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Luther, when the people of his hometown turned to rioting in his name, preferring the outward rebellion of his teaching rather than the gospel message:

“I took three years of constant study, reflection, and discussion to arrive where I now am, and can the common man, untutored in such matters, be expected to move the same distance in three months?...Such haste and violence betray a lack of confidence in God.”

“The pope is no judge of matters pertaining to God’s Word and faith, but a Christian man must examine and judge for himself.”

“Unless I am convicted by Scripture and plain reason...my conscience is captive to the Word of God. I cannot and will not recant anything, for to go against conscience is neither right nor safe. God help me. Amen...Here I stand, I cannot do otherwise.”

“The [Duke Frederick] himself repeatedly insisted that he was not espousing Dr. Martin’s opinions but merely demanding a fair hearing...Yet Frederick’s notion of a fair hearing meant that Luther should be convicted out of the Scriptures.”

Rising German nationalism led many knights to offer their services to Luther. One offered him safe berth in his castle and another said that 100 knights would muster to his protection should he call. They all hoped for a crusade to free Germany from papal influence. Luther politely rejected them. He refused to use violence to advance the gospel or protect himself.

“By February, 1520, he was ready to say, ‘We are all Hussites without knowing it.’ By that time Eck was in Rome informing the pope that the son of iniquity [Luther] was also the Saxon Hus.”

“Luther was to find it easier to convince men that the pope was Antichrist than that the just shall live by faith.”

Even though I already knew much of the history behind Luther’s story, it’s still shocking to read that at first all he had to do was to repeat some basic principles taught in the Bible and to protest against some of the most flagrant abuses of the time in order to be accused of heresy by the authorities of the Roman Church.

"This paradoxical figure revived the Christian consciousness of Europe. In his day, as Catholic historians all agree, the popes of the Renaissance were unscrupulous. The intelligentsia did not revolt against the Church because the Church was so much of their mind and mood as scarcely to warrant a revolt...Luther changed all this..Men cared enough for the faith to die for it and to kill for it."