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Luther's 95 Theses: What He Meant to Do‚Äîand What Actually Happened · Thinking Christian: Bible, Theology, and Culture

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  Speaker 1: Hey, everyone, Welcome to Thanking Christian. I'm doctor James Spencer,
• 0:03
  Speaker 1: and I'm glad you're here. In this special series, we're
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  Speaker 1: stepping back into one of the most pivotal times in
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  Speaker 1: Christian history, the German Reformation. This was a time when
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  Speaker 1: the Gospel was being rediscovered, the Church was being challenged,
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  Speaker 1: and the course of Western civilization was being reshaped with
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  Speaker 1: ripples that still reach into our lives today. And to
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  Speaker 1: guide us through this journey, I'm joined by a true expert,
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  Speaker 1: someone who doesn't just know the Reformation from books, but
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  Speaker 1: from the cobblestone streets and cathedral halls where it actually happened,
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  Speaker 1: Doctor Greg Quiggle. Greg is a Reformation historian and the
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  Speaker 1: owner and operator of Kotelis Travel, a company that runs
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  Speaker 1: what they call tours for ten, intimate travel experiences designed
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  Speaker 1: for people who want something deeper than a typical tour.
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  Speaker 1: They offer a three to one guest to guide ratio,
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  Speaker 1: but also where to find the best able strudal and
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  Speaker 1: other German delicacies along the way. You can learn more
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  Speaker 1: about Greg and Kotellus at kotellistravelservice dot com. And if
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  Speaker 1: this series piques your interest, Greg actually has a German
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  Speaker 1: Reformation trip coming up this May, and last I heard,
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  Speaker 1: there are still a few seats available. In this series,
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  Speaker 1: Greg is going to help us explore the people, places,
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  Speaker 1: and theological stakes of the Reformation as well as helping
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  Speaker 1: us understand why it still matters for Christians today.
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  Speaker 2: So let's get started.
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  Speaker 1: Hey, everyone, welcome back to this episode of Thinking Christian.
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  Speaker 1: We're continuing our series on the German Reformation, and we
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  Speaker 1: are now moving to the Diet of Verms or toward
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  Speaker 1: the Diet of Verms, and ultimately on de Vortburg. But
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  Speaker 1: before we get there, we're going to stick around in
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  Speaker 1: Wittenburg a little longer and talk to the ninety five Theces.
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  Speaker 1: So we reference to the end of the last episode
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  Speaker 1: that Luther had written these ninety five thess. Everybody kind
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  Speaker 1: of knows about the ninety five Theces. If you know
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  Speaker 1: anything about Martin Luther, that's kind of what you know.
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  Speaker 1: Justification by Faith ninety five Theces. Ninety five Theces are
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  Speaker 1: really interesting. They have a really interesting sort of backstory
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  Speaker 1: and it's an actually pretty important to understand what Luther's
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  Speaker 1: trying to do and what Luther ends up actually doing. So, Greg,
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  Speaker 1: why don't we start with He's going to nail these
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  Speaker 1: ninety five feces to the door of the church in
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  Speaker 1: the town. What's Luther trying to stir up here when
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  Speaker 1: he's doing that?
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, well, the backstory is the selling of indulgences. So
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  Speaker 3: you know we've gone over indulgences before, but the backstory
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  Speaker 3: for this one is interesting and I always used to
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  Speaker 3: explain it to my students at Moody this way. Sometimes
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  Speaker 3: churches go wacky when they get into building programs. So
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  Speaker 3: you may be familiar with this insignificant little church building
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  Speaker 3: enrollm It's called Saint Peter's, small little place in the
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  Speaker 3: Vatican City.
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  Speaker 1: Don't know nothing ornate about it at all.
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  Speaker 2: That's right.
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  Speaker 4: It's a multi purpose building.
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  Speaker 3: You know, they have a wan of clubs in there
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  Speaker 3: and then they set up chairs for Sunday.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah.
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  Speaker 3: Well, so you know, if you're going to hire Michelangelo
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  Speaker 3: and sons and et cetera, this is gonna cost a
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  Speaker 3: lot of money. So they want to build this church
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  Speaker 3: and they need money. And there's the archbishop who wants
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  Speaker 3: to buy who wants to be the archbishop of Mines.
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  Speaker 3: And he's not supposed to be able to be the
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  Speaker 3: archbishop of two places at once.
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  Speaker 2: But he.
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  Speaker 3: Goes to the Pope, and the Pope says, all right,
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  Speaker 3: I'll cut you a deal if you will give me
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  Speaker 3: this amount of money because I needed to pay to
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  Speaker 3: get this church built. I'll let you be the archbishop
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  Speaker 3: of I believe it's Mines. Okay, fair enough. So he
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  Speaker 3: comes back and he says, well, I don't have the money, okay,
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  Speaker 3: well you can borrow it from the fuguer bankers. Okay, Well,
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  Speaker 3: how am I going to pay him back? I got
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  Speaker 3: this great idea. I'll let you sell indulgence okay, And
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  Speaker 3: I got a very good salesman. His name is Johan Tetzel.
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  Speaker 3: He's a Dominican.
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  Speaker 2: Here we go.
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  Speaker 3: They're a teaching order he's got, and he's selling these things,
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  Speaker 3: and he's even got a jingle. As soon as the
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  Speaker 3: wrong a coin in the coffer do ring another soul
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  Speaker 3: from purgatory doest spring. So he starts going around selling
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  Speaker 3: these things to make money so they can pay off
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  Speaker 3: this loan. That you see how the story goes, Okay,
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  Speaker 3: So he's going around and he ends up in a
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  Speaker 3: not in Wittenberg, but a town close to Wittenberg selling
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  Speaker 3: these things. So some of Luther's parishioners go there and
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  Speaker 3: buy them. They come back and show them to it. Well,
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  Speaker 3: Luther is just he thinks this is ridiculous. He thinks
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  Speaker 3: the Pope doesn't know this is happening.
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  Speaker 4: So he.
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  Speaker 3: Does what academics do, and they you know, we need
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  Speaker 3: to debate these things, and we need to have a
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  Speaker 3: conversation about them in yad, YadA YadA. So he writes
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  Speaker 3: out ninety five points of debate, ninety five assertions, ninety
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  Speaker 3: five thesises that I believe you.
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  Speaker 2: Know ding ding ding ding ding, And these.
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  Speaker 3: Are points that he is asserting that he's willing to debate.
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  Speaker 4: Is the way this works.
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  Speaker 3: There's some debate about whether or not he actually nailed
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  Speaker 3: them on the door of the castle church. I personally
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  Speaker 3: think he probably did. But he puts these on a
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  Speaker 3: door on this church. It's kind of like a forum
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  Speaker 3: board and be like Facebook today, except it's obviously in
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  Speaker 3: the town of Wittenberg, which is a very small little town.
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  Speaker 3: He's going to have this debate. Well, two things happen.
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  Speaker 3: Number one, there's this new technology called printing press. Number two,
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  Speaker 3: he has students. Students like to popularize their professor. So
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  Speaker 3: somehow these things get printed and translated and sent all
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  Speaker 3: over the place, to the point that one of them
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  Speaker 3: ends up a copy of them ends up literally on
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  Speaker 3: the Pope's desk in Rome. This does not go well,
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  Speaker 3: and so Luther is called to defend himself.
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  Speaker 4: Thus the ball starts rolling.
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  Speaker 3: So what he has done is he's written these things
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  Speaker 3: saying this selling adulgence in dulgs is.
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  Speaker 4: Not a good thing. People.
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  Speaker 3: Should you know he's saying, among other things, who can
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  Speaker 3: say whether the pope has power over purgatory? And if
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  Speaker 3: he does, you should empty the place for free rough paraphrase,
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  Speaker 3: among other things, which, of course you know that cuts
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  Speaker 3: the fundraising off.
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  Speaker 2: It goes over like a blood balloon, like a lead balloon.
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  Speaker 3: And then there's all kinds of other stuff, and you know,
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  Speaker 3: it's technical stuff that you have to read in multiple
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  Speaker 3: encyclopedia is to understand the details of all this kind
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  Speaker 3: of stuff.
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  Speaker 2: But and I mentioned.
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  Speaker 3: Before in the previous broadcast about it starts off with
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  Speaker 3: Pennance when our Lord and Savior said repent. He didn't
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  Speaker 3: mean two penance. He meant the entire life of the
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  Speaker 3: Christian is to be one of repentance, et cetera, et cetera.
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  Speaker 3: And he goes through a variety of these things, ninety
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  Speaker 3: five of these things.
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  Speaker 1: And they all do tend to swirl around that penance, indulgences,
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  Speaker 1: purgatory like that sort of arenas. We're all ninety five
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  Speaker 1: of them. Some are more granular, some of them are
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  Speaker 1: more more top level, but they all tend to hover
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  Speaker 1: around those major topics.
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  Speaker 3: Right, So there's not like the Joshua lived by faith
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  Speaker 3: alone or.
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  Speaker 2: Anything like that.
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  Speaker 3: It's mostly around purgatory, questions of authority, et cetera, et cetera,
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  Speaker 3: et cetera. So this thing becomes what was supposed to
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  Speaker 3: be a nice little bait debate in a little town.
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  Speaker 4: And if it Burgh is a it's.
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  Speaker 3: A spit town in the middle of nowhere, it's still
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  Speaker 3: a spit town in the middle of well, the old city.
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  Speaker 3: It's really about three streets and each one's about a mile.
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  Speaker 1: Long, right, I mean it's extended a little more modern day,
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  Speaker 1: but it's still not a booming metropolis.
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  Speaker 2: Right. Yeah.
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  Speaker 3: So this was when if you've ever been to Rome
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  Speaker 3: and then you go to Wittenberg, You're like, you got
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  Speaker 3: to be kidding.
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  Speaker 2: Me, so uh.
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  Speaker 3: You know, it'd be like Peoria, Illinois turning New York
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  Speaker 3: City upside down. So this is this is what happens. Actually,
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  Speaker 3: Peru Illinois would.
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  Speaker 2: Be better there you go, yeah, yeah.
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  Speaker 3: Or Sycamore, Illinois or you know Booger Hollow, Arkansas turning
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  Speaker 3: New York City on its head.
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  Speaker 4: So so it.
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  Speaker 3: And it just explodes and and Luther becomes a major
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  Speaker 3: figure because he's gonna upset the apple cart and people
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  Speaker 3: understand he's gonna upset the apple cart. Was that his intent? No,
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  Speaker 3: but that's functionally what's gonna happen.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's really interesting, Like when you hear that story,
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  Speaker 1: it it's so much different than I think what I
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  Speaker 1: had on my head before a visited Wittenberg and be
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  Speaker 1: really understood the history of it because you think, like
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  Speaker 1: this is the only thing on these doors, Like nobody
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  Speaker 1: does this, right. He went up just in defiance and
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  Speaker 1: nails this thing to and it's like no, it's sort
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  Speaker 1: of like you're putting a little ad on a bulletin
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  Speaker 1: board and it's like here you go i'd like to
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  Speaker 1: I'd like to think about these things, you know. And
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  Speaker 1: while Luther probably does give off an air of defiance
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  Speaker 1: and a lot of his writings and I'm guessing he
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  Speaker 1: was a pretty powerful figure in person, this situation almost
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  Speaker 1: gets blown out of proportion by the technology.
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  Speaker 4: Of the day.
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  Speaker 1: Yes, because his students can copy this thing easily and quickly,
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  Speaker 1: it spreads faster than it probably ever would have, if
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  Speaker 1: it even would have ever spread prior to having the
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  Speaker 1: printing press and having you know, the students sort of
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  Speaker 1: copy it and send it exactly completely different animal than
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  Speaker 1: what would have happened any other time before. You know,
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  Speaker 1: he might have ended up in a debate with the
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  Speaker 1: guy who's you know, two towns over selling indulgences, and
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  Speaker 1: then it kind of fizzles out and you move on.
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  Speaker 2: That's right.
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  Speaker 1: But now it's basically like he's you know, social media
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  Speaker 1: took over, and now he's he's in danger of being
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  Speaker 1: canceled by the Roman Empire.
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  Speaker 4: That's exactly exactly right.
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  Speaker 3: He's going to end up being excommunicated by the pope
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  Speaker 3: and then before the emperor and declared an outlaw, and
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  Speaker 3: on and on and on and on and on.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, because the people Bull comes prior to his the
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  Speaker 1: diet of Firms? Am I correct about that?
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  Speaker 2: Okay?
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  Speaker 3: He has a debate at Leipzig in fifteen nineteen, and
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  Speaker 3: that's important. There is one of the places where he
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  Speaker 3: talks about the authority of scripture over popes. And there's
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  Speaker 3: also a guy named Martin Bousser, who very few people
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  Speaker 3: have heard of but is very important, who's going to
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  Speaker 3: be converted there. Booster is later going to be a colleague,
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  Speaker 3: almost a pastor for John Calvin. Booster is also going
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  Speaker 3: to be involved with Michael Satler, who is going to
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  Speaker 3: be one of the early Anabaptists, kind of the forerunners
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  Speaker 3: of the Mennonites. Booster is also going to be involved
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  Speaker 3: with Thomas Cranmer, who wrote the thirty nine articles for
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  Speaker 3: the Church of England. So Booster is a connector guy
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  Speaker 3: that most people have never heard of, but he's connecting
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  Speaker 3: these people anyway. So fifteen twenty papabull exerge dominie arise o,
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  Speaker 3: Lord and strike. There's a wild boar at loose in
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  Speaker 3: your vineyard in Germany, you know, and on and on
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  Speaker 3: and on, and Luther gets this thing. It turns out
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  Speaker 3: a bunch of his students had gathered and they were
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  Speaker 3: burning copies of canon law. And you know, you and
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  Speaker 3: I have been there just outside of actually the Augustinian
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  Speaker 3: monastery that he was in in Wittenberg turned into his house, ye,
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  Speaker 3: and they there's an oak tree out from there, not
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  Speaker 3: the original, but they gathered around this oak tree and
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  Speaker 3: they take all these books of canon law and they're
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  Speaker 3: burning them, and down with the pope and YadA YadA,
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  Speaker 3: and Luther comes out and he's got the papal bull
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  Speaker 3: and kind of like, okay, he threw it in too,
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  Speaker 3: so he burns this thing. So okay, now it's you know,
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  Speaker 3: the fast in the fire. In this case, the bull's
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  Speaker 3: in the fire. And so his elector, Frederick the Wise,
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  Speaker 3: for reasons known only to the Lord, keeps on protecting
• 13:59
  Speaker 3: it because remember he is Frederick the Wise.
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  Speaker 1: Frederick the Wise is who we're talking about. So Frederick
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  Speaker 1: Wwise isn't going to protect Martin.
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  Speaker 2: Luther go ahead, and.
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  Speaker 3: Frederick the Wise has all these relics that are getting
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  Speaker 3: time off purgatory, and Luther's undercutting all this stuff, but
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  Speaker 3: for whatever reason, he protects him. So Luther, you know,
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  Speaker 3: it's being protected and the Emperor is demanding that Frederick
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  Speaker 3: the Wise turn.
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  Speaker 4: Luther over to him so we can give him to
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  Speaker 4: the Pope Frankly to kill him.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah.
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  Speaker 3: So finally Frederick the Wise says, look, he's entitled to
• 14:54
  Speaker 3: hearing before you. So they go to a place in Germany,
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  Speaker 3: the city of Forms spelled worms worms, and there's an
• 15:08
  Speaker 3: imperial diet, an imperial council there. The Emperor is there
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  Speaker 3: with a representative from the Pope, and Luther is guaranteed
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  Speaker 3: safe passage there. The Emperor says, okay, I'll guarantee you
• 15:25
  Speaker 3: safe passage there. Now, Luther's not stupid. There had been
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  Speaker 3: a guy named John huss a check guy who you know,
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  Speaker 3: about one hundred years before, had been guaranteed safe passage
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  Speaker 3: by an emperor and showed up and once he got there,
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  Speaker 3: they said, oh, sorry, we forgot about that and burned
• 15:45
  Speaker 3: him at the stake. Nonetheless, he says, I'm going to go,
• 15:50
  Speaker 3: you know, and so he goes. He has this meeting.
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  Speaker 3: He thinks he's going to get a chance to defend
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  Speaker 3: his ideas.
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  Speaker 2: The Emperor.
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  Speaker 3: Has him there for one reason, and that is for
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  Speaker 3: him to recant to say I was wrong. So they
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  Speaker 3: are very different expectations going into this. So they meet
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  Speaker 3: Luther's all prepared to have this debate, and the debater
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  Speaker 3: for the Roman Church says, Luther, do you repent of
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  Speaker 3: your ideas well? First he says, are these your books?
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  Speaker 2: And he has all these tables out with Luther's books
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  Speaker 2: and he says, yeah, these are mine. I've written more
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  Speaker 2: than these two, okay.
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  Speaker 3: And then the question is are you going to repent
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  Speaker 3: of the errors in your books? And Luther's like, wait
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  Speaker 3: a minute, I want to have a chance to defend myself. No, no, no, no,
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  Speaker 3: simple question. Are you gonna recant or not? And Luther says, well, now,
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  Speaker 3: wait a minute. This is a matter of eternal salvation
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  Speaker 3: and this is really important, So give me twenty four hours.
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  Speaker 2: Okay. So they say see in the morning.
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  Speaker 3: He goes into his place where he's staying, and we
• 17:31
  Speaker 3: have a copy of the prayer that he wrote. I
• 17:33
  Speaker 3: don't have it on me, but it's it's basically I'm
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  Speaker 3: paraphrasing Lord. I don't want to be here. I'd rather
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  Speaker 3: be back in Wittenberg, you know, doing my work. But
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  Speaker 3: you called me to this task. You know you have
• 17:47
  Speaker 3: to stand by me. Please help me and then he
• 17:52
  Speaker 3: adds a PS send help. Scared gets up early in
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  Speaker 3: the next morning and he says, Okay, here's the deal.
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  Speaker 3: You want an answer. I'm going to answer without horns
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  Speaker 3: and without teeth, which is, I won't make any tricks.
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  Speaker 3: I won't this. I'm going to give it these straight
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  Speaker 3: popes and councils have rid in past. Unless I'm convinced
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  Speaker 3: by scripture and plain reason, I cannot and will not recant.
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  Speaker 3: My conscience has helped held captives of the Word of God,
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  Speaker 3: and then here I stand.
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  Speaker 2: I can do no other God help me. Amen.
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  Speaker 3: Whether or not he said here I stand is debated,
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  Speaker 3: but the basic premise of this is unless you can
• 18:38
  Speaker 3: show me that what I have written is wrong based
• 18:45
  Speaker 3: on the Bible, I will not repent. Place goes up
• 18:52
  Speaker 3: for grabs. Luther leaves, he's been guaranteed safe passage. It
• 18:59
  Speaker 3: starts to go home, gets kidnapped, but he's not kidnapped.
• 19:07
  Speaker 3: These are agents of Frederick the Wise, and they kidnap him.
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  Speaker 3: To what extent Luther knew what was going on, we
• 19:17
  Speaker 3: don't know. But they took him and put him in
• 19:21
  Speaker 3: a kind of a quasi abandoned castle in the city
• 19:26
  Speaker 3: of Eisenach. It was called the Vartberg Castle, and he
• 19:31
  Speaker 3: is hidden in this castle. He grows a beard, calls
• 19:34
  Speaker 3: himself Sir George Knight, George, Yunker George. And while he's there,
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  Speaker 3: he's translating the Bible or the New Testament into German,
• 19:48
  Speaker 3: which he does in a remarkably short period of time,
• 19:51
  Speaker 3: something like a couple months or some ridiculous thing. It's
• 19:56
  Speaker 3: an extraordinary work. But he does the New Testament into
• 19:59
  Speaker 3: German in a short period of time. Will all these
• 20:02
  Speaker 3: hiding out in this castle?
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  Speaker 1: So when we think about that act, so you've got,
• 20:08
  Speaker 1: you know, this guy who's sort of challenging the pope's
• 20:12
  Speaker 1: authority to maybe we could say, like sit above the scriptures.
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  Speaker 1: That's essentially how this is functioning is that the Bible
• 20:19
  Speaker 1: can be ignored if the pope says it. It doesn't really
• 20:23
  Speaker 1: matter what the Bible says. These two things don't really
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  Speaker 1: have to be in that strong a conversation, might be
• 20:29
  Speaker 1: the most generous way to put it. Luther's saying, no,
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  Speaker 1: they really have to be in pretty strong conversation. The
• 20:35
  Speaker 1: Bible should be the final authority for life and faith,
• 20:38
  Speaker 1: which is the way I would phrase it, you know,
• 20:39
  Speaker 1: sort of in today's vernacular. And so we now have
• 20:44
  Speaker 1: to start thinking about how does that happen. In other words,
• 20:50
  Speaker 1: we're sitting in a time where the Bible is primarily
• 20:54
  Speaker 1: contained in Latin and Greek manuscripts that aren't going to
• 20:58
  Speaker 1: be particularly accessible to everyday folk. And if you don't
• 21:03
  Speaker 1: get them the Bible, a Bible that they can read
• 21:06
  Speaker 1: and understand to some degree, even if they need to
• 21:09
  Speaker 1: have help interpreting it, they're always going to be subject
• 21:12
  Speaker 1: to the ruling class who are reading out of the
• 21:15
  Speaker 1: Latin vulgate and just telling them what to do and
• 21:19
  Speaker 1: how to do it.
• 21:20
  Speaker 4: You can't.
• 21:20
  Speaker 1: You have to bridge the gap somehow between you know,
• 21:24
  Speaker 1: Luther's conviction that my consciousness has held captive to the
• 21:30
  Speaker 1: word of God and the idea that no one has
• 21:33
  Speaker 1: access to the Word of God. Yes, and so this
• 21:37
  Speaker 1: is where translation really starts to ramp up in importance.
• 21:41
  Speaker 3: Yeah, there's a couple of things going on. Your dreams
• 21:43
  Speaker 3: are important, number one is, and this is where it's
• 21:48
  Speaker 3: easy to shove modern thought into the process. Does Luther
• 21:55
  Speaker 3: believe in the right of private interpretation? That is, does
• 22:00
  Speaker 3: he believe that every person has the right to determine
• 22:04
  Speaker 3: for themselves what the Bible means. No, he does not,
• 22:09
  Speaker 3: which is why he writes a catechism. Right, so he says,
• 22:14
  Speaker 3: before he dies, you know, pretty much everything I wrote
• 22:17
  Speaker 3: you can burn. It doesn't matter. The only thing that
• 22:20
  Speaker 3: matters is shorter catechism. And here's how I explain how
• 22:24
  Speaker 3: a catechism works. Does Luther want people to read the Bible?
• 22:30
  Speaker 3: Of course he does.
• 22:31
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 22:33
  Speaker 3: In fact, he says, if a father doesn't teach his
• 22:40
  Speaker 3: son a trade, he's a bad father. Now listen, if
• 22:46
  Speaker 3: he doesn't teach his children, gender inclusive, how to read,
• 22:51
  Speaker 3: he ought to be damned. Why because of the scriptures?
• 22:57
  Speaker 2: Yeah?
• 22:59
  Speaker 3: Having that, does he think that people should sit down
• 23:04
  Speaker 3: by themselves and determine what the Bible means? No, what
• 23:11
  Speaker 3: does a catechism do? A catechism, by definition limits interpretation,
• 23:19
  Speaker 3: a catechism is like reading the Bible with having your
• 23:23
  Speaker 3: pastor sitting in your ear helping you understand what it means.
• 23:30
  Speaker 3: He believes that the Bible teaches that there is such
• 23:34
  Speaker 3: a thing as a teaching office. I mean it seems
• 23:40
  Speaker 3: to be that's pretty obvious. The Bible says everybody isn't
• 23:43
  Speaker 3: given the gift of teaching. Well, if everybody can equally
• 23:47
  Speaker 3: interpret the text, then why do we need teachers. So
• 23:53
  Speaker 3: this is an extension of the teaching office. Should everyone
• 23:57
  Speaker 3: know the text? Of course they should know the text.
• 24:00
  Speaker 3: Should they meditate on the text? Yes?
• 24:02
  Speaker 4: Yes, Is the Holy Spirit involved in this? Of course
• 24:05
  Speaker 4: he is.
• 24:06
  Speaker 3: But he doesn't want everybody deciding for themselves what the
• 24:12
  Speaker 3: Bible means, because then we end up with millions of
• 24:18
  Speaker 3: types of Christianity. Everybody is making up their own Christianity
• 24:24
  Speaker 3: on the fly, which is precisely what we've ended up with.
• 24:28
  Speaker 3: Now here's Luther's problem. The minute he says my conscience
• 24:32
  Speaker 3: is held captive to the word of God, next year
• 24:36
  Speaker 3: somebody looks at him and says, well, mine is too.
• 24:41
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 24:42
  Speaker 3: So this is the protest and irony that we've talked
• 24:45
  Speaker 3: about in other broadcast. The thing that unites us is
• 24:48
  Speaker 3: the thing that divides us.
• 24:49
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's almost like, you know, you have to have
• 24:55
  Speaker 1: There's some really great work done in complexity theory on
• 24:58
  Speaker 1: constraint and how constraint helps us us to enables us to.
• 25:01
  Speaker 2: Do certain things.
• 25:02
  Speaker 1: And so if we just think about language, right, if
• 25:05
  Speaker 1: we're not obeying the basic rules of syntax and grammar
• 25:10
  Speaker 1: and using words that each of us know we're not
• 25:14
  Speaker 1: going to communicate. And so these are all constraints that
• 25:18
  Speaker 1: need to be there in order for us to be
• 25:20
  Speaker 1: able to do something. And I think that's a helpful
• 25:25
  Speaker 1: way of understanding the catechism is that it is it's
• 25:28
  Speaker 1: a constraint that enables in not allowing us to go
• 25:33
  Speaker 1: so far out of the box that you know, what
• 25:36
  Speaker 1: we're saying no longer makes any sense anymore. What a
• 25:39
  Speaker 1: catechism does is it narrows where we can go. It
• 25:42
  Speaker 1: gives us the appropriate rules that we need to follow
• 25:45
  Speaker 1: in order to articulate what the Bible says and how
• 25:49
  Speaker 1: it says it. And that is an aspect the catechy
• 25:52
  Speaker 1: sistem becomes almost like a prosthetic for a teaching.
• 25:55
  Speaker 2: Office, right.
• 25:57
  Speaker 1: It's something that can be passed down and you say,
• 25:59
  Speaker 1: here are the things you have to know, Here are
• 26:01
  Speaker 1: the things you need to know. Yeah, it's it's amazing
• 26:06
  Speaker 1: how that translation could open a lot of these things up.
• 26:09
  Speaker 1: And I think that's where I want to turn in
• 26:10
  Speaker 1: this next episode is what happens after the you know,
• 26:15
  Speaker 1: his German Bible is released, and how does he deal
• 26:20
  Speaker 1: with the what we might call the crumbling of the
• 26:24
  Speaker 1: structure of everything that he knew after the break with
• 26:31
  Speaker 1: the Catholic Church.
• 26:33
  Speaker 3: Yes, because it again we use terms without thinking about them.
• 26:39
  Speaker 3: We're talking about the German Reformation, right, what does the
• 26:44
  Speaker 3: word mean. It means a changing of an existing thing,
• 26:50
  Speaker 3: not creating a new thing. Yeah, Luther never intended to
• 26:57
  Speaker 3: start a new church. He simply wanted to reform the
• 27:03
  Speaker 3: existing church. Yeah, that's a hugely different thing. So you
• 27:08
  Speaker 3: could say that the formation of the Lutheran Church or
• 27:14
  Speaker 3: the Evangelical Church as it was known initially, was accidental.
• 27:19
  Speaker 3: That was not the intent. That was never the intent,
• 27:23
  Speaker 3: but it was.
• 27:24
  Speaker 4: It became a necessary evil and.
• 27:28
  Speaker 1: It has these huge implications down the road for how
• 27:32
  Speaker 1: we operate within Protestant and so we'll dig into some
• 27:36
  Speaker 1: of those.
• 27:37
  Speaker 2: In the next episode.
• 27:38
  Speaker 1: But this has been great. Thanks for going through the
• 27:40
  Speaker 1: ninety five thecs Greg and thanks everybody for joining us.
• 27:44
  Speaker 1: Come back on the next episode of Thinking Christian. Take
• 27:46
  Speaker 1: care everybody. I just want to take a second to
• 27:48
  Speaker 1: thank the team at Life Audio for their partnership with
• 27:51
  Speaker 1: us on the Thinking Christian podcast. If you go to
• 27:53
  Speaker 1: lifeaudio dot com, you'll find dozens of other faith centered
• 27:56
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• 28:01
  Speaker 1: and more.