Proclaimer Blog
Next year is significant
I guess you had realised, hadn’t you, Mr Preacher, that next year is historically significant? It’s 2017 which is of course the 500th anniversary of old Martin putting up his 95 theses next to the church cleaning rota on the notice board at Wittenberg. Perhaps you think that such an anniversary requires little celebration? I disagree.
For one thing, we have much to thank God for in the bravery and wisdom of our spiritual forebears. Indeed, not just in the church but in our society. I think few Christians appreciate just what a difference the Reformation made. Back in 2008, the historian Tristram Hunt (now a Labour MP) made an excellent series about the Reformation with four episodes (I think, on the Reformation and the mind, education, arts and science). It’s sadly unavailable in any format today, though perhaps we should initiate a campaign to have it reshown next year? There’s a great little book too, The Legacy of John Calvin, produced on the 500th anniversary of that reformer’s birth.
But there’s more. We still need to keep learning the lessons of the Reformation and that’s why I’m particularly grateful to Tim Chester and Mike Reeves for their new book Why the Reformation Still Matters. It’s quite superb. A really excellent chapter on preaching, but every chapter is gold dust. They take justification, grace, preaching, the Lord’s Supper, church and daily life and show what the Reformers believed and how the battles are still relevant today.
It’s not a simple read like, say, Kirsty Birkett’s Essence of the Reformation. It would be aimed at the thinking Christian. But it’s one of those books that needs to make it onto your essential list as you lead your church next year and be shaping at least some of what you do as a church.