Gregg Quiggle | Martin Luther’s Legacy and the Chaos of Freedom: Reformation, Reform, and the Rise of the Individual

The world is becoming increasingly proficient at telling stories that deny God. As such, we need thinking Christian to become as natural as breathing. Welcome to the Thinking Christian Podcast. I'm Dr. James Spencer. Through calm, thoughtful theological discussions, Thinking Christian highlights the ways God is working in the world and questions the underlying social, cultural, and political assumptions that hinder Christians from becoming more like Christ. Now, on to today's episode of Thinking Christian. Before we start today's episode, I want to take a moment to tell you about usefultogod.com. From online courses to free downloadable study guides, I'm confident you'll find something to help you live faithfully in today's world. You can also check out some of my books, including Christian Resistance, Serpents and Doves, and my most recent contribution, The D.L. Moody Essentials Collection. Coming this fall, we're also running a German Reformation tour. The tour runs from October 30th through November 9th, and we'll be visiting sites from Berlin to Munich. The booking deadline for the tour is May 31st, and spots are filling up fast. If you're interested in learning more about the Reformation, World War II, and Dietrich Bonhoeffer, you can check out the tour at the link in today's show notes. As always, if you find this podcast valuable, take a second to like, share, and leave a positive review. It really does make a difference. And if you haven't yet, subscribe to our YouTube channel for even more content to equip and encourage you. Now... Hey, everyone. Welcome to this episode of Thinking Christian. I'm James Spencer, and I'm joined by Dr. Greg Feigel. He and I, along with Dr. Mike McDuffie, are going to be running a 2005 German Reformation tour this October. You can find more information about that in the link below in the show description. Just encourage you to check that out. We're looking for folks to register, and I think the deadline for registration is May 31st. And so if you're interested in going to Germany and touring around and seeing a lot of the World War II as well as the Reformation sites, I just encourage you to check out the link, and you can see all the details on the website there as well as how to register. But today what we're going to talk about a little bit are, we're going to link some of the sites we're going to end up seeing about the Reformation with some conversation about the German Reformation, its significance, some of the events that happened. And Greg really is an expert on this. I'm more of a hack. I've been there a couple of times, and so, you know, I'm an Old Testament guy. We didn't ever make it to the Reformation. We barely make it to the New Testament. So Greg, I'm looking forward to this conversation, man. How are you doing? I'm good. How are you, James? I'm good. I'm good. So I, you know, I've been on this tour a few different times. I feel like I've gotten the tour probably three or four times in the last, I don't know, eight years. And I always look forward to going back. But tell us a little bit about what we're going to go see that's Reformation-related. Yeah, well, one of the places we'll start is where you could argue that the entire Reformation started, and that's Wittenberg in Germany, which is south of Berlin, somewhere between 60 and 90 miles. I always mix up miles and kilometers. You know how that goes. And Wittenberg is the town where Luther went public with a lot of his ideas, and he ends up spending the bulk of his life there. And so it's in Wittenberg that Luther first articulates the ideas that are central to the Reformation, but he's also going to develop them, work them over. And what we'll see there are the home where he lived, which actually, interestingly, is an Augustinian monastery where he had served as a monk. And, of course, when he becomes a Protestant, that whole thing sort of falls apart. He ends up with the monastery, of all things. And it becomes sort of, for lack of a better term, a think tank for early Protestants. Lots of people come there. They're interacting with Luther. They're working through these new ideas. So there's Luther's home, and then we will visit the first Protestant church, which is St. Mary's, down the street about a quarter of a mile from Luther's home, is the first Protestant church, and that's the village church, St. Mary's. And then we will go to the castle church, the university church. The castle church is probably most famous because this is where Luther in 1517 posted the 95 Theses, which many people consider the formal beginning of the Reformation. So the first Protestant church, the first Protestant parish, and the place where the first Protestant ideas are posted publicly in that sense. So it's pretty significant. And the other thing, if I can just continue briefly here, is if you've ever been to Rome or just seen Rome on TV, you know the size of the Vatican. And by the way, they were building that during this time. Well, Wittenberg is kind of, I like to call it sort of a spit town in the middle of nowhere. It's about one, maybe two streets, about a mile long. And it's stunning that this little backwater town really functionally changes the world. So for those of us that are Protestant Christians, for those of us that have the Bible in our own language, all these kinds of things really have their origins in Wittenberg. And those are the places we're going to visit. So let me ask you a couple of questions about some of the dynamics here, because I just find this period of history really interesting. I had a conversation with another lady who was on the podcast here just a few days ago. And one of the things we talked about was the transition from Catholicism to Protestantism and the way that Protestants, you know, this would have been a pretty liminal shift for them because everything Luther essentially has as a monk is going to be Catholic-centered. It's going to be Catholic-supported. And so there's an infrastructure there for Catholics and for this sort of religious lifestyle that he's leading, you know, studying theology, essentially kind of being a town pastor is the way I picture it. Maybe that's incorrect, but that's kind of what I get the feel of it as, you know, he's sort of stationed at Wittenberg by the Catholics. And so when he begins to break away, how does that change the dynamics of just simple, like, more pragmatic things like funding? Like, who owns what? You know, who gets this stuff? Like, how did that all work? That's a very good question, and it's a very complicated question. So, technically, he is serving the Catholic Church, but he's also serving in an electorate, which is an area. Germany was technically controlled by a guy called the Holy Roman Emperor. And this goes back to a guy named Charlemagne in the year 800, who's trying to reestablish the Roman Empire, but this time it's going to be centered in Germany, France, rather than Italy. So we have this Holy Roman Empire, and we have this church and state sort of combo going. And the emperor is chosen by a collection of electors. Those are princes who have areas under their control. So Luther is in an area that's controlled by an elector called Frederick the Wise. And he has a new university. Wittenberg is a new university. Luther is there not only as a monk, but he's also there as a university professor. So what is happening is it is deriving its sustenance from the elector in that sense. And so the elector is able to provide the wherewithal for the thing to keep going, and he's also able to provide a layer of protection because Luther's eventually going to be condemned as a heretic. And the emperor doesn't send in the army to arrest him. So you do have this new structure where you're still going to have a church and state relationship, but now it's going to be less church and pope because where there are these Protestant churches, then the question is going to be who leads that church, and ultimately what's the relationship of that prince or king or whatever to that local church. So in Luther's case, his elector chooses to protect him and provide financial support. But it also is going to be topsy-turvy in terms of even the legal structure because the church had been run on canon law, and one of the things that Luther does is he gets his students together and they go out. We'll see where he did this. He gets a pile of books that were the basis for how society—

Church worked, and they take them out and burn them. So now, where do we derive social order from? How do we understand the order in which things are going to work, and what he's going to do is he's going to seek to replace that with the Bible, but that's going to take a long time to work its way out, and it's going to work out in different places depending on the particular Protestant that's driving things. Yeah, it's interesting. I think it was the Christianity's most dangerous idea, and I'm blanking on the author right now. It might have been McGrath, but anyway, in that book, they talk about the, I believe it's the peasant revolt that followed the Reformation fairly quickly, and he suggests that, you know, Martin Luther tries to speak into this conversation, and the people who are involved in the peasant revolt are saying, well, who are you to tell us what to do? We're reading the Bible for ourselves. We're going to do whatever we want, and so you do have this sort of chaotic element within Protestantism because what the Catholic Church had done for better and worse, right, was to create an interpretive structure that could manage society, whereas now the Protestants were saying, no, everybody gets to interpret, and there's no ecclesiastical authority exactly over all these people who can exert the sort of restraint, let's say, that the Catholic Church often did. Is that a fair characterization, Greg? It's sort of fair. Luther never believed in the right of private interpretation, nor did Calvin, etc., etc. That's a later idea that Protestants developed, but the fact of the matter is, well, whether Luther likes it or not, he's created it because he's before the emperor, and the emperor, you know, is saying, are you going to conform to what we want you to do, or are you going to be obstinate? You know, are you going to recant of these crazy ideas, or are you going to say no? And he says, literally, my conscience is held captive to the word of God. Popes and councils have erred in the past. Okay, great. What does he say when the next guy says to him, well, yeah, my conscience is held captive to the word of God, too, i.e., the peasants. And so what Luther is trying to do is he's trying not to, well, there's two things here. Number one, he has no intention of starting a new church. He wants to reform the existing church. Exactly. I think that's an important point of this, right? He's trying to push them to change their ways as opposed to giving in on the convictions that he's seeing in Scripture. He wants them to align with Scripture rather than him saying, I should be able to interpret this myself. We shouldn't read it in an individualized mode that we're kind of used to now. Correct. Yeah, so, I mean, that's a hugely important. It is, by the way, called the Reformation. The word is, it's an attempt to reform, not a rebellion, not a start over from scratch. Now, there are other Protestants who are going to do that, and you mentioned the peasants, that they represent a tradition that's going to say, well, the way to deal with this whole thing is blow it up. And Luther is saying, no, no, it doesn't need blown up. He knows the chaos that will happen if it gets blown up, blown up. It simply needs to be reformed. And so his attempt is to reform it, but you know what? Once that train's out of the station, you know, you're not going to put it back in. And then what happens by the time we get to us, you know, we have philosophical developments like the Enlightenment where we're taught that individuals are autonomous and free and should decide for themselves. OK, well, you put that all in, and what we have is exactly what Luther didn't want. And that is, functionally, we have as many different brands of Christianity as we do readers of the Bible. And Luther was not saying, listen, he's saying there's only one true Christianity. He's simply saying Rome is not it, but when Rome says, yes, we are, now where do we go? And that's where this ball starts rolling. It's really interesting to think about our faith today in terms of that whole complex. Like, to watch how it quickly moved from, let's try to reform the Catholic Church and remain together to almost an extreme form of individualism where it's just me and my Bible, me and my Jesus, me and my, you know. And I think we are starting to, even contemporary culture today, we're starting to fracture even more as we've gone broadcasting, podcasting, video church, all these different things. There's less and less reason for us as individuals to be a part of a community of faith in any real way, shape, or form than I think would have been intelligible, let's say, Martin Luther. Yes. He would have been appalled. To walk down the street and see this many brands of Christianity would have, this would have driven him nuts. So, you know, is he responsible for this? Well, the answer to that is sort of. Once the ball is now, how could he anticipate what's going to happen 200, 300 years later? Well, he can't. But the reality is, once, again, once the train's out of the station, it's, so, you know, Luther said before he died, you can take all the books that I've written, burn them all, they're no good. He was given to hyperbole, by the way. And he said, the only thing I wrote that matters is the shorter catechism. Yes. And what are catechisms? Well, they're functionally hermeneutical tools. If you know the catechism, that, by definition, is going to guide your reading of the Bible. So, for Luther, he believes in a teaching office. He believes, he doesn't even have a problem in principle with a pope as long as it's not some sort of infallible teacher. Right. He certainly does not believe that every Christian has the right to interpret the Bible for themselves, if for no other reason than the Bible itself identifies the teaching office. I mean, you're an expert on the big half of the Bible that nobody reads. Right. As my friend Dan Block says, the first Testament. Yeah. Well, did the ancient Israelites interpret this for themselves? Well, no, there were teachers. You can go and, you know, when the law is being read, there are people that are identified that are explaining it. People are not free to just simply, well, this means this to me. Right. And in the New Testament, we get the office of teacher identified all the time. Well, God isn't stupid. Why is he establishing a teaching office if everybody can do it themselves? And why do we think we should be able to do it ourselves if the Bible says there is such a thing as a teaching office? Yeah. Yeah, yeah. So, I think, yeah. Sorry, go ahead. No, well, so functionally, I'll use my dad, who's now with the Lord. Here's how it worked. He was a Baptist. Well, he was raised Christian Reformed, but he came a Christian and served in a Baptist church his entire adult life. He taught adult Sunday school classes, 50 years. Taught books of the Bible. Every time he got a new, he started a new book, the first thing he would do is go to the pastor, and he would say, tell me which two commentaries to buy. Because he wasn't the pastor. And it was his job to function as a teacher under the teacher. Yeah. Now, that's pretty rare. That doesn't happen very much. Right, right. But I'm not sure my dad wasn't right. Yeah. Yeah. No, definitely. I mean, I, there's this great line. Luther would have liked that. Yeah. You know, I think, I guess I've always been confused about then what Luther meant by the priesthood of believers, but I'm wondering now if, you know, because usually when we talk about the priesthood of believers, we're talking, I'm talking about now, we usually think of it in terms of there is no mediator between us and God, which I think Luther probably did mean that. Yes. But I think then by extension, what we mean by that is that we have a level of autonomy.

on a need to read and understand the scriptures in a way that should be determinative for the way that we live our lives. In other words, it gives us an autonomy. Yeah, I don't, that's obviously not what it meant. There's a great quote in, I think Stanley Hauerwas wrote it in Unleashing the Scriptures. And he says, perhaps the most important duty in today's church is to take the Bible away from everyday Christians. Something like that. I'm paraphrasing. But I mean, you know, his framing is, he's always very provocative, but I think he's probably trying to get at this issue, this idea that there needs to be a structure for understanding and interpreting scripture. There needs to be a teaching office that has not an authoritative teaching, but a wise and guiding teaching. Not one that's unassailable, but certainly one that is respected. Yeah, and that's why, for example, when you look at Luther's catechism, he uses the Apostle's Creed. He uses the Lord's Prayer. I mean, so his whole idea is that I'm not recreating this. I'm not a cult. What I'm doing is trying to show where we've lost our way a bit and trying to correct. So I think in many ways, in that sense, Luther has a lot to teach us. And I think the loss of catechism, because catechism, by definition, James, limits interpretation. If you've been catechized, you, by definition, are not walking to the text neutral, as if anybody walks to the text neutral anyway. And so I think there's a way to be Protestant and commit to the necessity of lay Bible reading and even Bible study, short of Bible interpretation. So you said about the priesthood of all believers. Well, what did Luther mean by that? Well, he basically said, number one, every Christian has all the rights of the priesthood, save one. That's the teaching office. That's why you have clergy. OK, so the purpose, but here's the second part that people don't like. They have all the responsibilities of the priesthood. Oh, I don't like that. You mean I'm responsible to teach my children the faith? Yes. Oh, no, no, no, no. We have a youth pastor. That's his job. Oh, you mean I'm actually supposed to share the gospel with people? No, no, no, no, no. We got a pastor of evangelism. I mean, this is Catholic. I throw my money in the plate and I hire a professional and I show up and I and I it's a spectator sport. This is exactly what Luther hated. The purpose of the clergy is to equip the saints to do the work. The clergy are not supposed to do all the work. They are to equip the saints. That's why the first responsibility of the clergy is teach clergy teach to equip the saints so that they can do the ministry. Clergy do not do the ministry while the saints watch and give money. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So that is a very meaningful distinction that is lost. He is not saying that everybody has the right to interpret the Bible as they see fit. He's saying they have an obligation to do the ministry as they are gifted. And it's the job of the clergy to equip them so they can do what they're called to do with the priesthood of believers. Greg also have been sort of responding against some of the things that were going on in the Catholic Church at the time, the selling of indulgences, those kind of pieces where you're you're kind of sitting back going. The clergy now have become the gatekeepers for one's engagement with God, right? Absolutely. So, I mean, I use the notion of spectator sport. That's exactly what it was. Yeah. On this tour, we'll go into some cathedrals. And you walk in and, you know, where's the juice? Well, the juice is way up front at an altar. And the altar is always raised above where the lay people were. Now, the Catholic Church figured out this isn't a very good idea. So Vatican II, you go into these big cathedrals now and they've pushed the altar down on the same level. But it's, I mean, the old one's still up there. Yeah, yeah. And there were even screens up so that people couldn't even see what was going on up there. The lay people were not even given the cup. It was all in Latin. They had no idea what was going on. In fact, they weren't supposed to know what was going on. It was the responsibility of the clergy to have formed faith. And their responsibility was to have faith in the faith of the clergy. So I show up, I do what I'm supposed to do, and I don't worry about it. It's their job to worry about it. Well, Luther said, that's nuts. Let me ask you a serious question. If something triggered a major market drop in the coming months, would your retirement be ready or exposed? With inflation, market volatility, and ongoing global uncertainty, more families are taking a closer look at whether their retirement plan is truly built to hold up. And many are finding that adding a layer of protection makes a lot of sense. 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And this is part of the reason why he wanted to have those things translated into German, have a liturgy that people could understand, get rid of the canon law because that's someone else's faith. This is what you're being told to do. You know, am I overreading that? I'm not sure he would see canon law as the cause of that, but he would certainly say that is what has happened. And that is not biblical Christianity. Lay people are essential to the life of the church. I'll say that again. Lay people are essential to the life of the church. Their work matters. Their work is a form of worship. So he says, God is as glorified by the shuffling of manure as he is by preaching a sermon. God is as glorified by the changing of diapers as he is by preaching a sermon. So that what he does is he says, all of life is sacred. Everything you do is to be done heartily as unto the Lord. And all of your life is Christian. You're serving God when you shovel manure out of the street. You're serving God when you change your baby's diaper. And you also have things that you are called to do that we historically see as more sacred, like praying, like reading the Bible to your family, teaching the Ten Commandments to your children, things like this. One of the things he does do that's critical that we've lost in Protestantism is he establishes what becomes known as the family altar. For years, where was the faith taught? It was taught by the father to his family at the dinner table. And he did it through the catechism. And that's why the most important thing I've learned everything else except the shorter catechism because the fundamental place of religious instruction is first and foremost in the home. And you know where he got that from? That big fat part of the Bible that you know a lot about that most people don't know.

Christians don't know much about where were the Jews instructed in your house. In the home. In the home. And so that's the priesthood of all believers. That's that extension out stuff. That's the lay people are not just spectators. They're at the core of this thing. It's really interesting. Again, you know, this previous conversation I had on the podcast, and I think that episode will air actually later, so I'm not, you know, referencing it specifically, but I think it's here it will air after this one goes out, but I've already had the conversation. One of the things we talked about was this sort of shift from a family-centered emphasis in the Old Testament to a non-family-centered emphasis in the New Testament. And I use emphasis very intentionally because it wasn't as if there was no evangelism and discipleship, we would call it, in the Old Testament. You did have converts to Judaism that didn't come from the covenant communities. And so you could come into the covenant community as an adult, for instance. Rahab and the spies in the early part of Joshua, Rahab is a, you might call her a convert, right? It's probably not the best characterization, but the idea is that she's not part of the covenant community. She's not anybody's, you know, not a Jewish child. She's this outsider who ends up having faith in the Lord. And so she's welcomed into the covenant through her faithfulness toward the spies. In the New Testament, it's not as if you lose that emphasis on family. We see family teaching, you know, multiple of Paul's epistles and, you know, calls to obey father and mother, for fathers to teach their children, for moms to teach their kids. So you still have that emphasis, but there is this subtle shift. And so one of the questions about the Reformation is, you have this weird shift from a clergy, and I'm assuming also of monks, where marriage would not have been an option. Yes. And so you move from celibacy and singleness very quickly to marriage. And I'm wondering if that's driven, I'm wondering what factors contributed to that, Greg. So obviously, just a simple reading of the biblical text sort of can lead you there, right? But there almost had to have been other social factors, am I correct, pushing against this to sort of lead toward the development of families and this emphasis Luther puts on, look, family is the vehicle for pushing this stuff out there. Yeah, that's a good question, James. I haven't thought a whole lot about it. Clearly, it's hard to make a case for celibate clergy. Yeah, right. You do have Paul, who talks about the advantage of singleness in terms of single-mindedness. Right. But the Bible does not describe children as necessary evil. Correct. Nor does it describe marital sexuality as necessary evil, which is, by the way, the way the medieval church thought about it. Yeah. So I think there are a number of factors. One is the simple notion that Luther breaks down this wall between sacred and secular. When he says, you know, God is as glorified by the shoveling of manure as he is by preaching a sermon, that means functionally that one can be a committed Christian and serve God and do it in a way that is different than what the medieval church conceived of. Because clearly, if you're a serious Christian, you're either a monk, a nun, or a priest. At least that's the way it's supposed to work. Right, right. But Luther kind of blows that up when he starts saying, number one, priesthood of all believers, meaning everybody is responsible to do the work of the church. Yeah. And so, you know, I think there's that piece. And then number two, when he starts saying work is a sacred thing, it's a means to glorify and honor God. That fundamentally is going to change how you think about what it means to be a serious Christian. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Where else do we see, you know, we've been talking a lot about Wittenberg and Luther, and I'm assuming there are some other things in Germany that are related to the Reformation. What else would you point to? You mentioned some of the churches, and I think that it's sort of fascinating pulling down the altars, you know, so they're even with the people. Just the way architecture was used in these previous times to really emphasize certain theological points, I think is fascinating. It's unbelievable. Yeah. But what else would we highlight for folks who are going to see on the tour that is related to the Reformation? Well, one of the places we will go is the city of Eisenach, and there is a castle there that Luther hid out in. And this goes to that thing about being protected by certain princes. And that castle is important because it's there that he translates the New Testament into German. And it's not as if he was the first person to do that, but his translation is light years better than anything that had been out there. I mean, a lot of scholars of language will say that the modern English language or the modern German language is really grounded in Luther's Bible. So to put it, to connect it for us, Luther's Bible functions for German the way King James and Shakespeare do for English. So if we talk about the canon of the English language, it's usually the King James Bible and Shakespeare. The canon for the German language is Luther's Bible. So that is critically important because it shows the degree to which he was, number one, protected by certain civil authorities. And number two, it shows how deeply he was committed to get the Bible into the hands of the people. And there are lots of other things that happened in that castle that are really interesting up to and including World War II kind of stuff that, you know, Bonhoeffer, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. Down the hill from the castle is Bach's house. And there's a wonderful little museum there. And really Bach represents Luther's understanding of music. In fact, Protestants are at the cutting edge of what we would today call congregational singing. And it's Protestants that push singing into the people. It's Luther who believes that music is a gift from God and it's to be used as part of the discipling process. So you're pre-media. So how would people entertain themselves? Well, they would entertain themselves by singing. How would they entertain themselves during the day at work? They would sing. And so by writing songs that people could sing that included biblical theological themes, they are being taught the faith. And they also are now, here's the priesthood of all believers again, because now the congregation is not just passive in worship, it is active. The purpose of congregational singing is to let the congregation say something to God and to each other. It's not to demonstrate how great your guitarist is, thankfully. Yeah, it's theoretically. Or how good your, yeah. Or we had an old colleague at Moody that for his PhD did research on volume in evangelical churches. Dave Geiger. Okay, yeah. Yeah, Dave actually did research where he identified the decibel level at which congregations quit singing because the worship band or team got so loud they couldn't hear themselves anyway. Yeah. And he also started documenting hearing damage. Yeah. I lost my hearing, how? By going to church. Going to church. Yeah. But, so, I mean, that's another place where Luther would go ballistic. What are you doing? This isn't about the musicians, it's about the people. And the purpose of music is to let the people express themselves, not to demonstrate how good the people up front are. So it's corporate in that sense. And would there have been people up front? Sorry, as a rejoinder, before you move on from that, would there have been people up front? Because, you know, I grew up in a Lutheran church.

So I'm trying not to sort of anachronistically pull my church architecture back into the Reformation era. But I mean, we didn't have people up front, by and large. Occasional. There was a lady off to the side who was playing piano, but the organ was up top in a, you know, choir loft. If the choir sang, they generally sang from the choir. And you're always oriented forward where the cross, the, you know, the beautiful stained glass, those kind of images are, you're always oriented forward. And even when the pastor is singing up front and he's up there sort of leading the service, he's usually turned around when he sings or he's sitting off to the side so he can't be seen. And so there's all this sort of ritual that goes into it to make sure that the congregation is actually singing to the Lord. That's the symbol that comes out of that. So when they were doing this in Reformation, they're an architectural sort of vibe to this where there isn't somebody up front leading worship in the way that we normally think of it today. Yeah, I mean, they would have done it the way your Lutheran church did it. The model now is entertainment. It's a stage model of entertainment. And so it's very hard to actually concentrate on God because you have these people in your face and, you know, it's hard not to, because it's designed, it's a stage, right? The musicians were hidden. You couldn't see them. I used to have a kind of a joke at Moody. I'd say, I want to come to chapel someday and have the worship band in the balcony. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And then let's just concentrate on what we're singing. Yeah. But, yeah. So, anyway, what Bach does is Bach is going to run a truck through Luther. And what I mean by that is he's going to take this idea about music as sacred and he's going to, you know, that's why he writes at the end of every piece, sola deo gloria, to the glory of God alone. And so you're going to see Bach is the logical conclusion of Luther's approach to music. So we will be there. We'll also be going to Regensburg. Now, Regensburg is interesting because Regensburg is Roman Catholic. And so now you're going to get the sharp contrast. So in Regensburg, you have a cathedral that predates the Reformation. And you're going to see the altar way up there and yada, yada, yada. And across the street, they have a little chapel that was done post-Reformation, and it represents, to some extent, the Catholic church's response to Luther. And it's political. And it's political because they are making statements with gold and marble. And so you've been in there. When you walk in the door, nobody goes, well, this is boring. What an ugly place this is. Well, it's different than any other one you see. It's completely different. It's all about power. It's power and glory. And it's dedicated to the Virgin Mary. And she's all over the place in there. It's her statue that's up front. And it's gold. And I mean gold like you've never seen before. And your jaw drops. Everybody, your jaw just drops. And that's the point. Yeah, those little guys up in Wittenberg in their nincompoop little town. This is where the power is, baby. This is where the juice is. Look at this, man. What do they got? They got some dump little deal, you know, their little St. Mary's. Boom. This is where it's at. St. Peter's is the same way in Rome. When you go to St. Peter's, you walk down the center aisle. I don't know if you've been to St. Peter's. Oh, it's crazy. Yeah, yeah. And the brass plates in the floor. Have you seen those? It's unbelievable. And the plates are there to show you how much smaller every other church is than this one. Yeah. No, it's unbelievable. I mean, the whole Vatican is opulent and impressive, and, you know, the whole thing is just crazy. I mean, even Sistine Chapel, I was amazed at how big it was. Yeah. I wasn't expecting it to be that large. But yeah, St. Peter's Cathedral, crazy. Just absolutely crazy. Beautiful. The whole point of that is just power. Hey, everyone. Unfortunately, Greg had a little bit of a family emergency, and we had to cut off our conversation a little early. So what you're about to hear is the continuation of our conversation a couple of days later, and we're going to finish up talking about the teaching office in Scripture and the Reformation and some of the things we're going to see on the tour. So enjoy the rest of the episode. Hey, so Greg, we were talking a little bit about the teaching office and Luther's understanding of that teaching office, which I think is almost radically different than what we see today. So can you just kind of summarize maybe his view on that and give a bit of a deeper sense of when we say teaching office, what have we lost in modern day that we maybe should have kept within Luther's vision? Yeah, I think Luther wants Christians to read the Bible, and he wants Christians to study the Bible within reason. What he doesn't want to do is grant every person the right to interpret it, because then what you have is you have as many different versions of Christianity as you do readers. So the right to private interpretation is not what he's arguing for. And that needs to be understood, which is, you know, I mentioned before about that's why he saw the catechism as being so important. The catechism allows an untrained lay father to teach the basics to his family. And in addition to that, it functionally is a hermeneutic because what it's going to do is when you do read the Bible, it's going to, by definition, limit the interpretation. So when you know the catechism, it's like functionally having the pastor sitting there as you're reading the Bible. And so it limits it. And I just finished a course about six months ago I was doing for an oral Bible college in Ghana. We were putting together a class for studying the Bible for people that listen to the Bible, which was interesting because the class we had initially put in place was, you know, geared towards readers. So, you know, it would be things like in this paragraph, what do you think the key idea is? And they're like, what do you mean paragraph? You know, I'm not reading this. I'm listening to this. Well, one of the things that I that I tried to put in place is I don't want these people just opening the Bible and deciding for themselves what it means. So I began by establishing some parameters. You know, here is historic Christianity. You will read the Bible as a Christian, which means you're going to accept the doctrine of Trinity is true. You're going to accept the idea that Jesus is God and man, et cetera, et cetera. And so there are guide rails in reading the text. And I think that's what has been lost. The idea that every person has the right to decide for themselves what the text ultimately means is not what the reformers were about. Because I think when we think about, well, I'll speak for myself. When I think about, you know, priesthood of believers and the democratization of the German text, you know, those kind of things, I automatically go to, oh, Luther wants the individual to read the Bible for themselves. And that's true as far as it goes. But he wasn't thinking an unstructured and unguided reading. What he's looking for is a reading within orthodoxy. And that orthodoxy is structured within the catechism. Is that a fair way of putting it? Yes. And if you think about it, that's almost self-evidently true if you read the Bible. And the reason is because the Bible says there is such a thing as the teaching office, right? It says to some, he has given the office of teaching. Well, why do we need teachers if everybody can interpret it for themselves? I mean, that's kind of one of those self-evident things. So there's a fine distinction between devotional reading of the Bible and reading the Bible.

interpreting it. Those are two very different things. And all Protestants are in favor of devotional reading and application in that sense, but they're not in favor of every lay person and their brother deciding what the text ultimately means. Let me ask you a serious question. If something triggered a major market drop in the coming months, would your retirement be ready or exposed? With inflation, market volatility, and ongoing global uncertainty, more families are taking a closer look at whether their retirement plan is truly built to hold up, and many are finding that adding a layer of protection makes a lot of sense. Sanctuary Metals is a Christian-owned company that helps families strengthen their retirement savings with physical gold and silver through a gold IRA. During uncertain times, many people look to precious metals as a way to add stability when other assets may be under pressure. If you'd like to explore whether a gold IRA is a good fit for your situation, Sanctuary Metals makes it easy to get started. Text GUIDE to 94878 to receive your free retirement defense guide, or call 888-958-6579 to speak with one of their knowledgeable team members. Again, text GUIDE to 94878 or call 888-958-6579. Yeah. Yeah, and I think that that passage you're citing, and if I recall, it goes on, you know, you gave some to be apostles, some to be teachers. There's more there than that, but some to be apostles, some to be teachers, to equip the saints for ministry, if I'm recalling the rest of that, how that ends. And so there is an ordering of this that we've, I think, to some degree, lost today. It's interesting, I was putting together a piece on false teachers. Maybe I'll link to that in the description, but when I was putting this piece together, I was saying, I was talking about a gentleman who was on a panel with me, and he started sort of citing these various scriptures and making an argument from the Bible that was clearly wrong. And he was doing it in a very sincere fashion. He was doing it, I don't think he was trying to mislead people. I just sat back and I'm like, there's something wrong here. And I think after our conversation in the last recording, I came back and I said, well, the problem is he's not a teacher. He's teaching, but he's not a teacher. And so he's interpreting the scripture for people, but shouldn't be. Yeah. Right. And it's like, wow, that's, you know, when we, when we think about what's going on in scripture and we're saying, you know, being an overseer is a, is an important thing. Being a teacher is an important thing. These are the areas that we really have to be careful with because the reality is that it's easy to get it wrong and it really is easy to get it wrong. If you're not disciplined about it, if you're not, if you're not steeped in it, even if you are, I'm sure I get it wrong a lot, but I think that the training and discipline over the years, right. Sort of keeps you in the guard rails and gives you a little bit of savvy, you know, to keep from overstating, to keep from, you know, just serving your own argument, if that makes sense. Yes. And, and a corollary to that, James, is the loss of the value of ordination. Because the whole purpose of ordination was that you don't just turn everybody and their brother or sister, depending on your tradition, loose on people with a Bible. The purpose of ordination is that they are to have been examined and thus they are approved. And because of this, it's kind of like nobody, you know, that when I was a kid, there was the underwriters laboratory, the UL stamp on electrical things. You know, this was safe because it had the underwriter laboratory stamp on it. Approved by. And since that's been gone, and this is the downside to technology, anybody and their brother can stick out a podcast, get on the radio, yada, yada, yada. And who, who is this person? By what authority are they speaking? Who has approved them? And, and there there's, there's no limits. There's no rails. There's no control. And that's, that's the downside of those sorts of things. And I think that's, um, I think it's wonderful that the teaching of scripture has spread as broadly as it has. I think the lack that the lack of controls has created all kinds of problems. Yeah. You know this, you can hear any nut and their brother or sister just flip through the radio or go online. There's all kinds of craziness. It's insane. And I think there's also, I, I struggle with this a bit, right? So my wife and I go to a general Baptist church, um, but I wouldn't say that I, uh, there's any accountability that that tradition exercises over anything that I'm doing. And so there is a way in which, um, I'm having to hold myself accountable and build accountability structures apart from a denomination, church, something, even as we're having these type of conversations or I'm doing, you know, other writing or teaching outside of this. That is a very, like I said, I'm really uncomfortable a lot of times when I'm doing it. Um, because number one, you, you can tend to drive a conversation that doesn't need to be driven. Uh, I remember, you know, um, one of the ones I remember is the whole fresh fire problem. Um, I think it was John MacArthur or strange fire by John MacArthur, I think is what it was. And all of a sudden everybody's talking about, you know, speaking in tongues and gifts of the spirit and all these things. And you're like, all these poor local church pastors probably didn't want to address any of this. It was completely unnecessary for their context. But this guy who's got a big platform, put this book out. And so now for marketing purposes, everybody has to have this conversation. It's like, there's an unnecessary conversation probably for 90% of the people who are having it. And so I'm always very wary, uh, of trying to think through what sort of conversations could I potentially be driving that really don't need to be had. And, you know, that aside from just being wrong, I think there's that other side of it that it's like, you have no real coordination here. And so you could potentially create chaos. Whenever you want. Well, we have, we have created chaos. Yeah. I mean, that's, that's the reality. And the reality is on the other side of this, you know, it's not MacArthur's fault or, or pick any of these guys. Right. The fact of the matter is they are vastly more gifted than 99% of the local pastors. And so the local guy can't compete. Right. So, you know, I can turn on the radio and listen to some of the best preachers in the world. Well, that sure makes it tough for my guy on Sunday morning. Yeah. And then the next step is, well, I don't even need to go on Sunday morning because I can listen to X, Y, and Z on Thursday or Sunday morning instead. And I get so much more out of it, yada, yada, yada. Right. And again, I'm not opposed to, uh, preachers on the radio, but I am saying There's unintended consequences of these things. So to link it back to the reformation, there's an unintended consequence that Luther is creating. Yes. The unintended consequence is every, every person is going to say, well, now my conscience is held captive to the word of God. So once you break with the papacy, which I think they needed to do, then what do you create? And, and this is, this is what I call the Protestant irony. And that is the thing that unites us is the thing that divides us. And that is the Bible. We all say the Bible, not the Pope. The problem is we can't agree on what the Bible. So, so the thing that unites us is the thing that divides us. Yeah. And so you got 9 million kinds of Protestants and everybody has the right to decide for themselves exactly what the text means. And because we can't agree, we, you know, well, I'm going to go down the street, start another version and I'm why? Because I think you ought to be baptized frontwards instead of backwards. Or because I read this text and I think that means this and, and therefore, and there, there are no limits, which this would all drive Luther nuts. But once that train leaves the station, who's going to stop it. And, and this is, this is the traditional Catholic argument. And they're right in that sense. But my. My flip side is.

I'm a Protestant for the reasons that, you know, Churchill said democracy is the best worst system. I'm not a Protestant because it's perfect. I'm a Protestant because I'd rather have my problems than their problems. Yeah. And but it does no good for us to say this isn't a problem. It is a problem. I find it really interesting to think back on Luther. And I will say, you know, as I've each time I go back to Germany, I think I get a better sense of what's going on here because I think it's very easy for us to read the Reformation through the eyes of an individualistic, you know, individual rights sort of American perspective. And I think that there is a sense in which, you know, as we see people just sort of break off, like you were saying, oh, I'm going to go start this church because I want to be baptized forward, not backwards. There's a sense in which they feel like they have the right to do that and a theological right, they might say, to do that, a Christian right to do that. And it's like, well, you know, if we go back to the Reformation, I don't think Luther was trying for radical individualism. He was really trying to reform, number one, the Catholic Church, which wouldn't reform, and that necessitated a break. But then even after the break, he's not looking for everybody just to do their own thing. He just didn't have the oomph to build a structure that could replace the Roman Catholic Church. And so without that structure, what you get is that bifurcation. Yes, and this is precisely why he comes out against the peasants, because the peasants say, well, this is great. Luther believes in priesthood of all believers. And these guys have been oppressing us, and God's on the side of the small guys. And so we need to overthrow the church and the state. And Luther comes out and says, no, heaven forbid, stop this. But again, that is, to one extent, the kind of inevitable conclusion one can draw when you listen to him. And so all these guys have the same problems. You get more and more of these splinter groups as this develops. More and more of these splinter groups come along and say, I don't buy it. I don't buy that there needs to be. Therefore, I'm going to do, you know, we're going to sing Frank Sinatra. We're going to do it our way. Right. And they do, and they kill each other about it because they understand what's at stake. Right. But, yeah, and Europe will never be the same. The Western world will never be the same. The world will never be the same because of that. Yeah. It's such a fascinating problem, I think. One of the things that I noticed when I was studying early America and the way the Bible was used in early America, you know, Mark Knoll's got amazing stuff on this. He's got some really fantastic work on it. But one of the things that stands out pretty prominently is the application of the Exodus to the Revolutionary War and the application of the Exodus to both sides of the Civil War, obviously. That kept coming back. And so in the peasant revolt, it's interesting to see that there's almost like a proto or a very early liberation theology here that God's preferential treatment for the poor becomes a rallying cry to get exactly what we'd like to get out of society, as opposed to looking at something like a 1 Corinthians 7. Right. Remain as you are called. And what Paul is urging there, I don't think, is just, hey, just stay exactly where you are. Never try to get out of it. But I think what he's saying there is your social situations don't need to change in order for you to be faithful to the Lord. And so this radicalism toward revolution is a problem for Christianity. It is not the fruit of Christianity. It's not the fruit of good theology, is sort of the way I would think of it. Well, there's another major issue about how do we understand what it means to be a faithful Christian in the public square? You've alluded on several occasions to Germany. And if there's, you know, the ultimate test case of this is, of course, Germany. Excuse me. With the rise of National Socialism and the stunning silence of the church in the face of Adolf Hitler. Right. And so there's the other side of the argument. Well, we need to stay out of social stuff. That's none of our business. We just need to obey the king to da, da, da, da, da, da, da. And we'll be quiet. And one of the major issues for Christianity throughout its history has been how do we understand what our social obligations are? And what does it mean to faithfully live out socially, politically, culturally, our faith so that it isn't just personal and there isn't a radical distinction between secular and sacred? Yeah. Well, and that it does carry through. I mean, you see, we're planning on doing an episode on the Barmen Declaration, but we do run into that when we're over in Germany, you know, where you have this group of theologians essentially redefining that exact relationship. And one of the things I always liked about Barmen is they have the false thesis that they're going to sort of contradict or they're going to reject the false thesis and they're going to affirm something else. But I think they lay out fairly clearly that the church and the state need to remain distinct and that the church has its own role to play in the world. It's slightly different than the two kingdom theology of Lutheranism, but I think it is a fascinating way. And especially as we're headed over to Germany, this stuff comes up an awful lot. And it does have almost a... It's eerily, I think, relevant to America in any age. I don't think specific to this age, but I think in any age, the church needs to understand that it is distinct from the state and that that distinction actually matters. That it matters that the church exists. That it matters that the church does what it does and that it matters that you can tell the difference between the church and everyone else. It actually matters. And I suppose you boil Barmen down. That's almost what Barmen is. Right. Yes. And but yet in that context, to put it in the United States, you have Martin Luther King Jr.'s letters from the Birmingham jail. 100%. Who are these people? I don't understand them. They go to their churches. They sit in their mowed lawns and they say nothing. And so there's the rub. There's the issue. There's the tension. And this is where Luther, you know, says maybe the peasants are being mistreated. That doesn't give them the right to overthrow the government. In fact, it is the obligation of the government to take up arms against these peasants and do whatever it needs to do to put down this rebellion. So it's very interesting. Really interesting. Yeah, I don't know. As much as I've sort of studied it and tried to figure it all out, I think that what I've kind of come down to is it is a highly contextualized way of national living within the midst of a nation is a highly contextualized issue. And I don't think there's any one way of doing it. We couldn't pin it down and say, this is what it looks like to be the church. And it's this sort of static thing that every time you think about it, you're going to do that. I always look back on the life of David and think about how he had no problem going out to battle against Goliath, but he spares Saul in the cave. And he had different reasons and a different rationale for doing both of those. Abram's tithe to Melchizedek versus rejecting the author of the King of Sodom to take the spoils of war in Genesis 14. Very different motivations for each of those decisions. But I think that's the sort of wisdom that we need to develop as we're saying, it takes this to be the church. Yes, because the political and social contexts are radically different. So, yeah, you can't go into the 16th century and pull it across because we live in a participatory democracy. Well, a democratic republic. What does, how does that work? And it's a secular state. Yeah. It is. The Constitution makes that clear. Government of the people, by the people, for the people. Right. It derives its authority from the will of the people. This is not divine right to rule. Yeah. So there's, so what does, how do we understand what it means?

be a good citizen. And how do we understand what it means to be a good Christian in that kind of world? Because that's a different world. Yeah, yeah. When do I exert my rights? Paul wasn't afraid at times to say, hey, hey, wait a minute, buddy, I'm a Roman citizen. Right. When is it OK to say, hey, hey, I'm a U.S. citizen. I got rights here. Yeah. Yeah. It's a really interesting dynamic, man, because I mean, I think, you know, when you look at the context of the Barmen Declaration and the pressures that were being put on not only society at that time by the Nazi Party, but also just the church's acquiescence to those pressures. I think the Barmen Declaration stands out strong to say we're in danger of losing what the church is actually supposed to be in this moment. We need to reclaim this. I think we could say the same thing for other nations where we sit back and you go, well, you know, you mentioned Martin Luther's letters or Martin Luther King Jr.'s letters, not Martin Luther, but Martin Luther King Jr.'s letters. And it's like maybe consumerism is another thing Mark Knoll talks about in his, you know, Civil War is a theological crisis. There were two problems facing the United States, slavery and rampant consumerism. We dealt with the one to a large degree. We haven't ever dealt with the other. And so we've got these different pressures, but all of them require us to be uniquely Christian and to respond in unique Christian ways within the context that we're placed. So I think Germany does offer sort of that. I don't know, would you say it offers that sort of very clear, relatively recent paradigm that's a little easier for us to grab hold of, right? We understand a little bit more about World War II, you know, to a large extent. And so it sort of makes more sense to us. Yes, and to be perfectly honest, it's always easier to talk about somebody else than it is yourself. And so it's case study. It's case study we have some understanding of. Good word. It's case study that we can distance ourselves emotionally from a little bit. Yep. And at the same time, that provides opportunities for us to develop wisdom. And then the next question is courage, and that is, can we swing the sword both ways? Because it's easy to sit there and say, these Germans were, you know, but the next step is, how does any of this apply to me? How do we pull it over? That's right. How do we pull it over? How does that sword cut in my world, in my life? What does the Barmen Declaration have to do with me, the choices that I'm making, the political context in which I live, my ability to be discerning rather than knee-jerk? Right. My ability to differentiate between raw patriotism and allegiance to the kingdom, all these kinds of things that take, that's hard. That's just hard work. Yeah. But Germany is a great place to do it. Plus, you get to eat pretzels and schnitzel while you're doing it. I'm not going to complain about that at all. Which is, you know, yeah. I mean, that's just... It makes the whole thing more enjoyable, really. Yes. And I haven't even mentioned strudel, which is also part of the deal. Einstein's apple strudel. That's correct. Right off the Unterden Linden in Berlin. The competing sausage sandwiches in Regensburg and Nuremberg. Yes. I mean, you know, there's a lot there. You want to talk about, you know, a battle. The Regensburg... Yes, the world's oldest bratwurst and you can have a hot dog from a place that was doing it from the 1100s or something like that. And not to mention the Danube River. So yeah, I mean, obviously, I think it's God's will for everyone's life that's listening to go to Germany with us. This is based on my personal... This is based on my personal interpretation of the Bible. Without any reference to the teaching office. But no one should disagree with it. That is correct. I'll say, man, this has been a great conversation. I think I do learn more. You know, Reformation wasn't something I keyed on in any of my work, but I do really enjoy learning about it and understanding that context. Even being there, I think is fantastic. And so my encouragement to everybody would be if you have even just an inkling, a little itch about whether you want to go and see some of these sites. This is by bar none my favorite trip I've ever taken. I've been to Israel. I got a chance to spend some time in Ireland, which is a really beautiful place. It's great. But Germany, I mean, I've gone back there on vacations, right? I've taken my wife on our own and I've given her the worst possible nickel tour ever. But, you know, it is seriously my favorite trip. And so I can't endorse it enough to go and check these things out. I'll put the link to the tour in the show description. So if you want to see it, if you want to go to the website, find some more information, check it out. Deadline for signing up is coming up soon. Spots are limited. And so I just encourage you, if you are interested, hop on, check it out and you get more in-context teaching as well as a food tour while you're going over there. That's totally worth it. And we would be remiss if we didn't mention the third person, which is our colleague, Michael McDuffie. Absolutely. Michael has taught numerous, he's team-taught courses on the Holocaust with a Messianic Jew who had relatives that were murdered at Auschwitz. And Michael also is probably one of the most thoughtful people that I know in terms of thinking through politics, in terms of theological commitments. And Michael did his dissertation on secularism in Germany. He lives in Germany now. He's married to a German. So, you know, James and I are kind of a couple knuckleheads, but Mike is really gifted. Yeah. I really think it's a unique opportunity because James brings a biblical spin to this. I'm a kind of a Reformation guy. And Mike does the Holocaust and the political theological side. And as James has mentioned, Germany's astonishing. Berlin is astonishing. It's unbelievable. It's just unbelievable. So, again, we know God's will for your life. It's just a matter of you bending your will to the Lord's will or bending your knee to the Lord's will. No, I appreciate you mentioned Michael, man. Yeah, he's a great addition. And like I said, link is in the show description. I really encourage you to check it out. I think it's going to be a fantastic trip. And looking forward to doing it this fall. So, Greg, thanks for this conversation, man. This is always a pleasure to get together and talk Reformation with you. And we'll close the episode out there. But thanks, everybody, for being here. Thanks for listening. And we'll catch you on the next episode of Thinking Christian. Just want to take a second to thank the team at Life Audio for their partnership with us on the Thinking Christian podcast. If you go to lifeaudio.com, you'll find dozens of other faith-centered podcasts in their network. They've got shows about prayer, Bible study, parenting, and more. Looking for inspiration and uplifting stories of faith? Welcome to the Jesus Calling Stories of Faith podcast, now available on Life Audio. Join us each week for heartfelt conversations and personal stories from people from all walks of life that will inspire you and lift your spirit. Whether you're seeking comfort, motivation, or just a moment of peace, the Jesus Calling Stories of Faith podcast offers a beautiful reminder of faith and hope. Listen to the Jesus Calling Stories of Faith podcast on lifeaudio.com or wherever you find your podcasts.