Feb. 12, 2026
Luther’s 95 Theses: What He Meant to Do—and What Actually Happened
The player is loading ...
In this episode of our German Reformation series, Dr. James Spencer and Dr. Greg Quiggle linger in Wittenbergbefore the Diet of Worms and Wartburg Castle to unpack the moment everyone knows—but few understand: Luther’s 95 Theses.
Greg begins with the real backstory: indulgence-selling tied to the fundraising machine behind the rebuilding of St. Peter’s Basilica and a chain of financial incentives involving an ambitious archbishop, borrowed money, and a gifted salesman—Johann Tetzel—whose catchy jingle promised liberation from purgatory at the drop of a coin. When Luther’s parishioners return with indulgences in hand, Luther doesn’t set out to start a revolution. He does what academics do: he drafts 95 points for debate and posts them publicly—more like a community bulletin board than a Hollywood act of defiance.
But the moment doesn’t stay local. Two forces amplify it:
- A new technology: the printing press
- A predictable catalyst: students who love promoting their professor
What was intended as a small-town disputation spreads rapidly, lands on the pope’s desk in Rome, and triggers a reaction Luther never expected—one that escalates through excommunication threats, imperial hearings, and eventually Luther’s dramatic stand before the emperor.
James and Greg then trace the chain reaction:
- 1519 (Leipzig Debate): authority begins shifting toward Scripture over popes/councils
- 1520 (papal bull): Luther publicly rejects Rome’s demand to recant
- 1521 (Diet of Worms): Luther expects debate; Rome demands recantation
- Luther requests 24 hours, returns, and refuses to recant unless convinced by Scripture and plain reason
- Luther leaves under “safe conduct,” is “kidnapped” by agents of Frederick the Wise, and hidden at Wartburg Castle as “Knight George”
- In hiding, Luther produces a major turning point: his rapid German New Testament translation
From there, the conversation turns to a crucial clarification often missed today: Luther did not teach modern “private interpretation” as individual autonomy. He wanted Scripture accessible, yes—but not atomized. That’s why catechesisand the teaching office matter: a catechism functions as a faithful constraint that helps the church read Scripture with shared boundaries rather than endless fragmentation.
The episode closes by reframing the word Reformation itself: Luther never intended to create a new church. He aimed to reform the existing one—and the birth of Lutheran Protestant identity becomes, in many ways, an unintended necessity once Rome refuses the correction.
Quotelos Travel offers small, expert-led “Tours for Ten” that provide an intimate and unforgettable way to explore church history and culture with guides who truly know the locations. Learn more at quotelostravelservice.com, and check out their upcoming trips to Germany, England, and Switzerland.
Subscribe to our YouTube channel
🔗 Download a free resource "Making Everyday Decisions So That God Gets the Glory" from Useful to God:www.usefultogod.com
To read James's article on this topic, check out his author page on Christianity.com.
📢 Stay Connected & Keep Growing!
If you enjoyed this episode, be sure to subscribe to Thinking Christian so you never miss an insightful conversation!
This episode is sponsored by Trinity Debt Management. “Whether we’re helping people pay off their unsecured debt or offering assistance to those behind in their mortgage payments, Trinity has the knowledge and resources to make a difference. Our intention is to help people become debt-free, and most importantly, remain debt-free for keeps!" If your debt has you down, we should talk. Call us at 1-800-793-8548 | https://trinitycredit.org/
Discover more Christian podcasts at lifeaudio.com and inquire about advertising opportunities at lifeaudio.com/contact-us.
Transcript
00:00:00
Speaker 1: Hey, everyone, Welcome to Thanking Christian. I'm doctor James Spencer, and I'm glad you're here. In this special series, we're stepping back into one of the most pivotal times in Christian history, the German Reformation. This was a time when the Gospel was being rediscovered, the Church was being challenged, and the course of Western civilization was being reshaped with ripples that still reach into our lives today. And to guide us through this journey, I'm joined by a true expert, someone who doesn't just know the Reformation from books, but from the cobblestone streets and cathedral halls where it actually happened, Doctor Greg Quiggle. Greg is a Reformation historian and the owner and operator of Kotelis Travel, a company that runs what they call tours for ten, intimate travel experiences designed for people who want something deeper than a typical tour. They offer a three to one guest to guide ratio, and these trips give you consistent access to guides who've been on location multiple times, who know not only the history, but also where to find the best able strudal and other German delicacies along the way. You can learn more about Greg and Kotellus at kotellistravelservice dot com. And if this series piques your interest, Greg actually has a German Reformation trip coming up this May, and last I heard, there are still a few seats available. In this series, Greg is going to help us explore the people, places, and theological stakes of the Reformation as well as helping us understand why it still matters for Christians today.
00:01:17
Speaker 2: So let's get started.
00:01:18
Speaker 1: Hey, everyone, welcome back to this episode of Thinking Christian. We're continuing our series on the German Reformation, and we are now moving to the Diet of Verms or toward the Diet of Verms, and ultimately on de Vortburg. But before we get there, we're going to stick around in Wittenburg a little longer and talk to the ninety five Theces. So we reference to the end of the last episode that Luther had written these ninety five thess. Everybody kind of knows about the ninety five Theces. If you know anything about Martin Luther, that's kind of what you know. Justification by Faith ninety five Theces. Ninety five Theces are really interesting. They have a really interesting sort of backstory and it's an actually pretty important to understand what Luther's trying to do and what Luther ends up actually doing. So, Greg, why don't we start with He's going to nail these ninety five feces to the door of the church in the town. What's Luther trying to stir up here when he's doing that?
00:02:15
Speaker 3: Yeah, well, the backstory is the selling of indulgences. So you know we've gone over indulgences before, but the backstory for this one is interesting and I always used to explain it to my students at Moody this way. Sometimes churches go wacky when they get into building programs. So you may be familiar with this insignificant little church building enrollm It's called Saint Peter's, small little place in the Vatican City.
00:02:51
Speaker 1: Don't know nothing ornate about it at all.
00:02:54
Speaker 2: That's right.
00:02:55
Speaker 4: It's a multi purpose building.
00:02:57
Speaker 3: You know, they have a wan of clubs in there and then they set up chairs for Sunday.
00:03:03
Speaker 2: Yeah.
00:03:03
Speaker 3: Well, so you know, if you're going to hire Michelangelo and sons and et cetera, this is gonna cost a lot of money. So they want to build this church and they need money. And there's the archbishop who wants to buy who wants to be the archbishop of Mines. And he's not supposed to be able to be the archbishop of two places at once.
00:03:30
Speaker 2: But he.
00:03:32
Speaker 3: Goes to the Pope, and the Pope says, all right, I'll cut you a deal if you will give me this amount of money because I needed to pay to get this church built. I'll let you be the archbishop of I believe it's Mines. Okay, fair enough. So he comes back and he says, well, I don't have the money, okay, well you can borrow it from the fuguer bankers. Okay, Well, how am I going to pay him back? I got this great idea. I'll let you sell indulgence okay, And I got a very good salesman. His name is Johan Tetzel. He's a Dominican.
00:04:10
Speaker 2: Here we go.
00:04:11
Speaker 3: They're a teaching order he's got, and he's selling these things, and he's even got a jingle. As soon as the wrong a coin in the coffer do ring another soul from purgatory doest spring. So he starts going around selling these things to make money so they can pay off this loan. That you see how the story goes, Okay, So he's going around and he ends up in a not in Wittenberg, but a town close to Wittenberg selling these things. So some of Luther's parishioners go there and buy them. They come back and show them to it. Well, Luther is just he thinks this is ridiculous. He thinks the Pope doesn't know this is happening.
00:05:02
Speaker 4: So he.
00:05:05
Speaker 3: Does what academics do, and they you know, we need to debate these things, and we need to have a conversation about them in yad, YadA YadA. So he writes out ninety five points of debate, ninety five assertions, ninety five thesises that I believe you.
00:05:25
Speaker 2: Know ding ding ding ding ding, And these.
00:05:28
Speaker 3: Are points that he is asserting that he's willing to debate.
00:05:34
Speaker 4: Is the way this works.
00:05:38
Speaker 3: There's some debate about whether or not he actually nailed them on the door of the castle church. I personally think he probably did. But he puts these on a door on this church. It's kind of like a forum board and be like Facebook today, except it's obviously in the town of Wittenberg, which is a very small little town. He's going to have this debate. Well, two things happen. Number one, there's this new technology called printing press. Number two, he has students. Students like to popularize their professor. So somehow these things get printed and translated and sent all over the place, to the point that one of them ends up a copy of them ends up literally on the Pope's desk in Rome. This does not go well, and so Luther is called to defend himself.
00:06:48
Speaker 4: Thus the ball starts rolling.
00:06:51
Speaker 3: So what he has done is he's written these things saying this selling adulgence in dulgs is.
00:07:03
Speaker 4: Not a good thing. People.
00:07:04
Speaker 3: Should you know he's saying, among other things, who can say whether the pope has power over purgatory? And if he does, you should empty the place for free rough paraphrase, among other things, which, of course you know that cuts the fundraising off.
00:07:22
Speaker 2: It goes over like a blood balloon, like a lead balloon.
00:07:26
Speaker 3: And then there's all kinds of other stuff, and you know, it's technical stuff that you have to read in multiple encyclopedia is to understand the details of all this kind of stuff.
00:07:37
Speaker 2: But and I mentioned.
00:07:39
Speaker 3: Before in the previous broadcast about it starts off with Pennance when our Lord and Savior said repent. He didn't mean two penance. He meant the entire life of the Christian is to be one of repentance, et cetera, et cetera. And he goes through a variety of these things, ninety five of these things.
00:08:00
Speaker 1: And they all do tend to swirl around that penance, indulgences, purgatory like that sort of arenas. We're all ninety five of them. Some are more granular, some of them are more more top level, but they all tend to hover around those major topics.
00:08:17
Speaker 3: Right, So there's not like the Joshua lived by faith alone or.
00:08:21
Speaker 2: Anything like that.
00:08:22
Speaker 3: It's mostly around purgatory, questions of authority, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. So this thing becomes what was supposed to be a nice little bait debate in a little town.
00:08:35
Speaker 4: And if it Burgh is a it's.
00:08:37
Speaker 3: A spit town in the middle of nowhere, it's still a spit town in the middle of well, the old city. It's really about three streets and each one's about a mile.
00:08:48
Speaker 1: Long, right, I mean it's extended a little more modern day, but it's still not a booming metropolis.
00:08:54
Speaker 2: Right. Yeah.
00:08:54
Speaker 3: So this was when if you've ever been to Rome and then you go to Wittenberg, You're like, you got to be kidding.
00:09:02
Speaker 2: Me, so uh.
00:09:06
Speaker 3: You know, it'd be like Peoria, Illinois turning New York City upside down. So this is this is what happens. Actually, Peru Illinois would.
00:09:19
Speaker 2: Be better there you go, yeah, yeah.
00:09:21
Speaker 3: Or Sycamore, Illinois or you know Booger Hollow, Arkansas turning New York City on its head.
00:09:30
Speaker 4: So so it.
00:09:32
Speaker 3: And it just explodes and and Luther becomes a major figure because he's gonna upset the apple cart and people understand he's gonna upset the apple cart. Was that his intent? No, but that's functionally what's gonna happen.
00:09:52
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's really interesting, Like when you hear that story, it it's so much different than I think what I had on my head before a visited Wittenberg and be really understood the history of it because you think, like this is the only thing on these doors, Like nobody does this, right. He went up just in defiance and nails this thing to and it's like no, it's sort of like you're putting a little ad on a bulletin board and it's like here you go i'd like to I'd like to think about these things, you know. And while Luther probably does give off an air of defiance and a lot of his writings and I'm guessing he was a pretty powerful figure in person, this situation almost gets blown out of proportion by the technology.
00:10:36
Speaker 4: Of the day.
00:10:38
Speaker 1: Yes, because his students can copy this thing easily and quickly, it spreads faster than it probably ever would have, if it even would have ever spread prior to having the printing press and having you know, the students sort of copy it and send it exactly completely different animal than what would have happened any other time before. You know, he might have ended up in a debate with the guy who's you know, two towns over selling indulgences, and then it kind of fizzles out and you move on.
00:11:08
Speaker 2: That's right.
00:11:09
Speaker 1: But now it's basically like he's you know, social media took over, and now he's he's in danger of being canceled by the Roman Empire.
00:11:19
Speaker 4: That's exactly exactly right.
00:11:21
Speaker 3: He's going to end up being excommunicated by the pope and then before the emperor and declared an outlaw, and on and on and on and on and on.
00:11:32
Speaker 1: Yeah, because the people Bull comes prior to his the diet of Firms? Am I correct about that?
00:11:41
Speaker 2: Okay?
00:11:42
Speaker 3: He has a debate at Leipzig in fifteen nineteen, and that's important. There is one of the places where he talks about the authority of scripture over popes. And there's also a guy named Martin Bousser, who very few people have heard of but is very important, who's going to be converted there. Booster is later going to be a colleague, almost a pastor for John Calvin. Booster is also going to be involved with Michael Satler, who is going to be one of the early Anabaptists, kind of the forerunners of the Mennonites. Booster is also going to be involved with Thomas Cranmer, who wrote the thirty nine articles for the Church of England. So Booster is a connector guy that most people have never heard of, but he's connecting these people anyway. So fifteen twenty papabull exerge dominie arise o, Lord and strike. There's a wild boar at loose in your vineyard in Germany, you know, and on and on and on, and Luther gets this thing. It turns out a bunch of his students had gathered and they were burning copies of canon law. And you know, you and I have been there just outside of actually the Augustinian monastery that he was in in Wittenberg turned into his house, ye, and they there's an oak tree out from there, not the original, but they gathered around this oak tree and they take all these books of canon law and they're burning them, and down with the pope and YadA YadA, and Luther comes out and he's got the papal bull and kind of like, okay, he threw it in too, so he burns this thing. So okay, now it's you know, the fast in the fire. In this case, the bull's in the fire. And so his elector, Frederick the Wise, for reasons known only to the Lord, keeps on protecting it because remember he is Frederick the Wise.
00:14:09
Speaker 1: Frederick the Wise is who we're talking about. So Frederick Wwise isn't going to protect Martin.
00:14:13
Speaker 2: Luther go ahead, and.
00:14:17
Speaker 3: Frederick the Wise has all these relics that are getting time off purgatory, and Luther's undercutting all this stuff, but for whatever reason, he protects him. So Luther, you know, it's being protected and the Emperor is demanding that Frederick the Wise turn.
00:14:41
Speaker 4: Luther over to him so we can give him to the Pope Frankly to kill him.
00:14:46
Speaker 2: Yeah.
00:14:47
Speaker 3: So finally Frederick the Wise says, look, he's entitled to hearing before you. So they go to a place in Germany, the city of Forms spelled worms worms, and there's an imperial diet, an imperial council there. The Emperor is there with a representative from the Pope, and Luther is guaranteed safe passage there. The Emperor says, okay, I'll guarantee you safe passage there. Now, Luther's not stupid. There had been a guy named John huss a check guy who you know, about one hundred years before, had been guaranteed safe passage by an emperor and showed up and once he got there, they said, oh, sorry, we forgot about that and burned him at the stake. Nonetheless, he says, I'm going to go, you know, and so he goes. He has this meeting. He thinks he's going to get a chance to defend his ideas.
00:16:04
Speaker 2: The Emperor.
00:16:06
Speaker 3: Has him there for one reason, and that is for him to recant to say I was wrong. So they are very different expectations going into this. So they meet Luther's all prepared to have this debate, and the debater for the Roman Church says, Luther, do you repent of your ideas well? First he says, are these your books?
00:16:37
Speaker 2: And he has all these tables out with Luther's books and he says, yeah, these are mine. I've written more than these two, okay.
00:16:44
Speaker 3: And then the question is are you going to repent of the errors in your books? And Luther's like, wait a minute, I want to have a chance to defend myself. No, no, no, no, simple question. Are you gonna recant or not? And Luther says, well, now, wait a minute. This is a matter of eternal salvation and this is really important, So give me twenty four hours.
00:17:19
Speaker 2: Okay. So they say see in the morning.
00:17:25
Speaker 3: He goes into his place where he's staying, and we have a copy of the prayer that he wrote. I don't have it on me, but it's it's basically I'm paraphrasing Lord. I don't want to be here. I'd rather be back in Wittenberg, you know, doing my work. But you called me to this task. You know you have to stand by me. Please help me and then he adds a PS send help. Scared gets up early in the next morning and he says, Okay, here's the deal. You want an answer. I'm going to answer without horns and without teeth, which is, I won't make any tricks. I won't this. I'm going to give it these straight popes and councils have rid in past. Unless I'm convinced by scripture and plain reason, I cannot and will not recant. My conscience has helped held captives of the Word of God, and then here I stand.
00:18:27
Speaker 2: I can do no other God help me. Amen.
00:18:29
Speaker 3: Whether or not he said here I stand is debated, but the basic premise of this is unless you can show me that what I have written is wrong based on the Bible, I will not repent. Place goes up for grabs. Luther leaves, he's been guaranteed safe passage. It starts to go home, gets kidnapped, but he's not kidnapped. These are agents of Frederick the Wise, and they kidnap him. To what extent Luther knew what was going on, we don't know. But they took him and put him in a kind of a quasi abandoned castle in the city of Eisenach. It was called the Vartberg Castle, and he is hidden in this castle. He grows a beard, calls himself Sir George Knight, George, Yunker George. And while he's there, he's translating the Bible or the New Testament into German, which he does in a remarkably short period of time, something like a couple months or some ridiculous thing. It's an extraordinary work. But he does the New Testament into German in a short period of time. Will all these hiding out in this castle?
00:20:06
Speaker 1: So when we think about that act, so you've got, you know, this guy who's sort of challenging the pope's authority to maybe we could say, like sit above the scriptures. That's essentially how this is functioning is that the Bible can be ignored if the pope says it. It doesn't really matter what the Bible says. These two things don't really have to be in that strong a conversation, might be the most generous way to put it. Luther's saying, no, they really have to be in pretty strong conversation. The Bible should be the final authority for life and faith, which is the way I would phrase it, you know, sort of in today's vernacular. And so we now have to start thinking about how does that happen. In other words, we're sitting in a time where the Bible is primarily contained in Latin and Greek manuscripts that aren't going to be particularly accessible to everyday folk. And if you don't get them the Bible, a Bible that they can read and understand to some degree, even if they need to have help interpreting it, they're always going to be subject to the ruling class who are reading out of the Latin vulgate and just telling them what to do and how to do it.
00:21:20
Speaker 4: You can't.
00:21:20
Speaker 1: You have to bridge the gap somehow between you know, Luther's conviction that my consciousness has held captive to the word of God and the idea that no one has access to the Word of God. Yes, and so this is where translation really starts to ramp up in importance.
00:21:41
Speaker 3: Yeah, there's a couple of things going on. Your dreams are important, number one is, and this is where it's easy to shove modern thought into the process. Does Luther believe in the right of private interpretation? That is, does he believe that every person has the right to determine for themselves what the Bible means. No, he does not, which is why he writes a catechism. Right, so he says, before he dies, you know, pretty much everything I wrote you can burn. It doesn't matter. The only thing that matters is shorter catechism. And here's how I explain how a catechism works. Does Luther want people to read the Bible? Of course he does.
00:22:31
Speaker 2: Yeah.
00:22:33
Speaker 3: In fact, he says, if a father doesn't teach his son a trade, he's a bad father. Now listen, if he doesn't teach his children, gender inclusive, how to read, he ought to be damned. Why because of the scriptures?
00:22:57
Speaker 2: Yeah?
00:22:59
Speaker 3: Having that, does he think that people should sit down by themselves and determine what the Bible means? No, what does a catechism do? A catechism, by definition limits interpretation, a catechism is like reading the Bible with having your pastor sitting in your ear helping you understand what it means. He believes that the Bible teaches that there is such a thing as a teaching office. I mean it seems to be that's pretty obvious. The Bible says everybody isn't given the gift of teaching. Well, if everybody can equally interpret the text, then why do we need teachers. So this is an extension of the teaching office. Should everyone know the text? Of course they should know the text. Should they meditate on the text? Yes?
00:24:02
Speaker 4: Yes, Is the Holy Spirit involved in this? Of course he is.
00:24:06
Speaker 3: But he doesn't want everybody deciding for themselves what the Bible means, because then we end up with millions of types of Christianity. Everybody is making up their own Christianity on the fly, which is precisely what we've ended up with. Now here's Luther's problem. The minute he says my conscience is held captive to the word of God, next year somebody looks at him and says, well, mine is too.
00:24:41
Speaker 2: Right.
00:24:42
Speaker 3: So this is the protest and irony that we've talked about in other broadcast. The thing that unites us is the thing that divides us.
00:24:49
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's almost like, you know, you have to have There's some really great work done in complexity theory on constraint and how constraint helps us us to enables us to.
00:25:01
Speaker 2: Do certain things.
00:25:02
Speaker 1: And so if we just think about language, right, if we're not obeying the basic rules of syntax and grammar and using words that each of us know we're not going to communicate. And so these are all constraints that need to be there in order for us to be able to do something. And I think that's a helpful way of understanding the catechism is that it is it's a constraint that enables in not allowing us to go so far out of the box that you know, what we're saying no longer makes any sense anymore. What a catechism does is it narrows where we can go. It gives us the appropriate rules that we need to follow in order to articulate what the Bible says and how it says it. And that is an aspect the catechy sistem becomes almost like a prosthetic for a teaching.
00:25:55
Speaker 2: Office, right.
00:25:57
Speaker 1: It's something that can be passed down and you say, here are the things you have to know, Here are the things you need to know. Yeah, it's it's amazing how that translation could open a lot of these things up. And I think that's where I want to turn in this next episode is what happens after the you know, his German Bible is released, and how does he deal with the what we might call the crumbling of the structure of everything that he knew after the break with the Catholic Church.
00:26:33
Speaker 3: Yes, because it again we use terms without thinking about them. We're talking about the German Reformation, right, what does the word mean. It means a changing of an existing thing, not creating a new thing. Yeah, Luther never intended to start a new church. He simply wanted to reform the existing church. Yeah, that's a hugely different thing. So you could say that the formation of the Lutheran Church or the Evangelical Church as it was known initially, was accidental. That was not the intent. That was never the intent, but it was.
00:27:24
Speaker 4: It became a necessary evil and.
00:27:28
Speaker 1: It has these huge implications down the road for how we operate within Protestant and so we'll dig into some of those.
00:27:37
Speaker 2: In the next episode.
00:27:38
Speaker 1: But this has been great. Thanks for going through the ninety five thecs Greg and thanks everybody for joining us. Come back on the next episode of Thinking Christian. Take care everybody. I 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 dot com, you'll find dozens of other faith centered podcasts in their network. They've got shows about prayer, Bible study, parenting, and more.
Speaker 1: Hey, everyone, Welcome to Thanking Christian. I'm doctor James Spencer, and I'm glad you're here. In this special series, we're stepping back into one of the most pivotal times in Christian history, the German Reformation. This was a time when the Gospel was being rediscovered, the Church was being challenged, and the course of Western civilization was being reshaped with ripples that still reach into our lives today. And to guide us through this journey, I'm joined by a true expert, someone who doesn't just know the Reformation from books, but from the cobblestone streets and cathedral halls where it actually happened, Doctor Greg Quiggle. Greg is a Reformation historian and the owner and operator of Kotelis Travel, a company that runs what they call tours for ten, intimate travel experiences designed for people who want something deeper than a typical tour. They offer a three to one guest to guide ratio, and these trips give you consistent access to guides who've been on location multiple times, who know not only the history, but also where to find the best able strudal and other German delicacies along the way. You can learn more about Greg and Kotellus at kotellistravelservice dot com. And if this series piques your interest, Greg actually has a German Reformation trip coming up this May, and last I heard, there are still a few seats available. In this series, Greg is going to help us explore the people, places, and theological stakes of the Reformation as well as helping us understand why it still matters for Christians today.
00:01:17
Speaker 2: So let's get started.
00:01:18
Speaker 1: Hey, everyone, welcome back to this episode of Thinking Christian. We're continuing our series on the German Reformation, and we are now moving to the Diet of Verms or toward the Diet of Verms, and ultimately on de Vortburg. But before we get there, we're going to stick around in Wittenburg a little longer and talk to the ninety five Theces. So we reference to the end of the last episode that Luther had written these ninety five thess. Everybody kind of knows about the ninety five Theces. If you know anything about Martin Luther, that's kind of what you know. Justification by Faith ninety five Theces. Ninety five Theces are really interesting. They have a really interesting sort of backstory and it's an actually pretty important to understand what Luther's trying to do and what Luther ends up actually doing. So, Greg, why don't we start with He's going to nail these ninety five feces to the door of the church in the town. What's Luther trying to stir up here when he's doing that?
00:02:15
Speaker 3: Yeah, well, the backstory is the selling of indulgences. So you know we've gone over indulgences before, but the backstory for this one is interesting and I always used to explain it to my students at Moody this way. Sometimes churches go wacky when they get into building programs. So you may be familiar with this insignificant little church building enrollm It's called Saint Peter's, small little place in the Vatican City.
00:02:51
Speaker 1: Don't know nothing ornate about it at all.
00:02:54
Speaker 2: That's right.
00:02:55
Speaker 4: It's a multi purpose building.
00:02:57
Speaker 3: You know, they have a wan of clubs in there and then they set up chairs for Sunday.
00:03:03
Speaker 2: Yeah.
00:03:03
Speaker 3: Well, so you know, if you're going to hire Michelangelo and sons and et cetera, this is gonna cost a lot of money. So they want to build this church and they need money. And there's the archbishop who wants to buy who wants to be the archbishop of Mines. And he's not supposed to be able to be the archbishop of two places at once.
00:03:30
Speaker 2: But he.
00:03:32
Speaker 3: Goes to the Pope, and the Pope says, all right, I'll cut you a deal if you will give me this amount of money because I needed to pay to get this church built. I'll let you be the archbishop of I believe it's Mines. Okay, fair enough. So he comes back and he says, well, I don't have the money, okay, well you can borrow it from the fuguer bankers. Okay, Well, how am I going to pay him back? I got this great idea. I'll let you sell indulgence okay, And I got a very good salesman. His name is Johan Tetzel. He's a Dominican.
00:04:10
Speaker 2: Here we go.
00:04:11
Speaker 3: They're a teaching order he's got, and he's selling these things, and he's even got a jingle. As soon as the wrong a coin in the coffer do ring another soul from purgatory doest spring. So he starts going around selling these things to make money so they can pay off this loan. That you see how the story goes, Okay, So he's going around and he ends up in a not in Wittenberg, but a town close to Wittenberg selling these things. So some of Luther's parishioners go there and buy them. They come back and show them to it. Well, Luther is just he thinks this is ridiculous. He thinks the Pope doesn't know this is happening.
00:05:02
Speaker 4: So he.
00:05:05
Speaker 3: Does what academics do, and they you know, we need to debate these things, and we need to have a conversation about them in yad, YadA YadA. So he writes out ninety five points of debate, ninety five assertions, ninety five thesises that I believe you.
00:05:25
Speaker 2: Know ding ding ding ding ding, And these.
00:05:28
Speaker 3: Are points that he is asserting that he's willing to debate.
00:05:34
Speaker 4: Is the way this works.
00:05:38
Speaker 3: There's some debate about whether or not he actually nailed them on the door of the castle church. I personally think he probably did. But he puts these on a door on this church. It's kind of like a forum board and be like Facebook today, except it's obviously in the town of Wittenberg, which is a very small little town. He's going to have this debate. Well, two things happen. Number one, there's this new technology called printing press. Number two, he has students. Students like to popularize their professor. So somehow these things get printed and translated and sent all over the place, to the point that one of them ends up a copy of them ends up literally on the Pope's desk in Rome. This does not go well, and so Luther is called to defend himself.
00:06:48
Speaker 4: Thus the ball starts rolling.
00:06:51
Speaker 3: So what he has done is he's written these things saying this selling adulgence in dulgs is.
00:07:03
Speaker 4: Not a good thing. People.
00:07:04
Speaker 3: Should you know he's saying, among other things, who can say whether the pope has power over purgatory? And if he does, you should empty the place for free rough paraphrase, among other things, which, of course you know that cuts the fundraising off.
00:07:22
Speaker 2: It goes over like a blood balloon, like a lead balloon.
00:07:26
Speaker 3: And then there's all kinds of other stuff, and you know, it's technical stuff that you have to read in multiple encyclopedia is to understand the details of all this kind of stuff.
00:07:37
Speaker 2: But and I mentioned.
00:07:39
Speaker 3: Before in the previous broadcast about it starts off with Pennance when our Lord and Savior said repent. He didn't mean two penance. He meant the entire life of the Christian is to be one of repentance, et cetera, et cetera. And he goes through a variety of these things, ninety five of these things.
00:08:00
Speaker 1: And they all do tend to swirl around that penance, indulgences, purgatory like that sort of arenas. We're all ninety five of them. Some are more granular, some of them are more more top level, but they all tend to hover around those major topics.
00:08:17
Speaker 3: Right, So there's not like the Joshua lived by faith alone or.
00:08:21
Speaker 2: Anything like that.
00:08:22
Speaker 3: It's mostly around purgatory, questions of authority, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. So this thing becomes what was supposed to be a nice little bait debate in a little town.
00:08:35
Speaker 4: And if it Burgh is a it's.
00:08:37
Speaker 3: A spit town in the middle of nowhere, it's still a spit town in the middle of well, the old city. It's really about three streets and each one's about a mile.
00:08:48
Speaker 1: Long, right, I mean it's extended a little more modern day, but it's still not a booming metropolis.
00:08:54
Speaker 2: Right. Yeah.
00:08:54
Speaker 3: So this was when if you've ever been to Rome and then you go to Wittenberg, You're like, you got to be kidding.
00:09:02
Speaker 2: Me, so uh.
00:09:06
Speaker 3: You know, it'd be like Peoria, Illinois turning New York City upside down. So this is this is what happens. Actually, Peru Illinois would.
00:09:19
Speaker 2: Be better there you go, yeah, yeah.
00:09:21
Speaker 3: Or Sycamore, Illinois or you know Booger Hollow, Arkansas turning New York City on its head.
00:09:30
Speaker 4: So so it.
00:09:32
Speaker 3: And it just explodes and and Luther becomes a major figure because he's gonna upset the apple cart and people understand he's gonna upset the apple cart. Was that his intent? No, but that's functionally what's gonna happen.
00:09:52
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's really interesting, Like when you hear that story, it it's so much different than I think what I had on my head before a visited Wittenberg and be really understood the history of it because you think, like this is the only thing on these doors, Like nobody does this, right. He went up just in defiance and nails this thing to and it's like no, it's sort of like you're putting a little ad on a bulletin board and it's like here you go i'd like to I'd like to think about these things, you know. And while Luther probably does give off an air of defiance and a lot of his writings and I'm guessing he was a pretty powerful figure in person, this situation almost gets blown out of proportion by the technology.
00:10:36
Speaker 4: Of the day.
00:10:38
Speaker 1: Yes, because his students can copy this thing easily and quickly, it spreads faster than it probably ever would have, if it even would have ever spread prior to having the printing press and having you know, the students sort of copy it and send it exactly completely different animal than what would have happened any other time before. You know, he might have ended up in a debate with the guy who's you know, two towns over selling indulgences, and then it kind of fizzles out and you move on.
00:11:08
Speaker 2: That's right.
00:11:09
Speaker 1: But now it's basically like he's you know, social media took over, and now he's he's in danger of being canceled by the Roman Empire.
00:11:19
Speaker 4: That's exactly exactly right.
00:11:21
Speaker 3: He's going to end up being excommunicated by the pope and then before the emperor and declared an outlaw, and on and on and on and on and on.
00:11:32
Speaker 1: Yeah, because the people Bull comes prior to his the diet of Firms? Am I correct about that?
00:11:41
Speaker 2: Okay?
00:11:42
Speaker 3: He has a debate at Leipzig in fifteen nineteen, and that's important. There is one of the places where he talks about the authority of scripture over popes. And there's also a guy named Martin Bousser, who very few people have heard of but is very important, who's going to be converted there. Booster is later going to be a colleague, almost a pastor for John Calvin. Booster is also going to be involved with Michael Satler, who is going to be one of the early Anabaptists, kind of the forerunners of the Mennonites. Booster is also going to be involved with Thomas Cranmer, who wrote the thirty nine articles for the Church of England. So Booster is a connector guy that most people have never heard of, but he's connecting these people anyway. So fifteen twenty papabull exerge dominie arise o, Lord and strike. There's a wild boar at loose in your vineyard in Germany, you know, and on and on and on, and Luther gets this thing. It turns out a bunch of his students had gathered and they were burning copies of canon law. And you know, you and I have been there just outside of actually the Augustinian monastery that he was in in Wittenberg turned into his house, ye, and they there's an oak tree out from there, not the original, but they gathered around this oak tree and they take all these books of canon law and they're burning them, and down with the pope and YadA YadA, and Luther comes out and he's got the papal bull and kind of like, okay, he threw it in too, so he burns this thing. So okay, now it's you know, the fast in the fire. In this case, the bull's in the fire. And so his elector, Frederick the Wise, for reasons known only to the Lord, keeps on protecting it because remember he is Frederick the Wise.
00:14:09
Speaker 1: Frederick the Wise is who we're talking about. So Frederick Wwise isn't going to protect Martin.
00:14:13
Speaker 2: Luther go ahead, and.
00:14:17
Speaker 3: Frederick the Wise has all these relics that are getting time off purgatory, and Luther's undercutting all this stuff, but for whatever reason, he protects him. So Luther, you know, it's being protected and the Emperor is demanding that Frederick the Wise turn.
00:14:41
Speaker 4: Luther over to him so we can give him to the Pope Frankly to kill him.
00:14:46
Speaker 2: Yeah.
00:14:47
Speaker 3: So finally Frederick the Wise says, look, he's entitled to hearing before you. So they go to a place in Germany, the city of Forms spelled worms worms, and there's an imperial diet, an imperial council there. The Emperor is there with a representative from the Pope, and Luther is guaranteed safe passage there. The Emperor says, okay, I'll guarantee you safe passage there. Now, Luther's not stupid. There had been a guy named John huss a check guy who you know, about one hundred years before, had been guaranteed safe passage by an emperor and showed up and once he got there, they said, oh, sorry, we forgot about that and burned him at the stake. Nonetheless, he says, I'm going to go, you know, and so he goes. He has this meeting. He thinks he's going to get a chance to defend his ideas.
00:16:04
Speaker 2: The Emperor.
00:16:06
Speaker 3: Has him there for one reason, and that is for him to recant to say I was wrong. So they are very different expectations going into this. So they meet Luther's all prepared to have this debate, and the debater for the Roman Church says, Luther, do you repent of your ideas well? First he says, are these your books?
00:16:37
Speaker 2: And he has all these tables out with Luther's books and he says, yeah, these are mine. I've written more than these two, okay.
00:16:44
Speaker 3: And then the question is are you going to repent of the errors in your books? And Luther's like, wait a minute, I want to have a chance to defend myself. No, no, no, no, simple question. Are you gonna recant or not? And Luther says, well, now, wait a minute. This is a matter of eternal salvation and this is really important, So give me twenty four hours.
00:17:19
Speaker 2: Okay. So they say see in the morning.
00:17:25
Speaker 3: He goes into his place where he's staying, and we have a copy of the prayer that he wrote. I don't have it on me, but it's it's basically I'm paraphrasing Lord. I don't want to be here. I'd rather be back in Wittenberg, you know, doing my work. But you called me to this task. You know you have to stand by me. Please help me and then he adds a PS send help. Scared gets up early in the next morning and he says, Okay, here's the deal. You want an answer. I'm going to answer without horns and without teeth, which is, I won't make any tricks. I won't this. I'm going to give it these straight popes and councils have rid in past. Unless I'm convinced by scripture and plain reason, I cannot and will not recant. My conscience has helped held captives of the Word of God, and then here I stand.
00:18:27
Speaker 2: I can do no other God help me. Amen.
00:18:29
Speaker 3: Whether or not he said here I stand is debated, but the basic premise of this is unless you can show me that what I have written is wrong based on the Bible, I will not repent. Place goes up for grabs. Luther leaves, he's been guaranteed safe passage. It starts to go home, gets kidnapped, but he's not kidnapped. These are agents of Frederick the Wise, and they kidnap him. To what extent Luther knew what was going on, we don't know. But they took him and put him in a kind of a quasi abandoned castle in the city of Eisenach. It was called the Vartberg Castle, and he is hidden in this castle. He grows a beard, calls himself Sir George Knight, George, Yunker George. And while he's there, he's translating the Bible or the New Testament into German, which he does in a remarkably short period of time, something like a couple months or some ridiculous thing. It's an extraordinary work. But he does the New Testament into German in a short period of time. Will all these hiding out in this castle?
00:20:06
Speaker 1: So when we think about that act, so you've got, you know, this guy who's sort of challenging the pope's authority to maybe we could say, like sit above the scriptures. That's essentially how this is functioning is that the Bible can be ignored if the pope says it. It doesn't really matter what the Bible says. These two things don't really have to be in that strong a conversation, might be the most generous way to put it. Luther's saying, no, they really have to be in pretty strong conversation. The Bible should be the final authority for life and faith, which is the way I would phrase it, you know, sort of in today's vernacular. And so we now have to start thinking about how does that happen. In other words, we're sitting in a time where the Bible is primarily contained in Latin and Greek manuscripts that aren't going to be particularly accessible to everyday folk. And if you don't get them the Bible, a Bible that they can read and understand to some degree, even if they need to have help interpreting it, they're always going to be subject to the ruling class who are reading out of the Latin vulgate and just telling them what to do and how to do it.
00:21:20
Speaker 4: You can't.
00:21:20
Speaker 1: You have to bridge the gap somehow between you know, Luther's conviction that my consciousness has held captive to the word of God and the idea that no one has access to the Word of God. Yes, and so this is where translation really starts to ramp up in importance.
00:21:41
Speaker 3: Yeah, there's a couple of things going on. Your dreams are important, number one is, and this is where it's easy to shove modern thought into the process. Does Luther believe in the right of private interpretation? That is, does he believe that every person has the right to determine for themselves what the Bible means. No, he does not, which is why he writes a catechism. Right, so he says, before he dies, you know, pretty much everything I wrote you can burn. It doesn't matter. The only thing that matters is shorter catechism. And here's how I explain how a catechism works. Does Luther want people to read the Bible? Of course he does.
00:22:31
Speaker 2: Yeah.
00:22:33
Speaker 3: In fact, he says, if a father doesn't teach his son a trade, he's a bad father. Now listen, if he doesn't teach his children, gender inclusive, how to read, he ought to be damned. Why because of the scriptures?
00:22:57
Speaker 2: Yeah?
00:22:59
Speaker 3: Having that, does he think that people should sit down by themselves and determine what the Bible means? No, what does a catechism do? A catechism, by definition limits interpretation, a catechism is like reading the Bible with having your pastor sitting in your ear helping you understand what it means. He believes that the Bible teaches that there is such a thing as a teaching office. I mean it seems to be that's pretty obvious. The Bible says everybody isn't given the gift of teaching. Well, if everybody can equally interpret the text, then why do we need teachers. So this is an extension of the teaching office. Should everyone know the text? Of course they should know the text. Should they meditate on the text? Yes?
00:24:02
Speaker 4: Yes, Is the Holy Spirit involved in this? Of course he is.
00:24:06
Speaker 3: But he doesn't want everybody deciding for themselves what the Bible means, because then we end up with millions of types of Christianity. Everybody is making up their own Christianity on the fly, which is precisely what we've ended up with. Now here's Luther's problem. The minute he says my conscience is held captive to the word of God, next year somebody looks at him and says, well, mine is too.
00:24:41
Speaker 2: Right.
00:24:42
Speaker 3: So this is the protest and irony that we've talked about in other broadcast. The thing that unites us is the thing that divides us.
00:24:49
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's almost like, you know, you have to have There's some really great work done in complexity theory on constraint and how constraint helps us us to enables us to.
00:25:01
Speaker 2: Do certain things.
00:25:02
Speaker 1: And so if we just think about language, right, if we're not obeying the basic rules of syntax and grammar and using words that each of us know we're not going to communicate. And so these are all constraints that need to be there in order for us to be able to do something. And I think that's a helpful way of understanding the catechism is that it is it's a constraint that enables in not allowing us to go so far out of the box that you know, what we're saying no longer makes any sense anymore. What a catechism does is it narrows where we can go. It gives us the appropriate rules that we need to follow in order to articulate what the Bible says and how it says it. And that is an aspect the catechy sistem becomes almost like a prosthetic for a teaching.
00:25:55
Speaker 2: Office, right.
00:25:57
Speaker 1: It's something that can be passed down and you say, here are the things you have to know, Here are the things you need to know. Yeah, it's it's amazing how that translation could open a lot of these things up. And I think that's where I want to turn in this next episode is what happens after the you know, his German Bible is released, and how does he deal with the what we might call the crumbling of the structure of everything that he knew after the break with the Catholic Church.
00:26:33
Speaker 3: Yes, because it again we use terms without thinking about them. We're talking about the German Reformation, right, what does the word mean. It means a changing of an existing thing, not creating a new thing. Yeah, Luther never intended to start a new church. He simply wanted to reform the existing church. Yeah, that's a hugely different thing. So you could say that the formation of the Lutheran Church or the Evangelical Church as it was known initially, was accidental. That was not the intent. That was never the intent, but it was.
00:27:24
Speaker 4: It became a necessary evil and.
00:27:28
Speaker 1: It has these huge implications down the road for how we operate within Protestant and so we'll dig into some of those.
00:27:37
Speaker 2: In the next episode.
00:27:38
Speaker 1: But this has been great. Thanks for going through the ninety five thecs Greg and thanks everybody for joining us. Come back on the next episode of Thinking Christian. Take care everybody. I 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 dot com, you'll find dozens of other faith centered podcasts in their network. They've got shows about prayer, Bible study, parenting, and more.
