My Lingerings for Fighting w/ My Mind (a study of Martin Luther)

I wanted to know about Martin Luther and how he dealt with his mind. Having a weak mind myself, I wanted to know how he lived having to fight with his mind, which he described as a devil's snare against his beliefs. In the movie Luther (2003), I saw Luther to look demented or deranged but he was actually fighting against the devil. People might have thought of him as "out of his mind", just as Jesus was called by his family (Mark 3:21). I found John Piper's message on Martin Luther: Lessons from His Life and Labor. These are excerpts, taken only portions towards the last of Piper's message, of what answered my lingerings for fighting with my mind, and highlights what captured me most from Luther.

5. Which leads us to the next characteristic of Luther at study, namely, suffering. For Luther, trials make a theologian. Temptation and affliction are the hermeneutical touchstones.

Luther notices in Psalm 119 that the psalmist not only prayed and meditated over the Word of God in order to understand it; he also suffered in order to understand it. Psalm 119:67, "Before I was afflicted I went astray, but now I keep thy word ... 71 It is good for me that I was afflicted, that I may learn Thy statutes." An indispensable key to understanding the Scriptures is suffering in the path of righteousness.

Thus Luther said: "I want you to know how to study theology in the right way. I have practiced this method myself ... Here you will find three rules. They are frequently proposed throughout Psalm [119] and run thus: Oration, meditatio, tentatio (Prayer, meditation, trial). And trials (Anfechtungen) he called the "touchstone." "[They] teach you not only to know and understand but also to experience how right, how true, how sweet, how lovely, how mighty, how comforting God's word is: it is wisdom supreme".

Physically he suffered from excruciating kidney stones and headaches with buzzing in his ears and ear infections and incapacitating constipation —"I nearly gave up the ghost—an now, bathed in blood, can find no peace. What took four days to heal immediately tears open again".

It's not surprising then that emotionally and spiritually he would undergo the most horrible struggles. For example, in a letter to Melancthon on August 2, 1527, he writes, "For more than a week I have been thrown back and forth in death and Hell; my whole body feels beaten, my limbs are still trembling. I almost lost Christ completely, driven about on the waves and storms of despair and blasphemy against God. But because of the intercession of the faithful, God began to take mercy on me and tore my soul from the depths of Hell".

On the outside, to many, he looked invulnerable. But those close to him knew the tentatio. Again he wrote to Melancthon from the Wartburg castle on July 13, 1521, while he was supposedly working feverishly on the translation of the New Testament:

I sit here at ease, hardened and unfeeling—alas! praying little, grieving little for the Church of God, burning rather in the fierce fires of my untamed flesh. It comes to this: I should be afire in the spirit; in reality I am afire in the flesh, with lust, laziness, idleness, sleepiness. It is perhaps because you have all ceased praying for me that God has turned away from me ... For the last eight days I have written nothing, nor prayed nor studied, partly from self-indulgence, partly from another vexatious handicap [constipation and piles] ... I really cannot stand it any longer ... Pray for me, I beg you, for in my seclusion here I am submerged in sins.

These were the trials he said made him a theologian. These experiences were as much a part of his exegetical labors as were his Greek lexicon. This has caused me to think twice before I begrudge the trials of my ministry. How often I am tempted to think that the pressures and conflicts and frustrations are simply distractions from the business of study and understanding. Luther (and Psalm 119:71) teach us to see it all another way. That stressful visit that interrupted your study may well be the very lens through which the text will open to you as never before. Tentatio—trial, the thorn in the flesh—is Satan's unwitting contribution to our becoming good theologians.

But at one point Luther confessed that in such circumstances faith "exceeds my powers".

6. Which leads to the final characteristic of Luther at study: prayer and reverent dependence on the all-sufficiency of God.

That the Holy Scriptures cannot be penetrated by study and talent is most certain. Therefore your first duty is to begin to pray, and to pray to this effect that if it please God to accomplish something for His glory—not for yours or any other person's—He very graciously grant you a true understanding of His words. For no master of the divine words exists except the Author of these words, as He says: 'They shall be all taught of God' (John 6:45). You must, therefore, completely despair of your own industry and ability and rely solely on the inspiration of the Spirit.

But for Luther that does not mean leaving the "external Word" in mystical reverie, but bathing all our work in prayer, and casting ourselves so on God that he enters and sustains and prospers all our study.

Since the Holy Writ wants to be dealt with in fear and humility and penetrated more by studying [!] with pious prayer than with keenness of intellect, therefore it is impossible for those who rely only on their intellect and rush into Scripture with dirty feet, like pigs, as though Scripture were merely a sort of human knowledge not to harm themselves and others whom they instruct".

Again he sees the psalmist in Psalm 119 not only suffering and meditating but praying again and again:

Psalm 119:18 Open my eyes, that I may behold wonderful things from Thy law. 27 Make me understand the way of Thy precepts, teach me, O LORD, the way of Thy statutes. 23 Give me understanding, that I may observe Thy law. 35 Make me walk in the path of Thy commandments, for I delight in it. 36 Incline my heart to Thy testimonies, and not to dishonest gain. 37 Revive me in Thy ways.

So he concludes that the true biblical way to study the Bible will be saturated with prayer and self-doubt and God-reliance moment by moment:

You should completely despair of your own sense and reason, for by these you will not attain the goal ... Rather kneel down in your private little room and with sincere humility and earnestness pray God through His dear Son, graciously to grant you His Holy Spirit to enlighten and guide you and give you understanding.

Luther's emphasis on prayer in study is rooted in his theology, and here is where his methodology and his theology become one. He was persuaded from Romans 8:7 and elsewhere that "The natural mind cannot do anything godly. It does not perceive the wrath of God, there cannot rightly fear him. It does not see the goodness of God, therefore cannot trust or believe in him either. Therefore [!] we should constantly pray that God will bring forth his gifts in us". All our study is futile without the work of God overcoming our blindness and hardheartedness.

.... Man is powerless to justify himself, powerless to sanctify himself, powerless to study as he ought and powerless to trust God to do anything about this.

This is why prayer is the root of Luther's approach to studying God's word. Prayer is the echo of the freedom and sufficiency of God in the heart of powerless man. It is the way he conceived of his theology and the way he pursued his studies. And it is the way he died.

At 3:00 a.m. on February 18, 1546, Luther died. His last recorded words were, "Wir sein Bettler. Hoc est verum." "We are beggars. This is true". God is free—utterly free—in his grace. And we are beggars—pray-ers. That is how we live, and that is how we study, so that God gets the glory and we get the grace.

However, this study of Martin Luther does not end here, I still have others to read. Now that I know what Luther did during these hard times, it's pray, faith, meditate, read, carry my cross. Why have I not listened to my spiritual parents that I have to go searching for answers and information? Because I fail to understand and my heart is still hardened....even to the Gospel despite my "faith" on it.

Like Luther in search for the true forgiveness of sins, I am in search for the truth and understanding of God and His Word, that include the Trinity, the Gospel, and the Kingdom of God.

I pray for forgiveness for my unbelief, lack of knowledge and understanding, hardheartedness, and for God not to forsake me and turn His Face from me, but to have mercy on me. I fear to lose God whom I waveringly trust. Enable me, Father. Give me strength, courage, and patience in this labor towards knowing You.