Daily Luther: The Dangers of Satiety and Curiosity
Factious spirits enjoy two great advantages with the rabble: the one is curiosity, the other, satiety. Those are two large gates through which the devil can pass with a wagon of hay, indeed, with all of hell, prompting them to say: “Oh, this man can preach about nothing but Baptism, the Ten Commandments, the Lord’s Prayer, and the Creed, with which even the children are conversant. What’s the idea, that he constantly harangues us with the same message? Who is not able to do that? After all, one must not always stick with the same thing, but develop and progress, etc.” That signifies satiety with and weariness of the message. Junker Curiosity joins himself to this and says: “Oh, we must also hear this fellow. He is a fine, learned, and pious man, etc.” Thus they lend a hand and humor this curiosity to hear whatever their ears itch to hear, saying: “Dear people, all this while you have been hearing the selfsame thing. You must progress beyond that and hear and examine not only one but also others.” And thus a person follows these people, lets himself be coaxed and wheedled, stands there gaping and staring and gives ear to all that is told him.
Martin Luther, Luther’s Works, Vol. 28: 1 Corinthians 7, 1 Corinthians 15, Lectures on 1 Timothy, ed. Jaroslav Jan Pelikan, Hilton C. Oswald and Helmut T. Lehmann, 1 Co 15:1–2 (Saint Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 1999).
In at least one sense, perhaps, the situation relating to “satiey and curiosity” today is even worse than it was in Reformation times.
In those days, satiey with and curiosity about related to a specific, age-old question: “What must man do to be saved?” Then living in a world whose institutions and sources of imformation (churches, schools, orphanages, hospitals, etc.) were under the aegis of the Church in one or another of its forms, “even the children were conversant” (satiated) with answers, i.e., reliance on God’s grace through faith in Christ, vs. “works righteousness”. Their “curiosity” was maybe about possible alternatives to both.
In today’s secular world, however, many have neither satiety nor curiosity because, when the same question is put to them, they’ll reply with the questions: “Who needs to be saved?” and “Saved from what?”
Consequently, not only are many not sated with or curious about the answers, they aren’t even aware of the questions? And if, by chance, they do think on such things, ther find the answers thru “spirituality” from within, which encourages them to attempt to “do good and avoid evil” and thereby please “the gods”.
No wonder there’s such ignorance in America and elsewhere about what the Incarnation, the Crucifixion, and the Resurrection and Ascension are.