74: Why So Many Churches?: Reformers Before the Reformation – Part 7

Long before Martin Luther, two men dared to challenge the corrupt medieval Catholic Church. John Wycliffe translated the Bible into English so ordinary people could read it themselves. John Huss proclaimed that Scripture, not the pope, held ultimate authority. One died a martyr, the other a natural death—but both faced fierce persecution, but their ideas lit the fuse for the Protestant Reformation. This is the untold story of the reformers before the Reformation.

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Episode Transcript

(00:00):
(Music)
Welcome to the Ready for Eternity
podcast, a podcast and blog dedicated to
inquisitive Bible students exploring
biblical truths that might not be fully
explored in typical
sermons or Bible studies.

(00:20):
My name is Eddie Lawrence.
Three men claimed to be
Pope at the same time.
Priests were selling salvation for cash,
and the most powerful institution in
Europe was about to face its greatest
challenge from two men who
would die for their beliefs,

(00:43):
but whose ideas would outlive empires.
This is the story of the
reformers before the Reformation.
(Music)
By the late medieval period, the Roman
Catholic Church had become Europe's most
powerful institution.

(01:04):
It crowned kings, shaped laws, and
claimed spiritual
authority over millions of people.
Yet beneath this impressive facade,
serious problems had taken root.
Wealthy families bought church positions.
Bishops collected salaries from regions

(01:26):
they never visited, and
priests sold salvation itself.
The church owned vast estates while
preaching poverty, and at one point three
different men claimed to
be Pope simultaneously.
(Music) In this environment of spiritual

(01:46):
compromise, courageous
voices began to rise.
Two men stood out as proto-reformers,
John Wycliffe in England and John Huss in
Bohemia, which is the area of the
modern-day Czech Republic.
They lived generations before Martin

(02:08):
Luther would nail his thesis to the
Wittenberg door, but they lit fires that
would eventually consume medieval
Christianity as Europe knew it.
John Wycliffe earned his reputation as a
scholar at Oxford
University in the 1300s.
Wycliffe made a revolutionary claim that

(02:30):
shook medieval
Christianity's foundations.
He argued that scripture, not the church
hierarchy, held ultimate
authority in matters of faith.
The Pope could err, councils could make
mistakes, but God's
Word remained infallible.
This struck at the heart of Catholic

(02:51):
teaching which placed church tradition
and papal authority on
equal footing with scripture.
But Wycliffe didn't stop with theory.
He launched an ambitious translation
project working on an English Bible so
that ordinary people
could read it themselves.

(03:12):
The church had kept scripture locked away
in Latin, accessible
only to the educated.
Church authorities feared that if common
people could read the Bible for
themselves, they might question priestly
interpretations and
challenge church authority.

(03:32):
Wycliffe believed every Christian
deserved to read God's Word directly.
His followers, who were nicknamed
"lollards" which was a derogatory term
meaning "mumblers" spread
his teachings across England.
They carried handwritten copies of
English scripture and preached in

(03:53):
language that working
people could understand.
Church authorities hunted them
relentlessly, but Wycliffe's ideas proved
harder to kill than
the men who carried them.
Wycliffe himself escaped martyrdom, dying
of a stroke in 1384.
But the church's hatred for

(04:13):
the reformer outlasted his life.
Forty-four years after his death, the
Council of Constance declared him a
heretic, ordered his
body exhumed and burned.
They scattered the
ashes in a nearby river.
Even in death, they
refused to let him rest in peace.

(04:36):
Wycliffe's writings traveled across
Europe and found fertile ground in
Bohemia, where a young priest named John
Hus began preaching similar ideas.
Hus served as Dean of the Faculty of
Philosophy at the University of Prague
and Pastor of Bethlehem Chapel.

(04:56):
Both were positions that gave him a
platform to challenge church corruption.
Like Wycliffe, Hus
proclaimed that Christ,
not the Pope, served
as head of the church.
He preached that the Bible is the
ultimate authority and disobedient Popes
should not be obeyed.

(05:19):
He demanded that the church return to the
simplicity and purity
described in the New Testament.
The reformer's boldest move came when he
publicly supported Wycliffe's writings.
Hus refused to back
down from his convictions,
even when church
authorities demanded his silence.

(05:41):
In the year 1414, Holy Roman Emperor
Sigismund promised Hus safe passage to
the Council of Constance, where church
leaders planned to address the ongoing
crisis of authority.
But once Hus arrived and refused to
recant his teaching, the

(06:03):
Council imprisoned him.
Despite the Emperor's guarantee of
safety, they tried him for heresy.
The Council offered Hus a choice,
renounced his beliefs or face execution.
Standing before the most powerful
religious authorities in
Europe, Hus chose martyrdom.

(06:24):
"God is my witness," he declared, "that I
have never taught that of which I have
been falsely accused.
I appeal to Jesus Christ, the only judge
who is almighty and completely just.
In his hands, I plead my cause, not on
the basis of false witnesses and erring

(06:46):
councils, but on truth and justice."
On July 16th, 1415, church authorities
burned John Hus at the stake.
His last words reportedly were, "Lord
Jesus, it is for thee that I patiently
endure this cruel death.

(07:09):
I pray thee to have mercy on my enemies."
The executions of Hus and his follower,
Jerome of Prague, outraged many
Christians across Europe.
Church leaders had promised safe conduct,
then broke their word and murdered men
whose only crime was calling for reform.

(07:32):
This betrayal convinced many that the
institutional church had
moved beyond redemption.
Both Wycliffe and Hus had planted seeds
that would germinate in the early 1500s.
They proved that people could challenge
the church's corruption, that ordinary

(07:53):
believers could access scripture
directly, and that reform movements could
survive even violent persecution.
The Roman Catholic Church had tried to
silence these voices, but the questions
they raised refused to die.
Could the church

(08:14):
reform itself from within?
Did scripture really support the
elaborate hierarchy and wealth that
characterized medieval Christianity?
By the dawn of the 16th century, these
questions had created
tension across Europe.
All it needed was someone bold enough to

(08:34):
act on these convictions.
That moment was coming soon, and the man
who would strike the match was already
studying theology in a German monastery,
reading the very scriptures that Wycliffe
and Hus had died defending.
Thanks for listening to the podcast.

(08:58):
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(09:19):
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