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Martin Luther

“And while I slept or drank Wittenberg beer with my friends, the Word of God so greatly weakened the papacy that no prince or emperor never inflicted such losses upon it. I did nothing.   The Word did everything,” said Martin Luther.   It was with this call for a redefinition, a reform, by the Catholic Church of most of it sacrosanct doctrinal positions that Martin Luther influenced the start of the Protestant Reformation of 1517.   He would spend his entire life becoming an expert on the bible and its teachings.   However, it was his interpretation accompanied by some of the public’s unrest with the manor in which the Catholic Church ruled its people that would change the course of Christianity’s history.
Luther was born to Hans Luder and his wife Margarethe on November 10, 1483 in Eisleben, Germany.   Martin Marty describes both of Luther’s parents as “harsh disciplinarians” but explained that Luther knew “they meant heartily well (1-2).”   Due to his father’s wishes, at the age of seventeen in 1501, Luther entered the University of Erfurt and received his Bachelor’s degree in just one year.   He was such an avid learner that he also received his Master’s degree in 1505.   However, according to Stepanek, Luther was a very earnest scholar but he declared his need for God’s grace so dedicated his life to life as a monk (35).  
At the time of Luther’s entry into the friary, he became overwhelmed by his sinfulness and became obsessed with what may be awaiting him following his death. In an attempt to guarantee his admittance into heaven Luther devoted himself to long hours of prayer, many fasts, and frequent confessions.   However, in his attempt to please God and save himself from eternal damnation that Luther became more aware, Luther became an expert on the Bible and was sent to teach theology at the University of Wittenberg.   He lectured on the Bible so much that he began view the Roman Catholic Church in a new light of corruption.   He saw the church and the papacy as...