LUTHER : In Real Time--Episode 1

 

Today is the opening day of the audio theater Luther: In Real Time that I have been commissioned to write by Ligonier Ministries. I have written an episode every week for the six months leading up to Luther's cosmic stand before the emperor at the Diet of Worms, April 18, 1521. Please listen and share with everybody! 

It has been a delightful process working with such great folks, especially with Producer/Director Barry Cooper. You can listen wherever you listen to your podcasts. For more information visit ligonier.org/luther-in-real-time/.

I thought you might like to see an early version of the script for episode 1 of the series. So, here it is:

LUTHER—In Real Time Podcast: Episode 1--Damnable Heresy

SFX: fist hammering on wooden door; indistinct shouting 

It’s October 10, 1520. At the behest of Pope Leo X, his agents pound on the wicket door in the gate of the Augustinian Priory in Wittenberg.

SFX: latch turning and door creaking open

The agents thrust an official legal document from the Holy See in Rome into the hands of Martin Luther.

The Pope’s leaden seal was attached to the document with a coarse hemp rope; Luther weighed it pensively in his hand, turning it over; Apostles Peter and Paul on one side, and Pastor Pastorum Leo X—Shepherd of Shepherds—on the reverse side.

He’d seen it pressed in wax before this—a decade before, while on pilgrimage in Rome.

Cloaked in his black Augustinian cowl, Luther had travelled from Erfurt, Germany over the Alps to the Eternal City in Rome—walking all 639 miles on foot.

Bone-weary in Rome, Luther had dutifully crawled up the Scala Sancta, all twenty-eight cold, marble steps on his knees.

SFX: Pater noster murmuring crowd

The Sacred Stairs were papal-certified to be the very ones Jesus ascended to face his trial before Pontus Pilate, the same twenty-eight steps Christ had then DEscended when condemned and led out to his flogging and crucifixion.

SFX: indulgence hawker inflection, words indistinct.

When Luther finally reached the top, a Dominican friar thrust a wooden coin box toward him, shaking it impatiently.

SFX: coins ringing in a wooden box

Luther dropped a florin into the slot in the money coffer. In a careless monotone, the friar hastily promised him forgiveness of his sins…

SFX: Friar muttering absolution in Latin “Dominus noster Jesus Christus te absolvat… Deinde, ego te absolvo a peccatis tuis in nomine Patris, et Filii, et Spiritus Sancti. Amen.

…handing him a papal letter of indulgence: the promise that his pilgrimage, the scaling of the marble steps on his knees, had somehow lessened the time he would have to spend in purgatory, paying for his sins.

LUTHER: “But what if it is not so?”

Luther trembled as he turned the document over in his hand.

LUTHER: “What—if—it-is-not-so?”

As time passed, Luther’s doubts about indulgences only deepened.

Watching notorious indulgence peddler Johann Tetzel parading outside the Elster Gate of Wittenberg as if he were a prince or a pope, troubled Luther. Hawking forgiveness of sins for a quarter florin? It had to stop.

TETZEL: “As soon as the coin in the coffer rings, the soul from purgatory springs!”

Seeing Tetzel fleece Germany’s working poor with promises that HIS indulgence, bearing the papal seal, was their passport to paradise, enraged Luther. Later, he would comment:

LUTHER: “I find nothing that promotes work better than angry fervor. For when I wish to compose, write, pray and preach well, I must be angry. It refreshes my entire system, my mind is sharpened, and all unpleasant thoughts and depression fade away.”

LUTHER: “If you want to change the world, take up your pen and write.”

So Luther did.

He took up his goosequill and, one by one, he compiled a list of 95 reasons why his beloved Church must stop exploiting God’s people by selling them forgiveness.

LUTHER: “…if the Pope knew the exactions of the indulgence-preachers he would rather that the basilica of St. Peter’s should burn to ashes than that it should be built up with the skin, flesh, and bones of his sheep.” 

When the ink was dry, Luther, strode through the archway from the courtyard of his home at Wittenberg’s Augustinian monastery, the black folds of his Augustinian habit billowing behind him.

He turned left onto the cobblestones of the Collegienstrasse, past the Stadtkirche, the Town Church where he preached to the peasants, and across the market square. 

SFX: donkey braying, cartwheels clattering.

Side-stepping the filth oozing between the cobblestones, Martin walked past the studio workshop of Lucas Cranach the famous Renaissance painter.

Some of his students fell into step behind him, eager to see what their favorite professor was up to. A block and a half farther on, Luther halted before the door of the Castle Church, took out his 95 Theses…

SFX: hammering and church bell tolling ominously, background street noises

…and posted them on the Duke’s church door. It was October 31, 1517, All Hallow’s Eve.

For 16^th Century scholars, nailing a document to the church door was not uncommon – it was a way to invite debate.

But some close to Luther were afraid. His outspoken criticism of indulgences also reflected negatively on the practice of venerating religious relics as a way of gaining God’s favor. 

The church Luther had chosen belonged to Duke Frederick The Wise. An avid collector of relics.

The Duke had commissioned Lucas Cranach to illustrate a catalogue of his relics, which in 1517 included more than 5,000 bits and pieces of the saints. By 1520, it numbered 20,000.

A piece of straw from the manger, a tooth from St. Jerome, four hairs from the head of Jesus’ mother, a hair from Jesus’ beard, and, his most prized relic, a thorn certified by the Pope to have pierced the Savior’s brow.

SFX: mealtime table sounds: wooden utensils, indistinct voices, laughter—under narration: 

LUTHER: “What lies there are about relics!” 

SFX: beer stein clonking on wooden table

LUTHER: “One claims to have a feather from the wing of the angel Gabriel, and the Bishop of Mainz has a flame from Moses’ burning bush. And how does it happen that eighteen apostles are buried in Germany when Christ had only twelve?”

SFX: young men laughing hilariously, back slapping 

 Luther’s friends feared that if he lost the Duke’s support, he might lose everything—including his life.

But Luther was resolved.

LUTHER: “Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about the things that really matter.” 

Over the next three years, the developing fracture between Luther and Rome became a chasm.

In the years since posting his 95 Theses, his pen had not been idle. With that pen, Luther had started a fire that had spread to the highest levels of power in the European world; to kings and queens, to knights and bishops, even to popes and emperors.

 

SFX: fist pounding persistently on wooden door

And so. On this day, October 10th, 1520, Luther’s hammering on the door of the Castle Church had come back to haunt him. Now agents of the Pope were hammering on HIS door.

 

SFX: Papers being turned over in the hand.

 

Luther looks at the opening lines of the document. It is an official legal document from the Pope himself, entitled Exsurge Domine, “Arise, O Lord…”

 

LUTHER: “Condemn—reprobate—heretical”

 

The most powerful single individual in the European world, Pope Leo X, is declaring Martin Luther a damnable and pernicious heretic.

 

LUTHER: “—scandalous—offensive to pious ears – excommunicate --”

 

Without a complete recantation, Luther will be excommunicated, cut off from the Church, his body and soul condemned to the fires of hell.

 

SFX: incoherent angry shouting, sounds of burning under the narration

 

The agents of the Pope had wasted no time. They were already hurling Luther’s books into the flames. How long before they would do the same to Luther himself?

 

SFX: the fires reach a crescendo, then sudden silence.

 

There is no way of escape.

 

Luther has sixty days to recant.

 

The clock is ticking.

Douglas Bond is author of thirty-one books, including his latest release The Hobgoblins, a novel on John Bunyan, The Resistance set in enemy occupied Normandy, and many others. He is two-time Grace Award book finalist; he directs the Oxford Creative Wraditing Master Class, is an award-winning teacher, podcaster, speaker at conferences, and leader of Church history tours in Europe. He is currently reading Luther In Love aloud on his podcast. Visit his website bondbooks.net 

Interview today with KNOWING THE TRUTH talk radio 660, Greenvile, SC

Just finished an interview with Kevin Boling on Knowing the Truth radio in South Carolina this morning (our time). We talked about THE MIGHTY WEAKNESS OF JOHN KNOX, and especially about how Knox was a man empowered not by his or personality, or methods, or technology, or erudition, or status--he had none of these. Knox was a nobody in his world, a timorous and fearful nobody. Of the Reformation in Scotland, Knox wrote, "God raised up simple men in great abundance." And he considered himself one of those simple men. "I quake, I fear, I tremble," he said of going into the pulpit to preach Jesus and his free grace in the gospel.

For any who would like to listen in on the interview, here's the direct link to KNOWING THE TRUTH RADIO.

Ligonier interview on my new Knox biography

Here's the text of an interview with the folks at Ligonier on THE MIGHTY WEAKNESS OF JOHN KNOX, my newest book released just a couple of weeks ago.

1)   What does the title—The Mighty Weakness of John Knox—mean? We tend to think of Knox as the bold, thundering, charge-into-the-fray, no-holds-barred Reformer. Sort of a giant who walks into the room and says "Everybody move!" and they do. But the more research I did, the more formidable the problems with this stereotype emerged. The title (Greg's idea, by the way) reflects the character of Knox that developed from my research. The thundering might of Knox's ministry was not the result of DNA. He was not giant who just switched loyalties. Knox was a meek, reluctant personality, a weak man in the flesh, made mighty by the grace and power of God's sovereign call on his life in the gospel.

2)   Why is it important for Christians today to read about John Knox? We who live in the 21st century are such self-satisfied individuals, and this has its effect on the Church, in a big way. We're so impressed with our progress, our technology, our innovations, our scholarship. We tend to look down on the past. Now, there are things to distance ourselves from in the past, to be sure. But sitting down and feasting on the rich legacy that we have from those God has raised up and equipped to confront the challenges to the gospel that litter history--learning of these challenges and how God raised up men like Knox to contend for the faith through them is essential for Christians surrounded by a world that scorns the past and worships ourselves and the work of our hands in the present. I don't think learning from Church history and men like Knox is take-it-or-leave-it optional for Christians who know they must have the perspective of the ages on the moment they are living in in the present.

3)   You argue that the typical understanding of Knox as a giant of men thundering against queens is somewhat inaccurate. How so? A guy who when first called on to preach God's Word, breaks into tears in public and flees the room doesn't sound to me like a man who thundered simply because he was inherently a thundering sort of guy. Another feature of Knox's life--and I include an entire chapter on it, so central is it to understanding the man--is his life of prayer. Men who know they're weak and needy tend to be better prayers; men who know their frailty, who abandon all hope in themselves, these are the men who fall on their knees and cry out to their all powerful God. That was Knox. Tyrants didn't fear sickly, timorous Knox. Tyrants feared Knox's praying--more than the cannons of 10,000 soldiers.

4)   Is it necessary for the contemporary Christian to study Christians who lived so long ago? How could they be relevant for the milieu in which we live? There really is nothing new under the sun. What goes around does, indeed, come around. All the greats of Church history were great precisely because they contended for the gospel in the particular way in which the gospel was under attack in their day. The gospel is under attack in our day, and anyone who thinks otherwise needs to spend more time studying church history (and Paul's epistles and the whole canon of Scripture). The thing that so impressed me with Knox was how unflinching he was about getting the gospel right. Anything that intrudes between the sinner and Christ our righteous Redeemer was idolatry to Knox, and idols had to be torn down. We need this today, in a big way. 

5)   In the preface of the book you write: Knox is a model for the ordinary Christian. What makes him relevant to all Christians? If we're honest with ourselves, in the trembling loneliness of our own hearts, we're all weak, insecure, frail and dying individuals. Some attempt to compensate by shouting this down and being arrogant, proud, and noisy. But many simply fear they have nothing to contribute, that God can't use someone so ordinary, or weak, or unskilled, or simple as they know them self to be. In Knox as he really was there is great encouragement for the saint who feels they have nothing to contribute. I was thrilled to discover this dimension about Knox's life. It seems so eminently practical for so many dear saints, the elderly, the untried youth, the sick, the handicapped, the many for whom life has been a succession of disappointments--God has a purpose and a use and role for each one of his children in his family in every age--yes, the broken reeds and the smoking flax. This is what I so much want to convey in this little volume. Readers may forget details about the convoluted history in Knox's world, but my hope is that they will not forget the mystery of God's providence in forgiving the adulteress, in calling smelly fishermen, in choosing the younger brother, in raising the dead. 

6)   What is a Christ-subdued life? A question right from a chapter title in the book. Simply put, it is dying that we might live. It is a life--like Knox's--where I must decrease and he must increase. It is knowing that without Christ we are nothing, but with Christ as our righteousness, as our Redeemer, as our Lord, and as our friend, weak, frail, and timorous sinners can do all things.

7)   What was the source of Knox’s strength in his own weakness? Christ, Christ alone, solus Christus!

8)   How is weakness an “essential prerequisite to being used of Christ”? Without knowing who we really are, we can never be made good by Christ himself. Therefore, right self knowledge--as in the order of Calvin's Institutes--goes hand-in-hand with right knowledge of God. If we think we can worship, serve, obey, be faithful to even the tiniest degree without the grace of God in Christ alone, we haven't gotten the gospel right and we'll never be used of Christ if we think we are clever, or well-educated, or sophisticated, or inherently gifted. Christ takes the empty and fills them. He came to seek and to save those who knew that they were in desperate need, that they were lost.

9)   What are some of the ways in which we see Knox’s strength in weakness? It is remarkable to see a man who feared preaching before friends, stand and deliver fearlessly before tyrants who had the power to lop his head off--and he knew they had this temporal power. Yet he preached anyway, and what preaching it was! He called a spade a spade, and a fig a fig, as he put it. No mincing of words with Christ-empowered Knox.

10) What have you personally learned from John Knox’s life? So much, it is hard to begin. God does not call all of us--myself included, of course--to be the instruments of reformation in an entire nation. But he does by his grace alone raise me from my weakness and insecurities to find strength in Christ alone, period, plus nothing.

11) What was your favorite chapter to write in this book? I found writing the first draft of the final chapter while sitting in Knox's house (for skeptics who don't think it was his house, I just could not find evidence to sufficiently discredit the long tradition of the house at Trunk Close being, in fact, a house that Knox did live in, and die in) on the Royal Mile in Edinburgh in April of 2010 a favorite chapter. I read from it just a few weeks ago with a tour group my wife and I led, and that was also a meaningful part of that chapter, sort of a completion of it in the final book form. It recounts his dying hours, the comfort he found in God's Word read by his young wife, and his final words.

12) Who do you hope will read the book? I hope our coach driver on this most recent tour will read the copy I gave him and everyone on the tour signed with a note of appreciation to him; the gospel is on every page. But I do hope all Christians--yes, especially the non-Presbyterian ones--will read it. All Christians who have ever felt inadequate to the challenges they face.

13) If readers take only one lesson from this book, what do you hope that will be? My hope is that this little book will help little Christians to look away from themselves and to the splendor and might of Jesus himself.