Luther Teaches Me to Study the Bible

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Oct 23, 2007 Authored by Randy Hester | Category: Spiritual Formation

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I'm just starting to get my head wrapped around this blog thing. Blogs are a creature unto themselves! - not quite sermons, not quite articles, not quite anything formal....just random thoughts about anything! Cool!!!

So here is my random thought God has been rattling through my head this week.

I have been working through an article (actually, the lecture material of an oral presentation) by Robert Plummer, a professor at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. The article is called "Luther's Instructions for Studying Theology as a Biblical Hermeneutical Method" and is a very interesting breakdown of Martin Luther's approach to.....well doing what the title of the article says - the study of the Bible.

Luther's thought was based on his observations of how the Word of God is presented in Psalm 119. That Psalm of David has the distinction of being the longest Psalm (and chapter) in the Bible. It also has the beautiful distinction of having some direct reference to the Bible in every single verse (using words like "ways", "law", "precepts", "decrees", "word", "commands", "statutes"). Luther's observation was that David repeatedly referred to three things:

  • A cry to God (which is prayer) to understand the Word (in Latin: Oratio - meaning prayer)
  • A ruminating or considering of the Word by singing or reciting or thinking (in Latin: Meditatio - meaning meditation) and, and this is the interesting one
  • A consideration of the trials and difficulties in light of the Word (in Latin: Tentatio - meaning trial)

That is an amazing observation. It is not hard to see this for yourself - go check it out, it's right there in the Psalm. David's greatest statement celebrating the Word of God (indeed the greatest, most repeatedly statement on Scripture in all of the Bible) and Luther says you can break all of the teaching down into one of these three categories. The point of all of this is that Luther says that if you want to study the Bible rightly, any time you approach Scripture, you must do so with prayer (before, during and after - this is an acknowledgment of our need for illumination by the Holy Spirit, which Jesus promised - look at John 14 & 16). But the proper study of Scripture also requires meditation on the truths - no quick grabs and then off to "more important things"). This is all good so far, but not surprising. Prayer and Meditation. It is the last one that kind of surprised me. The last step in proper Bible study, according to Luther's assessment of Psalm 119 is trials. I didn't see that one coming!

I know trials are par for the course in life. I know trials are promised in Scripture. I know trials are explained in Scripture. I know Scripture teaches us to endure, learn from, be strengthened by, and demonstrate Christ to others in our trials. I just hadn't thought of trials being a means of Scripture to teach me about Scripture. Now that's a thought.

Prayer ensures I learn from God about God. Meditation ensures that what I learn sticks. But trials mean that I actually use what I now know. As it turns out, knowing the Bible is not actually that hard - it's using the Bible that is the tough part. Learning I need to forgive is not a hard task - it says it right there in black and white. Actually enduring the trial of having to forgive that jerk at work...or on the road...or at home - well, that's the final step that makes the Bible study actually worth knowing. The Bible says resist lust, endure persecution, don't be greedy - I can see that...but doing it...it's using what we know that is the trick.

David teaches us that trials take the mere academics out of the prayer and meditation of Scripture and plops it right smack in the middle of the living of life.

That Luther. He still has some good things to say for a guy who has been dead for 450 years. Shoot! - how hard can it be since David has been doing it for 3000 years after he died!