Yesterday was one of my favorite holidays. No, not Halloween. Reformation Day—the celebration of a movement that started when a courageous monk named Martin Luther nailed his "95 Theses" to the door of the Castle Church in Wittenberg, Germany on October 31, 1517. He despised the selling of indulgences (the exchange of a piece of paper for the right price that supposedly forgave sins) and while he had worked within the Roman Catholic system to see the practice ended, he finally reached his breaking point.
Against the wishes of corrupt leaders, he translated the Bible from Hebrew and Greek into German so the common man could read and understand the Bible for himself—and no longer be subject to leaders who would mislead him. And in the process, the gospel became clear to the masses as they read passages in their own language like the one that influenced Martin Luther so profoundly:
For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith for faith, as it is written, "The righteous shall live by faith." –Romans 1:16-17 (ESV)
Luther's quest to see the church reformed by the true gospel (void of indulgences), coupled with the invention of Johannes Gutenberg—the printing press, sparked what came to be known as the Reformation and the world has never been the same since.
