Quotes About Reformation

On studying Luther's life and work, one thing is clear: the much-needed reformation took place, not because Luther decided that it would be so, but rather because the time was ripe for it, and because the Reformer and many others with him were ready to fulfill their historical responsibility.

That Word, which had created the world out of nothing, was certainly capable of producing the reformation the entire church needed, and to which the Protestant movement remained a preamble.

The way I see it, the truth is just barren moorland, all useless bog and heather. It's only when you break it up and turn it over with the ploughshare of the Good Lie that you can screw a livelihood out of it. Isn't that what humans do? They take a dead landscape and reshape it into what they need, and want, and can use.

Human beings stand in the rubble of former beliefs.

When a person gets to the age of 35 and you go to jail, it either makes you or breaks you. It made me identify what I wanted.

I am no longer a criminal. I gave up that practice years ago.

The tradition of putting candles on Christmas trees actually began in Germany. The person who came up with the idea is thought to have been Martin Luther, father of the Reformation.

Between the influence of the graduates of the small university at Wittenberg and the graduates of the small Academy of Geneva, the world was changed. R.C. Sproul

The schools at Wittenberg and Geneva were like Reformation theology flywheels, their influence spreading far and wide and deep. Luther and Calvin were interested in reforming not simply their respective cities of Wittenberg and Geneva; they were interested in the message spreading. Likewise, they were not content that the gospel be discovered for their generation alone. They were equally concerned about the next generation.

The word reformation comes from the Latin verb reformo, which means "to form again, mold anew, or revive." The Reformers did not see themselves as inventers, discoverers, or creators. Instead they saw their efforts as rediscovery. They

They looked back to the Bible and to the apostolic era, as well as to early church fathers such as Augustine (354–430) for the mold by which they could shape the church and re-form it. The Reformers had a saying, "Ecclesia reformata, semper reformanda," meaning "the church reformed, always reforming.

The church simply can't afford to forget the lesson of the Reformation about the utter supremacy of the gospel in everything the church does. Elie

Sola Gratia, meaning "grace alone," and Sola Fide, meaning "faith alone": Salvation is by grace alone through faith alone. It is not by works; we come to Christ empty-handed. This is the great doctrine of justification by faith alone, the cornerstone of the Reformation.

Ecclesia reformata, semper reformanda," meaning "the church reformed, always reforming.

one of the dates that historians like best is October 31, 1517. On that day one monk with mallet in hand nailed a document to the church door in Wittenberg. It contained a list of Ninety-Five Theses for a debate. The

To be deep in history is to cease being a Protestant.

I quit drinking, smoking, doing anything bad.

Is it that we pretend to a reformation? Truly, no: but it may be we are more addicted to Venus than our fathers were. They are two exercises that thwart and hinder one another in their vigor. Lechery weakens our stomach on the one side; and on the other sobriety renders us more spruce and amorous for the exercise of love.

Because if anything is clear in the aftermath of the Reformation, it has to be this: we human beings can interpret the Bible to say and mean an awful lot of different things. We can very easily confuse "The Bible says" with "I say the Bible says," which we can then equate with "God says.

An unexamined, status-quo Christianity is not worth perpetuating. I cannot and will not stay Christian if it means perpetuating Christianity's past history and current trajectory.

An unexamined, status-quo Christianity is not worth perpetuating. I cannot and will not stay Christian if it means perpetuating Christianity's past history and current trajectory. The only way I can stay Christian is to do so as part of a creative movement forging a new kind of Christianity

The proposed sixth sola is this: sola ecclesia, the church alone, meaning salvation may be found in the church alone. 3

She did nothing, although sometimes when she saw him in the village she'd smile in a faint, puzzled way. After three weeks of this the suspense was too much for him and he took his own life; in fact he took it all the way across the continent, where he became a reformed character and never went home again.

The Reformation was a movement that broke the bubble that held the Middle Ages in place. . . . El Bosco painted his Garden on the threshold of this leap.