A lesson from history
A lesson from history
It seems too easy to take the blessing of freedom to practice our religion for granted.
It seems too easy to take the blessing of a faithful congregation with faithful pastors and teachers for granted.
My daughter wants to be a Lutheran elementary school teacher. I am deeply grateful to all of the Christians around the nation who are sacrificing and pooling their resources so that she can begin focused study for that high calling already this fall at the high school level.
It seems too easy to take the blessing of a ministerial education system with faithful teachers and faithful students for granted.
My whole family can follow Jesus openly in our home, in our church, and in our schools. Many men and women have sacrificed their lives in the Armed Forces so that we enjoy freedom of religion where we live. I am deeply grateful to them.
It seems too easy to take the blessing of freedom to practice our religion for granted.
History can teach us not to take such blessings for granted. Almost 500 years ago, a group of families moved to where a mine had opened in the present-day Czech Republic. They named their new town Joachimsthal. The year after they founded their town, Martin Luther nailed the Ninety-Five Theses to the church door at Wittenberg, and the Reformation began.
The mining families all became Lutheran. They opened and supported two Lutheran elementary schools, one for the boys and one for the girls. They supported a number of pastors in a large congregation that contained, at its peak, 5,000 mining families.
Many of their legal and church records have been preserved, and their story is told in the book Singing the Gospel by Christopher Boyd Brown. What is striking is the documented evidence of each family being sure that the children learned Bible accounts, Luther’s Small Catechism, Lutheran worship, and in particular, the words of dozens of Lutheran hymns.
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