Our desires cannot be, and were never meant to be, satisfied by earthly pleasures alone.

When the old poets made some virtue their theme, they were not teaching but adoring.

Suffering does not call into question the "big picture" of the Christian faith. It reminds us that we do not see the whole picture, and are thus unable to fit all of the pieces neatly into place.

The idea that Christianity is basically a religion of moral improvement... has its roots in the liberal Protestantism of the late nineteenth century and early twentieth century... It is this stereotype which continues to have influence today... But then came the First World War... What had gone wrong was that the idea of sin had been abandoned by liberal Christianity as some kind of unnecessary hangover from an earlier and less enlightened period in Christian history.

Clergy had a vested interest in retaining the old, ways, which made few demands of them as teachers, as spiritual guides, or as moral examples or agents.

Within each of us exists the image of God, however disfigured and corrupted by sin it may presently be. God is able to recover this image through grace as we are conformed to Christ. Just as the figure of David lay hidden within the marble, discernible only to the eye of its creator, so the image of God (however tarnished by sin) lies within us, see and known by God Himself. Yet God loves us while we are still sinners. He doesn't have to wait until we stop sinning. Acceptance of His love is a major step along the road that leads to our liberation from the tyranny of sin.

For Luther, it (faith) is an undeviating, trusting outlook appointment life, a constant stance of the trustworthiness of the promises of God.