An excerpt from From Our Christian Heritage
by C. Douglas Weaver, editor

Martin Luther: Protestant Reformer of Germany

Martin Luther often used the word Anfechtung to describe the acute spiritual conflicts that afflicted his conscience in his tortured quest to find a gracious God. The word is often weakly translated “temptation,” but really means dread, despair, a sense of foreboding doom, assault, anxiety. So desperate was Luther’s condition. he wanted to creep into a mouse hole. The “whole wide world” had become too narrow for him, but there was no exit.

The experience of the Anfechtung did not dissipate after his conversion. It troubled him throughout his whole life and affected how he approached theology. In a famous statement Luther confessed:

I did not learn my theology all at once, but I had to search, deeper for it,
where my temptations [Anfechtung] took me. . . .
Not understanding,
reading, or speculation, but living, nay rather than dying and being damned
make a theologian.

Luther teaches us that living the Christian life is a lifelong process of struggle, conflict, and temptation. While faith brings with it a confident assurance, we must ever be on guard against a carnal security. Christians must daily expect to be incessantly attacked. (Matt 6:13; Luke 4:1-13) (Faith, Pilgrimage, Temptation)

Lucinda Williams
When Lucinda Williams moved to Dallas, Texas, from Missouri, she wanted to find a Baptist church. She asked her landlady for directions, but was surprised to find that there was no Baptist church in town. When the landlady remarked that she hoped there never would be one, Williams said with quiet determination, “I am very sorry, Mrs. Moore, to hear you say that. I am a Baptist, and if I am to live here, I want a Baptist church here.”

On 20 July 1868, Lucinda Williams, her husband, seven other women, and two other men organized a Baptist church. Three previous efforts to start a Baptist church in Dallas had failed, but this church survived because of the commitment of Lucinda Williams and her husband. The primary effort for forming the church had been Lucinda’s. She also helped start its first Sunday School and led its initial woman’s missionary society. In the early years, the church had no building, and its survival was in doubt. Lucinda, however, energized the women of the church to raise funds to construct their own facility. In 1873, the women raised more than $600 toward the building. The money was enough to begin the project, and the women’s efforts convinced the men that the women were serious about the church’s survival.

Commitment, vision, and action went hand in hand for Lucinda Williams. She refused to be denied a Baptist church in which to worship. Her example embodies the breadth and character of women’s ministries in the total life of the church. Her church? The First Baptist Church of Dallas, Texas. (Prov 29:18; Luke 8:18; 9:57-62) (Determination, Vision, Women in Ministry) (CDW)

C. Douglas Weaver is the author of "From Our Christian Heritage." To order, go to the online bookpage or call 1-800-747-3016.

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