You know what is scary this time of year? It's not the costumes that some people choose to wear on October 31st. It's not the frightful look on your dentist's face when you tell him how much candy the children in your neighborhood have consumed. What is scary to me is that we in the church have more knowledge about the roots of Halloween than we do about the roots of the Reformation of the church. So here are five statements and five questions I hope you will think about this week as we celebrate the Reformation begun in earnest on October 31, 1517.
1. Martin Luther nailed 95 sentences to the door of the Wittenberg church on October 31, 1517 after having been convinced by Scripture that the church in his day needed to reform its ways. One battle cry of the Reformation is "semper reformanda" which means "always reforming." We all need to examine ourselves to see where our lives are in or out of conformity with Scripture. Where have you been letting Scripture shine its light in your heart lately knowing that a loving holy God is reforming you into the image of His son by His grace?
2. Thousands of people in the church of the Middle Ages had no ability to read, had no Bible in their own language, and placed their faith solely in what corrupt clergy told them to do in regard to their religious life. How often do you thank God for the freedom and ability to read Scripture yourself, and are you taking advantage of it regularly?
3. Among so many illiterate people, faith had been stripped down to superstitions about saints and bumper sticker sayings. One such famous saying was, "When the coin in the coffer rings, the soul from purgatory springs." This was the justification used to get people to give money to the Roman Catholic church--that the money would move the souls of the departed from purgatory toward heaven. We all summarize truths of our faith into succinct sayings. They are helpful, but they are never meant to be used in a vacuum. What are the "bumper sticker" sayings you find yourself repeating, and how does Scripture expand on, support, or challenge the dangers of your favorite summaries of the faith?
4. The Reformation produced several catechisms (books of questions and answers about matters of faith) from different countries as churches sought to express the gospel in their own words for their people at a particular place and time. A few great examples are the Heidelberg Catechism and the Westminster Larger and Shorter Catechisms. What cultural questions and biblical answers could we formulate for the church in our day and time?
5. The Reformation produced great heroes of the faith who are an encouragement and example for us today: Martin Luther, John Calvin, John Knox, William Farel, Martin Bucer. Have you ever considered reading a little about the life and times of these people to draw encouragement from them as they drew encouragement from the grace they found in Christ through severe trials and temptations?
Hebrews 13:9 reminds us that "it is good for the heart to be strengthened by grace." Grace, the unmerited favor of God toward us in Christ, is the greatest gift that the Reformation restored to the church. The world would be a scary place if we all forgot this truth, so I hope you will spend some time this week remembering or learning for the first time about this encouraging time in salvation history.
In Him,
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