With 2017 being the 500th anniversary of the Reformation, I felt somewhat compelled to read Eric Metaxas’ biography on Martin Luther. Metaxas dispels a number of biographical rumors and inaccuracies related to Luther’s life, but I found a section on Luther’s leadership as the Reformation was beginning to sweep through the German states especially poignant and relevant to our own world.

A bit of context before I share a quote from Metaxas.

Pope Leo X and the emperor Charles V colluded to bring Luther, the rabble-rousing monk, before an official gathering of church and state officials to decide his fate. In a very real way, Luther’s life was on the line at the Diet of Worms where he famously made the proclamation, “Here I stand. I can do no other.”  In order to save Luther’s life, Frederick the wise crafted a plan to have Luther kidnapped and kept safe in a castle tower in Wartburg. It will be here that Luther begins to translate the New Testament to German, and it is also while Luther is here that others begin to take his ideas and run with them, often in ways that run contrary to Luther’s sensibilities.

One Reformation leader in particular, Andreas Karlstadt, begins to force practices on communities as it relates to Communion. It was a common practice for the priest to take both elements, the bread and wine, but for congregants to only take the communion wafer. In Luther’s absence, Karlstadt began to decree that true members of the church would take both Communion elements, inflaming believers throughout many German cities.

When news of this finally reached Luther in the Warburg castle, he was dismayed to hear how forceful and impractical Karlstadt was being with the implementation of Communion. All of this deeply troubles Luther who believes the Reformation is being taken over by sloppy thinking and forceful practices. Luther appeals to Christian freedom, noting that there will be some who choose to take both elements and others who choose to abstain from the wine. For Luther, a person’s conscience is not easily dismissed.

Reflecting on this time in Luther’s life, Metaxas writes these words about Luther as a leader:

Luther’s genious and what made him the unquestioned leaders of his movement comprised two things. First, he had the all-important pastor’s hear, such that he was deeply concerned not merely with being right but with how what one said affected the simple faithful. Luther knew that some had felt pushed too quickly and too hard by the changes that Karlstadt…had championed…One must be concerned for those who are not yet fully on board and must bring them along patiently. So to be right required being right not just in what one did and said but in the way one did and said things.

It’s clear that there’s something for leaders to consider when it comes to being right, not just in what you say or believe, but right in how you say and do.