In May of 1738, a failed minister and missionary reluctantly went to a small Bible study where someone read aloud from Martin Luther’s Commentary on Romans.ī. Therefore I felt myself to be reborn and to have gone through open doors into paradise… This passage of Paul became to me a gateway into heaven.” Martin Luther was born again, and the Reformation began in his heart. Luther the monk went on to say: “Night and day I pondered until… I grasped the truth that the righteousness of God is that righteousness whereby, through grace and sheer mercy, he justifies us by faith.

The passage confused Luther how could God’s righteousness do anything but condemn him to hell as a righteous punishment for his sins? Luther kept thinking about Romans 1:17, which says, the righteousness of God is revealed through faith for faith as it is written, “He who through faith is righteous shall live.”ī. In his studies he came across Psalm 31:1: In Thy righteousness deliver me. In August of 1513, a monk lectured on the Book of Psalms to seminary students, but his inner life was nothing but turmoil. Through the power of God’s Word, Augustine gained the faith to give his whole life to Jesus Christ at that moment. He didn’t read any further he didn’t have to. But put on the Lord Jesus Christ and make no provision for the flesh, to gratify its desires (Romans 13:13b-14). Thinking God had a message to him in the words of the children, he picked up a scroll laying nearby and began to read: not in reveling and drunkenness, not in debauchery and licentiousness, not in quarreling and jealousy.

As he sat, he heard children playing a game and they called out to each other these words: “Take up and read! Take up and read!”ī. He knew his life of sin and rebellion against God left him empty and feeling dead but he just couldn’t find the strength to make a final, real decision for Jesus Christ. In the summer of 386, a young man wept in the backyard of a friend. The importance and impact of Paul’s Letter to the Romans.

Rebellion Book III by Grea Alexander