Week 2

[Bob]

HAPPY EASTER
Hope you are all faring well through this quarantine

Apologies
Somewhere as I submitted this post there was a glitch and I lost a lot of stuff. Let me see f I can recover a few thoughts for chapters 3-8

We are seeing Luther's passion and even obsessiveness. His times of confession were intense. Today is there a place for confession or is our faith personal and private.

Luther did not want to start a revolt. Instead, as he was appointed a Bible teacher his theology grew and he looked to reform the churches education. He wanted to see if more bible based and less church tradition and council based. AT one point his 95 theses seemed received well.

It looks like a big point of conflict was his challenge to churches authority. That go me thinking. When there is no central source of authority, where do we go when the church errs?

Who preserves the churches biblical faithfulness?
And when there is central authority, who holds the authorities accountable?

Luther seemed to promote private interpretation. Are there any inherent dangers in this?

Luther also challenged the sacraments. When it came to the clergy he did not see the priesthood as a sacrament. Instead he taught the priesthood of all believers. Can this potentially minimize the place of clergy?

Up to here I still see Luther was attempting to be humble. He even advocating honoring the church even when it erred. Does it suprise you that he was excommunicated?

[Matthew]

I thought it was interesting that (in chp8) the charges brought against Luther was basically his thoughts about the cup and the papacy. Most of their arguments was about their "divine" authority structure.

Something the church still faces in different ways today.