On October 31, 1517, 504 years ago this Sunday, a young monk named Martin Luther set off a chain of events which would change the world in ways that he could never have imagined. Events which had a profound impact on how people sought to know God.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
Luther was a University professor in the German town of Wittenberg. On the surface there was very little that stood out about of that day. The population of Wittenberg was at best about half that of Glen Innes. The university lacked prestige.
Luther's action that day were pretty standard. Following the custom of his time, he nailed a piece of paper to the door of the town's Cathedral Church. On that paper were written his '95 Theses', a series of propositions designed to encourage academic debate. It was the equivalent of publishing a dry essay in an academic journal.
Libraries have been written on the profound changes to our world which draw their origins back to that moment. It's a story so amazing you couldn't make it up!
Yet if we return to our question about whether it is possible to know God, the Reformation is particularly helpful to us today.
As is true today, people in 1500 had a variety ideas about how God might be known. Some would have believed God to be an unknowable mystery. Others believed he could be known through personal experience, philosophical enquiry or the popular ideas of the day. Most believed that God could be known through the teaching of the Pope and the Church he lead.
Into this situation the Reformers insisted upon the Latin mantra of Sola Scriptura, or Scripture Alone.
This mantra insisted God is a talking God. We can know him because he has told us about himself. What God has said to us is found, not primarily because it is preserved by an institution. Nor because of our own ability to work him out through thought or experience. We find his Word preserved for us in the pages of the Bible.
They also insisted that God was not a poor communicator. Any of us can pick up a Bible, read it, and understand it's message. Yes, a Priest or other such teachers might be useful. After all, they have likely given more time to studying the Bible than the seeker had yet had the chance to give to the task. However both the expert and the new student alike could only ever look to the Bible if they were seeking to know what God had made known. And both had the same promise that God would enable them to find their answers.
Rediscovering this truth changed the world.
If it was possible to know God through the Bible, then nothing could be more important than putting Bible's into people's hands. The Bible began to be translated like never before. Luther translated it into German. In Switzerland the Geneva Translation appeared. In time the King James Version was produced for the English speaking world.
Education took on a new importance as people were taught to read so that they could personally read the Bible and meet God for themselves. In societies where the importance of the Bible was embraced, literacy rates skyrocketed as a direct result.
Most importantly, countless people who were hungry to know God now had the means at their disposal to truly know him for the first time.
In my experience many people today are hungry to know God. The big questions of life still play on people's minds. Many of us are simply uncertain about where the answers can be found.
For those who genuinely seek to know God, would do well to learn the lessons of the Protestant Reformation and look to the Bible.
