International (MNN) — Many Protestant Christians around the world observe Reformation Day on October 31. In Argentina, it is called the National Day of Evangelical and Protestant Churches, as of 2024.
This year marks the 507th anniversary of the day Martin Luther is believed to have nailed his Ninety-Five Theses to a church door in Wittenberg, Germany.
One result of the Reformation was that the Bible became more accessible to ordinary Christians, not just the clergy. Stephen Wesley with Voice of the Martyrs Canada sees how this continues to impact the world today.
(Photo courtesy of Voice of the Martyrs Canada)
“Whenever Christians go in mission, they not only start churches, but they start schools, and they start hospitals and they start universities,” Wesley says, “because with the Word of God comes enlightenment and truth, and the opportunity for that to transform people’s lives, their societies and their cultures.”
Local churches deal with unique cultural and theological challenges in different parts of the world. For the persecuted church, Wesley observes that faith in Christ alone is enough to bring difficulties and opposition into their lives from their cultures. (More on this here.)
For believers in other contexts, the challenges are less obvious and more insidious, such as materialism, compromise and syncretism.
The Reformation today
But no matter where you live out your faith in Christ, what God called Christian men and women 500 years ago to do still reverberates today: hold to God’s Word fiercely and follow where His Spirit is leading faithfully.
“Our churches, our pastors and our leaders need to have that spirit of reformation,” Wesley says. “Whenever we’re looking at the church, we have to ask the question, ‘Are we attached to a monument, or are we living in a movement?’ The church is never meant to be static.”
He delves into Jesus’ words in Matthew 16:18, where He says the gates of hell will not prevail against the church.
“Gates are not offensive. They’re defensive. It’s not that the gates of hell are attacking the church, [it’s] that the church is moving against, that the gates of hell holding people in darkness and seeing them destroyed because of the power that we have bringing life and light,” Wesley says.
Wesley points to Pentecostalism as one illustration of the advancing of God’s kingdom. “We’ve seen in the last 100 years this massive movement from zero to 700 million people around the world now [in Pentecostal churches],” he continues.
“You have to have orthodoxy and orthopraxy. You have to have truth and the Spirit. You have to have them moving together in the life of the church. If you have one or the other, you’re not going to have a healthy church.”
(Representative stock photo courtesy of Andrew Stutesman via Unsplash)
Pray for the global Church
There’s a mosaic of different denominations, expressions and facets of the global Church today. As we remember just one chapter in church history, Wesley points to Jesus’ prayer in John 17 as a call to action.
“We need to pray for unity. We need to love one another as Christ has loved us,” he says.
“We talk about the love of God, and we teach about the love of God, but then we have a great difficulty coming together in oneness, blessing one another, honoring one another, serving one another and loving one another.
“[As the church lives that out,] then the world will come knocking on our door. They will come knocking and say, ‘I see in you something I’ve always wanted to see in you, what you’ve always said, but now I’m actually seeing it. I want more.’”
Header photo of All Saints’ Church in Wittenberg, Germany, the site where Martin Luther is believed to have posted his Ninety-Five Theses. (Photo courtesy of Deny Hill via Unsplash)
