This week in Sunday school we launch our summer Sunday school mini-series: Reformation Survey: The Road, the Reformers, and the Results. I trust that as we dig into this time period, you will gain a better understanding of the spiritual landscape we encounter today, be encouraged by the examples of faithful men and women in the past, and become more sober as you see how even our beloved spiritual forefathers erred at times.
We will take six lessons to survey the Reformation period. Here is our lesson breakdown:
1. The Road to Reformation
2. Martin Luther
3. Ulrich Zwingli
4. John Calvin
5. English and Scottish Reformation
6. Reformation Aftermath
Our first lesson, The Road to Reformation, will seek to answer questions like: How did we get to the situation in Europe that made reformation so necessary? What happened in Christianity before the 1500s? And who plowed the ground that made the later Reformation crop so bountiful? We’re going to find out.
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all right it’s 9:30 so let’s get started good morning and welcome to the start we looking at the Reformation well Reformation was one of the most important periods of church history that is of Christian history the history of our people the true followers of Christ by studying this crucial period we can gain at least three benefits one a better understanding of the world events of the Reformation explain much of what we still encounter in the world today for instance why do some people call themselves Calvinists or Arminian why don’t we follow the Pope in Rome and why was America mostly settled by Protestants the answers lie in the Reformation so as we better understand the Reformation we better understand our world and hence we better understand our world the more we are able to act wisely and skillfully in the world so number one a better understanding number two encouragement believe it or not we are not the first persons today to wrestle with spiritual problems or to try to understand the Bible faithful men and women have gone before us and have lived lives of love and righteousness as well as devotion for the scriptures as we learn about their lives as we see what God did for them and through them and as we see the Word of God proven true in their days we will be encouraged to follow Christ more faithfully so we gain a better understanding we gain encouragement but we also game number three warning not everything our spiritual for iced in the Reformation period fell into great sin and falling we need to test that the actions and interpretations of those in the past by the scriptures even the words and deeds of Ethel this many of you know this year marks the 500 500 anniversary Luthor’s nailing the 95 theses on Wittenberg Church so if there’s ever been an appropriate time to look into and remember the Reformation now is the time we’re going to take six lessons to survey or overview this period of Christian history course can’t talk about everything but we’re going to hit up the main people and events of course is basically going to follow the outline that’s given into my subtitle for this series well first take one lesson to discuss the road to Reformation how did we get to Reformation especially in 1517 well then take four lessons to talk about the Reformers themselves we’ll do one lesson each on the big three Martin Luther Ulrich Zwingli and John Calvin and then we’ll do one lesson covering English and Scottish Reformation we’ll finish this series by discussing the aftermath of the Reformation the good the bad and the ugly now if you were part of the church history sunday-school series I did at Calvary about three years ago you’ll notice that some of the information that I’m presenting to you is review but you also notice some new information but whether you’ve learned about the Reformation before or not I hope that these lessons will help solidify what you’ve learned or solidify these events and their significance in your minds this is after all not simply a history this is your history if you belong to Christ these are your Christian forefathers to whom you are indebted to whom you and I are indebted speaking of being identity these lessons have been greatly informed by dr. Nathan business’s classes on historical theology at the Masters seminary as well as to a lesser degree my own reading of church history books and primary sources from the Reformation period if you’d like to hear the original church history course and dr.
Nathan Hughes makes himself you can watch the video lectures online for free at WWDC logical resources org and then there’s some justifying the section for the Masters seminary all right so we begin our series just a note this is um these lessons gonna be a little bit more lecture oriented since we’re not studying a text together it won’t be as much back and forth interaction I still may ask some questions from time to time and if we have time I’ll answer questions at the end of each class but what are we looking at today well we’re looking at the road reclamation we’re going to discuss the history of the church up to about 1500 the rise of what we call pre reformers and then the rise of the humanists these will help explain how we got to Martin Luther nailing his ninety-five theses in 1517 that’s great before we go on O Lord God thank you for the Reformation we thank you that we have the testimonies of these men and women who went before us they chewed Houma to be able to explain this material well and that the people would be encouraged it would be given a better understanding of the world and would also be warned from some of the mistakes of the past Jesus name Amen let’s start with a general timeline of church history what came before the Reformation period well we can divide the years before 1500 or so into three main periods of about 500 years each first from about AD 30 to 8,500 we have the patristic or early church Christians in this time are mainly spreading the gospel combating heresies and enduring periodic persecution in this period we also see the establishment of the imperial church that is government recognized and government promoted Christianity this change results on the and in the halting of persecution against Christians and the gradual crystallization of Roman society and Roman government on the other hand this change results in the beginning of the pagan ization of the church converted pagans bring many of their old beliefs and practices into Christianity resulting in practices like prayers for the dead prayers to the Saints and various holidays like Christmas but AD 500 we also have three practices firmly established in the Christian Church the first is ruled by one Bishop in each church it’s not a board of elders not a bunch of pastors it’s one Bishop in each church which is what we call ma Episcopacy second we have the recognition of certain bishops called patriarchs as the most important and influential in the Christian world these would include the bishops of Rome and the Bishop of Constantinople that both recognizes patriarchs the third is monasticism Christian people leave normal society to live alone or to live in isolated religious communities in order to prove their faith or in order to get closer to God so we see these things emerging from the first period the patristic period then from about 8,500 to 80 1000 we have the early medieval church in which Christianity becomes increasingly ritualized and paganized but various churchmen including some roman popes try to put the church back on track we see the church drifting more and more into error but you have some people trying to fight the drift and the church is not yet apostate however during this period the office of Bishop in Rome becomes greatly enhanced it becomes greatly empowered and even politicized the Bishop of Rome choirs for himself some secular power and this results in deep papal corruption and also a split in Christianity over who should be the supreme religious leader the one pastor to rule them all this division is epitomized in the east-west schism taking place in AD 1054 I know it’s take a little bit of beyond 1,000 but close enough and the east-west schism the bishops of Rome and Constantinople excommunicate one another and henceforth we have Catholic and Greek Orthodox being the two main branches of Christianity Islam also appears during the early medieval period extending greatly after Muhammad’s death in 86 32 by about 1000 AD most of Spain all of North Africa and most of the Middle East apart from Turkey is under Muslim control so we have our second period the early medieval period noon third right before the Reformation you have a period from about AD 1000 to 1500 which we’re gonna call it the late medieval church this is when especially after the fourth Lateran Council which finished in 1215 ad the Roman Church can be safely labeled as apostate due to church traditions and sacramentalism that is an overemphasis on and supreme belief in church rituals church traditions and sacramentalism finally eclipse the gospel as a result many problems increasingly plagued the Western Church during this period and I’m gonna go through a couple of these with you so you get an idea of what the Reformers are reacting against what kind of problems well first there’s the Crusades popes in this period are promising that whoever goes on military crusade to conquer land from pagans or heretics will gain spiritual merit and need not suffer in purgatory second around 1200 ad the church forbids common people from reading the Bible this supposedly is to protect these uneducated men and women from falling into damning heresy they need to just rely on the church third church services are conducted solely in Latin which means most people cannot understand what’s going on in a church service moreover the service is mainly about the Eucharist not reading or explaining the Bible and the Eucharist is presented like a sacrifice fourth the church primarily becomes a means of making money and gaining power that is for their clergy in the church we have clerical absenteeism that is men becoming bishops or leaders of a church solely to collect their revenue from that church’s land these men don’t actually preach or care for their flocks at all their absence to the sale of indulgences this is churchmen selling paper certificates declaring that a person sins have been forgiven and don’t need to be paid for in purgatory these practices along with others greatly enhanced the wealth of churchmen but results in the corruption of the church from France for a number of decades we’ll say a little bit more about that later on what’s another problem sixth in the late 1300s and early 1400s we have the Western schism this is different than the east-west schism this is the Western schism what’s the Western squid let’s give them well it’s a preposterous time in which there are two and then three men all claiming to be Pope at the same time each one of these popes has his own supporters and he goes to war to try to depose the other popes and each of these popes is using corrupt religious schemes to make money in order to finance the army is to go to war problem unsurprisingly with these things going on we have the general worldliness of the clergy with so many men obtaining bishoprics and monastic positions and even the papacy for wealth and political game is no wonder that most of these church men Imams I’m mentioning the gospel of salvation in this period as taught by the official church is salvation by works and the sacraments though Jesus died for you on the cross they would say your salvation ultimately depends upon they’re probably still going to spend Aeons in purgatory but try your best so you can see that in this third period of the Christian Church period but mostly outside the official church there were illegal lay religious orders you know about some religious orders like the the Dominicans the Franciscans or even the Knights Templar these were official orders given sanctioned by the Pope but lay religious orders were not allowed they were illegal what would they what would they consist of they were just groups of friends choosing to live together choosing to study the Bible together and to encourage one another toward holy living kind of like a home group but we had these lay religious orders popping up there was also a lay movement this stressed salvation through contemplation of Jesus work rather than through the sacraments one of the most famous devotional works of all time the imitation of Christ came from this movement and was widely read among medieval Catholics but besides these things we have the pre reformers preachers who rose up to denounce the official hurt to denounce their corrupt church that they beheld in their day and to reassert salvation by faith in Jesus accomplished work and to also assert the Bible as the final authority for truth it’s the last facet that I want to spend some time on let’s learn about these pre reformers really these men were reformers in their own rights but we call them pre reformers because they prepared Europe for the greater revival of the 1500s there were others but we only had time for three I want to talk to you about waldo Wickliffe and HUS let’s start with Peter Waldo and the Waldensians no connection to Where’s Waldo unfortunately at a saint who gave away all his wealth Waldo Waldo felt convicted of his own great love of wealth and so he sold his possessions it gave the proceeds to the poor and he became a traveling preacher Waldo quickly fell in love with the Bible which was not yet illegal in his day for laypeople to read he fell in love with the Bible and he fell in love with the Christ of the Bible Waldo became determined to give the gift of simple scriptural truth to the people of southern France and northern Italy Waldo attracted a number of followers men and women who too fell in love with the scriptures and followed Peters example of voluntary poverty and gospel preaching his followers became known as the poor men of Lyon it was a very fitting description we know them today as walled ends Ian’s eventually Waldo hired two priests to translate the scriptures from Latin which was the only version that the scriptures were available and in that day he hired two priests to translate the scriptures from Latin into vernacular languages into the language of the common people this appears to be the first time in history are in them in the late medieval period that the Scriptures were translated into the vernacular actually let me say it this way it’s the first time that the scriptures were translated into one of the languages that we still have today modern language this is quite a development but Waldo’s work did not continue unopposed by the official church but you might ask why would the church be so suspicious of these poor men of Leon reason is because they’re laymen they’re not theologically trained who knows what kind of message they’re spreading and besides they’re interested in translating apart tongues that was the attitude of the church it didn’t help that the Waldensian love of Scripture led the Waldensians to denounce what they saw on the churches a lack of preaching and a love of wealth and luxury Peter Waldo tried to correct they’re like the Apostles in Acts how can we stop speaking about what we’ve seen and heard you must have a God rather than you so even though this movement was illegal these poor men and women continued traveling working enough to support themselves and then continued preaching giving away free copies of the scriptures the translated sections especially and they especially were translating and giving away the Sermon on the Mount as they did this the group soon came to reject even more unbiblical practices and doctrines from the official church they rejected veneration of relics prayers for the dead purgatory and transubstantiation but you can’t do something like this and then not expect the church to respond the church did respond the papal Church and responded severely Peter Waldo was excommunicated and later the poor men of Leon as a whole were condemned as heretics and now that’s crucial because remember in this period church and state are inextricably linked to be a heretic is to be an enemy of the state which means the state should arrest you and put you on trial and even have you executed this is exactly what happened to many of the Waldensians they were arrested will of the Pope the walled Indian movement had initially spread into southern France northern Italy even parts of Germany but violent persecution from the papacy reversed the spread the poem nwm were confined to the Alps area and mostly remain there until the Reformation already underway with the walled ends Ian’s in the 1100s and 1200s but this was mostly a middle and lower class movement and mostly in France and Italy Reformation would soon also appear in another place in England and this time with the support of academics and the nobility let’s now move to England and talk about John Wickliffe and the Lollards called the Morningstar of the Reformation John Wickliffe lived most of the 14th century 13:22 1384 he was a great scholar theologian and lay preacher look Wickliffe was born into a wealthy family and brought up to be a clergyman he searched for a time in the church but really began to flourish as a theology teacher and up at Oxford I said lay preacher he was just actually a regular preacher here’s a regular churchmen Wickliffe first began to preach Reformation when he argued for the stripping of secular wealth and authority from church clergy he disseminated this message both in his classes but also in his tracks and pamphlets for instance in his tracks on the avarice or the greed of the clergy Wickliffe says that Christ told his followers to give alms to the poor so why Wickliffe ask is so much wealth continually given to the rich clergy who only become more corrupt by it Wickliffe then asserted that clergy should only be given enough wealth to support themselves the rest should be given up and if the clergy are not will ought to help them do so by force such words were of course music to the ears of the nobility and King of England who are already quite annoyed that France England’s mortal enemy hence wanted to punish Wickliffe for his statements and try him as a heretic but they could not do so due to wickless popularity among the people and the nobility of England so instead Catholic Church Minh vigorously attacked Wickliffe with words but these attacks had a surprising effect the more cap to defend himself and the more you look to the scriptures the more he found wrong with the official church and he soon added new ideas to his tracks treatises and sermons Wickliffe was soon arguing against many aspects of Catholic dogma ought to be the authority over all Christians Pope included Scripture he asserted is the ultimate guide for the believer in belief and action so if the Pope follows the Bible well and good listen to the Pope but if the Pope does not follow the Bible the Pope is to be disobeyed in that area read more Wickliffe asserted that every person ought to be able to read the Bible for himself so that each person might learn about and trust in the work of Christ for salvation not in the sacraments or in their own good works consequently Wickliffe started doing the same thing that Peter Waldo did a century before and that is translating the Bible into the vernacular with the help of some other professors at Oxford Wickliffe produced an English translation of the old and New Testaments and Apocrypha based off of the Latin Vulgate he wasn’t able to use the Greek because those manuscripts weren’t available at that time but use Latin of English at that time this translation of the Bible student had wide circulation in England it’s striking that a hundred and fifty copies that the Wickliffe Bible survived today this is significant because that’s a pretty big number for an old document language with this views in his Bible translation however were clearly heretical according to the Catholic Church as Wickliffe began to make more of his controversial statements and end songs as if they just say la la la with Oliver’s took these names however as badges of honor they went out as I tended singing publicly the message of salvation by faith apart from the sacraments and they asserted the authority of the Bible over the authority of popes they also hand wrote tracts and distributed them to people who could read we preacher cliff eventually left Oxford but he continued to preach in church and he wrote from his home until his death by stroke in 1384 when he died he was technically still Orthodox and considered a part of yet the Catholic Church but the storm of hostility against Wickliffe and his followers really broke in full force after his death the Lord’s were repressed by law in England starting in the early 1400s you weren’t allowed to be a lowland B weren’t allowed to do what they did translation of the Bible into English became again asserted as a crime punishable by charge of heresy which meant punishment for translating the Bible was death Wickliffe was also posthumously condemned as a heretic a church council ordered that Wickliffe body be dug up and burned in 1428 Catholic Church finally did so they burned his body what was left of it and they cast the ashes into the river Swift and so came an end to Wickliffe and the Lollards but was it really the end by no means the Reformation ideas the Wickliffe did not die out in the British Isles though suppressed they might have been others a in England would later come upon and build upon would later come and build upon Wickliffe groundbreaking work the Lollards there was always a Lollard movement that continued in England moreover many of wickless writings made their way to the European continent even as far as Bohemia impacting a certain professor named John Huss and the late 1300s so now we switch to our third pre four pre reformer HUS let’s talk about us yes or yon hoose was a reformer in bohemian bohemian texaspeyton or its modern-day Czech Republic and some of the surrounding land house was from Bohemia he was a priest preacher and philosopher who like with Wickliffe held a high academic post of the three reformers we’ve looked at so far HUS had the best reception among his own people though as we’ll see Haase died a martyr’s death at the hands of the papacy Haase was born in the town of poustinik Bohemia hence his name but it doesn’t appear to have come from a rich family he made his way to Prague and eventually a roll enrolled in University where he encountered the writings of Wickliffe us was greatly influenced by the now dead Wickliffe and though the papacy banned Wickliffe writings HUS translated some of them into Czech and popularize them post received his master’s from the University of Prague and was ordained as a priest in 1400 a few years later HUS became head of that same University he graduated from and he became the main preacher at the city’s great Bethlehem chapel and what’s at HUS preach well reformed HUS like Wickliffe sought to reform the church by exposing the corruption of Catholic clergy including the Pope HUS also preached the Bible in the language of the people which was unusual for the time and many people loved it HUS once said and one of his polemics regarding the agreed of the church quote for the sacrament for indulgences for churching a woman for a blessing for burials for funeral services and prayers the very last penny which an old woman has hidden in her bundle for fear of thieves thieves or robbery will not be safe the villainous priest will grab it unquote it reacted during the period of the Western schism that’s when you have the two or three popes all existing simultaneously various Pope’s condemned Wickliffe ISM in Prague and they ordered the writings of Wickliffe to be turned over and burned at first puss and his fellow professors at the University of Prague complied but as more and more Bohemians including the current King of Bohemia supported hustles views and has more and more Hustlas opponents left the university and even left the kingdom of Bohemia Haas and his followers became bolder and bolder in their attitude toward Rome consequently Husson his associates who were called the Hussites they were excommunicated by the Pope in 1410 this was the first of five pronouncements of excommunication against us actually I wonder which reformer had the most excommunications pronounced against him us is doing pretty well with five but to make sure that no repercussion came against Prague for harboring excommunicated Huss Huss moved back to his hometown but it continued to preach and right from there now well Bohemia was becoming more and more hussite opposition remained in Bohemia was deeply divided the hussite still work not just spreading their teaching in Bohemia but also the surrounding kingdoms kingdoms like Austria and Poland enter Sigismund such as mun king of hungary an heir to the holy roman empire and even of bohemian Sigismund now appears on the scene now I mentioned the Holy Roman Empire some of you might be saying what is the Holy Roman Empire we’re gonna mention that name a couple of times in this course so let me just take some time to explain what that is before the 1800s most of Germany as well as Austria Bohemia and part of Italy were part of a large Confederacy called the Holy Roman Empire this was not quite a state or not not a centralized state like we think of today this was a confederation of Free Cities princes Dukes and bishops that are all led by an elected Emperor now this Emperor did not have absolute he had to rely on the backing of various German rulers to get things done not quite democratic but if the emperor did not have the support of the princes and the other rulers you couldn’t do anything as the emperor outside of his own kingdom so this is a very decentralized Empire but the Holy Roman Empire is where a lot of Reformation things take place Bohemia is on the eastern part of the Roman Empire Holy Roman Empire it’s the part sticking out to the right side of your of the display I have in front of you so Sigismund is the heir to the Holy Roman Empire and he’s the heir to the kingdom of Bohemia and he not only wanted to see the issue of the three popes all trying to become the real Pope he wanted to see a resolution to that issue but he also wanted to see religious unity restored to Bohemia so in 1415 he called a council in the city of Constance to resolve both issues the ampere summoned us to attend and he promised the reformer protect protection you won’t be harmed council well what to do on the one hand this was a Roman Catholic council outside of Bohemia and despite the Kings promise in my days he put everything in order before he left including his will on his way to Constance and I believe that’s Austria HUS much to his surprise was treated like a hero many Germans lined the streets of his way and acclaimed HUS shouting their support to him and support for his preaching when HUS first arrived in Constance he had relative freedom and due to political considerations Sigismund back down there for HUS lost his protection and he was doomed HUS was transferred to the worst confinement possible first he was put in a dungeon of a local castle that was next to an open sewer a prosecutor against him but no defense attorney on his behalf and the prosecutor asked the prosecutor cited hussies writings and his agreement with wickless as heresy us did not deny his writings but he only asked that someone show him from the scriptures where he had erred this the prosecutor and the others and the council refused to do hustles our post tested the some of the accusations against him were for doctrines that he never topped but the council was not going to admit itself wrong in anything the council finally dressed HUS and his priestly robes and asked him once more to recant of his teaching when he again refused unless convinced by Scripture they ceremonially stripped him of his robes and destroyed his priestly tonsure that’s his haircut marking him as a priest they then put a tall paper hat on him on which read erased the arca leader of heretics HUS was then led away to be burned at the stake right before he was about to be burned and military commander urged HUS to repent and save his own life to which HUS replied God is my witness that the things charged against me I never preached and the same truth of the gospel which I have written taught and preached drawing upon the sayings and positions of the holy doctors that is early church fathers I am ready to die today and die he did HUS the faithful man of God was burned to death and his ashes thrown into the Rhine River the end of us but what happened to the Hussites what happened to bohemia’ would their leader with the one leading reform executed well rather than demoralized Bohemians fusses death enrage them it galvanized them it moved bohemia’ further away from the papacy that had never had been and more toward hustles and wickless teachings but he became even more reformed after his death a new pope finally elected by the Council of Constance announced five Crusades against the kingdom of Bohemia you can see this the silliness of the Crusades you’ll be holy if you go and fight those heretic Bohemians but each crusade and these Crusades lasted from 1419 to 1430 for each crusade was intended to force Bohemia to submit to the Catholic Church by each crusade was soundly defeated at the end of these hussite wars as they’re called the Bohemians only rejoin the Catholic Church after Rome granted some reforms in Bohemia an agreement known as the compacts these were limited reforms they were important but they stopped far short of what hust taught and what HUS called for in the church so many of us as more zealous zealous followers were dissatisfied these radical Hussites those smaller number continued to exist in Bohemia until the time of the Reformation when many of them joined the Protestant movement so despite his death HUS had quite a lasting impact and not just in Bohemia John Huss like Peter Waldo and proper Reformation to be gathered in the 1500s so we met these three pre reformers we could say more about them as well as about some others exist but Renaissance humanism the humanism I’m about to talk about was different it simply refers to the belief in the value of the humanities that is the subjects of study regarding human culture you know the humanities they include things like art literature history law religion and languages the humanists were all about her the Renaissance humanists were all about the humanities now in the 1400s than why I’m talking about this this group there’s an intellectual shift from the previous school of thought to humanism among academics and among the educated why was this and what effect did it have that is important for the Reformation first let’s talk about why this embrace of the humanities occurred have the reasons lifts listed for you on the screen first there’s the failures of the previous dominant school of thought known as scholasticism scholasticism which rain and you weep and more practical which is why they turn to humanism second another reason why humanism took hold in Europe was something very important happened in 1453 in the east namely Constantinople finally fell to the Ottoman Turks this is important for many reasons but one is that Greek Constantinople was full of texts full of ancient texts and those texts suddenly come West Byzantium or Constantinople had centuries of religious literary and philosophical texts in Greek and fleeing Byzantines brought them with them to the rest of Europe and many of these texts were the ones that Western Europeans had never seen before or there were different versions of what Western Europeans already had Western Europeans had the Bible but not in Greek and not in Hebrew at least most times so scholars had a renewed impetus to learn new languages so they could study these texts they were again turning to the humanities so this is the second reason humanism became adopted and the third is similar it’s the onset of the Renaissance what is the Renaissance well it’s a cultural movement from about 1,300 to 1,600 mostly among the rich and educated in Italy and this movement celebrated the Classical period of Greece and Rome particularly greco-roman art literature and philosophy the influx of art and texts from Constantinople fueled a drive to rediscover re-emphasized and imitate the Greek and Roman cultures of old so this again met new interest in the humanities finally there was a new invention in Europe starting sometime between 1440 and 1460 that invention is the printing press printing press allowed the cheap speedy and plentiful copying and dissemination of texts but why would this cause a movement toward humanism well as academics had more copies of texts available to them they noticed something they suddenly became aware that not all versions of their text were the same different versions written at different times in history had slight differences between them some Christians because there were differences in their copies of the Scriptures there were differences in the Bible texts it’s a big deal if two Greek manuscripts record a book of the Bible differently or even if the Latin Vulgate says something different than what’s in a Greek boiler and syntax were consistent in that text with other texts that were from the same time period so when the printing press is first invented it’s not the common people who benefit they can’t read Greek or Hebrew or Latin but the academics can so the printing press printing press drives scholars to the humanities so you can see there are a number of forces driving at the educated and the academics towards humanism but why is that significant well two main significant results in light of the Reformation the first is a new emphasis on learning the biblical languages academics and theologians suddenly are interested in learning Hebrew and Greek so they can read the Bible as it was originally written and as it was copied in the Byzantium texts there’s a renewed interest on the biblical languages and second there’s a renewed desire for a more accurate Bible text and more accurate Bible translations not just into Latin but even the common languages of the people of Europe one particularly important humanist this regard we need to talk about this Erasmus Desiderius Erasmus of Rotterdam he lived during the time of the Reformation 1466 to 1536 he’s often called the Prince of the humanists harassment has in many ways helped to cause the Reformation but he also supported the Catholic Church against the Reformation you mean it was a kind of a scholastic free spirit he hated dissension a very seldom took sides in the debate and in the end Erasmus would be appreciated and hated by both Protestants and Catholics Erasmus was born in the Dutch city of Rotterdam the illegitimate son of a priest as a youth harassment went to monastic schools where he learned elementary Greek which was just then becoming a part of primary education after serving a short time as a priest Erasmus studied at a number of universities first under Scholastic professors who marasmus came to detest and then under humanist teachers and these teachers inspired Erasmus to master knowledge of ancient Greek and steady biblical manuscripts so after studying Greek intensely for three years Erasmus did master the language and he began studying the Byzantine manuscripts of the New Testament when Erasmus produced from this study was monumentally important it was the first critical edition of the Greek New Testament now by critical Edition I mean Erasmus compared all the Greek texts of the Bible that were available to him all the copies and he applied the principles of textual criticism thereby producing the most accurate version of the New Testaments original Greek he published his Greek New Testament alongside and amended version of the Latin Vulgate first as the novum instrumentum in 1516 and then as the novum testament’ ‘m in 1518 now unlike the Pope Erasmus believed in the importance of Lady reading the Bible and his critical study would greatly impact the rest of Europe when it came to Bible reading Erasmus is Greek New Testament become the basis for Martin Luther’s translation of the Bible into German in 1519 I’m also William Tyndale’s translation of the Bible into English in 1522 Rasmus is important not only for his Greek critical audition but of the New Testament but also he was another person who criticized the Catholic Church for its many abuses especially in his best-selling satire in praise of folly which was published in 1509 the resinous like many others exposed much of the corruption of the Catholic Church he was not looking to reform Catholic doctrine or to break away from the papacy he’s still called for people to support the church and to submit to the Pope it’s partly for this reason that the Catholic Church never really came down on Erasmus the least during his lifetime and it’s also why many Protestants were quite frustrated with Erasmus for example when the Protestant movement began to build Erasmus approved of many of the reforms that Luther champion and what Luther learned about Erasmus his work Luther praised Erasmus exceedingly and he asked her Rasmus to join the Protestant cause but when Erasmus refused to join and even sharply critiqued the Protestant movement Luther basically came to think of Erasmus as the spawn of Satan and not even a Christian this is the frustration that posten sometimes had with Erasmus on the other side harassment is Bible translation and his expose is against Catholic corruption gave much fuel to the Protestants so Catholics were frustrated with Erasmus to some monks even accused Erasmus of laying the egg of reformation that Luther hatched though Erasmus claimed that the egg that Luther hatch was all an altogether different sort of bird while Erasmus had an accomplished writing and teaching career he died of dysentery in the midst of controversy in 1536 both Protestants and Catholics condemned his legacy though later generations would be a little bit more charitable was Erasmus a crucial P was and he was just caught up in error in tradition but whether a true Christian or not Erasmus was nonetheless extremely important in helping to bring about Reformation in Europe so this is the road to Reformation we’ve now seen what came before in Christian history good question is there value in learning to live calamities today absolutely that’s one of the things that’s been stressed to me while in seminary no I’m kind of learning something that I didn’t expect to learn which is we shouldn’t think of learning the biblical languages as like whoo this is the secret key to understand what the Bible really says because you can’t trust translations no it’s not like that we have really good translations but you’ve got to know the original languages to test the translations and to protect the church from going into error that was one of the problems that people up to the Reformation had is that no one was able really to assess or to correct some of the mysteries lations in the latin vulgate and some of them were quite critical like penance being translated instead of repent are things along that nature so yes it is very important for us to learn the original languages but praise the Lord that we do have good translations today just one other way to ask that question someone characterized reading the original languages is like looking at something on a screen in high definition even if you can’t look in HD you can see pretty well and you can understand what is being displayed to you you do get a little bit more of appreciation when you’re able to look in HD however just as you are when you look there in the languages we shouldn’t think however that without the original languages we can’t trust our translation or we shouldn’t think that we can’t use our English translations or there everything is suspect in our English translation good question though other questions yeah on the side John Huss yet you’d burn at the stake say that last thing again that’s true to repeat your comment John Huss was a great man but he ultimately died was burned at the stake and these reformers even if they weren’t martyred they only came for a time and then they disappeared we’re gonna see even when we look at John Calvin that these men were not looking to exalt themselves they actually sometimes we’re really careful to make sure that they didn’t gain hero-worship they’re still something that today regardless but these are just men you’re right the only one who really lasts forever and the only one truly worthy of our devotion and our ultimate discipleship is Christ they want to say with John the Baptist these reformers would say with John the Baptist let him increase and let me decrease it’s not about me it’s about him if you have other questions or comments please email me next week we talk about Martin Luther let me close in a word of Prayer thank you God for what you accomplished these things that happened more than 500 years ago now they have a direct impact on us we thank you for these pre-or formers we thank you for how you move sovereignly in history to cause things to move towards Reformation thank you that your light would not go out your word does prove true you always preserve a remnant you always preserve a light your word will not pass away we thank you that we have that word today that we have it in good translations and that we still have access to the original languages we praise you for this god bless Calvary grille Calvary today in Jesus name Amen okay see you next week