This coming weekend at White Fields we will be starting a new series for the 500 year anniversary of the Reformation about the 5 Solas.

Partly in preparation for this and partly out of my own interest and curiosity, I’ve been reading a few books. One of them is Eric Metaxas’ new biography of Martin Luther, and the other is Stephen Nichols’, The Reformation: How a Monk and a Mallet Changed the World.

Metaxas begins his book with a story, which I had never heard before: How in 1934, an African American pastor from Georgia got on a boat to make the trip of a lifetime; he sailed across the Atlantic Ocean, through the gates of Gibraltar, across the Mediterranean Sea, to Israel. After this pilgrimage to the Holy Land, he traveled to Berlin to attend an international conference of Baptist pastors. While in Germany, this man, Michael King, became so impressed with what he learned about the Reformer, Martin Luther, that he decided to do something dramatic: he decided to change his name to Martin Luther King. This man’s son, also named Michael, was five years old at the time, and although close relatives would continue to call him Mike for the rest of his life, his father also changed his name, and he became known to the world as Martin Luther King Jr.

Metaxas uses this story to highlight the dramatic impact that Martin Luther has had, not only on the world, but on those who have come to know the story of his life and understand his actions, which have indeed changed the world and Christianity as we know it – even Roman Catholicism.

What has caught my attention most in the book so far, is how shockingly little even those who did have access to the Bible actually read it in Luther’s time, and how deep and widespread the problems were in the church at that time, largely as a result of this. It seems that what really set Martin Luther apart, and what led to the Reformation, was simply that he read the Bible. May we not be guilty of neglecting that in our day!

Tomorrow evening (Tuesday, October 24), my wife and I will be going down to Denver to see Eric speak about his book at Cherry Creek Pres. If you’re interested in going, here’s the event site where you can get tickets.