NICHOLS: Probably shouldn't surprise us that in the 16th century, the Gospel was obscured.
We see this in the first century.
We see it in Paul's churches.
In his epistle to the Galatians, he's astounded, he's marveling that they were entertaining
a different gospel then he quickly adds, it's a false gospel.
So if we see it in the first century, in the churches of the Apostles themselves.
It really shouldn't surprise us that in every generation, there's that temptation then to
improve upon God's Gospel, as it were, or to obscure the Gospel.
And so when we found ourself, where we found ourselves in the 16th century was the need
to recover the Gospel.
And we find that is true of every generation, of every age of the church.
THOMAS: There is a predisposition I think in the heart of every individual to self-justification.
To begin with the Spirit and to be made perfect by the flesh, as Paul says to the Galatians.
And so, not just at the Reformation but today also, there is that tendency to revert to
self-justification, which is why the rediscovery of the Gospel is something that is a continual
and daily need and not just something that occurred in the 16th century.
FERGUSON: I think one might add to that, that the Reformation is needed wherever the church
hides the Bible.
And Martin Luther had not actually seen a Bible until the first year of his novitiate,
when he was becoming a monk, and he was lent a Bible for a year only.
And, that's a real indication of how ordinary men and women knew nothing about the Scriptures.
Absolutely nothing about the Scriptures.
There was a martyr in Scotland who during the course of his trial, his accusing priest
pulled a New Testament out of his sleeve, held it up to the court and said, "This is
the book that is causing all the trouble."
He was right, of course.
But it's a real indication of the need of Reformation and renewal wherever the church
hides the Bible.
And, sad to say, there are many churches in the contemporary world where the Bible is
being hidden, either in ignorance or actually quite deliberately.
And perhaps there's never been such a time of need for Reformation and renewal as there
is today in that respect.
PARSONS: I couldn't agree more with Dr. Ferguson.
And I think that in many churches today, churches, pastors, and the people in those churches,
would profess to know the Gospel.
And they say, "Well of course we believe the Gospel.
The Gospel is core to who we are as a people."
But, when you listen to the sermons and the Sunday School lessons, down to the teachers
in the children's Sunday school classes, you don't actually hear the Gospel.
You hear talk about the Gospel.
Talk about Jesus.
Talk even perhaps about sin.
But you don't really hear talk about the Gospel.
It becomes not lost all together, but obscured.
It becomes sort of displaced by entertainment and so many other things in the church by
stories, and sociocultural anecdotes, and pop psychological anecdotes, and the Gospel
sort of gets pushed to the side.
It's still there, and people still say, "Well, we believe it."
But you don't hear it.
It's not part of the warp and woof and the core being of the church.