Shocker, right? But I never really considered how important it was that we don’t live Luther’s life. The great reformer and had a tremendous faith and courage, but it was nothing like our faith and courage. Not to suggest that it was necessarily better or worse. Just different.
I read a quote from Dr. Heiko Obermann in Albert Mohler’s new book Atheism Remix. Obermann was a historian of the late Medieval and early Reformation eras and he had this to say:
“I can see that you do not understand what I am saying to you. What I am saying to you is that you do not live life as Martin Luther lived life. You do not wake up in the morning as he did, nor do you go to bed at night as he did. You need to understand something about changed conditions of belief. Do you not understand that in the time of Martin Luther, almost every single human being in European civilization woke up afraid that he would die before nightfall? Eternal destiny was a daily, hourly, minute-by-minute thought. Every night, as the late Medieval or early Reformation human beings closed his eyes, he feared that he would wake up either in heaven or in hell. You do not live with that fear. And that means your understanding of these things is very different from Martin Luther’s. That’s why he threw ink pots at the Devil, and you close your notebook and sleep well at night.”
Modern people, even Christians, are conditioned, on some level, to embrace doubt. Somewhere in the back of everyone’s mind rests the possibility, the plausibility that maybe, just maybe, we’ve got it wrong. It’s culturally ingrained in most everyone, whether we like it or not.
As much as I love classic theologians and preachers and have a deep respect and admiration for them, a sizeable portion of their words lack a very important sense if relatability. They can’t take modern culture’s doubt into account, because in no way did they share it.
Thank God for the enduring relatability of His Word.
