Searching & Reading
Via Pieper’s Church Dogmatics Vol. 1, p. 289
Luther’s words read: “In this manner, without doubt, the Prophets studied Moses and the last Prophets the first, and with the phrase “in this manner” he refers to his preceding remarks about Scripture study, which God enjoins upon all Christians and all teachers, as he himself [Luther] and also Augustine read and studied the Scriptures. Such “searching and reading” cannot be done “unless one is there with the pen and jots down the special thoughts with which he is inspired while reading and studying, so that he can hold and retain them.” Also in the words following the remark quoted by Tholuck, Luther speaks of writings as they have been written by all teachers in the Church, also by his “dear sir and friend Dr. Wenzeslaus Link.” Lehre und Wehre, 1885, p. 329ff., reprints Luther’s entire preface to Link’s Annotations and then says: “From this it is evident that Luther is not speaking of the Prophets as writing the Scriptures, but as writing such books as his friend Wenzeslaus Link wrote and for which [Luther] composed the prefaces. Luther is not speaking of writing under the influence of ‘inspiration,’ as we use the term when we speak of the doctrine of inspiration, but of a study of the Prophets, ‘for they were not men of a kind that would put Moses on the shelf and dream their own visions and preach their dreams, but men who daily and diligently studied Moses.’ And in this sphere it was possible, says Luther, that ‘also hay, straw, wood, at times slipped into the writings of these good, faithful teachers and searchers of Scripture.’ … It is clear, then, that in this passage, so persistently quoted to prove Luther’s ‘liberal’ position in the doctrine of inspiration, Luther is not at all speaking of inspiration. Luthhardt, Kahnis, Cremer, etc., have either not looked up the passage in Luther at all or have read the passage inattentively.”
