3 Quotes by Lyndal Roper

Luther describes how backbiters are like hyenas or dogs who dig up stinking human corpses, pullulating with decay and full of worms, and bite into them – “Ugh, what a dreadful monster the backbiter is!

Unlike other reformers, Luther rarely claimed divine inspiration for his ideas. It is interesting too that he uses the word Kunst – art – for it suggests that the insight, like the skill of a craftsman or artist, opened up a whole new ability to accomplish things in a different way.

The Gotha sermon takes us closer than any other testimony to the religious despair and overwhelming sinfulness that Luther felt as a monk. And it was at this point that he had begun to study Paul’s Letter to the Romans, an intellectual and devotional exercise that would transform his spirituality.