The day of October 31 is widely celebrated in the world as Halloween, which is what almost everyone knows. However, a significant event happened in church history on October 31, 1517, when Martin Luther nailed the famous 95-Theses to the church's door. During the time this happened, the age of the church was in the Roman Catholic Missions era in which the focus was not proclaiming the Gospel to lead people to the truth of the Gospel, rather the focus became drawing people to the Roman Catholic Church instead. After the ascension of Jesus, which is seen at the beginning of the book of Acts, the Early Church era lasted until around 500 AD. This period ended as the Christians lost sight of their focus on the Gospel and it went into the Medevil Church era during which Islam began and also the Roman Catholic Church began as well. It was also during this period that the Holy Wars took place as well.
When the Roman Catholic Church started, there was a focus to draw people to the Roman Catholic Church rather than to the truth of the Gospel as found in Scripture. During this period as well, the Church led people to believe that the only people that could understand the Scriptures were the clergy of the Roman Catholic Church. This was until a German monk by the name of Martin Luther was asked by one of his superiors if he ever read the Scriptures before and that question sparked a desire in him to begin studying the Scriptures for himself. One of the books of the Bible that was very influential to Luther was the letter to the Romans. As Martin Luther dove deeper into the Scriptures, he began to realize that the Scriptures are not meant to only be read by the clergy of the Roman Catholic Church, but by everyone. Martin Luther then helped get the Scriptures into the German language for the people to begin reading the Scriptures for themselves.
October 31, 1517, was not only the day that Martin Luther nailed the 95-Theses to the door of the Roman Catholic Church, which were indictments against the Roman Catholic Church, but it was the beginning of the Protestant Reformation Missions era. As people were able to begin reading the Scriptures for themselves, they were able to realize that the focus is not to draw people to a specific building, rather it is to draw people to the truth of the Gospel. The focus was once again brought back to what the Early Church era had before they lost sight of the Gospel. Since the Protestant Reformation, there have been some false gospels that have crept into the body of Christ and Paul also warned the Galatians about going after false gospels. As Christians, we need to keep our focus on Christ and we need to be studying the Scriptures as good Bereans so that we can
rightly handle the Word of GOD in every situation we find ourselves in.
To commemorate Reformation Day, we have a shirt design in our shop to draw attention to the Reformation Day. The Protestant Reformation helped bring the focus of the church back to proclaiming the Gospel of Jesus Christ. As Christians, we should be looking to celebrate October 31 as Reformation Day.
