"If I profess with the loudest voice and the clearest exposition every portion of the truth of God except precisely that little point which the world and the devil are at the moment attacking, I am not confessing Christ, however boldly I maybe professing Christ. Where the battle rages, there the loyalty of the soldier is proved; and to be steady on all the battle field besides, is mere flight and disgrace if he flinches at that point." Martin Luther
This is my favorite Luther quote. Do you have the actual source?
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Ben: Like you I have seen this--and loved this--quote for years. I first came across it in one of Francis Schaeffer's books. But, it was undocumented there (one of the oddities of Schaeffer's work was that some of the best stuff was either unattributed or undocumented--he was a populizer and an evangelist, after all, not an academic). I have seen the quote off and on through the years, but never in any of the Luther works I have read (admittedly, I have only read his Commentary on Galatians, The Bondage of the Will, portions of Table Talk and bits and pieces of other varied writings). But, all that said, I do have a pretty good recent source: J.I. Packer. In his Christianity Today apologia for leaving the Anglican Church over the issue of homosexuality, he used the quote as his final argument--unapologetically and authoritatively attributing it to Luther (January 21, 2003, Vol. 47, No. 1, Page 46). Good enough for me; close enough for Blog-n-Roll.
ReplyDeleteThank you for that source. I have also wondered about the authenticity that quote.
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