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October is my favorite month of the year. Not because of Halloween. More importantly, October 31 (in the year 1517) is the day when Martin Luther posted the Ninety-Five Theses on the Castle Church door in Wittenberg, thus launching the Protestant Reformation. Those who embrace the Reformed perspective cherish the events and the people that God used to bring about a return to the truths that had become obscured, neglected, forgotten, and rejected. It was a call to return to the Scriptures.
In Geneva, there is a monument that is part of the old city wall. It was built in 1909 on the four hundredth anniversary of the birth of John Calvin. In the central part of that wall are four large statues of the main figures of the Reformation in Geneva: William Farel, who convinced Calvin to come to Geneva; Calvin, perhaps the greatest of all the Reformers; Theodore Beza, the close associate and successor of Calvin; and John Knox, the Scotsman who briefly pastored the English-speaking refugees there.
Each of those figures is holding a book. Those men (and the other leaders of the Reformation) were no strangers to books. They studied intently that they might teach rightly. They authored many significant books that were instrumental in furthering the Reformation. Although I cannot prove it, I’d like to think that the book that each one is holding is the Bible. God used the Bible to transform all these men. They were no exception to what is stated in Romans 10:17: “So faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ.” Furthermore, “it pleased God through the folly of what [they preached] to save those who believe” (1 Cor. 1:21). The lives of these men were given to the reading, preaching, translating (like Luther), and suffering in defense of the Scriptures. They lived with an ever-growing affection for and dependence on God’s Word.
Although Luther is not one of the figures in the Reformation Monument, he would have been no stranger there. And I’m rather convinced that he would be holding a book, too—perhaps his German translation of the Bible. When Luther was asked about the cause of the Reformation with which he was associated, he responded:
I simply taught, preached, and wrote God’s Word; otherwise I did nothing. And while I slept . . . , the Word so greatly weakened the papacy that no prince or emperor ever inflicted such losses upon it. I did nothing; the Word did everything.
It is a great honor to be considered people of the Book. When Paul came to Thessalonica, opponents of his ministry proclaimed, “These men who have turned the world upside down have come here also” (Acts 17:6). And what had he done? He had reasoned with them from the Scriptures that the risen Jesus was the Christ. Let us be like the Bereans who received the Word “with all eagerness, examining the Scriptures daily” (Acts 17:11). “Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly” (Col. 3:16).