Martin Luther — "The more you read the Bible, the more you will love it; the more you love it, th…"
The more you read the Bible, the more you will love it; the more you love it, the more you will read it.
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More from Martin Luther
"The soul can do without anything except the Word of God, without which there is no help for it at all."
"If these works of mercy do not suit them, then we must expel them forever from our country."
"We are not yet what we shall be, but we are growing toward it, the process is not yet finished, but it is going on, this is not the end, but it is the road."
"If they can bear to live among us Christians and Jews, then they should be forced to work like women in childbirth."
"The best way to worship God is to do your duty."
About Martin Luther (1483-1546)
German theologian whose 95 Theses (1517) launched the Protestant Reformation and broke the Catholic Church's monopoly on Western Christianity. Closely associated with Philipp Melanchthon (Lutheran systematizer) and John Calvin (later Reformer who built on Luther's break). For an intellectual contrast, see Pope Leo X, Renaissance pope (1513-1521) — Leo X's indulgence sales triggered Luther's break and Leo excommunicated him in 1521 — Luther's entire Reformation is structured as a direct answer to the indulgence-funded Vatican Leo represented.
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Understanding this quote
What it means
Reading scripture and loving scripture feed each other in a self-reinforcing cycle. The more time you spend with the text, the deeper your affection for it grows, and that affection in turn pulls you back to read more. It describes how genuine engagement with a meaningful book builds momentum: familiarity breeds attachment, and attachment drives further study, until the practice becomes its own reward.
Relevance to Martin Luther
Luther staked his entire reform movement on direct lay access to scripture, translating the Bible into vernacular German so ordinary people could read it themselves rather than depend on clerical interpretation. As a former Augustinian monk and theology professor at Wittenberg, he spent decades immersed in the text, and his doctrine of sola scriptura made personal Bible reading the foundation of Christian life. This quote distills his lifelong conviction that scripture rewards sustained attention.
The era
In early sixteenth-century Europe, the Bible was largely a Latin clerical possession, inaccessible to most laypeople who relied on priests to mediate its meaning. Gutenberg's printing press, perfected decades earlier, was beginning to make books affordable, and Luther's 1522 German New Testament rode that wave to mass circulation. His call for personal Bible reading was radical: it transferred spiritual authority from the institutional Church to the individual reader, fueling the Reformation's split from Rome.
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