Thursday, January 06, 2011

The Perfect Christian

10 comments:

Ikonophile said...

What about people who are deaf?

John

Anonymous said...

Clearly, his eyes are on his own plate.

el cuerpo negro said...

whose bright idea was it to let lawyers be theologians in the first place? :)

Darlene said...

John Calvin was the lawyer. Martin Luther was a Roman Catholic monk who was ex-communicated and translated the Scriptures into German for the comman man.

el cuerpo negro said...

i read or heard somewhere that luther was also going in to law before he became a monk. i can't remember where i read or heard that though...

Caleb S said...

Luther was going to be a lawyer, even went to university for it; but after experiencing a horrific thunderstorm in which he was nearly struck by lightning, he entered the Augustinian order.

Anonymous said...

I don't think he meant it literally

Steve Robinson said...

Anon, Isn't literalism the fruit of the Reformation? :)

Keith said...

I probably would have picked "hands", but what do I know?

Anonymous said...

Luther's dad Hans was a smelter operator and wanted Martin to be a lawyer to fight off his legal battles. He was super chapped when Luther *wasted* his life entering the Augustinian order, then later becoming a Priest.

The comment about the ears is the stress that Luther placed on "faith comes from hearing" (Rom 10). It was the backbone of the Reformation because it completely averted the Roman Catholic system of works & merit to earn salvation. The perfect Christian is the one who heard and believed the Gospel. After all this was how the Virgin Mary conceived Christ - "through her ear" (another notable Luther quote).

However, there have been unintended consequences of this stress on hearing/cerebral faith alone that has left Lutheranism floundering like a fish out of water.