In the Present World
For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation for all people, training us to renounce ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright, and godly lives in the present age.
TITUS 2:11-12
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In the Present World
He says "in the present world" [Titus 2:12] much more to point out the power of the saving grace of God, since the world is so wicked that the godly person must live all alone, without any example, like a rose among thorns, and suffer all kinds of misfortune, disdain, shame, and sin. It is as if he would say: "Whoever wants to live a sober, righteous, and godly life must renounce all enmity, must take up the cross, must not allow himself to be misled, even if he lives all alone, like Lot in Sodom and Abraham in Canaan [Genesis 13:12], among none but dead drunk, lewd, unrighteous, false, and ungodly people." It is the world and remains the world, of which he must deprive himself and live contrary to it, rebuking its worldly desires. That means living soberly in a tavern, chastely in a brothel, godly in a theater, righteously in a den of murderers. Such a world makes life confined and unpleasant, so that we wish, cry out, and call for death and the Last Day, and await them with great longing, as the next words show. Grace must lead in such a difficult life, since nature and reason are lost here.
From the Church Postil, sermon for Christmas Day on Titus 2:11-15 (Luther's Works 75:198)
TITUS 2:11-12
+
In the Present World
He says "in the present world" [Titus 2:12] much more to point out the power of the saving grace of God, since the world is so wicked that the godly person must live all alone, without any example, like a rose among thorns, and suffer all kinds of misfortune, disdain, shame, and sin. It is as if he would say: "Whoever wants to live a sober, righteous, and godly life must renounce all enmity, must take up the cross, must not allow himself to be misled, even if he lives all alone, like Lot in Sodom and Abraham in Canaan [Genesis 13:12], among none but dead drunk, lewd, unrighteous, false, and ungodly people." It is the world and remains the world, of which he must deprive himself and live contrary to it, rebuking its worldly desires. That means living soberly in a tavern, chastely in a brothel, godly in a theater, righteously in a den of murderers. Such a world makes life confined and unpleasant, so that we wish, cry out, and call for death and the Last Day, and await them with great longing, as the next words show. Grace must lead in such a difficult life, since nature and reason are lost here.
From the Church Postil, sermon for Christmas Day on Titus 2:11-15 (Luther's Works 75:198)
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