Beginnings - Encouragement
The supervisor of the Augustinian order, Staupitz, encouraged Luther to pursue his emphasis upon Biblical teaching and made him earn a doctorate in Biblical studies in order to teach it.
Authority - Our Choice Changes Everything
Luther made the Scriptures - as God's only revelation - the authority for all Christian teaching. At the time, Rome made the papacy the ultimate authority for everything, secular and religious. The secular rulers were the absolute authority in their realms.
By unhitching the authority of popes and kings, Luther set the stage for America's freedoms as a religious right.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness. That, to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.
The Scriptures Are One Truth - Not a Claw Vending Machine
Luther reversed the tendency to treat the Bible as a claw-crane vending machine, where individual verses are grabbed to support a pre-existing dogma. When the false teachers of today say "Romans 4:25!" or "John 1:29!" they are returning to the Roman error still practiced by the Vatican, making the false prophets little Antichrists serving the Antichrist.
Historic Christianity treats the Bible as one infallible, inerrant harmonious Truth, so anyone who departs from this standard is already playing games with God's revelation. Luther revived this approach by teaching the Scripture against any error rather than making the human teachers our filters for God's revelation.
Divine Efficacy Includes the Holy Spirit in Every Word of the Bible
When people fall away from God's truth, they pretend the Holy Spirit is NOT united with the Word. This error of Enthusiasm turns the Bible into Bartlett's Familiar Quotations. Luther has been used the same way, including a Luther Insult website. How juvenile!
God only acts and speaks through His Scriptures, so we take comfort in the Spirit bringing all blessings, forgiveness, Jesus Himself, even the thunderings of the Law, through the Word. Thus when the Word of God is preached and taught faithfully, God Himself acts according to His gracious will. The weakest, frailest, most timid person is as powerful as the Word. The greatest human sorrows are comforted by the Gospel Word. The terrors of the conscience are soothed by the guidance of the Spirit, who brings the grace of Jesus to us through the Means of Grace, the Word and Sacraments.
God's Time, Not Ours
God may act while we are asleep, or He may take centuries.
Faithfulness Is Success
Echoing Paul, Luther trusted the power of the Word to accomplish God's will in God's time. Reform means returning to the Word.
Clarity of the Word
The Word of God is so plain and clear that anyone can grasp the basic lessons. At the same time, there is so much truth to be mined that one can spend a lifetime of study and never more than a fraction of the spiritual wisdom within the Bible.
