A Christian’s Need for Review
If you would prefer to watch this instead of reading it, here is a link to the video.
Welcome back to another episode of The Doctor’s In. Today, I am drinking beer because if one is talking about Martin Luther, the only thing to do is drink beer. Now, I don’t have a Belgium beer, which would have been the style that Katherine Luther would have been brewing. This is mostly because I don’t like Belgiums. They are one of the few beers that I can’t stand. So, I have a lager today, nothing special.
Now, being a teacher, one has to do a lot of reading. If a teacher teaches the same class year after year, they do a lot of re-reading. I like this aspect of teaching because it means that I can focus on getting better at teaching rather than just trying to stay ahead of the students. I spend more time on thinking about what matters in this lesson and how I am going to get them to understand it.
This week in Omnibus, we are going through some of the writings of Luther. We are reading this compilation of his work. I think it gives an alright introduction to some of the thoughts of Luther. I wouldn’t look to it at all as comprehensive. In class, we are only reading a few parts of it because time and student capacity. We are spending one week on it. With the selections that we are reading, we already have too much to cover in class. It’ll be good times.
I’m not giving a full analysis of this work today. In this reading of this book, I think this is the third time I have read it, I came across an interesting line. Gotta love how one can keep finding new things in old works. At the beginning of each new section, there is a paragraph of background on the work that follows. In the background on Sermons on the Catechism, the editor, John Dillenberger, said this about the section: “These sermons were part of a regular pattern of presenting the ‘elements and fundamentals of Christian knowledge and life four times each year.’”
These sermons cover the topics of the Apostle’s Creed, the Lord’s Prayer, and then Baptism and the Lord’s Supper. So introductory and deep theology going on here.
The thing that was impressed upon me this time is that these are taught four times per year. Preaching the same thing 4 times per year. I don’t like to teach the same book every year, let alone 4 times a year. Luther had a pattern of teaching the basics to his people so that they would not forget them. The printing press was a new invention still. Reading had not spread down through the poor people yet. They were dependent upon their priests and pastors telling them the truth. A leader has to understand that no matter how far they want to go into a thing, if they are bringing people along with them, they have to go at the speed of those who are following. Luther understood this.
Why I love this is it reminds me to sometime slow down and review. I do build some review into my life, like reading through my Bible every year. But even today, I was trying to figure out a way to be able to read more new books. I spend a lot of my time re-reading books in order to teach them. A lot of my work week is doing review work. This is important as a teacher but is hard as a leader. If one is always looking backwards, it can be hard to see the path forward. I want to accomplish more, so I need to figure out my time and efforts better.
One thing I have been trying to do is mark up my books and add notes in them so that I don’t have to read the whole book, just my highlights and questions in order to teach them. This way, I can read other things in order to have better range of knowledge for my classes. You can see this book. I have a lot of pieces of paper in here with discussion questions written on them. This is how I prepare for class. I would call this loaded for bear. I’ve got way more than I could cover. It makes for good times.
Why I wanted to share this with you is to give you this encouragement. Life, especially in America, seems to be all about advancement, getting ahead, and making progress. Everything that looks like advancement is not actually advancement. If one moves from one ideology to another, building from one to the next, that is a good thing. But if the foundation is forgotten, then the ideology becomes unfounded, unstable. You may have started out with your beliefs based upon the solid rock, but if it gets lost under everything else that you have built on top of it, even you’re building on air. A house of cards in the air is sure to flutter violently into the wind, never to have any impact anywhere. So, as you run hard to work and get better, be sure to make time to go back and do some review. It is amazing how much more you’ll learn each time you do this. Don’t forget the foundational rocks. Look back at the promises.
Trust me, every time I read a great book again, I learn more from it. So, take the time. Go back and sit with an old friend. It will be a comfort to your soul.
I am on to my next re-read for the week.
With this, the Doctor is Out.