Source for Luther?

[DTK]

Does anyone have a solid reference/source for the following alleged quote of Luther? "The Christian faith is a matter of personal pronouns."

Thanks for any help someone might offer,
DTK

 

[C. Matthew McMahon]

I searched my electronic edition of all of Luther's works and it did not come up in any combination I tried.

 

[toddpedlar]

Originally posted by DTK
Does anyone have a solid reference/source for the following alleged quote of Luther? "The Christian faith is a matter of personal pronouns."

Thanks for any help someone might offer,
DTK

Sounds to me like someone taking Luther's penchant for (rightly) standing up to (failed) authority, and running with it. It's kind of like the theology we hear from our religion department - "Luther was all about questioning everything he believed", which means, for them, that Luther would be happy with gay Lutheran pastors (ugh) questioning ordination standards, atheistic humanists questioning God's existence, and crypto-Buddhists inhabiting Lutheran pulpits, all of whom some in our religion faculty would characterize as "being good Lutherans"....



Seriously, that quote sounds like a modern re-imagining of Luther...

Todd

 

[VirginiaHuguenot]

I have found various versions of this alleged quote online attributed to Luther without specific citation. "Christianity is a religion of personal pronouns." "The Christian faith is a matter of personal pronouns." "Religion is a matter of personal pronouns." I have been unable to get to the bottom of this quote, as intriguing as it sounds.

The closest I been able to come thus far in Luther's own works to finding something resembling this quote is from his Commentary on Galatians, v.4:

Note especially the pronoun "our" and its significance. You will readily grant that Christ gave Himself for the sins of Peter, Paul, and others who were worthy of such grace. But feeling low, you find it hard to believe that Christ gave Himself for your sins. Our feelings shy at a personal application of the pronoun "our," and we refuse to have anything to do with God until we have made ourselves worthy by good deeds.

 

[DTK]

Thanks men for your efforts.

Blessings,
DTK

 

[VirginiaHuguenot]

Does anyone else have input to share regarding this question?

 

[Laura]

A bit of Google work yielded this:

- In the first chapter of Practical Religion, J. C. Ryle quotes Luther thus: "Many are lost because they cannot use possessive pronouns." No citation, though.
- The quote formulated thus is very popular in sermons and at sermon illustration sites that don't cite anything: "The Christian life consists of possessive pronouns; it is one thing to say, 'Christ is a Savior,' it is quite another to say, 'He is My Savior!'"
- Least helpful of all, it sounds like Tabletalk to me, but adding that as a search keyword to various formulations of the quote didn't turn up anything.

 

[R. Scott Clark]

Originally posted by DTK
Does anyone have a solid reference/source for the following alleged quote of Luther? "The Christian faith is a matter of personal pronouns."

Thanks for any help someone might offer,
DTK

It might refer to this famous quotation:

Read with great emphasis these words, "me," "for me," and accustom yourself to accept and apply to yourself this "me" with certain faith. The words OUR, US, FOR US, ought to be written in golden letters -- the man who does not believe them is not a Christian (Luther's Works, 26.179).

I did an electronic search of Luther's Works. That phrase did not show up. The LW are not exhaustive, however. There are untranslated works. It might be from Plass' "What Luther Says," but it sounds like someone's summary of Luther. I might be wrong, but it doesn't sound/read like a characteristic Luther saying.

rsc

 

[DTK]

Originally posted by R. Scott Clark

It might refer to this famous quotation:

Read with great emphasis these words, "me," "for me," and accustom yourself to accept and apply to yourself this "me" with certain faith. The words OUR, US, FOR US, ought to be written in golden letters -- the man who does not believe them is not a Christian (Luther's Works, 26.179).

I did an electronic search of Luther's Works. That phrase did not show up. The LW are not exhaustive, however. There are untranslated works. It might be from Plass' "What Luther Says," but it sounds like someone's summary of Luther. I might be wrong, but it doesn't sound/read like a characteristic Luther saying.

rsc

Thanks Dr. Clark. I very much appreciate your explanation, along with identifying the probable source from which it came.

DTK

 

[Arch2k]

I also found this related quote:

Read with great emphasis these words, "me," "for me," and accustom yourself to accept and to apply to yourself this "me" with certain faith. Nor doubt that you, too, are of the number of those who are called "me," and that Christ loved not only Peter and Paul and gave Himself for them but that the grace comprehended in this "me" pertains and comes to us as well as to them. (W 40 I, 299- E Gal. 1, 261f - SL 9, 241f)
Plass, Ewald E. What Luther Says, An Anthology, (Concordia Publishing House, 1959), p.470 #1389.

 

[DTK]

Originally posted by Jeff_Bartel
I also found this related quote:

Read with great emphasis these words, "me," "for me," and accustom yourself to accept and to apply to yourself this "me" with certain faith. Nor doubt that you, too, are of the number of those who are called "me," and that Christ loved not only Peter and Paul and gave Himself for them but that the grace comprehended in this "me" pertains and comes to us as well as to them. (W 40 I, 299- E Gal. 1, 261f - SL 9, 241f)
Plass, Ewald E. What Luther Says, An Anthology, (Concordia Publishing House, 1959), p.470 #1389.

Thanks Jeff,

DTK