So what does Luther expect?

Well, this is what he tells us we should expect to read when we read the Gospels.

He wrote a little text in 1522.

Now this was an important moment in Luther's life. If we remember our

timeline here, it was in 1521. In April, in fact, of 1521, that Luther appeared before the Diet at Verms, and it is there that he made his famous

Here I stand moment in his Here I stand declaration thundering that his conscience is captive to

the word of God he can do no other God help me here I stand

amen. It was in the aftermath of that that Luther went to the castle, the Vortberg

castle overlooking the town of Isonock and there in what is truly a modest study, Luther wrote three texts. One of them

was very significant. It was a translation. It was a translation of the Greek New Testament into German.

That's a remarkable feat when you stop and think about that Luther was able to do that in such a short amount of time. It shows us that not only was Luther bold, but he was quite a scholar.

The other thing that Luther wrote while he was there was a series of sermons. These are called the church postels or the kirken postel. This was a series of

sermons that expound upon the gospel and expound upon the main theme of the New Testament. You get the picture if the Bible has been out of the reach

of the church for so long then preaching has also been out of reach of the church for so long.

And so Luther was not only concerned

about putting the word of God in the hands of the people.

And so he translated the New Testament.

He also wanted them to understand what they were reading.

So he wrote these sermons, not so much that these sermons would be preached and

just taken verbatim and preached in pulpitts, but that these sermons would model

how the word of God should be handled from the pulpit.

And as a little forward to that, Luther wrote a third text.

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