Luther on What Makes a Good Preacher versus What the World Demands of a Good Preacher

First, a good preacher should be able to teach well, correctly, and in an orderly fashion.  Second, he should have a good head on his shoulders.  Third, he should be eloquent.  Fourth, he should have a good voice.  Fifth, he should have a good memory.  Sixth, he should know when to stop.  Seventh, he should be constant and diligent about his affairs.  Eight, he should invest body and life, possessions and honor in it.  Ninth, he should be willing to let everyone vex and hack away at him.  .  .  .

The world demands six qualities of a preacher:  1. that he have a good speaking voice; 2 that he be learned;  3.  that he be eloquent;  4. that he have a handsome exterior  .  .  . ;  5. that he take no money, but give money to preach;  6. that he say what they like to hear.

-as quoted in Kittleson, Luther the Reformer: The Story of the Man and his Career (Fortress Press Edition 2003), pp. 249-250.

The Work of the Law. The Law as a "Spiegel"

Luther's picture of the human condition in the presence of God was bleak indeed.  But it was here [as a new professor of theology at Wittenberg] that he also began to develop a different understanding of humility from that which had filled his lectures on the Psalms.  He still saw this state of being utterly drained of self-worth as being necessary for salvation, but now he insisted that it was God himself who graciously taught and provided humility.  "The whole task of the apostle and his Lord is to humble the proud and bring them to a realization of this condition, to teach them that they need grace, to destroy their own righteousness, so that in humility they will see Christ and confess that they are sinners, and thus receive grace and be saved." [Footnote omitted]

Here was what Luther called the "proper" work of the law, which he often described as a hammer or an anvil that smashed down upon human pride and made room for God's love.  Luther loved plays on words and here chose to refer to the law by using the German word Spiegel.  God's law was a Spiegel (which could also mean "mirror") that reveals his human beings what they truly were – in need of grace.  Thus, when God was most terrifying and most righteous, he was in fact most gracious.  God's mercy was a loving hand with an iron fist.

-from Kittleson, Luther the Reformer: The Story of the Man and His Career, (Fortress Press edition, pp. 93 - 94).

Repent vs. Do Penance

Luther pointed out [in the  controversy over indulgences] that by working with Erasmus's edition of the Greek New Testament, he had discovered that Staupitz [the vicar general of the Augustinians for Germany and Luther's friend] had been right [in his emphasis of "the inclination of the heart rather than particular sins or particular good works as a determinant of the status of the soul"]and that common confessional practices had no basis in the Scriptures.  The Latin translation of Jesus' command at Matthew 4:17 read, "Do penance, for the kingdom of God is at hand."  But the Greek said, "Be penitent.  .  .  '"  Therefore God demanded not outward deeds but a changed heart and mind.  "Doing" had literally nothing to do with salvation, particularly with regard to indulgences.  "To repent" and "to do penance" were two different things.

-from Kittelson, Luther the Reformer: the Story of the Man and His Career. (Fortress Press edition 2003) at p. 113.

The Douay-Rhems 1899 American Edition continued to translate, "Do penance, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand."

The New Revised Standard Version, Anglicised Catholic Edition (NRSVACE), however, translates, "Repent, for the kingdom of God is at hand."

Kittleson's 1986 biography is a worthy successor to Bainton's, Here I Stand, a Life of Martin Luther, a 1950 work, but I would never, ever forgo the opportunity to read Bainton.

Luther, the Wedding at Cana, the Three Estates, the Three Wonders, and Marriage

On January 10th, 1529, the lesson was the wedding at Cana of Galilee.  This passage, said Luther, is written in honor of marriage.  There are three estates: marriage, virginity, and widowhood.  They are all good.  None is to be despised.  The virgin is not to be esteemed above the widow, nor the widow above the wife, any more than the tailor is to be esteemed above the butcher.  There is no estate to which the Devil is so opposed as to marriage.  The clergy have not wanted to be bothered with work and worry.  They have been afraid of a nagging wife, disobedient children, difficult relatives, or the dying of a pig or a cow.  They want to lie abed until the sun shines through the window.  Our ancestors knew this and would say, "Dear child, be a priest or nun and have a good time."  I have heard married people say to monks, "You have it easy, but when we get up we do not know where to find our bread."  Marriage is a heavy cross because so many couples quarrel.  It is the grace of God when they agree.  The Holy Spirit declares there are three wonders: when brothers agree, when neighbors love each other, and when a man and wife are at one.  When I see a pair like that, I am as glad as if I were in a garden of roses.  It is rare.

-from Bainton's Here I Stand: a Life of Martin Luther, (Abingdon Press; 1950) p. 352.

Luther and Congregational Singing

[Martin Luther's] last and greatest reform of all was in congregational song.  In the Middle Ages the liturgy was almost entirely restricted to the celebrant and the choir.  The congregation joined in a few responses in the vernacular.  Luther so developed this element that he may be considered the father of congregational song.  This was the point at which his doctrine of the priesthood of all believers received its most concrete realization.  This was the point and the only point at which Lutheranism was thoroughly democratic.  All the people sang.  Portions of the liturgy were converted into hymns: the Creed and the Sanctus.  The congregation sang not "I believe," but, "We believe in one God."  The congregation sang how the prophet Isaiah saw the Lord high and lifted up and heard the seraphim intone Holy, Holy, Holy.

-from Bainton's Here I Stand: a Life of Martin Luther, (Abingdon Press; 1950) p. 344.

Luther, through Bainton, on Vocation

In one respect Luther was more conservative than Catholicism because he abolished monasticism and thus eliminated a selected area for the practice of the higher righteousness.  In consequence the gospel could be exemplified only in the midst of secular callings, except that Luther refused to call them secular.  As he had extended the priesthood of all believers, so likewise he extended the concept of divine calling, vocation, to all worthy occupations

Our expression "vocational guidance" comes directly from Luther. God has called men to labor because he labors.  He works at common occupations.  God is a tailor who makes for the deer a coat that will last for a thousand years.  He is a shoemaker also who provides boots that the deer will not outlive.  God is the best cook, because the heat of the sun supplies all the heat there is for cooking.  God is a butler who sets forth a feast for the sparrows and spends on them annually more than the total revenue of the king of France.  Christ worked as a carpenter  .   .   .

-from Bainton, Here I Stand: a Life of Martin Luther (Apex Books 1950), pp. 232-233

Of course, I know this doctrine and embrace it.  But I did not get it from the pulpits I sat under, and I have sat under a lot of them. Here's more on this from Bainton:

The Virgin Mary worked, and the most amazing example of her humility is that after she had received the astonishing news that she was to be the mother of the Redeemer, she did not vaunt herself but went back and milked the cows, scoured the kettles, and swept the house like any housemaid. Peter worked as a fisherman and was proud of his skill, though not too proud to take a suggestion from the Master when he told him to cast on the other side.    Luther commented:

"I would have said, 'Now look here, Master.  You are a preacher, and I am not undertaking to tell you how to preach.  And I am a fisherman, and you need not tell me how to fish.'  But Peter was humble, and the Lord therefore made him a fisher of men."

The shepherds worked.  They had a mean job watching their flocks by night, but after seeing the babe they went back.

"Surely that must be wrong. We should correct the passage to read, 'They went and shaved their heads, fasted, told the rosaries, and put on cowls.'  Instead we read, 'The shepherds returned.'  Where to? To their sheep. The sheep would have been in a sorry way if they had not."

But didn't Adam have a point? (Just asking)

But Luther's question was not whether his sins were big or little, but whether they had been confessed.  The great difficulty which he encountered was to be sure that everything had been recalled.  He learned from experience the cleverness of memory in protecting the ego, and he was frightened when after six hours of confessing he could still go out and think of something else which had eluded his most conscientious scrutiny.  Still more disconcerting was the discovery that some of man's misdemeanors are not even recognized, let alone remembered.  Sinners often sin without compunction.  Adam and Eve, after tasting of the fruit of the forbidden tree, when blithely for a walk in the cool of the day; and Jonah, after fleeing from the Lord's commission, slept soundly in the hold of the ship.  Only when each was confronted by an accuser was there any consciousness of guilt.  Frequently, too, when man is reproached he will still justify himself like Adam, who replied, "The woman whom thou gavest to be with me" – as if to say to God, "She tempted me; you gave her to me; you are to blame."
There is, according to Luther, something much more drastically wrong with man than any particular list of offenses which can be enumerated, confessed, and forgiven. The very nature of man is corrupt.  The penitential system fails because it is directed to particular lapses.

-from Bainton's Here I Stand: a Life of Martin Luther, (Abingdon Press 1950, page 55)

Home as a Better School for Character than a Monastery

After [Luther's] marriage his tone shifted and his concern was much less to establish the necessity of marriage [in light of the otherwise "uncontrollable" sexual impulse] than to portray the home as a school for character.  In this sense it was for him a substitute for the monastery.  All the vexations of domesticity, the tension of the sexes, bawling babies, and of disobedient children led him to say there is no need to go hunting for crosses.  At the same time he was often lyrical over the consolations of the married state.

-Bainton, The Reformation of the Sixteenth Century, pages 256 - 258.