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“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.” Romans 1:16 (NASB) |
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Confined but free This week I am in Germany and Switzerland preparing for this summer when I will be teaching a Reformation & Renaissance tour (the tour will also include Italy). On the day you read this note, I will likely be meditating on scripture inside the walls of the Wartburg – the great castle in Germany where Martin Luther was protected by the Elector Frederick. Though Luther chafed at the confinement, this was a very important step – not only for him but for the billions of humans born in the last 500 years. Freeing the text At the Wartburg, Luther began his great translations of the Bible into the common tongue. Nothing is more significant than God’s Word being made accessible. An economist friend of mine likes to tout how free trade brings remarkable health to people. A Congressman I know says the same thing about separation of government powers. They are both correct and the numbers bear them out. However, accessible scripture trumps them all. Here on earth and forever, more people have been granted health & wealth through the Bible than any other source. Period. Wycliffe, More, Tyndale and others made amazing contributions to Bible translation. But all of them, including the amazing servants translating the Bible today, must look to Wartburg as the place where the text was set free in a major way. Freeing dissent At the Wartburg, people found they could biblically stand against the state. The Elector Frederick was in an amalgamated political position that is very difficult for modern people to understand. He owed allegiances to (in no particular order) the pope, the Holy Roman Emperor, the people of his territory, and three different kinds of “congresses” that met periodically with overlapping powers. Smitten with the truth that Luther showed from the Bible, Frederick stood up to them all. He boldly proclaimed that he was not ashamed of salvation by God’s grace alone through faith alone in Jesus alone. Further, he showed that his dissent was actually legally defensible. This wasn’t a mere ecclesiastical move, as some modern histories like to suggest. This was a principled stand that made a way for all dissent against unscriptural commands of governments. Freeing worship At the Wartburg, Luther began his thesis that music can be one of God’s great tools. Many of the other reformers were anti-music. They saw (heard?) the excesses in bawdy tunes and wanted to eliminate the medium altogether in the name of purity. Luther stood up to that overreach as he did to all iconoclasm. He demanded that media not be judged just because of nasty output. He reminded that scripturally the message is the point. Thus, Luther embraced music and began writing hymns and songs. Some became so popular that he reformed music itself. Music became a beautiful way to praise God – a legacy that surely influenced a boy later born in the shadow of the castle, Johann Sebastian Bach. As I travel today, my prayer for you and me is that we live the spirit of the Wartburg. May we set God’s Word alive in our hearts. May we stand for truth against all opposition. May we praise God “with resounding music” (Psalm 92). Amen! |