Martin Luther Issue 39 | 1993 Click here to order the downloadable audio version

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When Martin Luther married, neither he nor his bride, Katherine von Bora, felt “in love.” Katherine was still getting over a broken engagement to a man she truly loved. And Martin admitted, “I am not ‘in love’ or burning with desire.” Yet their love for each other blossomed throughout their 20-year marriage.

Luther knew most of the New Testament and large sections of the Old Testament by memory.

Nearly everyone noticed Luther’s remarkable eyes. One of his students described Martin Luther’s “deep black eyes and brows, sparkling and burning like stars, so that one could hardly bear looking at them.” One of Luther’s enemies said his eyes were “unusually penetrating and unbelievably sparkling, as one finds them now and then in those that are possessed.”

Luther’s German translation of the Bible had more influence upon the German language than the King James Version had on English. Though almost 460 years old, Luther’s translation is still sold and read widely.

Martin Luther has been called “one of the greatest preachers of all time,” yet he became deeply discouraged with his congregation. Despite his admonitions and instruction, Luther felt, his people remained godless. “It annoys me to keep preaching to you,” he said, and in 1530, he actually went on strike and refused to preach for a time.

In 1527, a terrible plague struck Wittenberg, and virtually all of Luther’s students fled for their lives. The elector (prince) begged Luther to leave town also, but Luther felt pastors should stay and help the afflicted. Because he and Katherine took in so many sick and dying people, their house had to be quarantined even after the plague ended.

Luther was so generous he was sometimes taken advantage of. In 1541, a transient woman, allegedly a ...