Podcasts about tetzel

Der METAL FIGHT CLUB neigt sich dem Ende mit seinen wöchentlichen Episoden. Doch damit wird es auch gleichzeitig spannend: Am kommenden Freitag, den 18.10. werden die beiden Songs von VERSENGOLD und HÄMATOM ins Rennen geschickt und ihr müsst klicken und entscheiden, wer den MFC Vol.2 Award gewinnen wird. Der Finale Kampf findet dann am 26.10. in Würzburg statt. Zwei Bühnen, Tetzel als Moderator und eine Show, die einmalig wird. (Tickets dafür findet ihr im HÄMATOM-Shop) Und damit beide Parteien nochmal die Werbetrommel in ihrem Interesse rühren können, haben wir heute den Geigenspieler Flo von VERSENGOLD zu Gast in der Sendung. Schönes Ding!

Can you remember what you learned last week?How about last month?Spaced learning is an INCREDIBLY powerful strategy for getting knowledge into memory - and making it stick there.Renowned Dr Carolina Kuepper-Tetzel of the Learning Scientists project and Teaching Innovation & Learning Enhancement network joins us to break down exactly what you need to know to get up and running with spaced learning.Your grades will never be the same again...!Twitter: @PimpMyMemoryLearning Scientists: https://www.learningscientists.org/TILE: https://tile.psy.gla.ac.uk/Carolina's personal website: http://www.carolinakuepper-tetzel.com/First broadcast as Episode 4, on March 7th 2021.*Hosted by William Wadsworth, memory psychologist, independent researcher and study skills coach. I help ambitious students to study smarter, not harder, so they can ace their exams with less work and less stress.BOOK 1:1 COACHING to supercharge your exam success: https://examstudyexpert.com/workwithme/SCHOOLS / UNIVERSITIES discover staff CPD / keynote talks and student revision and study skills workshops at: https://examstudyexpert.com/workwithme/revision-workshops/ Get a copy of Outsmart Your Exams, my award-winning exam technique book, at https://geni.us/exams***As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchasesPodcast Edited by Benoît André.

Episode 5 of the Ask the Law Firm Seller Show includes 3 segments. In Segment 2, host, Jeremy E. Poock, Esq., welcomes Attorney Paul Tetzel of Boston based Tetzel Law, which acquired a Senior Attorney lead Personal Injury Law firm in early 2020. During their conversation, Tetzel and Poock discuss: How welcoming 2 Senior Attorney PI attorneys to Tetzel Law has benefited the practice   Tetzel's advice for Senior Attorney PI attorneys considering selling their law practices?   Tetzel's answer to the following question: “Would You Purchase Another Law Firm?”

El monje que recolectó dinero para la construcción de la basílica de San Pedro ofreciendo perdón a los fieles católicos. Sus eslóganes fueron directamente cuestionados en las 95 tesis de Lutero. SÍGUENOS Sitio web: http://biteproject.com​​​ TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@biteproject Twitter: https://twitter.com/biteproject​​​ Podcast: https://anchor.fm/biteproject TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@biteproject Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/biteproject/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/biteproject/​​​ Música: Envato Elements.

AcknowledgementThank you to my colleague, Mr. Sean Maddigan, M.Ed., for his assistance in the research and formulation of many of the finer points of the atonement of Christ in this episode. Thanks, Sean!Perception of Serious Problems - Selling Indulgences?If you say the word “indulgences” to most people today, they would bring up Martin Luther. However, indulgences have been explicitly preached in Catholic theology since the 11th Century, and there have been reductions of penalties since at least the 9th Century. So, where and when does Martin Luther enter the scene?On October 31, 1517, Fr. Martin Luther an Augustinian monk and lecturer at the University in Wittenberg, Germany, issued his propositions for debate concerning the question of indulgences. The proposed debate was intended to be with Fr. Johann Tetzel, a German Dominican friar and preacher. Fr. Tetzel was an appointed papel commissioner for indulgences and was sent to his native Germany to make money to help build St. Peter's Basilica in Rome.From 1503 to 1510, Tetzel preached on indulgences and was effective in doing so. There are countless modern sources which say that Pope Julius II authorized the sale of indulgences, and that, likewise, Pope Leo X sold indulgences too and used the money to build the magnificent St. Peter's Basilica in Rome. However, the claim that indulgences, as such, were sold seems to be a myth. At one time, one of the spiritual acts that you could receive an indulgence for is contributing to a charitable cause, such as the building of a church. Charitable organizations offer incentives today to increase donations. In the 16th Century, the building fund of St. Peter's Basilica did increase as the result of Tetzel preaching indulgences. There were absolutely abuses in the practice of indulgences, to be sure! But it is important to understand what they actually are. One of the main contributing factors to knowledge of the controversy was Martin Luther's “95 Theses.” In Luther's time, and especially now, there is no end to the horribly wrong interpretations of the Catholic teaching on indulgences. I have also had a few friends ask if I'd be willing to do an episode on indulgences. So, here you go, gents!Catholic Understanding of AtonementAfter the Fall of Adam and Eve, it was fitting that the atonement or reconciliation of mankind be made by a man. However, what mere man could stand in place of all of humanity? When Jesus Christ died on the Cross, He did so as fully God and fully man. Thus, His death and resurrection were offered in our place, in His humanity, and offered perfectly, in His divinity. In the sixth Session of the Council of Trent, chapter ii, we hear:“Whence it came to pass, that the Heavenly Father, the Father of mercies and the God of all comfort (2 Corinthians 1, 3), when that blessed fullness of the time was come (Galatians 4:4) sent unto men Jesus Christ, His own Son who had been, both before the Law and during the time of the Law, to many of the holy fathers announced and promised, that He might both redeem the Jews, who were under the Law and that the Gentiles who followed not after justice might attain to justice and that all men might receive the adoption of sons. Him God had proposed as a propitiator, through faith in His blood (Romans 3:25), for our sins, and not for our sins only, but also for those of the whole world (I John ii, 2).”There are a lot of things to unpack here. God the Father sent His Son, who was foretold, to redeem the Jews and the Gentiles. This redemption brought with it adoption of each of us by God the Father, in Christ, by the power of the Holy Spirit. The reconciliation or atonement (literally meaning to become “at one” with), comes through the propitiation of sins merited by Jesus' death on the Cross. The just wrath of God earned by our sin was turned away by the self-offering (the sacrifice and oblation) of our Lord Jesus on the Cross. By His wounds, we are healed, quoting the Prophet Isaiah. The Nicene Creed we profess each Sunday at Mass reminds us of this reality:“who for us men and for our salvation, came down, took flesh, was made man; and suffered…”Jesus did not come for Himself, He came to give His life as a ransom for many. We say “many” because not everyone will accept this gift, sad to say. However, this does not diminish that the gift of Christ's atonement was won for all mankind, without exception. But what is this ransom? Who was holding the souls of the fallen men? It is the Enemy, Satan.In his commentary on Psalm 95, St. Augustine puts it this way:“Men were held captive under the devil and served the demons, but they were redeemed from captivity. For they could sell themselves. The Redeemer came, and gave the price; He poured forth his blood and bought the whole world. Do you ask what He bought? See what He gave, and find what He bought. The blood of Christ is the price. How much is it worth? What but the whole world? What but all nations? (Enarration on Psalm 95, no. 5).”He goes on to explain, in a figure of speech that the Cross was like a trap for the Enemy:"The Redeemer came and the deceiver was overcome. What did our Redeemer do to our Captor? In payment for us He set the trap, His Cross, with His blood for bait. He [Satan] could indeed shed that blood; but he deserved not to drink it. By shedding the blood of One who was not his debtor, he was forced to release his debtors (Serm. cxxx, part 2).”The debt owed to Divine Justice was paid in full by Jesus Christ. Divine Justice was satisfied. But not everyone agreed with St. Augustine's reasoning. St. Anselm and Peter Abelard, for example, rejected the notion that Satan had some sort of right over man. St. Anselm held that an equal satisfaction for sin was necessary to pay the debt to Divine Justice. Abelard, though, did not hold to this strict notion of satisfaction and he argued that God could have pardoned us without requiring satisfaction. So, the Incarnation and the death of Chirst was the pure love of God. And Abelard was condemned by St. Bernard for this view because he argued the effect of the atonement was only moral influence and not any objective payment of a debt.St. Thomas Aquinas, later, agreed with Abelard in rejecting the notion that full satisfaction was necessary. He agrees with Abelard in so far as the atonement was the greatest demonstration of love, but still holds that under God's economy of salvation, the sacrifice of Christ objectively paid the debt of justice (which Abelard denied). Restoring mankind to grace was a work of God's mercy and goodness. It was fitting that Christ should die on the Cross to show the depths of God's love for us, but not absolutely necessary. Along the ages, Blessed Duns Scotus and St. Bernard of Clairvaux had differing opinions than Abelard and Aquinas.Though there is disagreement among theologians throughout the ages, what is shared among them is this. The Atonement is essentially a sacrifice and an act of love. The outward Sacrifice is the sacrament of the invisible sacrifice which comes from the heart of God. As the Catholic Encyclopedia puts it so well:“It was by this inward sacrifice of obedience unto death, by this perfect love with which He laid down his life for His friends, that Christ paid the debt to justice, and taught us by His example, and drew all things to Himself; it was by this that He wrought our Atonement and Reconciliation with God, ‘making peace through the blood of His Cross.'”Imperfect in the Old, Perfect in the NewIn the Old Covenants, the Jewish people would offer “sin-offerings” in which a cereal offering or animal was immolated, offered to God in worship, and then consumed by the priest. Likewise, we get the word scapegoat from the ancient practice of placing, so to speak, all of the sins of the town onto a goat and then releasing the goat to wander into the wilderness, presumably to die. This ancient notion of atonement was no clearer than on Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement. The Day of Atonement is centered upon repentance, fasting, asceticism, and the confession of sins. However, the annual nature of this event shows that it is an incomplete and imperfect atonement. Atonement is made perfect in Jesus Christ, who died once for the sins of man and then rose from the dead, to die no more. In the Holy Mass, Christ does not die again. Instead, the Cross of Christ, a propitiatory Sacrifice is renewed daily in a bloodless manner on the altar. What Is An Indulgence?What does any of this have to do with indulgences? Well, everything, really. An indulgence is classically the remission of a debt. In Roman law, it meant to be release from imprisonment or punishment. The Catholic Encyclopedia defines an indulgence as “a remission of the temporal punishment due to sin, the guilt of which has been forgiven.”So, an indulgence is not permission to sin, it is not stockpiling forgiveness for a future action, nor does it forgive sin or the guilt of sin. An indulgence presumes that God has already forgiven the person receiving it! What is being remitted is the temporal punishment due to sin.Our sins affect us, our relationship with God, and our relationship with others. Particularly egregious sins, like rape and murder, have lasting effects which cannot be put right this side of Heaven. And putting things right is in the nature of justice. God will always set things right, one way or another, though we might not see it until the end of things. Nonetheless, once someone experiences contrition, there is a deep desire, rooted in justice, to make restitution. Imagine that you are a kid playing baseball in the street. Of course, this is a bad idea. Mistakes will happen. You know this, and, yet, you wrongly believe that you are special. So, nothing bad will happen. You will hit the ball perfectly and everything will be just fine. Then… you hit the ball and it goes sailing through Mrs. Johnson's bay window. Immediately, you feel terrible about it. You did not mean for anything to be broken. You experience contrition for the wrong you have done. You knew, of course, that you should not be playing baseball in the street. What did you expect to happen?! Now, you have a choice: run away and hide or go and fess up to what you have done. You decide to go and ask for forgiveness. You ring the doorbell and Mrs. Johnson answers. You immediately apologize for breaking the window and tell her that you are truly sorry. And she forgives you! … That's it, right? That's the end of the story?... No way! You still have to make restitution. You have to pay for the window. In this example, we can see analogously, how we can be forgiven for something, but justice still demands restitution, satisfaction, and even punishment. This distinction between forgiveness and the temporal punishment due to sin seems to have gone by the wayside in Protestant theology over the last five hundred years. Really, if we look at it with fresh eyes, hopefully we can see that it is basic common sense that a wrong done demands restitution. So, why can Protestants not go there? The answer really has to do with Martin Luther. In Luther's view, we can do nothing to merit our salvation and Catholics agree we cannot merit the gift of initial justification; it is completely a gratuitous gift from God whereby we are covered by Jesus Christ. Nothing in the Lutheran view demands cooperation with grace or even the internal change brought about by Baptism, which Catholicism has always held. How, Theologically, Does an Indulgence Work?But with Baptism there is a true change, right down to the core of our being. And grace is given, but our free cooperation is necessary. God's love does not force itself upon us. This means that our good actions, united with Christ, are meritorious. Our sinful actions require restitution. The Atonement won by Jesus Christ on the Cross is superabundantly meritorious, to use the language of the Church. When we unite our actions with the Cross, they do not add to the merits of Jesus Christ, but they come into communion with them. Likewise, the forgiveness of sins is a communion with the Cross of Jesus Christ! But, in justice, our bad actions still require temporal punishment and restitution. As the 14th Session of the Council of Trent puts it:“Add to these things, that, whilst we thus, by making satisfaction, suffer for our sins, we are made conformable to Jesus Christ, who satisfied for our sins, from whom all our sufficiency is; having also thereby a most sure pledge, that if we suffer with him, we shall also be glorified with him. But neither is this satisfaction, which we discharge for our sins, so our own, as not to be through Jesus Christ. For we who can do nothing of ourselves, as of ourselves, can do all things, He cooperating, who strengthens us. Thus, man has not wherein to glory, but all our glorying is in Christ: in whom we live; in whom we merit; in whom we satisfy; bringing forth fruits worthy of penance, which from him have their efficacy; by him are offered to the Father; and through him are accepted by the Father (The Council of Trent: On the necessity and on the fruit of Satisfaction).”Some Protestants hold to the erroneous view of “penal substitution” which is a theory of the atonement that holds that God punished Jesus on the Cross. But there is one glaringly huge problem: an innocent person cannot be justly punished. Jesus took upon Himself the sufferings and death that were due to our sins, but He did not take on the just punishment for our sins.Understanding How Christ Took on Our Punishment (And What That Means)Jesus Christ took our punishment upon Himself. As St. Thomas teaches:“Now by Christ's Passion we have been delivered not only from the common sin of the whole human race, both as to its guilt and as to the debt of punishment, for which He paid the penalty on our behalf (ST III, q. 49, a. 5, co.).”When discussing the fittingness of the death of Christ, St. Thomas also mentions:“... in this way Christ by His death brought us back to life, when by His death He destroyed our death; just as he who bears another's punishment takes such punishment away (ST III, q. 50, a. 1, ad. 3).”Satisfaction means taking up a penalty voluntarily in order to restore justice. St. Thomas Aquinas speaks of taking up this voluntary penalty as someone experiencing something against the will out of charity. In the case of sin and justice, in charity this action makes up for sin because sin is voluntarily doing one's own will at the expense of charity. In other words, satisfaction derives its power from the strength of the charity of the one offering it. There is no need for Jesus to suffer the pains of Hell to save us because even one drop of His Precious Blood could have satisfied the wrath of God. The payment of Jesus, who is sinless and perfect in charity, merits not only release from punishment. By the Cross, He merits for us eternal life!When a debt is to be paid, the punishment is measured. In merit, the root of charity is measured. When one merits for another, he merits more for himself. Yet, when one satisfies for another, he does not also satisfy for himself, because the measure of punishment still covers both him and the one on whose behalf he is satisfying. In the case of Jesus, who is without sin, He has no debt to pay. He is satisfying for sinful men out of perfect charity. The punishment He bore made satisfaction for the sins of all mankind and merited more than any man is capable of: eternal life!Back to IndulgencesTemporal punishment acknowledges that the eternal punishment for sin has been taken away on the Cross, but the temporal consequences of sin still remain. These temporal effects of sin require restitution, to the ability that we are able. We ought to make amends for wrongs done. Expiation, satisfaction, amends, and reparation all mean the same thing when referring to the temporal consequences and punishment due to sin.Going back to this notion of the superabundant merits of Christ on the Cross, we can also add all of the meritorious actions of the Baptized faithful through the ages, most notably the saints. The Treasury of Merit, as it is called, is the collection of the perfect, infinite, and superabundant merits of our Lord Jesus Christ, the expansive merits of our Blessed Mother and St. Joseph, and the merits of all the just. Our Lord gave to St. Peter, and to the Apostles and their successors, the authority to apply the fruits of these merits at their discretion when He said: “And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven (Mt. 16:18-19).”Likewise, in St. John's Gospel, Jesus says to the Apostles, and their successors by extension:“And when he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you withhold forgiveness from any, it is withheld (Jn. 20:22-24).”When a confessor gives absolution to a penitent in the Sacrament of Penance, he is applying this forgiveness of sins which comes from God alone, through the instrument of the priest and the Church. Our guilt for sin and eternal punishment for sin are absolved, but the temporal punishment for sin remains. An indulgence is outside of the sacraments and it does not forgive sins. Instead, it applies the satisfaction of the Treasury of Merit to an individual thereby remitting their temporal punishment due to sin. In other words, by the merits of Christ and the saints, the debt of temporal restitution has been paid in full. The superabundant merits belong to God's mercy and justice, not to the Church absolutely. So, these concessions or diminishments of punishment are administered by the Church but they come from God as a free gift. There is value in what Christ has done for us. But there is also value in what Christ does through us. Either way, the primary action is God. But with our cooperation, we unite ourselves with the Sacred Action of Jesus. As St. Paul said:"Now I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake, and in my flesh I complete what is lacking in Christ's afflictions for the sake of his body, that is, the church (Col. 1:24).”What could possibly be lacking in the sufferings of Christ, except for our cooperation with His grace and our own meritorious actions? Not only do our good actions possess the value or merit, they also certainly possess the value of satisfaction.Luther Had a Couple Good Points, But a Lot of ErrorsIt must be said that Martin Luther had some great points in his 95 Theses. In fact, only 41 propositions of Luther's from the 95 Theses and his other writings up to that point, were rejected as heretical, scandalous, erroneous, seductive of simple minds, in opposition to Catholic truth, or offensive to pious ears by Pope Leo X in 1520. Let us look at the first three of the 95 Theses:* “When our Lord and Master Jesus Christ said, ‘Repent'' (Mt 4:17), he willed the entire life of believers to be one of repentance.* This word cannot be understood as referring to the sacrament of penance, that is, confession and satisfaction, as administered by the clergy.* Yet it does not mean solely inner repentance; such inner repentance is worthless unless it produces various outward mortification of the flesh.”All three of these are true. Interior repentance is a reorienting of one's entire life, not just a momentary “I'll try a bit harder.” This call of our Lord to repentance does not refer to the Sacrament of Penance because it is a call which is first addressed to those who do not yet know Christ and the Gospel. And finally, interior conversion should find expression in visible signs, gestures, and penitential actions. It does seem, though, that Luther is presupposing that indulgences were being sold, with official authorization. This myth is prevalent today and it appears it was in Luther's day as well. Indulgences are drawn from the Treasury of Merit and applied freely when those seeking them fulfill the requirements with proper disposition. Luther's 95 Theses presents many theological errors in this regard. These errors are still being repeated today. For example, this 2009 article from “The New York Times” which gets it wrong from the title (the content of the article only goes from wrong to worse, by the way): “For Catholics, a Door to Absolution is Reopened.”By the way, to show just how seriously the Church took these abuses, Pope St. Pius V, in 1567, issued a decree which canceled all grants of indulgences involving any fees or other financial transactions.Seeking an IndulgenceMany Catholics think that indulgences, per se, were an abuse. They are not. And though it was a focal point in the Protestant Reformation, indulgences did not go anywhere. As the Catechism of the Catholic Church stated in the 1990s:"An indulgence is obtained through the Church who, by virtue of the power of binding and loosing granted her by Christ Jesus, intervenes in favor of individual Christians and opens for them the treasury of the merits of Christ and the saints to obtain from the Father of mercies the remission of the temporal punishment due for their sins… to spur them to works of devotion, penance, and charity" (CCC 1478).Everything that I have presented about indulgences belongs to the infallible teachings of the Church. We are not at liberty to dismiss them, diminish them, or disbelieve in them. The Council of Trent's anathema makes this clear:The Council of Trent "condemns with anathema those who say that indulgences are useless or that the Church does not have the power to grant them."The Church does not remit temporal punishment due to sin with magic or the wave of a pen. The person who suffers those temporal punishments must be disposed to repentance and faith. As Pope St. Paul VI said:"Indulgences cannot be gained without a sincere conversion of outlook and unity with God (Indulgentarium Doctrina, 11).”Before the Second Vatican Council, indulgences were said to remove a certain number of “days” from punishment. Instead, this was to show that indulgences have two types: plenary and partial. Plenary, meaning full, means that all temporal punishment due to sin that a person owed is being remitted. Whereas, a partial indulgence remits part of the temporal punishment due to sin. In order to make this clearer, Pope St. Paul VI revised the handbook of indulgences (called the Enchiridion).As we have covered, satisfaction and temporal punishment for sin are ordered towards justice on the one hand and purification on the other hand. So, the actions for which one might receive an indulgence should likewise be ordered to justice, charity, and purification. Because the justice of God has been satisfied through the merits of Christ and the saints, applied to our lives, then the “time,” so to speak, needed for purification in charity after death has been lessened. Just as a checkpoint or reminder: indulgences remit the temporal punishment due to sin, not eternal punishment. Eternal punishment is remitted fully by the Cross of Jesus Christ, the merits of which we receive in the Sacrament of Baptism. Knowing rightly what an indulgence is, how can we receive this great gift? Please forgive the following lengthy quotation, but Jimmy Akin put it concisely and excellently in his Primer on Indulgences for EWTN:“To gain any indulgence you must be a Catholic in a state of grace. You must be a Catholic in order to be under the Church's jurisdiction, and you must be in a state of grace because apart from God's grace none of your actions are fundamentally pleasing to God (meritorious). You also must have at least the habitual intention of gaining an indulgence by the act performed.To gain a partial indulgence, you must perform with a contrite heart the act to which the indulgence is attached.To gain a plenary indulgence you must perform the act with a contrite heart plus you must go to confession (one confession may suffice for several plenary indulgences), receive Holy Communion, and pray for the pope's intentions. (An Our Father and a Hail Mary said for the pope's intentions are sufficient, although you are free to substitute other prayers of your own choosing.) The final condition is that you must be free from all attachment to sin, including venial sin.Because of the extreme difficulty in meeting the final condition, plenary indulgences are rarely obtained. If you attempt to receive a plenary indulgence, but are unable to meet the last condition, a partial indulgence is received instead.”The Church offers us special indulgences, both plenary and partial, for all sorts of things. But there are a couple of partial indulgences worth mentioning here. Partial indulgences are given by the Church for: * Devoutly spending time in mental prayer, * Reading Sacred Scripture with veneration as a form of spiritual reading (this one is plenary if done for at least 30 minutes), * Devoutly signing oneself with the Sign of the Cross and saying the customary formula: “In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.”ConclusionIndulgences are not magic. They are a part of the infallible teaching of the Church. And they are for our spiritual well-being. We should not be wary of officially promulgated indulgences. We should be grateful to God for His superabundant mercy and His justice. Recognizing that we are sinners in need of His grace, we approach the Sacrament of Penance. Then, we do penance to seek temporal satisfaction and restitution for the consequences of our sins. All the while, we ought to seek out indulgences, because they are nothing more than being union and communion with Almighty God and striving to be more in love with Him who loved us first.Will Wright Catholic Podcast is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Get full access to Will Wright Catholic Podcast at www.willwrightcatholic.com/subscribe

Join us as Pastor Clay walks through the life of Johann Tetzel and 1 timothy 2.

In this first episode of our fifth season, we explore the field of learning. Dr Carolina Kuepper-Tetzel is a cognitive psychologist who specialises in how we learn best. She is part of an inspiring initiative called the Learning Scientists. She shares some of her valuable insights with us.Questions we explore:Is there a trick or a secret to communicating "science"?What motivated Carolina to take up a specialisation in learning?How do we find a balance between what and how we teach and how people learn?Briefly, what are the six learning strategies? The strategies include retrieval practice, spaced practice, elaboration, interleaving, concrete examples and dual coding.Do we remember visuals better than words?Are then any pitfalls to using the six learning strategies?How important is routine in learning?What is the importance of testing the learning strategies?How should we go about finding evidence-based content on the subject of learning?Books mentioned: Powerful Teaching by Pooja Agarwal and Patrice Bain, Uncommon Sense Teaching by Barbara Oakley, Beth Rogowsky and Terrence Sejnowski, How Learning Happens by Carl Hendrick and Paul Kirschner, Small Teaching by James Lang, any book by Kate JonesBlogs mentioned: The Learning Scientists (of course) and The Effortful Educator by Blake HarvardPodcasts: Besides The Learning Scientists also Exam Study Expert by William Wadsworth or The HippoCampus Podcast by Lisa QuinnHow do the Learning Scientists decide on which topics to cover?A quick question on intersectionality...Are there different learning strategies for content and skills?Is scaffolding retrieval practice good practice?How does a learning expert design a lesson?Is the school model compatible with the research findings on how we learn best?Find Dr Carolina Kuepper-Tetzel on Twitter @pimpmymemory and the Learning Scientists @AceThatTest. Visit www.learningscientists.org and listen to their podcast at The Learning Scientists Podcast.Please send your comments and suggestions to @WilliamHPalk or @C_duPlessis.Thanks for listening!Support the show

Guest Speaker - Pastor Jon TetzelThe Transfiguration [Mark 9:2-8]This weekend we're excited to welcome Pastor Jon Tetzel bringing us a message from the Gospel of Mark, the transfiguration of Jesus, a big word with massive impact on the lives of all Jesus' followers.Kids: You can find a full online bible story and activity experience at https://www.cedarvalley.ca/kidsonline each week! Be sure to follow us on Facebook (@cedarvalley), Instagram (@cedarvalleymission), and sign up for our weekly email newsletter at cedarvalley.ca Submit prayer requests or sign up for prayer notifications at cedarvalley.ca/pray or email us at pray@cedarvalley.ca Support the work and ministry of Cedar Valley Church by getting involved or supporting financially Head to cedarvalley.ca/give for more info Let us know how we can pray for you by sending prayer requests to pray@cedarvalley.ca or giving us a call at 604-826-2445Every Sunday at 10:00am we are on campus and online streaming a worship service to Facebook, Youtube, and right here at cedarvalley.ca. Hop on to one of the social platforms to get a real-time engaging experience during the service and consider inviting a friend or neighbour to join you for church at home and engage in the discussion together after the service. Below you'll find an audio only recording of our service.

"Wenn das Geld im Kasten klingt, die Seele in den Himmel springt" Tetzel prägte diesen Spruch und war damit einer der erfolgreichsten Geldeintreiber der kath. Kirche. Geld ist häufiges Thema in der Bibel - aber was sagt die Bibel wirklich darüber? Gilt die Vorgabe des alten Testatmentes den Zehnten zu geben auch noch im NT? Eine Predigt von Arne Ganzhorn über dieses Thema. Folge direkt herunterladen

On October 31, 1517, Martin Luther nailed his famous 95 Theses to the door of the Castle Church in Wittenberg, Germany. This sparked the Protestant Reformation. The reformation was built on "5 Solas" of the faith... Salvation by grace alone, through faith alone in Christ alone for the glory of God alone as found in Scripture alone. The text that launched reformation in Luther's own heart was Romans 3:21-26, the passage that Pastor Derek Holmes looks at on today's episode.

On October 31, 1517, Martin Luther nailed his famous 95 Theses to the door of the Castle Church in Wittenberg, Germany. This sparked the Protestant Reformation. The reformation was built on "5 Solas" of the faith... Salvation by grace alone, through faith alone in Christ alone for the glory of God alone as found in Scripture alone. The text that launched reformation in Luther's own heart was Romans 3:21-26, the passage that Pastor Derek Holmes looks at on today's episode.

Today's episode is the third part in our overview of the Protestant Reformation, which started when a young Augustinian monk nailed 95 theses onto the door of the castle church in Wittenberg, Germany in 1517, and became one of the most influential revolutions in Western Civilization.We have been focused on one of the true pivot points in Western Civilization – the Protestant Reformation, which happened in the 16th century when Martin Luther – the monk with the mallet - set out to correct a problem he saw in the Medieval Catholic church he was serving and ended up splitting the church in two. This is the third of three lectures on the Reformation. In the first we:1.              Looked at the challenges inside the Medieval Church – principally the corruption that was by no means total but which was a real problem – and the ways in which the Gospel had been distorted, especially with regard to issues of repentance and justification. We also tracked the young Martin Luther from birth up to his appearance at the Diet of Worms.  2.              In the second – podcast number 36 – we followed Luther as he attacked indulgences, ended up excommunicated by both the Pope and the Emperor, was kidnapped by Frederick the Wise, spent a year hiding in the castle at Wartburg, and then as he returned to Wittenberg and led the Reformation. We also looked at his marriage, his death and some of his writings.In today's lecture we get a bit more theological. Perhaps I should apologize now. This isn't exactly the deep end of the pool, but it may be deeper. We're going to focus on the Five Solas – which is the shorthand phrase for saying, we are going to discuss the theological principles that Luther and the other reformers will argue for and ultimately establish in Protestant Churches.These are not the initial issues. Let me remind you that Luther – by his own admission – stumbled into the Reformation. Not only did he not set out to do what he did, but when he first started voicing objections, they were not about the things he would later be so adamant about.  When he nailed the 95 theses to the door of the Wittenberg church, he was mad at Tetzel's sale of indulgences.  And if you read the 95 theses that is what you hear about. He was not mad at the Pope's power or the celebration of tradition or prayers to the saints, and he is not advocating for the five solas that we are going to focus on.  These things will emerge as the reformation plays out, and they are not all driven by Luther.  The Reformation ends up being much bigger than him.However, these five are important and you may hear them brought up from time to time and any thoughtful summary of the Reformation needs to make mention of them, so today they are our focus.  

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Er ist all das, was die beiden Masken-Talker gerne wären: Metalsänger, Synchronsprecher, Influencer und nebenbei auch noch der stärkste Mensch der Welt. Oder auf dem besten Wege dahin. Zu Gast im BEICHTSTUHL: Tetzel.

Nördlich von Jüterbog liegen die sogenannten Mordberge. Was hat es mit dem dramatischen Namen der Sandhügel auf sich? Man erzählt sich, dass Ablasshändler Tetzel hier Opfer eines blutigen Raubzuges wurde...

What is reformation day and why do we celebrate it? Find out why as we listen to Dr. Steven Nichols of Ligonier Ministries. What is Reformation Day? To answer that question, let's ask another question. When is Reformation Day? It's October 31; it commemorates the events of October 31, 1517. On that day, Martin Luther, an Augustinian monk, nailed his Ninety-Five Theses to the church door in Wittenberg, Germany. Now, why would Luther do that? To answer this question, we need to introduce a few more characters. One of those characters was Albert of Brandenburg. Albert was not old enough to be a bishop, yet in 1517, he was already bishop over two cities, which was against church law. On top of that, he wanted to be archbishop of Mainz. To hold three offices was also against church law, which meant that Albert needed a papal dispensation. So now, Pope Leo X enters our story. Leo was from the Medici family of Florence. The Medici were a prominent banking clan and patrons of the arts. It was Leo who brought Michelangelo in to paint the Sistine Chapel ceiling in the Vatican. Albert met with Leo about getting a dispensation, and like good businessmen they struck a deal. For ten thousand ducats, Albert could have his three bishoprics. But Albert had a problem: his money was largely in land and not in cash, so he needed to raise the money. The real main character in Reformation Day is not Luther. It's the Word of God. And so another character enters, the enterprising friar Johann Tetzel. He sold indulgences on Albert's behalf, and some of the money went to help Albert pay the cost of becoming archbishop of Mainz. These indulgences were supplied by the pope and not only provided for past sins to be forgiven but for future sins to be forgiven as well. And these indulgences also allowed the buyer to get his relatives out of purgatory. And so Tetzel began selling these indulgences, using a jingle to sell them: “As soon as a coin in the coffer rings, the soul from purgatory springs.” This development deeply troubled Luther. He saw how these things were contrary to the church's doctrine at the time, and he watched as the people under his care went to buy Tetzel's indulgences. So, he did what a scholar could do. He went into his study and penned his Ninety-Five Theses to invite public debate. He posted the theses on October 31. The very first thesis says this: “Our Lord and Master Jesus Christ, when He said ‘Repent,' willed that the whole life of believers should be repentance.” It's fascinating that Luther makes this reference to Jesus' calling people to “repent” in Matthew 4:17. There is something else that came into play here, something else that explains Reformation Day. In 1516, the Greek New Testament was published by the humanist scholar Desiderius Erasmus. And when Luther read the Greek New Testament, he realized that the Latin Vulgate—for centuries, the official text of the church—was wrong. The Vulgate had translated the Greek word in question—rendered in English as “repent”—as “do penance.” This translation had served for centuries to support the Roman Catholic sacramental system. The real main character in Reformation Day is not Luther. It's the Word of God. What Luther discovered as a monk is that for centuries, the true teachings of the Word of God had been hidden by century upon century of tradition. That's what Reformation Day is about: it's about pulling back the covers and releasing the power of the Word of God and the beauty and the truth of the gospel. That's why we celebrate Reformation Day.

Tetzel von der Halbgottschmiede, dessen primäre Wiedererkennungsmerkmale zweifelsfrei die lange Haarpracht und die prägnante Stimme sind, ist inzwischen definitiv eine Instanz in der deutschen Fitness-Szene. Insbesondere durch die Teilnahmen und seiner Moderatorenrolle bei Strength Wars katapultierte sich der 34-Jährige auf den Radar der Branche. Ich habe mich mit dem Strongman unter anderem über seinen Sport unterhalten, aber beispielsweise auch thematisiert, woher eigentlich sein Spitzname Tetzel stammt, worüber er in unseren Gefilden noch nie gesprochen hat. Weitere Gegenstände unseres fast zweistündigen Gesprächs waren sein bisheriger Werdegang, der kürzlich aufgestellte Deadlift-Weltrekord von Hafthor Björnsson und selbstverständlich auch dessen Fehde mit Eddie Hall. Viel Spaß beim Zuhören Euer Danny

Tetzel war Ablassprediger. Er erklärte Sündern, dass sie sich vom Fegefeuer freikaufen können: „Sobald das Geld im Kasten klingt, die Seele in den Himmel springt!“

On this day, the Decian persecution began in 250 AD. And in 1518, Tetzel published his Counter-Theses to Luther. The reading is "Resurrection" by Charles G.D. Roberts. We’re a part of 1517 Podcasts, a network of shows dedicated to delivering Christ-centered content. Our podcasts cover a multitude of content, from Christian doctrine, apologetics, cultural engagement, and powerful preaching. Support the work of 1517 today.

Sola Scriptura Sermon Series: Solas 2 Timothy 3:16-17 Istrouma Baptist Church – Jeff Ginn, Lead Pastor 10:45 AM Sermon January 5, 2020       Outline:   The production of scripture All Scripture is breathed out by God (2 Tim. 3:16a).      Its inspiration   Its implications                 The practicality of scripture And profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness (2 Tim. 3:16b).   Our beliefs      Our behaviors           The purpose of scripture That the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work (2 Tim. 3:17).             Our maturity   Our ministry             There's a towering figure in the history of Christianity whose name you need to know. His name is Martin Luther. I want to tell you a little bit about his story. Martin Luther was born back in the 1400s, more than 500 years ago, and he was a very devout young man. He loved the Lord, and as a result, he eventually became a monk, a priest, even a professor of theology. As those callings demand, he was a student of the scripture. He loved the word of God and he voraciously and ardently studied it. In the course of studying the Bible, the scripture, he became concerned about the discrepancy, or the chasm, that existed between what the scriptures taught and what the dominant church of that age was doing. He saw errors, he believed, and he saw abuses. I'll mention one. There was the practice back in those days of selling indulgences. Let me explain this. An indulgence was a forgiveness of sins. You've done something wrong and you want to be forgiven. Well, the church taught at that time that they had the power to forgive sin, and if you would give an offering, you could, by means of that offering, purchase an indulgence.  There was a guy who was traveling around Europe selling these indulgences. His name was Tetzel, and he had a little song that he sang, and it roughly went like this: “When the coin into the coffer rings, a soul from purgatory springs.”   In other words, if you’ll give an offering big enough, your mother who’s suffering in purgatory can get out. Luther was troubled, to put it lightly, by these things because you don't see any of that in the Bible. It’s like, “Where do you get this, and why are you teaching that?” He viewed it as abusing the people. He said if the pope wants to build a new building in Rome, why doesn't he just do it out of his own treasury? He's fabulously wealthy. Why is he doing it on the backs of the peasants? So, Luther was upset.    I will say, Luther loved the church, and Luther wasn't looking to be a rebel or to rebel or to get out of the church. He wanted to reform it. He wanted a renewal. He wanted to take the church back to its origins, to its roots in scripture. So, he set about one day to write down some of his concerns. He did them, and when they were numbered, they were 95 in number. They are known to history by this phrase, “The 95 Theses.” You know what a thesis is, like a thesis statement in your term paper, or you write a thesis for your master's degree. The plural form of thesis is “theses.” 95 theses. There were 95 points of concern, and he took those 95 theses that he'd written out and he nailed to the door of the church where he was like the parish priest. I know that sounds like he was defacing the property; he was not. In those days, the church door functioned like a bulletin board, and if you wanted to announce something, you could tack it to the church door and it would be seen by all. So, he tacked to the door of the church his points of concern. He sent out an invitation. He said, “If you want to discuss these things, then I want to invite you to a dialogue. Let’s talk about these things, and if there needs to be change, let's make the changes.   Well, it caused a furor all across Europe because the church was in league with the Holy Roman Emperor. And they held the reins of power and wealth, and Luther was like a bee in the bonnet. It caused a furor. Word got all the way to Rome about what Luther had done, and so the pope initiated a church council, called together leaders from across the empire, and the emperor himself sat presiding over this gathering. They were going to discuss the points of concern that Luther had raised, and Luther had raised many significant theological points of concern. At stake was Luther's life. You know, in our culture today, it’s hard to appreciate this because in our day if we have different viewpoints, it's no big deal. It's no skin off your nose. You believe one thing, I believe another; we just live in peace with one another. We have religious liberty. It wasn't so in those days. If you took issue with the church, you would face the wrath of the empire, and Luther’s life was at stake; certainly his career and livelihood. So he was on trial, and as the trial grew to its climax, Luther was asked if he would recant what he had written. To recant means you do an about-face. You say, “I was wrong. I take back what I said.” So they said, “Luther, here's your choice. You're going to be condemned, or you can recant. Which will you do?”   Luther felt these things very deeply, and he said, “Would you give me an evening to pray about what I’ll say. They said, “Yes, you may have an evening.” So, Luther went back to his room. Luther played earnestly, “God what should I do”? And through that evening of prayer and counsel with friends, he came back the next day and he stood before... now, put yourself in his shoes. Could you do this? He stood before the emperor and the might of the empire, and he was asked once again, “Luther, will you recant?” I want you to hear his response: Unless I am convinced by the testimony of the Scriptures or by clear reason (for I do not trust either in the pope or in councils alone, since it is well known that they have often erred and contradicted themselves), I am bound by the Scriptures I have quoted and my conscience is captive to the Word of God. I cannot and will not recant anything, since it is neither safe nor right to go against conscience. Here I stand, I cannot do otherwise. May God help me. Amen.   When Luther said this, the fury of the empire came down upon him. He was excommunicated from the church. He was branded a heretic, and it was decreed that anyone who would take Luther's life would not be held liable for doing so. Fortunately for Luther, he had a confidant who was one of the princes of Germany, and he stole Luther away and hid him in a castle in a place called Wartburg. There, hidden away in the castle in Wartburg, Luther furiously, not angrily, but busily, set about translating the Bible into the common language of the people. The first German Bible was then published, and from it courage arose in Europe, and the first English translation by a man named Tyndale was published, and it set about a great renewal in the church, what’s known to history as the Great Reformation.    Luther Stands as a colossal figure of history because of this principle, and I'm going to give it to you in two words: Sola scriptura. Sola scriptura. You see, this month, every Sunday, we're going to take a different bedrock principle of our church, and we're going to teach upon it. The first of them is this one, Sola scriptura, that is translated “only scripture.” No decree of man, no church council, no pastor can dictate anything that supersedes or takes precedence over God's revealed word. Do you want to know why Istrouma Baptist Church is a vibrant and growing church today? I'm going to tell you why. One of the primary reasons is because we stand upon this principle, sola scriptura; only God's word reigns supreme over our conscience and our faith.   I want to convince you of this same principle. That’s my goal this morning. To do so, I'm going to ask you to turn in your Bible to 2 Timothy 3:16-17. Let’s stand to our feet as a sign of our respect for God's word, and we’ll read these two verses:  All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, 17 that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.    Let’s pray.    [Prayer]   Please be seated.     My wife and I were on vacation last week, and we thank you for giving us some days off. We traveled to Virginia where our children and grandchildren live. We had a great time hugging all those grandkid’s necks and just being with them. I want to thank Brad who preached in my absence last week. I heard he did a great job, and I thank you, Brad, for preaching God's word faithfully. But as we were on that trip and returning, my wife saw a church sign and it said this, “Daily devotions are better than yearly resolutions.” I like that. Daily devotions are better than yearly resolutions. We're at the time of New Year's resolutions, right? Everybody's got a New Year's resolution, whatever it is; lose weight, learn to play the guitar, whatever your New Year's resolution is. Could I just challenge you to this: Have a daily devotional. Daily time in the word of God because the word of God, sola scriptura, is our daily meat. It's our food. Man shall not live on bread alone but by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God. I want to motivate you to this, all right? Not just to daily devotion, but to a lifetime of living out the principles of God's word. I'm going to do it in three headings. First of all, I'm going to talk to you about the production of scripture – how did it come to be? Number two, I'm going to talk to you about the practicality of scripture. And finally, I'm going to talk to you about the purpose of scripture. All right; let’s take these up.    Number one, the production of scripture. How did it happen that we've come to hold in our hands this precious book here and now? I'm going to give it to you in these two words: inspiration and then implications. Inspiration and implications. “Inspiration,” what do I mean? I mean that God has given us this book by inspiration. Now the word often translated here “inspiration” is in the Greek language a very interesting word. In fact, it's a word that only appears once in all of the Bible. One time. It doesn't even occur in secular Greek literature of that day. It's a word that Paul coined. That is, Paul created this word. It didn't exist. The reason it's so unique it is because it is describing a process that is unique. The word is this: theopneustos. Theopneustos. It’s a compound word. It's got two parts to it. The first part is theos. Theos is the Greek word for God. Some of you knew that. We get our English word “theology,” the study of God, from theos. From the word theopneustos we get the root of our English word “pneumatic,” like a tire that's filled with air; that's a pneumatic tire, it’s an air-filled tire. Or “pneumonia,” when your lungs – you don't have enough respiration. It's the whole idea of breath or wind. So theopneustos is the wind of God. The breath of God. That's what is meant when it says “inspiration.” It is literally, all scripture is theopneustos; it is breathed out by God. Folks, this is phenomenal! No wonder he coined the term. There’s no other book like this book.    You know, sometimes we use the word “inspired” very casually. Like you hear a beautiful song and you're like, “Oh man, that was inspired.” Handel's “Messiah” – people will say, “That was inspired.” Or maybe you read a book; let’s say Francis Chan’s “Crazy Love,” and you’re like, “Oh man, that book’s inspired!” Could I just say to you? There is no other book, there is no other song, there is no other sermon. You say “Pastor Jeff, what a sermon, he was inspired today.” Not like this. I depend upon God and I ask him to help me and fill me, but the words that I say are not perfect. God's word is perfect. I seek to be faithful to it, but I can be mistaken. Church councils can be mistaken. Popes can be mistaken. But this book, never mistaken. Why? Because it’s breathed out by God. Here's what the Bible says of the Lord in Numbers 23:19: “God is not man, that he should lie…”  We all lie. God doesn’t lie.    In Titus 1:2, God is described as the one who never lies. God can’t lie.    Hebrews 6:18 says, “It is impossible for God to lie.”    If God can't lie and these are his words, guess what? There’s no lie in this book. There’s no untruth. That's why we call it inerrant; infallible. It is perfect. It is God's word, and you can take it to the bank. Listen, people may lie to you. People may break their contracts with you. But God will never lie to you, and his word will always prove faithful. Take it to the bank. That's the inspiration.   Secondly, what are the implications of this? “Okay, big deal; this is God's inspired word. What's the significance of that?” Glad you asked. Let me give you a couple of the significances of this inspiration. Number one, it's true, and that's what I was just talking about. This book is true. But secondly, it is timeless. Psalm 119:89 says “Forever O Lord your word is established in the heavens.” That is, God's word will never change. It was relevant when Jesus trod this earth. It was relevant when Abraham lived. It was relevant when Jesus and the apostles lived, and friends, it's just as relevant today. It is timeless. “Forever O Lord your word is fixed or established in the heavens.” It will never change, and I'm so glad. This book is more relevant to your life than the newspaper that you picked up off your doorstep when you came out this morning. And by the way, nowadays, the newspaper that you get on your doorstep is already out of date. You know, you’d better look at your feed on your cell phone, right, to get the most recent story as it breaks. I want to tell you something. This book is more up-to-date than your news feed on your cell phone. It is timeless.   Listen, this is important. You young people listen to me. We’re living in a day where they talk about the “information overload.” Have you heard that phrase? I’ve talked to you before about what's called the “knowledge doubling curve.” Remember Buckminster Fuller, that scientist who said that from the dawn of humanity to the year 1900, human knowledge would double about every 100 years. Every once in a while you'd have an invention. The Chinese would invent fireworks. Then several hundred years later Gutenberg would invent the printing press. So knowledge grew very incrementally. But he said that when you get to the year 1900, when modernity is kicking in, knowledge begins to double every 25 years. Then you come up into the 1980s when he published his book, he said that knowledge was doubling every 12 months, every year. So every hundred years, every twenty-five years, every year. They say that now, with the Internet, and AI, artificial intelligence, human knowledge is doubling every 12 hours.   Now, an unintended effect of the doubling of knowledge is what's called the “half-life of knowledge.” Now, stick with me on this. I'm going somewhere! Listen. The half-life of knowledge. I've got some nursing students in here. I've got some medical doctors in here, so you can back me up on this. They say that when you go to medical school and you graduate, within 24 months half of what you learned in medical school is obsolete. You're an engineering student; they say that within a matter of a very scant few years, half of what you learned in engineering will be obsolete. Think about software developers. With software, there is the initial version, typically Version 0. Then V1.0, V2.0 etc. as updates and upgrades are needed.  But look here: there’s no Bible 2.0, nor need there be. There's not going to be a Bible 10, and do you know why? Because this is inspired. God breathed it out. And because it's so, it's true and it is timeless. Because of divine inspiration there is no date of expiration!  And all God's people said [“Amen”]. Doggone Right! Doggone Right. That's the production of scripture.    Now, number two, the practicality of scripture. Young people, listen to me. I'm an old fellow now, and I've learned some things across the years, and I'm going to help you. I'm not going to charge you tuition or anything. This book that I hold in my hand is practical. You say, “Man, I don’t want to listen to a sermon. That's boring. That has nothing to do with how I live.” Nothing could be further from the truth. You're not going to watch a television program; you’re not going to Netflix something (Is “Netflix a verb?). You’re not going to watch something on Netflix that's more pertinent to your life or more practical than what I am teaching you this morning and every other Sunday as far as that goes. I'm the most relevant media in your life, if I could say that; someone who faithfully teaches the word of God, and I hope that I do. And your Sunday School teachers, your small group leaders, your Bible study leaders, because they're giving you the inspired word of God, and it's practical. He says that this inspired word is profitable. I love that word. It means useful. It means valuable. This is useful, this is valuable, this is practical, all right? And he gives us four ways in which it is practical. Watch this. Four ways it’s practical: for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness. Now, watch. Instruction is positive. “Here's what you ought to believe.” Reproof is negative. That's like, “Oops, you've got it wrong there; let me reprove you. Correction is also negative. And then the last word, training in righteousness is positive. So it's positive, negative, negative, positive. Do you see that? Those four characteristics are actually two pairs. The positive and negative first go together, and then the third and fourth, negative and positive, they go together. It’s what’s called in scripture a “chiasm.” Those two pairs go together. The first two pertain to our beliefs. The Bible gives us instruction as to what we ought to believe, and it reproves us when we believe anything different from that. But it's not just our beliefs that we get from the Bible. It ought to govern our behavior, and that's the last couplet. For correction; that is, when I’m off the path, and I’m behaving as I ought not, the word of God corrects me. And then it trains me in right conduct, righteousness, right living, making it practical.    Let me give you a word picture that I think will help you. Every little boy's dream – let me help you with next year’s Christmas list, all right? Moms, dads, listen. You want to get your son a gift he’ll like? Get him a Swiss Army Knife if he's never had one. How many of you have ever had a Swiss Army Knife? Would you raise your hand up? Swiss Army Knife – there's nothing cooler in the world. The reason it's cool is because it's so practical. You've got a magnifying glass. You've got scissors. You've got tweezers. You've got a ruler. You've got a saw –  you can saw off a little branch. It's even got a hidden toothpick, did y'all know this? It’s pretty nasty; you can use that toothpick and put it back in the knife. That’s funny! Swiss Army Knife. But it's practical.    The Bible is your spiritual Swiss Army Knife. It instructs you. It reproves you. It corrects you. It trains you in righteousness. For some of you, you're not into Swiss Army Knives. Let me just use this illustration. This is a smartphone. This is the Millennials’ Swiss Army Knife, right here. Have you ever thought about what a smartphone can do? It's crazy! It's a phone. It's an alarm clock. It's a stopwatch. It's a calendar. It's a secretary. I can speak into this, and it will transcribe in written form what I say. I can text. I can email. When we were driving from Virginia to Louisiana, I didn't have to worry about where to turn. This is a guide for me. I could go on; you get the idea. I know you love your smartphone. You wouldn't dream of going anywhere without your smartphone. You lose it, and you’d start having hives – “where’s my smartphone?” You wake up; it's the first thing you consult. It’s the last thing; you put yourself to sleep scrolling through Instagram picks. Hey, don't go anywhere without God's word. Hide it in your heart. Daily devotional in it. Live it. It is practical.   Now, to the end. The purpose of it. I’ll just give you these two. It helps us become mature. Do you know why a lot of people in church are immature? Because they don't know the word of God. You become mature, the Bible says, speaking the truth in love. We are to grow up into him who is the head. How do you grow up? You get the word of God in you, and then, not only will you be mature, you’ll minister. You’ll serve.   Our ministries grow out of our knowledge of the word of God. And, oh, the ministry that God wants to do through your life. You’re some of the most gifted, dedicated people I know, and as you imbibe the truth of God's word you're going to be equipped and strengthened to find your place in ministry, and conduct it.   We're going to conclude this morning by celebrating the Lord's Supper. I’m going to tell you one last story. There was once a ship in the British Royal Navy. It was called The Bounty. It had a captain who was very demanding; some say cruel, even. They were sailing in the South Pacific, and they happened into the Tahiti Islands. They set down their anchor, and they lived there in Tahiti for a period of time. The sailors, they thought they’d died and gone to heaven. They’d come from cold, wet England, and here they are in balmy Tahiti. Palm trees swaying. Gentle breeze. Beautiful island women. The sailors reveled; they loved being in those islands.    The captain finally had had enough, and he said, “All right, we're going to get on board, and we're going to leave. We're going to go about our duties.” Some of the sailors decided they would mutiny; that is, turn on the captain, and they did. They put the captain and some of the senior officers into one of those rowboats, like a lifeboat on the ship, and they sent them away. They commandeered the ship. They put on board the ship a couple of dozen Tahiti people, many of them women, and these sailors sailed off into the ocean blue with these beautiful Tahiti women. They ended up finding a small remote island called Pitcairn Island. You can look it up. Pitcairn Island. They sailed into the bay of this beautiful tropical island. They took off everything of value from the ship, and they burned the ship so that they would never be discovered, they hoped. Because, look, if you mutiny against the Royal British Navy, it's a capital offense, so they're hiding for their lives. There, they think they've died and gone to the Garden of Eden. They are living ungodly lives. They discovered how to make alcohol from one of the plants on the island, and they're drinking, and they’re being sexually immoral.    But as the years go by, their Garden of Eden does what the first Garden of Eden did. It goes south. The men become jealous, fighting over the women. Many of the men are killed. Finally, there's only one British man still living. A number of Tahiti women are living. Now, they’ve fathered many children; kind of a colony there. The man is distraught. He sees the ruin and chaos about him, and he's searching through the things that they got off the ship, and he discovers a Bible and a Book of Common Prayer. He begins to study the word of God, and he becomes convicted of his sin and his need to repent and get right with God and get saved. And he does. Then he takes that same word of God, and he begins to teach the women he once abused, and the children.    Many years go by. In 1808, an American ship happened upon that island. They went there. They needed water, and they landed on the island. They discovered these people; now listen. Where there had once been warring and violence and crimes, there was peace. There wasn't a jail on the island. There wasn't a need for one. And the people were all Christian. How did that happen? Two words: sola scriptura, God's word transformed their lives. God intends that nothing less happen with us. He wants to transform us by his word. Do you know the primary way we’re transformed? Here I’m coming to the end. Jesus said to those who heard him; he said, “You study the scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life. It is they that bear witness about me.” In other words, Jesus was saying, “It’s not enough to know scripture. You've got to know me.” He is the focal point of scripture. Do you know Christ? If not, this day, surrender your life to him, he who died on the cross, shed his blood, his body was broken for us. He arose from the dead so that we might be forgiven and transformed.   Let's stand with our heads bowed.   [Prayer]   [Lord’s Supper]   

Solas “Sola Scriptura” 2 Timothy 3:16-17   The production of scripture   All Scripture is breathed out by God (2 Tim. 3:16a)   Its inspiration   Its implications   The practicality of scripture   And profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness (2 Tim. 3:16b).   Our beliefs   Our behaviors   The purpose of scripture   That the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work (2 Tim. 3:17).   Our maturity   Our ministry   [BEGIN TRANSCRIPT] There's a towering figure in the history of Christianity whose name you need to know. His name is Martin Luther. I want to tell you a little bit about his story. Martin Luther was born back in the 1400s, more than 500 years ago, and he was a very devout young man. He loved the Lord, and as a result, he eventually became a monk, a priest, even a professor of theology. As those callings demand, he was a student of the scripture. He loved the word of God and he voraciously and ardently studied it. In the course of studying the Bible, the scripture, he became concerned about the discrepancy, or the chasm, that existed between what the scriptures taught and what the dominant church of that age was doing. He saw errors, he believed, and he saw abuses. I'll mention one. There was the practice back in those days of selling indulgences. Let me explain this. An indulgence was a forgiveness of sins. You've done something wrong and you want to be forgiven. Well, the church taught at that time that they had the power to forgive sin, and if you would give an offering, you could, by means of that offering, purchase an indulgence.  There was a guy who was traveling around Europe selling these indulgences. His name was Tetzel, and he had a little song that he sang, and it roughly went like this: “When the coin into the coffer rings, a soul from purgatory springs.”   In other words, if you’ll give an offering big enough, your mother who’s suffering in purgatory can get out. Luther was troubled, to put it lightly, by these things because you don't see any of that in the Bible. It’s like, “Where do you get this, and why are you teaching that?” He viewed it as abusing the people. He said if the pope wants to build a new building in Rome, why doesn't he just do it out of his own treasury? He's fabulously wealthy. Why is he doing it on the backs of the peasants? So, Luther was upset.    I will say, Luther loved the church, and Luther wasn't looking to be a rebel or to rebel or to get out of the church. He wanted to reform it. He wanted a renewal. He wanted to take the church back to its origins, to its roots in scripture. So, he set about one day to write down some of his concerns. He did them, and when they were numbered, they were 95 in number. They are known to history by this phrase, “The 95 Theses.” You know what a thesis is, like a thesis statement in your term paper, or you write a thesis for your master's degree. The plural form of thesis is “theses.” 95 theses. There were 95 points of concern, and he took those 95 theses that he'd written out and he nailed to the door of the church where he was like the parish priest. I know that sounds like he was defacing the property; he was not. In those days, the church door functioned like a bulletin board, and if you wanted to announce something, you could tack it to the church door and it would be seen by all. So, he tacked to the door of the church his points of concern. He sent out an invitation. He said, “If you want to discuss these things, then I want to invite you to a dialogue. Let’s talk about these things, and if there needs to be change, let's make the changes.   Well, it caused a furor all across Europe because the church was in league with the Holy Roman Emperor. And they held the reins of power and wealth, and Luther was like a bee in the bonnet. It caused a furor. Word got all the way to Rome about what Luther had done, and so the pope initiated a church council, called together leaders from across the empire, and the emperor himself sat presiding over this gathering. They were going to discuss the points of concern that Luther had raised, and Luther had raised many significant theological points of concern. At stake was Luther's life. You know, in our culture today, it’s hard to appreciate this because in our day if we have different viewpoints, it's no big deal. It's no skin off your nose. You believe one thing, I believe another; we just live in peace with one another. We have religious liberty. It wasn't so in those days. If you took issue with the church, you would face the wrath of the empire, and Luther’s life was at stake; certainly his career and livelihood. So he was on trial, and as the trial grew to its climax, Luther was asked if he would recant what he had written. To recant means you do an about-face. You say, “I was wrong. I take back what I said.” So they said, “Luther, here's your choice. You're going to be condemned, or you can recant. Which will you do?”   Luther felt these things very deeply, and he said, “Would you give me an evening to pray about what I’ll say. They said, “Yes, you may have an evening.” So, Luther went back to his room. Luther played earnestly, “God what should I do”? And through that evening of prayer and counsel with friends, he came back the next day and he stood before... now, put yourself in his shoes. Could you do this? He stood before the emperor and the might of the empire, and he was asked once again, “Luther, will you recant?” I want you to hear his response: Unless I am convinced by the testimony of the Scriptures or by clear reason (for I do not trust either in the pope or in councils alone, since it is well known that they have often erred and contradicted themselves), I am bound by the Scriptures I have quoted and my conscience is captive to the Word of God. I cannot and will not recant anything, since it is neither safe nor right to go against conscience. Here I stand, I cannot do otherwise. May God help me. Amen.   When Luther said this, the fury of the empire came down upon him. He was excommunicated from the church. He was branded a heretic, and it was decreed that anyone who would take Luther's life would not be held liable for doing so. Fortunately for Luther, he had a confidant who was one of the princes of Germany, and he stole Luther away and hid him in a castle in a place called Wartburg. There, hidden away in the castle in Wartburg, Luther furiously, not angrily, but busily, set about translating the Bible into the common language of the people. The first German Bible was then published, and from it courage arose in Europe, and the first English translation by a man named Tyndale was published, and it set about a great renewal in the church, what’s known to history as the Great Reformation.    Luther Stands as a colossal figure of history because of this principle, and I'm going to give it to you in two words: Sola scriptura. Sola scriptura. You see, this month, every Sunday, we're going to take a different bedrock principle of our church, and we're going to teach upon it. The first of them is this one, Sola scriptura, that is translated “only scripture.” No decree of man, no church council, no pastor can dictate anything that supersedes or takes precedence over God's revealed word. Do you want to know why Istrouma Baptist Church is a vibrant and growing church today? I'm going to tell you why. One of the primary reasons is because we stand upon this principle, sola scriptura; only God's word reigns supreme over our conscience and our faith.   I want to convince you of this same principle. That’s my goal this morning. To do so, I'm going to ask you to turn in your Bible to 2 Timothy 3:16-17. Let’s stand to our feet as a sign of our respect for God's word, and we’ll read these two verses:  All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, 17 that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.    Let’s pray.    [Prayer]   Please be seated.     My wife and I were on vacation last week, and we thank you for giving us some days off. We traveled to Virginia where our children and grandchildren live. We had a great time hugging all those grandkid’s necks and just being with them. I want to thank Brad who preached in my absence last week. I heard he did a great job, and I thank you, Brad, for preaching God's word faithfully. But as we were on that trip and returning, my wife saw a church sign and it said this, “Daily devotions are better than yearly resolutions.” I like that. Daily devotions are better than yearly resolutions. We're at the time of New Year's resolutions, right? Everybody's got a New Year's resolution, whatever it is; lose weight, learn to play the guitar, whatever your New Year's resolution is. Could I just challenge you to this: Have a daily devotional. Daily time in the word of God because the word of God, sola scriptura, is our daily meat. It's our food. Man shall not live on bread alone but by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God. I want to motivate you to this, all right? Not just to daily devotion, but to a lifetime of living out the principles of God's word. I'm going to do it in three headings. First of all, I'm going to talk to you about the production of scripture – how did it come to be? Number two, I'm going to talk to you about the practicality of scripture. And finally, I'm going to talk to you about the purpose of scripture. All right; let’s take these up.    Number one, the production of scripture. How did it happen that we've come to hold in our hands this precious book here and now? I'm going to give it to you in these two words: inspiration and then implications. Inspiration and implications. “Inspiration,” what do I mean? I mean that God has given us this book by inspiration. Now the word often translated here “inspiration” is in the Greek language a very interesting word. In fact, it's a word that only appears once in all of the Bible. One time. It doesn't even occur in secular Greek literature of that day. It's a word that Paul coined. That is, Paul created this word. It didn't exist. The reason it's so unique it is because it is describing a process that is unique. The word is this: theopneustos. Theopneustos. It’s a compound word. It's got two parts to it. The first part is theos. Theos is the Greek word for God. Some of you knew that. We get our English word “theology,” the study of God, from theos. From the word theopneustos we get the root of our English word “pneumatic,” like a tire that's filled with air; that's a pneumatic tire, it’s an air-filled tire. Or “pneumonia,” when your lungs – you don't have enough respiration. It's the whole idea of breath or wind. So theopneustos is the wind of God. The breath of God. That's what is meant when it says “inspiration.” It is literally, all scripture is theopneustos; it is breathed out by God. Folks, this is phenomenal! No wonder he coined the term. There’s no other book like this book.    You know, sometimes we use the word “inspired” very casually. Like you hear a beautiful song and you're like, “Oh man, that was inspired.” Handel's “Messiah” – people will say, “That was inspired.” Or maybe you read a book; let’s say Francis Chan’s “Crazy Love,” and you’re like, “Oh man, that book’s inspired!” Could I just say to you? There is no other book, there is no other song, there is no other sermon. You say “Pastor Jeff, what a sermon, he was inspired today.” Not like this. I depend upon God and I ask him to help me and fill me, but the words that I say are not perfect. God's word is perfect. I seek to be faithful to it, but I can be mistaken. Church councils can be mistaken. Popes can be mistaken. But this book, never mistaken. Why? Because it’s breathed out by God. Here's what the Bible says of the Lord in Numbers 23:19: “God is not man, that he should lie…”  We all lie. God doesn’t lie.    In Titus 1:2, God is described as the one who never lies. God can’t lie.    Hebrews 6:18 says, “It is impossible for God to lie.”    If God can't lie and these are his words, guess what? There’s no lie in this book. There’s no untruth. That's why we call it inerrant; infallible. It is perfect. It is God's word, and you can take it to the bank. Listen, people may lie to you. People may break their contracts with you. But God will never lie to you, and his word will always prove faithful. Take it to the bank. That's the inspiration.   Secondly, what are the implications of this? “Okay, big deal; this is God's inspired word. What's the significance of that?” Glad you asked. Let me give you a couple of the significances of this inspiration. Number one, it's true, and that's what I was just talking about. This book is true. But secondly, it is timeless. Psalm 119:89 says “Forever O Lord your word is established in the heavens.” That is, God's word will never change. It was relevant when Jesus trod this earth. It was relevant when Abraham lived. It was relevant when Jesus and the apostles lived, and friends, it's just as relevant today. It is timeless. “Forever O Lord your word is fixed or established in the heavens.” It will never change, and I'm so glad. This book is more relevant to your life than the newspaper that you picked up off your doorstep when you came out this morning. And by the way, nowadays, the newspaper that you get on your doorstep is already out of date. You know, you’d better look at your feed on your cell phone, right, to get the most recent story as it breaks. I want to tell you something. This book is more up-to-date than your news feed on your cell phone. It is timeless.   Listen, this is important. You young people listen to me. We’re living in a day where they talk about the “information overload.” Have you heard that phrase? I’ve talked to you before about what's called the “knowledge doubling curve.” Remember Buckminster Fuller, that scientist who said that from the dawn of humanity to the year 1900, human knowledge would double about every 100 years. Every once in a while you'd have an invention. The Chinese would invent fireworks. Then several hundred years later Gutenberg would invent the printing press. So knowledge grew very incrementally. But he said that when you get to the year 1900, when modernity is kicking in, knowledge begins to double every 25 years. Then you come up into the 1980s when he published his book, he said that knowledge was doubling every 12 months, every year. So every hundred years, every twenty-five years, every year. They say that now, with the Internet, and AI, artificial intelligence, human knowledge is doubling every 12 hours.   Now, an unintended effect of the doubling of knowledge is what's called the “half-life of knowledge.” Now, stick with me on this. I'm going somewhere! Listen. The half-life of knowledge. I've got some nursing students in here. I've got some medical doctors in here, so you can back me up on this. They say that when you go to medical school and you graduate, within 24 months half of what you learned in medical school is obsolete. You're an engineering student; they say that within a matter of a very scant few years, half of what you learned in engineering will be obsolete. Think about software developers. With software, there is the initial version, typically Version 0. Then V1.0, V2.0 etc. as updates and upgrades are needed.  But look here: there’s no Bible 2.0, nor need there be. There's not going to be a Bible 10, and do you know why? Because this is inspired. God breathed it out. And because it's so, it's true and it is timeless. Because of divine inspiration there is no date of expiration!  And all God's people said [“Amen”]. Doggone Right! Doggone Right. That's the production of scripture.    Now, number two, the practicality of scripture. Young people, listen to me. I'm an old fellow now, and I've learned some things across the years, and I'm going to help you. I'm not going to charge you tuition or anything. This book that I hold in my hand is practical. You say, “Man, I don’t want to listen to a sermon. That's boring. That has nothing to do with how I live.” Nothing could be further from the truth. You're not going to watch a television program; you’re not going to Netflix something (Is “Netflix a verb?). You’re not going to watch something on Netflix that's more pertinent to your life or more practical than what I am teaching you this morning and every other Sunday as far as that goes. I'm the most relevant media in your life, if I could say that; someone who faithfully teaches the word of God, and I hope that I do. And your Sunday School teachers, your small group leaders, your Bible study leaders, because they're giving you the inspired word of God, and it's practical. He says that this inspired word is profitable. I love that word. It means useful. It means valuable. This is useful, this is valuable, this is practical, all right? And he gives us four ways in which it is practical. Watch this. Four ways it’s practical: for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness. Now, watch. Instruction is positive. “Here's what you ought to believe.” Reproof is negative. That's like, “Oops, you've got it wrong there; let me reprove you. Correction is also negative. And then the last word, training in righteousness is positive. So it's positive, negative, negative, positive. Do you see that? Those four characteristics are actually two pairs. The positive and negative first go together, and then the third and fourth, negative and positive, they go together. It’s what’s called in scripture a “chiasm.” Those two pairs go together. The first two pertain to our beliefs. The Bible gives us instruction as to what we ought to believe, and it reproves us when we believe anything different from that. But it's not just our beliefs that we get from the Bible. It ought to govern our behavior, and that's the last couplet. For correction; that is, when I’m off the path, and I’m behaving as I ought not, the word of God corrects me. And then it trains me in right conduct, righteousness, right living, making it practical.    Let me give you a word picture that I think will help you. Every little boy's dream – let me help you with next year’s Christmas list, all right? Moms, dads, listen. You want to get your son a gift he’ll like? Get him a Swiss Army Knife if he's never had one. How many of you have ever had a Swiss Army Knife? Would you raise your hand up? Swiss Army Knife – there's nothing cooler in the world. The reason it's cool is because it's so practical. You've got a magnifying glass. You've got scissors. You've got tweezers. You've got a ruler. You've got a saw –  you can saw off a little branch. It's even got a hidden toothpick, did y'all know this? It’s pretty nasty; you can use that toothpick and put it back in the knife. That’s funny! Swiss Army Knife. But it's practical.    The Bible is your spiritual Swiss Army Knife. It instructs you. It reproves you. It corrects you. It trains you in righteousness. For some of you, you're not into Swiss Army Knives. Let me just use this illustration. This is a smartphone. This is the Millennials’ Swiss Army Knife, right here. Have you ever thought about what a smartphone can do? It's crazy! It's a phone. It's an alarm clock. It's a stopwatch. It's a calendar. It's a secretary. I can speak into this, and it will transcribe in written form what I say. I can text. I can email. When we were driving from Virginia to Louisiana, I didn't have to worry about where to turn. This is a guide for me. I could go on; you get the idea. I know you love your smartphone. You wouldn't dream of going anywhere without your smartphone. You lose it, and you’d start having hives – “where’s my smartphone?” You wake up; it's the first thing you consult. It’s the last thing; you put yourself to sleep scrolling through Instagram picks. Hey, don't go anywhere without God's word. Hide it in your heart. Daily devotional in it. Live it. It is practical.   Now, to the end. The purpose of it. I’ll just give you these two. It helps us become mature. Do you know why a lot of people in church are immature? Because they don't know the word of God. You become mature, the Bible says, speaking the truth in love. We are to grow up into him who is the head. How do you grow up? You get the word of God in you, and then, not only will you be mature, you’ll minister. You’ll serve.   Our ministries grow out of our knowledge of the word of God. And, oh, the ministry that God wants to do through your life. You’re some of the most gifted, dedicated people I know, and as you imbibe the truth of God's word you're going to be equipped and strengthened to find your place in ministry, and conduct it.   We're going to conclude this morning by celebrating the Lord's Supper. I’m going to tell you one last story. There was once a ship in the British Royal Navy. It was called The Bounty. It had a captain who was very demanding; some say cruel, even. They were sailing in the South Pacific, and they happened into the Tahiti Islands. They set down their anchor, and they lived there in Tahiti for a period of time. The sailors, they thought they’d died and gone to heaven. They’d come from cold, wet England, and here they are in balmy Tahiti. Palm trees swaying. Gentle breeze. Beautiful island women. The sailors reveled; they loved being in those islands.    The captain finally had had enough, and he said, “All right, we're going to get on board, and we're going to leave. We're going to go about our duties.” Some of the sailors decided they would mutiny; that is, turn on the captain, and they did. They put the captain and some of the senior officers into one of those rowboats, like a lifeboat on the ship, and they sent them away. They commandeered the ship. They put on board the ship a couple of dozen Tahiti people, many of them women, and these sailors sailed off into the ocean blue with these beautiful Tahiti women. They ended up finding a small remote island called Pitcairn Island. You can look it up. Pitcairn Island. They sailed into the bay of this beautiful tropical island. They took off everything of value from the ship, and they burned the ship so that they would never be discovered, they hoped. Because, look, if you mutiny against the Royal British Navy, it's a capital offense, so they're hiding for their lives. There, they think they've died and gone to the Garden of Eden. They are living ungodly lives. They discovered how to make alcohol from one of the plants on the island, and they're drinking, and they’re being sexually immoral.    But as the years go by, their Garden of Eden does what the first Garden of Eden did. It goes south. The men become jealous, fighting over the women. Many of the men are killed. Finally, there's only one British man still living. A number of Tahiti women are living. Now, they’ve fathered many children; kind of a colony there. The man is distraught. He sees the ruin and chaos about him, and he's searching through the things that they got off the ship, and he discovers a Bible and a Book of Common Prayer. He begins to study the word of God, and he becomes convicted of his sin and his need to repent and get right with God and get saved. And he does. Then he takes that same word of God, and he begins to teach the women he once abused, and the children.    Many years go by. In 1808, an American ship happened upon that island. They went there. They needed water, and they landed on the island. They discovered these people; now listen. Where there had once been warring and violence and crimes, there was peace. There wasn't a jail on the island. There wasn't a need for one. And the people were all Christian. How did that happen? Two words: sola scriptura, God's word transformed their lives. God intends that nothing less happen with us. He wants to transform us by his word. Do you know the primary way we’re transformed? Here I’m coming to the end. Jesus said to those who heard him; he said, “You study the scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life. It is they that bear witness about me.” In other words, Jesus was saying, “It’s not enough to know scripture. You've got to know me.” He is the focal point of scripture. Do you know Christ? If not, this day, surrender your life to him, he who died on the cross, shed his blood, his body was broken for us. He arose from the dead so that we might be forgiven and transformed.   Let's stand with our heads bowed.   [Prayer]   [Lord’s Supper]   

Leo X, Archbishop of Mainz and Johann Tetzel respond to the 95 Theses

"Sobald der Gülden im Becken klingt, im huy die Seele im Himmel springt". Das war kurz und bündig: Geld zahlen und die Sünden werden erlassen, das Fegefeuer bleibt erspart. Das Geld wird in Teilen nach Rom geschickt, um so den Bau des Petersdoms zu finanzieren. Autor: Marko Rösseler

In dieser Folge habe ich den Tetzel aka Halbgottschmiede zu Gast in der Show. Tetzel ist aktuell der sechst stärkste Mann in Deutschland im Kraftsportbereich Strongman. Außerdem ist er Trainer und bekannter YouTuber. Wir sprechen in dieser Folge über viele unterschiedliche Themen rund um Bodybuilding und Kraftsport. Hier findest du alle Inhalte dieser Folge mit den passenden Zeiten im Überblick: 00:04:00 Wie kam Tetzel zum Krafttraining? 00:11:00 Bodybuilding als Start in die Trainingskarriere 00:17:00 Ideale Strukturen für Bodybuilding 00:23:00 Kraftwerte von Tetzel 00:25:00 Entwicklung des Kraftsports 00:28:15 Strongman 00:30:00 Dual Athleten, vom Bodybuidler zum Powerlifter 00:32:00 Sache der Perspektive 00:38:30 Woran merkt man, dass man noch Potenzial hat? 00:42:00 Problematik der Naturalverbände 00:49:00 Grundübungen und deren Stellenwert 00:54:00 Bodybuilding und die Arbeit dahinter 00:57:30 Messbarkeit im Sport 01:01:00 Leidenschaft finden 01:08:00 Stark und lean sein, möglich? 01:19:00 Rapidfire   Hier findet ihr alle Links zu Tetzel: ► YouTube-Kanal von Tetzel ► Instagramprofil von Tetzel ► Facebookseite von Tetzel   Buchempfehlungen: ► Lars Oppermann: Das Hiob-Experiment ► Neil Gaiman: Good Omens ► Bücher von Markus Heitz   ► 10 Prozent Rabatt mit dem Code "SMARTFITNESS10" auf alle MORE Nutrition Supplements ! Falls ihr den Podcast und mich unterstützen möchtet, könnt ihr mit dem Rabattcode "SMARTFITNESS10" 10 Prozent Nachlass auf eure nächste Bestellung für alle More Nutrition Produkte bei Mic's Bodyshop erhalten!! Einfach hier klicken! Folge mir gerne auch auf: Instagram  YouTube Facebook Hast du Ideen, Fragen oder Anregungen? Dann schreib mir einfach an info@smartfitnessandfood.de Wenn dir die Show gefällt, dann schreib mit doch bitte eine Bewertung auf iTunes und abboniere die Show :)

Martin Luther and the Reformation Part 1: In this episode we look at the historical context for the Reformation and look to understand the arguments that Martin Luther was making against the sale of indulgences and the consequences of those arguments.

As God asked.Matthew 6:9-10But didn't you already preach on this? Why yes. Yes, I did. I was struck - in preparing for this sermon - by the fact that there is far too much to be preached in this passage. So I decided to preach two sermons and in this second Sunday I would draw out an aspect that I did not cover two weeks ago.Introduction - 500 years of ReformationProtestant Churches everywhere are celebrating the event that kick-started the Reformation today. In January of 1517 Johann Tetzel was officially called to the ministry of selling indulgences for Pope Leo X. He traveled like a pedler through Germany and managed to empty people's pockets. He who purchased an indulgence was ensured a partial or even complete forgiveness of their Ecclesiastical debt. The indulgence could also be purchased to shorten the length of the stay of a loved one in purgatory.The reasoning was that Christ had accomplished and endless supply of good works and the saints had more good works than they needed to inherit salvation. These works of Christ and the Saints comprised the “treasury of excess good works”, which was owned by the Church and managed by the Pope. Therefore the pope can write an indulgence check to those who have a deficit of good works. Since 1343 this is still official Church doctrine.Tetzel traveled with a big box and preached this doctrine with a diddy that went something like: When the coin dings, a soul from purgatory springs. The proceeds went to various Church building projects, but especially the Saint Peter's basilica in Rome.A story that is told from this time period is of a nobleman that approached and asked Tetzel if these indulgence checks were sold for sins not yet committed. Tetzel explained the affirmative, upon which the man purchased a check signed by the pope. Then he proceeded to mercilessly beat Johann Tetzel and when he was finished returned the indulgence letter and walked away forgiven.Eventually Tetzel ended up in the area of Wittenberg. Parishioners that ended up in Martin Luther's confessional showed little evidence of sorrow for their sins and appealed to their indulgence letter - purchased from Tetzel and signed by the pope. Their guilt had already been paid. Luther was appalled.This led him to write 95 academic arguments against the sale of indulgences and on October 31, 1517 he nailed his complaint to the door of the castle-Church in Wittenberg. 500 years later the reverberations from Luther's hammer can still be felt.The Renaissance brought a change in thinking. People longed for the classical period: the politics and wealth of the great Roman era. Their mantra became: “back to the sources” in seeking to discover what the great thinkers of that era taught. This thinking eventually infiltrated into the thinking of theologians, who returned to the sources - Scripture in the original Greek and Hebrew. Many were becoming carefully critical of practices and teachings in the Roman Catholic Church. Luther was one of these monks.The greatest heritage of the Reformation was a simple belief, that we adhere to and was well-voiced by Luther: sola Scriptura - the Scripture alone. The statement: “show me in the Bible” is a belief that we hold dear today.In reading about Luther I came across a letter that he wrote to his barber in Wittenberg - a good friend. He had inquired who one ought to pray and Luther commented on the Lord's prayer - I would like to share his insights this morning.Luther was appalled by the mindless rehearsing of the Lord's prayer without the slightest thinking of what is being prayed. He called it abuse and made the corollary between the first three commandments in Exodus 20 to the introduction of Jesus' prayer.Prayer brings us back to God's beginning with usThe first command implied (9)The first command to Israel is that they worship only Him. As we have learned in our Bible study on Wednesdaynight, the way in which the ten commandments are written and placed after Exodus 19 (read it - God is protecting His people like a father protects his children) teaches us that God is describing the parameters of a relationship more so than prescribing rules for salvation. God saved His people out of Egypt and then gives this saved people ten commandments. The first three set up the relationship. God longs for an exclusive relationship with His people. Much like a marriage ceremony, God asks to be exclusive in their lives. Love me above everything else - and let me be the only one.The second command enacted (9a)The second command regarded their worship, which was to be without icons or idols. They were to worship in spirit. There was no specification of locality in this worship. That was not important… it was to be in spirit - as Jesus explains to the Samaritan woman at the well. You worship without going somewhere or seeing anything. The Lord's prayer is exactly that - to be done anywhere and at any time, by those to love Him.The third command in action (9b)The third command was relational as well: cherish my name. Make it holy in your thinking and speaking. Our relationship with God is not to be treated as trivial. We are not to approach or worship or think of God like the world with its take-it-or-leave-it mentality. Religion is something I do on Sunday… the rest of the week God is out of my mind. Asking the Father's name to be hallowed is to re-align your heart with who God is and what He means to you. That's why “Thy kingdom come and Thy will be done” follow from this heart-alignment.This prayer brings us back to where God wants us to be… it it our delay in this busy world as we wait for God's direction in life.Luther said: “How shall God's Name be hallowed among us? When what we believe and live is truly Christian.” Too often what we believe and live does not align.Luther stood up to this blasé Christianity. Much like David he was moved by zeal for God's Name. Grace was at stake with Tetzel. True repentance had been short-circuited. True forgiveness was no longer sought after. And Luther brought us back to Scripture.Do we have such a zeal?

Samuel was called from the household of Eli to preach God's word of reform to priests exploiting people in the temple. Millenia later, Martin Luther was called to reform the practice of sacrifice and offering once again, reminding us that our lives are to be a celebration of grace freely given by God in Christ Jesus.

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Introduction On October 31, 1517, history was changed forever when Martin Luther took the Ninety-Five Theses and nailed them to the door of the Wittenberg Castle. He saw a problem in the way the medieval Catholic church was addressing salvation. He was incensed by the preaching of a friar named Tetzel who was preaching indulgences and misleading people, concerning what it is that saves our souls from sins. He was moved by it, by zeal for the glory of God and by concern for souls. And so, being an academic, he wanted to debate about it. So he wrote out these Ninety-Five Theses and nailed them to the door of the Wittenberg Castle and thus began the Reformation. Very important beginning, but I'm interested in how the Ninety-Five Theses themselves begin. The first thesis said this: “Our Lord and Master Jesus Christ, when he said ‘repent,’ he willed that the whole life of believers should be one of repentance.” What kind of revivals would come in this church or even in evangelical churches across America if we read and understood the import of those words? That you, as a child of God, should spend your whole life in repentance. Now, the beginning of the Reformation was important, but even more important was the beginning of Jesus' preaching ministry. Jesus began his preaching ministry with the exact same conviction. Matthew 4:17, “From that time on, Jesus began to preach ‘Repent for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.’” He called on the people of God to repent from their sins. The very thing that John the Baptist had been doing, same message. My yearning today is that this sermon would be a call from almighty God to you, the people of God, to repent. And me too. To repent earnestly, to turn away from sin, hating it as we have never hated it before. Motivated as never before to be conformed to the image of Christ, in purity and holiness. To fight against the influences of the devil and the world, as they call to our indwelling sin to commit acts of sin, to yield to temptation that we would fight as never before, and grow in holiness. I'm calling on you and on me, the Spirit is calling on us to repent from sin. To be serious about sin, to take it seriously and to mortify it, to put it to death. Now last time I began by looking at a parallel passage, Romans 7. In Romans 7, these ideas that are in just seed form here in Colossians 3 are more fully developed. There Paul said, “I do not understand what I do, for what I want to do I do not do.” What does that mean? He wants to be holy, he wants to have a good quiet time, he wants to share his faith, he wants to say no to wickedness and ungodliness, he wants to be a Christlike, kind loving person in all circumstances, he wants to put a guard over his mouth, and never say anything that would defile his soul or hurt others. He wants all of this, he has great ambitions for holiness, but he says, “What I want to do, I do not do.” Conversely, what I hate, now that's what I do. I don't understand myself. The very thing I hate, I do. Why? Well he says, as it is, “It is no longer I who do it but it is sin living in me that does it.” So we began with this despicable enemy. This vile thing. How do we picture it within us? Sin living in me, in my body. How much do I yearn to have it out? “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.” There's my hope. This is a hopeful sermon. We will be filled with righteousness if we're in Christ. But right now is a time of hungering and thirsting for that filling. Of yearning for it, and repentance. Therefore, Paul calls on us in verse five, Colossians 3 to warfare. “Put to death, therefore, whatever belongs to your earthly nature,” put it to death. “Sexual immorality, impurity, lust, evil desires and greed, which is idolatry,” put it to death. “Anger, rage, malice, slander, filthy language from your lips and lying,” put them to death, all of them, and all the others besides. Now the context here in Colossians 3 is the full flowering of what Christ has done for us. We have been made complete in Christ. We have been given gospel completeness. Jesus came. He who is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. He came and entered the world, he took on a human body. So therefore the physical universe is not evil as the Colossian heretics were teaching. It's not evil, or else Jesus would never have taken it on. He took on a human body. In human flesh, there was the fullness of deity. He suffered on a cross and died that we might have full freedom from sin but the Colossian heretics are saying that's not enough, that's not enough. You've got to have human philosophy. Gotta understand things, a kind of secret wisdom coming from man. You've gotta have that secret philosophy. And you've got to have Jewish legalism, coupled with that asceticism, the harsh treatment of the body. All the Jewish rules and regulations, leading to a harsh treatment of the body. And to kind of lift it up into the spiritual realms, you can have the worship of angels, mysticism, this concoction of heresy, is what was afflicting the Colossian church. Paul says these things lack any value in restraining sensual indulgence, they don't work, they don't sanctify us and they sure don't save us from our sins. Instead, the work of Christ does, and he gives us a different vision of life in Colossians 3:1-17, a vision of a happy, healthy, fruitful Christian life. You wanna be happy, you wanna be healthy, you wanna be fruitful as a Christian, then immerse yourself in the practical wisdom of Colossians 3:1-17. It begins with a heavenly mindset, Colossians 3:1-4, “Set your minds on things above, set your hearts on things above, not on earthly things, for you died, and your life is now hidden with Christ in God. When Christ, who is your life, appears, then you also will appear with him in glory.” And because of that, put sin to death. Because of where you're going. Because of how glorious it's gonna be, because of the fact there'll be no sin there. You'll be stripped of it forever and how delighted will you be at that time, because of that, because Christ is your life, because he's coming back to judge the earth, because of all of these things that put it to death, put sin to death, that's the context. Vigorous Warfare Against Sin (vs. 5-9) Steely-Eyed Killers of Sin And so I said last time that you're to be a steely-eyed killer of sin, show it no pity, hunt it down and assassinate it, show it no mercy. And John Owen, in his classic On the Mortification, or the killing, of Sin, he said, “You need to be killing sin or sin will be killing you,” it's that simple. And I said last time that happiness and fruitfulness is impossible without warfare. You can't go to heaven on a flowery bed of ease, it's impossible. If you're on a flowery bed of ease right now you are deceived, you need to wake up and you need to fight sin. It's impossible to go to heaven that way, it's through much difficulty that we enter heaven. Understanding the Enemy Outside the Walls And this is part of the difficulty. Part of it is persecution through faithfulness and witness, the part of it is this internal battle that we must fight, a part of our salvation. And so I said we have to understand who we're fighting, we have to understand Satan, how clever he is, how relentless, how powerful, how vicious, and we have to understand the world system that he has crafted. A masterpiece of wickedness crafted to entice us and to lure us constantly, lure us toward sin. The pull, like a magnet, like an overpowering magnetic attraction pulled all the way, away from God, away from holiness, away from purity toward defiling things and wickedness, like a magnetic attraction. Understanding the Body … and the Enemy Within the Walls Well, you don't have to be a physicist, you don't have to be an engineer, to know magnets don't attract wood, they attract iron, they attract something and there's something inside us that is attracted to all that. Isn't that disgusting? There's something in me that likes it, that's attracted to it. So I've likened it to having like chunks of iron or iron filings that I kind of eat and take into myself, and then the pull gets stronger and it's harder to resist, and they come out, like one at a time with a tweezer. And so, it's so important that we not immerse ourselves in evil things, the enemy outside calls to the enemy within and the two of them do business at moments of temptation and we sin, and that's the battle. And therefore we have to understand our body, our body created originally in the image of God, nothing wrong with any biological function, sexual, digestive, any of the functions God created, these things are good. God made them that way, there's nothing wrong with that, there's nothing wrong with the human body, per se. But there's something wrong with the body of sin. There's something wrong with the body of death, and that's what these bodies are called: body of sin, body of death. That's what we have and why? Because of history. First of all, Adam's history. He sinned for us and we got from him a position before God and a nature. We were born with a nature of bent towards sin and as soon as we understand the law, we sin. As soon as we understand it, it happens. You parents know what I'm talking about, you've seen it happen. You were there at that moment, you were there twice because it happened to you when you were a child. And we understand sin, and look at verse 7, Colossians 3:7, “In these sins, sexual immorality, lusts, impurity, evil desires, greed. In these things you used to walk in the life you once lived.” That's how you used to live, you have a history with this. You programmed your body how to sin, you programmed your brain. Understanding Salvation So we have to understand this, we have to understand the body, and I said we also have to understand salvation. If you don't understand salvation, you won't know where mortification or putting sin to death fits in, you'll get it wrong, you'll make a mistake. And so there are three main parts to salvation: Justification, sanctification, glorification. Justification, at that moment by simple faith in Christ, by looking to Jesus crucified for you, His blood shed on the cross for you, trusting in that as your only righteousness. The exchange there: he taking your defilement on himself and suffering under the wrath of God, and him giving to you a gift, an immeasurable gift, an infinite gift of perfect righteousness, that is justification. And if you're a Christian today, that's already happened for you and nothing can reverse it. And God sees you today holy and blameless in Christ, perfect in position, nothing can change that. Nothing can move you from your secure position in justification, but that's not the end of the story now, is it? What you are in position, you need to become in practice, you need to start acting like Jesus more and more and more, and he was perfect. And you must be perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect. You must be like Jesus in every area. And the battle is a cooperative effort between the believer and the Holy Spirit. You work together. “If you,” Romans 8:13, “by the Spirit put to death the misdeeds of the body, you will live.” You have to do it by the Spirit. Cooperation. And in that lies a struggle because some of you aren't cooperating very well. And neither am I from time to time. And this is a call on us to step up and put sin to death. It's our responsibility as justified Christians to be sanctified and to grow. Progressively grow more and more to be like Jesus. Then the third step: glorification. God takes over again. Just as he did in justification, he'll do it again in glorification. And instantaneously, all sin will be removed from you. Completely. And you will end up holy and blameless. Physically, mentally, morally, emotionally, spiritually, your body and your soul, or your heart, will be pure as Christ. And you will dwell in that state forever. That's the whole salvation plan. By the way, we are calling “Come, Oh, Come Emmanuel.” That's what he came to do. And he will not stop until it's done for all of his children. Naming the Battlefields Now, we have to get specific. Last time, we named the battlefield sins of perverted love, lust, sexual immorality. Sins of broken relationships, anger, rage, malice, slander. We talked about those in detail last time. This is what's besetting us. And friends, this is an immensely truncated list. There's far more sins than just these. They're just suggestive of the kind of things we fight. What Is at Stake And what's at stake? Colossians 3:6, “Because of these things, the wrath of God is coming.” The wrath of God. I heard a sermon this past week. Don Whitney preached an incredible sermon, wrote a book on spiritual disciplines, and I heard him preach on hell. Very few of us actually hear sermons, expositions, on hell. And it left me so grateful, so grateful for Jesus that I had been rescued from what I deserved. He focused on one verse, Matthew 25:41, what the judge of all the earth will say to the goats, “Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels.” One verse tells you what you need to know about hell. I'm tempted to just preach that sermon because it was so good. Terrifying Warning But hell is real. Hell is terrifying. It's eternal. It's powerful. And Jesus warned us, more than any person in history, Jesus warned us from hell. No other prophet or apostle spoke as much about hell as Jesus did. But Jesus rescues us from the coming wrath. Praise God. Praise God. 1 Thessalonians 1:10, “Jesus rescues us from the coming wrath.” He is doing it right now through this sermon. He is rescuing you from the coming wrath. And he'll keep on rescuing you until he will finally rescue you on the Day of Judgment from the coming wrath. The rescue is present and the wrath is future. And the rescue is going on right now, and it will continue until the day you die. And then He will finally rescue you, and there'll be no more threat. Forever. That's what's at stake. Practical Guidelines for Killing Sin How do we do it? This is where we get practical. And here I just lean on a brother in Christ who's been dead for centuries. His name is John Owen. And he wrote a book called Mortification of Sin. And you may have noticed, when you came in, these books. God wants you, I think, to have this book and to read it. And so I've made 200 of them available for free. The price is right, okay? They're at the entrance, or I guess, now exits of the sanctuary. Back there, side tables, inside there's 200 of them. There's more than 200 people here. So there's a little psychology going on here. A little competition, alright? But I'll say this. If you want one at the end of this day, and didn't get one, I'll see to it you get one, alright? So I bought 200 of them. They're available. Along with that is a paper I wrote when I was in seminary. Now, I'm not saying this is any great thing, but this is like the CliffsNotes version, okay. To this, it's basically a summary of his arguments. Don't do this instead of this, okay. Do this to help you with this. But you can get all these pages down, and you can skip if you want to all the introductory stuff about Owen, the history and all that, and just go to the summary of what he wrote. And from this, I got what you're about to hear in my sermon. So this is a thin stream of this, and this is a thin extract of this. So I would just urge you to go to this, and be convicted, and to be strengthened. Get it. You're all gonna be out of here quickly, and go grab them. But as I said, if you don't, if you want one and didn't get one, let me know. Call the office. Talk to me. Well, don't talk to me at the end, I won't remember. I won't know what you said to me. But email or whatever, and say, “I wanted to get one, didn't get one.” We'll order some more. But it would be a tragedy for this book to sit in stacks on the table as you guys are walking by it. That makes no sense. Even if you have a copy at home, take another one so you can give it to somebody who might need it. Come to Christ Practical advice. First step. This is where I ended last time. Come to Christ. Come to Christ. You have no business fighting sin if you're not a Christian. You know why? You can't put sin to death because sin's already put you to death. You're dead spiritually. Dead in your transgressions and sins, Ephesians 2, in which you used to live. So you can't fight it. You're already killed. And only Jesus can give you life. Come to Christ. And he will give you life. And part of that life will be mortification. So if you're here today, and you don't know whether you're saved, you have never trusted in Christ, then the rest you can get to by and by, but you come and look to Jesus. Look to him dead on the cross. His blood shed for you. Think, “He is my righteousness. He's my only hope for escape from hell. I must have Christ,” and look to him and then the mortification can begin. Come to Christ. We talked about that last time. Determine to Fight this Vicious Battle Every Day Secondly, to you Christians, determine to fight this vicious battle every day. Make it your business every day to get up and mortify the deeds of the flesh. John Owen put it this way, “There's not a day but sin foils or is foiled, prevails or is prevailed upon and it will be whilst we live in this world.” In another place he likened it, as I've said many times, to a wrestling match with a poisonous viper. Imagine you've got this snake by the head and it's hissing and it's strong and all that. And it's a battle to the death. You can't get halfway through and just, “I'm tired,” just put it down and try to walk away. It's not gonna let you go. You don't take a poisonous viper to bed with you. You don't coddle it like a pet. You don't feed it. You kill it. Be killing sin or sin will be killing you. You gotta get up every day and determine to fight this vicious battle. You don't get any days off. Sin's not gonna take any days off. By the way, the day you think you're taking a day off from sin, sin's winning. It's already deceived you. Rely on the Holy Spirit, Not on Fleshly Means Next, rely on the Holy Spirit, not on fleshly means. We already saw in Colossians 2 that harsh treatment of the body and all kinds of stuff lacks any value in restraining sensual indulgence. That will not work. And all of our steps in mortification, all they do is set the stage for the Spirit to kill the sin. He has the power to do it. And so all of these things are somewhat like Elijah in his battle with the prophets of Baal on Mount Carmel. And they're up there and all of the sacrifice, all is ready, but the fire's gotta fall from heaven and so it is with mortification. Get everything ready and the Spirit will put the sin to death when you have done all the things he's commanded you to do. “If you, by the Spirit, put to death the misdeeds of the body.” So the Spirit acts somewhat like a weapon there. If you, by the Spirit, kill. And that's how it works. You must fight by the Holy Spirit. Be Cross-Centered Next, you must be cross-centered. Isaac Watts said, “When I survey the wondrous cross.” Every Sunday I look up at this big wooden cross up here over my head. I just look at it. I remind myself that Jesus died there. I think about it. I think about Jesus bleeding to death. Really that practically, that his blood was falling out of the wounds of his body, he was bleeding to death on the cross. I think about that. And I say to you that Christ's blood shed on the cross has sin-killing power in the minds and hearts of believers. Galatians 6:14, very important verse, “May I never boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ through which the world has been crucified to me and I to the world.” You come to the cross and the world's allure and temptations and enticements look to be the filthy things they are. It was those things that put Jesus to death. So be cross-centered, be much in meditation on Christ's death on the cross and sin will shrivel as the nasty thing that it is. There's another sense in being cross-centered, and that is that you must crucify sin. Now, what do I mean by that? Well, sin is not going to die while you live, it isn't. Sins can die. But sin is gonna be with you until the Lord glorifies you. And so the image I have is lust up on the cross, slowly bleeding to death, and begging me to take it down off the cross every day. And woe to me if I get those tongs and pull the nails out and let lust down and feed it and give it a break and give it some... So it regains its strength a little, give it a little water and wipe it... That's lust! It wants to kill me. So I have to put it on the cross. I have to crucify it. It's a slow lingering death. Remember how Pilate was surprised that Jesus had died so quickly. It's not a quick death, it's a slow one. So be cross-centered. Understand what Mortification Is Not and What It Is Next, understand what mortification is not and what it is. I've already touched on this briefly, but first of all, it is not to kill any particular sin completely for that cannot be in this life. There are other schools of thought on sanctification that say you can have that sin removed from you like a bad tooth. And so if you could find a pastor who'll do that kind of dental work on you and remove that bad tooth of lust or covetousness or anger or unforgiveness, you could just have all those bad teeth removed one after the other. It's not like that. And the reason you know is, can you imagine, what would you think if you met a man or a woman who said, “You know, I used to struggle with such and such. But I never need to worry about that again.” What would you say to that person? “If any man or woman thinks he stands, take heed lest he fall.” It's not over yet. So it's not killing one particular sin completely for that cannot be. Nor is it to allow sin to conceal itself and then to appear in a different costume. Oh, sin is tricky! You think you got lust down, but it's popping up in other areas. You don't do that anymore, but you do this instead. That's what it does. Nor is it to develop a quiet, thoughtful, peace-loving nature. Kind of like a monk in meditation. That's not mortification. And nor is it to divert a particularly annoying and troubling sin so that that sin pattern isn't so prevalent anymore. That's not it. Non-Christians can stop drinking, for example. They go to AA, they can stop drinking. They can divert certain things, but that's not mortification. And nor is it to conquer certain sins occasionally. Like, what's your batting average? That's not mortification. How are you doing? Three-quarters of the time, it used to be just two-thirds of the time, I say, no, but now I'm up to three quarters. Well, good brother, keep it going. That's not mortification. Well, what is it? It is a habitual weakening of sin's root as how a victim dies on the cross. Gradually, slowly losing power and influence over your soul. It is a constant fighting and contending against all indwelling sin, on all fronts. It involves both attack and defense. You go out after sin and cut off the things that it feeds on. You make no equipment or provision for providing for the lusts of the flesh. You don't have the equipment of it, it's out. You just go on attack, you go on a commando raid and get rid of things in your life. They're out. And also it's defensive. You're ready, you're ready, you're ready for the attack. Ready. It's coming. You know you're ready and your stand is both offensive and defensive. And it results in consistent success over individual temptations. Now, temptations you can kill. Individual occasions, you can kill. It comes to you, you see it, you know what's going on and you can say, “No! I won't. Not today. I will not do this.” You can do that. Resolve to Fight Sin on All Fronts It is a resolve to fight sin on all fronts. You're not gonna put the white flag up over any sin in your life. You're not gonna surrender, never, on any front. You're gonna fight all sin everywhere that it's found. Now, I say to you the Holy Spirit hasn't shown you everything. You can't handle the truth. It's not possible. Imagine if your eyes were open, you were to see how far you are from Jesus. It's overwhelming. You'd wanna die immediately. But if he has revealed some things to you, you must fight them on all fronts. Sin is evil, it is wicked. And God's work consists in universal obedience not just partial. Some people say, “I know this isn't right, but I'm really working on this right now.” It doesn't work. That's not mortification. Study the Lusts that Are Attacking You Next, study the lusts that are attacking you. Owen does a great job here on when a lust is particularly dangerous. And I can't go into the details but, basically, if it's survived lots of work on your part, lots of conviction, lots of occasion, times of weeping, people praying for you and all that and it's still around, be afraid. Be very afraid, it's a serious lust problem for you, whatever it may be. Serious habit. Take it seriously. Study also what the sin does to defeat you. I think too often, we just quickly confess and - No, no, no, break it down. What happened? You had a conflict with your spouse. You said you didn't wanna do that anymore, but here you did it again. Now, what happened? You walked in, he said this, she said that, this happened. What happened? What were you feeling? What was your motive? Where did pride creep in? Look for pride 'cause it's there. And just try to find out how sin got you. Study it. Don't just go on too quickly. Labor on Your Heart Labor on your heart next. What do I mean by this? Work on yourself to feel what you ought to feel about sin. Seriously, I think we go on too quickly. You've heard of easy believism? I think there's easy confessionalism. “Oh Lord, I confess in Jesus' name, amen. Thank You, Lord. I'm forgiven.” Don't do that. You've gotta slow down. James says, “Grieve, mourn, and wail. Change your laughter to mourning and your joy to gloom.” That is not a heaven verse is it? 'Cause there will be no more mourning in Heaven. That's a here and now verse. Why do you need to change your laughter to mourning? Because of sin. And so when you are convicted of sin take the time to mourn over it. Take the time to feel what the Holy Spirit felt when He was grieved over what you did. We go on too quickly. Labor on your heart and get a constant yearning and breathing after righteousness. “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.” If you don't hunger for it enough, then stimulate your hunger. Say, “Oh God, I yearn to be free in this area. I want it, oh Lord. Please.” And just turn up the knobs on it. It's like, “Woah, we're getting serious.” It is serious. It is very serious. And you just get hungry and thirsty for righteousness and God will give it to you. “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness.” Crush Sin Early in the Battle Labor on your heart and crush sin early in the battle. You talk about the camel getting its nose in the tent. Pretty soon you have the whole camel family with you inside the tent. How did that happen? Well, you didn't get it early. You know, you talk about the root of bitterness that can defile a whole community, we didn't get it early, didn't nip it in the root before it had a chance to develop and now broken relationships. There's unforgiveness, there's all kinds of stuff going on. You've gotta get it early. So it is also with lust. Get it early in the battle. I think often of that classic movie, The Longest Day, and it begins with a quote by the German commander of the beaches there in Normandy, General Field Marshal Rommel. And what Rommel said is, “The world will be won or lost on the beaches.” Once the allies get a beachhead established in Normandy, they would break out and sweep across France and the world would be lost. And he said this, “The first 24 hours will be critical for both the allies and us. It will be the longest day.” Well, we've been in the longest day since we were justified. We're still fighting. And I think the principle is true, get it on the beaches before it has a chance to establish a beachhead. You know why? Beause sin doesn't establish boundaries. It doesn't stay put and once it comes into your life it just grows and grows and grows. It doubles and doubles again. It just keeps metastasizing. That's what it does. Deal Thoroughly with Sin in Confession and Repentance Deal thoroughly with sin and confession and repentance. Yes, 1 John 1:9, “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and he will forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” But don't go too quickly. Don't go too quickly. Confess your sin and deal thoroughly with it. Be Filled with the Spirit and All of His Graces And be filled with the Spirit and all of His graces. The best way to not eat illicit food is to be filled with legal and good food, alright? Fill yourselves with the Spirit. Fill yourselves with love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, faithfulness, self-control. Fill yourself with Christ, and sin will lose its power over you. Be filled with the Spirit. Later in this same section we're gonna learn how to do that through the word of God. Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, but just be filled with Christ. Be Optimistic in Christ And finally, be optimistic. Be optimistic. Romans 16, “The God of peace will soon crush Satan under your feet.” Isn't that sweet? There will come a day when all of your lusts and all of your angers and all of your malice and all the filthy language and the lying and all of the complaining and all of that sin will drop away from you forever. And therefore, any effort you make now will be effective through the Spirit. I love what John Owens says, “Christ's blood is the great sovereign remedy for sin-sick souls. Live in this and you will die a conqueror; yes, you will through the good providence of God live to see your lust dead at your feet.” A Call to Repentance Now I have given you practical advice on how to kill sin. I'm going to end where I began. I'm gonna call on you to repent. Because I don't sense that I or anyone I know in this church is doing this kind of stuff like they should, taking it seriously, fighting sin at this level. Now you might say, “Well, how would you know?” I don't know for sure, and I praise God for brothers and sisters that are, do it all the more. 'Cause those that are doing it, know they need to do it all the more anyway. But for all of us, let's repent. Let's get serious. Let's look at that list: Sexual immorality, impurity, lust, evil desires, greed, anger, rage, malice, slander, filthy language, lying. That's just suggestive. Find the other lists and say, “Lord, am I doing these things? And if so, I'm ashamed. These are the very things that put you, Lord Jesus, on the cross. I hate them and I want them to be dead in my life too.” Repent and you will know the forgiveness and the joy and the freedom that comes through Christ.

This week's episode of Communio Sanctorum is titled, “God's Consul .”One of the Roman Emperor Diocletian's most important contributions to the Empire was to divide the top-tier leadership up so that it could rule more efficiently. The Empire had grown too large to be governed by a single Emperor, so he selected a co-Augustus & divided their regions of oversight between Western & Eastern realms. Since the issue of succession had also been a cause for unrest in previous generations, Diocletian also provided for that by assigning junior Caesars for both himself & his co-Augustus. When they stepped down, there would be someone waiting in the wings, pre-designated to take control. The idea was then that when their successors stepped into the role of being co-Augusti – they'd appoint new junior Caesars to follow after them. It was a solid plan and worked well while Diocletian was the senior Augustus. When he retired to raise prize-winning cabbages, the other rulers decided they liked power & didn't want to relinquish it.Over the years that followed, rule of the Empire alternated between a single Emperor & Diocletian's idea of shared rule. The general trend was for shared rule with the senior Augustus making his capital in the East at Constantinople. This left the weaker & subordinate ruler in the west with increasingly less power at the same time Germanic tribes pressed in from the North.What eventually spelled doom for the Western Empire was that Rome had forged treaties with some of those Germanic tribes; turning them into mercenaries who were armed & trained in the Roman style of war. When Rome stopped paying them to fight FOR Rome against their Germanic brothers & the Goths, it was inevitable they'd join them to fight against the rich pickings of the decaying Empire who could no longer field armies against them.We've seen previously, as the barbarians pressed into the Western Empire from the North & East, civil authorities had diminishing ability to do anything about them. People began looking to the Church to provide order. Because the Church was gifted with some remarkable leaders who genuinely cared about the welfare of the people, they managed to hold the decaying Empire together for a time. Pope Leo even managed to meet with the Hun leader Attila as he prepared to march on Rome. Leo persuaded the Huns to turn around, leaving the City intact. But Leo didn't have as much luck with the Vandals who arrived a few years later. He did manage to persuade them to limit their sack to plunder & pillage. The population was saved from death & rape. After a 2 week loot-fest, the Vandals boarded their ships & sailed away - leaving the city otherwise unmolested.Historians mark the year 476 as the date when the Western Empire fell. It was then that the Goth leader Odoacer deposed the last Western Emperor, Romulus Augustulus. Odoacer is called a barbarian, but he was, in fact, a military leader in the Roman army; a mercenary who led a revolt against the very people he'd once fought FOR. While historians mark 476 as the year of Rome's fall, for the people living at that time, they would not have seen much if any difference between the reign of Augustulus & Odoacer. Things carried on much as they had from the previous decades. Which is to say – it was a mess!With the Fall of Rome, the Western Empire moved into what we know as the Middle Ages. This was a time when the Church played an ever-increasing role in society. The form that influence took varied over the centuries; sometimes being more religious & spiritual in nature, at other times being predominantly political. But there's no denying that in Europe during the Middle Ages, the Church played a major role.During the 5th & early 6th Centuries, as civil society disintegrated, people looked to alternatives. Some found an answer in monastic communities.  There'd been communes of Christians since the 3rd Century, but the number of monasteries began to grow during the 5th. Some were highly structured while others were more loosely organized.The monastic movement took off due to the leadership of Benedict of Nursia whom we've already talked about. Benedict's early attempts at being the leader or abbot of a monastery didn't go so well; the monks tried to poison him. But as he matured, Benedict applied the lessons learned from his previous mistakes & founded a monastery on Monte Cassino in Italy that became the proto-typical monastery for years to come.Benedict was a genius for administration and organization. He formulated a simple plan for monastic living that was easily transferred to other communes. Known as the Rule of St. Benedict, it became the organizing & governing principle for monastic life & under it, hundreds more monasteries were begun. The Rule held forth a daily routine of Bible reading, prayer, and work. Benedict's sister Scholastica adopted a similar formula for convents.Monasteries became repositories & treasuries of the learning and scholarship of Greece and Rome. As the rest of Europe plunged into what some refer to as The Dark Ages, many monasteries remained places of scholarship. The monks read, studied and spent considerable time copying ancient texts of both scripture and classical antiquity. The Renaissance would eventually be fed by the work of those monks and their hundreds of years of work.What we know about Benedict comes from his biographer, Gregory, known to us as Pope Gregory I, or Gregory the Great, a title conferred on him by the Church shortly after his death.Gregory was born into a wealthy and ancient Roman senatorial family around 540. Following family tradition, he was trained for civil service. But the political landscape was uncertain. During his childhood, the rule of Rome passed through several different regimes. While in his mid-teens, control of Southern Italy was wrested from the Visigoths by the re-conquest of the Eastern Emperor Justinian. But it was only a few years till the Lombards began their campaign of terror. They burned churches, murdered bishops, plundered monasteries, and turned the verdant fields of Italy into a weed-strewn wilderness.When he was 33, Justinian appointed Gregory as the Prefect of Rome, the highest political position in the territory. Gregory was responsible for the economy, food provisions, welfare of the poor, reconstruction of the now ancient and badly decayed infrastructure; things like baths, sewers, and streets. His appointment came in the same year both the pope and Imperial governor of Italy died.A few years later Gregory resigned his office. It's rare when someone who wields great power walks away from it – but that's what Gregory did. The death of his father seemed to be the turning point. One wonders if it wasn't his father's dreams FOR his son that had moved Gregory into a political career to begin with. Once the father was gone, there was nothing holding him to his position and Gregory followed his heart, which was to become a monk. With his considerable fortune, he founded seven monasteries and gave what was left to the poor. He then turned his family's home into a monastery. As Bruce Shelly puts it, “He exchanged the purple toga for the coarse robe of a monk.” He embraced the austere life of a monk with full devotion to the Rule of St. Benedict.As much as Gregory desired to dissolve into obscurity and live a life of humble devotion to God, his outstanding gifts as an administrator had fixed a reputation to him he was unable to dodge. In 579, Pope Pelagius II made him one of seven deacons for the church at Rome. He was then sent as an ambassador for the Pope to the imperial court in Constantinople. He returned to Rome in 585 and was appointed abbot of the convent that had once been his house.Gregory was quite content to be an abbot and would aspire to no higher office, content to finish his sojourn on earth right there. But The Plague swept thru Rome, killing thousands, including the Pope. Unlike most monks who hid behind their commune's walls, Gregory went into the city to help the sick. This earned him great admiration. After Pope Pelagius died, it took church leaders six months to settle on Gregory to replace him. He balked and fled Rome to hide in the countryside. When he was eventually located they persuaded him to return and take up the Bishop's seat.Gregory seemed ill-suited to the task. He was 50 and frail. 50 would be young for a pope today, but when the average life span was a mere 40 years, 50 was already an advanced age. Gregory's physical condition had been made worse by his extreme austerity as a monk. Drastic fasting had enfeebled him and contributed to the weakening of his heart. But what some might assume his main disqualification, was Gregory's lack of ambition for power. He simply did not want to be Pope. Coming to the belief it was God's will that he take up the task, it didn't take long for him to learn how to wield the influence his office. He began his term by calling for public demonstrations of humility of what was left of Rome's plague-decimated populace. His hope was to avert more disaster. And indeed, after a while the plague abated.Gregory hadn't been Pope long when the Lombards laid siege to Rome. This was a time of chaos throughout Western Europe. Many otherwise cool heads thought it was the end times; Gregory was one of them. In a sermon he said,Everywhere we see tribulation, everywhere we hear lamentation. The cities are destroyed, the castles torn down, the fields laid waste, the land made desolate. Villages are empty, few inhabitants remain in the cities, and even these poor remnants of humanity are daily cut down. The scourge of celestial justice does not cease, because no repentance takes place under the scourge. We see how some are carried into captivity, others mutilated, others slain. What is it, brethren, that can make us contented with this life? If we love such a world, we love not our joys, but our wounds.It seemed every aspect of civilization was being shaken to ruins. The church at Rome was one of a few that survived the ordeals that came like hammer blows. Though Gregory saw his promotion to the papacy as punishment, he surrendered himself whole-heartedly to the task of keeping things together while everything else fell apart.Pope Gregory I was a tireless leader. He accomplished the work of ten. His volume of work is all the more remarkable in that he was often confined to bed because of sickness brought on by his frailty and overwork. Seeing himself as genuinely the first among equals with the other bishops, he kept up a vast correspondence, making sure the lines of communication between the churches kept everyone abreast of Church affairs. That alone would have been a full-time pursuit. But Gregory did more.He knew from both his time as a monk and in watching his brothers in the monastery, that the quality of one's work FOR God, is directly proportional to the heart's devotion TO Him. So in his book Pastoral Care, Gregory reminded spiritual leaders to never be so preoccupied with work that they forgot their own soul. But there was a much-needed counterpoint to that; they must also not become so internally focused that they neglected practical work. This was a point of balance rarely glimpsed in the Christianity of that age.Gregory was also concerned for the quality of worship in the church and encouraged the use of music. Though he did not invent what is called plainsong or plainchant, he greatly encouraged its use. In honor of his patronage of this form of worship, it's known as Gregorian chant. Plainsong is a single melodic line without instrumental accompaniment. While a single singer may sing, it was usually sung by a chorus of voices in unison.Gregory took seriously his call to be the standard-bearer of the Faith. His contribution to theology was remarkable. He wrote more on theology than any previous and most subsequent popes. His main influences were Augustine, Ambrose & Jerome. He leaned heavily on Augustine's work, even at times drawing inspiration from casual comments he'd made.Remember back several episodes to when we noted how the church believed baptism washed away all sins, up to that point. Well, what happened to those sins committed after baptism that were not confessed before death and had not been expiated by penance? Augustine mused on how God might, maybe, possibly -- remove these sins after believers died. It was from this speculative musing that Gregory developed the idea God purged them in a “purge-atory;” so the doctrine of purgatory was added to church doctrine.Gregory's theology encapsulated not only the creeds of the councils and teachings of the Fathers, it also included some of the superstitious accretions of a Christianized paganism.I understand there are not a few Roman Catholics who subscribe to this podcast. I've been mightily encouraged by their kind remarks, and the occasional suggestions they've made. Even at points of disagreement, most have been courteous & used a heavy dose of tact when dialoging. I say that because in what follows, I suspect some will think I'm needlessly tweaking the sensitivities of our RC family. I hope I'm not, but am presenting an accurate view of the history here.To illustrate that, let me pose this question: How do we get from the picture of Christian Fellowship & the kind of church service we find in the NT and the earliest descriptions of them, to the elaborate, formal, highly-structured & stylized services of the Medieval & later Church? There's an obvious discontinuity between them. When did pastors begin wearing elaborate robes and head-gear and start carrying gilded & bejeweled croziers? To put it bluntly – whence all the complex ritual? I don't think anyone imagines Jesus conducting such a service, or even Peter. So it's a legitimate question to ask when these things were adopted and became a part of church liturgy. The answer is, as the Western Roman Empire folded and church leaders became increasingly looked to, to provide governance, they also began to affect some of the trappings of political office. As Christianity became the favored, and then approved religion of the Empire, an all-too-common syncretism began to blend pagan and Christian practices. All Gregory did was standardize this syncretistic blend and bequeath it to the Church of the Middle Ages.He endorsed an earlier practice of appealing to past martyrs and saints for help in securing God's aid. The idea was that a penitent sinner could never know if he/she had done enough penance to atone for sin. By appealing to those believers who'd died and gone to heaven for help, they might be able, through their special standing with God, to find assistance in having their sin discharged, kind of like spiritual brokers who negotiated a better deal for the Earth-bound.Gregory encouraged the collection and veneration of relics; strands of hair, fingernails, toe bones, or pieces of clothing from past saints and martyrs; as well as paraphernalia supposedly connected to the Bible; pieces of the cross, the spear that pierced Jesus' side, a towel used to wipe Christ's brow. It was assumed these relics possessed special power to heal and give the armies that venerated them favor in battle.Gregory taught that the body and blood of Christ were really present in the elements of Communion, the bread & wine. He claimed partaking of them nourished and strengthened one's spirit, just as literal bread and wine nourished the physical body. But Gregory took it further. The real power of the Communion elements, the Eucharist, was in its renewing of the sacrifice of Christ's death. The Eucharist didn't just remember Jesus' substitutionary atonement, it was a fresh enactment of it. During Communion, in the Mass, offered by a priest, sins were forgiven. What Jesus' death on the cross did potentially for all people, the Mass applied to specific people who partook of it. So celebrating Mass replaced the need for some forms of penance. Certain sins required both attending Mass and penance. But for the average run of the mill kind of pedantic sins, Mass replaced penance. Then people reasoned, if dead saints could assist them by intercession with God, why couldn't living believers attend extra masses for departed loved ones to lessen their time in purgatory. Light a candle, say a prayer, attend an extra Mass and you might shorten Uncle Giacomo's sentence by a week. This theological base fashioned by Gregory would be used hundreds of years later to sell indulgences, and Tetzel's clever fund-raising ditty – “When in the offering box the coin rings, another soul from purgatory springs.”Gregory's realm of oversight wasn't limited to the spiritual affairs of the Church. During his tenure, the Church owned huge tracts of land in Southern Italy & Sicily; some 1,800 square miles in all.  When the Lombards invaded, sweeping away the last vestiges of civil authority, it was church leaders & their representatives who had to step in to provide governance. They took over the infrastructure of providing food and the necessary collection of taxes to maintain some semblance of civil affairs.  Later arm-chair historians lament the blurring of the line between church and state. They fail to realize, had it not been for church officials stepping in following the Lombard incursions, tens of thousands would have perished. Gregory was the one who set up and oversaw this new tax and public assistance system. As the Lombards drew closer to Rome, Gregory took charge of the defense of central Italy. He appointed the military governor and arranged for a peace with the enemy leaders.Think of this now à Gregory was trained from youth for political office and had served well in that capacity until his father's death when he resigned to seek the quiet life of a monk. When the Plague gutted both the church and civil sphere of capable leaders, Gregory was drafted to take the reins of the Church. The Lombards hammered the last nails into the coffin of Roman civil government, requiring for the sake of public welfare, that Gregory mobilize the leadership of the church to step up and follow his lead of taking on the task of civil authority. Though Gregory greatly expanded papal influence so that from his day on, the Pope was a central figure in European politics, his motive for all he did is seen in his simple concern for the welfare of the needy, as demonstrated by his refusal to stay safely behind the walls of his monastery when the plague ravaged Rome.The tension between the Eastern & Western church that had begun over a hundred years before as Rome and Constantinople vied for supremacy, grew during Gregory's term, but certainly not because of Gregory's personal ambition for power. His criticism of the Eastern Patriarch was due to his belief in Rome's primacy and his resistance to the kind of pride on full display in the East. The Eastern Patriarch John IV had taken the title “universal bishop,” an honorific granted the Patriarch by emperors like Leo and Justinian. The title was confirmed in an Eastern synod in 588. But Gregory considered the title a usurpation of Rome's primacy and a blatant arrogance God would not allow. He did all he could to have the title revoked and called down mighty anathemas on it. He threatened to break off all connection with the Patriarch and demanded the Emperor rescind the title. When someone applied the same title to him, Gregory's reaction was immediate and vehement – no one was to be called a “universal pope”! He said, “I have said that neither to me nor to anyone else ought you to write anything of the kind. Away with words which inflate pride and wound charity!” He preferred to be known as simply – “the servant of the servants of God.”What appears a contradiction to historians is that while Gregory eschewed pretentious titles, he claimed and exercised authority over the entire Church. While in his case, that oversight was due to his scrupulous sense of duty to serve God by serving his people, later popes would accept the grand titles and use the power of the papacy to less altruistic ends.Gregory is an important name in the list of Popes because it was under his term that a great wave of missionary outreach began. If Leo the Great had sought to expand the power & influence of the office of Pope, Gregory the Great expanded the influence of the Gospel to new lands beyond the borders of the Empire. Being the first monk to become a pope, Gregory realized monasteries were like spiritual barracks that could send out an army of evangelists. If Rome couldn't field military legions to repel the barbarians, why not send out legions of missionaries to convert those barbarians, then appeal to their faith to forestall attack? Convert war-like barbarians into daring peace-loving, then peace-spreading missionaries who instead of invading Europe would carry the cross North & East.Good plan. And Gregory implemented it well.When Gregory was a youngster, he'd watched as slave ships were unloaded at the docks. The slaves were Angles, from Angle-land, which later becomes England. The name Angle sounded like ‘Angel' to the young Gregory and set within him the idea that where these barbarians came from needed the Gospel.Besides his interest in missions to Britain, Gregory also promoted missionary activity among the Germanic tribes. But it wasn't until about a hundred years later that missionary work among the Germanic tribes would really take off. We'll cover that in a future episode.If you've been following along with the podcast, a question may have risen that we turn to now. When did the western church, centered in Rome under the overall leadership of the Roman Bishop who'd come to be known as the Pope, really become what today we know as Roman Catholicism?There was no one day the Church transitioned from being the Apostolic church into the Roman Catholic Church. It was a slow, steady series of events that saw the Roman bishop be looked at as the mostly undisputed leader of the western church. I say “mostly undisputed” because while the eastern church centered in Constantinople, Antioch & Alexandria honored Rome's bishop as first among equals, there were always a handful of western bishops who esteemed the lead pastor at Rome in much the same way. They didn't see their role as the bishop of their city as in any way under a Roman pope's authority.And don't forget that the term catholic; which technically just means “universal” carried none of the denominational freight it does today. The word simply meant the Faith that followed the creeds set out by the ecumenical councils – those gatherings attended by a wide cross-section of the leaders of the church so they could define a Biblically faithful position on doctrines being mucked up by aberrant teachers & groups.An ultra-simple definition then of Roman Catholicism is that branch of the Christian Faith that embodies the early creeds of the church, as it coalesced in Europe, led by the church at & Bishop of Rome. As the generations passed, Roman Catholicism would take on much additional doctrine to that embodied in the early creeds. That doctrine was most often decided by the Roman bishop, whose power and authority grew so that he replaced the Councils.So while it's difficult to name a date when Roman Catholicism became, you know – Roman Catholic, many church historians suggest Gregory's appointment as bishop of Rome in 590 is as good a place as any to drive that stake into the church history timeline. Though Gregory refused the title “Pope,” he set up the system of church government that framed the entire medieval period & is called today the papal system. Gregory set a uniform liturgy to be used in the churches and did much to ensure all the churches walked lock-step with Rome.When he died in 604, worn out after 30 years of hard work, his epitaph proclaimed him “God's Consul.” An appropriate description of the man who' spent his life and career wholly in God's service but wielding both secular and spiritual power like one of the ancient Roman rulers.

This episode of CS is titled, Martin's List.In the summer of 1520, a document bearing an impressive seal circulated throughout Germany in search of a remote figure. It began, “Arise, O Lord, and judge Your cause. A wild boar has invaded Your vineyard.”The document was what's called a papal bull—named after that impressive seal, or bulla bearing the Pope's insignia.  It took 3 months to reach the wild boar it referred to, a German monk named Martin Luther who'd created quite a stir in Germany. But well before it arrived in Wittenberg where Luther taught, he knew its contents. 41 of the things he'd been announcing were condemned as à “heretical, scandalous, false, and offensive to pious ears; seducing simple minds and repugnant to Catholic truth.” The papal bull called on Luther to repent and publicly repudiate his errors or face dreadful consequences.Luther received his copy on the 10th of October. At the end of his 60-day grace period in which he was supposed to surrrender, he led a crowd of eager students outside Wittenberg and burned copies of the Canon Law and works of several medieval theologians. Included in the paper that fed the flames was a copy of the bull condemning him. That was his answer. He said, “They've burned my books. So I burn theirs.” That fire outside Wittenberg in December of 1520 was a fitting symbol of the defiance toward the Roman Church raging throughout Germany.Born in 1483 at Eisleben in Saxony to a miner, Luther attended school at Magdeburg under the Brethren of the Common Life. He then went to university at Erfurt where he learned Greek, graduating w/an MA in 1505. His plan was to become a lawyer, but the story goes that one day he was caught in a thunderstorm; a bolt of lightning knocked him to the ground. Terrified, he cried out to the patron saint of miners: “St. Anne, save me! And I'll become a monk.” To his parents' dismay, Luther kept the vow. 2 weeks later he entered the Augustinian monastery at Erfurt where he became a dedicated brother. Some years later he said about his being a monk, “I kept the rule so strictly that I may say that if ever a monk got to heaven by sheer monkery, it was I. If I had kept on any longer, I should have killed myself with vigils, prayers, reading, and other work.” Luther pushed his body to health–cracking rigors of austerity. He sometimes engaged in a total fast; no food OR water, for 3 days and slept without a blanket in winter.In the Erfurt monastery he did further theological study and was made a priest in 1507. When he transferred to Wittenberg in 1508, he began teaching moral theology, the Sentences of Peter Lombard, and the Scriptures. A visit to Rome on Augustinian business in 1510 opened Luther's eyes to the corruption so prevalent among the higher clergy there. When he returned to Wittenberg in 1512 he earned his Doctorate in Theology and was appointed to the Chair of Biblical studies which he occupied for the rest of his life.But throughout this time, Luther was consumed by guilt and the sense his sinfulness. While the majesty and glory of God inspired most, it tormented Luther because he saw himself as a wretched sinner, alienated from an unapproachably holy God.While performing his first Mass, Luther later reported, “I was utterly stupefied and terror-stricken. I thought to myself, ‘Who am I that I should lift up mine eyes or raise my hands to the divine majesty? For I am dust and ashes and full of sin, à and I am speaking to the living, eternal and true God?'” No amount of penance nor counsel from his peers could still Luther's conviction he was a miserable, doomed sinner. Although his confessor counseled him to love God, Luther one day burst out, “Love God? I do not love Him - I hate him!”Luther found the love he sought in studying the Word of God. Assigned to the chair of biblical studies at the recently opened Wittenberg University, he became fascinated with the words of Christ from the cross, “My God, my God, why have You forsaken me?”  Luther found an odd solace in the idea that that Christ was forsaken. Luther was a sinner. Christ wasn't. The answer had to lie in Christ's identification with sinful humans. Luther began to ponder the possibility that Jesus endured estrangement from God for us.A new and revolutionary picture of God began to develop in Luther's restless soul. Finally, in 1515, while pondering Paul's Epistle to the Romans, Luther came upon the words of Ch1v17 “For therein is the righteousness of God revealed from faith to faith: as it is written, The just shall live by faith.”This was the key that turned the lock and opened the door to everything else that would follow. He said, “Night and day I pondered until I saw the connection between the justice of God and the statement that ‘the just shall live by his faith.' Then I grasped that the justice of God is that righteousness by which through grace and sheer mercy God justifies us through faith. Thereupon I felt myself to be reborn and to have gone through open doors into paradise.”Luther saw it clearly now. Man is saved only by his faith in the merit of Christ's sacrifice. The cross alone removes sin and save from the grasp of the devil. Luther had come to his famous doctrine of justification by faith alone. He saw how sharply it clashed with the Roman church's doctrine of justification by faith and good works—the demonstration of faith through virtuous acts, acceptance of church dogma, and participation in the sacraments.The implications of Luther's discovery were enormous. If salvation comes through faith in Christ alone, the intercession of priests was unnecessary. Faith formed and nurtured by the Word of God, written and preached, requires neither monks, masses, nor prayers to the saints. The mediation of a Church magisterium crumbles.At first, Luther had no idea where his spiritual discovery would lead. It took a flagrant abuse of church finances to move him to the center of rebellion in Germany, and into a revolutionary position regarding papal authority.The sale of indulgences, introduced during the Crusades, remained a major source of church income, especially that destined for Rome. The theology behind indulgences is rather complex and a subject we could spend considerable time on, but the upshot is this:  Jesus and the saints have done far more good than they need for themselves and have lived lives that produce an excess of righteousness others can draw upon. The Church hierarchy, specifically the Pope and his agents, are able to open what's called the “Treasury of Merit” all this excess goodness has gone in to, and assign it to less worthy individuals. So, in exchange for a meritorious work—like, making a pilgrimage, going on a Crusade, or making a financial contribution—the Church offered the sinner exemption from acts of penance.All too often, the peddlers of indulgences made them seem a sort of magic—as though a contribution automatically earned the one seeking it a reward, regardless of the condition of their soul. Sorrow for sin was conveniently overlooked. And some even implied you could buy permission to sin before committing it. All this deeply troubled Luther.So, armed with his new understanding of faith, he began to criticize the theology of indulgences in his sermons. He ramped things up in 1517 when the Dominican John Tetzel was preaching throughout Germany on behalf of a Vatican fund–raising campaign to complete the construction of St. Peter's basilica in Rome. In exchange for a contribution, Tetzel boasted, he would provide donors with an indulgence that would even apply beyond the grave and free souls from purgatory. Tetzel was a clever sloganeer who understood the power of marketing. He came up with the catchy ditty - “As soon as the coin in the coffer rings, the soul from purgatory springs.”To Luther, Tetzel's preaching was more than bad theology, it bordered on blasphemy. Irked by Tetzel's fleecing of the common people and provoked by his studies in Scripture, Luther drew up 95 propositions for theological debate and on October 31st of 1517, following university custom, posted them on the Castle Church door at Wittenberg, the place people put public notices. Among other things, Luther's list argued that indulgences can't remove guilt, do not apply to purgatory, and are harmful because they create a false sense of security. Little did anyone know that the spark had just been lit that fired the Reformation.Within a short time, Tetzel's fellow Dominicans in Germany denounced Luther to Rome as guilty of preaching dangerous doctrines. A Vatican theologian issued a series of counter-theses to Luther's list, claiming that anyone who criticized indulgences was guilty of heresy.At first, Luther was willing to accept a final verdict from Rome. But he quickly shifted to the position that his critics show him in Scripture that he was wrong. As his appeal to the Bible grew, he began to question the doctrine of purgatory. During an 8–day debate in 1519 with Church theologian John Eck at Leipzig, Luther said, “A council may sometimes err. Neither the Church nor the Pope can establish articles of faith. These must come from Scripture.”Luther had moved from his first conviction—that salvation was by faith in Christ alone to a second. Scripture, not popes or councils, is the standard for Christian faith and behavior.John Eck didn't miss Luther's spiritual resemblance to Jan Hus. After the Leipzig debate, he asked Rome to declare Luther a heretic. Luther put his case before the German people by publishing a series of pamphlets. In his Address to the Nobility of the German Nation, Martin called on the princes to correct abuses within the Church, to strip bishops and abbots of their wealth and worldly power, and to create a national, German Church.In his work titled, The Babylonian Captivity of the Church Luther spoke not to the Papal Schism of a century and a half before but how the doctrine of justification by faith had reformed, get this, his doctrine of the Church. He argued that Rome's sacramental system held Christians “captive.” He attacked the papacy for depriving individual Christians of their freedom to approach God directly by faith, without the mediation of priests. He said that in order for a sacrament to be valid, it had to be instituted by Christ and exclusively Christian. By these tests Luther could find no justification for five of the Roman Catholic sacraments. He retained only Baptism and the Lord's Supper, and placed even these within a community of believing Christians, rather than in the hands of an exclusive priesthood.All this had sweeping ramifications for the Church.  It brushed aside the traditional view of the church as a sacred hierarchy headed by the pope and returned to the early Christian view of a community of Christian believers in which all believers are priests called to offer spiritual sacrifices to God.In his 3rd pamphlet published in 1520, The Freedom of a Christian Man, Luther set forth in a conciliatory but firm voice his views on Christian behavior and salvation. This work is probably the best introduction to his central ideas. He wrote. “Good works do not make a man good, but a good man does good works.”On the eve of his excommunication from the Roman Church, Luther removed the necessity of monasticism by stressing that the essence of Christian living lies in serving God in one's calling whether secular or religious. All useful callings, he said, are equally sacred in God's eyes.In June of 1520, Pope Leo X issued his bull condemning Luther, giving him 60 days to turn from his heretical course. The bonfire at Wittenberg made clear Luther's intent, so his excommunication followed. In January of 1521 the pope declared him a heretic.The problem now fell into the hands of the young emperor, Charles V, who was under oath to defend the Church and remove heresy from the empire. Remember that all Church hierarchy can do is examine those suspected of heresy and declare them innocent or guilty. Punishment was not the duty of priests or monks. That was for the civil magistrate to carry out. So when Luther was declared a dangerous heretic and booted from the Church, it fell to the Emperor to carry out his execution. He summoned Luther to the imperial assembly at Worms, called a Diet, to give an account of his writings. Charles V understood how highly charged the political situation around Luther was since he'd become the hero for a good part of the German nobility Charles desperately needed in his contest with France and the Turks. The emperor wanted to make sure Luther was a verifiable heretic and not just someone Rome wanted to be rid of.While the exact record of the Diet at Worm s is a little cloudy, it seems one day, as Luther was shown a table full of books purported to be his, wherein his radical ideas were expressed, when asked if they were indeed his, and if he stood by all that he had written in them, he hesitated and showed some uncertainty. Whether his hesitation was due to his concern that maybe there were books there he'd NOT authored, or that some of his earlier writings may not have been as accurate in reflection of his present views – or that with the Emperor watching him he was being faced with a potentially life-ending challenge – we don't know. In any case he was allowed to retire for the day where he reflected on what he was really being challenged by and emerged to stand before the assembly on the morrow were he once again insisted that only Biblical authority would sway him. In a famous and oft quoted line he stated, “My conscience is captive to the Word of God. I will not recant anything, for to go against conscience is neither honest nor safe. Here I stand, I cannot do otherwise. God help me. Amen.”Bold. Courageous. But Charles V was not impressed. He declared Luther an outlaw. He pronounced, “This devil in the habit of a monk has brought together ancient errors into one stinking puddle, and has invented new ones.” Luther had 21 days for safe passage to Saxony before the sentence fell. It never came. Luther was saved from arrest and death by Duke Frederick the Wise, the prince of Saxony whose domains included Wittenberg. The Duke gave Luther sanctuary at his lonely Wartburg Castle. Disguised as a minor nobleman, and given the alias Junker George, Luther stayed for a year. He used the time to translate the New Testament into German, an important first step toward reshaping public and private worship in Germany.