August 14: Ligonier Land of Luther Study Tour Begins Continued

The palace is closed on Mondays, so we couldn't go inside, but there was a lot to see from the outside.

In a dream world...

The Ligonier Study Tour opened with dinner tonight. Surprise, there are 200 people on this tour!

Dr Stephen Nichols gave us our first talk at dinner. He gave us a framework for events in Luther's life (which we won't necesarily see in chronological order as we travel).  He then gave us five things you need to know about Luther. I'm paraphrasing a little, but they were as follows:

1. Luther delighted in assertions from God's Word. 

2. Luther believed that we will never do better than to hear and believe the holy Scriptures. 

3. For Luther, the righteousness of God is the sweetest of all words. 

4. For Luther, 'Christ alone' is not just how we are justified, but how we live the Christian life. 

When Luther as an old man made his final journey on which he actually died in the dead of winter, he encountered all kinds of difficulties. The rivers he forded were dangerously clogged with chunks of floating ice, Luther himself was badly ill, a room near him caught fire, and plaster fell from walls near his head. His wife Katy heard of these things back home and wrote a worried letter to him. Luther wrote back to reassure her:

"I have a caretaker who is better than you and better than all the angels. He lies in the manger and rests on a virgin's bosom, and yet, nevertheless, he sits at the right hand of God, the almighty Father. Therefore, be at peace."

5. Notwithstanding the fuss of the 500th anniversary of the Reformation, Luther celebrated God, not himself. 

Luther preached to the people of Wittenberg from the pulpit of the town church one year before he died,

On Judgment Day, do not say, 'Dr. Martin taught me this.' Say instead, 'Jesus Christ said this, through the mouth of my pastor.'

NEXT UP: Wittenberg