely, our own flesh, all the dangers of the world, the Law, sin, death, the wrath and judgment of God, and the devil himself, who never stops tempting us inwardly with his flaming darts (Eph. 6:16) and outwardly with his false apostles, so as to overcome some if not all of us. (Lectures on Galatians, LW 26:65) Just as no city has such obedient and good citizens that it does not need judges and magistrates, so in the flesh and drives of Christians there are always hidden pride, sensual desire, and the like, trying to thrust forth their head and constantly tempting us. Then the Word is necessary. Then we must read the Word, hear and meditate on it, go into our chamber and pray on bended knee. That is really what it means to suppress sin, which keeps springing up, fighting against us and taking us captive. Therefore a Christian must fight back this way. (Selected Psalms I, LW 12: , comment on Ps 45:6) The evening s reflection and recall is especially helpful for the morning purity, just as, on the contrary, the evening s distraction is a particular hindrance to the morning meditation, because there the remnants of reflection make the day festive in the morning. Therefore it is most appropriate that when he had said I have remembered, he immediately added I will meditate on Thee in the morning. For the more diligent the evening remembrance was, the more facile is the morning meditation. But alas, how much the devil now subverts all of that through all stages, for drunkenness, frivolity, talkativeness, amusements, and other monstrosities are now indulged in especially in the evening, and for that reason people pray and celebrate that much worse in the morning and are very badly lacking. Note, however, that he attributes remembrance to the evening 4

5 and meditation to the morning, and thereby in a striking way shows us the difference. For since the vexation and the tickling of the flesh are wont to be aroused upon the bed for the idle and especially for those who are drunk, remembrance is necessary, and not a perfunctory recall of God, but one must remain and go to sleep fixed on the meditation of God, so that it might somehow last also during sleep. (Lectures on Psalm 63, LW 10:305) But Christians, who have the Word, should hear it with all eagerness and should meditate on it, in order that their hearts may be stirred up, so that, however much they may be weighed down by the burden of sin and the hindrances of Satan, they nevertheless may attain to that glory and knowledge of God s mind and of immortality and be able to believe that this statement is true and unshakable: Death is a sport. This is what Abraham believed and felt, and with this confidence he conquered death. (Lectures on Genesis 22, LW 4:116-17) 5