10 Things You Should Know about the Reformation

By Tim Chester

1. The Pope started the Reformation.

In 1505, Pope Julius II embarked on a fundraising campaign bringing Johann Tetzel to Germany to sell indulgences. On October 31, 1517, Martin Luther nailed his protest against indulgences to the door of the Castle Church in Wittenberg.

2. The Reformation was about sausages.

In 1522, the host of a group of students in Zurich was fined for breaking with tradition by holding a sausage-themed party during Lent. Huldrych Zwingli, the leader of the city’s church, produced a pamphlet arguing that there was nothing in the Bible about eating sausages during Lent.

3. Luther’s marriage was a bit fishy.

After Luther helped a group of nuns escape their cloistered life, their families refused to take them back. Luther was able to find all of them husbands to marry them off except the ringleader, Katharina von Bora. So, Luther himself married her.

4. There were 97 theses before there were 95 theses.

Luther’s ninety-seven theses included an attack on the Greek philosopher Aristotle.

5. The Reformation involved a rediscovery of the work of the Spirit.

Luther realized our problem is that we’re sinners deep down to the very core of our being. To please God, we need a radical inner transformation. That’s what the Holy Spirit does.

6. The Reformation wasn’t about salvation by works—at least not quite.

The Council of Trent was the Catholic Church’s response to the Reformation, a response it has never repudiated. Evangelicals all know we begin the Christian life by faith. But we all too easily slip into thinking we need to win God’s approval through our activities becoming more Roman

Catholic than we realize.

7. The Reformation wasn’t about the authority of Scripture—at least not quite.

Today no evangelical rejects the authority of Scripture. But all too often we place our experience alongside Scripture or use experience to interpret Scripture—rather than the other way round.

8. The Reformation is not over.

In a 1985 lecture, Pope Francis claimed the Reformation underlies all the problems of Western civilization, from secularism to totalitarianism.

9. The Reformation still matters and not just when we’re talking to Catholics.

The church is always being reformed by God’s Word.

10. The Reformation makes us small and Christ big.

Soli Deo gloria, "to the glory of God alone." There’s no room in Reformation theology for human boasting.

Taken from “10 Things You Should Know about the Reformation” by Tim Chester, Copyright © October 26, 2016. Used by permission of Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers, Wheaton, IL 60187, www.crossway.org