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Ready for a fun conversation?

Consider...
Gal 5:19 The acts of the sinful nature are obvious: sexual immorality, impurity and debauchery;

Gal 5:20 idolatry and witchcraft; hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissensions, factions

Gal 5:21 and envy; drunkenness, orgies, and the like. I warn you, as I did before, that those who live like this will not inherit the kingdom of God.

If Luther is to be judged by his fruit. He created discord, jealousy, dissensions, factions for sure. It broke up the Unity that the Christ prayed for in John 17.

I will contend that what Luther did was driven by the flesh and was not a Godly outcome.

I'm prepared to be hammered! But hopefully we can have great conversation.

...So then we should avoid confrontation, even if it means compromising on doctrine? Wouls you argue that Luther was driven by the flesh, but the Roman Catholic hierarchy was driven by spiritual motives?
Certainly Luther was not sinless, not close. No one is. But to say he was driven by the flesh to challenge the horrible proactices going on in the Roman Church in the sixteenth century is absurd.

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Στηθι εδραιος, ως ακμων τυπτομενος. - Ignatius |II Timothy 4:2| All Scripture is NKJV, unless a translation from the Greek text or otherwise noted.
M.A. Theological Studies (New Testament), Faith Seminary, Tacoma WA
Member, Evangelical Theological Society, North American Patristics Society.
Assistant Editor and contributing author of several published and forthcoming publications.

The idea that Luther was not spiritual because we do not undertand the age he lived in is absurd

Like many reformers Luther was a RC priest and sought the reformation of the RC church not its destruction
Erasmus refused to condemn Luther and advised that the reaction to his many right comments on the evils in RC church and especialy the friars was correct

Today we owe a huge debt to luther for his scholarship in bible translation and commentries

Tyndale was the same an RC priest till the day before they garotted him- his sin to Translate the bible into vernacular so people could read Gods word. The RC church had forgottrn that the vulgate that they would keep because people could not read it was called vulgate because it was in its origin in the vulgar language

But todayTyndales devotion to giving us all the word of God is a heritage for all English speakers to enjoy in the end the RC church with the Duay and the Knox bible has had to do what they hated and murdered another man better than themselves for

These men did not split the RC church - it was the evil reaction of the RC authorities that did - The idea that these did the splitting is absurd - God gave the RC church light and the RC church tried to snuff it out

they even tried their hardest to make Erasmus the RC churches brightest star whom all europe listened to every word to publicaly issue arguments against Luther but he for honesty sake refused

Keith

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iron sharpens iron

At the time of Luther, it was pretty common for the Cardinals and the Popes to be poisoning each other. At least Pope Leo seems to have restricted his murder to those who plotted murdering him. Rome was a big circus complete with parades which Pope Leo led with his white elephant. Prostitutes filled the city but Leo had wasn't attracted to women. He created and sold many offices to fund his extravagence. He was the representative of an important family, he had taken the tonsure of a monk at the age of six and his entry into the college of cardinals was bought at the age of 14.

Pope Alexander who was Pope also during Luther's life had mistresses and children by them, he used his office to place his children highly. He had a habit of accusing a Cardinal or rich man of heresy when he needed money, he would then seize the property of the person and have him executed. His election to Pope had been a particularly expensive one because one of his opponents was bankrolled with 300,000 gold ducats to buy the election but that was not enough. (not because it didn't buy votes it just didn't buy as many votes as Alexander did) When someone was apparently successful in poisoning, the monks at first refused to bury him. Vatican officials did manage to get him buried but Pope Pius who followed him forbad saying mass for him because it was blasphemous to pray for the damned. Pope Pius only survived as Pope for 26 days before his death.

Of course the wild life wasn't restricted to Rome. The monasteries were noteworthy as spreading veneral diseases among the populations.

Somehow in all of this, it seems rather like revisionist history to say Martin Luther was the source of factions and such. They were all there in full glory with or without him. Of course there were those who tried to use Luther's presence to their advantage as well, but Rome held the key to power and wealth and there were open and hidden wars going on all the time.

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Marv
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Praise God there were people willing to speak against this, at risk of life and station.
May it always be so.

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Cobra (the car, not the poisonous reptile)
all scripture is NRSV unless otherwise noted

False dilemmas all. I wouldn't argue any of that.

1) You don't have to avoid confrontation, I'm asking about the results, not the process. Or at least not all of the process. I never questioned if he SHOULD have or shouldn't have. I think we can all applaud that he started what he started. Did he lose sight of the goal though? Or was that what God intended, disunity. Recreating the argument doesn't answer the argument presented.

2) I didn't argue he was driven by the flesh either. That doesn't mean he didn't give into it at some point though. Take the easier way out when he should have held firm perhaps. I don't know, I can't judge the man, I nearly idolize him. Certainly he's more of an Idol than Kelly Clarkson is for me.

3) Spiritual motives lead to hell if they aren't spirit led. If they were spirit led would they have created disunity? That is the topic.

4) Your assertion at absurdity didn't mention who it was directed at? As I read it, your comment seems to be directed at me. However I never said "he was driven by the flesh to challenge ". I ask if he stayed true to the call or fell along the way.

I'd hope in the future the arguments will take the time to get on the same page and not create strawman issues with false dilemmas I never presented. THERE IS AMPLE great conversation here without creating issues that weren't presented.

AND PSYCHO that was to evryone not just you. I KNOW you had no intention of doing the things I said. But I think it happened all the same, and happened honestly. No harm no foul.

bd

I'll be in green.

Every new testament letter and dispute is in a sense dissention

No one has the right to state what i believe as truth and to maintain truth error has to be opposed

Keith

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iron sharpens iron

And we would have praised Gideon even MORE had he traded in the pot and horn, and done it the way tha tmakes the most sense to MAN'S perception and got a shield and a sword. I"m sure God would have been impressed with howmuch BETTER that would have worked.

OR Jesus would have been even MORE great, had he refuted the arguments at His trial, as that makes sense to man's mind, so that HE could have won the argument and defended Himself.

Praise God for every zealot that ever stood up under God's name and risked life and station to make a stand on something, whatever it was.

Perhaps, Cobra, behind the stance against the RCC which started off pristine enough, there was a mistake made that we can learn from, other than putting the man on an untouchable pedestal and not daring to ask questions because we may learn something that challenges what we think of ourselves.

So, the sale of indulgences, the doctrine of salvation by works, (which is what the RCC doctrine of Salvation by Grace equals, as it sees the sacramental system as a "means of grace."), that a broken and contrite heart is not sufficient evidence of repentance, but must be accompanied by whatever "works of repentance the priest so declares, should all still be in force?

The other point I'd like to mention is that there has been discord in the church since the beginning. Those functioning without the guidance of the Spirit were usually the perpetrators. Legitimate dissension has almost never been met well by those in authority. Witness the dissension between Paul and Barnabas. Who was functioning outside without the Spirit in that case? One would be hard-pressed to argue that the fruit from either of these two men was not produced by the spirit.

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MikeC1956
Asst Admin

know that your sin will find you out. Numbers 32:23b NET

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fides quarens intellectum, credo ut intelligam
faith seeking knowledge, believe to understand

all quotations are by bible translation indicated.

This idea that anything that brings the reality to the surface is wrong is not good thinking

The strains within the RC church and its evil could not survive the translaters and printers efforts that gave so many a bible of their own

The sins of the Popes and their servants were so gross that in the apostolic church they would have been those 'whose God is thier belly' and not considered to be in the faith

A comment about the devision of Barnabus and Paul
It was not as it seems, for they were not devided in the sense that we think of as they both continued in the wotk doing and preaching the same things

It was inconceivable that Barnabus lost the support of Antioch whose people he had served so well and it was he that brought Paul to them.

The comment about Paul receiving the fellowship of the believers at Antioch is rather made to prove that he was highly regarded and was not seperated from the church by his disagreement with Barnabus

Acts is written for Paul's defence and one of its major points was that his apostleship was universaly accepted in the church - nothing that was concluded to be to Rome's shame was included in the script. Brrnabus was a martyre being put to death in Cyprus for the Lord and Cyprus was under Roman rule - it was a major event but not a major event in the objective purpose of acts. For the same reason nothing adding to the purpose was achieved in Galatia so no details of Pauls visit is found in Acts save that he passed through the region

Keith

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iron sharpens iron

I do not think that is what is being proposed.



Exactly! In Erasmus we find the acceptance of Luther and perhaps the beginnings of change in the RCC.



This is noted and I agree with what you are saying.



So Erasmus understood that Luther had valid reasons for his actions. IMO it would have been better for a continual relationship with Erasmus in an attempt towards reconciliation with the Church. However, we find that...



and



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erasmus

Neither the RCC nor the Protestants can claim that they had no FAULT in what transpired. This whole debate of "free will and predestination" continues today even within Protestant circles. In fact since the highlighted schism Christianity has had more division than ever in an attempt to claim what one thinks is right.

The Protestant Reformation was not without wrong doing anyways...



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_Lut ... tisemitism

The he being Martin Luther! Again, pointing the finger at the RCC does not cleanse the Protestants for being as violent and immoral as those whom they criticized.

You need to be consistant Xian. You seem to be changing your story. Are you still arguing that Luther's reformation was "driven by the flesh" or have you move to arguing that "he fell along the way"? These are two very differnt positions.

Ronin,
I am not Luther apologist, but his most vehement anti-semitism was near the end of his life when many think he became senile.
I'd also caution against using wikipedia as a totally credible source. If you read Erasmus, it becomes clear that while giving lip service to unity, he rabidly defended the Roman Catholic position. Afraid for his own skin, Erasmus deferred to the pope and took up the Roman cause.
For the Roman Catholic Church's part, instead of embracing reform, it began to solidify its position, culminating in the Council of Trent.
And while I agree that the question of free-will was central to the debate between Erasmus and Luther, there were two things we need to keep in mind:
1) The "free-will" issue wasn't what drove Luther to dissent - outrageous papal abuses of power was.
2) The "free-will" Erasmus argues is different from Arminius' (although I would contend it is a sliver of difference). Erasmus was a humanist of the first order. Erasmus believed all men - Christian or not - could "assent" by works to godliness. He believed every "good" work resulted in the imputation of a measure of grace, and that enough good works would result in salvation.

_________________
Στηθι εδραιος, ως ακμων τυπτομενος. - Ignatius |II Timothy 4:2| All Scripture is NKJV, unless a translation from the Greek text or otherwise noted.
M.A. Theological Studies (New Testament), Faith Seminary, Tacoma WA
Member, Evangelical Theological Society, North American Patristics Society.
Assistant Editor and contributing author of several published and forthcoming publications.

Sherwood said....The strains within the RC church and its evil could not survive the translaters and printers efforts that gave so many a bible of their own

The sins of the Popes and their servants were so gross that in the apostolic church they would have been those 'whose God is thier belly' and not considered to be in the faith

I'm in green. HERE I AM!! great comments on paul and barnabbas. This isn't about the RCC though. Why can't anyone ask a question that the RCC might have some peripheral attachment too, without it being about them? Every pope wasn't evil, Some of them were darn good. SO WHAT? I'm not going to defend the RCC I'm not much of a fan of them. HOWEVER, that doesn't get us back to the question....

If the results caused division, and factions is it flesh or spirit? It appears clearly to be flesh to me at some point. That doesn't mean EVERYTHING LUTHER did was wrong, or of the flesh, it's not that stinking black and white.

So, sherwood I took a tangent from your comments, sorry. How does some popes were bad, weigh into the luther question above at the first?