What if you were to ask your children and the children in your church this simple question today: What’s special about today? What do we celebrate and why? Would the historic event of Martin Luther nailing his 95 theses to the door to the door of a Roman Catholic Church in Wittenberg, Germany in the year 1517 come to mind—an event that sparked the great Protestant Reformation? Why does this 502-year-old event even matter? Why should we teach our children about it and celebrate it?
The Reformation boils down to a recovery of salvation by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone. We are justified by faith in the substitutionary death of Christ. That’s the gospel. Remove it and you derail the engine that propels the train of eternal salvation. Remove it and you leave the body of Christ without a beating heart. Remove it and the Christian faith evaporates like a summer mist. The gospel was the battleground of the Reformation. No wonder the seed of the serpent attacks it in every generation.
I want my children to know that without the gospel, they cannot make sense of life in a fallen world. Without the gospel, there’s no hope in this life or the next, no real purpose to our days and seasons. Calvin said justification is the hinge on which the door of salvation swings. I want them to keep a close watch on that door.
(Jeff Robinson, “5 Reasons to Teach Your Kids About the Reformation,” thegospelcoalition.org)
Parents, we would like to offer you a free lesson/devotional on the significance of what happened on October 31, 1517. The lesson, “Jesus Will Guard and Defend His Church,” also highlights and explains the meaning of the “Five Solas” of the Reformation. Happy Reformation Day!
(The free lesson is from a new Truth78 curriculum, I Will Build My Church scheduled to be released in 2020.)
