David Mathis
Executive Editor,
desiringGod.org
It was October 31, 1517, that Martin Luther nailed his 95 theses to the church door in Wittenberg. He wanted to debate the sale of indulgences with his fellow university professors. He wrote in Latin, but a nameless visionary translated the theses into German, carried them to the printing press, and enabled their dispersion far and wide.
Luther ended up with more than he bargained for, but he proved to be no coward in defending the discoveries he was making in Scripture. When the Roman church wouldn’t serve him the treat of sufficiently addressing his concerns, he was consigned to the role of sparking the now half-millennium running trick called the Protestant church.
Why Halloween?
Of course Luther wasn’t trick-or-treating when he approached the threshold of the church in Wittenberg, but it’s likely no accident he picked October 31. There’s another angle on Halloween that many are unaware of some 500 years later.
