May28pm
Keep It Simple, Sinner
Speaker: Pastor Marty Martin
II Corinthians 11:1-6
Archive for May, 2017
May17am
Reforming Worship Music
A mighty fortress is our God, a bulwark never failing; Our helper he amid the flood of mortal ills prevailing are the familiar opening words of Martin Luther’s great hymn, A Mighty Fortress. It was composed in 1527, which was a particularly difficult year for the Luther household because both Martin and his one-year-old son, Hans, suffered but survived extended illnesses, and then when the plague visited town, the Luthers made their home into a hospital. Making it through the challenging year may have reminded Luther of God’s faithfulness in the past when Frederick the Wise hid him in Wartburg Castle in 1521. Luther found the immense fortification to be a bulwark against agents of Emperor Charles V who sought to arrest him for heresy. Ein’ Feste Berg, the German title of the hymn, was not Luther’s first nor only hymn. His first hymn was A New Song Shall Here Be Begun, which he authored in memory of three Augustinian monks burned at the stake in Antwerp on July 1, 1523. The three were executed for failure to renounce their Protestant beliefs which they had learned primarily from Luther’s writings. In total, Luther composed thirty-eight hymns, six of which are included in the Trinity Hymnal, Revised, which is used by Fellowship Presbyterian Church. Martin Luther said of music that it “has the natural power of stimulating and arousing the souls of men.”