Law & Grace

"Almost all Scripture and the understanding of all theology hangs on the proper understaning of law and gospel." Martin Luther, cited in Stephen J. Nichols, Martin Luther: A Guided Tour of His Life and Thought, p.80

Justification

"Through faith in Christ, therefore, Christ's righteousness becomes our righteousness and all that he has becomes ours; rather he himself becomes ours." Martin Luther, cited in Stephen J. Nichols, Martin Luther: A Guided Tour of His Life and Thought, p.78

Idolatry

... the cross declares "God's everlasting 'no' to the idolatry of the self. Mark Noll, cited in Stephen J. Nichols, Martin Luther: A Guded Tour of His Life and Thought, p.75

Prayer

"God wants to be heard through the Propitiator, and so He'll listen to nobody except through Christ... Those who don't seek God or the Lord in Christ, won't find him." Martin Luther, cited in Stephen J. Nichols, Martin Luther: A Guided Tour of His Life and Thought, p.74

Trails

Luther wrote, "I didn't learn my theology all at once, I had to ponder over it even more deeply, and my spiritual trails were of help to me in this." Martin Luther, cited in Stephen J. Nichols, Martin Luther: A Guided Tour of His Life and Thought, p.71

Theology

In the spring of 1509, Luther, settled in Wittenberg and beginning his career as a professor of theology and Bible, wrote a letter to Johann Braun, a priest at Eisenach whom he greatly admired. In the letter, Luther expresses his goal for his teaching and writing, noting that fundementally he wanted to pursue a theology "that would penetrate to the meat of the nut, to the very core of the wheat grain, to the marrow of the bone." It would be some time before Luther would arrive there, yet his unique methodology given his historical context clearly evidences itself in these words. Not content with his colleagues' approach, which largely consisted of rehearsing the tradition's teaching in an encyclopedic fashion, Luther longed to go deeper, to get to the heart of the matter, to get at the meat of the nut. This radical starting point led to a radical way of thinking that quickly distinguished Luther from his peers. Stephen J. Nichols, Martin Luther: A Guided Tour of His Life and Thought, p.70

Theology

"It's very hard for a man to believe that god is gracious to him. The human heart can't grasp this." Martin Luther, cited in Stephen J. Nichols, Martin Luther: A Guided Tour of His Life and Thought, p. 69