One of our member, Dave, blessed me with a book last week. He'd read it and was so inspired by it that he purchased copies for myself and our associate pastor.
The book is "Martin Luther - the Man Who Rediscovered God and Changed the World." The author is Eric Metaxas, who wrote a brilliant biography on Deitrich Bonhoeffer. This book was definitely on my "to buy" list. Dave beat me to it and I'm really glad.
I sat down last night to get started on the book and read something in the first paragraph that I did not know.
In 1934 an African American pastor from Georgia made the trip of a lifetime, sailing across the Atlantic Ocean, through the gates of Gibraltar, and across the Mediterranean Sea to the Holy Land. After this pilgrimage, he traveled to Berlin, attending an international conference of Baptist pastors. While in Germany, this man - who was named Michael King - became so impressed with what he learned about the reformer Martin Luther, that he decided to do something dramatic. He offered the ultimate tribute to the man's memory by changing his own name to Martin Luther King. His five year old son was also named Michael - and to his son's dying day his closest relatives would still call him Mike - but not long after the boy's father changed his own name, he decided to change his son's name too, and Michael King Jr. became known to the world as Martin Luther King Jr.
Metaxas goes on to write, "This father and son name change is just one dramatic measure of the influence of Martin Luther."
Can't wait to see what else I learn.
