A Reader’s Guide to Martin Luther

Thy word is a lamp unto my feet, and a light unto my path. PSALM 119:105

Luther wrote more than almost anyone of his century: treatises, commentaries, sermons, hymns, catechisms, letters and pamphlets, filling well over a hundred volumes in the great German edition. All of it is in the public domain, and much is available in older English translations. The standard modern English edition, Luther’s Works, runs to fifty-five volumes and more. No one needs to read it all. What follows is a short map.

Begin here

The Freedom of a Christian (1520). Begin here. It is short, calm and beautiful: the soul free in faith, the Christian servant of all in love. If you read only one of his treatises, read this. An older English translation is included in First Principles of the Reformation, edited by Henry Wace and C. A. Buchheim in 1883, with the Ninety-Five Theses and the other two great treatises of 1520.

The Small Catechism (1529). A few pages, meant for the kitchen table. Read its explanations of the Creed and the Lord’s Prayer slowly; they are among the finest things he wrote.

A Simple Way to Pray (1535). The little book for his barber. Practical, humble and immediately usable. Many readers find that it changes the way they pray.

Sermons

Luther preached several thousand sermons, and his postils — collections of sermons on the appointed readings for the church year — were read aloud in German homes and churches for centuries. Six of his sermons are in the Ochorus library: on the birth of Jesus, the appearing of the grace of God, Christ’s sufferings, His resurrection, the office of the Holy Spirit, and Paul’s praise of love. They are the best place to hear his own voice — vivid, earthy, pastoral and sometimes fierce. A large English edition of his sermons was prepared by John Nicholas Lenker in the early twentieth century.

The great treatises

To the Christian Nobility of the German Nation (1520). The priesthood of all believers and a programme for reform. Vigorous and occasionally rough.

On the Babylonian Captivity of the Church (1520). His critique of the medieval sacraments. Demanding, but essential for understanding the break with Rome.

The Bondage of the Will (1525). His answer to Erasmus, and his most searching theological book. Read it with Erasmus’s own Diatribe beside it if you can, and with the cautions raised in this volume in mind.

Temporal Authority: To What Extent It Should Be Obeyed (1523). The fullest statement of his teaching on the two kingdoms.

Scripture and commentary

The Preface to the Epistle to the Romans (1522). A few pages that sum up his reading of Paul. It was hearing this preface read that warmed John Wesley’s heart in 1738.

Lectures on Galatians (published 1535). His fullest and most passionate exposition of justification by faith. An English translation first appeared in 1575, and it was this book that helped John Bunyan find peace; he wrote that he preferred it, apart from the Bible, to all the books he had ever seen. It is long, repetitive and glorious.

Lectures on Genesis. His last great work, full of reflections on marriage, work, family and providence. Best dipped into.

Hymns

A mighty fortress is our God; Out of the depths I cry to Thee; From heaven above to earth I come. Read them as poems as well as singing them. Many of his other hymns remain in use in Lutheran hymnbooks.

Approach with care

Table Talk. Conversations at his dinner table, recorded by students and published after his death. Lively and often wise, but the notes vary in reliability, and some sayings are coarse. Quote them with caution.

Against the Robbing and Murdering Hordes of Peasants (1525), and On the Jews and Their Lies (1543). These should be read, if at all, only as history, with sorrow, and as a warning. They are not guides to Christian thought or practice.

About Luther

Roland Bainton’s Here I Stand: A Life of Martin Luther (1950) remains the most readable introduction: warm, vivid and fair. Heiko Oberman’s Luther: Man between God and the Devil (English translation 1989) is a profound study of his inner world and his sense of spiritual battle. Martin Brecht’s three-volume biography, translated into English between 1985 and 1993, is the most thorough modern account. Lyndal Roper’s Martin Luther: Renegade and Prophet (2016) is a searching and unsentimental portrait by a historian who does not share his faith.

Three counsels for reading him

Read him for the gospel. His heart is always in the promise of grace, for you. Look for it on every page.

Read him honestly. Take the Freedom of a Christian and the tract against the Jews as the work of the same man. Do not defend what cannot be defended, and do not throw away what is true.

Read him under Scripture. He would insist on it. He wanted to be a voice pointing to Christ, not a new authority. Test everything he says by the Word, and where he agrees with it, give thanks for the friar who found the gate of heaven in the letter to the Romans.

For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ: for it is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth; to the Jew first, and also to the Greek. ROMANS 1:16