(Conference of Pastors of Bethlehem 1996)
One of the great rediscoveries of the Reformation, especially Martin Luther, was that the Word of God comes to us in the form of a book, that is, Luther understood this powerful fact: God preserves the experience of salvation and holiness from generation to generation. generation through a book of revelation, not by a bishop in Rome, or by the ecstasy of the prophets of Thomas and Zwickau. The Word of God comes to us in a book. This rediscovery shaped Luther and the Reformation.
One of Luther’s main opponents in the Roman Church, Sylvester Prierias, wrote in response to his 95 theses:
He who does not accept the doctrine of the Church of Rome and the Pontiff of Rome as a foolproof rule of faith, of which the Holy Scriptures also have their strength and authority, is a heretic.
In other words, the Church and the Pope are the authorized repository of salvation and the Word of God; and the Book is derived and secondary. “What is new to Luther,” says Heiko Oberman, “the notion of absolute obedience to the scriptures against all authority, whether popes or councils?(193). In other words, the Word of God that saves, sanctifies, and with authority comes to us in a book. The implications of this simple observation are enormous.
In 1539, commenting on Psalm 119, Luther wrote: “In this psalm, David always says that he will speak, think, speak, listen, read?Day and night, constantly? Nothing but the Word and commandments of God. Does God want to give you His Spirit only through the Outer Word?(1359). This phrase is extremely important. The?Outer Word? It’s the book. And the Spirit of God who saves, sanctifies and enlightens, says, comes to us with this “outer word”.
Luther calls him an external word, emphasizing that he is objective, fixed, external to us and therefore immutable. It’s a book. Neither ecclesiastical hierarchy nor fanatical ecstasy can replace or shape it. It’s “external, ” like God, you can take it or reject it. But you can’t do it any other way. It’s a book with letters, words and fixed sentences.
And Luther said with great force in 1545, the year before his death: “Man who wants to hear God speak, do you read Sacred Scripture?(62). Previously, he had said in his sermons from Genesis: “Is the Holy Spirit and God Himself, the Creator of all things, the author of this book?(62).
One of the implications of the fact that the Word of God comes to us in a book is that the theme of this conference is “The Shepherd and His Study?”[The pastor and his study], right?The shepherd and his intuition? Or “The Shepherd and His Religious Multispective”. The Word of God that saves and sanctifies, from generation to generation, is preserved in a Book. And so, at the heart of every pastor’s work is to work with this book Call it reading, meditation, reflection, reflection, study, exegesis or whatever you want?An important and central part of our work is to fight for the meaning of God in a book and proclaim it in the power of the Holy Ghost.
Luther knew that some would stumble upon the sheer conservatism of this simple and immutable fact. The Word of God is fixed in a book. He knew then, as we know today, that many say that this statement nullifies or minimizes the crucial role of the Holy Ghost in life and light. Luther, I think, says, “Yes, it can happen. ” It could be argued that focusing on the brightness of the sun nullifies the surgeon who suppresses blindness; however, most people wouldn’t agree with that, and Luther certainly wouldn’t agree.
He said in 1520, “Are you sure that no one but the Holy Spirit, from heaven, makes someone a doctor in the Holy Scriptures?(1355). Luther was a great lover of Saint-Esprit. ?he did not despise the Espíritu. Al, he raised the Great Gift of the Spirit to Christianity. In 1533 he said, “Is the Word of God the greatest, most necessary and most important object of Christianity?”(913). Without the “external word”, we would not be able to discern one spirit from the other, and the objective personality of the Holy Spirit himself would be lost in the darkness of subjective expressions. The book’s estimation implied to Luther that the Holy Ghost is a beautiful person to know and love, not a noise to feel.
Another objection to Luther’s insistence on the book is that the written Word would minimize the Incarnate Word, Jesus Christ Himself. Luther says that the opposite is true. As the Word of God is disconnected from the objective “Outer Verb”, the Incarnate Word, the historical Jesus, becomes a wax nose modeled according to the preferences of each generation. Luther had a weapon with which he sought to free the Incarnate Word from sale in the Wittenberg markets. Did you evict the money changers, the “outer word,” the book.
When he published his 95 theses on October 31, 1517, the thesis number 45 read: “Christians must learn that he who sees a needy but looks the other way and buys an indulgence, receives no remission from the Pope, but the wrath of God?”(Oberman, 77). Does this book scam come from the story of the Good Samaritan and from the second great commandment of the book?’External word’. And without the Book, there would be no scam. The word would be everyone’s mud toy. Thus, precisely by the Incarnate Word, Luther exalts the written Word, the “External Word”.
It is true that the church needs to see the Lord in its earthly conversations and its walk on earth, our faith is rooted in this decisive revelation of history, but Luther reaffirmed that this vision is reflected in a written report. Isn’t it surprising to us that the Spirit in Luther’s day, and today, was and remains virtually silent about the Incarnate Lord, except when he magnifies God’s glory by the written account of the Incarnate Word?
Neither the Roman church nor the charismatic prophets claimed that the Spirit of the Lord had told them countless events about the historical Jesus. That’s amazing. Of all the claims of authority in it?External word? (For the Pope), and next to the external word?(by the prophets), none of them provides new information about the incarnate life and ministry of Jesus. Rome dares to add facts to Mary’s life (e. g. the immaculate conception, announced by Pius IX on 8 December 1854), but not to the life of Jesus. Charismatic prophets wanted to announce new actions of the Lord in the 16th century, and today, but none seems to bring back a new parable or miracle of the Incarnate Word, omitted from the Gospels. authority and prophetic ecstasy add or suppress any external narrative about the Incarnate Word.
Why is the Spirit as silent as the Incarnate Word, even among those who usurc the authority of the Book?The answer seems to be that God was pleased to reveal the Incarnate Word to all generations through a Book, especially through the Gospels. :
The Apostles themselves felt the need to have the New Testament in Greek and keep it in that safe language, no doubt, to keep it safely and healthily as in a sacred arc, for they foresees all that would happen and what has happened now, and I knew that if it were only in someone’s head, a rude and terrible disorder and confusion would arise in the church , and many different interpretations, fantasies, and doctrines, which could be avoided and whose simple man could only be protected if the New Testament was written in that language. (17)
The inner ministry of the Spirit does not cancel out the ministry of the “external word”. He doesn’t reproduce what he was asked to do. The Spirit glorifies the Incarnate Word of the Gospels, but does not say his words and actions to the illiterate. carefree shepherds.
The immense implication of this for pastoral care is that pastors are essentially agents of the Word of God transmitted in a book; we are basically readers, teachers, and proclaimers of the Message of the Book; and all this is for the glory of the Incarnate Word and for the power of the Spirit that dwells within us. But neither the Spirit that dwells in us nor the Incarnate Word takes us away from the Book luther called the “Outer Word”. Christ manifests himself in our worship, in our communion and in our obedience. by “talking outside. ” This is where we see the glory of God in the face of Christ (2 Corinthians 4. 6). Therefore, it is by Christ that the Spirit focuses on the Book, where Christ is evident, not ecstasy, where it is obscured.
The specific question I want to try to answer is: What difference did this discovery make in the book in the way Luther exercised his ministry of the Word?What can we learn from Luther as we study the Word? Luther’s entire professional life spent as a professor at the University of Wittenberg, so it will be helpful to track his life to this point and then ask why a teacher can be a useful model for pastors.
Luther was born on November 10, 1483 in Eisleben, the son of a copper miner, his father wanted him to be a lawyer. And I was on my way to that vocation in college. According to Heiko Oberman, “Practically is there no authenticated information about the first eighteen years that took Luther to the University of Erfurt?”(102).
In 1502, at the age of 19, he graduated with a meaningless high school, being considered the number 30 among the 57 students of his promotion. In January 1505, he obtained his master’s degree in Erfurt and finished second among the 17 candidates. That summer the providential experience of Damascus took place. On July 2, while on his way home to law school, he was caught by a storm and struck the ground by lightning. He shouted, “Help me, Saint Anne, will I become a monk? (92). He feared for his soul and did not know how to find safety in the gospel. That’s how he ended up going to the monastery.
Fifteen days later, much to his father’s dismay, he retained his vow. On 17 July 1505 he knocked on the door of the Augustinians of Erfurt and asked the chief monk to accept it in order. He later said this election was brazen. sin?” useless” because it was done against your father and out of fear. Then he added, “But to what extent did the merciful Lord allow me into the monastery?(116). We often see these kinds of errors The disposition of the problem in Church history, and this should protect us from the crippling effects of bad choices in our past. God is not hindered in his sovereign designs from guiding us, as He did with Luther, from mistakes to a fruitful life of joy.
He was 21 when he became an Augustin monk. It will take him more than twenty years to marry Katharina von Bora on June 13, 1525. Thus, there were another twenty years of fighting the temptations of a single man who had strong inclinations. But “in the monastery,” he says, “I didn’t think of women, money or property; before, did my heart tremble and tremble as I knew if God would grant me his grace?Because I deviateed from faith and couldn’t help but imagine that I had angered God, that I in turn needed to appease myself by doing good deeds?(128). There was no theological discussion in Luther’s early studies. He said, “If I could believe that God was not angry with me, would I gladly reassure myself?”
On 3 April 1507, he was ordained a priest and on 2 May celebrated his first mass. He was so overwhelmed by the thought of God’s majesty, he said, that he almost fled. him to continue. Oberman says the incident is not isolated.
A feeling of? Mysterium tremendum? Of God’s holiness he was characteristic of Luther throughout his life. This sense prevented the monk’s routine from penetrating his relations with God and prevented his biblical studies, prayers or reading of Mass from degenerating into a simple mechanical act; his main concern in all this was the encounter with the living God (137).
For two years, Luther taught aspects of philosophy to young monks. He later said that the philosophy of teaching was like expecting the real object (Oberman, 145). In 1509, what was real happened and his beloved superior, counselor and friend, Johannes von Staupitz, allowed Luther access to the Bible, that is, he allowed Luther to teach the Bible instead of moral philosophy: Paul instead of Aristotle. Three years later, on October 19, 1512, at the age of 28, Luther received his doctorate in theology and Staupitz awarded him the chair of biblical theology at the University of Wittenberg, which Luther occupied for the rest of his life.
Suite in Part 2
By: John Piper. © Desiring God Foundation. Website: desiringGod. org. Translated with permission. Source: Martin Luther: lessons from his life and work.
Original: Martin Luther: lessons from his life and his work. © Faithful Of the Department. Website: MinistryFiel. com. br. All rights reserved. Translation: Camila Rebeca Teixeira. Revision: William Teixeira.