Martin Luther: The Man Who Rediscovered God and Changed The World

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Visit eBay.com for terms. This is Lee Habib and this is Our American Stories, the show where America is the star and the American people. And to search for the Our American Stories podcast, go to the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Today's story is about one man who changed the world 500 years ago. The origin of this conflict flowed from a deceptively simple question, a riddle of sorts that a Catholic monk named Martin Luther wrestled with for years.

The question he asked himself was this, am I a good person? Here to tell the story is bestselling author Eric Metaxas. Eric wrote Martin Luther, the man who rediscovered God and changed the world.

Let's take a listen. When Martin Luther King Jr. was about five years old, OK, we're talking about the black leader in 20th century, his father was a famous Baptist preacher and he visited the Holy Land with a whole bunch of other Baptists. This is like would have been, I don't know, 1920 or something.

I don't get it right. And on the way back, he went to Germany and visited Wittenberg and stuff and was so blown away. This is the black father was so blown away by the life of Martin Luther that as an adult, he changed his name from Michael King to Martin Luther King. As an adult, he changed his name. That's how big of a deal Luther has been in history. And his son, Michael Jr. changed his name to Martin Luther King Jr. until the day Martin Luther King Jr. died. His close friends called him Mike. I would say Luther is the most influential man in 2000 years apart from Jesus. There's no doubt that God used this very flawed man.

And so I was really convinced that this is a gigantically important story. Luther was born on November 10th, but the year in which he was born, we actually don't know. We're sure that it's 1482, 1483 or 1484.

I'm pretty sure it's 1483, but no one really knows, including his own mother who was nearby when it took place. We actually don't. That's kind of weird, but it's true. But he's born on November 10th. On November 11th, they take him to church and baptize him because the whole point was if you're not baptized, you'll go to hell forever, right? So you might want to speed up the baptismal process.

Kind of important. So they baptized him on November 11th, which was Saint Martin's day, and they named him Martin after the Saint for whom the day was named. So Luther was raised in a fairly well to do family. Now there's all these myths. You hear that he grew up and he always said, I'm the son of a poor miner and I come from peasant stock. He was kind of like blowing smoke the way politicians do. They kind of like want to try to tell you they come from these humble roots. But the reality is his roots were not that humble.

He was exaggerating a little bit. His father was not a poor miner. His father was an ambitious, successful businessman in the mining business. His father wanted his brilliant son to go to the best schools and to go to the university, study law, and then come home to Mansfeld and work in the family business. They needed a brilliant lawyer to work with them and they put him on this path.

They could never go to college, you know, so they said it's on you. So the problem is that Luther grew up at a time when salvation and the fear of hell was so real that while he is away from home at these schools, he's thinking about eternal matters. Now his parents were Christians, but I think that wherever he was that he had the freedom as being very sensitive, brilliant young man to be thinking about this stuff.

And I think it was eating at him. And by the time he goes to law school, he's 22 years old, his father sacrificed everything. Things come to a head and he has heard of some people dying and on their deathbed saying, you know, I wish I hadn't done this or that. I wish I had gone into a monastery.

I wish I'd given everything to God because now I'm facing eternity and I'm scared. People often tell the story as though one day Luther's blithely minding his own business, walking, you know, on the heath in the village of Stotternheim. A thunderstorm comes, scares him to death. He thinks he's going to be struck by lightning and enter eternity. And he says, St. Anne, save me. If you save me, I'll become a monk.

St. Anne was the patron saint of miners and he doesn't die. And then he thinks, well, I've just made a vow. I guess I've got to become a monk and he becomes a monk. And that's, of course, ridiculous because he had been thinking about his own salvation very much in the years preceding this. So the implication that this was just something that he blurts out in a moment of fear and then it changes the course of his whole life is just silly. He was thinking incessantly about eternity. So when the thunderstorm came and he says this vow, which did happen, it was only all of these things coming to a head.

It wasn't some dramatic thing. The bottom line is this was against his father's wishes, but he said, I cannot take a chance. He was scared of obeying his father and going to hell forever. And so he does this against his father's wishes. And he gets into the monastery.

And what happens in the monastery? Well, he realizes that if I have to earn heaven, which was the basic way of thinking, that means I've got to pray constantly. I've got to fast constantly. I've got to deny myself every pleasure. I have to confess every sinful thought. Otherwise, any sinful thought can drag me to hell unless I confess it to a priest, not to God, to a priest who will officially absolve me.

And if he doesn't officially absolve me, I go to hell. And you're listening to Eric Metaxas tell the story of Martin Luther. And we tell this story because, of course, America was founded by people who were a part of this split in the church that happened in the 16th century. And what a fascinating story about his youth. The myth busted my Metaxas that he came from a poor family and that the father was a minor, a slight exaggeration, as Eric would put it, but one that was not true. He came from a well-to-do family, well enough to send him off to law school for the study of law.

But there was a crisis lurking in an existential one, a philosophical one, a spiritual one, because Luther was worried about his eternal soul and worried about hell. So he leaves law, heads to the monastery, and when we come back, more of this remarkable story of Martin Luther here on Our American Stories. Lee Habib here, the host of Our American Stories. Every day on this show, we're bringing inspiring stories from across this great country, stories from our big cities and small towns.

But we truly can't do the show without you. Our stories are free to listen to, but they're not free to make. If you love what you hear, go to OurAmericanStories.com and click the donate button. Give a little, give a lot.

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Requires credit qualification and 36 month phone financing agreement. And we continue with our American stories and with Eric Metaxas. He's the author of Martin Luther, the man who rediscovered God and changed the world. Let's pick up where we last left off. Luther believed.

Now, think about this. I mean, later on, he taught that when you make a confession to God and you repent to God, you're good. Faith is all you need and God will forgive you. But the church taught and Luther eventually fought viciously with this concept. The church said, it doesn't matter what is in your heart and with God, you have to go to a priest. Only the priest has the right and the authority granted to him by Christ to absolve you of your sin. So if you do not confess your sin officially with a priest, it is still on you.

It's still on the books and will drag you to hell forever. Now, if you take that as seriously as Luther took it, you would never leave the confession booth. And so he was miserable trying to please God, trying to earn his way into the favor of God. So Luther spends his life praying and fasting and confessing like a maniac, driving his father confessor insane, trying to seeing what Luther is going through, how he's tortured and brilliant and passionate and intense. And he sees that he's not finding peace. And he says to him, do you hate God or you think God hates you? God loves you.

But Luther could not get this. So he would come in and he thought, I've got to confess every sin. And he would confess things like, you know, on Tuesday I prayed for five hours and at the end of it, I had a flicker of pride for having prayed for five hours. And that flicker of pride will pull me into hell. So I confess it. And you can imagine one stop.

It's like rolling his eyes. He actually says to Luther, only half joking. Bring me a serious sin. Bring me adultery or murder or otherwise get out.

I'm a busy man. Luther was just driving him insane with every random of thought, confessing, confessing. And he understood that Luther is never going to find peace this way.

He's trying to earn the peace of God. And Luther was failing. So Luther had another idea.

He said, since this is not working, I wonder if someplace in the Bible there is the key, the golden key that I'm looking for, the cure for what ails me. Now, people had not read the Bible up to this point. For many, many centuries, obviously, the printing press was not invented till the 1450s and Luther is at the monastery in 1505. So having Bibles was not a normal thing. And the Catholic Church of that day did not have Bibles and they didn't read the Bible. They would use the Bible as a text to create commentaries on the Bible.

So you would study the commentaries and you'd study commentaries on the commentaries. But actually studying the Bible was not done. The Bible had been translated by Saint Jerome twelve hundred years earlier into Latin and they had the Latin Vulgate and that was the official church translation in Latin. Well, Luther was living in a time, humanism, this intellectual trend was coming out where because of the fall of Constantinople in 1453, all these Greek scholars had come out and suddenly they were revivifying the ancient languages and you people began to read ancient texts, including the Bible in the original language. So Luther jumps on this and starts studying the actual Bible, digging into it like a man looking for the cure to a fatal disease, saying if I don't find it, I will die. And Luther felt if I don't find it, I will die the second death. I will never be in the presence of God.

I need to find it. And so he obsessively reads through the scriptures. Now he was a super brilliant Bible reader and he dug and dug and he taught Bible at the university. And at some point around 1517, he reads Romans 1 17. He reads this verse that he'd never really understood before. It says, for in the gospel, the righteousness of God is revealed as it is written, the just shall live by faith. And it finally strikes him.

I've been doing it all wrong. It is only by faith that I can apprehend God. And by faith, I get the free gift of the righteousness of God. I can't become righteous on my own.

It's useless. But God, who is holy and righteous, gives me the free gift, the gospel. The good news is that he gives it to me as a gift. I mean, imagine somebody gives you a gift and you go, let me just give you five bucks for that.

That's insulting. He understands this is a gift from God. The love of God and the righteousness of God are given to me. And all I need to do is believe that. And the word says it.

And it's imputed to me as righteousness. I am free. I am saved. Game over. I don't need to climb and claw and work and pray. I'm saved.

It's over. And then when you appreciate that gift and you apprehend it by faith, you accept the gift. Now you can do all kinds of good works.

But it's the motivation is gratitude to the God who gave you this free gift. I want to bless him. I want to love people with the love with which he has loved me. I want to help the poor. I want to feed the hungry. I want to do every good thing out of the joy and the gratitude of this free gift of grace, which I have apprehended only by faith.

Wow. This changes Luther's life. Obviously, it changes everything. Imagine living in a world where nobody gets this. They have, because of tradition over centuries, kind of built this up where it's sort of about do this and don't do this and do this and don't do this. But once Luther experiences this, the famous moment, the day he nails the 95 Theses to the door of the Wittenberg Cathedral.

That's the moment. And it's related, but not that directly related. Basically, Luther notices that in the Catholic Church at this time, they're doing this thing where they preach indulgences, where people are throwing money into the coffers of the church and buying these certificates, kind of get out of jail free cards. And it was creating this kind of corrupt, cynical world. And Luther said as a priest, this is not good for the flock.

This is not good for the sheep. As a theologian, I need to tell my superiors what is going on. Now, this is related to the works righteousness stuff that I was just talking about.

But it starts out with a specific thing of indulgences. And Luther does not shake his fist at the church. And, you know, we get this image of him. He was a humble monk, a humble man of God wanting to say in the humblest way to his superiors, we have a problem.

We need to examine this problem. So why don't we have a theological debate? That's what we theologians do in the university.

So in Latin, I'll write up these 95 Theses. I'll post it on the church door, which, by the way, was only the local bulletin board. He wasn't trying to be like a big shot by saying, I want to put it on the church door.

The church door was the bulletin board. Once you realize that, it doesn't seem so heroic, right? But in retrospect, we realize that when he did that, it blew everything up.

It led to trouble. And you've been listening to Eric Metaxas tell the story of Martin Luther. And imagine this young man trying to save his immortal soul and confessing his sin, trying to, well, work his way into heaven and to save his soul from hell. And he's confessing and he's praying and he's fasting and he's essentially driving his confessor, his priest, crazy. But he believes and knows at the time that the only way to get through, or at least that was the Catholic Church's position, was through a priest.

And then he discovers that he can take his case directly to God. That and some other criticisms of the church are posted on the door of the church. But back then, this was not some high revolt, the mere act of posting something on a church door. It was akin to posting something on a bulletin board. But it was what was on that paper that revolutionized the church, his critiques.

And by the way, these critiques out of love for the church, not out of hate for the Catholic Church. When we come back, more of the story of Martin Luther, as told by Eric Metaxas, author of Martin Luther, The Man Who Discovered God and Changed the World, here on Our American Stories. Following last year's amazing turnout, the Black Effect Podcast Network and Nissan are helping HBCU scholars jumpstart their futures by throwing another Thrill of Possibility Summit. The Thrill of Possibility Summit is an opportunity to network with peers and professionals and gain career knowledge from leaders in the industries of science, technology, engineering, art and math, also known as STEAM. To kick it off, Nissan is giving 50 HBCU scholars who major in STEAM disciplines the opportunity for an all-expenses-paid trip to Nashville, Tennessee, this year's summit location. This is a remarkable opportunity to be mentored by some of auto, tech and podcasting's brightest minds, bringing together notable voices of the Black Effect Podcast Network featuring Charlamagne the God, John Hope Bryant and Debbie Brown, all brought to you by Nissan. Success is a journey. You're in the driver's seat.

To learn more about the Thrill of Possibility Summit, please visit www.blackeffect.com slash Nissan. On Heart of the Game, we're talking with some of the most successful families in sports to learn what's really making them tick, from staying healthy to fostering strong family bonds. We'll hear from athletes such as Kurt Warner on what lessons are being passed down to a new generation of athletes. There is a level when we play that we feel we're invincible. You feel like it's not going to happen to you. But then any time it does, whether it's you suffering an injury or teammates suffering a traumatic injury, that's what stops you in your tracks and it makes you go, OK, we're not invincible and it becomes more personal. It's a part of the process to have to work through those things, you know, and understand the risks that go into it and understand the rewards or the love for the sport.

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See app for details. And we continue with our American stories and the story of Martin Luther, as told by Eric Metaxas, author of Martin Luther, the man who discovered God and changed the world. Let's pick up where we last left off. People said, who does he think he is criticizing indulgences? And they, you know, threw mud at him and he threw some mud back. He defended himself and it turned into a conflagration that consumed all of Europe. This humble monk never intended that. He never intended to break away from the church. This was the only church he knew. He never intended to start another church.

Never. There were other reformers who said almost exactly what Luther said. A hundred years earlier, Jan Hus, the famous Hungarian, the Wycliffe, Tyndale. And then there are some reformers like St. Francis who never were incendiary or troublemaking. But that's just because they had a good pope or they had a good who knows. But Wycliffe and Jan Hus, they had said almost exactly what Luther said. But the church and the power was able to contain the trouble and crush it and burn them at the stake.

And that was the end of that. The difference was when Luther brought his information forward, the printing press existed, which of course it did not in 1415 when Hus was condemned. And people, without even asking Luther, took the 95 Thesis and said, oh, this looks interesting. They translated it into German and they printed it and it sold like hotcakes. And next thing you know, everybody in Europe, not just Germany, is reading these 95 Thesis and thinking, hey, this is a hot potato. This is the pope's not going to like this. It started to get kind of, you know, beyond.

The horse got out of the barn and there was no bringing it back in. So everything he wrote, then he would preach a sermon to clarify, like, oh, listen, don't read the Thesis. Let me give my more considered thinking on the subject of indulgence. I'll preach a sermon. I better preach a sermon and clarify because people are all hotheaded about the 95 Thesis, which I only meant for other theologians to read in Latin.

But now everybody's talking about it. So he preaches a sermon and prints it up and translates into German. And then that gets distributed. And then the archbishop says to him, well, you know, that's causing trouble, too.

Can you can you can you stop distributing that? Can you say, well, of course, he was very humbling. But eventually Luther learned to use the medium of printing and he could get his message out to the people. There really had never been a people before.

They were just there was rulers and the people whom they ruled and they had nothing to say about anything. But suddenly, Luther, his writings are getting out there and the people are reading it. They're getting excited and they're thinking, this man speaks for us. He's saying exactly what's true. He's talking about the corruption. He's talking about this. He's talking about that.

And this is exactly what we feel. And so, as I say, the horse got out of the barn. And so even if they had killed Luther, the movement, these intellectual ideas were out and there was no bringing them back. Eventually, in 1521, at the grotesquely named Diet of Worms, Worms Worms was a city in Germany, and Luther was called to go to the city of Worms to face the music. The pope had sent a representative.

The Holy Roman Empire was represented by the emperor, Charles and all of the nobles. And they're there to hear this man defend himself four years into this insanity where the whole world is talking about these ideas. And suddenly he's there and they say to him, because they're trying to crush this dissent, things have gotten out of hand and they're trying to say to him, excuse me, shut up. Right? Not, excuse me, what did you mean by that?

How can we help you? It's excuse me, you, shut up, recant what you said and we'll let you walk out of here. But if you don't, you will be taken to Rome and burnt at the stake. So Luther has an opportunity to walk away.

And it reminds me of my friend Chuck Colson. He was given a plea bargain at Watergate and they basically said to him, look, look, look, you want to avoid jail time. You got teenage kids. You don't want to do jail time. Just sign on this line.

Just say you did these things that you didn't do, but you do that and you walk out of here. Take the deal, Chuck. You're nuts not to take the deal.

Sign it. And he said, well, I have a problem. I'm a Christian.

I can't do that. And Luther was in the same position. He said, I understand that all I have to do is say I recant everything I've said.

Sorry, won't happen again. And I walk out of here. But he felt compelled by God not to do that. He felt compelled by God. To demand of them that they show him where he had made a mistake. He said, if I'm wrong, I don't want to paper this over. Show me where I screwed up. Show me. And of course, I will recant and repent.

But you have to show me from the scriptures. What did I get wrong? They didn't do that. They said, are these your books? Yes or no? Yes. Do you recant what you've written in these books? Yes or no? He said, how can I recant what I've written?

I've written many good things in these books. Show me what it is that I've gotten wrong. Show me. They weren't going to do that. They wanted just to say, shut up. Bow before the authority of the church and everything will be fine. And he says, I can't do that.

And the famous line is, here I stand. I can do no other. You want me to to recant unless you show me from the scriptures. Here I stand. I can do no other.

God help me. Amen. He cast himself on the mercy of the Lord.

Luther did not fear what they could do to him. He said, I fear God. I fear the truth. I want to represent what is true. What about all those people depending on me?

God's going to hold me responsible. All those people. I have to speak the truth. So he spoke the truth. And this is one of the watersheds in the history of the world. When you appreciate what happened in that room, it is mind blowing. It's an epical moment in history.

Others had done it before. But somehow when he did it, it opened the door to what we call the future. I say that he was the man that created the future, the man that discovered the future by by holding the gospel up in this way. He did something that changed the world forever and ever. And all of the freedoms that we take for granted, the very idea of democracy, the idea that the individual can speak against power and that all of these things, the whole modern world started that day. And it's not an overstatement to say that.

That is exactly what happened on that day in Worms. And you're listening to Eric Metaxas tell one heck of a story of Martin Luther. And again, Eric is the author of Martin Luther, the man who discovered God and changed the world. He's also the author of one of my favorite books, Bonhoeffer. Pick both up.

You won't regret it. Two of the greatest reads you'll ever experience in your lifetime. You're hearing a good bulk of the story here. And it was just simple. He was saying to the church and his superiors, let's have a discussion. I have a problem and I have some text to back it up. You see, the Bible was now within reach of some people.

They were printing presses. And this was a problem for the superiors. And of course, well, what people do with power is what they do with power. And they wanted Martin Luther to simply recant and not recant on principle, not recant after a debate or discussion, but simply to recant and repent because they said so. And of course, he didn't. Here I stand.

I can do no other, was his reply. And of course, he didn't fear man. He feared God. And this would begin a revolution in the world. His example would begin a revolution in the world.

More of the story of Martin Luther, the man who discovered God and changed the world here on Our American Story. Following last year's amazing turnout, the Black Effect Podcast Network and Nissan are helping HBCU scholars jumpstart their futures by throwing another Thrill of Possibility Summit. The Thrill of Possibility Summit is an opportunity to network with peers and professionals and gain career knowledge from leaders in the industries of science, technology, engineering, art and math, also known as STEAM. To kick it off, Nissan is giving 50 HBCU scholars who major in STEAM disciplines the opportunity for an all-expenses paid trip to Nashville, Tennessee, this year's summit location. This is a remarkable opportunity to be mentored by some of auto, tech and podcasting's brightest minds, bringing together notable voices of the Black Effect Podcast Network featuring Charlamagne the God, John Hope Bryant and Debbie Brown, all brought to you by Nissan. Success is a journey. You're in the driver's seat.

To learn more about the Thrill of Possibility Summit, please visit www.blackeffect.com slash Nissan. On Heart of the Game, we're talking with some of the most successful families in sports to learn what's really making them tick, from staying healthy to fostering strong family bonds. We'll hear from athletes such as Kurt Warner on what lessons are being passed down to a new generation of athletes. There is a level when we play that we feel we're invincible. You feel like it's not going to happen to you, but then anytime it does, whether it's you suffering an injury or teammates suffering a traumatic injury, that's what stops you in your tracks. And it makes you go, OK, we're not invincible and it becomes more personal.

It's a part of the process to have to work through those things, you know, and understand the risks that go into it and understand the rewards or the love for the sport. Listen to Heart of the Game every Thursday on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. And you get to follow along with real time notifications and live trip tracking in your Uber app. Add your team to your Uber account today. Available in select locations.

See app for details. And we continue with our American stories and with Eric Metaxas, the author of Martin Luther, the man who rediscovered God and changed the world. Here is Eric with the final part of this remarkable story. He's declared not just a heretic, but now an outlaw, meaning that the pope says he's a heretic, but then the Holy Roman Emperor declares him an outlaw, because if the pope says you're heretic, you are now also illegal.

You're an outlaw renegade. And so they let him go back home. But it's pretty clear that as soon as he gets home, there's going to be you know, somebody's going to come to arrest him and then he's going to be taken to Rome and he's going to be burned at the stake. So his protector in a way, Frederick the third, Frederick the wise, who he sensed that Rome, those Italians are not treating him right.

They didn't give him a fair hearing. And I don't want him to go down there and be killed and whatever. So here's what we're going to do. We're going to kidnap him.

And it's out of a movie, right? That he is on the way home from Worms going home. And he knows this is going to happen. They've told him, but they told him they didn't tell him who's going to kidnap you, nor where they're going to take you. You know nothing.

Just go along with it. And they kidnap him with crossbows drawn. It's actually kind of a scary scene.

The people in the wagon didn't know that this was fake. And so Luther is kidnapped by these strangers and dragged through the night to a castle called the Vartburg. It's way up in the Thuringian forest and it's this castle and nobody knows he's there. And then if that's not, you know, exciting enough, he has to be disguised. So he grows out his tonsure, you know, the tonsure they would shave their heads. He grows out his hair and he grows a beard, a cavalier's beard to look like a knight because he has to blend in with the other knights at the castle.

They're not told that this is Martin Luther. So they call him Knight George or Junker Georg. And he's now incognito as a knight in the castle for a year. And of course while he's there, he's dressed as a knight and he's kind of bored because he's a very busy guy when he's back home. Now he has nothing to do.

So what does he do? He translates the New Testament into German in 11 weeks. People say, well, was this the first time it had been translated into German?

No. But it was the first time it was translated from the original Greek, not from the Latin Vulgate. So it was accurate. He was obsessed with what exactly does the word of God say?

What does it say? And there were some mistakes in the Latin Vulgate translated by Jerome, which the church had accepted. And so he wanted to get it exactly right. And he wanted to write it in such a way that the common men and women of Germany could understand what it said. He knew that this book has never been read by these people. And so his writing was so good.

This is the thing. This man's nothing but a genius of history. His writing was so good that to this day, Germans read the Luther translation.

I mean, it's not like it was some primitive thing that they've improved upon. He was a poet with the vernacular. And as a result of that, the gospel was allowed out of its cage into the world in a way that it had never been before. This is not to say that the gospel didn't exist before Luther, God forbid, but it had been sort of hidden and forgotten. Luther rediscovers it in a way that he brings it into the world, not just so that we can get saved, but so that we who get saved can then take that gospel and do every good thing imaginable in the world in gratitude to the God of mercy. The gospel frees us to bring justice and truth and life. Slavery would never have been abolished in the United States of America if not for born again Jesus freaks who believed were all created in the image of God. Where do you think the idea came from? Secular people? Church people? Born again Jesus freaks who believed in the word of God said slavery is an abomination and we don't care what has been going on for thousands of years.

It needs to end. That is the gospel of Jesus Christ freed into history. Luther is a huge piece of that and I have to tell you if he had not had the courage and the faith to stand when he stood I have no idea how it would have gone down. This is one of the most beautiful things that fairly late in life for him. He was 41 and decides to get married and it wasn't because he was lusting and he said I've got to get married. It wasn't because he was madly in love and he had to marry this woman. He found himself in a place in life where this nun had escaped from the nunnery. Actually Luther sprang her from the jug. He was the main orchestrator of this escape of the 12 nuns from Nimshin.

We call them the Nimshin 12. They had to figure out what they were going to do. These nuns had been there against their will and he thought it's not right and they need to be able to make their own decisions if they don't want to be nuns they shouldn't have to be nuns. This was highly illegal and he springs them out of there and suddenly where do they come?

They all come to Wittenberg and sort of say okay now what do we do? So he had to get them married off. He had to find them a position in a house or something. They had to do something because they were poor and one of them didn't want to marry the man that they had picked for her. And she was kind of brassy and outspoken you know instead of saying okay thank you very much I'll marry this guy. She didn't like him and she told Luther's friend Nicholas von Amsdorf I really don't want to marry that guy and she said rather cheekily I would marry you meaning Nicholas von Amsdorf or Dr. Luther. So in a way she's the one that proposed.

It's very funny. Amsdorf was not at all interested in marrying and Luther somehow his head got turned slightly around at first he thought she was arrogant or something but at some point he decided he esteemed her. That's the phrase that I use and I think that he uses that he really respected her. She was only she was 15 years younger far less educated but he really really respected her and that grew into a beautiful and deep love that is so beautiful that it should be a model for all of us.

We're all looking for these feelings and stuff. He had this really beautiful relationship. The two of them esteemed each other and loved each other and they had six kids and he loved his kids and it shows you a dramatically different side the playful side of the human side of Martin Luther. Luther said many things in his life that were extremely positive about the Jews which were he was way ahead of his time in understanding their plight the way Christians treated them and stuff.

But the Nazis cynical satanically influenced that they were they found what Luther wrote just a few years before he died he was for him very ill and cranky and he had by that time in his life gotten to where he was saying extraordinarily nasty things about everyone. He was vicious his friends told him, you know, you got to stop tweeting. It's not presidential and I oh, you know what? I'm sorry. I didn't get a lot of sleep last night.

I apologize. But at his very funeral his dearest friend Melanchthon is saying in his eulogy that Luther was not a perfect guy. So everybody kind of knew it. But the point is that Luther was vicious to the Catholics and to the Pope and I quote some of it because it's very funny and very vicious and very crazy. He was vicious to his fellow Protestants with whom he disagreed vicious vicious to the Muslims, but of course, nobody ever hears about that. You only hear about what he said about the Jews why because the Nazis grabbed what he said about the Jews and they said look our national hero. The Sainted Luther said this they didn't quote what he said about Jesus and about loving your neighbor and about he said ninety nine point nine percent of what he said the Nazis didn't want to quote and didn't believe and despise but they found just what he said.

And so everybody today says he was an anti-Semite. He said this and he said that well what he said is horrible. Let's not you know sugarcoat it.

But when you put it in context, it's at least different than simply horrible. It's far more complicated. And they did very different things at very different times.

But in the end they did hard things and they challenged. Well the world order and the order in front of them and they did it in obedience to their God and the story of him being kidnapped or the fake kidnapping to get him out of this Outlaw mode. I mean imagine the Pope declaring you a heretic and the Emperor of Rome calling you an Outlaw. Well your life expectancy.

Well, it just went down a notch and while living in this beautiful prison. He decides to translate the Bible and does so in 11 weeks from Greek not from Latin but from Greek into German as a result. Eric said the gospel was out of its cage the story of Martin Luther the man who discovered God and change the world here on our American stories. Introducing Uber teen accounts and Uber account for your teen with always on enhanced safety features your teen can request a ride when you can't take them you'll get real time notifications along the way. Your teen can feel a sense of independence. You can follow their entire route on a live tracking map. Your teen will get assigned the top rated drivers. You will get peace of mind. Add your team to your Uber account today.

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