Chapter 12: The French Reformation

Forget the TV and novels!!! Besides the Bible, this book beats any story you’ll ever hear about … AND IT’S TRUE!!!!!

Chapter 12 takes us to France, where the fight for Protestantism was taking place. The papacy seemed to come back with even more fury after each setback. It was also during this time that the Jesuits came into being.  So God was calling more people to spread the Good News for Him.

Before Luther had even been recognized as a reformer, Lefevre, as he was researching the saints of the church legends, was converted, and started teaching others the Truth. One of his students, William Farel, started out as a most devoted Romanist, but the traditions and practices of the Roman church ‘could not bring peace of soul’. After hearing the truth, he was converted, and started to preach the Word of God just as strongly as when he had been following the papacy. The bishop of Meaux soon joined them, and the number of converts kept increasing.

There was another man, a brave knight, Louis de Berquin, who had also been following the pope. As word of Luther spread through France, Berquin turned to the Bible. Here he found the teachings of Luther and not those of the pope, and gave himself fully to God. The papacy learned to dread him, saying, “He is worse than Luther!” And with his knowledge and his courage he attacked the papacy’s lies and errors, and would have made an enormous impact on France, had the Romanists not been so eager to get rid of him.

What stood out to me the most in this chapter was that God used all different kinds of people, and that He still needs different types of people today.

1 Thessalonians 1:8  says “For from YOU the Word of the Lord has been declared … in every place YOUR faith towards God has gone out.”

Let God’s Word be declared through you today!!!

- Anikah Shaw

(at thirteen years of age, Anikah, from Queensland, Australia, is one of the Readathon’s youngest participants)