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Grab Your Pen and Change the World

And the creative vigor of Martin Luther

Jonas Ellison
3 min readJun 11, 2019
Photo by Sourav Badu on Unsplash

“If you want to change the world, pick up your pen and write.”
Martin Luther

My dear friend Shaunta Grimes shared the above quote — one of my all-time favorites (though, as she says, unverifiable through a quick Google search, at least) — in one of her posts the other day.

As a budding Lutheran theologian/pastor as well as a daily blogger, I’m blown away by how insanely prolific the late beer-swigging, nun-marrying friar was.

My first class in seminary (which I just finished) was a systematic theology class about Luther. He was a deeply flawed man. Certain parts of his story are repulsive — particularly his antisemitic rants¹ later in his life when he grew tired and cranky (no excuse). But it also makes me fascinated by him all the more.

Luther boldly embraced and embodied his epic line…

Simul justus et peccator
(Loose translation: We are 100% sinner and 100% saint 100% of the time.)

Now, getting back to the point of this entry — Luther’s creative verve…

When I reflected on this class about Luther, sure, his theological prowess and heart shone through as being remarkable (the line above is merely one of the countless paradigm-shifting…

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Jonas Ellison
Jonas Ellison

Written by Jonas Ellison

Not here on Medium much anymore. Head over to my Substack to see the latest: jonasellison.substack.com 👍🙏🤙

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