[Faith-talk] Martin Luther's Birthday, Today, November 10 (1483)

[Everett Gavel]

Hello,

I thought some of you might find this 'bit' of history
interesting. . .  and while those behind the scenes at
the Writer's Almanac are not exactly 'God-following'
people, it's factual, I think.  Well, okay, maybe
that's not fair. They follow various things they've
made their 'gods.'  But money, sports, TV, and other
things like that are certainly not God, our God, Jesus
Christ.  Anyway, here's the note on Martin Luther:



>From the Writer's Almanac for November 10, 2007:

It's the birthday of the man who sparked the Protestant
Reformation, Martin Luther, born in Eisleben, Saxony
(1483). He was a priest who did not enjoy performing
mass, because he was always getting nervous and
knocking things over in front of the congregation. But
he did enjoy teaching, and instead of giving lectures
he often asked his students to explain the scriptures
to him.

He didn't have any really radical ideas about theology
until 1517, when the Church in Rome began a big push to
sell indulgences to raise money for rebuilding St.
Paul's Basilica. Luther couldn't believe that the
Church in Rome, with all its money, was preying on the
fears of poor parishioners to raise funds, and he
thought the whole concept of indulgences should be the
subject of an academic debate. He wrote up his famous
95 Theses merely as a way of calling for this debate,
but the pamphlet was so controversial that people began
passing it around and it wound up in the hands of the
Church authorities, who asked Luther to recant and
accused him of heresy.

At that point, he had only objected to indulgences, but
the experience of being attacked by the Church
authorities made him question the whole idea of the
pope's authority and the Church hierarchy. The more he
thought about it, the more he thought that the Bible
was the only real authority anyone should pay attention
to. The result was that he was excommunicated, he had
to go into hiding, and all his writings were officially
banned. But that didn't stop him from writing more than
60,000 pages of religious commentary. It's estimated
that his published writings made up one-fifth of all
the literature published in Germany at the time.

Luther actually didn't take a big part in the creation
of a new Christian Church, but he was the first person
to produce a complete translation of the Bible from the
original Hebrew and Greek into a modern European
language. His Bible captured the German vernacular of
the era, and it is now cited as the beginning of modern
German.



Now, what kind of change can you make today, for the
one true God, for our Lord, Jesus Christ?  Seize your
day!  Lead the way!  Begin by getting on your knees, to
pray.

God bless your efforts.


His,
Everett
www.everettgavel.com