Martin Luther Reformer eBook

By Armin W Schuetze

What is the impact of Martin Luther and the Protestant Reformation on churches today?Emphasizing the impact of Martin Luther' s teachings and sweeping reform in the 16th century, Martin Luther: Reformer looks at the direct impact of the famous Protestant reformer in today' s Lutheran church. One of Luther' s impacts was to give the Lutheran church an identity by transforming it into a confessional church— though confessing the truths of God' s Word isn' t always easy or well-received.While not wholly chronological, biographical information and quotes of Luther are woven through this informative book to show who Luther was and what he represented.Through this captivating commentary, you can share in the up-and-down battles of a difficult reform, reaffirm your beliefs in God' s Word, and appreciate just what Luther did for the church— both past and present.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Northwestern Publishing House
• Release date: Jul 1, 2005
• ISBN: 9780810024878

Book preview

Preface

Martin Luther: Reformer is not intended to be a biography of Luther, although it contains biographical material. The purpose of this book is to show how Luther became the Reformer and functioned as such. We want to learn to appreciate how much this man of God of the 16th century gave to Christianity in general and to the Lutheran church in particular. He was God’s man doing God’s work in God’s time.

The reader will soon become aware of the numerous quotations from Luther, including some of greater length, that are used in the narrative. The frequent use of Luther’s own words is by design, to let Luther speak for himself. Even in translation his vigorous, down-to-earth, clear language and the variety of his illustrations communicate his thoughts in a way that is uniquely Luther. They help the reader gain a valid picture of the man and his gifts. Perhaps one or the other reader will want to dip into complete writings from which only snatches here and there could be quoted. The 54-volume edition of Luther’s Works provides a wide selection for the English reader.

The chronologies at the end of each chapter help to keep the events in each in a proper time frame in Luther’s life.

Armin W. Schuetze

Chapter One

The Reformer Born and Educated

Did Luther just happen? Was it pure coincidence that Luther was the kind of man he was and lived and labored at the time he did? If not one sparrow falls to the ground without the will of the heavenly Father, then those who are worth more than many sparrows are not creatures of pure chance. The One who even counts the very hairs of your head counts each man and woman he creates, gives each person a place in life, and prepares in advance the good works each is to do. God prepared the man, the time, the works. Luther is not a historical coincidence.

Birth and Early Childhood

Few people are born famous. This happens only to those who are born in king’s houses. The world took no special note of Martin Luther’s birth on November 10, 1483, soon after 11 P.M., as his mother remembered it. The village of Eisleben didn’t realize that its most renowned son had been born. The pope did not fear for his crown as Herod did at the birth of a child in Bethlehem. Hans Luther with his wife, Margarethe, had just that year moved from Thuringia to Eisleben to find employment in this mining region. The birth of a second son to this new family on Long Street was not an event to set the bells ringing in Eisleben.

Though Luther gained renown, we do not know much about his childhood. He did not consider it sufficiently important to write about it. When late in life the second part of some of his works was to be published, he finally promised to write an autobiography as introduction. But his death in 1546 intervened, and Melanchthon substituted by telling what he remembered hearing from his famous friend. Some of Luther’s table talks and letters contain only brief references to his childhood.

The longest single account of his early years by Luther himself appears in a letter written to his friend Spalatin in 1520, and this too is short. In 1519, Luther had defended distributing communion in both kinds, a practice which had again been introduced in Bohemia a century earlier by the Hussites, the followers of John Hus, the condemned heretic. Luther was accused of being a Bohemian, not only in doctrine but also by birth. His opponents tried to discredit him with slanderous rumors about his origin, involving also his mother. Compelled to defend himself, he wrote:

I was born, by the way, at Eisleben, and baptized there in St. Peter’s church. I do not remember this, but I believe my parents and the folks at home. My parents moved there from a place near Eisenach. Nearly all my kinsfolk are at Eisenach, and I am known there and recognized by them even today, since I went to school there for four years, and there is no other town in which I am better known. I hope the people there would not have been so stupid that any one of them would call the son of Hans Luther his nephew, another his uncle, another his cousin (I have many of them there), had they known that my father and my mother were Bohemians or other people, rather than those born in their midst. The rest of my life I spent in school and in the monastery at Erfurt until I came to Wittenberg. I was also in Magdeburg for one year at the age of fourteen. Now you know my life and family. I would prefer, however, to be silent about my background, just as Christ was silent when accused before Herod and Annas.¹

The place near Eisenach from which Luther’s parents moved was Moehra, 12 miles to the south. His father, being the oldest son, could not inherit the ancestral farm. Custom of the day made the youngest son the heir. Hans had to seek his fortune elsewhere, and the copper mines in the Eisleben region were his choice. Within a year the Luther family moved to nearby Mansfeld, a fact Luther did not see fit to mention.

Those were hard and difficult years for his parents. Later Luther reminisced: In his youth my father was a poor miner. My mother carried all her wood home on her back. It was in this way that they brought us up.² However, the father was soon recognized as a hard- working man and a good steward of his limited resources. By 1491 he was chosen as one of four men responsible for looking after the community’s interests in the city council. In the same year he became a shareholder in a mining association and a partner in leasing a foundry. Eventually he had six mineshafts and two foundries. He worked hard but successfully to get from poverty to at least moderate financial security.

Hans and Margarethe Luther did not believe in sparing the rod and spoiling the child. In 1537 Luther told his table companions, My parents kept me under strict discipline, even to the point of making me timid.³ Two incidents impressed themselves on his memory, perhaps because of their severity or uniqueness. Once his mother, for the sake of a mere nut, beat him until the blood flowed; another time his father beat him so hard that he fled from him and harbored a grudge until his father finally won him back. It would be wrong to conclude from these incidents that Luther was an abused child. On the contrary, a strong bond of love prevailed between him and his parents.

In commenting on these incidents, Luther expressed some thoughts on discipline. If only cherries, apples, and the like are involved, he said, such childish pranks ought not to be punished so severely; but if money, clothing, or coffers have been seized it is time to punish. Furthermore, one must punish in such a way that the rod is accompanied by the apple.⁴

In his parental home Luther experienced pious Roman Catholic life and practice. On the day after his birth, father Hans carried his infant son to the tower room of St. Peter’s church for baptism. In his fears and anxieties, Martin learned to pray to the saints, to Mary, and to St. Anne, the patron saint of miners. Melanchthon describes Margarethe as a model to other women in virtues, especially in good manners, the fear of God, and in diligent prayer.⁵ But father Luther was not impressed by monasticism and, in fact, opposed holy orders for his son as the height of piety. Serving the church did not have priority over obeying the will of God. Once when Hans was seriously ill, the priest admonished him to leave something in his will to the clergy. The answer was that his large family would need it more than the clergy. Nevertheless, he gave a gift of twenty gulden to the monastery when his son was ordained a priest.

Education

Luther’s formal education began at the Latin school in Mansfeld when he was four years old. Eight years later his father sent him to a school in Magdeburg conducted by the Brethren of the Common Life. This school was widely known to surpass many others, and Hans wanted something better for his gifted son than Mansfeld could offer. Within a year, in 1497, young Martin was sent to Eisenach where he completed his pre-university training during the next four years. Here at Eisenach Luther found the kind of teachers and school that helped him progress rapidly and master his subjects. He found also further stimulation through contacts with several families in town, the Cottas and the Schalbes, living with the former and eating his meals with the latter. These accommodations seem to have been the result of his having sung before the house as a beggar pupil, and because a distinguished lady liked his singing and devout praying in the churches.⁶ These homes gave this young student of superior ability opportunity to meet and listen to people whose conversation was stimulating. Among such people was the Vicar of St. Mary’s, who was in charge of the Franciscan monastery at the foot of the nearby Wartburg. In 1530, writing in the seclusion of the Coburg castle, Luther remembered Eisenach, where he had studied four years, as his beloved city.

Melanchthon, calling to mind how Luther praised a professor at Eisenach who excelled in teaching grammar, reported: Here he rounded out his Latin studies; and since he had a penetrating mind and rich gifts of expression; he soon outstripped his companions in eloquence, languages, and poetic verse.

Unfortunately the schools he attended did not lead young Luther to Jesus Christ as his loving and merciful Savior. Later, in a lecture on the words of Galatians 2:20, that the Son of God loved me and gave himself for me, Luther mentioned how hard it was for him to learn that Christ is not a lawgiver but the dispenser of grace. I was imbued from boyhood, he said, so that even at the mention of the name of Christ I would be terrified and grow pale, because I was persuaded that He was a judge.⁷ Luther knew from experience the anguish of sin apart from the forgiveness of Christ. The schools he attended failed him at a crucial point.

The records of the University of Erfurt contain this entry in the spring of 1501: Martinus Ludher ex Mansfelt. This entry, marking his matriculation, was the beginning of Luther’s four years at the university. By this time the fortunes of the senior Luther had progressed to the point that my dear father lovingly and faithfully kept me at the University of Erfurt, by his sweat and labor helping me to get where I am, as Luther wrote in 1530.⁸

The choice of Erfurt University was