Giants of the Reformation (4)

Now these things, brethren, I have figuratively transferred to myself and Apollos for your sakes, that you may learn in us not to think beyond what is written, that none of you may be puffed up on behalf of one against the other. 1 Corinthians 4.6

The Pagan Servitude of the Church
Martin Luther (1483-1546)
“Why do they appeal at this point to the free church and the power of the pope? Yet no such appeal abolishes either the Word of God or the testimony of the truth.”

In 1520, besides The Freedom of a Christian, Luther published a broadside entitled The Pagan Servitude of the Church. It has also come to be called, The Babylonian Captivity of the Church. In this brief work, he railed against practices in the Church of his day for which he could discover no solid Biblical foundation. Things were being done in the churches because they’d always been done that way, or they worked to keep the churches and their coffers full, or because respected authorities insisted, without any Biblical basis, that this was the way to do church. In the forms of worship, the way Christian life was defined, the practice of ministers, and the whole organization of church life, the Church of Luther’s day was operating on definitions, opinions, and practices which did not derive from Scripture. Church leaders had gone beyond the Word of God, and were leading their churches according to the spirit of the age. Roman Church authorities had begun trying to deal with some of the abuses, but they were moving neither fast enough nor boldly enough for Luther. Have we gone beyond the Word of God and the methods of the Spirit in how we organize and lead our churches?

How confident are you that everything in your church is being done according to the Word of God?

T. M. Moore

Organizing with the Spirit
The Lord Jesus is building His Church. His Word is the blueprint, His Spirit is the General Contractor, and we are all builders together of the Body of Christ. But are we doing our work God’s way, or ours? The Spirit has His ways of organizing our work, and we do well to understand as much as we can about His methods. This is the argument of Dr. Kent Miller of Michigan State University, and you can watch our Conversation with Dr. Miller, and download a free copy of his paper on the subject, “Organizing with the Spirit,” by clicking here.

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Except as indicated, Scripture taken from the New King James Version. © Copyright 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved.All quotations from Martin Luther, The Pagan Servitude of the Churchin John Dillenberger, ed., Martin Luther: Selections from His Writings(New York: Doubleday, 1962).