Martin Luther

Last night I watched an old black and white movie that I found in the Ronald's library. It was the story of Martin Luther. During the movie my mind continually rejoiced, "Praise the Lord for Martin Luther."

He was law student in search of peace within his soul. He sold all he had and joined the church. Where better to find peace than in the church of God he thought. He thought it was strange that he still had no peace, even after taking his vows and becoming an Augustinian Friar in 1505. His troubled soul caused him to be immersed in scripture studies and sent to Rome by his superior.

Soon he found God revealing to him through the scripture that what was taught in the Roman Catholic Church was not completely what was in the Bible. The RC church had its own doctrines and rules that were added. In the movie, he suggested to his superior that it would be a great day if everyone could read the Bible in their own language. The man replied, "This would be a terrible thing. For the Holy Bible is of one interpretation: that of the Roman Catholic Church." Luther found nothing about paying money to save your soul in the Bible. Nothing about praying for your relatives to release them from purgatory. Luther found nothing about purgatory. Nothing about Peter being the rock of the church. "This one and firm rock, which we call the doctrine of justification," he wrote, "is the chief article of the whole Christian doctrine, which comprehends the understanding of all godliness." He preached justification by faith.

One even that outraged him was when the pope needed to raise money for building St.Peter's Basilica in Rome. The pope proposed that payment could now be made to him and their soul would be saved from hell forever. The pope also said that they could even purchase their loved one's soul from purgatory. This prompted Luther to publish his 95 Thesis in 1517 and nail them to the door of the church at Wittenburg, Germany. These were 95 things that Luther found the RC's to be doing that was not scriptural. His intention was not to divide the church, but in the end that's what had to happen.

The last touching moment of the movie was where Luther was showing a young boy some scripture. The boy told Luther that he couldn't read it because it was Greek. Luther then reached over on his desk and gave the boy a paper with the Bible translated into the local language. The boy read out, "Therefore being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ."

We are blessed to have the Bible in our own language. We can read it and meditate on it whenever we want. We can also take what men have said and wrote, and test it against the Bible as Luther did. In a day where martyrs were produced in the millions, Luther was not afraid to stand up against the RC church for the truth which is the word of God.