Who exactly was the man behind the 95 theses? Start here to get a tiny biography on Martin Luther, the man who made a huge impact.
NAME:
Martin Luther
BIRTH:
November 10, 1483
DEATH:
February 18, 1546
HOMETOWN:
Eisleben, Germany, 130 miles southwest of Berlin
VOCATION:
Augustinian monk, priest, professor of philosophy at the University of Wittenberg
FAMILY:
Katharina von Bora, wife, and six children Johannes, Elisabeth, Magdalena, Martin, Paul, and Margaret
BIOGRAPHY OF MARTIN LUTHER:
Margarethe Luther delivered Martin in 1483. She and her husband, Hans, named him after St. Martin of Tours, on whose feast day he was baptized. Luther’s father determined that Martin should become a lawyer and sent him to school, including university at Erfurt. Luther studied law and philosophy, but completely changed course while outside in a thunderstorm in 1505. Scared of death and divine judgment, he cried out to Saint Anne in terror and promised that he would become a monk. True to his word, Luther joined St. Augustine’s Monastery in Erfurt in July 1505.
As a monk,
Luther felt deep spiritual despair and guilt over the depth of his sin. Over the next several years, Luther became a priest and a professor of theology and philosophy at the University of Wittenberg and preached in churches throughout the city. As Luther studied Scripture, he noticed incongruence between the Bible and certain practices of the Roman Catholic Church. A man named Johann Tetzel triggered Luther’s famous Ninety-Five Theses. Tetzel sold indulgences in Wittenberg that would lessen a believer’s time in purgatory. Luther wrote to his bishop to protest the sale of indulgences and later furthered his protest by posting the Ninety-Five Theses on the door of All Saints’ Church in Wittenberg on October 31, 1517. This is considered the fated beginning of the Reformation.
Martin wrote Ninety-Five Theses in Latin. However, others soon translated it into other languages. Then, copies quickly spread throughout Europe. Luther wasn’t alone in his protests against the excesses and skewed doctrine of the Catholic Church. Luther’s study of Hebrews, Romans, and Galatians in the years after 1517 further solidified his doctrine of justification: good works cannot earn us the salvation that we receive by faith alone in Jesus Christ. After several years and many battles with the Pope and his delegates, Luther refused to recant. Then the church finally excommunicated him on January 3, 1521.
After, Luther turned his attention to organizing a new church. He did so with new values. And these values were handed down to us—generally as Protestantism and specifically as Lutheranism. Then, Luther did much more than start a reformation. He also wrote two catechisms, translated the Bible into the vernacular instead of using the Latin Bible, and wrote hymns for congregational singing. Then, he died in 1546 at the age of 62.
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