The Hidden Inner Life

One of the blessings of reading Köberle - aside from the penetrating insights into Scripture - was his taking full cognizance of the hidden inner life of the Lutheran Church by not ignoring her hymns and her prayer books. Anyone who thinks they "get" Lutherans from the outside, by merely observing the contours of her doctrine as delineated in the Book of Concord, miss out on the deepest joys of the faith as they are expressed in her songs and her prayers to the Triune God. As I read him, I kept thinking: he took that from Starck! He took that from Gerhardt!