Martin Luther — The Reformer on His Knees

Who He Was Martin Luther was born on November 10, 1483, in Eisleben, Saxony, the son of a copper miner who dreamed of a legal career for his eldest son. Terror during a thunderstorm in 1505 drove Luther into a monastery, and the years of monastic striving that followed — flagellation, obsessive confession, relentless self-examination — failed to quiet his tormented conscience. It was in the discovery of grace through the study of Romans that he found peace: righteousness, he learned, was not a demand God made of sinners but a gift God gave to them through faith in Christ. This discovery ignited the Protestant Reformation — the Ninety-Five Theses of 1517, the Diet of Worms in 1521, the German Bible, the hymns, the sermons, the flood of reforming writings that transformed Europe. Beneath all of it was a man who reportedly spent two to three hours each morning in prayer — and who died in 1546 having redrawn the spiritual map of Western civilization from his knees.

His Core Teaching on Prayer Luther’s Reformation was, at every level, a reformation of prayer as much as a reformation of doctrine. The medieval church had turned prayer into a semi-professional activity — a specialized practice performed by monks and priests on behalf of an illiterate, spiritually passive laity. Luther demolished this structure with the same theological instrument he used to demolish indulgences and sacerdotalism: the priesthood of all believers. Because every baptized Christian stood before God in Christ with the same access, the same standing, and the same open welcome, every baptized Christian could and should pray directly, personally, boldly, and expectantly.

Prayer was not outsourced to the clergy. It was the birthright of every child of God.

The theological foundation for this was the passage he returned to repeatedly throughout his ministry: “Let us then approach God’s throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need” (Hebrews 4:16, NIV). The word “confidence” — parresia in the Greek, meaning boldness, freedom of speech, frank openness — was the word of a person who had nothing to hide and nothing to prove, who came to God as a beloved child comes to a father who is delighted to be approached. Luther was incensed by the timid, cringing, fearful prayer that characterized much popular piety of his day. He wanted his parishioners praying with open faces, open mouths, and open hands — expecting to receive from a Father who was already disposed to give.

He wrote a remarkable practical guide to prayer in the form of a letter to his barber, Peter Beskendorf — the “Simple Way to Pray” — which became one of the most read pastoral documents of the Reformation. He described using the Lord’s Prayer, the Ten Commandments, and the Apostles’ Creed as kindling for prayer rather than as texts to be recited. He would take a phrase — “Our Father in heaven” — and allow it to ignite a conversation: Who is this Father?

What does it mean that He is in heaven? What do I know of His character that should shape how I approach Him right now? Luther was not interested in prayer as religious performance. He was interested in prayer as genuine conversation between a real person and the living God.

Luther also prayed with a ferocity against spiritual evil that sometimes startled his contemporaries. He understood prayer as warfare in a way that was not metaphorical — the Reformation itself was, in his understanding, a spiritual battle fought in the heavenly places as much as in the councils of the church. He drew on Ephesians 6:18 — “And pray in the Spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and requests” (NIV) — not as a general religious encouragement but as a battle order from the Commander of the Lord’s armies. His famous hymn “A Mighty Fortress Is Our God” was as much a prayer as a theological statement: a declaration that the battle belonged to God, that the weapons of the Kingdom were spiritual, and that prayer was the front line of the campaign.

Luther was deeply formed by the Psalms as a school of prayer. He found in them a permission to bring the full range of human experience before God — not only the grateful and the worshipful moments, but the desperate, the despairing, the angry, and the confused. “Pray boldly,” he urged his students. God is not offended by the directness of your need. He is offended by the indirectness of your doubting His willingness to hear. First Peter 5:7 — “Cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you” (NIV) — was, for Luther, the summary of everything: the God who has revealed Himself in Christ cares, and the appropriate response to a God who cares is to bring Him everything.

Luther’s prayer life was not a separate compartment of his ministry. It was the climate in which everything else took place. The great Reformation sermons were written by a man on his knees.

The German Bible was translated by a man who prayed over every page. The pastoral letters were composed by a man who brought each correspondent before the throne of God before putting pen to paper. The Reformation that changed the world was carried in the prayers of a man who believed that God was listening, that God was willing, and that God’s power was more than adequate for every challenge the Gospel would face.

A Prayer: Heavenly Father, we thank You that through Christ alone we come boldly to Your throne as Your dearly loved children. Stir in us the confidence of Luther — confidence that You hear, that You delight to hear, and that You answer the prayers of faith offered in the name of Your Son. Amen.