Martin Luther never met Johann Sebastian Bach. The two Germans were born more than 200 years apart. But without Luther, there would have been no Bach.
At 48 years old, when Bach received a copy of Luther’s translation of the Bible, he made extensive notes in its margins, allowing it to shape his theology of music. Near 1 Chronicles 25, a listing of David’s musicians, he wrote, “This chapter is the true foundation of all God-pleasing music.” At 2 Chronicles 5:11–14, which speaks of temple musicians worshiping God, he wrote, “At a reverent performance of music, God is always at hand with his gracious presence.”
Embodying a Lutheran theology of work, Bach viewed all of his music—whether sacred hymns or secular cantatas—as a calling from God. He believed his work had two purposes: “The final aim and reason of all music is nothing other than (1) the glorification of God and (2) the refreshment of the spirit.” Thus, he signed all of his church music and most of his secular music with the letters “S.D.G.”—Soli Deo Gloria, Glory to God Alone.
Without Luther, Bach wouldn’t have understood the dignity of all work—both sacred and secular—nor the idea of work as a means to love one’s neighbor.
But how did Luther come to understand these things?
Those With a ‘Calling’
Luther was born into a church culture that celebrated religious work above all else. In the late middle ages, only priests and other church workers had “callings” and “vocations.” They were part of “spiritual estate.” Everyone else—from farmers to lawyers to kings—had necessary but worldly occupations.
The rise of monastic spirituality, which called religious workers out of the everyday world and into the desert or the monastery, only reinforced this perspective. The laity was second-class. Life was divided into the “sacred” and the “secular.” And the priesthood of all believers was marginalized.
This problem was not lost on Luther.
Love Grows by Works of Love
Luther wanted to connect faith and everyday life. All of us, he reasoned, are priests—no matter how ordinary our lives:
It is pure [fiction] that the Pope, bishops, priests, and monks are called the “spiritual estate” while princes, lords, artisans, and farmers are called the “temporal estate.” This is indeed a piece of deceit and hypocrisy. Yet no one need be intimidated by it, and that for this reason: all Christians are truly of the spiritual estate, and there is no difference among them except that of office. . . . We are all consecrated priests by baptism, as St. Peter says: “You are a royal priesthood and a priestly realm” (1 Pet. 2:9). The Apocalypse says: “Thou hast made us to be kings and priests by thy blood” (Rev. 5:9–10).
“Vocation,” then, included religious work as well as nonreligious—domestic duties, civic engagement, and ordinary employment. What made work “Christian” wasn’t the type of work being done but the faith of the one doing it. Luther writes:
The works of monks and priests, however holy and arduous they may be, do not differ one whit in the sight of God from the works of the rustic laborer in the field or the woman going about her household tasks, but all works are measured before God by faith alone.
Such faith, he believed, was evidenced by our everyday work. “Love grows by works of love,” Luther posted to doors of All Saints’ Church in Wittenberg (Thesis 44). For him, work was one of the best ways to love one’s neighbor. As Tim Keller summarizes,
When we work, we are, as those in the Lutheran tradition often put it, the “fingers of God,” the agents of his providential love for others. This understanding elevates the purpose of work from making a living to loving our neighbor. - Click HERE to continue reading.
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