He’s a very quotable fellow

***

I’ve been late in calling attention to this article, which I published nearly a week ago in Meridian Magazine — whose leadership I ran into in Oberammergau just a couple of days back.  Shocking.  You can be sure  that things have gotten seriously out of hand when I’m so busy that I neglect my own self-promotion!

“What the Pilgrims to Santiago de Compostela Taught Us About Devotion”

And here are a trio of items that have recently appeared on the website of the Interpreter Foundation:

“Witnesses of the Book of Mormon — Insights Episode 9: Is the Spaulding Argument Valid?“

Through the years, much has been made of the argument that a man by the name of Solomon Spaulding wrote a manuscript which was used by Joseph Smith as his source for the Book of Mormon. Is there any validity to these claims?

This is the ninth in a series compiled from from the many interviews conducted during the course of the Witnesses film project. This series of mini-films is being released each Saturday at 7pm MDT. These additional resources are hosted by Camrey Bagley Fox, who played Emma Smith in Witnesses, as she introduces and visits with a variety of experts. These individuals answer questions or address accusations against the witnesses, also helping viewers understand the context of the times in which the witnesses lived. For more information, go to https://witnessesofthebookofmormon.org/ or watch the documentary movie Undaunted.

Short clips from this episode are also available on TikTok and Instagram.

Be sure to Like and Share this video, as well as subscribing to our YouTube channel at https://www.youtube.com/c/theinterpreterfoundation and our other social media channels on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and TikTok.

Interpreter Radio Show — May 22, 2022

For the first hour of this episode of the Interpreter Radio Show, Steve Densley and Mark Johnson discuss a new research paper about the meaning of the name Liahona with the paper’s author, Calvin Tolman.  The second portion of the show focuses on a roundtable discussing the upcoming Come Follow Me lesson #27 (1 Kings 17–19). The Interpreter Radio Show can be heard on Sunday evenings from 7 to 9 PM (MDT), on K-TALK, AM 1640, or you can listen live on the Internet at ktalkmedia.com.

Interpreter Radio Show — May 29, 2022

In this episode, Martin Tanner discusses the Founding Fathers and the concept of the United States Constitution hanging by a thread during the first hour.  The second portion of the show is is devoted to discussing the upcoming Come Follow Me lesson #28 (2 Kings 2–7). The Interpreter Radio Show can be heard every week of the year on Sunday evenings, from 7 to 9 PM (MDT), on K-TALK, AM 1640.  If that doesn’t work for you, you can instead listen live on the Internet at ktalkmedia.com.

***

Here is a small selection of striking quotations from the eminently quotable Dr. Martin Luther, in whose adopted home town I’m currently writing.  In fact, his former house is located directly next door to my hotel:

• “Let the wife make her husband glad to come home and let him make her sorry to see him leave.”
• “Where the battle rages, there the loyalty of the soldier is proved.”
• “You are not only responsible for what you say but also for what you do not say.”
• “Even if I knew that tomorrow the world would go to pieces, I would still plant my apple tree.”  [This quotation appears in the main elevator of the hotel in which we’re staying, which is located between Martin Luther’s house on one side and Philipp Melanchthon’s house on the other side.]
• “Peace if possible; truth at all costs.”
• “We are saved by faith alone, but the faith that saves is never alone.”
• “We need to hear the Gospel every day because we forget it every day.”
• “If you want to change the world, pick up your pen and write.”
• “I have held many things in my hands, and I have lost them all; but whatever I have placed in God’s hands, that I still possess.”
• “The Bible is a remarkable fountain: The more one draws and drinks of it, the more it stimulates thirst.”
• “I have so much to do that I shall spend the first three hours in prayer.”
• “The truth of the matter is rather as Christ says, ‘He who is not with me is against me.’ He does not say, ‘He who is not with me is not against me either, but merely neutral.'”
• “There never yet have been, nor are there now, too many good books.”
• “The gospel cannot be truly preached without offense and tumult.”
• “God writes the gospel not in the Bible alone, but on trees and flowers and clouds and stars.”
• “The Christian shoemaker does his duty not by putting little crosses on the shoes, but by making good shoes, because God is interested in good craftsmanship.”
• “A person who . . . does not regard music as a marvelous creation of God, must be a clodhopper indeed and does not deserve to be called a human being; he should be permitted to hear nothing but the braying of asses and the grunting of hogs.”  [Foreword to Georg Rhau’s (1488-1548) collection Symphoniae iucundae, 1538]

And, just to be somewhat fair — since the hotel in which I sit is sandwiched between Luther’s house on the one side and that of his chief lieutenant, Dr. Philipp Melanchthon, on the other side — I’ll also append here a quotation that’s often attributed to Melanchthon.  It’s one that I’ve always liked:

• “In essentials, unity; in differences, liberty; in all things, charity.”

Unfortunately, the story of the Reformation didn’t always, umm, exactly turn out that way.  But it’s a very noble aspiration.  And I think that, in many parts of the world, we’re getting better at it.

Posted from Lutherstadt Wittenberg, Germany