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<\/a><\/p>\nMartin Luther said, \u201cIt is pleasing to the dear God whenever thou rejoicest or laughest from the bottom of thy heart.\u201d<\/p>\n
My fellow Patheos blogger Randy Alcorn<\/a> quoted that.\u00a0 It\u2019s such a good quote that I wondered why I hadn\u2019t heard it before.\u00a0 Which set me on a merry chase to find the source.\u00a0 Along the way, I found lots of fascinating material on Luther\u2019s thoughts about laughter, including these other quotations, from AZ Quotes<\/a>:<\/p>\n If the earth is fit for laughter then surely heaven is filled with it. Heaven is the birthplace of laughter.<\/p>\n If I am not allowed to laugh in heaven, I don\u2019t want to go there.<\/p>\n The Gospel is nothing less than laughter and joy.<\/p>\n The heart overflows with gladness, and leaps and dances for the joy it has found in God. In this experience the Holy Spirit is active, and has taught us in the flash of a moment the deep secret of joy. You will have as much joy and laughter in life as you have faith in God.<\/p>\n But AZ Quotes doesn\u2019t give sources!\u00a0 Resisting the felt need to also identify the sources of these quotes (if you know them or can find them, please say what they are in the comments), I forged ahead.<\/p>\n I found several citations of Alcorn\u2019s quote, but, again, no source.\u00a0 The closest authoritative citation with some illuminating context is from Strong\u2019s Systematic Theology<\/a> by the Reformed Baptist theologian Augustus Hopkins Strong (1836-1921) (not to be confused with the James Strong who gave us Strong\u2019s Concordance).\u00a0 Strong contrasts Luther\u2019s appreciation of laughter with a medieval theologian who considered laughter a sin:<\/p>\n Peter Damiani, the great monk-cardinal, said that the sin he found it hardest to uproot was his disposition to laughter. The homage paid to asceticism is the homage paid to the conqueror. But not all conquests are worthy of homage. Better the\u00a0words\u00a0of Luther: \u201cIf our\u00a0God\u00a0may make excellent\u00a0large\u00a0pike and good Rhenish\u00a0wine, I may very well venture to eat and drink. Thou mayest enjoy every pleasure in the world that is not sinful; thy\u00a0God\u00a0forbids thee not, but rather wills it. And it is pleasing to the dear\u00a0God\u00a0whenever thou rejoicest or laughest from the bottom of thy\u00a0heart.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n This is probably where Alcorn picked up the quote, since Strong\u2019s Systematic Theology<\/em> is still studied in evangelical and Reformed circles.\u00a0 But where is it in Luther?<\/p>\n I had just about given up my search on Google.\u00a0 But then I remembered how I said that ChatGBT is best used as search engine.\u00a0 So I gave the virtually-intelligent site the quotation and asked what the source is.\u00a0 I got this:<\/p>\n I\u2019m not entirely sure that this quote is from Martin Luther\u2019s works. I\u2019ve searched through his writings and speeches, including his sermons, commentaries, and letters, but I couldn\u2019t find any reference to this exact quote.<\/p>\n It is possible that the quote is a paraphrase or a summary of Luther\u2019s teachings on the role of joy and laughter in the Christian life. Luther did emphasize the importance of joy as a fruit of faith, and he encouraged Christians to find delight in God\u2019s grace and the promises of the Gospel. He also believed that laughter and humor were gifts from God that could be used to relieve stress and strengthen relationships.<\/p>\n However, without more specific information, I cannot determine the exact source of this quote or whether it can be attributed to Martin Luther with certainty.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n So I was just about to consign this saying to the rather large list of Luther quotes that he didn\u2019t really say<\/a>, when I had one more idea.\u00a0 This sounds like something Luther might have said in Table Talk<\/a>, the collection of notes drawn from the Reformer\u2019s dinner conversations.\u00a0 So I gave ChatGPT a little help.\u00a0 I asked,<\/p>\n Is the following quote from Martin Luther\u2019s \u201cTable Talk\u201d? \u201cIt is pleasing to the dear God whenever thou rejoicest or laughest from the bottom of thy heart.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Yes, that quote is from Martin Luther\u2019s \u201cTable Talk\u201d. \u201cTable Talk\u201d is a collection of informal conversations, anecdotes, and sayings attributed to Martin Luther, recorded by his students and friends over the years. The quote you mentioned is found in a section titled \u201cOn the Duty of Preachers\u201d, and it reads as follows:<\/p>\n \u201cThe world is now so full of venom and malice that every Christian ought to be armed with the knowledge that it is pleasing to the dear God whenever thou rejoicest or laughest from the bottom of thy heart.\u201d (Table Talk, No. 1015)<\/p>\n So, while the quote you asked about is similar to the one you mentioned earlier, it differs slightly in wording and context.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n Success!\u00a0 Or so I thought.\u00a0 But whereas Strong put the words in the context of \u201cexcellent large pike and good Rhenish wine,\u201d ChatGPT put them in the context of \u201cvenom and malice.\u201d\u00a0 So I next looked up Table Talk<\/em>, No. 1015, and found nothing!\u00a0 There weren\u2019t any entries with that number.\u00a0 And yet I knew that the best-known English translation by the Victorian writer William Hazlitt that I was consulting is just a selection, as is the more scholarly translation by Theodore Tappett, volume 54 in Luther\u2019s Works<\/em>.\u00a0 The entire Table Talk<\/a>, that is to say, Tischreden<\/em>, in the German Weimar Edition of Luther\u2019s complete<\/em> works takes up six volumes!\u00a0 This is where they are numbered, and they go up to 6,507.<\/p>\n I wasn\u2019t aware that ChatGPT read German, so, after a fruitless search on Google, I asked it, \u201cWhat is the source of this quotation that you gave me earlier?: \u2018The world is now so full of venom and malice that every Christian ought to be armed with the knowledge that it is pleasing to the dear God whenever thou rejoicest or laughest from the bottom of thy heart.'\u201d<\/p>\n This brought forth this confession, plus the answer I was seeking:<\/p>\n I apologize for the confusion earlier. I made an error in my previous response. The quotation \u201cIf our God may make excellent large pike and good Rhenish wine\u2026\u201d is indeed from Luther\u2019s Table Talk, but the quotation \u201cThe world is now so full of venom and malice that every Christian ought to be armed with the knowledge that it is pleasing to the dear God whenever thou rejoicest or laughest from the bottom of thy heart.\u201d is not found in Table Talk No. 1015.<\/p>\n After doing further research, I have found that this quotation is actually from a letter that Luther wrote to his friend Nicholas von Amsdorf on December 30, 1530. The letter is included in the English translation of Luther\u2019s letters, edited by Henry Wace and published by A. J. Holman in 1913. The quotation is found in Letter No. 254, and it is in line with Luther\u2019s emphasis on finding joy and pleasure in life as long as it is not sinful.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n The satisfaction for finding two<\/em> sources of Luther\u2019s contention that God is pleased at our laughter\u00a0 was heightened by my satisfaction at the much-feared and groveled-to Artificial Intelligence confessed to making an error and apologized for it.<\/p>\n At the end of this research, I not only learned about the possibilities and the limits of today\u2019s online technology, I was left with a provocative statement from Luther that I will continue to muse on:\u00a0 \u201cThou mayest enjoy every pleasure in the world that is not sinful.\u201d<\/p>\n On the way, Google did turn up quite a few articles, scholarly and otherwise, on Luther\u2019s humor.\u00a0 In tomorrow\u2019s post, I will tell you what I learned.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n Image by\u00a0Alexandra_Koch<\/a>\u00a0from\u00a0Pixabay<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/blockquote><\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Martin Luther said, \u201cIt is pleasing to the dear God whenever thou rejoicest or laughest from the bottom of thy heart.\u201d My travails in finding the source of that quote, which stymied even ChatGPT.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1281,"featured_media":66897,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22,44],"tags":[13170,13428,13434,1386,13431],"class_list":["post-66801","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-humor","category-technology","tag-chatgpt","tag-laughter","tag-luther-quotes","tag-martin-luther","tag-online-research"],"yoast_head":"\n