Quotes of Note: Martin Luther—Master Pastor, Part 3

Note: You’re reading Part 3 of a blog mini-series sharing Quotes of Note derived from my Ph.D. dissertation: Spiritual Care in Historical Perspective: Martin Luther as a Case Study in Christian Sustaining, Healing, Reconciling, and Guiding. Read Part 1 and Part 2.  

In Parts 1 and 2, we enjoyed quotes regarding Luther’s ministry of biblical sustaining: bringing people God’s comfort by empathizing with their suffering. In Parts 3, 4, and 5, we learn from Luther’s ministry of biblical healing: bringing people encouragement and helping them to find Christ’s healing hope.

To promote spiritual maturity, Luther pointed people away from relief and to God. Luther was less concerned with “solutions” and more concerned with “soul-u-tions”—Christ-dependence.

The Spiritual Significance of Suffering: God Shouts to Us in Our Pain—Delicious Despair

“By these vicissitudes He teaches us not to be arrogant, as we might be if we were always strong. We are best off when we ourselves acknowledge that we are framed of dust and are mere dust” (LSC, p. 41).

“I believe that this trial comes to you, as it does to other brethren who occupy high stations, in order that we may be humbled” (LSC, p. 41).

“Therefore, we should willingly endure the hand of God in this and in all suffering. Do not be worried; indeed such a trial is the very best sign revealing God’s grace and love for man” (LW, Vol. 42, p. 184).

God sends pain and suffering because He “wishes to break your will. He is apt to lay His hand upon us just where it will give us the most pain, in order to slay our old Adam” (LSA, p. 172).

“Whether man believes it or not, it is most certain and true that no torture can compare with the worst of all evils, namely, the evil within man himself. The evils of sin within him are more numerous and far greater than any which he feels. If a man were to feel his evil, he would feel hell, for he has hell within himself” (LW, Vol. 42, p. 125).

Suffering: God’s Healing Medicine against the Disease of Self-Trust

“This is the school in which God chastens us and teaches us to trust in Him so that our faith may not always stay in our ears and hover on our lips but may have its true dwelling place in the depths of our hearts” (LSC, p. 56).

“The most dangerous trial of all is when there is no trial, when everything is all right and running smoothly. That is when a man tends to forget God, to become too independent and put his time of prosperity to a wrong use. In fact, at this time he has more need to call upon God’s name than in adversity” (LW, Vol. 44, p. 47).

“Inasmuch as tribulation serves the same purpose as rhubarb, myrrh, aloes, or an antidote against all the worms, poison, decay, and dung of this body of death, it ought not to be despised. We must not willingly seek or select afflictions, but we must accept those which God sees fit to visit upon us, for he knows which are suitable and salutary for us and how many and how heavy they should be” (LSC, p. 165).

Reinterpreting Suffering: Viewing Life with a Scriptural Lens 

“The Holy Spirit knows that a thing has only such value and meaning to a man as he assigns to it in his thoughts” (LW, Vol. 42, p. 124).

“By the help of God I have learned how to heal those under temptation and by experience I have learned how one should act when afflicted with sadness, despair or other heart sorrow, or has a worm gnawing in his conscience. Let us first lay hold of the comfort of the divine Word and then seek the conversation of pious Christian people and we will soon be better” (LSA, p. 175-176).

“Human reason cannot be content until it has looked about for human help” (LSA, p. 176).

“Therefore, whenever anyone is assailed by temptation of any sort whatever, the very best that he can do in the case is either to read something in the Holy Scriptures, or think about the Word of God, and apply it to his heart. The Word of God heals and restores again to health the mind and heart of man when wounded by the arrows of the devil” (LSA, p. 178).

“Christ heals people by means of his precious Word, as he also declares in the 50th chapter of Isaiah (verse 4): ‘The Lord hath given me a learned tongue, that I should know how to speak a word in season to the weary.’ St. Paul also teaches likewise, in Romans xv 14, that we should obtain and strengthen hope from the comfort of the Holy Scriptures, which the devil endeavors to tear out of people’s hearts in times of temptations. Accordingly, as there is no better nor more powerful remedy in temptations than to diligently read and heed the Word of God “(LSA, p. 179).

Without the Word, a Christian is like a soldier, “entering upon conflict naked and unprotected” (LSA, p. 180). With the Word, the Christian could defeat even the “most practiced and experienced warrior” (LSA, p. 180).

The Rest of the Story

In Part 4, we’ll learn from Luther how to gain a faith perspective on our suffering.

Join the Conversation 

Which of today’s Quotes of Note impact your life and ministry the most?

Note: These quotes are derived from Spiritual Care in Historical Perspective: Martin Luther as a Case Study in Christian Sustaining, Healing, Reconciling, and Guiding. The entire 212-page dissertation is available in PDF form at the RPM Store for $15.

RPM Ministries: Equipping You to Change Lives with Christ’s Changeless Truth

The Lord of the Storm 

When the wind and waves of life

Drove my soul to find relief,

I was guided by the storm

To find Jesus underneath.

When the storms of life betray

All the promises You’ve made,

I will cling to Calvary’s place;

I will trust Your sovereign grace.

Though Your presence with me goes,

I seem to still be tossed and turned

By an unseen enemy

And I know I need to learn.

When the storms of life betray

All the promises You’ve made,

I will cling to Calvary’s place;

I will trust Your sovereign grace.

And when life is finally o’er

And I stand before You, Lord,

I’ll see the storms that stirred despair

Were the winds that blew me there.

When the storms of life betray

All the promises You’ve made,

Let me cling to Calvary’s place;

Let me trust Your Sovereign Grace.

Michael Anthony Milton, “Your Sovereign Grace,” He Shall Restore (Chattanooga: Music for Missions, 2005), CD.

Michael Milton is the Chancellor/CEO-elect and James M. Baird Professor of Pastoral Theology at Reformed Theological Seminary. He is the author of Songs in the Night: How God Transforms Our Pain to Praise. 

Originally posted at the Gospel Coalition

When God Wants to Drill a Man

I first came across this poem shortly after I came to Christ at age 14. I read it almost daily as I kept it posted on the basement wall where I lifted weights and worked out to stay in shape for wrestling. I was reminded of it last week when Shirley and I heard a speaker at Baptist Bible Colelge quote it. Perhaps it will minister to you the way it has to me.

When God wants to drill a man,

And thrill a man,

And skill a man

When God wants to mold a man

To play the noblest part;

When He yearns with all His heart

To create so great and bold a man

That all the world shall be amazed,

Watch His methods, watch His ways!

How He ruthlessly perfects

Whom He royally elects!

How He hammers him and hurts him,

And with mighty blows converts him

Into trial shapes of clay which

Only God understands;

While his tortured heart is crying

And he lifts beseeching hands!

How He bends but never breaks

When his good He undertakes;

How He uses whom He chooses,

And which every purpose fuses him;

By every act induces him

To try His splendor out-

God knows what He’s about.

Author Unknown

Ask the Counselor: “Should I Try to Forget My Past?”

As a biblical counselor, people often ask me the important question, “Should I try to forget my past?”

I first respond with a one-word answer. “No.”

Then I respond with a blog-size answer using the words:

• Remember

• Reflect

• Repent/Receive/Renew

• Reinterpret

• Retell

• Resources

Remember

Even if we wanted to, we couldn’t forget the past. It’s impossible. More importantly, it’s ungodly.

Memory is our God-given capacity to store and recall what we have experienced and learned. Remembering is part of our design by creation—before the fall into sin. “Remember” is used 167 times in the Bible (NIV), thus reminding us of the importance of remembering.

Some people mistakenly interpret Philippians 3:13 to mean that we should try to forget our past. “Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead.” The Greek word for “forget” does not mean not to remember, but not to focus my attention on. More importantly, the biblical context is whether Paul would focus his attention on his works of the flesh, attempts at self-righteousness, and putting confidence in the flesh, versus focusing on Christ’s righteousness and the power of Christ’s resurrection.

Paul’s second letter to the Corinthians is a testimony to the biblical value of remembering. “We do not want you to be uninformed, brothers, about the hardships we suffered in the province of Asia” (2 Cor. 1:8a). Throughout the epistle, Paul recalls and rehearses a litany of past suffering.

Reflect

In a similar way, the Psalms are a biblical testimonial to the power and value of remembering face-to-face with God. I call it reflecting.

People typically ask about forgetting in the context of dealing with past suffering—being sinned against, or dealing with past sin—sinning against others. I believe that attempting to refuse to remember our past can actually be a symptom of sin.

Trying to suppress past memories of pain (either regarding our suffering or sin) can be a refusal to face and deal with life. It can be an attempt to deal with pain apart from God. We could compare such attempts to self-sufficient “coping mechanisms” such as drinking and drugs—where we try anything to numb our pain, emptiness, or guilt.

In my book, God’s Healing for Life’s Losses, I describe how the Psalmists, Job, Jeremiah, Jesus, and Paul remember face-to-face with Christ through “candor and complaint/lament.” In biblical candor, we’re honest with ourselves regarding our past and present. In biblical complaint/lament, we’re honest with God regarding our past and present.

Rather than attempting to forget, we are to bring to mind past external events and our current internal thoughts and feelings and bring them to Christ. As I put it in the book, “No grieving, no healing. Know grieving, know healing.” Reflecting on our past is our admission to ourselves and God that we can’t handle our past on our own, that we desperately need Christ.

Repent, Receive Grace, Renew

When our memories of the past relate to our past sin, Christ’s soul-u-tion is to remember, repent, and receive grace. “Remember the height from which you have fallen! Repent and do the things you did at first” (Rev. 2:5).

In Psalms 32 and 51, David models remembering, repenting, receiving grace, and renewing his life by God’s Spirit. Rather than trying the impossible and sinful mental activity of suppressing the memory of his sin, David recalls to mind his sin against God. He repents deeply not only of behavioral sin, but of heart motivational sin.

Having repented, David receives grace—he accepts God’s gracious forgiveness and prays for shalom—a conscience at peace with the God of peace. He then prays that the Spirit would renew a right spirit within him so that he could turn from his path of sin (put off) and return to the path of righteousness (put on).

Reinterpret

But what do we do with our emotional agony when we remember past suffering—being sinned against? God’s Word is clear. We never forget, we re-member.

Think about that word: re-member. To put our memories back together again, to shape our memories through God’s eternal grid.

In God’s Healing for Life’s Losses, I use the life of Joseph to portray how God wants us to remember and then reinterpret our past with spiritual eyes. There I call it “weaving.”

In Genesis 50:20 and 45:4-8, Joseph refuses to forget. He calls to mind his suffering past with these words. “You intended to harm me, but God intended it for good to accomplish what is now being done, the saving of many lives.”

In the Hebrew, the word “intended” can be used in a physical sense for weaving together a tapestry, such as Joseph’s coat of many colors. It can be used in the metaphysical sense in a negative way for weaving together an evil scheme or plot, such as Joseph’s brothers did. Or, it can be used in a positive sense of God weaving together good out of evil.

How do we deal with our past suffering? We look at life with spiritual eyes by bringing to bear God’s eternal narrative, spiritual 20/20 vision, and larger story perspective. Weaving is re-membering—to create wholeness using God’s perspective to bring meaning to our suffering.

That’s how, like Joseph, we find hope when we’re hurting. That’s how, like Joseph, we grant forgiveness to those who have caused our suffering. In so doing we can say, “I grieve, but I don’t despair.”

Retell

Being human involves shaping our personal experiences into stories or narratives. That’s part of our God-given capacity of memory. We shape our sense of self and who we are in Christ from our retelling of our experiences.

As spiritual friends, it is when we listen carefully and compassionately to one another’s most important stories that we gain access to how our friends are attempting to make sense of themselves in the context of their past experiences. Our one-to-one relationships and our small group meetings should be places where we retell our stories.

In God’s Healing for Life’s Losses, I discuss how the retelling process moves us from “weaving” to “worshipping.” In worshipping we are committed to finding God even when we can’t find answers. We are committed to knowing God more than knowing relief from our past. We worship God by retelling our stories like Joseph did—in a way that honors and glorifies God and His role in redeeming our past (see Genesis 45:4-8).

There is no power in forgetting our past. God doesn’t want us to pretend. Of all people, as Christians we must be the most honest about our past. We must remember, reflect, repent/receive/renew, reinterpret, and retell.

Resources

Two biblical counseling resources that I think you will find helpful in dealing with your past are:

• God’s Healing for Life’s Losses: How to Find Hope When You’re Hurting by Bob Kellemen.

• Putting Your Past in Its Place: Moving Forward in Freedom and Forgiveness by Steve Viars.

Join the Conversation

What is your biblical answer to the question, “Should I try to forget my past?”

Putting Your Past in Its Place

Book Details

• Author: Stephen Viars, D.Min.

• Publisher: Harvest House (February 2011) (248 Pages)

• Category: Biblical Counseling, Christian Living

• ISBN: 978-0-7369-2739-0

• Retail Price: $12.99

• Reviewer: Bob Kellemen

Biblical “Balance”

Christians who attempt to address the crucial topic of the past tend toward extremes. At times, we fall into the trap of “the past is everything” mindset. We blame our past and use it as an excuse. At other times, we careen to the opposite extreme of “the past is nothing.” We rip out of context and misapply Paul’s words about forgetting the things which are behind (Philippians 3:1-15).

In Putting Your Past in Its Place, Pastor Steve Viars avoids both extremes. As he notes:

“Both extremes are problematic for students of Scripture. If the past is nothing, then why did God create us with the ability to remember? Why are we instructed, for example, to not let the sun go down on our wrath (Ephesians 4:26) if today isn’t going to effect tomorrow? But the past is everything view is equally troubling. The Scripture does not encourage us to view ourselves as helpless victims whose choices today are outside our ability to understand or change” (p. 18).

Viars then spends a complete chapter developing a “theology of the past.” With that foundation laid, the rest of Putting Your Past in Its Place is a practical theology of what the Bible teaches about how we deal with our past scripturally.

Suffering and Sin

The modern biblical counseling movement at times has emphasized the confrontation of sin, somewhat to the neglect of comfort for suffering. Viars addresses both by helping readers to organize their past into their innocent past (suffering) and their guilty past (sin). He then delineates between whether we handled our past well or poorly.

The rest of the book treks with readers through the four categories of:

• The “Innocent Past” (suffering) when you Responded Well: You were sinned against, but did not sin in return. Respond now with “Authentic Suffering.”

• The “Innocent Past” (suffering) when you Responded Poorly: You were sinned against, but your response displeased God. Respond now with “Humble Analysis.”

• The “Guilty Past” (sin) when you Responded Well: You blew it, but then acknowledged your failure and handled matters appropriately. Respond now with “Joyful Remembrance.”

• The “Guilty Past” (sin) when you Responded Poorly: You sinned and then took additional steps that displeased God further. Respond now with “Honest Self-Confrontation.”

Viars is anything but naïve. So immediately after introducing these four categories, he explains:

“It is okay if your ‘baloney detector’ is going off right about now. I am not suggesting that the Bible teaches these four categories in some sort of absolute and rigid fashion. Rather, these categories help us to clarify what happened and how we responded. That, in turn, helps us to know what biblical principles to apply” (p. 67).

Viars spends three chapters on “authentic suffering” and dealing with our innocent past. He emphasizes biblical principles of facing it honestly, biblically, hopefully, and missionally. He develops “humble analysis” and dealing with our guilty past in two chapters. Here he encourages readers to ponder six diagnostic questions to discern how to respond today to one’s guilty past.

The three chapters on “joyful remembrance” help readers to respond to their guilty past when they handled their sin biblically. Here Viars focuses on what to do when we do not feel forgiven and when we continually rehearse our failures. The two chapters on “honest self-confrontation” teach how to handle our guilty past when we responded unbiblically. Here Viars helps readers to address heart issues and patterns rather than focusing on symptoms, while also directing readers to their only hope—rejoicing in the forgiveness of our Redeemer.

Real-Life Narratives

At first glance, these four categories might imply something of a mechanical approach. Nothing could be further from the truth. Throughout Putting Your Past in Its Place, what shines through is Viars’ decades of experience as a pastor and biblical counselor working with real people with real issues. His creative illustrations, engaging stories, personal examples, weaving in of Jill’s story, real-life testimonials, and questions for personal reflection and group discussion all result in the most reader-friendly counseling book you’ll ever find.

Viars has devoted his life and ministry to helping others change—biblically. Putting Your Past in Its Place is the result of that lifelong ministry. Whether you’re struggling with the process of change related to past suffering or to past sin, this book provides the seasoned, compassionate, pastoral, hope-filled, biblical wisdom you need.

While I highly recommend Putting Your Past in Its Place for the person in the pew, I’m also convinced that it will be a theory-altering, practice-changing book for pastors and biblical counselors. Viars models the sufficiency of Scripture for everyday life like no one I have read. Pastors and counselors can learn from him not only how to help their parishioners and counselees to deal with the past, but even more, how to view and use the Scriptures to develop a theology and methodology for dealing with any life issue.

In an era when our resources seem at times to bounce between theology unrelated to life and self-help manuals not grounded in God’s truth, Putting Your Past in Its Place is a breath of fresh air. The “sufficiency of Scripture” has become something of a buzz word in biblical counseling—used at times without definition or real-life descriptions. By grounding his practical theology in a biblical theology of the past, Viars models a robust, relational, real-world approach to the sufficiency of Scripture. He shows that God’s Word is relevant to all of life, and offers uniquely profound insights for living.

Note: This review first appeared at the Gospel Coalition Book Review site. Read it there at Putting Your Past in Its Place.

Five to Live By

Linking you to the top 5 Christian blog posts of the week—posts that provide robust, rich, and relevant insights for living.

How Do You Respond to Disappointment?

Jay Adams pens a candid, powerful prayer simply titled Disappointment. 

How Do You Use God’s Word to Minister to the Suffering?

Paul Tautges has begun a four-part series on counseling one another in times of suffering: Reasons to Counsel from Lamentations.

How Do You Give Thanks in Everything?

Margaret Ashmore blogs for the Association of Biblical Counselors. In this post she encourages us to live a life of thankfulness: Gratitude: The Language of Heaven.

How Do You Change from a Whiner to a Worshipper?

Scott Smith pens a Prayer for Whining Times. 

How Do You Minister to Those Who Hate You?

How is a pastor to minister to people in his church who hate him? Brian Croft asks and begins to answer that difficult, real-life question in: Is a Pastor To Shepherd Those Who Despise Him in His Church?

Join the Conversation 

Which post impacted you the most? Why? What blog posts have you enjoyed this week that you want to share with others?