Count Zinzendorf
Nikolaus Ludwig, Count von Zinzendorf (1700–1760). Born on May 26, 1700, in Dresden, Saxony, to an aristocratic Austrian family, Nikolaus Zinzendorf was a German Pietist, bishop, and founder of the renewed Moravian Church (Unitas Fratrum). His father died weeks after his birth, leaving him to be raised by his Pietist grandmother, Henriette von Gersdorf, whose influence, along with godfather Philipp Spener’s, shaped his early faith. Educated at Francke’s Paedagogium in Halle (1710–1716) and law at Wittenberg (1716–1719), he served briefly as a Dresden councilor before buying the Berthelsdorf estate in 1722, where he welcomed Moravian refugees, founding Herrnhut (“Lord’s Watch”). His preaching emphasized a “religion of the heart,” focusing on personal devotion to Christ over doctrine, and sparked the 1727 Moravian revival, marked by a 100-year prayer chain. Ordained a Lutheran pastor in 1734 and Moravian bishop in 1737, Zinzendorf faced exile from Saxony (1736–1748) for his nonconformity, traveling to London, the West Indies, and America, where he met Native American leaders and Benjamin Franklin, planting missions from Greenland to South Africa. He authored over 2,000 hymns, including “Jesus, Thy Blood and Righteousness,” and works like The Socrates of Dresden (1725), though some criticized his emotionalism during the 1740s “Sifting Time.” Married to Erdmuth Dorothea von Reuss in 1722, with 12 children (four surviving), and later Anna Nitschmann in 1757, he died on May 9, 1760, in Herrnhut, saying, “I only asked for first fruits among the heathen, and thousands have been granted me.”
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Count Zinzendorf preaches about the sacrificial love of Jesus, emphasizing that believers have been purchased by His blood and are called to live for Him. He expresses his passion for Christ and the mission to proclaim His message regardless of personal consequences. Zinzendorf highlights the importance of focusing solely on Jesus in preaching salvation, sanctification, and justification. He also stresses the significance of missions, stating that every heart with Christ is a missionary. Lastly, he encourages a humble and faithful approach to serving God, even if it means working quietly and being forgotten.
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Nikolaus Ludwig von Zinzendorf (1700-1760) “These wounds were meant to purchase me. These drops of blood were shed to obtain me. I am not my own today. I belong to another. I have been bought with a price. And I will live every moment of this day so that the Great Purchaser of my soul will receive the full reward of His suffering.” “I am destined to proclaim the message, unmindful of personal consequences to myself.” “I have but one passion: It is He, it is He alone. The world is the field and the field is the world; and henceforth that country shall be my home where I can be most used in winning souls for Christ.” "There can be no Christianity without community." "Our method of proclaiming salvation is this: to point out to every heart the loving Lamb, who died for us, and although He was the Son of God, offered Himself for our sins ... by the preaching of His blood, and of His love unto death, even the death of the cross, never, either in discourse or in argument, to digress even for a quarter of an hour from the loving Lamb: to name no virtue except in Him, and from Him and on His account,-to preach no commandment except faith in Him; no other justification but that He atoned for us; no other sanctification but the privilege to sin no more; no other happiness but to be near Him, to think of Him and do His pleasure; no other self denial but to be deprived of Him and His blessings; no other calamity but to displease Him; no other life but in Him.' "Missions, after all, is simply this: Every heart with Christ is a missionary, every heart without Christ is a mission field." "Preach the gospel, die and be forgotten. ” "We will work simply and quietly. Even if we never see wonders with our own eyes or hear them with our ears, we are planting the kingdom of heaven into the nations and will look for the fruit which grows from it." “O let us in thy nailprints see, our pardon and election free.” ‘I bought this estate because I wanted to spend my life among peasants, and win their souls for Christ’. ‘Jesus, Thy blood and righteousness, my beauty are, my glorious dress; Midst flaming worlds in these arrayed, with joy shall I lift up my head’.
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Nikolaus Ludwig, Count von Zinzendorf (1700–1760). Born on May 26, 1700, in Dresden, Saxony, to an aristocratic Austrian family, Nikolaus Zinzendorf was a German Pietist, bishop, and founder of the renewed Moravian Church (Unitas Fratrum). His father died weeks after his birth, leaving him to be raised by his Pietist grandmother, Henriette von Gersdorf, whose influence, along with godfather Philipp Spener’s, shaped his early faith. Educated at Francke’s Paedagogium in Halle (1710–1716) and law at Wittenberg (1716–1719), he served briefly as a Dresden councilor before buying the Berthelsdorf estate in 1722, where he welcomed Moravian refugees, founding Herrnhut (“Lord’s Watch”). His preaching emphasized a “religion of the heart,” focusing on personal devotion to Christ over doctrine, and sparked the 1727 Moravian revival, marked by a 100-year prayer chain. Ordained a Lutheran pastor in 1734 and Moravian bishop in 1737, Zinzendorf faced exile from Saxony (1736–1748) for his nonconformity, traveling to London, the West Indies, and America, where he met Native American leaders and Benjamin Franklin, planting missions from Greenland to South Africa. He authored over 2,000 hymns, including “Jesus, Thy Blood and Righteousness,” and works like The Socrates of Dresden (1725), though some criticized his emotionalism during the 1740s “Sifting Time.” Married to Erdmuth Dorothea von Reuss in 1722, with 12 children (four surviving), and later Anna Nitschmann in 1757, he died on May 9, 1760, in Herrnhut, saying, “I only asked for first fruits among the heathen, and thousands have been granted me.”