Untitled Sermon (6)

Nehemiah

“The following year, in The Babylonian Captivity of the Church, Luther stated: “What is asserted without the Scriptures or proven revelation may be held as an opinion, but need not be believed.” Late medieval theologians placed Christian tradition alongside the Bible as a source of church doctrine. Luther emphasized instead the primacy of Scripture.” TIMOTHY GEORGE

For if, as Paul says, ‘Christ is the power of God and the wisdom of God’, and if the man who does not know Scripture does not know the power and wisdom of God, then ignorance of Scripture is ignorance of Christ. Jerome, Commentary on Isaiah, Book 18, prologue.

These books, therefore, ought to be much in our hands, in our eyes, in our ears, in our mouths, but most of all in our hearts… The words of Holy Scripture be called words of everlasting life: for they be God’s instrument, ordained for the same purpose.  They have power to convert through God’s promise, and they be effectual through God’s assistance; and, being received in a faithful heart, they have ever a heavenly spiritual working in them…

English Reformer Thomas Cranmer, Homily: A Fruitful Exhortation to the Reading and Knowledge of Holy Scripture

 When the king heard the words of the Book of the Law, he tore his robes. 12 He gave these orders to Hilkiah the priest, Ahikam son of Shaphan, Akbor son of Micaiah, Shaphan the secretary and Asaiah the king’s attendant: 13 “Go and inquire of the Lord for me and for the people and for all Judah about what is written in this book that has been found. Great is the Lord’s anger that burns against us because those who have gone before us have not obeyed the words of this book; they have not acted in accordance with all that is written there concerning us.”

 Then Joshua built on Mount Ebal an altar to the Lord, the God of Israel, 31 as Moses the servant of the Lord had commanded the Israelites. He built it according to what is written in the Book of the Law of Moses—an altar of uncut stones, on which no iron tool had been used. On it they offered to the Lord burnt offerings and sacrificed fellowship offerings. 32 There, in the presence of the Israelites, Joshua wrote on stones a copy of the law of Moses. 33 All the Israelites, with their elders, officials and judges, were standing on both sides of the ark of the covenant of the Lord, facing the Levitical priests who carried it. Both the foreigners living among them and the native-born were there. Half of the people stood in front of Mount Gerizim and half of them in front of Mount Ebal, as Moses the servant of the Lord had formerly commanded when he gave instructions to bless the people of Israel.

34 Afterward, Joshua read all the words of the law—the blessings and the curses—just as it is written in the Book of the Law. 35 There was not a word of all that Moses had commanded that Joshua did not read to the whole assembly of Israel, including the women and children, and the foreigners who lived among them.

Word Transforms

Centrality of the Law

Centrality of the Law

Minister of the Word (not minister of the Word and Sacraments)

Centrality of the Law

Problem in the Text?

Emphasis in Understanding the Law

Day of ‘solemn rest’: “Remarkably, the Day of Atonement is apparently not observed on this occasion, or at least its observance is not recorded.”

Problem in the Text:

Solas: 19th Century invention to summarize

Illiteracy of the Law

500 Anniversary: Luther nailed it so that people on All Saints Day could walk in

Albert of Mainz: He was a teenager when he became bishop. He bought his office, borrowed money to make a church, then he sold indulgences.

§ He bought his office, borrowed money to make a church, then he sold indulgences.

Some people have earned there way to heaven. The church can dispense if you do something for the church.

Fugger

· Owns a bank which still exist today. They know that they are stacking up thousands of years of purgatory.

· A poor person can rent a Fuugerei (condo). The only thing you have to do is go to chapel and pray for the Fuggers in purgatory.

Tetzel: Luther responded to Tetzel

· Licensed to sell indulgences. One chunk go to the Fugger’s, to Rome, and to Tetzel’s debt.

Amount of cash are flowing into the church, and the money just gets rich, but the money just sits there. The church gets rich and the people get poor.

Wycliff debated against the Rich! Wycliff never experienced persecution, but his bones did! “Wycliffe himself was never persecuted directly and lived a quiet, scholarly life. No doubt, much of this peace was due to his favoured status with the various kings of England who used him to demonstrate their own independence of Rome. Years after his death in 1384, the vengeful church did strike. By order of the church, his bones were dug up, burned and his ashes scattered over the waters of the river in his hometown of Lutterworth (1428).”- http://frcna.org/messenger/item/8723-

“Huss was summoned to appear before this council. The emperor Sigismund promised him a safe conduct but, upon his arrival at Prague, he was arrested and ordered to recant. Bravely, he insisted that Scripture is the only guide for faith and practice and that the only true Church is the community of the elect. He refused to retract his position. The council condemned him and he died heroically in the flames of the stake on July 6, 1415.”

The very principle of sola scriptura is what split the church.

Luther: Doctrine of priesthood of all believers

-       Most misunderstood and misapplied in our church

-       Clergy and the laity: Tradition from the Medieval period. Laity: “Less important temporal state.”

-       Latin: Language of the Clergy: Bible, liturgy, theology

-       1518: Explained the 95 thesis in German!

-       Laity was now involved in theological discourse. Divide between church and people was unfounded in Scripture. “There is no true basic difference between layman and priests, peasants and priests, and religion and secular.”

-       Priesthood was the common property of all Christians.

-       Priesthood is a ‘right’. Peasants are finally told that they are valuable.

-       Believers now can have direct unfettered access to God.

-       Pastor was an office and held that too be true. But there is no difference between people. Clergy was different was different based on work and office.

-       Caveat: Never in Luther’s mind priesthood to be individually understood. We are priests not for ourselves but for others for the local body. Access to God came with a responsibility to provide spiritual care of the help of the entire community.

-       Luther’s Metaphor German Chocolate Cake: Need all ingredients. Every single person is vital for the success of the church. Pastor is not ‘the’ guy, but ‘a’ guy. Ministerial work of the church doesn’t fall on just the pastors. Pastor has a role in overseeing.

-       Luther: The care of the community must take place together. Since He Jesus is a priest and we are Brethren all Christian have the power and must fulfill the commandment to preach and to come before God with our intercession for one another and to sacrifice ourselves to God.”

-       Interpretation must be done in community.

-       Luther is putting responsibility of the health of the church on us.

-       Vernacular Bible

WilliamTyndale:

"Let it not make thee despair, neither yet discourage thee, O reader, that it is forbidden thee in pain of life and goods, or that it is made breaking of the king's peace, or treason unto his highness, to read the Word of thy soul's health—for if God be on our side, what matter maketh it who be against us, be they bishops, cardinals, popes."

Introduction:

500 Years of Reformation

Back in Seminary, we translated Hebrew and Greek into English. Reading the Bible in its original

Celebration? Recognition: Catholic Church wanted to preserve unity by making tradition/papal authority with Scripture

Why?

Problem: Bible was the work of the clergy. Latin was language of the clergy. illegal to translate to preserve the language of the church/religion.

Bible couldn’t be understood!

Because authority of the Bible fell on par with authority of papal authority, there was motivation to get in on that authority!

Examples of problems.

Nehemiah:

Idealistic Picture of how the Word Convicts

Preached: Paint the picture of how they are standing. ‘Tower’. My father remembers preachers preaching from a pulpit on spiraling staircase.

People there to translate and help convey what God’s Word is all about

Conviction of the Truth

Can’t get stuck there!

No emphasis on Ezra, all the emphasis is on understanding

Risk! Catholic Church wanted tradition/papal authority to be on par in order to keep unity.

Reformers: Worth the risk.

Problems.

What competing scripts are we listening to?

What do we hold an par with Scripture?

The Problems with accessibility: We take it for granted that we have multiple copies of the Bible available to us. The Bible is literally the best selling book in history:

Guinness Book of World Records: A survey by the Bible Society concluded that around 2.5 billion copies were printed between 1815 and 1975, but more recent estimates put the number at more than 5 billion.

You know, one of the arguments the Catholic Church had against the Reformers was this: If everyone had equal access to the Bible, then that’s a recipe for church division. I found that to be a stunning and provocative statement. Because that’s exactly what happened. But the impetus for division was trying to sort through what the Bible actually says. Today, that debate isn’t happening as much simply because Christians are more preoccupied listening t