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How to Preach Well According to Martin Luther

As noted earlier, preachers in the Middle Ages often took Scripture out of context. The Reformation was sparked because Luther attempted to call the Catholic church back to the teaching of the Bible.

When Luther was scrutinized for his criticism of the authority of the pope, he defended himself based on his standing as a “sworn doctor of holy scripture” who had vowed “to his beloved holy scripture to preach and teach it faithfully and purely.”14

Luther clearly believed God’s Word had authority even over the pope. In fact, Luther minimized his role in the Reformation by giving all the credit to God’s Word: “I simply taught, preached, wrote God’s Word; otherwise I did nothing. And then, while I slept, or drank Wittenberg beer…the Word so greatly weakened the papacy that never a prince or emperor did such damage to it. I did nothing. The Word did it all.”15

When we read the manuscripts and notes of Luther’s sermons, it is apparent that he mostly focuses on expositing one particular passage of Scripture—typically following the lectionary.16

“In my preaching,” Luther said, “I take pains to treat a verse of Scripture, to stick to it, and so to instruct the people that they can say, ‘That’s what the sermon was about.’”17

And Luther taught his students to do the same. He taught them to approach a difficult passage like Moses approached the rock in the desert: He struck it with his staff until water poured out for the people.18

Likely due to the rampant abuse of Scripture in his day, when it came to how to preach, Luther urged other preachers to stay faithful to God’s Word.

In a sermon in 1515, Luther warned, “Whoever wants to read the Bible must make sure he is not wrong, for the Scriptures can easily be stretched and guided…” Luther continued by explaining his measure for proper interpretation, “He should lead them to the well that is to the cross of Christ, then he will certainly be right and cannot fail.”19

In other words, Luther emphasized that the basis of proper interpretation of Scripture is it leads to Jesus. Anything less misses the mark. Therefore, Luther declared, “Nothing but Christ is to be preached.”20 Because he believed Christ is the central message of all Scripture, and that Christ speaks through the sermon.

For Luther, “God’s Word” meant more than just the Bible. God’s Word was not only the Scripture read but also God speaking His words through the preacher.

He believed that preaching is a cooperation of divine and human activity. A preacher is a tool (or the mouthpiece) by which God speaks.21

Therefore, we see why Luther held preaching in such high regard, because in Luther’s words, “just as a man uses the tongue as a tool with which he produces and forms words, so God uses our words…as tools with which he himself writes living words in our hearts.”22