Question about supposed quote by Martin Luther

The following quote is often attributed to Martin Luther:

"We need to hear the gospel everyday because we forget it every day" but I cannot find the actual source if it does exist. Could someone provide the source?

In Christ,

Don Robertson

Pearland, TX

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JT (alabama24)

Doing a search in my library resulted in nothing useful. [:S] Doing a google search pulled up your sermon. [:)]

Todd Phillips

I have Luther's Works, and I searched on

gospel NEAR every NEAR day
gospel NEAR forget
forget NEAR "every day"

I got hits, but they weren't really anything like the quote you gave.

tom

The following quote is often attributed to Martin Luther:

"We need to hear the gospel everyday because we forget it every day" but I cannot find the actual source if it does exist. Could someone provide the source?

In Christ,

Don Robertson

Pearland, TX

I personally do not recall reading this in any of Luther's writings. It sounds to me that someone took Luther's view of baptism and modified it. Luther said

It signifies that the old creature in us with all sins and evil desires is to be drowned and die through daily contrition and repentance, and on the other hand that daily a new person is to come forth and rise up to live before God in righteousness and purity forever.

Robert Kolb, Timothy J. Wengert, and Charles P. Arand, The Book of Concord: The Confessions of the Evangelical Lutheran Church (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 2000) 360.

Mike Childs

Searched Luther's Works and Luther's Table Talk and found nothing similar.

Ken McGuire

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/511199#Comment_511199

I personally do not recall reading this in any of Luther's writings. It sounds to me that someone took Luther's view of baptism and modified it.

Yeah - it is easy to hear echos of the Small Catechism on Baptism here. - or I suppose the Catechism on Confession too. But the exact quote is unfamiliar to me.

SDG

Ken McGuire

Lynden O. Williams

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/511352#Comment_511352

Sounds like that famous text that I use to hear so often a long time ago. "What is needful is lawful"

tom

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/511352#Comment_511352

I suppose the Catechism on Confession too.

Very true.

tom

We need to hear the gospel everyday because we forget it every day

Not only do I don't think Luther said this, this statement doesn't even sound like Luther to me. This statement as written puts the emphases on the hearer - not on God's. For an example, Luther wrote:

I believe that by my own understanding or strength I cannot believe in Jesus Christ my LORD or come to him, but instead the Holy Spirit has called me through the gospel, enlightened me with his gifts, made me holy and kept me in the true faith, just as he calls, gathers, enlightens, and makes holy the whole Christian church.

Robert Kolb, Timothy J. Wengert, and Charles P. Arand, The Book of Concord: The Confessions of the Evangelical Lutheran Church (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 2000) 355.

Luther puts the emphases on God - not people.

Ken McGuire

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/511456#Comment_511456

Drifting off topic, but Luther very much had a "for us" - or "for you" (the hearer) aspect to just about everything he said. Isn't that what all of what he said about the preached God vs. the Hidden God all about?

I just think that Luther would have tied the quote to some to some specific gift of God to us - like Baptism, or the word of the Gospel in Confession, etc. He wasn't that big on abstract thought that could divert us from the Babe in the manger or the Man on the Cross.

SDG

Ken McGuire

DHG

I could be wrong here, but I believe it may be a very loose translation of this quote:

"It is, therefore, extremely necessary that we come to know this doctrine [the Gospel] well and constantly inculcate it." Luther's Works, Vol. 26, p 91

I've seen it paraphrased several different ways.

DHG

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/511471#Comment_511471

Check out how John Stott quotes/paraphrases the passage:

"This is the truth of the gospel. It is also the principal article of all Christian doctrine, wherein the knowledge of all godliness consisteth. Most necessary it is, therefore, that we should know this article well, teach it unto others, and beat it into their heads continually." The Message of Galatians on Galatians 2:15–21

Very different, but I like it!

Pastor Don Robertson

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/511479#Comment_511479

I take it that you are quoting John Stott's summary of Gal. 2:15-21 in his commentary "The Message of Galatians" but not really validating the supposed quote by Luther I asked about? Am I reading you correctly?

If this is what you are doing, I do appreciate what Stott is saying.

Pastor Don Robertson

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/511479#Comment_511479

If this is what you are doing, I do appreciate what Stott is saying.

DHG

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/511531#Comment_511531

My first post was from Luther's Works. I believe that is the quote you asked about. I also included Stott's quote because he was quoting the exact same passage from Luther, but it was translated quite differently.

David Bosshard

I realize this is a very old post, but was looking for this answer myself. I believe it is a paraphrase of this: “The highest of all God’s commands is this, that we ever hold up before our eyes the image of his dear Son, our Lord Jesus Christ. He must daily be to our hearts the perfect mirror, in which we behold how much God loves us and how well, in his infinite goodness, as a faithful God, he has grandly cared for us in that he gave his dear Son for us. Do not let this mirror and throne of grace be torn away from before your eyes.”

Tappert, Luther: Letters of Spiritual Counsel, p. 116.

DHG

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/1036936#Comment_1036936

Interesting. Could be.

Nancy Green

Here is the quote (please excuse me if you’ve already gotten this —i didn’t find it readily on this page. I found this at Tolle Lege:

“The law is divine and holy. Let the law have his glory, but yet no law, be it never so divine and holy, ought to teach me that I am justified, and shall live through it. I grant it may teach me that I ought to love God and my neighbour; also to live in chastity, soberness, patience, etc., but it ought not to show me, how I should be delivered from sin, the devil, death, and hell.

Here I must take counsel of the gospel. I must hearken to the gospel, which teacheth me, not what I ought to do, (for that is the proper office of the law,) but what Jesus Christ the Son of God hath done for me : to wit, that He suffered and died to deliver me from sin and death. The gospel willeth me to receive this, and to believe it. And this is the truth of the gospel. It is also the principal article of all Christian doctrine, wherein the knowledge of all godliness consisteth.

Most necessary it is, therefore, that we should know this article well, teach it unto others, and beat it into their heads continually.”

–Martin Luther, St. Paul’s Epistle to the Galatians (Philadelphia: Smith, English & Co., 1860), 206.

JT (alabama24)

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/1271266#Comment_1271266

Welcome Nancy! [:)]

we should know this article well, teach it unto others, and beat it into their heads continually

A good and interesting quote by Luther!

However, If someone read this passage and then said, "We need to hear the gospel everyday..." the quote would be the person who said the latter. It hasn't become a quote by Luther. There is a similar message, but not an equal one.

DAL

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/1271270#Comment_1271270

I love this quote 😂

”I have such hatred of divorce that I prefer bigamy to divorce.”
Martin Luther

xnman

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/1271273#Comment_1271273

In my search, I found the following quote by Martin Luther which is pretty close:

"For the Gospel ought always to be in remembrance and to be heard by the faithful, because it works so constantly and never ceases its working."

"The Gospel cannot be mastered by study. You must utterly despair of your own reason and strength; you must go to the cross in deep sorrow, lay hold of the Gospel, and cling to it."

"Every day the believer must be reborn by the Gospel, must die to sins, and must remember the day of redemption, the day when we were washed."