Luther on Hermenuetics

Recently started reading through my set of the 'Complete Sermons of Martin Luther'. It's 7 volumes, and each sermon is long ... the first has 100 points. Maybe it will have me thinking Phillip's sermons are short when he gets back next week!

He made some really interesting comments on the evangelists use of the OT:

First, we must keep in mind that the Evangelists do not quote the prophets word by word, it is enough for them to have the same meaning and to show the fulfillment, directing us to the Scriptures so that we ourselves may read, what they omit, and see for ourselves that nothing was written which is not richly fulfilled.

And again:

It seems to me that the Holy Ghost led the apostles and evangelists to
abbreviate passages of the Scriptures for the purpose that we might be kept close to the holy Scriptures and not set a bad exemple (sic) to future exegetes, who make many words outside the Scriptures and thereby draw us secretly from the Scriptures to human doctrines. As to say: If I spread the Scriptures verbatim everyone will follow the example and it will come to pass that we would read more in other books than in the holy writings of the principal book, and there would be no end to the writing of books and we would be carried from one book to another, until, finally, we would get away from the holy Scriptures altogether, as has happened in face. hence, with such incomplete quotations he directs us to the original book where they can be found complete, so that there is no need for everyone to make a separate book and leave the first one.

I don't know that I'd ever quite thought about it like this before, but I love his emphasis on driving people back to the Scriptures. What do you think?