A Blind Man in a Bell Tower

Martin Luther didn’t intend to start the Reformation. In this brief clip, R.C. Sproul explains how Luther’s 95 Theses spread across Germany and sparked a chain of events he never saw coming.

This Reformation Month, watch a short video every day on the history and insights of the Protestant Reformation. And don't forget that today is the last day you can request your free digital download of R.C. Sproul’s video teaching series Luther and the Reformation plus the ebook edition of The Legacy of Luther, edited by R.C. Sproul and Stephen Nichols at ligm.in/Reformation. Offer ends October 31, 2019.

Transcript

The 95 Theses were written in Latin. That's a key point. Because when he attached them to the church door at Wittenburg, he wasn't doing violence to the church. That was the bulletin board where announcements were made, and invitations were given to the faculty for academic discussions among themselves. So what Luther was proposing was a serious scholarly discussion about the whole structure of the indulgence system. What happened without Luther's permission and without his knowledge, some students say the 95 Theses translated them into German and took advantage of the printing press. And within two weeks they were in every village and hamlet throughout Germany, and this huge uproar took place. Karl Barth makes the observation that Luther, when he posted the 95 Theses, was like a blind man climbing a tower in the church, in the bell tower. He began to lose his balance, and he reached out to grab something to stabilize himself but what he grabbed in his blindness was the rope for the church bell and accidentally awakened the whole town by the ringing of the bells.