It was the last speech of his life, the speech Martin Luther King Jr. gave on April 3, 1968. It was a radically Christian speech in, of all places, a church: Mason Temple in Memphis, Tennessee, central headquarters of the Church of God in Christ. Like so many of King's speeches, it had a lot of Bible references, this one more than most. Indeed, it bordered on becoming a sermon as he spent critical moments taking apart—and bringing alive—Scripture.
That wasn't an accident. The only real job King ever had, from the age of 25 until his death, was preacher and co-pastor (along with his father) at the Ebenezer Baptist Church in his hometown of Atlanta. Indeed, King's grandfather also was a minister—that's how deep those family roots ran.
He's known as Dr. Martin Luther King, but he never practiced medicine. He wasn't that kind of doctor. He was a God man who earned his doctorate in theology from Boston University and a bachelor of divinity degree from Crozer Theological Seminary. To King, the Bible wasn't some strange old book that had no relevance in the modern world. It was God's word. It was a book that was relevant because it expresses eternal principles and truth.
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