The Protestant Reformation began in the German university town of Wittenberg with a young Christian academic and monk by the name of Martin Luther. Martin Luther's journey to faith had not been easy; it can be described as "search for a merciful God". Originally training to be a lawyer, he was caught in a thunderstorm and, fearing for his life, vowed to become a monk. In due course he took the vows to become a monk, was ordained as a priest, and from 1508 worked as a lecturer in Holy Scripture at the recently founded Wittenberg university. Despite Luther's intense commitment, he felt he could never do enough and was left without assurance of God's mercy. However, as Luther taught his way through Psalms and then Romans, his search for assurance of forgiveness led him to rediscover the truth of salvation in Christ as a gift given by God and received by mere faith. This new evangelical faith was at odds with his experience of church, which offered an endless cycle o...