HEROES OF GOD:

NOTABLE NAMES IN CHRISTIAN HISTORY

Heroes are mostly portrayed by their incredible powers and capabilities, which enable them to perform extraordinary deeds. Their mission is to save society from villains and natural disasters and accomplish heroic acts, like Batman, Superman, Captain America, Wolverine, Thor, and Black Widow. But heroes are also those who are ordinary people with a divine purpose. They became heroes not in saving others, but in giving up their lives to Jesus our Lord and King.We will discover how these ordinary people performed extraordinary deeds to be ‘heroes’ indeed.

SAINT AUGUSTINE (NOVEMBER 13, 354—AUGUST 28, 430 AD)

“Pray as though everything depended on God. Work as though everything depended on you.”_¹

Born Aurelius Augustinus in Thagaste in Roman Africa, Augustine was drawn to the truth of the Christian faith in his early thirties but struggled to give up his sexual pursuits. But when he put his faith in Christ, he discovered grace, which made it possible for him to carry out God’s will. He prayed to God in humility and dependence for the resources he would require to faithfully follow Jesus in the strength of the Spirit.² He went on to become a vastly influential theologian and writer and was instrumental in laying the foundation for modern Christian thought.

MARTIN LUTHER (NOVEMBER 10, 1483—FEBRUARY 18, 1546)

“We are saved by faith alone, but the faith that saves is never alone.”³

A German theologian and religious reformer, Luther ignited the Protestant Reformation in the sixteenth century. Luther’s belief in justification by faith led him to question the Catholic Church’s self-indulgence practices because he believed, according to the Bible, that there was no need for anyone to seek or purchase salvation. He wrote in 1533, “For a number of years I have now annually read through the Bible twice. If the Bible were a large, mighty tree and all its words were little branches, I have tapped at all the branches, eager to know what was there and what it had to offer.”⁴

JOHN CALVIN (JULY 10, 1509—MAY 27, 1564)

‘I gave up all for Christ, and what have I found? Everything in Christ.”⁵

Calvin was a French Protestant theologian and Reformation figure. He took the Bible very seriously
because he saw God’s majesty and Christ’s glory on every page. As a pastor, he frequently ran into
opposition. People would purposely cough during church services so as to drown out his sermons;
others would fire guns outside the church; men would set their dogs on him; and some would even
threaten to drag him out and throw him in the river. Despite these challenges, Calvin refused to slow
down or lighten the load on his ministry.

DIETRICH BONHOEFFER (FEBRUARY 4, 1906—APRIL 9, 1945)

“We must be ready to allow ourselves to be interrupted by God.”⁷

Dietrich Bonhoeffer was a follower of Jesus Christ, and he paid the price for that discipleship with his
life. This cost was paid not only at the end of his life, when he was executed for his role in the plot to
assassinate Adolf Hitler, but also throughout his life as he dedicated himself to his loved ones, his
friends, and the true church. Dietrich was born in Poland in 1906 as the eighth child in an intellectually gifted but nominally religious family. Everyone was shocked when he made the decision to become a theologian and pastor at the age of 14.

ELISABETH ELLIOT (DECEMBER 21, 1926—JUNE 15, 2015)

“There is nothing worth living for, unless it is worth dying for.”⁹

Missionary, author, and speaker, Elisabeth Elliot was born in Belgium. Her life was centered on the
unending love of Jesus, and she saw her greatest calling as sharing the good news of His atoning grace with others. This expensive call took her deep into Ecuador’s Amazonian jungle where her husband, Jim Elliot, was one of five missionaries speared to death in 1956 while attempting to communicate with the Auca tribe. Later, she would move back into the Auca territory with her young daughter Valerie to live with and serve the people who murdered her husband.¹⁰