Summary of Eric Metaxas's Martin Luther

By IRB Media

Please note: This is a companion version & not the original book. Book Preview:

#1 There are two conundrums that make a beginning difficult to establish for the story of Martin Luther. The first is that we cannot determine the year in which he was born, although we are sure of the date. The second is that he was baptized on November 11, the feast day of Saint Martin of Tours, but his parents did not know that this was the same day as the birth of St. Martin.

#2 Martin Luther was born in the final year of the reign of Pope Sixtus IV, one of a series of six popes who were comically bungling and scandalous. But for the name his parents had given him, there is nothing in the childhood or the upbringing of Martin Luther to suggest him as a candidate for the extraordinary life that followed.

#3 The first of these is that Martin was born into a family of peasants. However, archaeological discoveries have shown that his father was a successful entrepreneur who owned several smelting works and moved to Eisleben with his young wife, Margarethe.

#4 The Ludhers were no more or less religious than most people of their time and social station, which is to say they took God and the church very seriously. They almost certainly had a shrine in their home to Saint Anne, which was the name of Mary's mother.

• Language: English
• Publisher: IRB Media
• Release date: May 24, 2022
• ISBN: 9798822525740

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Insights on Eric Metaxas's Martin Luther

Contents

Insights from Chapter 1

Insights from Chapter 2

Insights from Chapter 3

Insights from Chapter 4

Insights from Chapter 5

Insights from Chapter 6

Insights from Chapter 7

Insights from Chapter 8

Insights from Chapter 9

Insights from Chapter 10

Insights from Chapter 11

Insights from Chapter 12

Insights from Chapter 13

Insights from Chapter 14

Insights from Chapter 15

Insights from Chapter 16

Insights from Chapter 17

Insights from Chapter 18

Insights from Chapter 19

Insights from Chapter 20

Insights from Chapter 21

Insights from Chapter 22

Insights from Chapter 1

#1

There are two conundrums that make a beginning difficult to establish for the story of Martin Luther. The first is that we cannot determine the year in which he was born, although we are sure of the date. The second is that he was baptized on November 11, the feast day of Saint Martin of Tours, but his parents did not know that this was the same day as the birth of St. Martin.

#2

Martin Luther was born in the final year of the reign of Pope Sixtus IV, one of a series of six popes who were comically bungling and scandalous. But for the name his parents had given him, there is nothing in the childhood or the upbringing of Martin Luther to suggest him as a candidate for the extraordinary life that followed.

#3

The first of these is that Martin was born into a family of peasants. However, archaeological discoveries have shown that his father was a successful entrepreneur who owned several smelting works and moved to Eisleben with his young wife, Margarethe.

#4

The Ludhers were no more or less religious than most people of their time and social station, which is to say they took God and the church very seriously. They almost certainly had a shrine in their home to Saint Anne, which was the name of Mary's mother.

#5

The house in which Luther was raised was not the poorest house in Mansfeld, but the most respectable and established family’s house. The Luthers handled these long-buried objects in the course of their lives five centuries ago.

#6

The archaeologists found many of the toys that Martin and his brothers probably played with. They also found a miniature replica of the trigger mechanism of a crossbow, which was likely used as a toy crossbow.

#7

The canard of Luther’s father being so impossibly strict and perpetually glowering that it resulted in the boy’s eventual rebellion against not just his earthly father but his heavenly father too, is completely false.

#8

Luther’s recollections of his childhood are not at all fond ones. He says that he was often afraid and in pain during his childhood, and that he wanted to escape it as soon as possible.

#9

The fear of God was perpetuated by the churches and theology of that time. It was connected to the irrational and ignorant fear of a good God that was instilled in children.

#10

Martin’s parents were very ambitious for him, and they sent him to a school in Magdeburg, forty miles south, in 1496. He was 13 years old at the time. While there, he was placed with the Nullbrüder, who were not an official monastic order but who nonetheless had gathered together in a monastic-type community.

#11

The young Luther was extremely impressed by his uncle, who had completely abandoned the world even though he was a prince. His introspection would later serve as a powerful check on the worldly ambitions his father had planned for him.

#12

Luther spent the next few years in Eisenach, a city that was a center of clergy and piety. He became close to his teacher Wigand Güldenapf, and he had a relationship with his great-uncle Konrad Hutter, who was once the custodian of St. Nicholas’s church there.

#13

Luther was also exposed to the dark side of the church during his time in Eisenach. He would later identify himself as the figure prophesied by Franciscan monk Johannes Hilten, who predicted that a man would arise in the year 1516 who would reform the church.

#14

The church had been corrupt for a long time, and many figures had tried to reform it. The first was John Wycliffe, who translated the Bible into English. He was denounced as a heretic at the Council of Constance in 1415, and his bones were exhumed and burned in 1428.

#15

The Vatican was also corrupt, and many knew it. The church had become a septic field of moral turpitude, and the reform movement was trying to clean it up. But the pope elected in 1471, Sixtus IV, would kick the reform movement away like a fly.

#16

The pope in Rome at the time, Alexander VI, purchased