Lutheran Quotes
Rev. Dr. Martin Luther (1483-1546)
“The greatest blessing is to have a pious, God-fearing, domesticated wife to whom one can entrust his property, even his body and life, with whom you can raise children.”
Martin Luther, WA, TR, no. 2350b, p. 428.
“A wife is a friendly, gracious, and pleasant companion in life. Women bear children and raise them, rule the house and distribute in an orderly fashion whatever a man earns and brings into the household, so that nothing is wasted or frittered away on unnecessary things, but that everyone receives what he needs. For this reason they are called “treasure of the house” by the Holy Spirit, because they should be the honor, jewels, and gems of the household. They are inclined toward mercy, for they are primarily created by God for this, that they should bear children, be compassionate, and bring joy and happiness to men.”
Martin Luther, WA TR I, no. 12, pp. 5-6.
In Article XXVI of the Augsburg Confession, it states that the Roman Catholic Church was making all kinds of dietary laws and restrictions for the people, and that the Catholics were wrongly insisting that these laws were given by God. It continues by saying that the church was downplaying those laws which God truly did create. What were these laws that God created?
“That the father of a family works to support his wife and children and raises them in the fear of God; that the mother of a family bears children and looks after them.”
“God created male and female – the female for reproduction, the male for nourishing and defending.”
Luther, Martin, WA TR I, no. 103, p. 40.
It appears from this that woman was created for housekeeping but man for keeping order, governing worldly affairs, fighting, and dealing with justice – [things that pertain to] administering and leading.”
WA, TR II, no. 1979, p. 286.
‘“Even nature and God’s creation makes this distinction, implying that women (much less children or fools) cannot and shall not occupy positions of sovereignty, as experience also suggests and as Moses says in Genesis 3 [:16], “You shall be subject to man.” The gospel, however, does not abrogate this natural law, but confirms it as the ordinance and creation of God.”
Martin Luther, “On the Councils and the Church,” Luther’s Works, vol. 41, ed. Hartmut Lehmann, 1539 (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1967), 154-155.
“The rule remains with the husband, and the wife is compelled to obey him by God’s command. He rules the home and the state, wages wars, defends his possessions, tills the soil, builds, plants, etc. The woman, on the other hand, is like a nail driven into the wall. She sits at home… [P.203] The pagans have depicted Venus as standing on a seashell; for just as the snail carries its house with it, so the wife should stay at home and look after the affairs of the household, as one who has been deprived of the ability of administering those affairs that are outside and that concern the state…”
Luther, Luther’s Works, vol. 1, ed. Pelikan, 1536, 202.
“An indication of that power is given here. It is not God who gives her a name; it is Adam, as the lord of Eve, just as he had previously given names to the animals as creatures put under him. No animal thought out a name for itself; all were assigned their names and received the prestige and honor of a name from their lord Adam. Similarly even today, when a woman marries a man, she loses the name of her family and is called by the name of her husband. It would be unnatural if a husband wanted to be called by his wife’s name. This is an indication and a confirmation of the punishment or subjection which the woman incurred through her sin. Likewise, if the husband changes his place of residence, the woman is compelled to follow him as her lord.”
"Lectures on Genesis.” Luther’s Works, Vol. 1. Edited by Jaroslav Pelikan. 1544. St. Louis: Concordia Publishing, 1968, p. 219.
“Accordingly, God asks where Sarah is, and Abraham gives the short answer: “She is in the tent.” An indifferent heart reads this and pays no attention to it; but by means of these few words the Holy Spirit wanted to set before all women an example to imitate, so that, just as Abraham is presented everywhere as a rule, so to speak, of faith and good works, so Sarah might give instruction about the highest virtues of a saintly and praiseworthy housewife....
Thus Paul prescribes (Titus 2:5) that a woman should be a domestic, so to speak, one who stays in her own home and looks after her own affairs. The heathen depicted Venus as standing on a tortoise; for just as a tortoise carried its house wherever it creeps, so a wife should be concerned with the affairs of her own home and not go too far away from it. This is demanded not only by the tasks peculiar to this sex but also by the requirements of the children and domestics, who need careful supervision.”
Luther, Luther’s Works, vol. 3, ed. Pelikan, 1539, 201.
“The saintly women desire nothing else than the natural fruit of their bodies. For by nature woman has been created for the purpose of bearing children. Therefore she has breasts; she has arms for the purpose of nourishing, cherishing, and carrying her offspring. It was the intention of the Creator that women should bear children and that men should beget them – with the exception of those men whom God Himself has excepted…"
Luther, Luther’s Works, vol. 5, ed. Pelikan, 1544, 355.
“What better and more useful thing can be taught in the church than the example of a godly mother of a household who prays, sighs, cries out, gives thanks, rules the house, performs the function of sex, and desires offspring with the greatest chastity, gratitude, and godliness? What more should she do?”
Luther, Luther’s Works, vol. 5, ed. Pelikan, 1544, 331.
“For this word which God speaks, “Be fruitful and multiply”…is more than a command, namely, a divine ordinance which it is not our prerogative to hinder or ignore. Rather, it is just as necessary as the fact that I am a man, and more necessary than sleeping and waking, eating and drinking, and emptying the bowels and bladder. It is a nature and disposition just as innate as the organs involved in it.”
Martin Luther, “The Estate of Marriage,” Luther’s Works, vol. 45, ed. Walther Brandt, 1544 (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1962), 18.
“It is the greatest honor of a woman that all people are born through them. To reproduce is a gift of God.”
WA TR II, no.2764a, also 2764b, pp. 643-44.
“Mothers’ milk and female breasts. Their mothers’ milk is children’s best nourishment, drink, and food, for it feeds them well. Just as young calves, too, put on more weight from the milk that they suck than from any other fodder. Those babies grow stronger who have been nursed for a long time….It is unfriendly and unnatural for a mother not to nurse her child, for God has given her breasts and milk for this purpose, for the sake of the infant – unless she is not able to nurse.”
Martin Luther, WA TR II, no. 1554, p.130
“... in order to produce offspring, for that is the end and chief duty of marriage. But it is not enough that a child is born…for the heathens also bring forth children. A person has to raise children to the service, praise, and honor of God and seek nothing else out of it, which unfortunately seldom happens….But married people ought to know that they could do no better and useful work – either for God, Christianity, the whole world, themselves, and their children – than to raise their children well…”
“Most certainly father and mother are apostles, bishops, and priests to their children, for it is they who make them acquainted with the gospel. In short, there is no greater or nobler authority on earth than that of parents over their children, for this authority is both spiritual and temporal.”
“The Estate of Marriage.” Luther’s Works. Vol. 45. Edited by Walther Brandt, 1544. Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1962, 46.
“My idea is to have the boys attend such a school for one or two hours during the day, and spend the remainder of the time working at home, learning a trade, or doing whatever is expected of them. In this way, study and work will go hand in hand while the boys are young and able to do both. Otherwise, they spend at least ten times as much time anyway with their pea shooters, ballplaying, racing, and tussling. In like manner, a girl can surely find time enough to attend school for an hour a day, and still take care of her duties at home. She spends much more time than that anyway in sleeping, dancing, and playing.”
“To The Councilmen of all Cities in Germany That They May Establish and Maintain Christian Schools.” Luther’s Works. Vol. 45. Edited by Walther Brandt, 1524. Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1962, 347-378.
In 1887, LC-MS theologian Francis Pieper, upset with the United States Senate over the proposed suffrage amendment, called women’s suffrage “a proposal that stands all-natural order on its head.”
“Scripture teaches that woman in her relation to man occupied a position of subordination even before the fall….It is the plain teaching of scripture that in relation to the man, the woman is in a position of subordination. Both the order of creation and the order established after the fall assign her that position."
Francis Pieper, Christian Dogmatics, vol. 1, trans. Theodore Engelder, Walter W. F. Albrecht, Fred E. Mayer, and Lorenz F. Blankenbuehler (St. Louis: Concordia Publishing, 1950), 524.
Rev. Dr. Francis Pieper (1852 – 1931)
“This is the scriptural position. Scripture makes the home the sphere of the woman; it distinguishes sharply between the forbidden public and the permitted and commanded domestic activity of women….1 Timothy 2:12: ‘I suffer not a woman to teach,’ pertains according to the context to the public teaching of women. On the other hand scripture declares the home to be the sphere of woman’s dominion and teaching activity.”
Francis Pieper, Christian Dogmatics, vol. 1, trans. Theodore Engelder, Walter W. F. Albrecht, Fred E. Mayer, and Lorenz F. Blankenbuehler (St. Louis: Concordia Publishing, 1950), 525.
“Women ought not be dragged from her place of honor into public life, for it is universally acknowledged that woman is the most influential teacher of the human race. If women prove themselves good teachers in the home (Titus 2:3), they thereby wield a greater influence on the coming generations than the men, including the pastors and schoolteachers.”
Francis Pieper, Christian Dogmatics, vol. 1, trans. Theodore Engelder, Walter W. F. Albrecht, Fred E. Mayer, and Lorenz F. Blankenbuehler (St. Louis: Concordia Publishing, 1950), 526.
“We hear people decry as ‘Oriental’ the Biblical view that the home is the sphere of woman’s activity. Men have asserted in all seriousness that if the Apostle Paul had written to American congregations, he would not have said ‘It is a shame for women to speak in the church’…but because of the changed conditions he would have written in this wise: ‘Women to the front!’ ‘Get on the platform!’ ‘It is not shameful for a woman to speak in the church.’ These men are deluding themselves. 1 Corinthians 14 and 1 Timothy 2 are not dealing with a temporary ‘Oriental’ order, but with a universal, permanent order…”
Francis Pieper, Christian Dogmatics, vol. 1, trans. Theodore Engelder, Walter W. F. Albrecht, Fred E. Mayer, and Lorenz F. Blankenbuehler (St. Louis: Concordia Publishing, 1950), 525-526.
‘To rule the house’ means as the wife and mother in the home, to manage the household affairs. This is the domain and province of woman, in which no man can compete with her. Its greatest and its importance should ever be held up as woman’s divinely intended sphere, in which all her womanly qualities and gifts find full play and happiest gratification.”
R.C.H. Lenski, Commentary on the New Testament: The Interpretation of St. Paul’s Epistles to the Colossians, to the Thessalonians, to Timothy, to Titus, and to Philemon (n.p.: Hendrickson Publishers, 1998), 676..
Rev. R.C.H. Lenski (1864 – 1936)
“…caring, working for the home” (or ‘keeping at home,’ domestic, the reading varies), their home is to be their kingdom. With this goes agathos, ‘good’ in the sense of doing what is good and beneficial to others (here husband and children). This is a picture of homebodies and housekeepers as they dispense all good things in this domain. Homes that have such wives and such mothers are good homes, especially when they are filled with the Christian spirit….Paul has more to say regarding the young women than regarding any other class of members. Why this is the case is indicated by the purpose clause which, however, extends back also to the old women because they are to be qualified for producing all this sober- mindedness in the young women. If the women fail in what Paul here asks, he fears ‘lest the Word of God be blasphemed,’ lest the whole gospel be vilified. So much depends on the women, in great part on the young women, of the church. The world will to a great extent judge the churches by the character which the gospel produces in the women.”
R.C.H. Lenski, Commentary on the New Testament: The Interpretation of St. Paul’s Epistles to the Colossians, to the Thessalonians, to Timothy, to Titus, and to Philemon (n.p.: Hendrickson Publishers, 1998), 912-913.
“the wife…also has certain responsibilities and duties. She is to recognize and honor her husband as her head and the head of the home. She is to be unto him a wife. She is to be a help to her husband. While the husband is to provide the home for her, she is to make it a real home for him, for herself, and for her children. While the husband’s sphere of activity is largely out in the world, the wife’s sphere of activity is principally in the home.”
John H.C. Fritz, The Christian Home (St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 1929), 14.
“The so-called modern woman objects to this. The so-called modern woman does not want to be in submission to her husband. She wants the word “obey” removed from the marriage ritual. The divine relation of husband and wife is not according to her liking. She rather says to her husband: “Obey you? Nothing of the kind! I am your equal, and I am independent!” Nor will the so-called modern woman concede that the woman’s sphere of activity is primarily and principally in the home. The so-called modern woman would rather be entirely footloose and independent than tied down to a home and the care of children….What is the so-called modern woman doing? She is sinning against God, interfering with nature, and – if this were possible – unsexing herself. She is trying to lift herself out of that sphere into which God has put her and for which He has created her body; she is trying to unmake God’s order and make a new order of her own."
John H.C. Fritz, The Christian Home (St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 1929), 15-16.
“Birth control, by the use of preventives or by infanticide, is one of the curses of our country. And it is to be feared that this sort of thing is to be found in such homes where we should not expect to find it. Birth control! How unnatural! How sinful! Children are a blessing of the Lord.”
John H.C. Fritz, The Christian Home (St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 1929), 22.
“In order that the home may fulfil its high purpose in this world, there must be a right relation between those whom God holds responsible for the conditions in the home. What this relation shall be God Himself distinctly states in His Word: The husband should love his wife. The wife should reverence her husband. The husband is the head of the wife. The wife shall not usurp authority over her husband, but be in subjection. The husband shall nourish and cherish his wife; he shall provide for, and support, his wife and his family. The wife shall well look after, and manage, the affairs of her household. Eph.5, 22-33; 1 Pet. 3, 1-7; Prov.31. Since the modern tendency is to take woman out of that sphere in which God has placed her (asking that the word obey be eliminated from the marriage liturgy, removing women from the home and from home duties, companionate marriage, etc.), a pastor must warn against such a perversion of God’s order. Heathen religions have degraded woman by not permitting her to enter that sphere of life into which God originally placed her; the modern so-called emancipation of woman degrades woman by taking her out of that sphere; Christianity has given to woman her rightful place in life, elevates her to her high position and calling in this world, and assures her a truly happy life.”
John H.C. Fritz, Pastoral Theology: A Handbook of Scriptural Principles (St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 1932), 175.
1 Timothy 2: 9-15 “But in no way and at no time shall the woman exercise dominion over the man, neither in public worship, by presuming to be a public teacher, nor at home, nor in any other sphere of activity. The apostle once more emphasizes that she should be in silence, that her role is that of a listener and learner in public and not that of a teacher. The highest excellence of a Christian woman is that of following her calling in the quiet seclusion of the home…In order, however, to guard against the idea as if the subordination of women in any way reduces her right and her participation in the blessings of the Gospel, the apostle adds a word of comfort: But she will be saved through child-bearing, if they remain in faith and love and holiness with sobriety. “St. Paul, taking the common-sense view that child-bearing, rather than public teaching or the direction of affairs, is woman’s primary function, duty, privilege, and dignity, reminds Timothy and his readers that there was another aspect of the story of Genesis besides that the woman’s taking the initiative in transgression: the pains of childbirth were her sentence, yet in undergoing these she finds her salvation.”
Rev. Dr. Paul E. Kretzmann (1883-1965)
Continued from above
Not, indeed, as though child-bearing were a means of earning salvation, but the home, the family, motherhood, is woman’s proper sphere of activity. Every normal woman should enter holy wedlock, become a mother, and rear her children, if God grants her the gift of babies of her own. That is woman’s highest calling; for this God has given her physical and mental gifts. Unless God Himself directs otherwise, a woman misses her purpose in life if she does not become a helpmeet of her husband and a mother of her children.”
Paul E. Kretzmann, Popular Commentary of the Bible: New Testament Volume II (St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 1922), 377-78.
Titus 2:5 “A virtue which the apostle also names is this, that Christian wives be truly domestic, good home-makers. This does not merely mean that a woman ought to be a good housekeeper, but that she strive by all means to change the house, as an abode for the existence of the family, into a home, where she herself and her husband and children feel at home. It is true, of course, that in our days these views are looked upon with pity by an increasing multitude of emancipated women, who demand recognition in the forum, in the business world, even in the Church, while the position of a faithful home-maker and mother is regarded with pitying contempt. Let us remember, however, that the apostle is not stating his own views and opinions, but has registered the will of the eternal God.”
Paul E. Kretzmann, Popular Commentary of the Bible: New Testament Volume II (St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 1922), 425.