Luther on Romans

While he was still an Augustinian monk, Martin Luther began a series of lectures on Romans at Wittenberg on November 3, 1515 that continued until September 7, 1516. By the fall of 1517 he had posted his 95 theses that launched the Protestant Reformation. It was his study of Romans that God used, in large part, to set this revival in motion.

Luther’s commentary on Romans, which came from those lectures, begins with these words:

This epistle is really the chief part of the New Testament and the very purest Gospel, and is worthy not only that every Christian should know it word for word, by heart, but occupy himself with it every day, as the daily bread of the soul. It can never be read or pondered too much, and the more it is dealt with the more precious it becomes, and the better it tastes (source: Martin Luther, Commentary on Romans [Kregel, 1954]: p. xiii).

JTR