Tuesday’s Table Talk: Value of Knowledge Gained by Experience

One thing that sets Credo Magazine apart from other publications is its emphasis on and celebration of Reformation theology. Well, what better way to become acquainted with the Reformers than Luther’s Table Talk! Check in each Tuesday as we listen in on Luther’s proverbs. Here is today’s Table Talk:

Value of Knowledge Gained by Experience

Summer or Fall, 1531

No. 46

“A doctor of the Scriptures ought to have a good knowledge of the Scriptures and ought to have grasped how the prophets run into one another. It isn’t enough to know only one part part—as a man might know Isaiah, for example—or to know only one topic of the law or of the gospel. Now, however, doctors are springing up who scarcely have a right comprehension of one topic.

Teachers of law can humble their students when the students try to put on airs about their learning, because they have a court and get practical experience. On the other hand, we can’t humble our students because we have no practical exercises. Yet experience alone makes the theologian.”