Luther Series Quotes

A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines. With consistency a great soul has simply nothing to do. He may as well concern himself with his shadow on the wall. Speak what you think now in hard words, and to-morrow speak what to-morrow thinks in hard words again, though it contradict every thing you said to-day. — 'Ah, so you shall be sure to be misunderstood.' — Is it so bad, then, to be misunderstood? Pythagoras was misunderstood, and Socrates, and Jesus, and Luther, and Copernicus, and Galileo, and Newton, and every pure and wise spirit that ever took flesh. To be great is to be misunderstood.

There are evil people, but they still came weeping from someone's vagina.

Ah, so you shall be sure to be misunderstood." -Is it so bad, then to be misunderstood? Pythagoras was misunderstood, and Socrates, and Jesus, and Luther, and Copernicus, and Galileo, and Newton, and every pure and wise spirit that ever took flesh. To be great is to be misunderstood...

Luther says that vocations are a “mask from God. That is, God hides Himself in the workplace, the family, the Church, and the seemingly secular society

With consistency a great soul has simply nothing to do. He may as well concern himself with his shadow on the wall. Speak what you think now in hard words, and to-morrow speak what to-morrow thinks in hard words again, though it contradict every thing you said to-day. — 'Ah, so you shall be sure to be misunderstood.' — Is it so bad, then, to be misunderstood? Pythagoras was misunderstood, and Socrates, and Jesus, and Luther, and Copernicus, and Galileo, and Newton, and every pure and wise spirit that ever took flesh. To be great is to be misunderstood.

The desire for instruction and the search for truth is now a new and noteworthy crime.

We don’t want to be integrated out of power; we want to be integrated into power.

Duh du jour.

Speak what you think now in hard words, and to-morrow speak what to-morrow thinks in hard words again, though it contradict every thing you said to-day. — 'Ah, so you shall be sure to be misunderstood.' — Is it so bad, then, to be misunderstood? Pythagoras was misunderstood, and Socrates, and Jesus, and Luther, and Copernicus, and Galileo, and Newton, and every pure and wise spirit that ever took flesh. To be great is to be misunderstood.

In the time of Luther, Spinoza, Galileo, or Voltaire people did not complain because they were “offended” or “insulted” by the ideas these men put forward.123 New ideas were suppressed, to be sure, and even more brutally than nowadays, but not because people said they felt “offended.” The Inquisition was not “insulted” by the heretics, atheists, and secularists they brought to the stake. Where does this contemporary preoccupation with being “offended” and “insulted” come from? Why do people feel victimized if contradicted? What is the origin of those frequent calls for “respect” and “dialogue,” as if there were people who advocated “disrespect” or would favor stopping the dialogue?

Because of the widespread illiteracy during the period of the Reformation, catechesis often took place in face-to-face discussion. This is why “Luther intended his catechism to target primarily pastors, but also parents, and other ‘opinion makers’ who would in turn share the teachings of the catechism orally with children and illiterate members of the household.

That’s Black Power in a real sense. We have achieved some very significant gains and victories as a result of this program, because the black man collectively now has enough buying power to make the difference between profit and loss in any major industry or concern of our country. Withdrawing economic support from those who will not be just and fair in their dealings is a very potent weapon.

Saint Augustine proliferated central theological and political doctrines of the Church, following Saint Paul closely. History is the scene of the struggle between the Heavenly and Earthly Cities, but only God before the Last Judgment knows the membership rolls. Human nature is so sinful (rebellious and corrupt) that only those who have received grace, i.e., have been chosen by God to love Him, can be saved for eternal life. This theory caused a lot of trouble for the medieval church, which by and large abandoned it. It was revived much later by Martin Luther. "By the early fifth century, at a series of church councils, the Christians had hammered out a compromise theory of the Trinity -- God the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit (Church) -- more or less of one substance but with three personalities. Those who would not accept this compromise were branded as heretics and sooner or later persecuted by the imperial state.

Martin Luther King Jr. was denied a gun permit as a result of gun control laws put into effect by white male Democrats. Out of all the law-abiding, peace-loving people, this man was denied the means to protect himself while those who wished to do him harm for believing in equality were allowed to carry. Dr. King was disarmed by Democrat laws. That is just one in a series of examples of the explicit racism behind left-wing gun grabs. It should be taught in schools, how the origination of modern-day gun control laws were designed to prevent racial equality.

THREE HUNDRED YEARS AFTER JESUS DIED ON A ROMAN cross, the emperor Theodosius made Christianity the official religion of the Roman Empire. Christians, who had once been persecuted by the empire, became the empire, and those who had once denied the sword took up the sword against their neighbors. Pagan temples were destroyed, their patrons forced to convert to Christianity or die. Christians whose ancestors had been martyred in gladiatorial combat now attended the games, cheering on the bloodshed. Lord, have mercy. Christ, have mercy. On July 15, 1099, Christian crusaders lay siege to Jerusalem, then occupied by Fatimite Arabs. They found a breach in the wall and took the city. Declaring “God wills it!” they killed every defender in their path and dashed the bodies of helpless babies against rocks. When they came upon a synagogue where many of the city’s Jews had taken refuge, they set fire to the building and burned the people inside alive. An eyewitness reported that at the Porch of Solomon, horses waded through blood. Lord, have mercy. Christ, have mercy. Through a series of centuries-long inquisitions that swept across Europe, hundreds of thousands of people, many of them women accused of witchcraft, were tortured by religious leaders charged with protecting the church from heresy. Their instruments of torture, designed to slowly inflict pain by dismembering and dislocating the body, earned nicknames like the Breast Ripper, the Head Crusher, and the Judas Chair. Many were inscribed with the phrase Soli Deo Gloria, “Glory be only to God.” Lord, have mercy. Christ, have mercy. In a book entitled On Jews and Their Lies, reformer Martin Luther encouraged civic leaders to burn down Jewish synagogues, expel the Jewish people from their lands, and murder those who continued to practice their faith within Christian territory. “The rulers must act like a good physician who when gangrene has set in proceeds without mercy to cut, saw, and burn flesh, veins, bone, and marrow,” he wrote. Luther’s writings were later used by German officials as religious justification of the Holocaust. Lord, have mercy. Christ, have mercy.

The election of 1960 can, if one wills, be seen as an interlocking set of ifs: if Nixon had made up his mind which he wanted, the Northern Negro or Southern white vote; if the Puerto Rican Catholic bishops had made their intolerant intervention into Puerto Rican politics earlier and if Nixon had taken advantage of it; if the hysterical States-Righters of Dallas had not roughed up Lyndon and Lady Bird Johnson in the hotel lobby; if Eisenhower had been used earlier; if Nixon had moved as forthrightly as did John F. Kennedy and Robert Kennedy in the Martin Luther King arrest; if only the citizen Democrats of California and the new coagulating boss groups of California had been able to work together in harness, as they could not; if Nixon had clung to his original television strategy and not panicked; if Nixon had clung to the original Forward theme of Hall and Shepley—an interminable series of ifs can be strung together to account for, reverse or multiply the tiny margin of 112,000 popular votes by which Kennedy led Nixon. Yet when all these ifs are strung together, they are only the froth and the foam in the wake of the strategies of the two candidates who sought to lead the American people.

They listened to a series of speeches by civil rights luminaries, capped off by a rousing, crowd-pleasing address by Martin Luther King. While the SCLC named their protest “Prayer Pilgrimage for Freedom,” its stated goals of expressing black unity and urging federal action on civil rights made the moniker that Jimmy gave it, “the March on Washington,” equally appropriate. That name, of course, was subsequently claimed by the much larger and more famous civil rights demonstration six years later. The huge crowds and celebrated oratory of the 1963 “March on Washington for Jobs and Justice” completely superseded the Prayer Pilgrimage in both size and importance, but the thousands who attended the 1957 affair made it the largest civil rights demonstration to date and a significant moment in the rising civil rights movement of the mid-1950s. Jimmy concluded his article with this assessment of the impact of the Prayer Pilgrimage: “The southern people went home determined beyond the expectations of even King. No one in the South is big enough to stop this march of people and no one can call it off.” 66

(Nimmer tun ist höchster Buß),

You see, then, that the whole church is filled with the forgiveness of sins. But there are few who really receive and welcome it.o For they do not believe it and would rather rely upon their own works.

But the forgiveness of guilt, the heavenly indulgence, does away with the heart’s fear and timidity before God; it makes the conscience lighthearted and merry inwardly13 and reconciles a person with God.

For works do not drive out sin, but driving out of sin produces good works.

There is no greater sin than not to believe this article of “the forgiveness of sins” which we pray daily in the [Apostles’] Creed. And this sin is called the sin against the Holy Spirit.

It follows further that the forgiveness of guilt is not within the province of any human office or authority, be it pope, bishop, priest, or any other. Rather, it depends exclusively upon the word of Christ and your own faith. For Christ did not intend to base our comfort, our salvation, our confidence on human words or deeds but only upon himself, upon his words and deeds.

Those,e however, who have been emptied through suffering [cf. Phil. 2:7] no longer do works but know that God works and does all things in them.

As these were appearing, however, the official bull of excommunication, Exsurge Domini, was being posted throughout German lands, giving Luther sixty days to recant. Instead, on 10 December 1520 Luther burned the bull (and a copy of canon law) outside the Elster Gate in Wittenberg in protest.

But this is completely perverse, namely, to please and enjoy oneself in one’s works, and to worship oneself as an idol.

It is certain that one must utterly despair of oneself in order to be made fit to receive the grace of Christ.

The law works the wrath of God, kills, reviles, accuses, judges, and condemns everything that is not in Christ

That person is not righteous who does many works but who, without works, believes much in Christ.

the human moral standpoint itself shares in fallen human hubris.

just as human doing does not place a demand upon the actions of God, so, too, human gazing on the visible objects of creation and history does not deliver a right conception of the divine.

Indeed, if pride would cease there would be no sin anywhere.

Therefore the remedy opposes desire, for it is cured not by satisfying it but by extinguishing it.

They cannot be humble who do not recognize that they are damnable and stinking sinners.

She married Luther in 1525 and became actively involved in his ministry and helped to provide for them financially by managing their household, farm, brewery and other properties. As the wife of such a prominent theologian, she helped promote a positive view of Protestant family life. Together they had six children, four of whom survived to adulthood.

*Luther argued that true *worship does not need a building, and other Reformers such as *Calvin and *Zwingli agreed that a simple meeting hall was sufficient for Christian worship. Many early Protestant congregations, however, worshiped in formerly Roman Catholic church buildings, often moving the pulpit to a more central location as well as removing statues of saints and stained glass images. The

A Protestant Reformer from South Germany. Bucer joined the *Reformation through the influence of Martin *Luther, leaving the Dominican order. After moving to Strasbourg, Bucer became an important leader who sought to resolve the controversies between the Swiss Reformed and Lutherans regarding the *Lord’s Supper, eventually reaching an agreement with Philipp *Melanchthon. Upon

Martin Luther claimed that he “never did anything well until his wrath was excited, and then he could do anything well.

Luther believed that every believer must discover how he or she is gifted by God to develop his world, because this is in large part how followers of Christ fulfill their callings. Thus, if God has given you “secular” skills — in business, banking, painting, landscaping, medicine, art, law, or the like — understand that there is nothing second-class about them. God uses your vocation to care for his world through you. As you work, you are being used by God in his original mission.

Luther’s story reminds us that not every kind of mental, spiritual, or psychological effect can be achieved by dint of hard work and control. Like falling asleep, some spiritual tasks require a more glancing approach. But Wallace is not alone in thinking that self-control is the key. Western culture in the twentieth century can be read, in part, as a series of responses to the death of God—to the death in the culture, in other words, of a grounded, public, and shared sense that there is a single, unquestioned set of virtues—Judeo-Christian virtues—in accordance with which one’s life is properly led.

If you can't fly then run, if you can't run then walk, if you can't walk then crawl, but whatever you do, you have to keep moving forward.” ― Martin Luther King Jr.

Year after year, bill after bill, Wilberforce spent his entire career introducing an endless series of legislative proposals to his colleagues in the British Parliament in his efforts to end slavery, only to have them defeated, one after the other. From 1788 to 1806, he introduced a new anti-slavery motion and watched it fail every single year, for eighteen years in a row. Finally the water wore down the rock: three days before Wilberforce’s death in 1833, Parliament passed a bill to abolish slavery not only in England but also throughout its colonies. Three decades later, a similar bill passed in the United States, spearheaded by another man of conscience who had also spent much of his life failing, a patient Illinois lawyer named Abraham. Deus ex machina? Far from it. These weren’t solutions that dropped out of the blue sky. They were the “sudden” result of long patient years of tireless repeated effort. There was no fictional deus ex machina happening here; these were human problems, and they had human solutions. But the only access to them was through the slight edge. Of course Wilberforce and Lincoln were not the sole figures in this heroic struggle, and even after their bills were passed into law on both sides of the Atlantic, the evils of slavery and racism were far from over. Rome wasn’t rehabilitated in a day, or even a century. But their efforts—like Mother Teresa’s efforts to end poverty, Gandhi’s to end colonial oppression, or Martin Luther King’s and Nelson Mandela’s to end racism—are classic examples of what “breakthrough” looks like in the real world. All of these real-life heroes understood the slight edge. None of them were hypnotized by the allure of the “big break.” If they had been, they would never have continued taking the actions they took—and what would the world look like today?

Wherefore it ought to be the first concern of every Christian to lay aside all confidence in works and grow in the knowledge, not of works, but of Christ Jesus, who suffered and rose for him.” — ​Martin Luther

Me: (in the midst of a conversation) “. . . actually I’m a pacifist.” Person X: “Really?” Me: “Yeah.” (After a brief pause.) Person X: “What if someone was raping your wife?” First off, what makes people jump from pacifism to rape? Why does every person on the planet do this? It’s never: “Pacifist, eh? Like Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.?” or “Pacifism? Isn’t that the opposition to war or violence of any kind, culminating in a refusal to engage in any military activity?” Nope, no Merriam-Webster here; just the same fictitious rape of my invented wife. —English teacher and amateur blogger Nathan Rex Smith

The belief (from Latin, “against the law”) that Christians are free from any obligation to the law because they have been set free by *faith in the gospel. This precise term arose in a debate between Johann Agricola, Philipp *Melanchthon and Martin *Luther regarding the place of the law in the Christian life. Although

Luther argued that Erasmus misconstrued Scripture by defending unobstructed free will, claiming instead that without the liberating *grace of the Holy Spirit, the human will is enslaved to *sin and at enmity against God. Instead,

As a sign of utmost gratitude for his contributions to the Indian society in restoring equal rights of the citizens, I confer him (B.R. Ambedkar) the title “Martin Luther King Jr. of India.

God shatters our self-confidence and self-righteousness, so that we will put our faith in Jesus Christ. Luther goes on to say that “hunger is the best cook. As the dry earth thirsts for rain, so the Law makes the troubled heart thirst for Christ. To such hearts Christ tastes sweetest, to them He is joy, comfort, and life. Only then are Christ and His work understood correctly.

We may not reduce Luther's entire theology to this one “discovery.” In the years 1513 to 1519 he made a whole series of theological breakthroughs. Still, his reinterpretation of Romans 1:16f remained foundational and the cornerstone or focus of his entire life and theology (:175). He could never again stop marvelling at the fact that God had accepted him, poor and wretched human being that he was, mercifully and gratuitously. The last words he scribbled on his deathbed were, “We are only beggars; that is true.

It is a dangerous thing to do,” wrote P. T. Forsyth, “to work at your own holiness.”367 Surely, as Luther saw, the last and most subtly hidden bastion of our sinful self-centeredness is self-centered religion. As Paul makes clear in Philippians 3, the aim of the “perfect” is not their own perfection, but that they may know Christ. He is the goal. Christian “perfection” is only a by-product.

Luther believed that every believer must discover how he or she is gifted by God to develop his world, because this is in large part how followers of Christ fulfill their callings. Thus, if God has given you “secular” skills — in business, banking, painting, landscaping, medicine, art, law, or the like — understand that there is nothing second-class about them. God uses your vocation to care for his world through you. As you work, you are being used by God in his original mission. I

To make matters worse, riots erupted in the summer of 1964 in Harlem and Rochester, followed by a series of uprisings that swept the nation following the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. in 1968. The racial imagery associated with the riots gave fuel to the argument that civil rights for blacks led to rampant crime. Cities like Philadelphia and Rochester were described as being victims of their own generosity. Conservatives argued that, having welcomed blacks migrating from the South, these cities “were repaid with crime-ridden slums and black discontent.”40 Barry Goldwater, in his 1964 presidential campaign, aggressively exploited the riots and fears of black crime, laying the foundation for the “get tough on crime” movement that would emerge years later. In a widely quoted speech, Goldwater warned voters, “Choose the way of [the Johnson] Administration and you have the way of mobs in the street.”41 Civil rights activists who argued that the uprisings were directly related to widespread police harassment and abuse were dismissed by conservatives out of hand. “If [blacks] conduct themselves in an orderly way, they will not have to worry about police brutality,” argued West Virginia senator Robert Byrd.42 While many civil rights advocates in this period

With this in mind, your options are now clear; Stick to the system’s path and never have to face any tough, soul searching moments but forever close yourself off to greatness. Or, Take the road less travelled, be prepared to face all of your demons but remember that if you make it through to the other side, in the words of Martin Luther King, you’ll be, ‘ready to face anything

Calvin saw the old doctrine of predestination—taught by Paul, Augustine, and Luther—as a source of religious devotion. More than a problem of the mind, Calvin considered divine election to eternal life the deepest source of confidence, humility, and moral power.

To use another phrase from Martin Luther King Jr., when we straighten our backs, we might be beaten—but we can’t be ridden.

El progreso humano no es ni automático ni inevitable... Cada paso hacia la meta de la justicia requiere sacrificio, sufrimiento y lucha; esfuerzos incansables y la preocupación apasionada de individuos dedicados." - Martin Luther King Jr.

We must develop and maintain the capacity to forgive. He who is devoid of the power to forgive is devoid of the power to love. There is some good in the worst of us and some evil in the best of us. When we discover this, we are less prone to hate our enemies.” ― Martin Luther King, Jr. ―

As Martin Luther King Jr. said, “A time comes when silence is betrayal.

Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.” — Martin Luther King, Jr. — A Gift of Love

We must learn to live together as brothers or we will perish together as fools” -Martin Luther King Jr.

all the works of the believer are alive and all the works of the unbeliever are dead, evil, and damnable,

Terror” or “fright” (erschrecken) work first to destroy a person’s self-centered claims before God, characterized by boasting in works and merits.

They contemplate Christ’s passion properly who look at it with a terrified heart and a despairing conscience.

You throw your sins off of yourself and onto Christ when you firmly believe that his wounds and sufferings are your sins, that he carries and pays for them, as we read in Isa. 53[:6], “The Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all.” And St. Peter says [1 Pet. 2:24], “He himself bore our sins in his body on the cross.” St. Paul says [2 Cor. 5:21], “For our sake God made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.” You must completelyn rely on these and similar verses—the more your conscience tortures you, the more you must rely on them. If you do not do that, but presume to still your conscience with your contrition and satisfaction,24 you will never come to peace and in the end will only doubt.

For if we allow sin to remain in our conscience and try to deal with it there, or if we look at sin in our heart, it will be much too strong for us and will live on forever. But if we see that it rests on Christ and is overcome by his resurrection, and then boldly believe this, then sin is dead and nullified.

England's King Henry VIII initially opposed Luther, but he rejected Catholicism in 1534 after the pope refused to allow him to divorce his wife, Catherine ofAragon.

There will be a joyful obedience that flows from truly trusting this King. As the great sixteenth-century Reformer Martin Luther put it: “We are saved by faith alone, but the faith that saves is never alone.” It brings about grateful, joyful, trusting obedience.

He sent Nelson a quotation that he attributed to Aristotle, instructing him in the importance of philanthropy, not money indiscriminately handed out but carefully considered giving. He advised, "Things which admit of use may be used either well or badly.... Anybody can give or spend money but to give the right amount of it at the right time and for the right cause and in the right way, that is not what anybody can do, nor is it easy. That is the reason why it is rare and laudable and noble to do well."8