Entry # 1 for "Tongue-in-Cheek Theology"

From the conclusion to this theological article at Monergism.com.

Perhaps a story from the life of Martin Luther would be instructive here: when some inquisitive theologian asked him what God was doing before he created the world, Luther quipped, “He was busy creating hell for foolish theologians who pry into such questions”. The response is a little tongue-in-cheek, of course, but perhaps there is some wisdom in it, particularly when we are addressing the lapsarian question.

Luther on Prayer, Again

Martin Luther on prayer: "Or we recall Martin Luther saying to his students, 'I wish I could get you to pray the way my dog goes after meat!'" (quoted by William H. Willimon & Stanley Hauerwas, Lord, Teach Us: The Lord's Prayer and the Christian Life, 29).

Luther on Prayer

Martin Luther on prayer: "As it is the business of tailors to make clothes and of cobblers to mend shoes, so it is the business of Christians to pray" (quoted by Donald S. Whitney, Spiritual Disciplines for the Christian Life, 68).

Charles Spurgeon Wants You To Pray Like Luther

"The secret of Luther's power lay in the same direction [the endeavor of prevailing with God for men in prayer]. Theodorus [a friend of Luther] said of him: "I overheard him in prayer, but, good God, with what life and spirit did he pray! It was with so much reverence, as if here speaking to God, yet with so much confidence as if he were speaking to his friend." My brethren, let me beseech you to be men of prayer. Great talents you may never have, but you will do well enough without them if you abound in intercession" (C. H. Spurgeon, Lectures to My Students, 45).

Faith and God's Word

In a section examining Martin Luther's Lectures on Hebrews (April 1517), Thomas J. Davis discusses how Luther began to mature theologically by working "extensively through the concepts of personal faith and the word of testament (the promise) and how the two are related in such a way as to portend his mature beliefs." To that point, Davis observes:

Faith is a clinging to the Word of God for Luther. It is the only work of the Gospel, and it is internal. In a telling passage, Luther declared, "Without faith it is impossible for God to be with us." Why is this so? Because God "does everything through the word." For that Word to bear fruit for the believer, there must be faith. One can ties this arrangement to the incarnation. If Christ is God incarnate, as Luther certainly affirmed, the way one possesses that incarnate Word is through faith. The union of believers with the incarnate Word, a union so real that Luther speaks of Christ as the Christian's substance, is achieved only through faith. If the Sacrament is a visible word, as Augustine of hippo taught and Luther accepted, then the Word itself is an audible body, Christ's substance, possessed through the hearing and believing of it--through faith" (Thomas J. Davis, This is My Body: The Presence of Christ in Reformation Thought, 33).

Nevin: Reformation Thought, Again

“They [Luther and the other Reformers] did not make the Reformation. The Reformation made them” (J. W. Nevin, History and Genius of the Heidelberg Catechism (Chambersburg, 1847), 10).