Luther on How to Become a Theologian

From his “Pref­ace to the Ger­man Writ­ings” (1539):

“I want to point out to you a cor­rect way of study­ing the­ol­ogy… This is the way taught by holy King David (and doubtlessly used also by all the patri­archs and prophets) in the 119th Psalm. There you will find three rules, amply pre­sented through­out the whole Psalm. They are Ora­tio, Med­i­ta­tio, Ten­ta­tio [prayer, med­i­ta­tion, anguish or “Anfechtung”].

“Firstly, you should know that the holy Scrip­tures con­sti­tute a book which turns the wis­dom of all other books into fool­ish­ness, because not one teaches about eter­nal life except this one alone. There­fore you should straight­away despair of your rea­son and under­stand­ing… But kneel down in your lit­tle room [Matthew 6:6] and pray to God with real humil­ity and earnest­ness, that He through His dear Son may give you His Holy Spirit, Who will enlighten you, lead you, and give you understanding.

“Sec­ondly, you should med­i­tate, that is, not only in your heart, but also exter­nally, by actu­ally repeat­ing and com­par­ing oral speech and lit­eral words of the book, read­ing and reread­ing them with dili­gent atten­tion and reflec­tion, so that you may see what the Holy Spirit means by them. And take care that you do not grow weary or think that you have done enough when you have read, heard, and spo­ken them once or twice, and that you will then have com­plete under­stand­ing. You will never be a par­tic­u­larly good the­olo­gian if you do that, for you will be like untimely fruit which falls to the ground before it is half ripe.

“Thirdly, there is ten­ta­tio, Anfech­tung. This is the touch­stone which teaches you not only to know and under­stand but also to expe­ri­ence how right, how true, how sweet, how lovely, how mighty, how com­fort­ing God’s Word is, wis­dom beyond all wis­dom… For as soon as God’s Word takes root and grows in you, the devil will harry you, and will make a real doc­tor of you, and by his assaults [the anguish] will teach you to seek and love God’s Word.”

(LW 34:285–7)

David Espenlaub says:
October 6, 2010 at 2:46 pm
Thank you Sarah and Andrew for the won­der­ful pic­tures, descrip­tions and beau­ti­ful med­i­ta­tions. I was really inspired by this “how to be a The­olo­gian”.
Bless­ings to you both. You too are a great inspi­ra­tion and exam­ple. May your every step be Blessed in Jesus’ Name.
On the way in Christ,
David
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Sarah Wilson says:
October 10, 2010 at 6:14 pm
Thanks, David! We miss your company!
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