Dr. Mark Gignilliat on Reading the Bible with Martin Luther: Unleashing the Gospel Download the handout here (pdf)
Redeemer exists to celebrate and declare the gospel of God as we grow in knowing and following Jesus Christ.
Tonight, we've got, Mark Gillett. Doctor Gillett is a professor at Beeson Divinity School. He's he and his wife and his family are also members at, Cathedral Church of the Advent, where he is the canon theologian there. And, and so we are very glad to be welcoming back, Mark. This is his second time.
Collin Hansen:He he taught 2 summers ago on, the book of the Psalms. And so if you were there for that, you remember, what what a rich time of teaching that was. Well again, I would like to welcome, Mark Gillette, to teach for us tonight.
Connor Coskery:I think I'm gonna stand. I, I'm glad to be here with you all. This is a rather cool setting for me, to be honest with you. I I have gone to this new coffee shop in Homewood a few times, octane of, you know Yeah. And, and it's a really cool place as well.
Connor Coskery:I always feel like they're gonna escort me out immediately when I walk in. So I I'm I'll have to get my sea legs here. It's it's a privilege for me to be with you all. We know about your church. We pray for your church.
Connor Coskery:My children, my oldest two boys have been at Cornerstone School for the past 3 years. And matter of fact, my oldest son's teacher is here tonight. So we feel somewhat connected both to your church and and your place in the community, which is really very important. And so I'm glad to be here. I'm gonna pray in a second.
Connor Coskery:But I'm also glad to see my friend, Curt. I'm embarrassing. Who's here? Who lives in the south side with us. Who has the coolest dog.
Connor Coskery:Well, I'm sorry. You have one too, don't you? A dog. I'm sorry. A very cool dog in the south side named Bub.
Connor Coskery:So I'm glad to see Kurt here tonight. Alright. I'm gonna pray. Then we're gonna hop in. So father, as we tonight seek to learn something from your servant, Martin Luther, We ask God that even in this setting, and around a shared meal together, and a shared time together, that you, by your spirit, would do something that we really cannot manufacture.
Connor Coskery:We can't make your word come alive. We cannot make the gospel be effective. We come in a spirit of anticipation, a posture of hope, knowing that what you have said to us in Jesus is real and it's true. And I pray, Lord, tonight that in the give and take, in the repartee, during the q and a time, that the whole thing, Lord, would be to your glory and to the edification of your people. And we ask these things in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.
Connor Coskery:Amen. So have you heard about Martin Luther before? I mean who's read something about Martin Luther and let's toss out some facts. What what do you know about Martin Luther? I have I brought a picture with him tonight.
Connor Coskery:I For those of you who have had me in class, you know that I'm not really a kind of visual guy. Like I don't I don't do I don't do powerpoint. So the fact that I brought an actual visual presentation night is a pretty big step for me, pedagogically. But that's another thing. So so here he is here.
Connor Coskery:Can't say he's got much going on for looks, but most of us don't. Anything else you know about Luther that you've read? He would roll on thorns when he had sexual or lustful desires. He would roll on thorns when he had sexual and lustful desires? Okay.
Connor Coskery:That should get the pump primed. German. He's German. Anything else about Luther? Alright.
Connor Coskery:Yep. I mean, Luther is a is a lightning rod figure. And I'll just go ahead and lay my cards out on the table for those of you, And as I try to plot redeemer theologically, my sense is Oh, I better be careful. I don't I don't really know. But my sense is, you're probably more in line with me in the fact that my predilection is toward a figure named John Calvin.
Connor Coskery:Calvin was a leading figure in the Swiss reformation. We're talking now 1500. I joke with my students quite often that when I was 8 years old, I asked Jesus into my heart. And then when I was 18 years old, I asked John Calvin into my heart. And then when I was 25 years old, I asked Carl Bard into my heart.
Connor Coskery:But that's another another lesson. My own theological sensibilities are more in line with John Calvin, but And this pains me to say that, given what I've just said. But there would be no John Calvin. There would be no reformation without Martin Luther. He is a signal figure in that particular moment in time, providentially to be a man that God used to become a lightning rod, but a real catalyst for reform in the life of the church.
Connor Coskery:Luther didn't like that term reform. He he preferred the term betterment, but just to put it in a little context for you all, we are all the products, at least Redeemer Community Church, the Cathedral Church of the Advent, Red Mountain Church, which we're we're part of for a long time right down the road here. We are all a part of that Protestant heritage that really had its catalyst in the figure of Martin Luther. He is a very important figure, without doubt. I'll refer to this again as the night goes on, But I had, the privilege last year with my wife and my children to live for 6 months in Germany.
Connor Coskery:And what I'll illustrate this a little bit more later, but that was a very, very special time for us. In part, because we did the whole, let's let's walk where Luther Walt kind of thing. And, but without a doubt, Luther's presence in Germany is still very palpably present. I mean, you go into the especially cities in the northern part of Germany, Hamburg, Germany. Anybody been to Germany before?
Connor Coskery:Alright. So you've been to Hamburg or or you go to some of these other northern German cities. I mean, just looming big statues of Martin Luther. He is a German and a German figure. And a very important figure that really shaped German really the German identity.
Connor Coskery:And some would even argue the German language. So we're talking about someone who's very important here. I'm not all, I I I, we can't contextualize all that. It's a massive project. Luther did not fall out of the sky.
Connor Coskery:There was a lot of, there were a lot of issues and figures and people and thought that led up to Martin Luther. But what I'm interested in tonight, primarily and there's gonna be a long sort of drum roll to get to this. But what I'm interested in tonight, primarily, is trying to gain some purchase for us on learning to read the Bible with Martin Luther. I mean what was it that drove Luther's reading of the Bible? And and let me just put this from another vantage point to contextualize it for you and for me.
Connor Coskery:Redeemer Community Church, I do know this about you all, is a Bible church. I mean, in other words, it's driven. You're driven by a certain kind of care and concern to study, to understand, and to submit yourself to the authority and the claims of the Bible. That's really important. The church that I'm a part of would be within that framework as well.
Connor Coskery:The scriptures are central to Christian identity. Now I want to sort of back up and give you a kind of view on the Bible, that I think is really important when it comes to Christian faith and Christian identity. And let me put it to you this way. I'm an Old Testament guy, and so is Luther. It's one of the reasons I kind of like him.
Connor Coskery:I teach Old Testament for a living. Really boring stuff. I mean like real boring, Like Hebrew. You never took Hebrew with me, did you Phil? Yeah.
Connor Coskery:You're blessed. I mean I mean, just boring stuff. But when it comes to the bible, the reason why the bible is so important in the life of the church is this. Because the bible is the creative word by which the church is formed and identified, period. The church did not create the bible.
Connor Coskery:You'll hear people say that. The church didn't create the bible. The Bible continues to exert its own authoritative and pressuring voice on the church, as an ongoing living voice of God. And we're gonna get back to this before the night's over. But the Bible is the living voice of God.
Connor Coskery:I mean, think about this. When you come Sunday in and Sunday out to Redeemer Community Church to hear the preaching of the word, what an enormous burden and joy that's placed on those who bring that word to you. But the bringing of that word is the bringing of the very words of God that are found in holy scripture. The bible is not an inert shard back in the 1st century world or the ancient near eastern world. It's not.
Connor Coskery:The Bible, and I'm using Herman Boggings language here, is an eternally youthful, alive, vibrant word that continues to speak into our world. Luther got that. And one could say that all of these tectonic shifts that occur in the history of Christian doctrine, Christian belief, what it means for us to be Christians, One can chart that along the line of history and see that again and again and again, these theological debates that seem so esoteric and obscure, but these theological debates were debates over the bible. How do we understand the bible? We think about it with the trinity.
Connor Coskery:You talk about some complex stuff. I mean, tonight, just try to think about the trinity a little bit more. 1 god, one being, one one divine essence, and yet 3 persons that share in that one essence. So that the father is not the son, and the son is not a spirit in a kind of monad way, but in a tri personal eternal fellowship that one God shares in its one being in 3 persons. That doesn't work.
Connor Coskery:I mean, you get that like that. According to our principles of logic, it just doesn't work. It's a matter of faith that these 4th century theologians debated the trinity. And in that wrestling with faith, what I wanted to push for you tonight, it was a wrestling with the bible. How do we come to terms with what the bible has to say?
Connor Coskery:Martin Luther and the whole genesis of the reformation that continues to have its force felt to this day in Birmingham, Alabama, had its source and its genesis in a man who wrestled and struggled with the bible. How do I understand the bible? Carl Bart, who I think brought another very important reformation in the life of liberal Protestant Christianity. Carl Bart's, you know, born again moment, if I can put it that way, was his understanding that his liberal theological training did not give him the tools he needed to preach. And so he sat under an apple tree with the Bible in one hand and his notebook in the other.
Connor Coskery:And all of a sudden big things started to happen. It's the bible. So who is this figure Martin Luther? Anybody seen the movie? Is it Jeremy Fiennes?
Connor Coskery:Is that his name? Shakespeare in love guy. It's a good movie, yeah. What? Joseph.
Connor Coskery:Joe Sorry. Joseph Fiennes. Note, mental note. So Luther, was born in, the late 15th century. Fascinating figure.
Connor Coskery:Fascinating time. Think about the the the massive impact of the bubonic plague throughout Europe. I mean, so many people died. I mean, Luther is in the middle of all of this. And his father wanted him to be a lawyer.
Connor Coskery:And he's out riding a horse in the middle of the countryside outside of Erfurt, Germany, which is in central Germany. Lightning strikes. He falls off of his horse. I mean, this is an awesome moment. And, he cries out to Saint Anne.
Connor Coskery:Saint Anne, help me. And if you will help me and save my life in this lightning storm, I'll become a monk. And, he was saved. And Luther, being a kind of obsessive personality, I mean I'll just put it out there to you. He was an obsessive personality.
Connor Coskery:He followed through on that. Walked into the city of Erfurt, which we had the privilege of being there right at this Augustinian cloister, right here at Erfurt. Knocks on the door, and he enters into the Augustinian monastery, and takes his vows, and he becomes a monk. Right in that medieval Catholic tradition of being a monk. Daily prayers, daily vigils, self denial, rolling around in the thorns.
Connor Coskery:Right? I mean this was a part of Luther's monkish identity. I wanted to read this and you have these quotes on here. We're gonna work through these a little bit. Listen to what Luther said later on in life, reflecting on his time as a monk.
Connor Coskery:I was a good monk. I kept my order so strictly that I could say that if ever a monk could get to heaven through monastic discipline Another way that I've heard this translated is, if ever I could a monk could get to heaven through monkery, I should have entered in. All my companions in the monastery who knew me would bear me out in this. For if it had gone on much longer, I would have martyred myself to death. What with vigils and prayers, reading and other works.
Connor Coskery:Like my my students might feel something like this. My conscience would never give me certainty. I always doubted. I always said, you did not perform that correctly. You were not contrite enough.
Connor Coskery:You left that out of your confession. Now for some of you, that might sound really bizarre. I mean, we live on the far side of modernity. We live in a time where I'm frankly convinced that not everyone has this kind of sensitive conscience. I mean I think people go out, abuse their power, involve themselves in illicit activities, and do that day in and day out, and sleep at night like babies.
Connor Coskery:I mean, I I I don't think everyone has the kind of sensitive conscience that that Luther had. Now let me frame this for you biblically. Romans 1, when it talks about the wrath of God being poured out poured out on those who would value the creature the creator more than the the creature more than the creator. Paul says that God's wrath This is a very frightening verse frankly. You know drink something.
Connor Coskery:That Paul says, that the wrath of God is displayed when God gives them what they really want. In other words, they really want the creation. They want God's gifts. They want to abuse his gifts more than him. And the wrath of God is demonstrated by God saying, okay, you can have it.
Connor Coskery:In other words, it does a tormented conscience is not necessarily indicative that someone is experiencing and under the wrath of God. In fact, sleeping like a baby on your pillow at night could in fact be indicative of the case that one is under the wrath of God. Now that that's a completely different conversation. But the point being, some of you though do know this about a sensitive conscience. But a conscience being burdened.
Connor Coskery:My wife and I come out of out of a fundamentalist background. And I don't mean by that someone just more conservative than you. I mean like, we were really Kool Aid and all kind of, fundamentalist. And, we know about this sensitive conscience. That that the notion.
Connor Coskery:The kind of self flatulation in the sense of, I don't know if I said the right prayer when I asked Jesus into my heart. Maybe I didn't get the words right, or I don't know if my efforts for Jesus are enough, and this constant turning in on the self to make sure that I'm okay with God, that God is happy with me, that he's not upset with me. Now here's something that I think you might find interesting with regard to that. In the classic Christian Augustinian tradition from Saint Augustine on, the definition of sin within that tradition has been sin is incurvatus in se. The turning in on the self.
Connor Coskery:Isn't it interesting that within the, kind of, fundamentalist, overly sensitive conscience world that I came out of, that in fact it was probably very sinful activity, constantly being turned back in on myself, rather than looking away from myself to the complete and finished work of Jesus Christ. And here is Luther saying, my conscience troubled me. I was looking for certainty. We'll see this here in a second with the next quote, but I heard Graham Tomlin, a Luther scholar from the United Kingdom say And I I actually found this very very helpful. In many ways the reformation took place with Luther, because Luther was on a mad and passionate passionate search for a God that he could love.
Connor Coskery:He didn't love God. He hated God. He was fearful of God. He was in a constant position where he expected that God, at any moment was going to pounce on him because his prayers weren't good enough. His vigils weren't long enough.
Connor Coskery:His endeavors weren't sincere enough. God was ready to pounce on him. That was that conscience that burdened Luther that was driven by a very bad theology. I mean look at this next quote. Then God appears horrifyingly angry.
Connor Coskery:Have you felt that? And with him, the whole creation is angry. Just a foment. There can be no flight, no consolation, neither within or without. Everything is accusation.
Connor Coskery:I mean Luther's understanding of God was not that God looked on him with a smiling face. Think about that famous line from William Cooper's, hymn. God moves in mysterious ways. It's wonders to perform behind a frowning providence. There is a smiling face.
Connor Coskery:A beautiful line. Not for Luther. Behind a frowning providence is a frowning face for Luther. Everything is accusation. Everything is telling Luther, you don't add up.
Connor Coskery:You're not assured of your position before God. A fellow monk said to Luther, my son This is Luther reflecting on this. God is not angry with you, but you are angry with God. But you are angry with God. And he was.
Connor Coskery:Luther was very clear, as he looked back on his time as a monk, to say, I did not love God at that moment. I hated God. But there was a figure in Luther's life. Like I pray that there's a figure in your life. There's been figures in my life.
Connor Coskery:His figure was a man named Johannes von Staupitz. Great dog name, by the way, if you're looking for one. If we get an Airedale Kurt, it might be Just be prepared. It might be von Staupitz. He said, if I didn't praise Staupitz This is a man that would tell Luther, in effect, stop confessing to me all the time.
Connor Coskery:He was his superior in the monastery. Stop con In other words, the the famous line, go sin and sin boldly. I mean, it's not the kind of advice I would give to my children. They don't need that advice. I mean, my my, they don't have a real sensitive conscience.
Connor Coskery:Right? But for Luther, it was like, Shapur was like, don't, don't do that. I mean stop coming to me. If you if you need to confess something, go to something really big and then come and see me. Staupitz understood the grace of God and he was trying to help Luther see through his own self condemned status.
Connor Coskery:So he looks back and he says, if I didn't praise Staupitz, that very important figure, I should be a damned, ungrateful, papistical ass For he was my very first father in this teaching, the teaching of the gospel. And he bore me to Christ. If you haven't read any Luther before by the way, he had a flair for the dramatic when it came to his language. Little earthy. Someone someone asked Luther one time, if the pope, was a member of the body of Christ.
Connor Coskery:He wasn't Luther didn't pretend to give the warm and the fuzzies. So what happens to Luther? And this is where we're going tonight. What happens to Luther is he becomes a doctor of theology. And his role as a doctor of theology was to teach the Bible.
Connor Coskery:Now for those of you who might know something about theological education today, and this is the orbit in which I reside, we've bifurcated the disciplines. So that you have a new testament scholar, and you have an Old Testament Scholar, and then you have the church history and theology people, and then you have the practical people who help you deal with preaching and, you know, organizational administrative matters in life of church. So we separated the practical, the theological and the biblical. If Luther or Calvin were to see our theological curriculum today set up that way, their eyes would cross. They wouldn't get that.
Connor Coskery:Because there wasn't a bifurcation of the discipline. You had to do everything when you were a theologian. But if we're gonna put Luther in our mold today, Luther was a Bible professor. He spent most of his time lecturing on the Bible, and it was the lecturing on the Bible that began to unlock things for him. Beginning with the book of Psalms.
Connor Coskery:He spent 3 years on the book of Psalms, and when he first got out of the gate teaching. And then he started to lecture on Romans. And for some reason in the providence of God, the book of Romans just tends to be a juggernaut. I mean, it is the book that tends to move the ship when we're dealing with the history of Christian doctrine. And and for Luther, he understood that when Paul said, the righteousness of God has been revealed, Romans run, that that was not a word of judgment.
Connor Coskery:It was not a word of retributive justice. And that is God is on his throne and he's ready to to avenge his own justice. It wasn't that, But it was the righteousness of God that's given to people as a gift, as grace, as undeserved, unmerited favor and kindness from the Lord that has not given to us because of anything that we do, any any self exertion that we bring to God, none of it matters. The entirety of the gospel, the good news of the gospel was that Jesus said it is finished and he meant it. And the sky blew open for Luther at that moment.
Connor Coskery:The gospel had gripped this man, as I hope it's gripped you. I wanted to read. This is a lengthy section and I don't like being read to, if you're like me. I I don't like this. But I'm gonna read to you.
Connor Coskery:This comes from a meditation of Luther. You should be very nervous that it's only a quarter 8, by the way. I'm I'm aware of the time. This this comes from a later sermon or writing of Luther on reflections on the cross. Track with me with this.
Connor Coskery:Read along. We say without hesitation. I hope this is comforting news to you tonight. We say without hesitation, that he who contemplates God's suffering for a day, for an hour, yes, even a quarter of an hour. Let's talk about the cross here.
Connor Coskery:Does better than to fast a whole year. Pray a psalm every day. Yes, better than to hear 100 masses. This meditation changes man's being. And almost like baptism, gives him a new birth.
Connor Coskery:Here, the passion or the suffering of Christ performs its natural and its noble work, strangling the old Adam. I mean, can you see that what beautiful imagery Luther gives us here? As you contemplate the cross of Christ, as you look and see what God has done for you in his son, the old Adam that's present in you gets strangled out. It's a great image. Was forsaken by all, even by God.
Connor Coskery:Now Luther is going to become a pastor. This is Luther is the pastor. It's a good word. You cast your sins from yourself and onto Christ when you firmly believe that his wounds and his sufferings are your sins to be born and paid for by him. The more your conscience torments you, the more tenaciously you must cling to them.
Connor Coskery:What's them? Scriptures promises. If, as we said before, and I like this, you cannot believe. You must entreat God for faith. This too rests entirely in the hand of God.
Connor Coskery:However, Luther, the practical theologian won't leave you alone. He's about to say something here. However, you can spur yourself on to believe in this way. That's a great pastoral word. In other words, when you're at the moment looking at the cross and you have now realized because of God's own self revelation, that Jesus is there because of me.
Connor Coskery:This is not the kind of abstract reflection on Jesus, the moral life or anything like that. He makes you a better person. It's nothing like that. It's coming to the cross. It's looking at the one hanging on that cross between heaven and hell and knowing there's an inter relational transaction going on right now between me and that figure.
Connor Coskery:I'm involved in this right now And what's holding him there, what's on his shoulders right now, Isaiah chapter 53, are my sins. Not in the sense of the world, yes. But I'm involved in this. Once you contemplate that, that's a terrifying prospect. It really is.
Connor Coskery:And Luther gets that but he doesn't want to leave you there at that terrifying moment. Once it's done that work, pass on that, beyond that. With such love for you that it impels him to bear with pain your conscience and your sins. What is the beating heart of God's love for his people? The beating heart of God is the suffering servant on the cross.
Connor Coskery:There we see the tears of God's love poured out for you and for me. And you will see that Christ would not have shown this love for you if God and his eternal love had not wanted this. For Christ's love for you is due to his obedience to God. Thus, you will find the divine and kind paternal heart. And as Christ says, you will be drawn to the father through him.
Connor Coskery:Then you will understand the words of Christ. Thank you, Tim Tebow. For God so loved the world that he gave his only son. We know God right when we grasp him, not in his might or his wisdom. That will terrify you.
Connor Coskery:And it's true, by the way. He is powerful. He is all wise. He is holy. And that is terrifying.
Connor Coskery:But you don't know God aright or fully when you only see him from that vantage point. You know him aright when you see him in his kindness and his love. Then faith and confidence are able to exist and then man is truly born anew in God. That's something. It's beautiful.
Connor Coskery:Luther was a man who was seized by that message. Luther was a man that was drowning in the deep end of the pool of his own religious effort. The his own idol factory that was underneath his own chest. And the gospel of Jesus Christ came to him like a great life vest, and got him out of that deep into the pool. And now that he's outside of that pool looking into it, you see him saying, that is the good news.
Connor Coskery:That that one who's suffering on the cross, bearing the sins of the world, bearing my sins is my savior who loves me. Who's smiling toward me. Who is for us. They grabbed him. Oh more things to talk about here.
Connor Coskery:Luther was a polemicist. I'm gonna skip these next few things. Luther was a polemicist. He was the defender of the gate. He wasn't nice.
Connor Coskery:I mean, in other words, like, if you're looking for a kind of pleasant evening around the table, I mean he's Don't invite him. If you're looking for advice on good beer, do invite him. He had, he actually had very strong opinions on that. But he was a polemicist because much like Paul, much like Paul, where you see Paul come unchained in a book like Galatians. If anyone preaches to you another gospel by the way you know this is inspired Bible.
Connor Coskery:We believe this to be true. Paul said, if anyone preaches to you another gospel than the one that I have preached to you, even if it's an angel from heaven, let that person be anathema. That's a very sort of kind way of saying let them be damned. Let them be cursed. Oh and by the way, a few verses later, just in case you didn't get it, Galatians 1.
Connor Coskery:If anyone else preaches you a different Gospel, let them be damned. Damned. I mean, Luther was in that sort of Pauline train. The gospel's at stake. It's not about personal rep rapport with other people.
Connor Coskery:The gospel is at stake. And Luther became an unchained lion to defend the gospel. And sometimes he was a little bit hardnecked about that. I mean, not when it came to the gospel, when it became just certain matters of doctrine. I wish he was a little softer on things frankly, but he wasn't.
Connor Coskery:He was a polemicist. He was a warrior. If I can use Godfather language, he was a wartime conciliary. That's right. For those of you who know the Godfather, you'll appreciate that.
Connor Coskery:Look at how Luther describes himself over against Melanchthon, who was his colleague there in Wittenberg. I was born to take the field and to fight with the hordes and the devils. And therefore, my books are very stormy and warlike. I have to dig out the roots in the trunks, cut down the thorns and the hedges, and fill up the pools. I am the crude lumberjack who has to blaze a trail and prepare the way.
Connor Coskery:Oh, but master Philip Melington goes about quietly building and planting, joyfully sowing and watering as God has richly given him gifts to do. I'm just not that way. So So Luther was a man unchained because of the gospel. The the next thing, I want you to see that Luther was a man who did not give us really a kind of compendium of systematic theology or doctrine, like Calvin did in his famous institutes. Calvin gave us a kind of compendium of doctrine that frankly without those institutes, I'm not sure Calvin would be the kind of huge figure that he is even today.
Connor Coskery:He left us something quite unique within that reformation period. Luther didn't do that. But what Luther did leave us was an exorbitant amount of literature on the Bible. I want you to flip the page and see this. Of the 55 editions of Luther's writings, and that's a lot of writings.
Connor Coskery:I I forget it's We're talking millions of words, that he wrote. 30 out of the 55 volumes of his collected works in the American works editions are exegetical or bible in nature. Look at this timeline here. Psalms, Romans, Hebrews, Magnificat, 1st Peter, 2nd Peter, Jude, 1st Corinthians. And by the way, you've noticed, I think this is important, how much of this is in the decade of 15 twenties.
Connor Coskery:I mean, this is on the far side of Luther tacking up that famous 95 thesis that sort of began the reformation. And now he's having to hammer out his theology. And and this in the twenties was a momentous time for that. And where How is he hammering out his theology? You see it right here.
Connor Coskery:By wrestling with the Bible. There's an instinct there theologically that I think is very important. Deuteronomy, Hosea, Joel, Amos, Obadiah, Malachi, Ecclesiastes, first John, first Timothy, Titus, Philemon, Isaiah. Just exhausting thinking about that. Isaiah in 1 year, but he lectured on the whole thing.
Connor Coskery:Song of songs, which for Luther and for the whole reformation tradition was not 30 ways to have a better sex life. I'm sorry if that's what we think about it. It's, it's a book about, you can read it that way. That's fine. I did as a teenager.
Connor Coskery:When I got bored in sermons, that's what I, I would always read Song of Solomon. The imagery fascinates me to this day. But for Luther and for Calvin, for the whole tradition, the Song of Psalms was about God's relationship with his people. That's what it was about. Galatians, Psalms again.
Connor Coskery:The Sermon on the Mount. 1st Corinthians 15, Genesis. 1st Samuel. Look at this quote from Haakon Obermann. For Luther, careful heed to the scriptures was the only scholarly basis for theology.
Connor Coskery:And, thus, the reliable standard of truth. So so Luther walked in here today and we asked him, Luther, tell us what what makes a good theologian? Luther's quick answer would be 2 fold, I think. Well it'd be probably more. Who knows what he'd say?
Connor Coskery:My projection on him would be he would say number 1, to be a theologian is to be a student of the word. And all of you are theologians. You have people who are church people. That you come and hear sermons. That you're trying to think about what it means to live life under the reality of the gospel day in and day out.
Connor Coskery:You're all theologians. We all are. That's not just a kind of, esoteric elitist discipline. It's for all of us. So Luther would say if you want to be a theologian, you be a lifelong student and lover of the word of God, of the Bible.
Connor Coskery:And the second thing, and this might come a little bit as a surprise. I don't have it here in the list. But the second thing that Luther would say is, and also to be a theologian is to be someone who knows and here's a the german word of the night, trial, a temptation, suffering. What makes a theologian Luther? Suffering and temptation make a theologian.
Connor Coskery:Being a student of the word and going through the school of hard knocks in life, that's what makes a theologian. Well, can we press on? I can do all this in 5 minutes. Don't worry. I won't do that.
Connor Coskery:This next part here, I'll just give you a little entree to this. How was God known? This this has real cash value, I think. Because there is a lot of talk in the public marketplace of ideas today about God. I mean, you you have these kind of conversations about God and does God exist?
Connor Coskery:What does it mean to be a theist or an agnostic? And I think this is healthy. It's a good conversation to have. But if Luther were to enter into this conversation and someone were to ask Martin Luther, Luther, tell me about what it means for God to be God or tell me about God. Luther could not give you an answer to that question without very quickly talking about the trinity.
Connor Coskery:In other words, even myself when I hear these kind of conversations about apologetic debates over the existence of God or not, I'm happy that that happened. I think it's very good. I'm all for it. But I get very nervous because being a theist, believing in God for Luther, really at the end of the day, almost means nothing. That's that sounds very harsh.
Connor Coskery:I said, I don't mean it that way but it's comes a bit harsh. Because for Luther, there is no God behind God's revelation of himself in Jesus Christ. Do you want to know what God is like? God is hidden. God cannot be constructed according to our own thoughts.
Connor Coskery:Who are my any philosophy people out here? This is where Immanuel Kant got it right to my mind. Where Kant said, there is a distinction between the phenomenal world around us. We engage one another. There's Phil.
Connor Coskery:There's Kurt. Here's my table. Right? We engage the world around us phenomenologically. But depressed to things as they really are.
Connor Coskery:The noumenal world. The world of God. The world of metaphysics. To do that, we can't do that. There's a fundamental divide there.
Connor Coskery:And with Kant, I would say, you're right. We can't build from a kind of natural construction of the world around us and go, oh I see this. I see that. And with our own natural instincts and our own rationality, be able to build up build up like the Tower of Babel and say, try a trinity. It's not gonna work that way.
Connor Coskery:Augustine made a strong distinction, Saint Augustine, between faith and reason. And Augustine's distinction between faith and reason does not mean that Christianity is not rational or reasonable. It is. But the point is there is an infinite divide between the creator and the creation. And reason says I'm going to cross that divide by my own attempts at human ingenuity and intelligence.
Connor Coskery:Whereas faith says, that divide is only crossed one way. When God steps into the world in a human baby and he speaks fully God, fully man in one person, Jesus Christ. Luther was very strong on that. Do you want to know who God is? You take a very hard look at crib and cross.
Connor Coskery:Wanna who Jesus you wanna who God is? Look at crib and look at cross. Because that is the revelation that God has in his own self determination, determined to reveal himself as this God, because this is who he is. That is crucial to my mind. And by the way, just to kind of put it out there, and I hope this isn't offensive to you, it's crazy.
Connor Coskery:Not. I mean, my wife I outed her to a sermon the other night. I mean the other day in in a different church in town. My wife is rather friendly with the cults, in the south side. I don't know if you've seen but the Jehovah's Witness park in our area.
Connor Coskery:2 young guys, Mormons, have they come by your place? My wife is very friendly with them. I, I am too. I'm not, I'm not as chipper as she is, with them. But what ends up happening is there's a kind of reversal that takes place, right?
Connor Coskery:So my wife develops this relationship with with, these 2 very nice young Mormon fellows. One's from, Bozeman, Montana. The other one's from Utah. They're really nice guys. And they the south side's kind of their area.
Connor Coskery:And so my wife will develop this kind of relation with them. But then she pushes me out the door to talk to them. That's kind of how it happens. Like take care of this. And so, you know, I think about what Mormons believe.
Connor Coskery:I'm I'm no Mormon expert but it's it's just bizarre. Right? I mean, brass plates with angelic languages. Well who who has the right to interpret those? What is that language?
Connor Coskery:We don't know, but someone's coming who will. I mean, the kind of, that kind of Mormon idea to my mind kind of smacks of Illuminati and conspiracy. I'm I'm sure this isn't fair. I'm giving you my own impression. It's very American.
Connor Coskery:I mean, what what what other religion other than one that was born on the soil of America would promise us that we might all have our own planet someday? I mean, it's a very kind of, so I'm not interested in debucking Mormonism. That's I wouldn't be able to do that. But the point is that's weird stuff. But I just want you to know, just kind of put an edge on it.
Connor Coskery:What you believe as a christian and what I believe is a christian is weird. The trinity does not make sense according to human standards of logic, period. It's imposed on us by the statements of the Bible that we have to do justice to. That doesn't make sense. That Jesus Christ is not a schizoid, but that he's fully God and fully man in one person.
Connor Coskery:I mean, it's craziness that God actually pushed through a woman's birth canal to enter into the world to redeem humanity, and then they killed him. And then he rose from the dead. And then he ascended literally his body ascended to to the throne room of God, where he is right now corporally. Let me put this an edge on this for you as well. Jesus has a body right now.
Connor Coskery:We that's real your salvation depends on that. That he has a body, right? He's a he's a man, glorified body, but he's a man right now interceding to the father by the Holy Spirit on your account, even as we speak right now. And you might not think about that a lot, but you believe that as a Christian. And it is crazy.
Connor Coskery:Now this is why Tertullian, the church father, he didn't quite say it this way but I'll translate it this way, said I believe because it's so absurd. I I don't mean any of that to be persuasive to you. I just want you to know that for Luther, it was very important that whenever we start to talk about God, and whenever we whenever we open our mouth and make any noise about anything related to God, the Bible, and the world, it has to begin with God speaking in Jesus. Not with human ingenuity and creativity, but with God speaking. Alright.
Connor Coskery:My last thing and I'm done. What was Luther's driving interpretive principle of the Bible? There's more stuff here you can read on your own. And maybe in q and a we can talk about it. My my my family and I, as I mentioned, we're in Germany.
Connor Coskery:And, we went to Erfurt, where he was in the monastery and taught in the in the cathedral there. We went to Eisenach, which is where the Wartburg Castle is, where he was hold up for 10 months and he translated the Bible from Greek into German, the New Testament in like 10 weeks. I mean it's miraculous. He was a genius. That's where he had his fable encounter with the devil and he threw the inkwell at the devil there.
Connor Coskery:We went there and then we, you've not heard that story? It's a fun story. Devil comes in, he throws the inkwell at him. There's I think it's a fable. And then, and and then, we went to Wittenberg.
Connor Coskery:And that was any any of you been there? It was outstanding. This is where the 95 Theses were tacked up in the Schlosskirche, the famous castle church. I enjoyed that. Luther's buried in there.
Connor Coskery:Melanchthon's buried in there. Frederick the Wise is buried in there, who was Luther's protector. That the the original edifice is gone. It was destroyed by cannon fire in the 1800. So it's, you know, it's not quite the same.
Connor Coskery:But that was fun. Luther's house. Can see his beer mug. I mean, apparently his wife, who was a former nun, was an amazing woman. I mean, she ran the family estate.
Connor Coskery:It was basically a live in seminary there at their house. She she ran all of this, and no Joe Blow could brew their own beer in Germany at that time. There was no sort of Alabama home brew stuff going on. Like, no one's doing that in their basement. You had to have a kind of, you had you had to have a legal status to brew beer.
Connor Coskery:And Katie, his wife, had that status and apparently was one of the best brew masters in the region. And on display there is Luther's own beer cup. I mean, that's a lot. That's great. So all that's there, we're having a great time.
Connor Coskery:And then we made our way to the Stadtkirche, the city church, which is the original edifice. It's where Luther did most of his ministerial work preaching week in and week out. And it's the same building. I hate to get sort of overly nostalgic but what what? It's the same building.
Connor Coskery:His pulpits there. The little cornerstone, the little, tombstone to his daughter Elizabeth that died at 6 months of age. It really tore Luther's heart apart. I mean, he just speaks about it in such moving terms. She a little Elizabeth is her she's in there.
Connor Coskery:And then at the front is this large triptych painting at the altar, by Lucas Cranach the Elder who was the artist of the Reformation and Luther's close, and personal friend. I mean we'll remember this. It was just us in there, I think. Maybe one other person, Some lone lady at the back. And the and the painting's just there.
Connor Coskery:I mean there's no guards. It's just it's just there. I'm thinking who the You couldn't pull this off. I mean, it's just there it is. I I couldn't get out the door.
Connor Coskery:Maybe I would have tried. So there's the painting, and it's a fascinating painting. At the top, you have a scene of the Last Supper and chronic the elder has painted 2 figures looking away from the circle at the Last Supper out into the audience. And guess who they are? Lucas himself and Martin Luther.
Connor Coskery:This is fascinating. So here they are. And this is another lecture, but Luther's Eucharistic theology, his understanding of the Lord's Supper fits theologically with that picture. But that's that's another the thing. But underneath, and I don't think you all can see this.
Connor Coskery:You can come look at it later. But underneath that triptych was this painting here. This is the one that got me. It was a picture of Luther standing in the pulpit, bible open, congregants out in front of him, with his finger pointing to Christ on the cross. And I looked at that and I thought, all the hard work that I've done over the past several years to try to construct an interpretive approach, a christian interpretive approach to reading the bible.
Connor Coskery:There it is. And just a simple beautiful artistic form. What was Luther's driving interpretive principle? Whatever pressures to Jesus. Why?
Connor Coskery:Because Luther knew that his congregants needed to hear the gospel again and again and again. I had a lady come up to me Sunday morning after a lesson that I did at a different church. And she said, I've struggled with the assurance of my salvation for so long. And I told her, I said you know what the wonderful thing that I've learned from Luther is? That the gospel is not just my kind of entree onto the train of Christianity, But the gospel is the whole train.
Connor Coskery:It's everything. So do you know what the good news is for the lost, those who don't know Jesus? The good news is the gospel. And you know what the good news is for those of us who are believers, who do identify ourselves in the church, who are baptized believers? I mean, we're in this thing.
Connor Coskery:Do you know what the good news for you is? That you need to hear again and again and again and that the bible pressures you to? The good news is the gospel. And Luther got that. We never get past it.
Connor Coskery:We need it again and again and again. Well, I'm gonna close in prayer. I think it's a 10 minute break and do some drinks, and then we'll bat it around a little bit. Father, thank you for this time together. Thank you for these dear friends.
Connor Coskery:I pray Lord that there will be some clarity, some hope, some encouragement that comes from the lecture tonight. And Lord, I know that if that happens In the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen.
Collin Hansen:So the the format for the Q and A is pretty simple. 1st Q then A. But, the questions, you know, we we wanna feel these questions and and and kinda narrow it into, just some some thoughts maybe that you've had as you as you heard Mark, teaching. And, and really any of just just kinda life questions that you've got. Anything that you're feeling in your heart.
Collin Hansen:You just kinda ask whatever. Mark, is extremely pastoral. He was my mentor at Beason and, held my hand through many different things. So if you just have something we can turn this into Oprah real fast. Yeah.
Collin Hansen:Any anything that you've got, obviously, this is not an attempt to to stump anyone or anything. But, but really, as with all of our theological coffee houses, the main goal is ultimately worship. That our attention, would be turned into worshiping our triune Lord. And so, any questions that you have just shout them out as loud as you can so everyone can hear. Mark will probably try and condense it into a repeatable, over the microphone, question and then we'll go from there.
Collin Hansen:So, have at it.
Connor Coskery:Yes, sir. Yeah. And and I really should I've I've kind of sold you a bill of goods tonight because I'm I'm not a church history guy. I mean, so I'm But I'll give you a pretty fast full answer if you don't mind. Oh, the question.
Connor Coskery:I'll have to repeat this. So why was Martin Luther important? And what was he reacting against? I mean, the 95 thesis, one one couldn't say that when Martin Luther tacked those up, What are we looking at? October 31st, 15 18?
Connor Coskery:17. That Luther had a really formed doctrine of justification by faith alone. I mean that's what Luther's most remembered for is his insistence on the gospel is understood as justification by faith alone apart from works. I don't think that that was really fully worked out in Luther yet. So in some sense, it's not quite right to pin the reformation at that moment.
Connor Coskery:But what Luther was reacting against was a kind of abuse of religious power. I asked another way of putting it. I mean, there were, John Tetzel was the famous one who would go through through the, area of Germany. And they were building if you've ever been to Rome and been into Saint Peter's basilica, it's quite stunning. But they built that on the back of indulgences, which is basically, a kind of monetary effort that you could give money to the Roman Catholic church, and then your family could get some time in purgatory cut off, or you might cut some purgatory time off for yourself.
Connor Coskery:It was a kind of transaction, a monetary transaction that resulted in a kind of salvific end. And and Luther, not Luther alone, but the the whole sort of Augustinian the Augustinian tradition, I think as well not the Dominicans, but the Franciscans. But there there there was a lot of foaming about this. And Luther, tacked up those thesis primarily to respond to that particular ecclesial problem. And then once that happened, it was like the horse was now let out of the gate.
Connor Coskery:He became a kind of a public figure. He had to go, and defend himself at the dot at at Worms, the city of Worms. They call it the diet of worms, which always looks weird to see. But it's just the city where he had to go and defend himself and is famous, unless I can be convinced by, you know, the by the scriptures and and my conscience will not move. Here I stand.
Connor Coskery:I mean that that was the real deal. And and at that point, then Luther becomes a public figure, a public intellectual, and really a public enemy of the church of Rome. I do think and again, I'm stepping out of my own comfort zone here, but my sense is Luther was really interest he didn't like the term reformation. He liked the term betterment. I don't think he had any notion of starting a protestant church.
Connor Coskery:But in a kind of divine providential way, that's what happened, because of the decision that was made by Rome to excommunicate him and put what's called a papal bull out on him. He was a wanted man. And he he's his life was in danger. That's why Frederick the wise hid him in that castle in Wartburg for, you know, 10 months or however long that was, because he was a wanted man. It's a quite stunning achievement of God's providence frankly that that Luther lived.
Connor Coskery:And you know, this became a long debate, you know, even afterward, what Calvin called the nicoleitans. No. No. The Nicomedaeans is what he called them. Or those people that remained in France who stayed who had evangelical reformational theological instincts where they stayed in the church of Rome.
Connor Coskery:You know, there's this there were a lot of debates, very textured debates about what it looks like, to be faithful to the gospel in light of given ecclesial structures. And I think those kind of debates are still around today. That's probably more than what you're asking about, but that that was yeah. Yes, sir. You're a student.
Connor Coskery:Right? Are you a student? No. You look for oh, church. Now you're flipping sorry.
Connor Coskery:I hope my colleagues and friends at Beeson don't hear this. My best, my closest, one of my closest colleagues where I teach is a Missouri Senate Lutheran pastor. And and I think it's one of those kind of familial debates that you see where we share so much in common, but there's enough distinction as well to make the conversation interesting. Read friction. Right?
Connor Coskery:One of the main distinction I mean, there's there's several. But there's one of the main distinctions is there's a the fundamental Lutheran interpretive approach to the bible is what they call a law gospel hermeneutic. A law gospel in in other words, the law and the gospel are 2 distinct words of God that one finds in the bible. Whereas the gospel is the good news that you are redeemed. Whereas, the gospel is the good news that you are redeemed.
Connor Coskery:Calvin and the reformed tradition did not work with the strict law gospel hermeneutic. And in some many ways they understood the gospel as having ingredient to it the law. And the law having the old testament having the gospel as a part of it as well. So it's a much more textured understanding, where just justification and sanctification are not pitted over against one another but are viewed as the one total reality of what it means to be a believer. Of salvation.
Connor Coskery:How one understands the relationship of those, these are long and heated debates to this day. Another one would be the understanding of how the 2 kingdoms theology has worked out. I mean, Luther had a clear understanding that you have the kingdom of this world and the kingdom of Christ. And never shall the twain meet. Whereas within certain strands of the reformation tradition, there's been more of an insistence on public political theology.
Connor Coskery:Think about Abraham Kuyper. There's not one square inch of this world that Jesus doesn't say, this is mine. And so there there there are some key points of doctrinal distinction. Those within the reformation tradition understand the atonement to be particular in its extent. That is Jesus died for his own.
Connor Coskery:That's a real interpretive difference between the reformation tradition and the Lutheran tradition. So there's a lot. I mean, and, and it's enough to keep it fun. But I think it's also enough to remind us that we really share a lot in common. And then to be fair to my colleagues, who never tire of reminding me of this, and they're right.
Connor Coskery:There would be no Calvin without Luther. I mean, Luke Calvin said so to himself. I mean, Calvin was giddy when Luther said something positive about his writings. I mean, it's just giddy about it. His letter, I think is what he read.
Connor Coskery:And then later on it kind of set the relationship soured a little bit. I mean you think about the you wonder these kind of questions about looking back in history and time, what what might have been. These are bad questions probably. But it is an interesting intellectual, enterprise to think. What would have happened if central Europe meaning about this, Luther and Melancton up in Wittenberg.
Connor Coskery:Right. Because you kind of put Europe in front of you. Luther and Melancton in Wittenberg. Martin Luther Martin Bucer in Strasbourg, southeastern Germany. You have Calvin, who's in in, Geneva.
Connor Coskery:You have achlimpatius, who's in at Basel. You have, Bullinger, who is Zwingli's successor in in, Zurich. And there was some overlap between them but there were some real the the meeting of politics and religion, carving out our own turf, driving a hard line on how we understand the Lord's supper. I mean, that kept Europe divided. And then you move a 100 years later and you're into the 30 years war, which was one of the bloodiest wars in Europe's history.
Connor Coskery:That was really a kind of nasty meeting of politics, political machinery, and religious zealotry. I mean, you know, you just, you know, I believe in doc, I have a high view of doctrine, you know, but they're, but they're these things have to be wrestled with, I think. Yes, sir. Yeah. Yeah.
Connor Coskery:What quarter are you looking at? Roger's at Okay. Yes. Yes. Yes.
Connor Coskery:Okay. Well Oh. Oh. Yes. I'm sorry.
Connor Coskery:The question is, I think, expound a little bit more on this Luther's interpretive center, what drives to Christ. So if you look at the quote there, whoever wants to read the bible must make sure he is not wrong. For the scriptures can easily be stretched and guided, but no one should guide them according to his emotions. He should lead them to the well that is to the cross of Christ, then he will certainly be right and cannot fail. I mean, this is a really live question.
Connor Coskery:How do I know that that I'm reading the bible rightly? How do I know that? And this is a question that has been at the heart of the christian interpretive tradition, all the way back to Saint Augustine in the 4th century, even before. I think what Luther is warning us against is turning the bible into a talisman. Turning the bible into Oh, what's another way of putting this?
Connor Coskery:A wax nose, a genie on the mantle, genie in the bottle on the mantle. You know something that we kind of read from our own interpretive sin or just me It's kind of me Jesus in the Bible. And the reason why I read the Bible is because I need I need God to tell me something about my I would call that kind of an overly Marxist view of relativism relevant being relevant. I I don't know. And I think what Luther is saying is, all those things are important, but those are derivative.
Connor Coskery:That's a How this applies to me, which we think about modern Bible, Christian Bible readers. I mean evangelical robust. We tend to lead with what does this mean for me today? How's this gonna help me in public? Kind of question I used to ask my 7th grade algebra teacher.
Connor Coskery:Like, how's this really gonna help me when I'm having to be, you know, live real life? And I think Luther's point is that's not a bad question, but it's not the first question. The first question is how does this lead you to Jesus Christ who is the subject matter of the whole of the Bible? That's a very important point. Jesus Christ is the subject matter of the old testament and the new testament.
Connor Coskery:God in the old testament is triune. Just me saying that would evacuate a room at a certain kind of academic Bible conference. And because to say that the old testament God is triune is to anachronistically impose something on the Old Testament that certainly can't be true. I mean Moses did not know that God was Father, Son and Holy Spirit. And I would say, you might be right.
Connor Coskery:Moses might not have known that, but it didn't mean that that was not what was true, despite his knowledge of that. And that is the revelation of God and Jesus that opens up the bible for us. The early church called this an appeal to the to the rule of faith. And that is, there's a rule that guides us in our reading of the bible in its totality, that keeps us from falling off the rails. It functions as a shield to protect us from going the wrong way.
Connor Coskery:Because I don't know if you realize this or not, but every heretic in the church has a Bible verse on their side. I mean I tell this in my sort of naughty way to my students in Beeson. The first road to heresy is exegesis, the reading of the bible. I mean, because every heretic had their own Bible verse on their side. But the question was not how I do I read that particular Bible verse, but how do I read that particular bible verse in light of the scope of the whole of the bible.
Connor Coskery:And that kind of interpretive tradition that Luther's a part of here is a moving in and a moving out. And a moving in and a moving out. To go into the particular of the text, to wrestle with the text and those words, but then to back out and see how that fits within the whole. And that's that kind of trinitarian reading that really is a lifelong habit to be learned. It really is.
Connor Coskery:It's a lifelong habit. And I hope it's okay. I tell my students to be in this. I hope this is an encouragement to you. The most important thing you bring as a student of the bible to the like what's the most important character trait as a student of the bible?
Connor Coskery:My answer would be number 1, humility, prayer and responsibility. Even over accuracy. Because I think our accuracy on reading particular text might change over time. I've changed my mind on the way in which I understand particular texts and some of them were a long time and me letting them go. I just was not gonna let my understanding of Romans 7 go.
Connor Coskery:I wasn't gonna do that. And now I just have a different view of Romans 7. Was I inaccurate before? Maybe. Was I irresponsible before?
Connor Coskery:I don't think I was irresponsible. So you bring what you have. You do the best you can and you trust God to do his work. I think that should be kind of liberating. In other words, go have fun.
Connor Coskery:I mean some people would say, if they're so I I know I know a friend of mine, I'm thinking right now, in ministry. I mean his worst nightmare is a church small group setting, where people are reading the Bible together and saying, well what does that mean to you? I mean it's like his worst. Like he just goes catatonic thinking about it. I think there are problems with that too.
Connor Coskery:It could because of the kind of experiential lead we can bring to that. But at the other side of the coin, I don't think it's all that problematic for people to sit around and to rest with the Bible, recognizing that they might need to be corrected in their reading. There might be better readings on offer to kind of, you know, shift to the conversation, but that's not a bad question. I've really changed my mind on that. It's not bad.
Connor Coskery:It's not that threatening. And part of the reason why I don't fail that Benjamin still thinks it's threatening. But part of the reason why I don't feel that it's this threatening is, because I still believe in the teaching office in the church. I think you really need your pastors. I think that those who will lead you in the word are really needed and they're ordained to that task.
Connor Coskery:I think that's really important still. That was probably more than what you're asking, but yeah. Yes, sir. You and then. Incurvatus and say turning it, like, curving in on the self.
Connor Coskery:Yeah. And I I think I talk about this somewhere in here. But Luther has a very practical understanding of the gospel, and the way in which the gospel would work out in the life of the church and community. I have to kind of, you know, I have to dig a little bit more to give you a nugget on that. But I'll give you my own sense on this.
Connor Coskery:That is very important. And we do live in a highly privatized individualized world where my religion is kind of my own. That's my own kind of transaction between me and God. And we are driven to community. And this is this is where Augustine and and Luther would agree with this, I imagine.
Connor Coskery:Where Augustine's notion of the body of Christ, the church being totus Christus. The total Christ. When you think about it, your church is a collected organization together as an organism as well that is related to the very head who is Jesus. I mean, that's an astounding thing that all of you come together collectively and you are the living body of Christ in the world. I I don't really have my head wrapped around that to be honest with you, but it helps me make sense of some of these very uncomfortable things that Paul says.
Connor Coskery:Like I make up Colossians 124 for that which is lacking in Christ suffering. Like that's heresy, Paul. You can't say that. But I think what Paul is getting at is this totus christus notion of the church that is Christ and his body cannot be separated the one from the other. Do you remember when Jesus said before he left in John 16, I think, and when I leave, I'm going to send the Holy Spirit and you will do greater works than these?
Connor Coskery:Excuse me? I mean, that's what I think when I hear that. Greater works than what? Than what Jesus was doing. That's what he said.
Connor Coskery:I don't even know how to get my head around that. But the point is, there is an organic relationship between Jesus and his body, that must be understood collectively and not individualistically. You know, don't be we shouldn't be overly impressed with toes or hands. We need the whole body. And the danger, I think, in the life of the church is we tend to project.
Connor Coskery:Like if you have a gift that happens to be a toe gift, or a hand gift, or a mouth gift, we tend to project on others who have different gifts, like why aren't you a toe? Right. Yeah. Well, Yeah. Well, yeah.
Connor Coskery:I mean, so what I mean, why is why is Catholicism still an active force and how did it get to its medieval form? Saint Peter's Basilica is a stunning place. I mean, my wife and I were there several years ago. And, you know, you walk through and you see those big keys. I mean, there's there's I mean, there's no denying the Petrine office as it's understood within the papal role.
Connor Coskery:I mean, the pope is the successor of Peter in Perpetua. I mean, I mean, I I we have to be careful though, because Catholicism is not a monolith. I've had to learn this. It's it's, I mean, even even conservative Roman Catholics like Rusty Reno, who are my nerdy first things readers out there? Any of you read first things?
Connor Coskery:I mean Rusty Reno is the editor of that. He's a kind of a convert from the Episcopal church into the Roman Catholic church. He's one of these older kind of liberal, but now conservative. He's a brilliant man. And if you asked him, what about the Catholic catechism?
Connor Coskery:What about Catholic doctrine? His answer, whatever your bishop allows you to believe is fine. I mean there's a kind of notion of the office of the bishop functioning for someone like Reno, And that is, I don't have to affirm everything that Catholic doctrine affirms, as long as my bishop allows me the space to be that. In other words, there is no such monolithic thing like that. It's a complex beast and I I really don't have my head around it.
Connor Coskery:This is why the kind of Roman Catholicism that you meet in Latin America that's kind of wet animisms and some weird voodoo stuff, That's not European Roman Catholicism. It's certainly not the Roman Catholicism of Boston. You know, so I it's in other words, there's no it's a it's a big old massive beast. So what social historical forces led to its forming, I mean that's a very complex engagement within medieval the medieval philosophical and theological tradition. And this is, I think, a very important matter.
Connor Coskery:And I'll I'll get to this. And you can see that I'm circling the airport and I have no ability to land the plane. But I will say this, one thing that has been overplayed on the distinction between protestantism and roman catholicism, is the view on tradition. Sola scriptura, the scriptures alone, was a battle cry the reformation over against Roman Catholicism and that is scripture has the ability to trump and correct tradition. My blood as a protestant runs hot on that particular point.
Connor Coskery:I'm I'm fully protestant on that. I think that's true. The scripture is the speaking voice of God. Tradition is the hearing ear of the church. And that hearing ear often hears it well.
Connor Coskery:And we would do well to listen to the Catholic tradition, lowercase c Catholic tradition. But it can also hear it poorly. And it needs the continued work of the Holy Spirit to help us hear scripture again to correct tradition. Roman Catholicism puts scripture and tradition on an equal plane. The Council of Trent.
Connor Coskery:That's an equal plane. Whereas within the Protestant tradition, scripture is always, this is the famous Latin term, norma normans non normata. It's the norming norm. It's the authority by which every other authority is judged. That is a key distinction.
Connor Coskery:But sola scriptura never meant nuda scriptura. That is the scripture stripped of anything else. Yuri Luther, Yuri Calvin, at the heart of the debate was not just debate over debate over the Bible, although that was really part of it. One of the major parts of the debate does, who has Saint Augustine the best? Who has the who understands the church fathers the best on this?
Connor Coskery:The appeal to the tradition is very important in the reformation. And I would say it's important for us as well, but scripture has the ability to trumpet. There's a critical engagement at play there that maybe not it's not full fully engaged within the Roman Catholic tradition. It's a complicated thing. I mean, that that was my way of answering that question.
Connor Coskery:It's a very it's a very complicated thing that I don't want to reduce to kind of simple, simple aphorisms. You know, the old adage, if you give a simple answer to a complex problem, it's typically wrong, wrong, wrong. And that one's a big one. Email Timothy George. He's my Dean at Beeson.
Connor Coskery:He's into this Catholic stuff. I'm not. I'm a very local guy. I just stay in Birmingham's area. He's like hanging out with the Pope in the Vatican.
Connor Coskery:I mean, I I just he's in a different orbit than I am. So email him so you can see what he is. Okay. We need to talk about that. I'm curious.
Connor Coskery:Yes, sir. You know, hindsight's 2020 on a lot of these things, and and the reformation certainly had, enormous positive effects. And there there were there were spin offs as well that were unfortunate. I mean and that's not just a later kind of modern development. That's right in the middle of the fray.
Connor Coskery:The Anabaptists kind of the the radical reformers, and how all that sort of played out. I mean, things begin to fragment quickly. Would they like that? I imagine that they wouldn't. Although, you know, for Luther, doctrinal precision on the Eucharist was really important, and it was more important than church unity.
Connor Coskery:Now I would I do think that there's a kind I mean, we have to continue to think about this and wrestle with it. I do as well. I mean, I'm in the Episcopal church right now. Holy cow. I mean, that ship is sinking so fast.
Connor Coskery:So I'm in the middle of a church that prizes unity right now over any kind of theological integrity. And that is all there's always a call to wisdom in that, to wrestle with how one negotiates that very rocky terrain, because there is no true unity without the gospel. I mean, I don't know what what are we unified on. And at the same time, the gospel does have a unifying kind of thing. And the way in which some reformers got away from that in time when they got more sophisticated in their thought was to make a distinction between the church as an organism and the church as an organization.
Connor Coskery:And to make it a distinction between the church militant and the and the church triumphant. And the church triumphant we're the militant church, but the church triumphant is a unified church. And it's now a full eschatological reality in the future. We just have to wait and anticipate that. I'm not sure we get that quick and easy of a get out of jail free card.
Connor Coskery:I think we have to wrestle with these things. I'm not interested in least common denominator ecumenism. I'm I'm not interested in that. But I am interested in a genuine kind of ecumenism where each tradition brings what it has. The the what it offers to the larger body of Christ.
Connor Coskery:We cannot turn back the clock. The fragmentation has happened. I, as an Episcopalian now, and even saying that sounds so strange, but as I'm in that church now, I really I believe that I have something to learn from I think the Pentecostal church brings something that is weird in the world that I'm in now. But I have something to learn from that. Presbyterians bring something to the table.
Connor Coskery:I mean, in other words, there's something that we have to learn from each other without reducing our theological commitments to a kind of least common denominator. And this is where Heiko Obermann made a distinction between tradition 1 and tradition 2. This has been helpful for me. Tradition 1 is the Catholic faith, the Nicene Creed, the Chalcedonic Creed. Those early church formulations that really give us the scope of what it means to be an Orthodox Christian.
Connor Coskery:That all Christians of all stripes affirm. That's tradition 1, it's the great traditions, it's Catholic tradition. There's a lot of resources there and it's very important. We have that to appeal to. Number then there's tradition 2 as well, which gives us our particular ecclesial identities.
Connor Coskery:Think about the Presbyterian world. The Westminster confession of faith, that's tradition 2. And it plays an important role. I don't think it's as important as tradition 1, but it still plays an important role in helping carve and create how people have read the bible, and how that brings something to bear on the larger life of the church. How that works out on the level of policy?
Connor Coskery:I don't know how I mean, maybe some of you are probably politically hardwired. I mean, I have instincts about economics and healthcare and all this stuff, but when you start talking about policy, like that's when my eyes begin to cross. Like, how do you affect that given this massive ship that is the United States? I have no idea. And this this is we're in a real I mean, this is we are where we are.
Connor Coskery:And, there's a there's a lot of difficult things that have to be wrestled with that. And it is a kind of polemic that Roman Catholicism and the Eastern Orthodox Church have. Even Eastern Orthodoxy Have you ever been in the Eastern Orthodox Church? I mean, you see the big tree. Right?
Connor Coskery:All the Protestant fragmentation. And then you have the Catholic fragmentation off. And there's the there's the, you know, the Eastern church all the way back to the apostles. It's like, well you know, that's got a certain kind of cash value to it. But these are, you know, these are these are difficult matters.
Connor Coskery:I think that bear continued reflection. Oh yes. It's on And it's in your thing here. If I can recommend one biography to you that I've engaged, although my colleague at Beeson, Peter Malish, had his students read another biography. Do you remember the title of that?
Connor Coskery:Yes. The book by the book that I reference in here by Heiko Obermann, Luther, Man Between God and the Devil. Yale University Press is very good. And, you can ask our friend here to tell you the title of the other one. But those are I think those would be good books.
Connor Coskery:Yes. So how do we if I'm hearing your question well, how do we even frame our own questions, and then what resources do we go to to try to answer them? Is that what you're asking? That I like the way you frame that, because how how do we even know what our own questions are? That's a great way of of, of raising the issue, because, have you ever heard someone say, I don't even know what I don't know.
Connor Coskery:Who said that? Oh, is that who said that? I'm sure there's an antecedent voice behind Rumsfeld on that. That's just my hunch. I mean, I just got an email from my doctoral supervisor, who's in Germany right now, where we were last year.
Connor Coskery:And, he was raising some questions about the theological discussions going on there at the University of Gothenburg. And he said, I'm very surprised to hear him say this. But he said in in the email, my approach for the next 3 months is to listen more than I speak. And that's the advice that one gets from someone who's closer to 60 than when they were 30. And I've thought about, I haven't framed my email back to him, but it's kind of an interesting thing because in some sense we probably need to hear you at 60 more than we need to hear you when you were 30.
Connor Coskery:Yeah. So you've got more to say now. We don't really know our own questions or our own problems. We lack in self awareness and self perception. Not everyone has this gift and not everyone needs to have this gift.
Connor Coskery:I do think that's one of the gifts of marriage. Wives and husbands have the ability and friends and community. Let's bring just not marriage. I don't want to sort of reduce it to that. Friends, community have the ability to speak words of candor into our lives that we really, on our own, wouldn't see.
Connor Coskery:Let me give you an example. My son played Little League Baseball this year. I took it way too seriously. And, after, like, the 2nd game or something, you know, I was helping coach. You know, my wife asked me in the car or in some venue, you know, in effect, she said, Are you self aware?
Connor Coskery:You know, like, do you know what you sound like at the game? Like, what are you talking about? She's like, well, you know, pay attention next week. You know, wouldn't do that. We need the community to help us think through our own questions, our own problems, our own issues.
Connor Coskery:And we also need the community of faith to help us adjudicate them. I think small do you do small groups? I mean, small groups are very important in this. My my mentoring group experience at Beast and Divinity School, where I meet together with students every week, we don't do anything fancy. I've got one of my I mean, we do nothing fancy in there.
Connor Coskery:We talk and laugh and pray. That's what we do. But there's something in that transaction where we open our lives to one another. We try to listen to the word. We try to pray for one another.
Connor Coskery:Where the fundamental questions of life become clearer and our concern for people other than ourselves becomes more poignant. That's really important, I think. So how would Luther adjudicate that? I mean, the answer is quite simple. I think Luther would say a couple of things.
Connor Coskery:Go to church, Be involved in sacramental life. Listen to preaching, and I'll toss in if he wouldn't have be in community. Now this might be a surprise to you. It has been somewhat to me, but Luther, whenever someone Luther's primary pastoral advice when people were struggling with their faith was this might this has always been a stunner to me. He would tell them, remember that you're baptized.
Connor Coskery:I don't know if you're thinking about baptism in that way. But remember that you're baptized. That you've been claimed. That you've been buried with Christ and risen with him in those waters, that he's laid a claim on you. Remember that.
Connor Coskery:Remember the gospel, that God moved toward you. Being involved in the life of the eucharist, of communion, and preaching, it's very important. Now, I don't know where redeemer is on your eucharistic theology. But you know, there are a lot of people who practice a doctrine of the real absence of Jesus. You know, I'm I actually think there's something something's going on there to be taken seriously.
Connor Coskery:Luther and Calvin were of one mind on that, that they differed on how they understood it. But they knew that they were being fed Jesus. We need communion. We need to remember our baptism. We need to hear the preaching of the word And we need to be in community.
Connor Coskery:I think that's how Luther would say, what what the Westminster Confession of Faith calls the ordinary means of grace. See, we kind of we want the extraordinary. I want Jesus to look at me I want to be shaving in the morning and Jesus to show up in the mirror. Like, wow. Tell me everything now.
Connor Coskery:And and what God has given us are ordinary means of grace. Preaching, prayer, community, sacraments. I think that'd be his answer.
Collin Hansen:Alright. Thank you very much, Mark, for sharing with us.