our lesson, we need to pray for our Sunday school. Chris, would you pray for our Sunday school classes? Father God, we thank you for the teaching of your word. Lord, we thank you for the scriptures and what they teach us in terms of our duty and how we believe you, God. What a blessed body of doctrine and wisdom and grace you’ve given and revealed to us in your word. We thank you. Our elementary school students, may you bless them in the knowledge and teaching of the word of God, especially the law of God, and also just be with Mrs. Cashin as she teaches and leads them. Bless our time this morning in Christ’s name, amen. Amen, thank you. All right, you’re dismissed. Okay. So we’re going to take a little bit of a break from the Westminster Confession.
There are two reasons for that. The first reason is we’re going to jump into the five solas. And the second reason is this is part of what I plan to teach in Uganda. So you’ll get a little taste of what I’ll be doing, Lord willing, in Uganda as I teach Introduction to Reformed Theology.
But we’ll also take a break from the Westminster Confession. We’ll learn a little bit about the Five Solas. So that’s why we’re doing this. Questions? Before we get to the Five Solas, I wanted to give us a run-up to the Five Solas, so to speak. And so maybe just a bit of history to the Reformation. To the Reformation. Okay.
So when did the Reformation happen? Okay, so you’d have to actually define what the Reformation was in order to say when did it happen? And so my contention this morning is we usually think of the Reformation beginning when this guy pounds some theses on the door to the chapel at Wittenberg, right? Or Wittenberg, however, I’m not German, so I think it’s Wittenberg. We usually think that as that beginning of the Reformation, was it? And I’m going to contend that actually it wasn’t. It wasn’t the big beginning of the Reformation.
And what was the Reformation? Just some general question. What was it? Yes, sir? That’s it. The church was straying. And so the Reformation was bringing it back to the scriptures. Bringing it back to the truth of the scriptures, as opposed to the traditions of men. Okay, that’s very general. So, when did it begin? We want to kind of think of that this morning. I want to read 1 Corinthians for us. Excuse me, 1 Corinthians 15, just as it is an opener for us. 15, beginning at verse 12.
Now, if Christ is proclaimed, as raised from the dead, how can some of you say that there is no resurrection from the dead? But if there is no resurrection of the dead, then not even Christ has been raised. And if Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is in vain and your faith is in vain. We are even found to be misrepresenting God because we testified about God that he raised Christ, whom he did not raise if it is true that the dead are not raised. For if the dead are not raised, not even Christ has been raised. And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile and you’re still in your sins.
And those who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished. If in Christ we have hope in this life only, we are of all people most to be pitied. But in fact, Christ has been raised from the dead, the first fruits of those who have fallen asleep. For as by a man came death, by a man has come also the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive, but each in his own order. Christ, the firstfruits, then his coming, those who belong to Christ.
Then comes the end when he delivers the kingdom to God the Father after destroying every rule and every authority and power. For he must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet. The last enemy to be destroyed is death, for God has put all things in subjection under his feet. But when it says all things are put in subjection, it is plain that he is accepted who put all things in subjection under him. When all things are subjected to him, then the son himself will also be subjected to him who put all things in subjection under him, that God may be all in all.
Amen. Would you pray with me? Father, this is the gospel, and we thank you for it. We thank you for the church. We thank you for those who understood your word by the work of the spirit and sought to bring the church back into conformity with your word. Help us now. God, indirect our hearts. We ask this in Jesus’s name, amen. All right, well, five souls, the Reformation.
What does it mean to be reformed? If you’re talking to a neighbor, somebody at the grocery store, and you mention you go to church, and they ask you, what church is that? And you say, well, it’s a reformed church. And they say, what do you mean by that? What’s a Reformed church? How do you respond? Now, I know Reformed is not in our name. Presbyterian is, so you’d have the same issue, right? I go to the Presbyterian. What is that? What is Presbyterianism? What does it mean to be a Presbyterian?
What does it mean to be Reformed? Webster’s 1828, Reformed. means amended, restored to a good state. You could say that. We’ve been restored to a good state. All right, so as we’re thinking about being reformed, as we’re thinking about the Reformation, as we’re thinking about, obviously we’re headed to the five solas, when did it begin?
Was it merely Martin Luther? And the answer is no. The Waldensys, followers of Peter Waldo. He’s a wealthy man. Around 1176, when did Martin Luther pound the Theses? Okay, so a little bit before this is Peter Waldo, right? Like almost, my math isn’t all that good, 400 years? 400 years earlier, he sells his wealth, he gives to the poor, believed that the Bible, especially the New Testament, that’s a little concerning, should be the only rule of faith in life for the Christian. That’s Peter Waldo and his followers.
That’s pretty important. He’s going back to scripture, right? Already, in 1176. John Wycliffe, who is he? He did translate the Bible. 1320 to 1384, he called the Pope the Antichrist. What does anti mean? Against. And declared that the Bible, rather than the church, should be the only rule of faith. Translated the Bible into English. This is not me, this is from B.K. Kuyper, Church History.
What about the Lawlords? Wycliffe’s teachings were continued by his disciples. That’s usually what happens. You get somebody teaching things and the disciples or the students of that person, then they go out, they continue. Sometimes they go off track. Lawlords continued Wycliffe’s teaching. They denounced the Pope and his clergy, already attacking the Pope.
Who’s the Pope? A man, OK. All right, good, good. Well, as far as the Roman Catholic Church is concerned, he’s the leader of the church, right? He’s the vicar of Christ. They denounced the pope and his clergy, practiced poverty, acknowledged the Bible as the only standard of doctrine. OK, again, the focus is on scripture that we’re seeing, right?
And this is well before Martin Luther. John Haas, 1369 to 1415. He was the dean of the University of Prague’s theological faculty. He preached against the corruption of the clergy. Was that a problem? Yeah. He taught that the church consists of the total number of the predestinated. Wow. Election. Chosen. Predestination. Already. 1369, 1415. condemn the selling of indulgences.
What are indulgences? It gets you into heaven, right? You go to purgatory first, right? So purgatory is this in-between place. This is not true. This is a lie of the Roman Catholic Church. Purgatory is an in-between place between heaven and hell. And as one dies, you go to purgatory to basically work off your sin. Well, that’s not in scripture, right? So how do you get out of purgatory? With indulgences, right? And so if you’ve got a relative, somebody you liked, you know they’re in purgatory now and they’re suffering. and they need to get out, now you can buy some indulgences for your relative from the church and buy their way out of purgatory.
This is what’s going on in the church, and John Huss condemns that. John of Wessel, 1445 to 1456, he’s a professor at the University of Somebody help me pronounce that. Erfurt in Germany called Light of the World. Again, he attacks indulgences. He teaches the doctrine of justification by faith alone. We seemingly seem to attribute that to Luther. Well, it’s in the Bible. So John of Wessel knew it and he teaches it. He teaches that the elect are saved by grace alone and did not accept transubstantiation. Have you ever heard of that? What is that? What is trans-substantiation? Okay, it’s a, again, a heresy. It’s not true. It’s the belief that, it’s the Catholic teaching that the bread becomes the body of Christ. This transformation, that’s why trans is in here.
And the grape, the wine, becomes the blood of Christ. And so at every single Mass, as the priest is seeking to pray over the elements, the bread and the wine, what they believe is happening is that these These material things, the bread and the wine, are actually being converted, changed into the body and blood of Jesus Christ. And so at every single Mass, Jesus is being re-sacrificed. And so now the people are called, once the priest has somehow mystically changed, the common bread, the common wine, into the body and blood of Jesus, now the people are invited to come and eat Christ.
Carnally. To the extent that the church becomes concerned that the people might actually spill the wine, and so now the wine is removed from the Mass, I guess only for the priests, because of the concern that you’d actually be spilling some of the blood of Christ on the ground. That’s transubstantiation. That’s a heresy that the Roman Catholic Church devises and continues to proclaim this day. John of Wessel didn’t accept that.
For more than 300 years, The church had violent turmoil in many areas. Men had come to think of the church as a hierarchy of officials, and it was. It was. It is. And there had come into the beliefs of the official church many teachings not found in scripture. See, that’s the problem. That’s the problem. This is where the church had gone.
And so these that we’ve been hearing about who were speaking against it already, Well, well, well before Martin Luther. Okay, purgatory, transubstantiation, indulgences, and perhaps the most significant, the doctrine of the Pope as the direct apostolic successor of Peter. These are the problems, right? We’ve talked a little bit about each of these.
Purgatory. In accordance with Catholic teaching is a place or condition of temporal punishment for those who departing in this life, departing this life in God’s grace, are not entirely free from venial faults or have not fully paid the satisfaction due to their transgressions. So as you die, the idea is that there is some punishment that still remains on you. It hasn’t been satisfied yet. You haven’t cleansed yourself yet. And so you need to. And so you need to go to some place for that cleansing.
Yes, sir? If the Catholics hadn’t invented purgatory, nobody would be a Catholic. That’s their bailout point. Yeah. Good. So again, this is all, when I say running up to the Reformation, We’ve already spoken about those who are speaking against these things, but now we need to understand what was happening in the church, and why these things needed to be spoken against, and what was needed for the church to do. Indulgences.
This is from the Encyclopedia Britannica. Anybody have one of those anymore? The debt of forgiveness sin could be reduced through the performance of good works in this life. Now, we can just stop there for a moment. That you can work off the debt you owe to God. The wages of sin is death. Where do we see that in the scripture? Hmm, we don’t. It’s not there. It’s not there.
The debt of forgiven sin, okay, just forgiven sin. So the idea is that your sin’s been forgiven, but there still remains some debt to be paid. It hasn’t been completely forgiven. It hasn’t been separated as far as the east is from the west, not yet. So pilgrimages, charitable acts, or through suffering and purgatory. So you could pay off some of that debt by additional suffering. Indulgences could be granted only by popes or, to a lesser extent, archbishops and bishops as a way of helping ordinary people, ordinary people, right? Not the pope.
Ordinary people measure and amortize their remaining debt. That’s the idea, you gotta pay it off. Somebody, somebody needs to pay off this portion of your sin which is not yet really forgiven. Some of it is. Yes, sir? There was a debt, and that’s the debt that the Roman Catholic Church had in creating all the cathedrals and subsidizing their hierarchy. Needed to be paid off. Yeah. Needed to finish the Sistine Chapel. OK. Purgatory, indulgences, they go together.
Today, however, the Church’s constant teaching should be clear. This is from simplycatholic.com. Indulgences can be applied only to the punishment that is due for sins already forgiven, either in sacramental confession, in the case of mortal or venial sins, or by personal expressions of sorrow, in the case of venial sins only. So this idea still remains, this teaching still remains, that your sin has been forgiven, yet there’s still more to do.
There’s work to do. The Council of Trent. This is from catholic.com. What was the Council of Trent? It’s a gathering of the church. In a sense, my recollection is it’s in a response to the Reformation that’s going on. The Council of Trent defined that indulgences are most salutary for Christian people and that their use is to be retained in the church.
Hey, you guys are speaking against it. We’re just going to increase our doctrine and reassure you that indulgences are still the way to go. It is the common teaching of Catholic theologians that indulgences may be applied to the souls detained in purgatory. And purgatory still is there. So don’t listen to those guys, those reformers. Don’t listen to them. Purgatory still exists. And indulgences still can be used. May be applied to souls detained in purgatory and that indulgences are available for them by way of suffrage. When was the Council of Trent? Fifteen-something, yeah. Good.
Ah, this is from Beaky and Jones, a Puritan in theology. They’re quoting Christopher Love, Heaven’s Glory. So that’s why it’s in Old English. Now, if this would be true, that the elect’s souls immediately after death go to glory, then, O believer, do not trust to a purgatory to do away thy sins, if the blood of Jesus be not thy purgatory.” What’s he saying? That Christ’s blood has cleansed you completely, completely. He’s saying, he is your purgatory. He’s done the suffering in your place. For this will purge thy conscience from dead works. A purgatory will never cleanse thee. There is no time after the death to labor after salvation.
When do you have to believe? Before or after death? Before. That’s what Christopher Love is saying. There’s no time after the death to labor after salvation. Impossible. Oh, labor in thy life to be saved, and labor in thy lifetime to be happy, for as soon as breath has gone out of thy body, thy soul has gone either to heaven to be happy or to hell to be in endless misery.” There’s a lot in that statement. There is no purgatory. There is no midway between heaven and hell. The only time for salvation is today. Believe upon the Lord Jesus Christ. He is your purgatory, only if you believe. That’s a good question for the Pope today.
I mean, if you were in purgatory, would you go to hell after that? I mean, if you didn’t get enough indulgences or you didn’t pay it off, would you eventually go into hell? It’s just time. So you can reduce the time that you’re in purgatory to do that. But if you go to purgatory, you are stopped. So, no matter what, you go to purgatory, you’re eventually going to heaven. It’s just the time that you spend in purgatory. Okay, so purgatory is the equivalent of hell.
Because otherwise, I would say Jesus… No, no, it’s a sanctification process. But Jesus, if paid for us by going to, in a sense, paid hell for us. I mean, that’s why I’m trying to make the distinction. If purgatory is hell, okay, I would agree with that statement. Jesus’ sins paid for, you know, he went to hell in that time.
They view it as like an extension to your sanctification, so because they don’t have an understanding of imputed righteousness, it’s like before you come to heaven, you have to be of the rest of your sin in purgatory. So it’s exclusively for believers who have not yet purged, in a sense, all of their. But there’s a benefit for it. So whereas hell, there is no benefit. There’s just total misery. But purgatory has a benefit to reason.
Yes, ma’am. If you committed a mortal sin and did not confess it before you died, you would definitely go to hell. Were you raised Catholic? He was. Good. Thank you. I am not clear on the Pope’s position today as to whether or not all people are saved. I don’t know. Maybe that’s his position. I don’t know. OK, so purgatory, indulgences, it’s a problem. These things are not in the scripture. This is going on. Transubstantiation also going on. This is from catholic.com. So this is going to be Catholic doctrine. In the previous chapter, the apostle wrote, the blessing cup that we bless is a communion with the blood of Christ.
And the bread that we break is communion with the body of Christ, 1 Corinthians 11.16.
His words are clear. The only possible meaning is that the bread and wine at the consecration become Christ’s actual body and blood. Evidently, Paul believed that the words Christ had said at the Last Supper, this is my body, meant that really and physically the bread is his body.
In fact, Christ was not merely saying that the bread was his body, he was decreeing that it should be so and that it is so. Okay, so that’s Catholic doctrine. Now, you have to know that Luther wouldn’t give this up. He held to the words, this is my body, and would not release that in terms of the literal application of it.
Now, he changed transubstantiation to do consubstantiation in with and under the bread and wine. No, no, no. This is just with regard to the Lord’s Supper, communion, and whether or not Christ was physically present in the elements that were being served, yes. In the reign of Bloody Mary, each of the Puritans that was brought to the stake, if they confess that trans-association was real, they would be set free.
Of course, not today. A significant doctrine. The Pope, infallibility. Again, this is Catholic doctrine. Oh, yes. If he’s sitting on the bench, if he’s sitting on the throne, basically, if he gives some pronouncement about whatever, and it’s not in his role as the pope sitting on the chair, then we’re not talking about infallibility. But if he’s talking about scripture, if he’s talking about things of the church, then it’s infallible. Infallibility belongs in a special way to the pope as head of the bishops. He is the bishop of bishops.
As Vatican II remarked, it is a, I always pronounce this word wrong, charism? Charism? Come on, some English folks here, help me. I think it’s charism. Okay, thank you. The Pope enjoys in virtue of his office when, as the supreme shepherd and teacher of all the faithful who confirms his brethren in their faith, he proclaims by a definitive act some doctrine of faith or morals. That’s infallible, according to their doctrine. Therefore his definitions of themselves and not from the consent of the church are justly held irreformable, for they are pronounced with the assistance of the Holy Spirit. And assistance promised to him in blessed Peter.
So they’re adding to the scriptures, basically. Oh, yes. Oh, yes. And whatever the pope says is in addition to. With regard to doctrine of faith or morals. But I wasn’t raised Catholic, so this is pretty interesting to me. I don’t know a lot of this. So what do they believe about the pope as far as him being a simple man? I can’t answer that. Maybe some of our Catholic friends or who are raised Catholic can answer. Can the Pope sin?
Yes? He can in actuality. Oh yeah, of course, of course. I don’t know. I can’t answer that question. The teaching here is that as he is proclaiming doctrine or something having to do with morals, infallible. And he doesn’t need the agreement of anybody else, right? That’s what they’re saying here. And not from the consent of the church. Okay, so again another problem. We’re lumping problem upon problem. Yes, sir. I don’t know. Sure. Yes.
And Jesus says, on this rock, I will build my church. And so the Roman Catholic teaching is, oh, that’s Peter. Upon this rock, I’ll build my church. And so Peter has to have this apostolic succession. If the church is going to continue to be built, there must be another Peter, and another Peter, and another Peter, meaning a pope, and a pope, and a pope. So that’s why they think that the popes are all additional apostles. Yeah, sure. Because they’re in succession. They’re a line of Peter. Right? Okay, so the Reformation was not merely a movement that began because a man named Luther revolted against certain teachings of the church. Many times that’s what we think.
And what were the theses that he, there were 95 of them, what were the theses that he posted? Was he saying, hey, the Pope’s not infallible, you guys are straying from scripture, that’s a problem, No. He was questioning indulgences and the way they were being used. But he wasn’t, he wasn’t writing against purgatory. He wasn’t.
Later on, he does. Yes, sir. Yes. That’s how they did things. Right? Okay. I want to talk about this, this, this, this, and this. Let’s get together. Here’s my, it’s the bulletin board, right? And so let’s get together and talk about these 95 things. Let’s dispute them, disputations. Yeah, good. So, there you go.
Martin Luther, as a monk, Luther sought to earn his salvation by a life of asceticism. What’s asceticism? Denial. Sleeping on cold, hard floors all night. Not really sleeping. Beating himself. He was seeking to remove evil from his person in a physical way. Because nothing was working. And so he’s living this life of asceticism, of a monk. denying himself, all kinds of things, hurting himself, walking upstairs on his knees, and nothing’s working. Nothing’s changing his heart. Sometime around 1512, Luther was converted through reading Romans. The righteous shall live by faith. In part, as a response to the sale of indulgences by Tetzel, what’s he trying to do?
Raise up money to build up, as you said, Yeah, Luther wrote out a disputation, thank you, and set forth his 95 theses, apparently nailing to the door of the castle church in Wittenberg in 1517. That’s what we usually think of. Hey, that’s the beginning, not necessarily. In May 1520, he published a pamphlet with the title On Good Works. In it, he applied to practical everyday life his newly won conviction that man is saved by faith alone, The noblest of all good works, he said, is to believe in Jesus Christ. Yeah. Zwingli and Calvin. The Stan Luther took, again, this is from Kuiper. The Stan Luther took at Leipzig, I think. Leipzig, come on. Leipzig.
Leipzig debate and his burning of the papal bull. What is the papal bull? Is this an animal? No, it’s basically a letter from the Pope that condemns Luther, right? And basically kicks him out. I believe that was what this papal bull was. He burns it. It inspired Zwingli to make a systematic attack on the Roman church.
In the spring of 1536, Calvin published his Institutes of the Christian Religion. This work is the greatest exposition of evangelical truth produced by the Reformation. Well, that’s Mr. Kuyper’s opinion, I think. What are the Institutes? Why do we know what they are, and what are they really? It’s really one of the first systematic theologies. There are lots of systematic theologies, but Luther, I mean, Calvin is understood as kind of one of the first who puts together a system of theology. And that’s what his institutes are. John Knox. May 2nd, 1559, Knox came back to Scotland. After Knox returned, the Reformation in that land swept forward. The preaching of Knox was like a spark in a keg of gunpowder. 1559, Scotland. OK. So this is just a little pamphlet by Mr. DeWitt.
To be reformed means at least in part to be faithful to our heritage, to the great tradition in which we stand, which has given such brilliant and cogent expression to the truth of the word of God affirmed by the ancient Christian church. And in a sense, rediscovered. So it was always there, right? The word was always there. It’s just that the church was going this way. And so the Reformation brings the church back. And in a sense, rediscovered at the time of the Protestant Reformation. Mr. DeWitt continues, beyond this general reference, DeWitt concluded that it was difficult to define what it is to be reformed.
That was the question we began with, right? What do you tell a person? I go to a reformed church. What does that mean? It is no easy matter to arrive at a brief satisfactory definition of what it means to be reformed. Do it mention the following which makes definition difficult. There’s no single source to which we can turn for an authoritative expression of the reformed faith. He mentions at this point that many big names were involved, Augustine, Anselm, Luther, Calvin. When did Augustine live? A few years before Calvin? Yeah, a long time. But much of Calvin’s theologies goes back to Augustine, right?
So there’s no single source, that’s what DeWitt is saying. To say I’m a Calvinist I don’t know. I’m not sure I quite like that. So Luther was an Augustinian monk. Why was he a Catholic? Why didn’t he pick up on that? Pick up on Augustine? Whatever Augustine theology. Well, the Catholic Church does, strangely, adopt Augustine.
Not all of it. They see him as one of the true theologians. So no single source. That’s one of the reasons it’s difficult for us to define what Reformed is. He suggests we consider the confessions as official expressions of the Reformed faith. Not to the writings of theologians, but to the confessions of the Church.
The Belgic Confession, the Heidelberg Confession, the Second Helvetic Confession, the Canons of Dort, the Westminster Confession, and catechisms. That’s what we use. It helps us. What is the Westminster Confession, by the way? It’s another systematic theology, isn’t it? Basically, it’s a cookbook of doctrine. He also mentions the following.
To be reformed means different things to different people. At this point, the five points of Calvinism, he recognizes them, but recognizes the reformed faith is much more comprehensive than those five points. What are the five points of Calvinism? Tulip, does that define all of Calvin’s doctrine?
No. Does it come close? No. No, it’s really only with regard to salvation and still just a cryptic way to remember certain points. DeWitt suggested it may be helpful to think in terms of themes which were at issue in the Reformation and thus which in a sense define what it is to be reformed. Do you see where we’re going? Themes? So, Reformation themes. Examples. Scripture.
The Reformation rediscovered and accentuated afresh the authority of the Bible. It threw down the tyranny of a corrupt ecclesiastical hierarchy that had set itself above the Word of God and repudiated the authority of ecclesiastical tradition. So, that’s one theme of the Reformation. from Mark chapter 7, and he said to them, you have a fine way of rejecting the commandment of God in order to establish your tradition. So the Catholic Church didn’t make up something new, right?
This was going on in Jesus’s time. For Moses said, honor your father and mother, and whoever reviles father and mother must surely die. But you say, if a man tells his father or mother, whatever you would have gained from me as Corban, that is given to God, then you no longer permit him to do anything for his father and mother, thus making void the word of God by your tradition that you’ve handed down. This is what the Pharisees were doing.
This is what was being taught in the church, so to speak, at that time. So Roman Catholic Church hasn’t actually done anything new. I suggest that we must think here not merely of a single all-dominating theme, but a number of themes which relate to one another and contribute each in its own way to a beautifully harmonious and eminently biblical grasp of the Christian faith. So he’s saying not one single theme, but several themes that are connected.
Are you thinking of any? How about the five solas? Ah, okay. So who wrote the five solas? Was that Calvin? Where in the institutes can you go and read of the five solos? What about Luther? Did Luther write the five solos? No. Five solos were not exactly Reformation slogans, but they serve as a good summary of the Reformed faith.
Neither Martin Luther nor John Calvin or any other Protestant Reformer summarizes teachings in a tidy list, including scripture alone, Christ alone, faith alone, grace alone, to the glory of God alone. taking flight in the 19th and 20th centuries. That’s a little bit after Calvin and Luther. This fivefold summary became the shorthand version of what is known as Reformed theology. Scripture alone, Christ alone, faith alone.
This is from Ligonier. This is actually written by Dr. McGraw on the five solas. While this description of the Reformed faith came later, meaning the five solas, It still captures well the core of the gospel in all its graciousness and Christ-centeredness, just as it is revealed in the scriptures. These five solas show the glory of God’s gracious way of salvation in a way that sets the tone for true theology, resounding in how we think and live in this world.
All right. So all that was to get to here, to get to that point. So this is next week, Sola Scriptura, probably not next week. Probably the week after this coming Sunday. Questions? Yes, sir? What inspired you to teach this? You missed the opening. Because I plan to teach this in Uganda. And so I didn’t mention this earlier. So it helps me in preparing to go to Uganda. But it also, I think, shows you what I’m going to be doing, Lord willing, in Uganda. This is one of the aspects of Introduction to Reformed Theology that I plan to teach the five solas.
So that’s why. You’re helping me prepare. Thank you. Yes, sir? Just a quick comment. The only reason that Paul thinks he’s infallible is that he’s not married. OK. I can’t respond to that. Yes, sir? There have been reformations from the Reformation Church, like the Puritans from the Anglican Church, the Indonesian from PCUSA, Units that come out, but they are the faithful ones. Constantly reforming. Yeah, good.
One of the things Gavin Whitman has helped me with in terms is Protestant retrieval of the early church fathers, obviously the father of that teaching is David McKenna. But I mean, to me, but you just can’t, I think Warfield said that, well, you go from Augustine, and it’s kind of a big jump then to the Reformation. And there’s like nothing in between. And I’m learning that, obviously, taking, like you mentioned, Anselm and others, there’s a lot that you can take away and retrieve from even the dark ages. Yes, Thomas Aquinas. There’s a lot in Aquinas. Probably two years ago, when I said skip over all this, I would have been like Orfield and skipped and gone to the, you know, Yeah, but it’s very helpful. To just eliminate all of that is dangerous. Yes, agreed, agreed.
All right, let’s pray. Father, we thank you. We thank you for your word, that it is infallible, that it’s your word, and we thank you for bringing us back to it. We pray, Lord God, that you would cause us to be faithful faithful believers, faithful Christians, who would adhere to Your Word, who would love Your Word, and seek to continue to proclaim it. Help us, Father. Even now, help us to prepare for worship. We need Your Spirit. We ask for it. Strengthen us and move us that we might bring You that worship which is pleasing in Your sight. I ask all this in Jesus’ name.