Love and Marriage: Luther Style
On occasion, I read Boundless, the college and post-college webzine by Focus on the Family. I happened to take a dive into their archives and discovered an article on love and marriage by Justin Taylor. I thought it was interesting that he took a look at it from the perspective of of the Father of the Protestant Reformation, Martin Luther.
I thought the history was pretty fascinating. I think we have a tendancy to put Luther in the category of those early church fathers who cannot relate to us and have nothing to teach the 21st century student. Quite the contrary, I love the 4 main points that Taylor brings out in his article:
- Martin and Katie didn’t put their hope in marriage; they put their hope in God
- Martin and Katie didn’t marry each other because they were infatuated with each other; instead they grew to love each other because they were married.
- Martin and Katie viewed marriage as a school for growing in godliness.
- Martin and Katie enjoyed the God-given gifts of life and marriage unto the glory of God.
I like point 2, and think it presents the greatest challenge to the modern reader. Our modern concept of love (or at least the Hollywood one) is to gaze across the room and fall in love with the gorgeous or handsome person standing there all without knowing their name.
I like how Martin and Katie challenge that notion by instead growing in their love for each other, knowing that they were forever commited to each other. It goes without saying that divorce was not an option for them.
Things to ponder…
In searching for information about marriage as a sacrament, I recently found these views expounded by the same Martin Luther:
Writing about marriage in his book, “Von den Ehesachen,” (published in Wittenberg in 1530) he writes (p. 1): “No one indeed can deny that marriage is an external worldly thing, like clothes and food, house and home, subject to worldly authority, as shown by so many imperial laws governing it.” In an earlier work (the original edition of “De captivitate Babylonica”) he writes: “Not only is the sacramental character of matrimony without foundation in Scripture; but the very traditions, which claim such sacredness for it, are a mere jest”; and two pages further on: “Marriage may therefore be a figure of Christ and the Church; it is, however, no Divinely instituted sacrament, but the invention of men in the Church, arising from ignorance of the subject.”
Those protestant conservatives who insist that their view of their church’s view of marriage should hold for everyone because their view has been that of the church since ‘time out of mind’ should ponder these quotes.
Hi John,
Thanks for your comment and thoughts. I hadn’t realized that Luther had also written those words. I guess the one other thing I’d mention is that I don’t feel that Luther always speaks for all “protestant conservatives” for all time. In fact, there is ample evidence to suggest (see “On the Jews and Their Lies”) that a few years from his death, he became strongly anti-semitic. I don’t think it’s fair to suggest that merely because he was anti-semitic, all protestant conservatives are.
Can I ask how you found me?
Brian
Hello Brian,
I did a search on Google on the terms “Luther” and “Marriage.”
I’m what most of the world considers and OXYMORON.
I’m an evangelical liberal.
I take very seriously the commandment to “love my neighbor” because it sums up the law and the prophets.
Not unlike Peter in Joppa, I’ve encountered the Spirit in places that most evangelicals consider impossible. Nine years ago my wife and I were guests at the Connection in Tacoma, the annual summer gathering of Evangelicals Concerned. I went because it was a chance to meet Lew Smedes of Fuller Seminary fame. I came home knowing that, like Peter, I had a message to share. Although it often seems like I’m trying to make change by ‘pushing on a string’ I nevertheless see it happening.
God bless,
John