I will meditate on Your precepts, And contemplate Your ways.
I will delight myself in Your statutes; I will not forget Your word.
(Psalms 119:15-16 NKJV)
We note October 31 as Halloween, but on the last day of October, Protestants celebrate what is known as Reformation Day.
On October 31, 1517, Martin Luther nailed his famous Ninety-five Thesis to the door of All Saints Church in Wittenberg, Germany. It protested the Catholic Churches’ selling of indulgences and is generally recognized as the start of the Protestant Reformation.
He was brought before the Diet of Worms for this act and other writings to recant his heresy. He responded, “My conscience is captive to the Word of God. I cannot, and I will not retract anything since it is neither safe nor right to go against conscience. Here I stand. I cannot do otherwise. God help me. Amen.” Luther held to the principle that if it is not in the Bible, it should not be a doctrine of the Church. When the precepts of the Church become man-made, and you hold to the supremacy of God’s Word, it always gets you in trouble, as it did to Luther, who was eventually excommunicated from the Catholic Church.
The elevation of human wisdom above the Bible is not just a Catholic thing. Since the Reformation, some Protestant churches and denominations have followed their church rules and by-laws over biblical truth. The result is to allow practices and lifestyles sanctioned by the Church that the Bible calls sin. It happens whether we are Protestant or Catholic if we stray from Luther’s sola scriptura, scripture alone as a basis for our faith.
We can learn much about why Luther became a pivotal figure in Church history through one of his quotes. “The Bible is a remarkable fountain: the more one draws and drinks of it, the more it stimulates the thirst.” There is an inverse relationship between physical and spiritual food. The less we ingest physical food, the hungrier we get. The more we take in spiritual food, God’s Word, the hungrier we get. Therefore, ignoring Bible reading and prayer may be our two greatest sins in the Church today.
Father, make us more and more captive to the Word of God. Amen.
Image with permission from Microsoft.
Ken Barnes, the author of “The Chicken Farm and Other Sacred Places” YWAM Publishing and “Broken Vessels” KDP
Ken’s Website— https://kenbarnes.us/
Ken blogs at https://kenbarnes.us/blog/
Email- [email protected]
