Mondays with Marty

In this week's installment from Off the Record with Martin Luther, Luther writes about the burden and responsibilities of a preacher:

"453. If I were to write about the burden and responsibilities of a preacher, as I have experienced them, I would scare everyone away from it. For a good preacher must be of such a mind that nothing is dearer to him than Christ and His life; so that when he finally has lost this life, and everything, he knows Christ will say to him: 'Come here to me, my dear son.' I hope that He will also speak to me with those words on Judgment Day, for here all speak to me in an unfriendly way. I have the burden of the whole world, the emperor, and the Pope. But since I have been called to this, I must stand my ground and say: 'What I do is right.' After I was called, the devil attacked me many times and has tormented me with this argument: 'You haven't been called!' As if I had been made a doctor for nothing." (pp. 211)

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