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Katharina Luther: Faith in Christ and Love for Neighbor During the Plague

March 30, 2020 by Christina

In the course of a woman’s life, she will have many mentors. Katie Luther is one of my mine. In fact, she is the primary reason this blog has become largely inactive. Accounts of her industry and productivity challenged me to talk less and do more. Katie’s famous, “I’ve read enough, I’ve heard enough, I know enough. Would to God I lived it” fell on me hard. Luther’s own Morningstar of Wittenberg is the reason I wake up at 4 o’clock in the morning! I’m not ashamed to say it: I wanna be like Katie! 🙂 Katie Luther was a woman who was more concerned with living out the faith than she was talking about it.

With recent global/national events being what they are, I’ve been thinking a lot about her. What would she be doing? What would her priorities be? How would she be expressing her faith? Katie was a busy woman. She oversaw the entire parsonage operation and made the Luther home what it was – a safe house for many. And during the plague, that parsonage was converted into a hospital and at their own risk, the Luther’s cared for the afflicted.  

The nature of today’s epidemic is, thankfully, not as bad as the ones that Katie lived through – at least not yet – however, the call to quietly and humbly submit to God’s providence, to trust in his goodness, and love our neighbor is just as relevant. Of course, most of what we know about her is gathered from her husband’s letters. So, today I’m sharing certain excerpts of those letters that are cited in one of my favorite Katie Luther biographies, “A Reformation Life: Katharina Von Bora” by Rudolf and Marilynn Markwald.

“When the plague hit Wittenburg, the worst part of the disease was the fear it engendered. People ran from each other, as well as from the pestilence. Many fled the city during the epidemic but Katie remained. According to contemporary reports, her deep faith in Christ and her personal courage sustained her. Neither Katie nor Martin were afraid of the plague, and when people fell ill to the epidemic, the Luthers turned Lutherhaus into a hospital. After Sebald Musterer’s wife died and her husband became seriously ill, Kate took their four children, who also were sick, into Lutherhaus. What motivated the Luthers to do this? In “Whether One May Flee from a Deadly Plague,” Luther wrote:

First one has to submit quietly to God, trusting in His love and goodness. Then staying put and not fleeing from the plague or any disaster is to be praised because it is a sign of a strong faith. But a person needs more than milchglauben [infantile faith] for that . . . It is required (1 Corinthians 12:12ff) that everyone take care of his body and not abuse it by being dummkeck [showing off one’s courage] . . . If no one is available to take care of a sick neighbor, he should never be abandoned, and Matthew 25:34ff. teaches that all Christians are linked together so we cannot desert anyone in need but are duty-bound to help him or her in the same way as we would want this person to help us in our exigencies . . . If a city or country has a hospital, that is fine and good. But if not, then people’s residences have to become infirmities, and by God’s grace, each neighbor must become a caregiver and nurse for the suffering ones.

Luther added one more spiritual dimension to his position regarding the plague when he said,

We shall discover that God thereby tests our faith and our love – our faith so we may know how we stand in relationship with God and our love so we may learn just what is our relationship to our neighbor.

In closing, Luther encouraged the faithful with these words:

We must say to the devil, “Get out of my way with your scaring! In defiance of you I will help my sick neighbor knowing that it is pleasing to God and all His angels. Since Christ has shed His blood for me and died for me, how can I not, for His sake, place myself into this small danger of a powerless pestilence?” Say, “Satan, if you frighten me, Christ will give me courage; and if you have poison in your mouth, Christ has more than enough remedies to heal me.

In his 1539 sermon on the same subject, Luther said,

We did not flee . . . I am your preacher and visitor of the sick, and Katie is the nurse, doctor, pharmacist, counselor, etc. God has protected Kate and me and our whole family from two plagues. We have been blessed in this city in good days, why should we leave when suffering strikes.

This was Martin and Katharina Luther’s faithful commitment to serving not only each other but all who were in need.”

Again, the nature of today’s crisis does not rise to the one that Martin and Katie faced. But Katie’s faith in Christ and love for her neighbor are encouraging me today. May they encourage you, too!

“Charm is deceitful, and beauty is vain, but a woman who fears the LORD is to be praised.” Proverbs 31:30

Markwald, Rudolf K. and Marilynn Morris, A Reformation Life: Katharina Von Bora. Concordia Publishing House, 1919, St. Louis, pages 165-167.

Martin Luther on Responding to Pandemics

March 18, 2020 by Christina

“I shall ask God mercifully to protect us. Then I shall fumigate, help purify the air, administer medicine and take it. I shall avoid places and persons where my presence is not needed in order not to become contaminated and thus perchance inflict and pollute others and so cause their death as a result of my negligence. If God should wish to take me, he will surely find me and I have done what he has expected of me and so I am not responsible for either my own death or the death of others. If my neighbor needs me however I shall not avoid place or person but will go freely as stated above. See this is such a God-fearing faith because it is neither brash nor foolhardy and does not tempt God.”

Source: The Patriot Post

When Women Receive the Gospel

September 20, 2019 by Christina

 

Women who ministered 800W

“I have oftentimes noted, when women receive the doctrine of the gospel, they are far more fervent in faith, they hold to it more stiff and fast, than men do; as we see in the loving Magdalen, who was more hearty and bold than Peter.” – Martin Luther

William Hazlitt, Esq., trans., The Table Talk or Familiar Discourse of Martin Luther (London: Fleet Street, 1848), 367. Digitized by Google.

Philip Melanchthon on the Death of Martin Luther

June 10, 2017 by Christina

When Martin Luther died his close friend, and leader of the Protestant Reformation, Philip Melanchthon, delivered a powerful eulogy.  In his tribute, Melanchthon addresses Luther’s well-known brashness and harshness of tone.  Indeed, it was no secret that Luther, for all his education, wasn’t one for refinement. In fact, his wife, Katharina, often chided him as being “too raw”. But during a time when preaching the Gospel could mean having your tongue cut out, it seems to me Luther was just the man for the hour.

Here’s Melanchthon giving glory to God alone for the life of a man who, for all his problems, was key to preserving a Gospel of grace for generations to come.

“Some by no means evil-minded persons, however, express a suspicion that Luther manifested too much asperity. I will not affirm the reverse, but only quote the language of Erasmus, “God has sent in this latter age a violent physician on account of the magnitude of the existing disorders,” fulfilling by such a dispensation the divine message to Jeremiah, “Behold I have put My words in thy mouth. See I have this day set thee over the nations, and over the kingdoms, to root out and pull down, and to destroy and throw down, to build and to plant.” Nor does God govern His church according to the counsels of men, nor choose to employ instruments like theirs to promote His purposes. But it is usual for inferior minds to dislike those of a more ardent character.”

Our God is in heaven; he does whatever pleases him. – Psalms 115:3 (NIV)

Online Source:  On the Death of Luther by Philip Melanchthon

Click here to read some of the things that Luther actually said!

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