In a church rocked by controversies over vernacular Scripture, iconoclasm, and the power of clergy, men and women arose in protest. Today we call this protest movement the Protestant Reformation. At its heart, the Reformation was a great revival of the church centered on the recovery of biblical truth and the gospel of free grace. This movement continues to instruct and inspire believers even into the present day. Reformation 500 celebrates the Reformation and probes the ways it has shaped our world for the better. With essays from an array of disciplines, this book explores the impact of the Reformation across a wide range of human experience. Literature, education, visual art, culture, politics, music, theology, church life, and Baptist history all provide prisms through which the Reformation legacy is viewed. From Augustine to Zwingli, historical figures like Luther, Calvin, Barth, Bonhoeffer, Rembrandt, Bach, Bunyan, and Wycliffe all find their way into this amazing 500-year story. From Anglicans to Baptists, scientists to poets, Reformation 500 weaves these many historical threads into a modern-day tapestry.

2017 is the 500th year anniversary of Martin Luther’s nailing his Ninety-five Theses to the door of Castle Church in Wittenberg, Germany, the event marking the beginning of the Reformation—and the end of unified Christianity. For Catholics, it was an unjustified rebellion by the heterodox. For Protestants, it was the release of true and purified Christianity from centuries-old enslavement to corruption, idolatry, and error. So what is the truth about the Reformation? To mark the 500th anniversary, historian Benjamin Wiker gives us 12 Things You Need to Know About the Reformation, a straight-forward account of the world-changing event that rejects the common distortions of Catholic, Protestant, Marxist, Freudian, or secularist retellings.

When Martin Luther published his 95 Theses in October 1517, he had no intention of starting a revolution. But very quickly his criticism of indulgences became a rejection of the papacy and the Catholic Church emphasizing the Bible as the sole authority for Christian faith, radicalizing a continent, fracturing the Holy Roman Empire, and dividing Western civilization in ways Luther—a deeply devout professor and spiritually-anxious Augustinian friar—could have never foreseen, nor would he have ever endorsed. From Germany to England, Luther’s ideas inspired spontaneous but sustained uprisings and insurrections against civic and religious leaders alike, pitted Catholics against Protestants, and because the Reformation movement extended far beyond the man who inspired it, Protestants against Protestants. The ensuing disruptions prompted responses that gave shape to the modern world, and the unintended and unanticipated consequences of the Reformation continue to influence the very communities, religions, and beliefs that surround us today. How Luther inadvertently fractured the Catholic Church and reconfigured Western civilization is at the heart of renowned historian Brad Gregory’s Rebel in the Ranks. While recasting the portrait of Luther as a deliberate revolutionary, Gregory describes the cultural, political, and intellectual trends that informed him and helped give rise to the Reformation, which led to conflicting interpretations of the Bible, as well as the rise of competing churches, political conflicts, and social upheavals across Europe. Over the next five hundred years, as Gregory’s account shows, these conflicts eventually contributed to further epochal changes—from the Enlightenment and self-determination to moral relativism, modern capitalism, and consumerism, and in a cruel twist to Luther’s legacy, the freedom of every man and woman to practice no religion at all. With the scholarship of a world-class historian and the keen eye of a biographer, Gregory offers readers an in-depth portrait of Martin Luther, a reluctant rebel in the ranks, and a detailed examination of the Reformation to explain how the events that transpired five centuries ago still resonate—and influence us—today.

Published to mark the 500th Anniversary of the Reformation, and updated in 2020. For the past five hundred years God has been pouring out His Spirit, to reform and to revive His Church. Reformation to Revival traces the Divine thread of God’s power from Martin Luther of 1517, through to the Charismatic Movement and into the twenty-first century, featuring 60 great revivals from 20 nations on five continents. Walk with George Fox during the Quaker Revival in Puritan England and into America; rejoice with Count Zinzendorf of the Moravian Revival and the great mission advance, and see America and Britain transformed under the preaching of Jonathan Edwards, John Wesley, George Whitefield and friends during the Great Awakenings. Discover the depths of the great 1859 Revivals; labour with Jonathan Goforth of China, in Korea and Manchuria and see Wales transformed under the power of the Holy Spirit because of the faith of Evan Roberts. Read about the Pentecostal explosion of the Azusa Street Revival and the great works of God across Britain and America into the twenty-first century. Sixty revivals, awakenings and Heaven-sent visitations of the Holy Spirit in the nations of: Germany, Britain, America, Switzerland, South Africa, Norway, Sweden, Scotland, England, Wales, Ireland, China, Korea, Japan, Ghana etc., Manchuria (annexed by Russia), India, Australia, Ruanda, Argentina and Indonesia.

For hundreds of years Christendom has been blessed with Bible commentaries written by great men of God who were highly respected for their godly work and their insight into spiritual truth. The Crossway Classic Commentary Series, carefully adapted for maximum understanding and usefulness, presents the very best work on individual Bible books for today's believers. Ever since it was written, the apostle Paul's letter to the believers in Galatia has nurtured trust and assurance in Christ. Its grand themes of the superiority of Scripture over human reason, the sufficiency of Christ's atonement through his death, and the freedom of justification through faith alone continue to energize and enlighten Christians today. This classic commentary from the heart of a courageous apostle will encourage and equip all who desire to understand, live out, and communicate the true gospel of Jesus Christ.