Prayer is not overcoming God's reluctance. It is laying hold of His willingness.
Martin LutherRead
The gospel cannot be truly preached without offense and tumult.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The message of the gospel is inherently challenging and often provokes strong reactions.
This quote by Martin Luther emphasizes that the true preaching of the gospel is not a comfortable or easy undertaking; it often stirs conflict and controversy. The essence of its message challenges individuals' beliefs and norms, leading to offense and tumult as people confront their assumptions and engage with profound truths.
Themes
GospelTruthOffensePreachingConflict
In practice
Example use cases
During a sermon discussing moral truths that challenge societal norms.
More from Martin Luther
All quotes →Now if I believe in God's Son and remember that He became man, all creatures will appear a hundred times more beautiful to me than before. Then I will properly appreciate the sun, the moon, the stars, trees, apples, as I reflect that he is Lord over all things. ...God writes the Gospel, not in the Bible alone, but also on trees, and in the flowers and clouds and stars.
Martin LutherRead
It is the part of a Christian to take care of his own body for the very purpose that, by its soundness and wellbeing, he may be enabled to labour, and to acquire and preserve property, for the aid of those who are in want, that thus the stronger member may serve the weaker member, and we may be children of God, and busy for one another, bearing one another's burdens, and so fulfiling the law of Christ.
Martin LutherRead
Reason is the greatest enemy that faith has; it never comes to the aid of spiritual things, but more frequently than not struggles against the divine Word, treating with contempt all that emanates from God.
Martin LutherRead
We will win our freedom because the sacred heritage of our nation and the eternal will of God are embodied in our echoing demands.
Martin LutherRead
In a mouse we admire God's creation and craft work. The same may be said about flies.
Martin LutherRead
Similar quotes
Experience should teach us to be most on our guard to protect liberty when the Government's purposes are beneficent. Men born to freedom are naturally alert to repel invasion of their liberty by evil-minded rulers. The greatest dangers to liberty lurk in the insidious encroachment by men of zeal, well meaning but without understanding.
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While I do not suggest that humanity will ever be able to dispense with its martyrs, I cannot avoid the suspicion that with a little more thought and a little less belief their number may be substantially reduced.
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Like the appearance of silver in mother of pearl, the world seems real until the Self, the underlying reality, is realized.
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The tongue may be an unruly member-- But silence poisons the soul.
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Many people believe that our lives end not when we die but when the very last person who knew us dies. Memory is part of it, yes, but I think it's much more than memory.
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Now there have been delivered to us in the Gospel three Persons and names through whom the generation or birth of believers takes place, and he who is begotten by this Trinity is equally begotten of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost —for thus does the Gospel speak of the Spirit, that “that which is born of Spirit is spirit,” and it is “in Christ “that Paul begets, and the Father is the “Father of all”.
Gregory Of NyssaRead