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I would love to see it. You think that I get in trouble?

Title of Martin Luther’s Post: “Sin Boldly”

Maybe that would be the title of his blog. Maybe that would be a post. One thing is for certain—Luther was a blogger before blogging was cool.

As you know, in blogging, one must continually be informative and/or provocative, otherwise don’t expect to have many hits. Luther would have chosen the latter nine times out of ten.

The principle in being provocative is to say something that seems outrageous (or at least out of the box of your readers). After this, you have to replant the issue. It is a scary thing to do. You are always second guessing yourself. “Should I have said that?” “Will people understand?” “Will people read beyond the first paragraph?” Your hope is that people will stick around long enough to give your provocation a chance to settle itself into some informative way.

I could see the first paragraph of one of Luther’s blogs:

“Seek out the society of your boon companions, drink, play, talk bawdy, and amuse yourself. One must sometimes commit a sin out of hate and contempt for the Devil, so as not to give him the chance to make one scrupulous over mere nothings…” (Martin Luther, Werke, XX, p.58)

Or how about this for a blog title: “Sin boldly”

Would you stick around to hear the rest? Of course you would. This is why Luther was such a charismatic and effective leader.

Love him or hate him, you cannot put Luther in any box.

Luther was certianly aware of sin and grace. Sin more so in his early years, sin and grace later. The above comments made by Luther are meant to provocatively communicate something much deeper. “Sin boldly . . .” as the statement goes, but it continues, “. . . but believe more boldly.” Luther did not care for self-righteousness much. He was continually attempting to make those who were satisfied in their own works to recognize their own utter depravity. It was not so much that he wanted people to sin with a since of comfort, but to recognize their sin, not being coy with its presence in their own life. In order to communicate this, he would often encourage people in this with over-the-top statements such as the ones given here. When we sin and play personal cover-up, grace becomes invisible. Yes, it is there, but without shaking its hand each day, we cannot see grace. We have to live with such a recognition of our brokenness that we are continually kneeling the foot of the Cross.

How often do we play cover-up with our sin, acting as if it is not that bad? We become so used to it that it is not bold in our lives, or we just manipulate and deny its presence. To sin boldly is the only way for us to find grace.

What do you all think about WWLB? Do you think is over-the-top communication is effective or does it do more harm than good?

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