Sunday, September 24, we started our series celebrating the 500th Anniversary of the start of the Protestant Reformation. You can see from the series of sermon titles and texts below that we will be addressing some (not all) of the theological divisions between Protestants and Catholics.
I would encourage you to attend the Adult Sunday School class for the month of October. We will be watching a series of lectures by R.C. Sproul titled Luther and the Reformation. This series gives a lot of the historical details pertaining to the life, times, and thinking of Martin Luther. This will be a great help to your understanding of the significance of the Protestant Reformation. The teens will be joining the adults for Sunday School in the month of October.
The Reformation And Another Gospel (Galatians 1:6-9)
Sermon 1 Recommended Resources:
- Why We’re Protestant by Nate Pickowicz
The Reformation and The Sufficiency of Scripture (2 Peter 1:3-4; 19-21)
Sermon 2 Recommended Resources:
- The Reformation: How a Monk and a Mallet Changed the World by Stephen J. Nichols
- The Legacy of Luther by R.C. Sproul and Stephen J. Nichols
- Church History in Plain Language by Bruce L. Shelley
The Reformation and the Will of Man (1 Peter 1:3)
Sermon 3 Recommended Resources:
- The Bondage of the Will by Martin Luther
- The Freedom of the Will by Jonathan Edwards
- The Plan of Salvation by B.B. Warfield
- Institutes of the Christian Religion, John Calvin, Book 2, Chapter 2
- The Bondage of the Will Manuscript by Pastor/Elder Dave Rich
The Reformation and Justification by Faith (Romans 4:4-5)
Sermon 4 Recommended Resources:
The Reformation and the Ordinances (Luke 22:14-20; Matthew 28:16-20)
Sermon 5 Recommended Resources:
The Reformation and False Doctrine (1 Timothy 4:13-16)
Sermon 6 Recommended Resources:
- Doctrine: Deliverance or Destruction PowerPoint by Justin Peters
- Why We’re Protestant by Nate Pickowicz
- Reasoning from the Scriptures with Catholics by Ron Rhodes
The Reformation Q&A
November 5th – Q&A Adult Sunday School
Some of the questions asked in no particular order:
- Are Christians other than elders allowed to baptize other believers?
- In what context should baptisms be performed?
- What is the Catholic belief of “Patron Saints”?
- What happens to leftover Communion?
- How do you answer the charge that Protestants have their own bloody history to account for?
- How does Rome deal with their bloody history in their persecution of Protestants?
- What about the charge that Christians participated in the crusades?
- Today Roman Catholics would not consider “anathema” to be anything more than excommunication but not condemnation. Why do you make the claim that it is condemnation?
- Is anyone attending the Catholic Church going to Heaven?
- What is biblical baptism vs. covenantal baptism?