Thoughts from Mark "Hat" Rackley

But they mocked God’s messengers, despised his words and scoffed at his prophets until the wrath of the Lord was aroused against his people and there was no remedy.

• 2 Chronicles 36:16

Consult God’s instruction and the testimony of warning. If anyone does not speak according to this word, they have no light of dawn.

• Isaiah 8:20

But they deliberately forget that long ago by God’s word the heavens came into being and the earth was formed out of water and by water.

• 2 Peter 3:5

“ ‘When I was younger, I gave myself overmuch to human teaching, like others of my day, and when … I undertook to devote myself entirely to the Scriptures I was always prevented by philosophy and theology. But eventually I came to the point where, led by the word and Spirit of God, I saw the need to set aside all these things and to learn the doctrine of God direct from his own word. Then I began to ask God for light and the Scriptures became far clearer to me — even though I read nothing else — than If l had studied many commentators and expositors. (The Clarity and Certainty of God’s Word 47-48).”

• Tony Lane, A Concise History of Christian Thought

Huldrych or Ulrich Zwingli, (1484-1531), was the leader of the Swiss reformation movement, being highly influenced by Erasmus.  He was the “people’s priest” in Zurich.  As he began to change liturgy and provide other writings, he encouraged several cantons to leave Catholicism and join the reformation.  This became political.  Some historians say the Zwingli created a theocracy in Zurich.  But as to the cantons of the Swiss Federation, some chose the reformed church while others remained Catholic.  There was an embargo of food to the Catholic cantons and Zwingli was killed on the battlefield.

But in spite of his end, many of his writings survived.

The quote above is important.  We must continue studying God’s Word.  While we can gain understanding from learned scholars, it pales in comparison to the Bible.

And if a passage is a bit confusing, you can go to those scholarly commentaries to help understand, but even better.  Come back to that confusing passage the following year, and again the next.  God will reveal more to us with each reading because we have grown in faith in the meantime, and we are prepared to understand more deeply.

And, with Zwingli, who were the scholars?  Many were the Catholic priests and monks before him that tailored what they wrote based on papal writings, justifying poor decisions and corruption within the church by twisting their interpretation of what Scripture really said.  Erasmus questioned them.  Martin Luther questioned them.  And Zwingli did also.  The truth is found in the Scriptures.

But this branch of the Reformation will eventually be dominated by Calvinism.  We will get to John Calvin in a couple of weeks.

If you like these Tuesday morning essays about philosophy and other “heavy topics,” but you think you missed a few, you can use this LINK. I have set up a page off the home page for links to these Tuesday morning posts. I will continue to modify the page as I add more.

Soli Deo Gloria.  Only to God be the Glory.