Posted on 06/30/2017 4:43:54 PM PDT by Gamecock
The year 2017 is the year of Martin Lutheror at least it should be. Nearly 500 years ago on October 31, 1517, Luther nailed (or mailed, for some historians debate this point) his 95 theses to the door of Wittenberg Castle Church.
Even so, Luther didnt become a full-fledged protestor of the church in that single moment. It took him about eight years (1513-1521) to challenge and hammer out a more robust understanding of the gospel.
Have you ever wondered what Martin Luther was reading during this crucial time in his life? Maybe Im just a nerd, but I thought at least someone else might be interested in what Luther was reading during his slow, but steady, transition out of the medieval church and into the world of reformation.
Remember, Luthers goal wasnt to invent or start an entirely new church. His goal was to reform the church and call her to repentance and faith in the abiding Word of God.
Here are four books Martin Luther read that made him question everything:
1. The Psalms Luther spent time studying and lecturing through the Psalms in the Bible. He began to realize that the Bible teaches we are not generally sinful, we are totally sinful. Here, Luther had the beginnings of what theologians later would refer to as total depravity, meaning that we are sinful in our thoughts, words, and deeds.
2. Romans After that, Luther lectured through Pauls letter to the Romans. He came across Romans 1:17, For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith for faith, as it is written, The righteous shall live by faith. The last part of this verse is a direct quotation from Habakkuk 2:4.
Luther began to see something that he never saw before. He began to see the doctrine of imputationthat we are declared right before God not by our own righteousness, but by the righteousness of another. He began to understand that the righteousness of God that was such a terror to him as a priest (because it told him that he was unholy and unworthy), was actually the righteousness from God that told him he was holy and worthy. God gives this right standing by faith alone. It is a righteousness that is received as a gift and not earned.
3. Galatians It wasnt until Luther started lecturing through Galatians that he began to realize that faith does not justify us before God. Faith is merely an instrument that God uses. Faith is a tool by which we embrace Jesus Christ as he is offered to us in the gospel.
Faith is, as John Murry once said, extrospective. It looks outwardnot inwardto embrace the God who gives himself. In other words, faith is only an empty hand. It justifies because it grabs hold of the Jesus who justifies (Rom. 3:26).
4. Hebrews The last book that turned a medieval priest into a true Reformer was the letter to the Hebrews. Luther began to embrace an entirely different understanding of how the Old and New Testaments relate to one another. He realized that the law is not simply the Old Testament and the gospel is the New Testament, but that the gospel of God can be seen as preached throughout both Old and New Testaments.
The same Jesus of the same gospel was offered freely to both Jew and Gentile alike, throughout the whole Bible. Sure, there was a greater and fuller proclamation of that message, such that it went out to the whole world instead of only Israel and their close neighborsbut the gospel was preached nonetheless!
In short, reading and studying the Bible is what ultimately made Martin Luther protest the medieval church. Luther was convinced that the Bible was worth listening to. So this year we celebrate the anniversary of a recovery of the bright light of the gospel. To God alone be all the glory (Soli Deo Gloria).
By reading and believing those 4 books and more, Luther found that Jesus Christ didn't confer authority on anyone 1400 years prior, or ever...
Is Joseph Smith just as accurate? How about Henry8th? How about all the people who broke away from Luther and Henry in disagreement to start their own churchs?
Luther did not start the non, anti-Catholic religion...Luther was a late-comer...
That's not a very accurate observation...Francis is turning the Catholic Church and the Church is following him...Of course there are a few dissenters but the marjority are with Frank...
'The gates of hell, here we come'...
When I hear of ELCA, I think of Jacob Preus and his stalwart defense of orthodoxy in the LCMS.
Really??? Then who were the groups that the Catholic relgion murdered and tortured in the prior centuries for refusing to give up their religions for Catholicism???
Thanks, and God bless and keep you.
That is the wrong answer on its very face and the near opposite of anything remotely associated with Jesus.
We can see by reading the Douay Rh-ems that they did not get their doctrine from their Bible.
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Jesus reveals to Peter the authority to bind and and lose:
Mathew 16:19
And I will give unto thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth shall be bound in heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.
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After He told Peter, He reveals that this authority is to all in the Church. He even told them in the same lecture previously that the greatest in the Church shall be as one with the faith of a little child. In verse 18:19 He says "Again I say unto you...", showing that this concept He has spoken about before:
Mathew 18:18
Verily I say unto you, Whatsoever ye shall bind on earth shall be bound in heaven: and whatsoever ye shall loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.
18:19
Again I say unto you, That if two of you shall agree on earth as touching any thing that they shall ask, it shall be done for them of my Father which is in heaven.
18:20
For where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them.
Luther "thought"??? Correction... Luther KNEW that what was practiced was permitted within the teachings of the Catholic church and approved by the Pope, who took full advantage of the massive amount of money pouring into the Vatican to fund St. Peter's Basilica. Will you also accuse Pope Leo X of permitting things that were against church teaching?
Pope Leo X:
Purgatory has Scriptural and Traditional and logical bases.[sic]
Actually, Purgatory has only a semblance of a Scriptural basis - one that is NOT explicitly found in any of the supposed passages trotted forth to support it and actually DISPROVED by actual ones. It also is not logical and the only "traditional" support is from later musings of those who failed to understand the truth of the gospel of grace.
Amen!
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>> “The same Jesus of the same gospel was offered freely to both Jew and Gentile alike, throughout the whole Bible” <<
This statement is essentially gibberish.
“Jews” are followers of Phariseeism. Jews didn’t exist until the second temple period. Did you mean Israelites, or Hebrews?
By Biblical definition, “Israel” is the believing remnant of the descendants of Jacob, and those that sojourn with them. That term covers all who have believed, and will believe, until Yeshua gathers us at the Day of Trumpets. They are his Kehillah, or Assembly.
(often mistakenly called a “church.”)
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John 6: 26 Jesus replied to them, Truly, I tell all of you emphatically, you are looking for me, not because you saw signs, but because you ate the loaves and were completely satisfied. 27 Do not work for food that perishes but for food that lasts for eternal life, which the Son of Man will give you, because God the Father has set his seal on him.
28 Then they asked him, What must we do to perform Gods works?
29 Jesus answered them, This is Gods work: to believe in the one whom he has sent.
Revelation 7: 13 Who are these people wearing white robes, one of the elders asked me, and where did they come from?14 I told him, Sir, you know.
Then he told me, These are the people who are coming out of the terrible suffering. They have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the lamb.
As a Catholic, do you think this passage means these LITERALLY washed in the blood of Jesus? ... Or is this a use of metaphor?
Did Jesus command Catholics to raise His mother to a demigoddess status, to claim she is a co-redemtrix? Did Jesus command Catholics to deal in indulgences and brown scapulae and bow to a nicolaitan priesthood? Mp<
Jesus gave TWO commandments. He also told us that we must be born again, that it is GIOD Who is in the born again, both to will and do og HIS good pleasure. When will you submit for HIM to dwell in you, sealing you to the Day of His coming for HIS Bride in the clouds?
Did Jesus command Catholics to raise His mother to a demigoddess status, to claim she is a co-redemtrix? Did Jesus command Catholics to deal in indulgences and brown scapulae and bow to a nicolaitan priesthood?
Jesus gave TWO commandments. He also told us that we must be born again, that it is GOD Who is in the born again, both to will and do of HIS good pleasure. When will you submit for HIM to dwell in you, sealing you to the Day of His coming for HIS Bride in the clouds?
‘On these two hang the all the Laws and the Prophets’ Is that enough of a hint for you?
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