A speech from the heart with God. Martin Luther on prayer

Can Luther still teach us to pray? In his allegory of a "golden thurible" (gulden reucbfass) he develops typological associations with traditional prayers, such as the Lord's Prayer and the psalms with the censer, thanksgiving prayer with the coals, and petition with frankincense. During the recital of the advised order of the Ten Commandments, the Creed, and the Our Father, emerges, as B. Stolt showed, a surplus value: God establishes a relation, which man then confesses trinitarily, and thereafter addresses the founder of the relation as "father". In order to meditate these steps (Dreischritt) Luther mentions especially doctrine, thanksgiving, confession, and petition. These aspects comply to the four sides of a square pattern of interpersonal communication according to F. Schulz von Thun: matter, relation, self-revelation, and appeal. The "hermeneutic tetragon" ("hermeneutisches Viereck", M. Oeming) and "four basic types of literary criticism" (G. Schunack) are also suitable to this model. Therefore, we may see not only the adequateness of a modern model, but even more of the basic deepness, by which Luther plumbed prayer as real communication with God. In spite of differences in times, gestures, and postures of prayer, Luther remains, therefore, still an inspiring teacher on the subject of talking to the trinitarian God today.