A Rare Book

[phkrause]

A collector of rare books ran into an acquaintance who told him he had just thrown away an old Bible that he found in a dusty, old box. He happened to mention that Guten-somebody-or-other had printed it.

"Not Gutenberg?" Gasped the collector.

"Yes, that was it!""You idiot! You've thrown away one of the first books ever printed. A copy recently sold at an auction for half a million dollars!"

"Oh, I don't think this book would have been worth anything close to that much," replied the man. "It was scribbled all over in the margins by some guy named Martin Luther."

[Kevin H]

No!!! This is NOT funny and cute. Even though I understand this to be a joke I am shaking like a leaf. This is the type of story you can tell around a campfire on Halloween to keep me laying awake in terror all night

[Kevin H]

Just a note here: We are about to enter October. The last weekend in October is Reformation weekend. In Germany and much of Europe catechism teachers bring their students to Wittenberg. While not too many Europeans are accepting Christ, most of the few that do end up doing it on the last weekend in October when they are in Wittenberg and think about the life of Martin Luther and what it cost to have our freedom of religion today. Please join with me this month and really pray for these catechism teachers and students as they prepare for and take this trip.

[Gail]

Kevin does make a good point... The book I am reading is explaining about religious liberty in the Roman era and the circumstances that faced the new believers were horrendous. They were tortured and prohibited from holding public office and even presented with the possibility of sitting in a red-hot metal chair or having a salt-vinegar mixture poured upon flogging wounds.

And yet, the Christians faced death with fortitude and patience. Finally, after the main, most famous Caesars came and went, around the latter part of the 3rd Century AD, Christians were permitted to practice their religious freely. But then comes the papacy...