Excerpts from Table Talk by Martin Luther

Having recently transferred to a Missouri Synod Lutheran church from one affiliated with the ELCA, I am increasingly curious to learn, or rather relearn, the history of my denomination. Part of this instructional effort is a plan to read some of Martin Luther’s original writings. With several documents to choose from, I decided to begin with Table Talk, a book of conversations Luther had with his students and colleagues, where he commented on life, the church, and the Bible. For the next few Sundays, I thought it would be interesting and informative to share some excerpts from Table Talk. Please remember that this work was written in 1566, making the language a bit challenging at times. These initial postings are taken from the first section entitled "Of God’s Word." All quotes are from an early 20th-century edition, translated by William Hazlitt, Esquire.

IV
We ought not to criticize, explain, or judge the Scriptures by our mere reason, but diligently, with prayer, meditate thereon, and seek their meaning. The devil and temptations also afford us occasion to learn and understand the Scriptures, by experience and practice. Without these we should never understand them, however diligently we read and listened to them. The Holy Ghost must here be our only master and tutor; and let youth have no shame to learn of that preceptor. When I find myself assailed by temptation, I forthwith lay hold of some text of the Bible, which Jesus extends to me; as this: that he died for me, whence I derive infinite comfort.

XII
No greater mischief can happen to a Christian people, than to have God’s Word taken from them, or falsified, so that they no longer have it pure and clear. God grant we and our descendants be not witness of such a calamity.

XX
Oh, how great and glorious a thing it is to have before one the Word of God! With that we may at all times feel joyous and secure; we need never be in want of consolation, for we see before us, in all its brightness, the pure and right way. He who loses sight of the Word of God, falls into despair; the voice of heaven no longer sustains him; he follows only the disorderly tendency of his heart, and of world vanity, which lead him on to his destruction.

XXXIX
A fiery shield is God’s Word; of more substance and purer than gold, which, tried in the fire, loses naught of its substance, but resists and overcomes all the fury of the fiery heat; even so, he that believes God’s Word overcomes all, and remains secure everlastingly, against all misfortunes; for this shield fears nothing, neither hell nor the devil.

LVI
Like as in the world a child is an heir only because it is born to inherit, even so, faith only makes such to be God’s children as are born of the Word, which is the womb wherein we are conceived, born, and nourished, as the prophet Isaiah says. Now, as through such a birth we become God’s children (wrought by God without our help or doing), even so, we are also heirs, and being heirs, are freed from sin, death, and the devil, and shall inherit everlasting life.