#24 How To Properly Address Injustice: Deal with Yourself First

You may say to this: “Am I not to speak out when an injustice is being done? Am I to call it justice and condone it? Am I to find it pleasing when the properties of the monasteries are seized or when there is coarse behavior and no praying or fasting?” No, I am not telling you to do that. He acknowledges here that there is a speck and that it should be removed; but here He is giving you instructions about doing it properly. I have to admit that it is not very nice, this speck in the eye. But above all I must determine whether I have a log in my own eye, and take that out first. Make the villain in your own breast pious, and then go on to see to it that the little villain becomes pious, too. It is wrong when the big thieves hang the little ones, as the saying goes, and the big villains condemn the little ones….” (Luther’s Works, v. 21, pages 221).

Posted in 2023 Doctrine & Practice.