An Altogether Different World

"To take hold of the Son and to believe in Him with the heart as the gift of God causes God to reckon that faith, however imperfect it may be, as perfect righteousness. Here we are in an altogether different world—a world that is outside reason. Here the issue is not what we ought to do or by what sort of works we may merit grace and the forgiveness of sins. No, here we are in a divine theology, where we hear the Gospel that Christ died for us and that when we believe this we are reckoned as righteous, even though sins, and great ones at that, still remain in us" (Luther's Works, vol. 26, Lectures on Galatians 1535, p. 234). 

Jesus Will Have His Prize

"The success of the gospel for which [the Puritans] yearned was bound up with their trust in Christ. They never gave way to the feeling that because the condition of the world was so deplorable the Second Coming of Christ was the only hope for mankind; in their mind, to have done so would have been to fall into unbelief in regard to the promised results of his first coming. If what was predicted seemed impossible, the remedy was to contemplate more closely the authority and glory which now belongs to the Head of the Church" (Murray, The Puritan Hope, 90).

O Lord, Teach Us to Pray, and Pray Well

In 1519 Martin Luther wrote a "Personal Prayer Book" to help people know how to pray in the midst of so much confusion about what true prayer is. In giving an example of how to pray according to the third petition of the Lord's Prayer, Luther writes this as part of his model for this petition:

Grant us true obedience, a perfect, calm, single-minded composure in all things—spiritual, earthly, temporal, and eternal. Protect us from the horrible vice of character assassination, slander, backbiting, frivolously judging or condemning others, and misrepresenting what others have said. O hold far from us the plague and tragedy which such speed can cause; rather, whenever we see or hear anything in others that seems wrong or displeasing to us, teach us to keep quiet, not to publicize it, and to pour out our complaints to you alone and to commit all to your will. And let us sincerely forgive all who wrong us and be sympathetic toward them.

—Personal Prayer Book (Luther's Works, vol. 43; ed. Gustav K. Wiencke; Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1957), 32–33.

Children at the Table

"When in 1 Corinthians Paul said that a man should examine himself, he spoke only of adults because he was speaking about those who were quarreling among themselves. However, he doesn't here forbid that the sacrament of the altar be given even to children" (Luther, Works, vol. 54, p. 58).

Bible Interpretation: No Fixed Rules

Luther:

I acknowledge no fixed rules for the interpretation of the Word of God, since the Word of God, which teaches freedom in all other matters, must not be bound.

—The Freedom of the Christian (Luther's Works, vol. 31; ed. Harold J. Grimm; Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1957), 341.

Backbiting

"Backbite (vt): To speak of a man as you find him when he can't find you" (Bierce, The Unabridged Devil's Dictionary, 12).

Solomon's School

"Over the gates of Plato's school, it was written: 'Let no one who is not a geometrician enter.' But very different is the inscription over these doors of Solomon [in the book of Proverbs]—Let the ignorant, simple, foolish, young enter" (Charles Bridges, Proverbs, 2).