Monday, October 15, 2012
Matthew 4:18-20 "Come, follow me," Jesus said, "and I will make you fishers of men." At once they left their nets and followed him.
"I WILL MAKE YOU ..."
"I, Doctor Martin, was called and compelled to become a doctor out of pure obedience, without my will. So I had to assume the office of a teacher (doctor) and swear and promise my most beloved Holy Scripture that I would preach and teach it faithfully and purely. In the course of this teaching the papacy blocked my way and wanted to keep me from doing so. But it fared as you may see, and it will fare increasingly worse and will not be able to defend itself against me. In the name and at the call of God I will 'tread upon the lion and adder: the young lion and trample the dragon under feet' (Ps. 91:13). And this shall be begun during my life and completed after my death. St. John Huss prophesied of me when he wrote from his prison in Bohemia: They will now roast a goose (for Huss means a goose), but after a hundred years they will hear a swan sing; him they will have to tolerate. And so it shall continue, if it please God.
"I have often said and still say that I would not take the wealth of the world for my doctorate. For truly I would finally have to lose courage and despair of the great, weighty matter that rests on me if I had begun it as a meddler, without call and command. But now God and all the world must bear me witness that I have begun it publicly in the discharge of my doctorate and the office of the ministry and have brought it thus far with God's grace and help."
-- Martin Luther
