Timeline
Luther's life, the church's two thousand years, and the Bible's big story, each drawn to scale. Tap any part of a line to go deeper.
Sixty-two years, eleven stops on the trail. Tap a stretch of the line to jump to it.
Born in Eisleben to a mining family, Martin grows up in nearby Mansfeld and goes to Latin school. His father plans for him to become a lawyer.
Big ideaLuther's life started like many others: a baby baptized the day after he was born, with parents who had big plans.
A law student is caught in a lightning storm and vows to become a monk. For years he prays, fasts, and confesses, and still can't feel sure that God loves him.
Big ideaLuther's later message, that God's love is a gift, came out of years when he couldn't believe it.
Now a Bible professor in Wittenberg, Luther questions the sale of indulgences. His Ninety-Five Theses spread across Germany, and he is called before the emperor.
Big ideaOne professor's questions about forgiveness grew into the Reformation.
Luther writes the Small Catechism so families can learn the faith at home. His friends present the Augsburg Confession to the emperor. His full German Bible is printed. He dies in Eisleben, where he was born.
Big ideaLuther spent his last years making the faith plain enough to teach at the kitchen table.
About two thousand years. Luther's whole life is the thin stretch in the middle.
Jesus' friends start telling the good news in Jerusalem. The church spreads across the Roman world, often misunderstood and sometimes persecuted.
Big ideaIt started with a handful of people who couldn't stop talking about an empty tomb.
Christianity becomes legal. Church leaders meet and put the faith into words. The Bible is translated into Latin.
Big ideaThe Nicene Creed we still say on Sunday comes from this time.
Nearly a thousand years of monasteries, cathedrals, and handwritten Bibles. East and West split. At the very end, the printing press changes everything.
Big ideaFor centuries, Bibles were copied by hand. Printing made it possible for ordinary families to own one.
Luther's questions about forgiveness start the Reformation. The Bible and the service are put into the people's languages.
Big ideaWe are made right with God by grace, through faith in Christ.
Swedish, Dutch, German, and Danish Lutherans settle in North America and start churches in their own languages, often with no pastor at all.
Big ideaEach wave of newcomers brought the faith in its own language.
Lutherans live on every continent. Churches join together, admit wrongs, and work with other Christians. The story is still being written, and you're part of it.
Big ideaGrace is free, and it calls us to follow Jesus together.
From creation to the first churches. Early dates are estimates, and scholars don't agree on them.
God makes the world and calls it very good. Trust breaks, and sin enters every human life. God keeps coming to find people.
Big ideaFrom the first pages, God keeps coming to find people.
God calls Abraham and Sarah and promises that through their family, all the families of the earth will be blessed. The promise passes to Isaac, Jacob, and Joseph.
Big ideaAbraham trusted God's promise, and God counted his trust as righteousness.
Abraham's family moves to Egypt and later becomes enslaved. God rescues them through Moses, gives the commandments at Sinai, and leads them to the land of promise.
Big ideaGod rescues first, then gives the commandments as a gift for free people.
Israel asks for a king. David rules, and God promises his family a throne forever. Later the kingdom splits, prophets call the people back to God, and Babylon destroys Jerusalem.
Big ideaEven when the kings failed, God kept the promise.
Many people are taken far away to Babylon. It feels like the end. Then they come home, rebuild the temple, and wait for God's promised king.
Big idea“Comfort, O comfort my people.” Hope came in the darkest time.
About four hundred years pass between the last books of the Hebrew Bible and the birth of Jesus. Some books from this time, called the Apocrypha, appear in Catholic and Orthodox Bibles, and Luther printed them in his Bible too. Empires rise and fall. God's people keep waiting.
Big ideaWaiting is part of the story too.
Jesus is born, teaches, heals, dies on the cross, and rises from the dead. Lutherans read the whole Bible to find him at the center.
Big ideaThe Word became human and lived among us.
The Holy Spirit comes at Pentecost and the church begins. Paul and others carry the good news across the Roman world. Revelation shows how the story ends: God making all things new.
Big ideaYou're living in the middle chapters, and you already know how it ends.