Reading Scripture with the Reformers

Throughout my entire undergraduate degree, I somehow managed to get by without taking a single history course. Don't ask me how. The last thing I wanted to do was take a history course. I avoided it like the black plague. I believed the lie that studying history wouldn't really change anything in my life. But maybe the reason was more than what I thought on the surface ("history is boring"), maybe it was that deep down, I knew I would have to apply myself to learn in a way I never had before. I was intimidated by history. Then, during my graduate studies, I put off taking my history courses until the bitter end, when I could avoid the inevitable no longer. Two mammoth sized textbooks and many research assignments later, my appreciation for history changed completely. I have my professors at Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary to thank for that, and especially, a man named Timothy George.

Like many of the great theologians of history, God took a man from unfortunate beginnings to accomplish great things for His Name. George was born on Jan. 9, 1950 in Chattanooga, Tennessee, in an area known as “Hell’s Half Acre.”[1] His father was an abusive alcoholic and his mother was ill with polio, so his two great aunts played an influential role in his upbringing. Although raised in a place with “hell” in its title, the God of heaven had His eye on George, touching his heart with the Gospel while attending a service at a Baptist church. George was converted to Christianity on Aug. 6, 1961. [2] According to George, it was Romans 10:15 that had taken a hold of his heart, “How beautiful are the feet of them that preach the gospel of peace.”[3] From a young age, George had a deep interest in theology and history, especially the Reformation. What really hooked him on the Reformation was that “it was a theological quest for the roots of the gospel.”[4] 

George attended Harvard Divinity School and went on to become the founding dean of Beeson Divinity School in 1988, serving as a professor of divinity, while teaching history and theology. Perhaps his magnum corpus is his editorial work on the Reformation Commentary on Scripture project. The focus of this project is on delving into and recovering Reformation exegesis. The companion volume to the RCS is George’s book, Reading Scripture with the Reformers. Why do we need to read Scripture with the Reformers? They’re just a bunch of dead guys in the past, right? What purpose do they serve us now? George anticipated this argument from modernist youth. According to George in an interview with Wyman Richardson,

“One of the reasons why reading Scripture with the Reformers is so important is that it allows us to check our own prejudices against the reading and exegesis of other godly men of the past. That doesn’t mean their interpretation is always right. They were certainly not infallible. They could be dead wrong. But it’s always good to have several voices in this conversation.”[5] 

The Reformers understood the magnitude of Scripture for faith and practice. They saw it as our unchanging “rule of faith,” to be depended on as ultimate truth and authority, being inspired, sufficient, and inerrant. Although it was costly, they held the authority of Scripture supremely above any other authority, whether it be papal authority or church tradition. Such things had taken the eyes of Christians away from the gospel. They had been fixated on lesser things. They had lost their true treasure. According to Martin Luther, “Everyone indeed, knows that at times the Fathers have erred, as men will; therefore, I am ready to trust them only when they give me evidence for their opinions from Scripture, which has never erred” (Luther’s Works, 32:11). George refers to the “Word in Scripture” and the “living Word Jesus Christ” as “the two poles of Reformation theology.”[6] George looks at sola scriptura as scriptura suprema, meaning, “the written Word of God, is the touchstone by which everything else–all the creeds, councils and theologies of the ages–have to be tested.”[7] Essentially, the church, nor the creeds, councils, or any word of man, does not prove the authenticity of Scripture. Scripture speaks for itself. It is the gospel which establishes the authenticity of the church. [8]

The gospel is a treasure we cannot afford to lose. A reading and deeper understanding of history, and of the Reformation, reminds us of that. The Reformers were willing to risk their livelihood, their life, for it.

History. . . com­pels us to remember. In studying the Reformation, we remember what the church is all about, and we remember how easy it is for the church to lose its grip on the gospel. [9]

What the history courses at Midwestern taught me, and what George wants all Christians to remember, is that we should not read Scripture in a vacuum. We need the voices of those who came before. Scripture is not ahistorical, but is more fully understood in the context of history – God’s story of redemptive history. History is His Story. Putting off a study of history was doing a disservice to my reading of Scripture and to my faith. There was a popular slogan from the Reformation known as semper reformanda, translated "always reforming," or better, "always being reformed." Indeed, "the church is always being reformed by God’s Word." [10] At least, this is what should be happening in a healthy church.

George quotes Martin Luther, who said at the Diet of Worms, "My conscience is captive to the Word of God."[11] As George explains, “It wasn't a conscience that was unfettered from the Word of God, free and individual and sole and autonomous.”[12]  May our consciences, like Luther’s, be captive to Scripture, and theologically informed by Christian history, and especially by the Reformers “because their intention was to return to the Scriptures, to return to the gospel and, above all, to return to Jesus Christ.”[13]

"For I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified."

1 Corinthians 2:2

References:

[1] Kristen Padilla, “A Tribute to Timothy George: Part One,” Samford University, Beeson Divinity School, June 27, 2019, https://www.beesondivinity.com/blog/2019/timothy-george.

[2] Ibid.

[3] Ibid.

[4] Ibid.

[5] Timothy George and Wyman Richardson, “Timothy George and Reading Scripture with the Reformers,” Founders Ministries, https://founders.org/articles/timothy-george-and-reading-scripture-with-the-reformers-an-interview/.

[6] Timothy George, Reading Scripture with the Reformers (Westmont, IL: IVP Academic, 2011), 258.

[7] George and Richardson.

[8] Tim Chester, "10 Things You Should Know about the Reformation," Crossway, https://www.crossway.org/articles/ten-things-you-should-know-about-the-reformation/

[9] Stephen J. Nichols, "The Lessons of the Reformers," Crossway, https://www.crossway.org/articles/the-lessons-of-the-reformers/.

[10] Tim Chester.

[11] David Neff, “Timothy George on the Reformers’ Postmodern Moment,” Christianity Today, June 29, 2012, https://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2012/june/reformers-postmodern-movement.html.

[12] Ibid.

[13] George and Richardson.