Happy Reformation Day!

On October 31, 1517 Martin Luther nailed his 95 Theses to the door of the church in Wittenberg. The world has never been the same since.  If you want to read them, here they are.

Luther on the Psalms

Martin Luther said, “The Psalter ought to be a dear and beloved book, if only because it promises Christ’s death and resurrection so clearly and so depicts His kingdom and the condition and nature of all Christendom that we may call it a little Bible. Most beautifully and briefly it embraces everything in the entire Bible…Therefore it seems to me that the Holy Spirit wanted to take the trouble of compiling a short Bible…with this purpose in mind: that whoever could not read the whole Bible would here have practically an entire summary of it, comprised in one booklet…The Psalter is the book of all saints, and everyone, whatever his situation may be, finds words in it that fit his situation and apply to his case so exactly that it seems they were put in this way only for his sake.”

Christmas Miracles

A paraphrase of Luther, quoting Saint Bernard:

Three Christmas miracles:

1. God became a man.
2. A mother remained a virgin.
3. Mary had the faith to accept that these mysteries were being accomplished in her.

Luther goes on to say:
"The last is not the least of the three. The virgin birth is a mere trifle for God; that God should become man is a greater miracle; but most amazing of all is that this maiden should credit the announcement that she...had been chosen to be the mother of God."

Come, Thou Long-Expected Jesus, p. 26.

The Central Place and Chief Point

Martin Luther called Romans 3:21-26 the "central place and chief point" of the Bible. Leon Morris calls this paragraph the most important ever written.

Last Sunday, I was invited to preach at Open Door Baptist Church in Raleigh. Open Door is our sponsoring church.

I had a decision to make: What should I preach on?
So, I just decided to walk through the most important paragraph ever written.

You can listen to the sermon at their website.

John 3:16

I had the privilege of preaching from the most famous verse of Scripture this morning. Martin Luther said John 3:16 is "the gospel in miniature." I was inspired by this quote and just tried to proclaim the gospel as clearly and faithfully as I knew how.

I drew attention to 3 ways the love of God is evident in John 3:16:

1. The Love of God is evident in the Priceless Treasure He Gave: His Only Son.
2. The Love of God is evident in the Wretched Object of His Love: The World.
3. The Love of God is evident in the Precious Promise of The Gospel: Whoever Believes Has Eternal Life.

Sinclair Ferguson wrote, “When we think of Christ dying on the cross we are shown the lengths to which God’s love goes in order to win us back to himself. We would almost think that God loved us more than he loves his Son! We cannot measure such love by any other standard. He is saying to us: I love you this much. The cross is the heart of the gospel. It makes the gospel good news: Christ died for us. He has stood in our place before God’s judgment seat. He has borne our sins. God has done something on the cross we could never do for ourselves. But God does something to us as well as for us through the cross. He persuades us that he loves us.”

Luther on Preaching

"If I were to write about the burdens of the preacher as I have experienced them and as I know them, I would scare everybody off."



"Don't torment your hearers, or keep them sitting in church with long, tedious sermons. Such preaching robs the pulpit of delight."



"For a good preacher must be committed to this, that nothing is dearer to him than Christ and the life to come."

2 Luther Nuggets

"This one thing preach: the wisdom of the cross."

"Every word in the Bible points to Christ."

Martin Luther Resources

Preaching through Galatians has got me thinking about Martin Luther, who called Galatians, "my epistle." Here are links to some good Luther bios and books:

1. I am currently reading through this book.
2. The best Luther biography
3. Luther's commentary on Galatians
4. The Bondage of the Will
5. The 95 Theses