Tritt auf die Glaubensbahn, BWV 152

On 2 March 1714 Bach was appointed concertmaster of the Weimar court capelle of the co-reigning dukes Wilhelm Ernst and Ernst August of Saxe-Weimar. As concertmaster, he assumed the principal responsibility for composing new works, specifically cantatas for the Schlosskirche (palace church), on a monthly schedule. He composed the cantata for the Sunday after Christmas. The prescribed readings for the Sunday were from the Epistle to the Galatians, through Christ we are free from the law (Galatians 4:1–7), and from the Gospel of Luke, Simeon and Anna talking to Mary (Luke 2:33–40). The gospel is the passage following the canticle of Simeon. The cantata text was written by Salomon Franck, the Weimar court poet, who published it in Evangelisches Andachts-Opffer in 1715. The gospel refers to Isaiah (Isaiah 8:14–15) and Psalm 118 (Psalms 118:22), mentioning "a stone of stumbling and for a rock of offence" and the "stone which the builders refused". The poet refers to it, stating that God laid the stone of foundation, and man should not take offence. Jesus is then addressed as a stone beyond all gems. The cantata text is a dialogue of Jesus and the Soul and concludes with a duet, asking to reject the "world" and follow Jesus. This cantata is the earliest extant example of a dialogue, used again in Bach's third annual cycle of cantatas written in Leipzig.