Dr Paul Allen

WHAT TOP 10 THINGS YOU SHOULD KNOW ABOUT MARTIN LUTHER 1. Luther's motivation was his search for God. Luther is often presented as the man who stood up against all kinds of abuses in the Roman Catholic Church . And so he did. But this was not his main concern—this was not his primary drive.Luther became a monk because he was searching for God, and, after he found God as the God of grace, he protested against everything that kept people away from that God. Luther did not stand up to reform the church, but to reform the message of the church. Luther was not against the power of the pope (at least at first), but against the fact that the pope did not use his power for the eternal well-being of believers. After he found God as the God of grace, Luther protested against everything that kept people away from that God. 2. Luther caused a U-turn in theology. The best way to illustrate the radical change in theology Martin Luther brought about is the U-turn. Luther radically ...

A single event on a single day changed the world. It was October 31, 1517. Brother Martin, a monk and a scholar, had struggled for years with his church, the church in Rome . He had been greatly disturbed by an unprecedented indulgence sale. The story has all the makings of a Hollywood blockbuster. Let's meet the cast. First, there is the young bishop—too young by church laws— Albert of Mainz . Not only was he bishop over two bishoprics, he desired an additional archbishopric over Mainz. This too was against church laws. So Albert appealed to the Pope in Rome, Leo X. From the De Medici family , Leo X greedily allowed his tastes to exceed his financial resources. Enter the artists and sculptors, Raphael and Michelangelo. When Albert of Mainz appealed for a papal dispensation, Leo X was ready to deal. Albert, with the papal blessing, would sell indulgences for past, present, and future sins. All of this sickened the monk, Martin Luther . Can we buy our way into heaven...

This year, many people are celebrating the five-hundredth anniversary of the Protestant Reformation . But not everyone is. Some have raised severe criticisms against the Reformers and their work. The Reformers, they allege, replaced the authority of the church with the authority of the autonomous individual. Moreover, the doctrine of justification by faith alone , these critics claim, cut the nerve of morality and, effectively, baptized licentious living. Martin Luther and John Calvin , they continue, opened Pandora’s box, releasing two forces that not only rent the church but also went on to define the modern age: radical individualism and antinomianism. Understood on these terms, the Reformation is cause for lamentation, not celebration. These criticisms rest on a profound misunderstanding of the Reformation and, specifically, a misunderstanding of two of the leading doctrines of the Reformation: sola scriptura ( Scripture alone ) and sola fide (faith alone). What were the ...

John Calvin (1509-1564) is the most influential pastor in church history. He wrote commentaries on nearly the entire Bible , which are still in print today. His systematic theology, The Institutes of the Christian Religion , is arguably the most significant Christian book ever published. Calvin was the architect of Protestant theology , and his teachings gave rise to republican government, public education, and even capitalism. Calvin was first and foremost a preacher, generally giving six sermons a week. He moved the baptismal to the back of the church, and placed the pulpit in the middle, marking a change in the purpose of corporate worship— Christians would no longer gather for sacraments, but instead for the preaching of the Word. Born north of Paris , he was converted to Christ in his 20’s and then forced to flee France—Protestants were not welcome there. He eventually settled in Geneva , where he spent the rest of his life pastoring. Under Calvin’s preaching, Geneva was ...

Martin Luther, author of the text of Christ lag in Todes Banden, and who, with Johann Walter, also wrote the melody (Photo credit: Wikipedia ) The truth that Christ is Lord of His church may sound somewhat benign to a casual listener in our generation, but the struggle for Christ’s authority in the church has come to us through the ages on a sea of blood. Thankfully, literal bloodshed over the issue is no longer very common. But faithful Christians are still waging a fierce moral and intellectual battle for Christ’s lordship over the church. One of the major early catalysts in the Protestant Reformation was a book by Jan Hus , a Bohemian Christian who preceded Martin Luther by a full century. The book was  De Ecclesia  (The Church), and one of Hus’ most profound points was proclaimed in the title of his fourth chapter: “Christ the Only Head of the Church .” Hus wrote, “Neither is the pope the head nor are the cardinals the whole body of the [true] holy, unive...

One of the most encouraging developments in evangelicalism over the past several decades has been the remarkable resurgence of reformed theology. This rediscovery of the doctrines of grace has not only captured the Bible ’s emphasis on the sovereignty of God in salvation but also strengthened the unity of the church around the centrality of the gospel. In the area of eschatology, however, I have noticed two concerning trends among those who have joined this reformation. The first involves what I call eschatological agnosticism. To be sure, eschatology is one of the most difficult theological issues to understand, especially when it comes to the finer details. But some Christians, although diligent students of Scripture in every other area, avoid the topic altogether and appear content to place themselves in the category of undecided. Some even seem proud of their agnosticism, as if ignorance about the meaning of biblical prophecy is evidence of a commitment to more significan...

Martin Luther, commemorated on February 18 Evangelical Lutheran Worship. Minneapolis: Fortress Press (2006), 15. (Photo credit: Wikipedia ) A single event on a single day changed the world. It was October 31, 1517. Brother Martin, a monk and a scholar, had struggled for years with his church, the church in Rome. He had been greatly disturbed by an unprecedented indulgence sale. The story has all the makings of a Hollywood blockbuster . Let’s meet the cast. First, there is the young bishop—too young by church laws— Albert of Mainz . Not only was he bishop over two bishoprics, he desired an additional archbishopric over Mainz. This too was against church laws. So Albert appealed to the Pope in Rome, Leo X. From the De Medici family , Leo X greedily allowed his tastes to exceed his financial resources. Enter the artists and sculptors, Raphael and Michelangelo. When Albert of Mainz appealed for a papal dispensation, Leo X was ready to deal. Albert, with the papal blessing, would sell...

Martin Luther, author of the text of Christ lag in Todes Banden, and who, with Johann Walter, also wrote the melody (Photo credit: Wikipedia ) Have you ever wondered why people call themselves “Reformed”? The word “reformed” generally means “improved”—as in, desperate parents may send an incorrigible adolescent to a reformatory school to get them back in line; politicians promise economic reforms to undo the damage of their predecessors.  In theological circles, the word is written with a capital, and acts as a self-designation for those who consider themselves to be direct doctrinal descendants of the progenitors of the Reformation, namely Martin Luther , Jean Calvin ,  et al . For example, plain vanilla Baptists get upgraded to “Reformed Baptists” if they embrace not only the tenets of Baptists, but also the doctrines for which the Reformers risked life and limb. Exactly 499 years to the day (October 31, 1517) the Catholic priest, Martin Luther, nailed, to ...

Martin Luther, author of the text of Christ lag in Todes Banden, and who, with Johann Walter, also wrote the melody (Photo credit: Wikipedia ) 499 years ago this upcoming  Monday , on October 31, 1517, Martin Luther famously nailed his 95 Theses to the Castle Church door in Wittenberg, Germany , kick-starting the Protestant Reformation . Nearly 500 years later, God ’s people reserve this day to celebrate the rescue of His Word from the shackles of Roman Catholic tyranny, corruption, and heresy. The glorious Gospel of Jesus Christ as revealed in the sufficient Scriptures had been recovered, and it’s been doing its saving work ever since. Romans  1:16 –17 stands at the heart of the Reformation, especially because of  how central it was in Luther’s conversion . Luther speaks of how he had  hated  the phrase, “the righteousness of God,” because he understood it to be speaking only of God’s standard of righteousness by which He would judge unrighte...