Luther's 95 Theses

When I was in grad school, I really wrecked my eyes from all of the required reading. So, I made an agreement with myself: I will only read serious stuff. Anything that I "read" for relaxation or enjoyment I'll consume in an audio format. 

I watch almost no TV. We don't have cable or satellite. We haven't been to a movie for years. In fact, I can't remember the last movie we've been to.

For relaxation, I consume a ton of popular fiction. I love Michael Connelly. Sadly, he only comes out with about a book a year. David Baldacci is okay and he's very prolific. I like some of Harlan Coben's stuff. I love Robert B. Parker, but he's been dead for ten years. Parker's family hired people to continue the Spenser, Jesse Stone and Sonny Randal series and some of those books are okay. Occasionally, I'll enjoy Lisa Scottoline, mostly because the novels are nearly always set in Philadelphia or eastern Pennsylvania. There was a time I nearly lived off of John Grisham novels, but for about the last 15 years, most of his stuff has essentially been sermons you'd expect to hear in a mainline liberal Protestant church, and, so, he irritates me more often than not. 

I've very rarely broken my rule not to actually read fiction. 

And, until now, I've never, ever broken my rule about reading serious stuff. 

However, I saw that my local library has Eric Metaxas' biography of Martin Luther on audio. So, I put it on hold in May. It just became available. It's 21 hours on audio, read by the author, which, usually, is a disaster, but Metasas reads well.

I didn't know how listening to something as serious as a book like this would go. The book is deep. I've, of course, been required to read a lot of books like this over my many years...and Metaxas is very deep. 

I'm about five or six hours into the book and he's already used a handful of words I don't know the meaning of.  But, it's an awesome book. Metaxas is an excellent historian. He concerns himself with things Evangelicals care about.

Anyway, to the point...

He, of course, addresses the 95 Theses and I've learned some things I didn't know. 

One is that by posting the document on the door of the church in Wittenberg, he was doing what scholars did to invite interested people to join in a debate. Nothing new there. 

What didn't I know? 

Not one person showed up for that debate.

If Luther had not sent a letter to his (corrupt?) archbishop, the 95 Theses would have gone nowhere. 

I learned one other significant fact from the book, and I learned it because this is an audio book. 

I've had the assignment of reading the 95 Theses in several courses I've taken. They're tedious. Every time I read them, I'd get to number 15 or 20 or so, and my mind would begin to drift. But, having to listen to them, one after another, made it much easier for me to pay attention and absorb their significance to the end of the list. 

One myth that some people accept is that the 95 Theses detail Luther's conviction that salvation is by faith, or that they have to do with Luther's foundational theological notions, sola scriptura, sola fidei and sola gratia. They don't. 

All of these things actually came later for Luther.

The 95 Theses are entirely about Luther's opposition to the sale of indulgences. 

What I learned, though, because I was listening an audio book, is how the ideas of grace and faith, especially, were becoming convictions for Luther. Several of his 95 arguments against the sale of indulgences were connected, particularly to the importance of faith. Interestingly, I recall only one Scripture reference in the text of the 95 Theses as Metaxas read them.

It was through the process of defending the 95 Theses that all of the theological principles which launched the Reformation emerged in his thinking. Within four years, Luther was proclaiming salvation by faith, grace, the authority of Scripture and, interestingly also, the bondage of the will.

I've obviously got a long way to go in the book. But, I know this one thing, and it's very much in my mind.

On the day that the Church of God formed in 1830, our founders called for "another great Reformation."

It was when that when we pursued something beyond what Luther started that we were being blessed. 

As a person of the Church of God, who yearns for our body to return to the faith and passions of our founders, this study of the beginnings of the Reformation includes reflection on how the Reformation failed.

Oh, that we could be like the people of the Church of God who walked in the blessing of the Spirit, even to the degree that we could live in pursuit of "another great Reformation!"