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Series Code: TT
Program Code: TT000507A
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00:10 [Music] 00:21 >>TY: Well, guys, the Protestant reformation was 00:22 founded on a series of principles or discoveries or 00:27 ideas that became very prominent in defining the way 00:31 forward for the reformation, and these are oftentimes 00:35 referred to as the 5 solas. 00:38 And we're gonna move through each one of them in the next 00:41 five programs in this Protestant reformation series 00:45 and the first one is sola scriptura. 00:48 Sola scriptura. 00:49 This is the bible alone as the basis of faith and practice, 00:55 for formulating doctrine, but it's more than just, hey, the 01:00 bible alone is our rule of faith and practice, it's more 01:03 than that. 01:04 It's the bible alone is our rule of faith and practice and 01:06 you have access to it and you have access to it and you have 01:10 access to it, so let's collaborate, let's all study 01:14 the bible, let's compare notes, and as we all, the 01:18 whole body of Christ, studies the bible and has equal access 01:22 to it, there's going to be a richer theology and 01:25 perspective that's going to emerge. 01:27 It's kind of that thing I brought up the other day from 01:29 Plato where he said, wherever you have free human beings, 01:32 wherever you have democracy, you have the greatest variety 01:36 of human beings that will develop in that society. 01:39 >>DAVID: That's such a cool concept. 01:41 I love it. 01:42 >>TY: And it essentially says that freedom brings out each 01:44 person's uniqueness. 01:46 So, for example, we hit around this table and we have a 01:48 discussion, you have four minds, four perspectives, each 01:53 one of us sees things that the other doesn't see, but each 01:56 one of us has the privilege of taking on board the other 02:00 person's perspective, which then has the opportunity to do 02:04 one of two things, either change my perspective by yours 02:08 because, oh, I hadn't seen it from that angle before, that's 02:12 a superior line of logic, oh, I didn't see those bible 02:15 verses before, I never made that connection. 02:18 So, I can change my position, I can grow in my 02:22 understanding, or secondly, without changing my position, 02:25 because it doesn't need to be changed on this particular 02:28 point, for example, my view of that particular point can be 02:31 expanded and deepened so that I can actually understand what 02:37 I'm talking about more clearly. 02:39 So, what a beautiful thing that sola scriptura gives all 02:42 of us access to the bible and it gives us a common source of 02:48 authority between us. 02:50 So, Jeffrey, you're not the authority, you don't tell me 02:54 what I'm going to believe. 02:56 You and I, you and I have the same source of authority, so 03:00 you need to show me from here. 03:01 I need to show you from here. 03:04 There's a brilliance to that. 03:05 >>DAVID: What I love about it is the democratizing of the 03:10 spiritual reality, the thing that we talked about in our 03:14 last session, this idea that there is now this priesthood 03:19 of all believers, this interconnect, hey, what do you 03:21 have to say? 03:22 What do I have to say? 03:23 Reminds me of this amazing statement, one of my favorites 03:25 from the Reverend JA Wiley, who was a Protestant 03:29 historian, and he has this simple line, so simple and 03:31 yet, so profoundly beautiful. 03:33 He says that the noon of the papacy was the midnight of the 03:37 world. 03:39 Right, that idea is so profoundly expressed that when 03:42 things were going great for the Roman church, in the 03:46 medieval period, it was not a time that was great for 03:49 everybody else, but the word, thy word is a lamp to my feet 03:54 and a light to my path. 03:55 When that light began to shine, not just in the Latin 03:58 language to the priestly class, but when it began to 04:01 shine on others, all of a sudden, the darkness begins to 04:05 dispel and this concept of sitting down at the table and 04:09 discussing and opening scripture for ourselves and 04:12 reading and saying, what does that mean? 04:14 Wrestling with the text. 04:16 Wrestling with the text. 04:17 The sacred, beautiful vocation of interpreting the text, 04:23 wrestling with the text, not understanding the text, being 04:26 sometimes confused and then encouraged by the text, all of 04:30 that is this whole new reality that comes about when 04:34 scripture becomes widely available. 04:36 We've talked about the role the printing press played in 04:38 that, of course, the first book to be published on the 04:42 moveable type printing press was the New Testament. 04:45 Right, that was the thing, get the bible into the hands of 04:47 the people. 04:48 There wouldn't have been a Luther as we know him now if 04:51 there hadn't been a printing press to get his ideas out and 04:54 if you take and you just bring all of Luther's ideas back in 04:58 terms of his content, all the things he said over the course 05:01 of his life, early Luther, mid Luther, and late Luther, the 05:04 foundation upon which he was standing, the thing that he 05:07 was saying and the thing that ultimately brought the noon of 05:10 the papacy to a halt was this two word concept of sola 05:14 scriptura. 05:16 Right? 05:17 When he's protesting there or when he's testifying there, 05:19 standing there at the Diet of Worms, he says, don't talk to 05:22 me about the counsels and the church fathers and the popes 05:25 and the priests, he says, for these have often been shown to 05:27 contradict themselves. 05:29 If I cannot be persuaded by the clearest reasoning or by 05:32 the passages which I have quoted, I'm gonna stand here. 05:36 So, thus is born, practically, as a methodology, scripture. 05:41 >>JEFFERY: Because he says scripture and good reason. 05:43 Those two coupled together. 05:46 I think that also the ripple effects with this whole 05:49 priesthood of all believers, equal access, sola scriptura, 05:53 is that now when they begin to publish their own works, 05:57 Luther publishes in the German now. 05:59 In the German vernacular, right? 06:01 And so, even just the approach to publishing is theologically 06:09 driven, whereas, we were talking about Tetzel coming 06:12 into town and is the one promoting and advertising the 06:16 sale of indulgences and I was reading this study where they 06:22 were basically, they were comparing the different 06:26 publications that the Catholic church was putting out and 06:29 that Luther was producing. 06:31 And they were showing who was publishing in the vernacular. 06:34 And so, Luther comes first, publishes in German, and 06:38 Tetzel responds and publishes also in the vernacular. 06:43 And then Luther responds, and the more they go down, 06:46 eventually, Tetzel recedes back to the Latin, to the 06:49 Ecclesiastic Latin, and Luther just goes [whooshing] 06:51 Just eats it all up, right? 06:55 He just wipes the floor with him because there's just this 06:59 whole different framework and worldview, now the common 07:02 person is reading and has access to these things 07:07 whereas, before, only through mediators, like we were 07:11 saying. 07:12 And even further than that is the concept of, it even 07:17 trickles down to liturgy and to worship, because now, one 07:21 of the distinguishing factors in the Protestant churches is 07:23 now there's congregational singing, for the first time. 07:27 >>DAVID: Now we're all singing, not just the priest. 07:29 >>JEFFERY: Yeah, so, now, you walk into a Protestant church 07:31 and that's one of the ways, you know, early 16th century, 07:35 you know you're in a Protestant church if 07:40 everybody's singing. 07:41 >>DAVID: So, you have again the democratization of the 07:44 priesthood. 07:45 It's powerful. 07:46 Jeffrey, where's that, you had that amazing quotation there, 07:48 are you gonna read about it at some point here about the 07:50 common man? 07:51 The common man is thinking now because one of the things that 07:54 you have, while you're looking for that, one of the things 07:56 that you have with the advent of the printing press and the 07:59 availability of information, it's not only a theological 08:02 reality of a social, psychological revolution 08:05 that's taking place, where now access to information is not 08:08 just for the elite. 08:09 Not just for the aristocracy. 08:11 This is where the whole concept of the middle class 08:13 comes from. 08:14 You have the emergence not only of a theological middle 08:16 class, you have the emergence of an economic and educational 08:19 middle class, because now, it's not just the elite that 08:22 can afford books and have access to education. 08:26 You have this class that's not just the rulers or the ruled, 08:28 but this middle class, something that we take for 08:30 granted. 08:31 It's a revolutionary idea. 08:33 >>JEFFERY: So, the words that he, the quote you're 08:38 alluding to is in this piece that Luther wrote in 1520, I 08:43 believe, it's called on temporal authority, and this 08:46 is where Luther basically applies this concept, a 08:49 priesthood of all believers to how does the state function in 08:54 relation to the church and where does the Christian fit 08:59 in all of this? 09:00 So, there's this quote where he says, the common man is 09:03 learning to think and the scourge of princes is 09:08 gathering force among the mob and with the common man, I 09:11 fear that there will be no way to avert it unless the 09:14 princes conduct themselves in a princely manner. 09:18 And then, he says this, men will not, men cannot, men 09:23 refuse to endure your tyranny and want in this much longer. 09:27 The world is no longer what it once was when you hunted and 09:32 drove people like game. 09:35 Abandon your wicked use of force, and then he says, let 09:40 God's word have its way as it will anyway and it must and it 09:45 shall and you cannot prevent it, so I think that one of 09:49 the powerful ripple effects of this concept is the way it 09:52 empowered the individual. 09:55 So, now the individual says, wait a second, I don't have to 09:57 be subject to tyranny, to coercion, to control... 10:01 >>DAVID: Of the religious or the civil stripe. 10:04 >>JEFFERY: Of any power structure, because now I've 10:06 been liberated by being granted direct access to 10:10 scripture and direct access to God. 10:13 >>DAVID: The common man is beginning to think. 10:16 That is the emergence of an educational, professional, 10:20 social middle class. 10:22 I remember, I have this documentary on Luther, it's 10:25 actually a secular documentary, I think it was 10:27 produced by NPR or something, not NPR, but PBS. 10:32 It's a 3-part series and in there, one of the things that 10:34 is most amazing, again, it has no religious agenda, it's 10:37 telling the story of Luther from a historical perspective. 10:41 And one of the things that they bring up again and again 10:43 in there are these, you know, top, world class historians, 10:45 they're saying, what Luther did was unthinkable, it was 10:48 just a whole new way of thinking about reality, wait a 10:50 minute. 10:51 Individual conscience. 10:52 I am not going to do what you tell me to do. 10:55 I'm going to resist, and then people just started to follow 10:59 Luther's example. 11:00 Hey, wait a minute, he can do something that is proprietary 11:03 Luther's, I can say no. 11:06 >>TY: I really liked the part of that statement that you 11:10 read, Jeffrey, didn't he say something there to the effect 11:13 of, the word of God is gonna do what it's gonna do. 11:15 It's gonna do what it's gonna do and you better get with the 11:18 program, princes better start acting in a princely manner, 11:21 because you can't continue with these abuses of people 11:24 because they've had enough of it and they're gonna rise up 11:28 against it. 11:29 You're gonna produce insurrection, rebellion, 11:31 revolution, and it's gonna be a blood bath. 11:33 He's warning that there is something that has been set in 11:37 motion and you can't turn it back. 11:39 Well, somebody asked me, just yesterday, in fact, they said, 11:43 hey, if Luther had not stepped on the scene and had done what 11:47 he had done, what he did, would we not have the 11:51 Protestant reformation or would somebody else have 11:53 stepped onto the stage? 11:55 I said, the world was at a tipping point. 11:59 If it wasn't Luther, it was gonna be somebody else, it was 12:02 inevitable. 12:04 He was the match, but there was, before him, there was 12:07 Wycliffe, there was Huss, there was Tyndale and there 12:10 were others after him. 12:12 Take Luther out of the equation and it would've had a 12:14 little bit of a different configuration, a little bit of 12:16 a different personality, but the world was done with 12:20 tyranny and dominance and something was at a tipping 12:25 point, it was gonna, man, all hell was gonna break loose one 12:28 way or another against all of this abuse of power. 12:31 >>JEFFERY: We know contemporary to Luther, we had 12:33 Zwingli, we had other individuals who were doing it 12:36 in large part independent of Luther. 12:41 >>TY: Zwingli even claimed he was making his discoveries 12:45 independent of Luther, and then when they said, hey, have 12:47 you seen Luther's stuff? 12:49 And he said, oh, hand it over, he looked at Luther's stuff 12:51 and he said, ah, this is exactly what I'm saying, but I 12:54 have not read Luther. 12:56 That's amazing. 12:57 That's amazing because that tells us that there is some 12:59 knowledge that was out there that God's Spirit was trying 13:04 to give to human beings and that it wasn't something that 13:07 you even had to have Luther for. 13:10 >>DAVID: Can I read you a quotation here from Carlos 13:12 Eire's book, Reformations, on this very point, how there 13:15 were forerunners to Luther. 13:16 How God was doing something. 13:18 Right, we wanna be careful that we elevate Luther right 13:21 to the degree that he deserves to be elevated. 13:23 He's the match, but without him, God's word is gonna do 13:26 what it's gonna do. 13:27 Listen to this. 13:28 Eire says, for Wycliffe, the genuine head of the church was 13:32 Christ, not the pope. 13:33 Now, this was 100-150 years before Luther? 13:36 Ish? 13:37 And the supreme guide for all doctrine, ritual, and ethics 13:39 was the bible. 13:41 Anything that did not square with scripture, therefore, was 13:43 to be rejected. 13:45 Wycliffe's teachings would make their way into the hands 13:47 of another academic, John Huss, 1370-1415, Huss was 13:49 teaching and preaching in the vein of Wycliffe in Bohemia 13:53 and attracting a large following, convinced that the 13:55 bible was the ultimate authority and that the church 13:58 needed to be brought back into line with Holy Scripture. 14:01 Huss challenged tradition and church hierarchy. 14:04 >>TY: And got burned at the stake for it. 14:06 >>DAVID: He got burned at the, but what you have is, okay, 14:08 this is happening in Bohemia, this is happening in 14:10 Switzerland, this is happening in Germany. 14:12 A movement is beginning to take place where, and I've 14:14 heard you say this, Ty, Luther was tapping into the 14:16 zeitgeist, the spirit of the age. 14:18 He was giving voice to what people were feeling. 14:21 >>TY: People were saying, he just said what I'm feeling and 14:26 thinking, but I couldn't articulate it, yeah, he was 14:31 the poet of the time. 14:32 >>JAMES: Check this out. 14:33 Martin Luther lived from 1483-1546, okay, get that 14:38 date. 14:39 Late 1500s to 1546, okay, then you have Philip Melanchthon, 14:43 who worked with him 1497-1560, John Calvin 1509-1564. 14:49 Understand, Luther's 1546 is when he passes away. 14:52 So, John Calvin, contemporary. 14:54 Lefurv is in France 1455-1536. 14:58 William Pharaoh in France 1489-1565. 15:02 Louis De P'quinn in France 1490-1525. 15:06 Mino Simons in the Netherlands 1496-1561. 15:11 Jacob Arminius, he's a little later, so we'll put him a 15:14 little later, but he's Netherlands. 15:17 Hans Tuscoon, 1495-1561, Denmark. 15:19 Olas and Lereches Petri, Sweden 1493 and 1499 to 1552, 15:26 1573. 15:27 William Tyndale, remember him? 15:29 1494-1536, England. 15:31 Vladimar, England, same time, Vladimar, Barnes, Frith, 15:36 Ridley, all England, same time frame. 15:38 Kramer, England, same time frame. 15:40 Scotland, Patrick Hamilton, mid-1500s, he died young, in 15:43 his 30s. 15:45 George Wishard, Scotland, 1546 is when he died. 15:48 John Nox, remember him? 15:50 Scotland, 1572. 15:52 All of these, Zwingli, of course, Switzerland, all these 15:55 guys were contemporary with Martin Luther all over Europe. 15:57 >>TY: And saying the same thing, essentially, the key 16:00 points. 16:01 It's amazing. 16:02 It's just absolutely astounding. 16:04 This was an eruption, an upheaval. 16:06 >>JEFFERY: Even beyond this, we're trying to describe that 16:09 this was the spirit of the age, right? 16:11 There was a collective consciousness of people just, 16:13 who are beginning to have enough of this sort of 16:16 structure. 16:18 We're familiar with the document, the donation of 16:21 Constantine, which was a document that was purported to 16:26 give authority to the pope over vast territories. 16:29 >>DAVID: Supposedly when Constantine left to go to 16:31 Constantinople in 330, he turned Rome, here you go, it 16:37 belongs to you now. 16:39 Exactly. 16:40 >>JEFFERY: And so, it wasn't until around this very time 16:45 that you're describing that... 16:48 >>JAMES: When was it actually supposedly written? 16:51 >>DAVID: Around the time of Constantine. 16:53 >>JEFFERY: All the way back to his time. 16:55 >>DAVID: 1200 years before. 16:57 >>JAMES: But when was it presented by the church to the 16:58 public? 16:59 Like, right then or was it like....? 17:01 >>DAVID: I think it's in the 700s, sort of shows up and it 17:03 starts using... 17:05 >>TY: I think they pulled that thing out about the time that 17:06 they pulled out Pilate's staircase that somehow ended 17:09 up with Rome. 17:11 >>JEFFERY: There's this fellow by the name of Lorenzo Valla 17:14 and he is the one who takes the document and basically 17:20 subjects it to textual criticism, and then, he 17:23 exposes it as a forgery and it's this huge, huge thing. 17:30 Happened right during the time of Luther. 17:32 >>DAVID: Properly published for the first time in 1517. 17:34 The very year that Luther is making his testimony. 17:39 >>JEFFERY: Here's the interesting thing. 17:41 So, I read this article by a scholar by the name of Richard 17:43 Rex. 17:44 It's an article on humanism and he points out that not 17:48 only did that document play a significant role in the 17:52 debates about the papacy at the time, but Luther himself 17:57 published, in addition of Lorenzo Valla's work and used 18:05 it in his own campaign against the pope. 18:07 So, the reason I think that's very interesting is because it 18:12 makes the point that we're making and that is that it was 18:16 in the air. 18:17 Different sectors were already beginning to say, ahhh. 18:21 >>TY: The diabolical gig is up. 18:23 >>DAVID: Because if you have this document that you've been 18:25 using as an evidence, hey, look, this was given to us and 18:30 we are the, and then, that document, at this time, at 18:33 this very time is shown to be, it's not looking good. 18:39 It's great timing for the Protestants, and then you have 18:41 the whole printing press thing, which we've talked 18:43 about. 18:45 So, you have these various streams that are coming 18:47 together and it was a tinder box, it was waiting to happen 18:51 and Luther was the man, he was the matchstick. 18:55 >>TY: Guys, we have to take a break, but this is pretty 18:56 exciting stuff. 18:57 We'll be right back. 18:59 [Music] 19:10 >>Hi, I'm Ty Gibson, welcome to digma.com. 19:13 I am so excited about this website because you're about 19:16 to discover a powerful new way to share life transforming 19:20 messages and videos with your family, friends, and anybody 19:24 else on the planet who has access to a computer. 19:28 else on the planet who has access to a computer. 19:29 Digma is a Greek word. 19:30 It basically means, to show or to reveal something by means 19:33 of a pattern or an example of some kind. 19:36 It's the second half of the word paradigma, from which we 19:40 get the English word paradigm, as in paradigm shift. 19:45 And so, what you're going to find at digma.com is a growing 19:48 library of short videos and transcripts dealing with 19:51 paradigms and fundamental questions. 19:54 What's the meaning of life? 19:56 What is our origin and destiny as human beings? 20:00 What happens when we die? 20:02 Does God exist or are we alone in this vast universe? 20:07 Why is there so much evil and suffering in our world? 20:11 An estimated 70% of Americans have a computer right in their 20:15 home and stay in touch with family and friends by email, 20:20 and more than 400 million people are active on Facebook, 20:24 and 5 million new users are signing up every week. 20:29 We are literally in the midst of a communications revolution 20:34 of massive proportion. 20:36 This is granting the gospel direct and easy access to 20:41 millions upon millions of homes and hearts, and that's 20:45 what digma.com is all about. 20:49 It's a tool for leading our family and friends on an 20:52 exciting paradigm shift by revealing the truth of God's 20:56 creative power and his incredibly beautiful character 21:01 in contrast to our world's popular misconceptions about 21:06 who God is. 21:08 [Music] 21:23 [Music] 21:25 >>TY: Okay, so there's another part of this sola 21:27 scriptura idea that I think is coming out in our discussion, 21:32 but just wanna say it explicitly and that is that 21:34 the sola scriptura idea not only says, hey, the bible and 21:38 the bible alone, source of doctrine, the authority for 21:43 forming theology, but there's another thing that the sola 21:48 scriptura idea does. 21:51 It confers dignity upon the individual. 21:55 It says, imagine, just feel the respect of this. 22:01 Feel the respect of people in preeminent positions like Dr. 22:04 Martin Luther, saying, here, to the guy who's out farming. 22:10 Here, I just translated this for you, this is for you. 22:13 You read this. 22:14 You read this. 22:16 You read this. 22:16 This is for you. 22:18 This is Tyndale coming along, William Tyndale in England 22:21 comes along and he says, boldly, to the priests who are 22:25 trying to shut him down, yeah, he says, I will make a plowboy 22:31 know more of the bible than you do. 22:34 These guys respond to him and say something to the effect 22:38 of, young Tyndale, be sure that you understand that there 22:41 are fires on earth and fires in hell, be sure that the one 22:45 is not needful to spare thee the other. 22:47 In other words, you better stop translating the bible 22:50 into the common language of the people and if you don't, 22:53 we're gonna burn you on earth in order to spare you being 22:57 burned by God forever in hell. 22:59 And this guy, in the face of all of that power maneuver 23:05 against him to shut him down, says, no, thank you to that 23:08 threat. 23:10 I'm going to go ahead and translate the bible and I'm 23:12 gonna put it in the hand of the schoolboy, the plowboy. 23:15 >>DAVID: You can see the impotence of the threat. 23:17 The threat gets weaker and weaker as knowledge gets 23:20 greater and greater. 23:21 That would've worked 300, 400, 500 years before when people 23:24 don't have access. 23:25 But now, they're saying, yeah, but what you're saying isn't 23:27 even in scripture. 23:28 What you're saying, there's not even a scriptural basis 23:30 for you, for the church as it exists. 23:33 So, these threats, you can turn the volume up, you can 23:36 say it louder and you can say, flames are gonna be really 23:39 hot, yeah, but, I don't believe you. 23:42 >>JEFFERY: I wanna emphasize a point we made earlier, too, is 23:45 that you just brought up another reformer, William 23:47 Tyndale, right? 23:48 But we have reformers and we have just other people coming 23:51 from totally different mindsets and schools of 23:55 thought. 23:56 >>DAVID: Like you mentioned Lorenzo Valla. 23:57 He's not a reformer. 23:58 >>JEFFERY: No, and they're arriving at very similar 23:59 conclusions. 24:01 For example, if I said the name Erasmus, right? 24:04 The prince of the humanists, right? 24:07 We're talking about Tyndale, we're talking about Luther as 24:10 translating the bible, but Erasmus translated the New 24:15 Testament, right? 24:17 He went back to the original text in 1516. 24:21 Rather, he produced a Greek New Testament and this is what 24:26 Luther will later build on. 24:28 Right, so we have a humanist, right, who's providing the 24:33 building blocks that others will also, and this is a 24:36 fascinating, very simple statement that Erasmus made 24:41 just to emphasize the fact that other people are saying 24:44 the same thing, he writes about the popes of Rome, he 24:47 says, the pretend themselves Christ's vicar if they would 24:51 but imitate his life. 24:53 So, we have other people who are recognizing the same thing 24:58 that Luther and the others are recognizing. 25:01 Another person said that Erasmus laid the egg that 25:04 Luther hatched. 25:07 So, this is coming from many different sectors. 25:12 Had it not been Luther, something would've blown up. 25:14 >>TY: And these are the people that are just named in 25:16 history. 25:17 Luther, Tyndale, there's a whole bunch of people that are 25:21 doing stuff behind the scenes, common, everyday people who, 25:25 they're getting a copy of that manuscript called the New 25:27 Testament, and they're then reading it around the dinner 25:31 table that evening and then passing it onto their 25:34 neighbors and there are people who are just spreading this 25:37 like wildfire. 25:39 >>DAVID: One of the other factors that contributes, 25:41 Jeffrey, you're talking about a variety of factors that are 25:43 gonna make this happen at this time in this way was a growing 25:46 sense of nationalism. 25:48 So, prior to, say, the 15th, 16th centuries, you had the 25:53 Holy Roman empire, the homogenizing, though it wasn't 25:57 totally homogenous, but the binding force was the church. 26:00 But over time, as the church began to overplay its hand in 26:03 the medieval period, people began to identify more and 26:06 more with their communities, their linguistic groups, 26:09 people in their region. 26:11 What we now would call countries, and so, as a good 26:14 example, when Pope Leo the Tenth hears about you know, 26:18 Martin Luther, and he says, hey, wait, wait, and he writes 26:21 the bowl of excommunication, hey, you need to send that guy 26:23 to Rome, we'll give him a fair trial. 26:26 Fredrick of Saxony, one of the electors of what we would call 26:28 Germany today says, no, no, because what's good for Rome 26:34 is not necessarily what's good for the German people. 26:37 So, this growing sense of nationalism, I mean, on every 26:40 front, it is a perfect storm to create this situation. 26:46 >>JEFFERY: That's actually in the 95 theses as well, there's 26:48 an undergirding nationalism, because Luther says, this is, 26:53 these indulgences are to raise funds for a cathedral in Rome. 26:58 And then, he's like, that's great for Italians, but this 27:04 isn't Italy. 27:05 Right, so you have that tension as well. 27:06 >>TY: And Fredrick of Saxony, it was this basic, he just 27:10 said, I like my monk. 27:12 Rome, you can't have him, I like him, I'm gonna keep him, 27:16 he's good for Germany. 27:18 >>DAVID: It's a beautiful thing. 27:19 Listen to this quotation from a book I read on the plane, 27:22 actually, on the flight over from Australia. 27:24 It's Nicholas Miller's book, the Reformation and the 27:27 Remnant, and he says this, it's so simple. 27:29 Luther's beliefs about Christ, grace, and faith, which we'll 27:32 get to, right, sola fida, sola gracia, sola Christo, stood on 27:36 the foundation provided by another doctrine, stood on the 27:39 foundation, one that allowed him to pierce the medieval 27:42 facade, that's what we're talking about here. 27:45 The doctrine of the supreme authority of scripture. 27:49 The monks' feet were firmly planted on the foundation of 27:52 sola scriptura, allowing him and others to develop the 27:55 other sola doctrines. 27:57 Sola fida, sola gracia, sola Christ, by faith alone, by 27:59 grace alone, by Christ alone. 28:01 In other words, if you don't have a standard, something 28:04 that's normative, sola scriptura, you can't get those 28:07 other doctrines off the ground. 28:09 We have to start here. 28:12 >>TY: Authoritative source. 28:13 >>DAVID: And it has to be authoritative. 28:16 Now, of course, the response to that, and we'll deal with 28:18 this later, the Catholic church response to that is 28:20 gonna be to double down against the reformation in 28:23 what's called the counsel of Trent and they're gonna say, 28:25 yeah, scripture, but tradition. 28:28 And we'll come to that later. 28:29 >>TY: And by tradition, they mean the authority of the 28:30 church. 28:31 >>DAVID: But in order to launch this whole enterprise, 28:34 you have to have something holy, something normative, 28:38 something authoritative and that's scripture. 28:42 >>JAMES: I can't help but think about this in relation 28:45 to my own experience again, because coming out of the 28:47 Catholic church in the 20th century, not in the 16th 28:51 century or the 15th century, these were the same issues 28:54 that I was dealing with and I still remember in my mind 28:56 learning what the bible taught in comparison to what I was 29:00 taught or not taught and travelling to England. 29:04 I was on my way to England because I was sure that my 29:06 entire family, now, you understand, I was raised 29:10 Catholic, my mom raised us in England, I was living in 29:12 America by myself, and at 21, I became a Christian at 22, I 29:16 started studying the bible, and I remember, I was 29:19 thinking, I gotta go back to England and tell my 29:21 grandmother who's, you know, just got a few years left, my 29:23 mother, and my family, you know, people that were there 29:27 that I was close to and loved, so, I'm travelling, and what 29:31 I'm doing on the plane is I have this bible and I'm just 29:34 filling this bible with cross references of bible, yes, I'm 29:39 just putting bible verses, cross referencing them on 29:42 every subject that I can think of, just filling the bible 29:44 full, so, when I go back there, I'm just gonna share 29:46 the word of God, and I remember, it didn't phase my 29:50 family, because in my grandmother's mind, in my 29:54 mother's mind, in the way that they thought, the priest and 29:58 the church were the authority, not the word of God. 30:03 And so, I'm there, I'm talking, and my grandmother 30:06 basically has me take a picture off the wall, which is 30:09 the picture of the present pope at that time, John Paul 30:11 the Second, she says, give me that picture, and I gave it to 30:14 her, I'm in her room, I'm getting ready to just, you 30:16 know, spill the beans, and she says, before you do that, give 30:19 me that picture. 30:20 I get it, I take it to her, she takes the picture, she 30:23 kisses it, she gives it back to me, she says, now, you go 30:27 put it back on the wall. 30:29 >>TY: She was communicating to you. 30:31 >>JAMES: Oh, yeah. 30:32 My mom, as soon as I'm talking to her about all of this, she 30:35 calls the priest and she has him come over and I remember 30:38 being confronted by him, and he told me, what about the 30:41 church tetanus, what about the church, what about, what 30:43 about, and I remember, the only thing I had to go with 30:46 the was the word of God. 30:47 Yeah, it reminds me of these verses, and I think it'd be 30:49 good for us just to turn to them there, there's a number 30:52 of them, but I wanna specifically pinpoint these 30:54 ones because these verses are the ones that really hit home 30:59 for me in relationship to what Christ teaches concerning 31:02 this. 31:03 And they're Matthew chapter 15. 31:06 So, Matthew chapter 15, the context of it's really good, 31:08 but I just wanna highlight a couple of the verses, Matthew 31:10 15, beginning with verse 1. 31:13 Jesus, again, I think is radical. 31:17 He's a radical reformer in his day. 31:19 He was probably a Martin Luther, of course, with the 31:23 spirit of Christ, the spirit of God. 31:26 >>TY: Jesus had the spirit of Jesus. 31:28 >>JAMES: Then came to Jesus scribes and Pharisees that the 31:32 religious leaders, the people that know the word, the people 31:35 that, okay, and they came to him, that would be of the 31:39 central church, saying, why do your disciples transgress the 31:44 what? 31:45 Tradition of the elders. 31:47 They don't wash their hands when they eat bread, and he 31:48 answered and said to them, why do you also transgress the 31:52 commandment of God by your tradition? 31:54 >>DAVID: And then, he quotes scripture. 31:55 >>JAMES: For God commanded, saying, honor your father and 31:58 mother and he that curses his father or mother, let him die 32:00 there, but you say, and that is the issue, that is the 32:03 issue. 32:05 You say, but you say, buy you say, and this is what I was 32:10 confronted with when I went back there, the priest 32:12 basically said to me, but what about this, and it was all 32:15 what the church teaches and what the church says. 32:18 And the only thing we had, the only thing I had to go by was 32:20 the word of God, and so, I read these verses over and 32:24 over again. 32:25 They would come to my brain, verse after verse, where in 32:27 Mark 7 it says, in vain you do worship me, teaching for 32:30 traditions the commandments of God. 32:33 And you lay aside with your traditions the commandments of 32:36 God. 32:37 And it was a wrestling match. 32:38 And I think there are people today, just like myself who 32:42 still wrestle and still struggle with church 32:45 traditions, church dogma, church verses. 32:51 >>JEFFERY: You just fully reminded me, I was doing some 32:52 meetings in Wichita, Kansas, couple of years ago. 32:56 Wichita, Kansas. 32:58 You can't say it any other way. 32:59 And one of the evenings, I was giving a presentation on the 33:05 priesthood of Jesus, direct access to Jesus, direct access 33:10 to scripture. 33:11 I get off the pulpit, I'm in the foyer, I'm in the foyer 33:16 and somebody comes up to me and says, Jeffrey, there are 33:18 some ladies outside the entrance of the church waiting 33:22 for you, they are not happy, I'm just warning you. 33:26 So, I walk outside the door and there's these, like, 3 or 33:29 4 older ladies waiting for me, and I say, hi, my name is 33:33 Jeffrey, how can I help you? 33:34 And they were in the meeting. 33:36 They stormed out and they were just fuming outside and when I 33:39 went to introduce myself, the one in the middle, sort of the 33:42 ring leader came forward and with tears in her eyes, she 33:45 says, how dare you. 33:47 How dare you take away my priest? 33:51 Now what I'm I supposed to do, she said. 33:54 I was just like. 33:57 >>TY: What did you say, Jeffrey? 33:59 >>JEFFERY: I was just like, uh, I basically reverted, I 34:03 said, ma'am, Jesus is our priest, y'know? 34:08 I emphasized, what are you supposed to do now? 34:12 Now, you're supposed to have direct access to Jesus. 34:14 What I assumed was liberating, good news, freeing 34:21 and empowering, what I thought was something that would set 34:26 somebody free, spread your wings and fly now, you know, 34:29 enter into this new spiritual journey in God and in Christ 34:33 and in his word, was actually bad news, it was scary. 34:39 >>TY: Because all of that implies responsibility. 34:41 >>JEFFERY: And now you're stepping into the unknown. 34:44 >>DAVID: How did that situation end? 34:46 >>JEFFERY: It ended by them storming out. 34:49 That was it. 34:50 >>TY: Man, I wanna return, based on what you just said to 34:53 what James was just sharing because I think we need to 34:57 always really hasten to add that these are all, these 35:04 ladies, your mom, your grandmother, these are human 35:07 beings like us, and we're all inclined in the same 35:10 direction. 35:11 I know James's mom, she's lovely and James knows better 35:14 than I do that she's a wonderful person. 35:17 The issue isn't the person. 35:19 Like we said earlier in the series, we're not here and 35:23 never should be here to judge people, but just to judge 35:26 ideas and to open up concepts that we believe to be true and 35:32 to be ourselves open for advancement and learning 35:36 things that we don't know ourselves. 35:39 There's no doubt that God looks upon, you know, these 35:42 ladies and your mother and grandmother and us, wherever 35:46 we are in our journey with love and interest and just 35:51 kind of coaching us along as we can bear to be coached 35:55 along and there are people all the time who never take steps 36:00 that you and I or someone else may have taken. 36:04 And they are under the loving grace of God and he knows 36:09 what's going on in their hearts and we don't. 36:11 We don't know what's going on in those ladies' hearts, 36:14 they're upset. 36:15 You know, for all you know, and wouldn't this be great, 36:18 they went home, fought against it in their thinking, and you 36:21 know, after two days of struggling, said, you know 36:24 what, I hated what that Jeffrey guy said, but I think 36:27 I'm gonna read my bible and see if it's there, for all you 36:30 know. 36:31 >>JEFFERY: But even if they didn't, the large heartedness 36:35 of God, the largeness of God's heart will continue to 36:39 interact with them via their earthly priest, because God 36:43 will work with us where we are and God takes us where our 36:48 heart is, so I have no doubt about that in my mind. 36:50 >>JAMES: I like to say in spite of, but I agree with you 36:53 because I remember from my own experience that when I first 36:55 came in contact with these ideas, which came through my 36:58 sister primarily, I was upset. 37:01 >>TY: Just like your mom and your grandmother. 37:03 >>JAMES: Not in the same way exactly, probably more like my 37:06 grandmother than like my mom. 37:08 I was disturbed, out of my comfort zone. 37:15 No way, no way. 37:17 And I became defensive and I became so antagonistic to my 37:20 sister in those few moments that she dropped the subject 37:24 and then, she brought it up again at another point, talked 37:27 to me about another subject that was biblical, 37:30 specifically what I eat, and I became so upset in that moment 37:34 that she dropped the subject. 37:35 Then, she brought up another subject, again, biblical, in 37:38 relation to... 37:39 >>DAVID: I'm gathering that she's persistent. 37:42 >>JAMES: How can you not be? 37:44 >>TY: There's some pretty tight DNA. 37:48 >>DAVID: Like truly a twin? 37:49 >>JAMES: Yeah, truly a twin, but different. 37:51 >>DAVID: You have a twin? 37:52 Did you know that? 37:56 >>JEFFERY: I had no idea. 37:56 >>DAVID: I did not know that until right now. 37:58 >>JAMES: Really? 37:59 >>TY: She's way better looking than James. 38:02 >>TY: She's way better looking than James. 38:03 >>JAMES: You need to come to more of my meetings, you need 38:05 to listen to more of my meetings. 38:06 >>DAVID: I've listened to, I've probably listened to 38:08 50-100 of your sermons and I did not know. 38:10 >>JAMES: Really? 38:12 >>DAVID: Literally, I'm freaking out right now. 38:15 >>TY: He also has a mom and a grandma. 38:17 >>DAVID: Well, now, that I'm not surprised by. 38:19 >>TY: We have to take a break, we'll come back and continue 38:24 this discussion. 38:25 >>DAVID: You're a twin? 38:27 this discussion. 38:28 >>DAVID: You're a twin? 38:30 [Music] 38:41 Announcer: Digma videos are short, engaging messages 38:44 designed for opening up discussion with individuals 38:46 and groups regarding the character of God as well as 38:50 for your own personal spiritual growth. 38:52 For your free DVD sample collection of Digma videos, 38:55 call 877-585-1111, or write to Light Bearers, 39:01 37457 Jasper Lowell Road, Jasper, Oregon 97438. 39:07 Once again, for your free DVD sample collection of Digma 39:10 videos, call 877-585-1111, or write to Light Bearers, 39:17 37457 Jasper Lowell Road, Jasper, Oregon 97438. 39:23 Simply ask for Digma DVD 2. 39:26 [Music] 39:32 [Music] 39:33 >>TY: So, our previous, major discovery is that James has a 39:35 twin. 39:37 [Laughter] 39:38 >>DAVID: That changes everything for me. 39:39 Are you the older or the younger. 39:41 >>TY: I actually knew James's sister before I new James. 39:43 >>DAVID: But are you Jacob or Esau? 39:46 >>JAMES: Jacob. 39:48 >>DAVID: The deceiver. 39:50 >>TY: Anyway. 39:52 >>JAMES: Which also means James, I don't know if you 39:54 knew that. 39:55 >>TY: Yeah, James is the Greek version of Jacob. 39:57 So, sola scriptura, where do we go from here? 40:02 Go ahead. 40:03 >>JEFFERY: I just wanted to say one thing about, related 40:05 to sola scriptura, is the concept of images, images 40:10 embedded in medieval religion. 40:11 It's all based on images, so you have a combination of the 40:14 bible is inaccessible, right, in a language that you can't 40:18 access, and then, complementary to that, you 40:21 have images in church. 40:23 And so, the concept of images was directly related to that 40:28 other thing, right, so they viewed images as the books of 40:31 the laity. 40:33 Because of laity not being in the spiritual realm, but in 40:38 the secular, they have no business to read scripture for 40:41 themselves. 40:42 Give them an image... 40:43 >>TY: As a point of contact with God. 40:46 >>JEFFERY: Yeah, and so, when the reformers, particularly 40:49 the radicals that came after Luther, when they attacked 40:52 images, they were saying, the reason you're propping up 40:56 these images is because the people have no access to the 41:00 word and clearly, an image cannot even approach the scope 41:07 of communication as them having access to the 41:09 scriptures themselves. 41:11 So, my point is simply to say that this idea of sola 41:14 scriptura has very, it's a very long shadow. 41:19 It impacts many different aspects of the religious 41:22 experience. 41:23 >>TY: I'm glad you brought that up because it has such an 41:26 extensive influence that, see if you guys agree with this, 41:31 sola scriptura was the basis for priesthood of all 41:35 believers, which was the basis for modern democracy which was 41:39 the basis for human rights and civil rights movements. 41:43 There were other influences, as we've pointed out, the 41:46 humanist influences, but sola scriptura basically 41:51 communicated the idea that you have direct access to God, you 41:57 can study for yourself, I mean, more recently, Thomas 42:01 Friedman, in a book, let me see, I wrote it down here, The 42:08 World is Flat, is essentially communicating the same idea, 42:12 that the bible of Luther's time is similar to the 42:16 internet of our time in the sense that people have equal 42:20 access to information which, for example, we have this 42:22 phenomenon going on right now where you have a technological 42:26 boom taking place in India of all places. 42:29 Well, why? 42:30 How? 42:31 Because they have access to the internet, which means they 42:33 can educate themselves in technological advancement, and 42:37 they're producing an entire generation of Indians that are 42:41 surpassing Silicon Valley. 42:43 This is amazing in principle, it's a very similar dynamic 42:47 that's taking place. 42:48 >>JEFFERY: Well, what do you think of this related to that? 42:50 You're talking about the technological, you know, 42:53 advances, what about the scientific revolution? 42:56 What about the links between sola scriptura, back to the 43:00 original source, where you build a doctrine not based on 43:05 authority or tradition, but you build a doctrine, a 43:09 teaching, a belief based on the evidence that you observe, 43:13 the observable evidence in the text. 43:16 So, basically that concept is very closely related to the 43:20 scientific method. 43:22 >>TY: So, scientific revolution, technological 43:24 revolution, all of these things, to some significant 43:27 degree, are coming out of the Protestant reformation. 43:30 >>JEFFERY: Yeah, they now begin to look at nature and 43:33 say, from observable nature, that's the inductive method, 43:37 right? 43:38 You arrive at general laws by observable data, and so, there 43:42 was a link there, they approached the book of nature 43:46 as the reformers approached the book of scripture. 43:49 So, there's links. 43:51 >>DAVID: And there have been a number of links. 43:53 These have been regarded as somewhat controversial because 43:56 they sound soort of triumphalism. 44:00 They sound sort of, hey, this culture had something that 44:03 lent itself to something that's valued around the world 44:07 now, i.e. the scientific enterprise, but you're 44:09 exactly right. 44:10 This idea that you can go to God's good earth, to God's 44:15 good universe and observe because the symmetry and the 44:20 consistency and the beauty of God, you would expect to see 44:23 in his creation. 44:24 So, whether you're talking about Newtonian physics or 44:26 biology or various streams of education, they're growing out 44:31 of a desire to figure out why and how God did what he did in 44:36 the created world. 44:38 So, science as an enterprise is largely attributable, comes 44:43 out of Protestant Christianity. 44:46 I mean, that's a big claim, but, and it's multi-factorial. 44:51 But to say that Protestantism didn't have a massive 44:54 influence and maybe even a determinative influence, would 44:58 be, that's true. 44:59 >>JEFFERY: And you see the tensions, emphasis on 45:02 Protestant Christianity, because when Galileo shows up 45:05 in the picture, and he's building on Copernicus, and 45:08 he's challenging established systems, right, yeah, this 45:13 geocentric system, too, heliocentric, and now the 45:16 church, they feel threatened by that, right? 45:20 They push back on that, they have a chokehold on scientific 45:23 progress and so... 45:25 >>TY: We say the earth is the center, therefore, it is. 45:28 >>JEFFERY: Yeah, and so, Galileo comes up, here's a 45:29 telescope, I'm not simply going to apply abstract 45:35 theories or received authority or tradition, that's besides 45:41 the point, he's saying, I am going to observe through a 45:44 telescope the thing that I'm trying to figure out and 45:48 deduce from my observation conclusions. 45:52 That's... 45:53 >>TY: Comes to us from the Protestant, yeah. 45:57 >>DAVID: There's that great line where Galileo really had 46:00 the thumbscrews put to him and he backs down and you know, 46:03 supposedly, the observer says that as he made his way out of 46:06 the trial, he says, and yet, it moves. 46:11 He was persuaded by the threat, but he wasn't 46:14 persuaded intellectually. 46:16 >>JEFFERY: Yeah, he was on house arrest, he buckled under 46:17 pressure, but that's beside the point. 46:20 >>DAVID: A man convinced against his will is of the 46:23 same opinion still. 46:24 But so, this goes back to this multi, this was a cauldron of 46:29 influences and situations and circumstances in human 46:33 history. 46:35 In many ways, it's the sort of cradle of what we regard as 46:38 western civilization. 46:40 Things that we take for granted. 46:41 Humanism, democracy, civil rights, the scientific 46:44 enterprise, liberty of conscience, these are things 46:47 that we just, this is the world that we were born in. 46:50 >>TY: And here's the sad thing, I think it's sad, that 46:53 there are many in the academic world who are unbelievers in 47:00 God and in scripture, and they're trying to, some of 47:04 them, reframe history so as to give no credit to the gospel 47:10 and the Protestant reformation for the formation of the free 47:14 world in which we live, but there's a direct connection. 47:18 In other words, the freedoms that we enjoy right now come 47:25 to us directly, whether a person believes in Jesus or 47:28 not, in western civilization and, increasingly, in all the 47:35 world, we are living under the blessing of the principles of 47:40 the gospel that set in motion events that gave us this kind 47:45 of world. 47:46 >>JEFFERY: To quote Nick Miller again, you quoted Nick 47:47 Miller earlier, the historian, he wrote another book called 47:50 the Religious Roots of the First Amendment, and in that 47:54 book, he argues that very premise that the idea that 47:58 liberty of conscience, freedom, separation from 48:03 church and state, that's often attributed to enlightenment 48:08 principles. 48:10 But he argues that there's a strain of Protestant 48:14 descending thought that is hugely influential in our 48:21 development, our modern conceptions, you know, of 48:24 religious liberty, even in the framing of the founding 48:28 documents of the United States, that those are 48:30 principles that we're building on contributions that 48:35 Protestantism made in regard, and really tracing back to 48:38 Luther. 48:39 >>TY: An argument could be built for the idea that the 48:41 constitution of the United States is the gospel in the 48:45 form of a governing document. 48:48 In other words, the principles that are embedded in the 48:54 gospel of non-coercive love and individual freedom and 48:57 access to God, the gospel then, if you were to take the 49:01 gospel and say, hey, what kind of country would you 49:05 formulate? 49:06 What kind of constitution would you write? 49:08 It would be the constitution that we have. 49:12 >>DAVID: It would certainly be democratic. 49:13 >>JEFFERY: Civil and religious liberty. 49:14 >>TY: Isn't that amazing? 49:17 >>DAVID: A great question to ask, and you know, it's a 49:19 thought experiment, but you can ask yourself the question, 49:23 do you end up with America, the United States of America, 49:26 not as it is today, but as it is in principle? 49:29 Do you end up with that without Protestantism? 49:32 And the answer is no. 49:33 That's an easy, if you don't have Protestantism, you do not 49:37 have the founding of what was called the American 49:41 experiment, and it's, you know, let's just, without any 49:45 sense of triumphalism, I'm an American, but I'm a citizen of 49:48 the Kingdom, I live in Australia. 49:50 My connection is to the global community of Christians, but 49:54 having said that, there is a sense in which America is the 49:58 most influential power in the world over the last, say, 100 50:02 years. 50:03 >>TY: And constantly abuses that power. 50:05 >>DAVID: Of course, and that's actually foretold in 50:07 scripture, in Revelation. 50:09 My point is that where does that idea come from? 50:13 It's born out of concepts. 50:14 Ideas have power. 50:16 >>TY: All men are created equal. 50:18 >>DAVID: Freedom from a king, the empowerment, the 50:22 democratic principle, the work ethic, the, you know, get out 50:27 there, as you said earlier, Ty, and I loved it, the 50:30 respecting of the individual, how did you say that? 50:32 >>TY: The dignity of the individual. 50:33 >>DAVID: The dignity of the individual. 50:35 And I love the idea of freedom there, you know, that just 50:37 reminds me of Galatians 5:1. 50:39 For freedom, Christ has set you free. 50:41 Jesus, when he articulated the essence, the embryo of what he 50:45 came to do, I am come to set at liberty the captives, Luke 4. 50:48 >>JEFFERY: But history's a long story of human fumbling 50:51 with the ideals and misapplying them, because 50:54 even, we're talking about, okay, we triumphantly, about 50:57 the United States said, and these beautiful documents and 51:00 these elevated ideas and then you have allowance for 51:02 slavery. 51:04 >>DAVID: Yeah, they didn't stride into this. 51:06 Now, don't get me wrong, they stumbled, that's a great way 51:09 to say it. 51:10 >>JEFFERY: Women are oppressed, you have the 51:13 natives, you have the African slave system, you have all of 51:18 these things. 51:19 >>DAVID: And there was a blindness. 51:20 And as we mentioned before, you don't see what you don't 51:22 see. 51:23 >>JEFFERY: You're saying, I don't wanna be overly 51:25 patriotic, I believe that history itself tempers our, 51:27 yeah, our triumphalism. 51:30 >>TY: It's a mixed bag for sure, but I think a good way 51:33 to articulate it is isn't that the ideals were wrong, but 51:39 that people weren't living up to the ideas that were 51:42 articulated. 51:43 But in the five minutes that remain, because we're talking 51:47 sola scriptura, I think it'd be kind of interesting if each 51:51 one of us were to share a bible, okay, we're saying to 51:55 people out there, you have the bible and you can study it for 51:58 yourself. 51:59 Give a bible study tip. 52:01 If somebody said to you, hey, I'd like to study the bible, 52:04 what should I do? 52:06 How should I study the bible? 52:07 >>DAVID: Okay, I'll tell you in the last 5-7 years, this is 52:13 my simple bible study tip. 52:15 From Genesis to Revelation, you have basically a single 52:20 story, unifying story in scripture is the story of 52:23 Abraham. 52:24 God's promises to Abraham, Abraham's family, Abraham's 52:27 descendants, so that from Genesis 12, where God calls 52:31 Abraham, right to the end, this Abrahamic figure keeps 52:34 showing up again and again and again and again, why? 52:36 Because that story encapsulates the essence of 52:39 God making a promise to Abraham and his descendents, 52:43 and then, you come to the New Testament, God keeping his 52:45 promise to Abraham and his descendants. 52:48 And so, for me, seeing the bible not as a series of 52:51 propositions or as a series of doctrines, but seeing the 52:54 bible as a story being told with lots of different 52:58 stories, but there's a composite metastory, and that 53:02 is a story of Abraham and his descendents and Jesus becomes 53:05 a descendent of Abraham so that God can do what he 53:09 promised he would do all the way back in Genesis. 53:11 >>JEFFERY: You stole the whole point. 53:13 >>TY: That was mine, that was mine. 53:14 >>DAVID: Well, that's why I quickly got in there, that's 53:16 why I quickly got in there. 53:17 >>TY: Okay, Jeffrey, go from there. 53:19 What would you say to someone? 53:21 >>JEFFERY: Well, in addition to the concept, I mean, to get 53:22 really practical, because you know, you were hanging out up 53:25 here in etherium, but to be practical, I'd read a passage, 53:30 a chunk of scripture and I would simply take a notepad or 53:35 a document on my computer and ask three simple questions, 53:39 what does this teach me about the character of God? 53:43 What does this teach me about the controversy between good 53:46 and evil? 53:47 Or you could say, what does this teach me about the 53:48 character of Satan? 53:49 And then, number three, I say, how does this apply to my 53:52 personal daily life? 53:54 >>TY: Oh, that's good. 53:55 >>JEFFERY: So, in a simple, practical step, I think that's 53:57 an approach to take as we navigate through the story. 54:00 >>TY: So, you're asking three questions, and you're looking 54:02 at any given passage, how are those issues addressed in this 54:05 passage. 54:06 >>JEFFERY: I believe every passage, every major section 54:09 of scripture addresses those three questions. 54:12 >>TY: Okay, James, bible study tip. 54:14 >>JAMES: Not to criticize Jeffrey for stealing my point 54:16 or David, so, I think that the bible is saying something to 54:23 us practically, as Jeffrey alluded to. 54:26 So, when I study scripture, I wanna know what is the message 54:28 being communicated to me right now in the scripture? 54:31 I love the historical part of it, I love that and I think 54:33 it's really important, but when I read a bible verse, I 54:37 wanna know, what is it saying to me right now? 54:39 So, for me, what's important is taking a bible verse and 54:43 looking at the Greek and/or the Hebrew through a Strong's 54:47 Concordance or some kind of, and cross referencing every 54:51 verse I can that would give meaning to that, like, how 54:53 does this word use, so, I'm looking at that verse and I'm 54:56 understanding what the original, where those words 54:59 were used in other places of the bible, connecting them all 55:01 together. 55:02 And then, like a word study, and that's why I love, 55:06 learning how to study the bible with a concordance. 55:10 >>DAVID: I'm having déjà vu right now, no, truly, déjà vu. 55:12 I'm just fully having a déjà vu experience. 55:14 >>JAMES: Learning how to study the bible with a concordance 55:17 turned my world upside down. 55:19 It instantly caused me to become a theologian. 55:22 Okay, a lay theologian, but a theologian none the less. 55:26 It's being able to go to the word, having confidence to go 55:29 to the word of God and say, I can figure this out, I know I 55:31 can figure this out. 55:33 Because I can look at the Greek and Hebrew, I can go 55:34 back now and trace how this word is used in the New 55:37 Testament, in the Old Testament, I can make 55:39 connections that can really explode out to me. 55:41 That, to me, was just like, life saving. 55:44 >>TY: Oh, powerful, powerful. 55:46 So, the narrative approach to scripture and asking three key 55:50 questions, character of God, character of evil, and how 55:53 does this apply to me, right here right now. 55:55 And building to number 3, how does this apply right now in 55:58 any given text? 56:00 Word study, what do the words mean and how do they cross 56:02 reference with other scripture that is brought to bear upon 56:07 this one? 56:08 Those are good bible study tools, and in the five 56:11 seconds, 4, 3, 2, 1, I can't share mine, but maybe next 56:15 time. 56:16 [Music] 56:27 蛂usic] |
Revised 2018-01-18