September 11, 2025 • 47 mins
The Schleitheim Confession was written in Switzerland in 1527 as the first confession of faith from the Anabaptists. It has continued to be important to the Anabaptists in the nearly 500 years that have followed. Dean Taylor and Stephen Russell unpack what it says, why it matters, and how it continues to affect us today.
This roundtable discussion was filmed as part of the Anabaptist Origins documentary series. More videos in the series will publish here
Full text of the Schleitheim Confession on The Dock for Learning
This is the 284th episode of Anabaptist Perspectives, a podcast, blog, and YouTube channel that examines various aspects of conservative Anabaptist life and thought.
A reading of the Schleitheim Confession
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Before we get into today's
episode, a little context.
This year we filmed a 10-part documentary series
called "Anabaptist Origins,"
which explores the first 100
years of the Anabaptist story.
And for that, we did an
entire episode on Michael Sattler
and the Schleitheim Confession.
For that episode, we
filmed a roundtable discussion
about what is the Schleitheim Confession
(00:22):
and why does it still matter
to us today, 500 years later?
And that discussion is today's episode.
We had the privilege of
filming at a beautiful castle
in the Czech Republic, the same castle
where the Anabaptist
theologian Hubmaier was imprisoned
before his execution and the same city
where the first Hutterites were expelled
for not taking up the sword.
(00:43):
Be sure to check out the
Anabaptist Origins YouTube channel
for more content like this
and enjoy this special episode.
All right, so let's get deeper with Schleitheim.
We talked some more of the backdrop, the context,
(01:03):
things like that, but let's get into
the actual confession itself.
And the first question I
have is why should we even care
about a confession that was
written almost 500 years ago,
1527? Mm-hmm.
Is it relevant?
Does it matter?
Why should we care? I'll let you go.
That's remarkable to me how much it matters.
I look at the Schleitheim
Confession and it's good stuff.
(01:23):
I mean, you can tell the things that were written
in the times, but the topics that it covers,
and we'll, I guess, be
getting into a few of these,
but they're very pertinent.
And I find it something that really is a good way
to look at the things that
are important to a brotherhood.
And the whole idea of coming together
and doing things like this to settle issues
(01:44):
is important even of itself.
But yeah, yeah, I like it.
So could you give us a broad outline
of what is it even about?
What is Schleitheim about?
Well, some of it you can actually miss.
First of all, they, in the cover letter,
it's clear they're Trinitarian.
So they are not disagreeing
(02:04):
with their Catholic forefathers
on the Trinity or the
divinity and manhood of Christ,
nor, and the Protestants have the same view.
So this is, these seven things are where,
there's two points to them.
One is, this is where we disagree
with the Catholics and Protestants.
(02:26):
And the other is, in the
confusion of the beginning,
this is where some of the
people who want to be Anabaptists,
who have been
re-baptized, have made some mistakes.
So it's about two things.
And there's a real, the real significance
to what they chose and even the order.
(02:47):
The order is important.
First of all, there's baptism.
That's how you get into the church.
That's how you receive the
grace of God through Jesus.
The Anabaptists
recognized that order was necessary
and problems could come up.
Either a person came into the church,
not fully believing or slipped back.
(03:08):
And so they, the next one is,
what do you do when that happens?
It's the ban.
And they also say during,
when they write about the ban,
it should be done just before communion.
So that brings us to the next one.
So baptism brings us into the church.
There may be a time when
someone needs to be excommunicated.
A discipline that's in there.Or disciplined, yeah.
But the next thing is when you're in the church,
(03:30):
the baptism plants you
into a new community of love.
That's the breaking of bread.
And what do these people do?
So that's one, two, three,
baptism, ban, breaking of bread.
And so what do these people do?
They separate themselves
from the evils of the world.
That's four, five pastors in the church.
(03:51):
They were people that believed in order.
And so the question of what does a pastor do?
And then two things that apply to everyone
who is baptized and part of the church,
do we take up the sword?
This was a huge question at
this time for many reasons.
So I'll just leave it at that for right now.
And then Jesus and James said, don't swear.
(04:16):
So is that, how do you take that?
Exactly, are we gonna do or not.
That's one that came up all the time.
Oh, and the government
almost always required an oath.
So that seventh point is the oath,
which would have been a
pretty big thing at the time,
right, where you're
having to swear allegiance to,
blah, blah, blah, this and that.
So that's the number, the order's important,
(04:37):
and we can talk about it from there.
Yeah, well, so let's go through each of those
and hit a little more detail of
why were these particular seven chosen?
What were they communicating about that?
What do they say?
What's the context around it?
So let's go back to baptism.
So point number one, baptism.
Get into some more detail,
whichever one of you would like to go first.
(04:57):
Well, it says something very beautiful.
This baptism is for the person
who is willing to walk in the resurrection.
I love that line.
And so you are committed, and they make it clear,
this doesn't mean you're perfect.
That's an accusation that
was lobbed at the Anabaptists
over and over again.
(05:18):
And they're not claiming perfection.
They're saying that God gives us grace
if we come into the body of Christ,
and that's our intention,
to walk in the resurrection.
And then there is another line
which hits the nail on the head
of what the problem is.
What's problematic with both the Catholic
and the Protestant churches?
(05:40):
And Sattler used language
that I wouldn't use today
for a couple of reasons.
Well, he says, infant baptism is the first
and chief abomination of the Pope.
Oh, that's really strong.
It's very strong.
It's very strong.
And I do think it is the problem.
(06:02):
And I wanna tell you a story.
Years and years and years ago, I was at work,
I was working just outside of DC,
and for lunch, a bunch of
us were eating together,
and I was looking at the Washington Post
after I finished eating.
And the US Catholic
Bishops Conference was meeting,
and I saw a headline.
So I started reading this,
(06:23):
and maybe two paragraphs down,
one of the bishops got up and said,
why do we have so many pagans in the pew?
And I said, I read this to
everybody that was there,
and I said, I wish I were there.
I'd raise my hand, it's
because you baptize babies.
It doesn't keep someone from later committing.
And if you're a Catholic,
you never think about getting baptized then.
(06:45):
So I don't think
everybody who's in a Catholic pew
is a pagan, and this
bishop didn't think so either.
But if you baptize babies,
everybody thinks I'm a Christian already.
It is the chief abomination.
Now, and so it leads to
all kinds of horrible things.
That's amazing.
You know, again, this
idea of faith being required,
(07:07):
not an empty sacrament,
not something that you're just doing in ritual,
and it automatically guarantees it,
but is there at least some
kind of faith in a person
that makes them ask and receive this?
So I have the quote you mentioned,
and I agree with you, Brother Stephen,
that this line I have highlighted
to walking in the resurrection of Jesus Christ.
Listen to how the context is it.
It's actually beautiful.
(07:28):
It said, "Baptism shall be given to all those
who have learned
repentance and ammendment of life,
and who believe truly that
their sins are taken away by Christ,
and to all those who walk in
the resurrection of Jesus Christ
and wish to be buried with him in death,
so that they may be resurrected with him,
(07:48):
and to all those who with this significance
request it of us and demand it for themselves."
And so I agree with you.
I think this idea,
they're not looking at salvation
as a just one-time entry into the club.
You either did this as a
baby, or you did it as an adult,
you said the sinner's prayer, you did whatever.
It's those who are signing up
(08:10):
to walking in the resurrection of Jesus Christ.
The power of the resurrection, death to yourself,
alive unto Christ Jesus, and
literally walking in there.
I agree with you.
I think that's a beautiful statement there.
So yeah, baptism, number one.
I like your emphasis there on the order.
Well then that takes us right naturally
(08:31):
into point number two, the ban.
So if you've got a front
door that's getting you in,
then if you've then turned
away, what's the back door?
Yeah.
Well, the very fact they have a ban
says they're not expecting
that anyone's going to be living
a perfect life, but they're recognizing
there may be a need to discipline someone.
Anabaptism is about discipling,
(08:53):
but sometimes you come to the place
where you have to discipline.
And so they very specifically are saying
a person who won't listen,
this is mentioned in the article,
a person who won't listen to the brotherhood
after the third admonition should be excluded
so that he understands the
(09:14):
severity of what he has done.
And so it's not to make a perfect church,
a church that where no one is sinning,
it's to make a church
where everyone's trying to walk
in their desire is to walk in the resurrection.
Now it's interesting in the letters,
that we will read later when he's in prison,
he's actually appealing to
(09:35):
them to be doing this very gently
and not to forget love and to do this.
And it's true that this was a point
for the reformers as well.
From what I understand,
one of the marks of a church
in the Reformed setting is to
have some sort of discipline
that it's not supposed to be
just this church full of pagans
that we do have a disciplined life.
(09:55):
And so this was a cry in the Reformation
to have something like this,
but this does become a contentious point, right?
Was they work out the kinks in this,
we're going to pick this
up when we get in Holland
and particularly this does become an issue.
I have a quotes here and I'll just read it.
Just a piece of this one for the ban.
From the Schleitheim Confession, I guess,
(10:16):
article number two.
"The ban shall be employed with all those
"who have given themselves to the Lord
"to walk in his commandments.
"And with those who are
baptized into one body of Christ
"and are called brethren or sisters,
"and yet slip sometime or fall into error and sin
"and are unaware of it or fail
(10:38):
"for some reason to be corrected.
"The same shall be admonished twice privately
"and the third time publicly
"according to the command of Christ.
"And if he will not amend
after the third admonition,
"he shall be banned as a false brother
"and cast out of the church."
Yeah, so they meant business.
They did that.
(10:59):
But also maybe I'm getting
this off track here a little,
but the other groups were saying,
instead of banning you, we're gonna like
actually literally exile you, kill you, beat you.
That's right.
Isn't there some contrast
here that's worth noting?
Yeah, they mention this.
Okay, because it's like, wait a minute.
Yeah, we may ban you from our congregation,
(11:19):
but it's not like we're gonna kill you.
Whereas the Catholics and Protestants
were actually doing that to the Anabaptists.
There's some interesting
contrasts going on there.
And it was interesting you brought in.
They did exile sometimes.
They didn't always execute,
but they didn't treat people well.
Yeah, like they would maybe exile you
and take all your possessions in your land
or something and say--
And when we get down to the sword.
(11:40):
It's pretty aggressive.
And the Anabaptists say,
well, we're not gonna do that.
That's a great point.
And I think it explicitly states that.
So when it deals with the sword
and how they use this for their punishment
with the church state situation,
all we have for our maximum thing
is to take you out of the church.
You're right, to make the distinction.
That was a pretty big difference, yeah.
(12:03):
Baptism was number one.
Ban is point number two.
And point number three is the breaking of bread.
So talk to me about that,
because this was a big point of diverting
from both the Catholics and the Protestants,
at least initially.
Yeah, initially.
Well, and like I said, the order matters.
So you get into the church through baptism.
The ban is to make a person
(12:24):
aware of the need for discipline.
Hopefully nobody has to be banned.
And it mentioned specifically
under the article of the ban
that it will be done just before we break bread.
So we make sure that the whole congregation
is walking in the resurrection.
And then, so the breaking of the bread,
(12:45):
the importance here is that
they don't really get into,
you can tell from what they write
that they don't believe
what the Catholics are saying.
I don't think they go, trans-substantiation,
they're not agreeing with that.
They don't really get into
detail about what they mean,
except this is the body
of Christ meeting together
(13:05):
to break the bread and drink the wine
to remember what he's done for us.
So it could sound just memorialist.
And there's no real clear
wording that would make you know
it's not or that it's only that.
But the emphasis once again
is we now have been planted
into the body of Christ.
(13:26):
And we're celebrating that.
Yeah, I felt the same thing.
When you look at it,
I mean, you look at some other Sattler's records,
particularly at the trial,
you get a little more of this,
but this slight time confession seems to be
almost purposely vague on some of these nuances
of it doesn't say.
And I like when it comes to the mysteries,
when it comes to the sacraments,
(13:47):
since we don't know, I like these confessions
that just say more of what
it is and not what it's not.
And I think that you're right,
it brings this importance of this gathering.
I have just a little excerpt
here from them on this point.
It says this, whoever has
not been called to one faith,
one baptism, one body
(14:09):
cannot be made one bread with us.
And is not to be admitted
to the communion of the saints.
And so that idea of this is my body
and what that means to be coming together
in a communion, worshiping
God in spirit and in truth
and in reality in that way meant more than them
(14:31):
than just an empty ritual
done in all the right procedures,
but yet not having an effect on your life
or a moral expectation of what you would have
as you come together.
One of the things they like
to bring out in the early days
is the 1 Corinthians 11
passage where Paul is saying,
"When you come together,
it's not the Lord's Supper."
(14:52):
So it's kind of a verse they would use
against this concept of ex opere operato
where just because you're coming together
and claiming all the right things,
I can assure you it's the Lord's Supper.
They're quoting Paul back saying,
"It's not the Lord's Supper."
And so this idea of this pure gathering,
or trying, not perfect,
but just trying to walk
together in the resurrection,
(15:14):
that precious time is what
they had for their communion.
So I think that's special.
So you had breaking of bread
and then that goes straight
into the separation component.
So that fits very much with
what you were just describing,
this coming together, this group that,
but also we're gonna be
separate from the worldly system,
(15:34):
the worldly empires,
whatever, however they phrase that.
Talk to me about that section.
Because again, this is a major component,
especially for Anabaptists today still.
It would be interesting if Sattler had lived
to see how his
congregations would have worked this out
under his leadership.
(15:55):
But what is really clear is
that everything is divided
into two kingdoms, the good, the evil, the light,
the darkness, and he just goes down
through everything basically.
And we are to avoid doing and not doing,
depending on what those who
(16:16):
are in the kingdom of darkness,
depending on what they either do or don't do,
we're to avoid that.
Now that could become kind of,
we base what we do or don't
do off of what the world does.
And I don't think he would have meant that.
And maybe sometimes we've
fallen into that a little bit,
but rather his emphasis is
(16:36):
what is really the light,
what is really the darkness?
And let's be willing to stand and be different.
Yeah, that's amazing.
So separation means that we are nonconformed
to the world.
That's amazing.
It's interesting this whole two ways.
It sounds like an echo of the Didache.
Now the Didache wasn't even discovered at this time.
(16:58):
So there was no way he was reading it,
but just I guess reading the same scriptures,
just this putting this, there are two ways,
darkness and light.
And it is a bit jarring
to read the way he puts it,
but if you look at 2 Corinthians chapter six,
and then going in where it talks about,
it is a New Testament principle.
(17:18):
A lot of times people hardly even look at that,
what Paul is telling us in
2 Corinthians chapter six
to come out from the
world and do not be upon them.
I mean, And do not be of them.
And that idea that even comes with a promise
that if you come out of the world,
I will be a father to you
and you'll be my sons and my daughters.
And so those promises that are there,
he then goes right into 2
(17:39):
Corinthians chapter seven,
having these promises, let's cleanse ourselves
from all filthiness of the spirit,
both the flesh and the spirit,
perfecting ourselves in
holiness and the fear of God.
And so that's a paraphrase,
but the idea is this concept,
this New Testament concept means something.
It's gonna mean something to different groups,
(17:59):
even of the Anabaptists,
we see the different
groups doing this differently.
It's gonna mean something today differently.
But the question it asked me,
it challenged me still to this day, okay,
so how am I applying it then?
How am I applying the separation from the world
since that is a clearly biblical teaching
and they're right to bring it
out, in my own application?
(18:19):
I think it still matters.
So they go from that point to,
they use the word shepherds, I believe,
in the Schleitheim Confession
or pastors, church leaders,
and so forth.
What were they saying in
that point of the Confession?
Well, the most obvious thing is,
once again, we have order.
So it's not just a free for all,
(18:41):
they have order and it even says
what they expected the shepherds to do.
But I think there's even some deeper things here
that I don't know if they just had,
there's some issues here
that are real and that they got,
but they didn't necessarily spell out here.
And one of those is,
we believe in the priesthood of the believers.
(19:03):
If the pastor is driven away or killed,
we will immediately choose
someone from the brothers
to lead the church.
This isn't [?] in that hour.
Yeah, it says in that, I don't know that.
Or that soon.
Yeah, so when that happens,
(19:24):
the church should be those
who have really committed
themselves to Christ and are seeking to walk
in the resurrection and you can choose a brother
from among them to lead the church.
So one thing that's kind of implied,
but not specified is we believe
(19:44):
in the priesthood of the believers.
And I think anybody at that
time would have understood that
because that was part of the problem
with the peasant revolt that Luther had preached
the priesthood of the believers
and they were taking him seriously.
And this is right around the same time.
So I think that when they heard, you know,
that a brother could stand in immediately
(20:07):
for the pastor who was taken,
that would have made perfect sense to them.
We're all brothers, we're all priests.
Any one of us could take that position.
That's been something that's, that Anabaptism,
particularly conservative Anabaptism has kept.
I mean, it's kind of
surprising when I started coming
into the circles, how, you know, common brothers,
(20:31):
and then you go and be ordained
and then suddenly you take up that.
And everybody should be getting, be willing
and getting at a place where you could be used
for that purpose in that servanthood.
Here's a quote from the Schleitheim that says,
"The shepherd in the church of God shall,
according to the rule of Paul,
(20:51):
be one who is of good repute among those
who are outside the faith.
He shall be a teacher, a
admonisher, and a disciplinarian,
a man with good understanding,
rightly dividing the word of truth.
He shall exhort the church and teach and admonish
from the word and shall
lead out in breaking of bread
and in all things that the body of Christ needs."
(21:11):
And then actually from that,
then the congregation's response to them,
it says that this brother should be supported
by the church, which has chosen him,
so that he may be able to serve at all times,
whenever there is need, and to be present
with all the brethren for teaching,
admonition, and correction.
And if he should be expelled, apprehended,
(21:34):
or fall by the sword, another shall be ordained
in his place, so that God's little flock
and people may not be destroyed.
It's interesting.
What do you think it means by the support there?
We're not talking about, you know,
oh, they were on some salary or something, right?
No, but as he had need because he put time
into the church, we should take care of him.
(21:56):
So, and that could mean, you know,
if he's a farmer and has,
can't get all of his work done,
well, we should help him.
Yeah.
It's obvious.
It even gives the context so
that he could be ministering.
Yeah.
Yeah, yeah.
We need to make sure we do that.
Yeah, yeah, that's good.
That's shepherds.
And then it transitions to the next point,
(22:17):
which is the sword.
And this one, I think, is particularly important
because some have said, oh, this teaching
on not using the sword, you know, non-resistance,
there was some ambiguity there,
and there was lots of
different approaches and opinions.
But the Schleitheim
confession is very straightforward
(22:37):
on their teaching on the use of the sword.
So talk me through that,
and its significance for us today.
Okay, well, on the ambiguous side,
you know, we looked at Hubmaier,
and Hubmaier did think there could be a time
to pick up the sword.
So that would be, he wasn't ambiguous,
(22:58):
he was on the other side of the question.
And then there is a North Anabaptist confession
from a place called Wismar,
and there it's, the document we have
seems a little bit corrupted,
but it does sound like that perhaps
an Anabaptist Christian could be a watchman
(23:20):
or defend a watchman on the walls, maybe.
But it is ambiguous,
and it's questionable whether
we actually have the document
the way they said it.
But the vast majority of early Anabaptists
followed through on what
Conrad Grebel wrote about,
as far as we should be sheep,
(23:42):
not people that pick up the sword,
but we should be sheep in this world.
And then Schleitheim picks that right up
with this section on the sword.
And one of the interesting things it does
is it actually brings the arguments
that the non-Anabaptists would have.
And then he will give an answer.
The answer is, and then it,
(24:04):
I think always refers back to Christ.
Christ did this or Christ said this.
Excellent.
So like at one point,
it says, "Should we defend the good?"
And one point it says,
"Well, if there's a disagreement about,
let's say an inheritance."
And it's pointed, they go right to Jesus said,
(24:25):
That's not for him to do,
and we should follow him.
So this sword thing is kind
of comes out of everything
before this that we're called to something higher
than what the churches like the Protestant
and Catholic churches are saying.
They're saying, "There is a
time when you may have to fight
and maybe kill someone."
(24:46):
And the Anabaptists are saying,
"Well, we wanna follow Christ.
We wanna walk in the resurrection."
And they give specifics about
what their neighbors ask them
and what Christ's answer would be.
That's good.
And what I think is one of
the most significant things
with this is the way he sets up the two kingdoms,
(25:07):
which has hardly I see articulated this well
since the early church.
In the early church, we get it very clearly said
that it's very clearly stated
that God did institute human government.
And those are given to us from God.
Romans 13 is there and we
cannot hide from Romans 13.
It actually says, it even calls in Romans 13
that he is a minister of God
(25:29):
and was not given the sword in vain.
The deeper understanding of that, however,
and then looking at the early church
is that that same sword that
the apostle Paul was speaking
of in Romans 13 cut Paul's head off.
And so God uses these swords.
He brings order into this world,
but we are given a
different calling in this world.
(25:49):
And that you see in the
early church explicitly stated.
You see Justin talking to the emperors
and with this kind of language.
You see Origen actually talking about this.
Tertullian certainly talks about this.
It is early Christianity.
When I started looking into non-resistance,
maybe it was the same way
for you, brother Stephen,
is that the pacifist kind of
argument sometimes confused me
(26:10):
because I looked at the Old Testament
and I believed all the word of God was true.
Like I had to do something with the Old Testament
and I had to do something with the New Testament
and these things.
And when I, the early church kind of helped me
to bring in these two kingdoms.
But then when I started to
look into different expressions
of people who believed in loving your enemies
and that kind of a thing, it got confusing.
(26:31):
But when I read this, it
actually was like, thank you.
He understands it in a patristic,
a very early Christian way and it's profound.
And so I'll give it to you here from his quotes.
I just think it's well done.
The sword is ordained of God
outside the perfection of Christ.
(26:51):
It punishes and puts to death the wicked
and guards and protects the good.
In the law, the sword was ordained
for the punishment of the
wicked and for their death.
And the same sword is now ordained to be used
by the worldly magistrates.
He recognizes that.
In the perfection of Christ, however,
only the ban is used for a warning
(27:12):
and for the
excommunication of the one who has sin
without putting the flesh to death,
simply the warning and
the command to sin no more.
And so again, like you
said, looking at the objections,
now many who do not
understand Christ will for us,
will ask whether a Christian
may and should use the sword.
(27:32):
The answer is this, just
like what you were saying,
Christ teaches and commands us to learn of him.
For he is meek and lowly in heart.
He himself forbade the woman taken in adultery
to be put to death,
even though the law of
his father had commanded it,
Christ wants to be Lord and
King over all without force.
(27:55):
Therefore he gave his followers the rule,
love your enemies, do good to them that hate you
and pray for them that persecute you.
His disciples must not engage in worldly strife.
And so I just think that's so well put.
And when you get that,
it brings the whole Bible together.
(28:17):
You see, even in the way in the Old Testament,
the way that God would use Nebuchadnezzar
or the Assyrian armies and
he calls them things like my--
Rod of my wrath.
Rod of my wrath and my minister.
And so when they use that kind of terminology,
we see that God has always operated like this
(28:39):
and we get to the new
covenant, it's the same way.
And so this I consider brilliant.
And the way it's done is in retaining
and bringing back this
ancient early church understanding
is I think is one of the more profound things
in this statement.
Could I say a few things on the sword too,
because I was never in the military.
(29:00):
I was in the last draft for the Vietnam War
and my number was too low, so it didn't matter.
But when I gave my life to the Lord,
I thought I knew two things.
One, I want to serve the Lord.
And the other was his people don't kill anyone.
And that's not exactly non-resistance,
but it's the beginning.
And I'd just like to share a few things
(29:21):
that I think are important about that.
Absolutely.
And one of them is you mentioned Romans 13.
N.T. Wright, I believe did his first major work
on the book of Romans.
And one thing that he said is watch the pronouns.
Is it saying you or is it
saying they or is it saying we?
(29:44):
So watch the pronouns.
Well, watch the pronouns in Romans 13.
Mr. Wright didn't do that.
If you look at chapter 12,
it's about receiving the gifts
and then living the life, the
Christian life, and it's you.
Now in English, you is not, when it's a command,
(30:05):
it's not expressed, but it's you do this, you do that.
So it just says do this, do that.
Okay, but that's you, okay?
It's talking to us.
It's talking to us Christians.
13 then, the first seven or so verses are they.
Interesting.
They are the ministers of God.
They bear the sword for
(30:27):
vengeance and for protection,
for our good.
And you pay them- them, okay?
You pay them custom taxes, reverence, honor,
whatever it says.
And then it shifts back to oh, no man, anything.
That's us, you, Owe no man, anything.
(30:48):
And then it goes down after that.
So for instance, one
thing it says is overcome evil
with good, you overcome evil with good.
It also says as much as lies within you live
at peace with all men.
And so all of 12 and the rest of 13
after the first seven
verses, the non-Christian can't do.
(31:10):
We can barely do it.
You know, we need the Spirit
and sometimes we just ignore him.
But anyway, okay?
Are you saying that N.T.
Wright in this case was wrong?
He missed, no, he's right.
I was right in saying that.
I'm saying he missed, he missed his own point.
Right, right, right.
Because he is not non-resistant.
I saw, I wasn't there.
I saw a time when he spoke somewhere.
(31:31):
I don't remember where it was.
And a young man, obviously hoping for a yes,
got up and said, "Aren't you a pacifist?"
And he said, "Well, I am a
bishop in the Church of England.
It's a state church."
Okay, okay, okay.
Now I'm paraphrasing.
And I am in Parliament.
He was in Parliament.
He gives speeches.
(31:52):
Well, he was in the House of Lords.
"And no, I'm not a pacifist."
Which means he wasn't
paying attention to his own.
Now, I do that too.
I'm absolutely sure that I
may hit the nail on the head
about a particular issue and miss it somewhere.
But he missed it in 12 and 13 of Romans.
Which is, Romans is kind
(32:12):
of his theme, so to speak.
That's excellent.
I love that point that you're making
of the difference there.
It's his point.
It's his point, well, it's good.
I love it.
And you think of this whole concept.
And he's talking about
this walk in the resurrection,
being followers of Christ.
This and about the, we being like these cities
that we're gathering a
community, not part of this world,
(32:34):
but a community of faith.
It's truly putting to
practice, you know, in Isaiah,
when it gave the prophecy of the increase
of this government and
peace, there shall be no end
when the Messiah will come.
And so we see that gathering together
and putting the teachings of Jesus
as the cure for humanity is such a powerful thing
(32:57):
to get behind.
And you just mentioned Isaiah,
so I wanna say a little
bit about the Old Testament.
Okay.
Most Christian and Jewish interpreters
of the Old Testament
would say that the government
was established after the flood.
Where it says in chapter nine
that an animal will be killed
if he takes a man's blood, but so will a man.
(33:20):
So the take, if a human life is lost,
it means that the blood of
that other person must be shed.
Now that is not God's heart.
You go back to where the first murder occurred,
that's where you see God's heart.
God warns Cain.
He says, you don't have to do, you don't,
(33:41):
we don't even know what's up, but Cain is angry
because his brother was favored
because his brother did what
he should, and God warns him.
And nonetheless, Cain kills his brother.
And then God doesn't say, he doesn't say,
I want everyone to go after you and kill you.
He says, I'm gonna put a mark on you
so that you will not be killed.
(34:02):
There's a reason God's heart is always to repent
and come back.
Now, the law is different
because mankind is so corrupt.
And the chapters from chapter four to 11
show how corrupt we became.
So we need a really strong restraint.
(34:23):
And that's where you get government.
God institutes government
to really pull back on us.
But even after that, in the Old Testament,
you see so often, this is a restraint.
It's not God's heart.
You hear it with the
setting up of kings and the way,
you are rejecting me in
that you've asked for a king.
When the Israelite people demanded a king, yes.
(34:46):
But God works with them where they are
and he gives them that king.
But he sure doesn't give them what they want.
But another thing that's interesting,
God did establish government.
And I agree with Augustine, in The City of God,
he says that every nation, every empire
was established by violence
and it will end in violence.
(35:07):
But in between, now this is not Augustine,
in between that establishment by violence
and being wrecked by violence,
one of the things that
happens over and over again
in the Old Testament is
this area has been pacified,
you could say, and all of a sudden it prospers.
(35:27):
And this is represented in the Old Testament
by either calling this place
a mountain with lots of fruit
or a tree that provides shelter for animals
and food and all that.
And I remember being shocked
when I think it's Ezekiel 31,
it's either 30, I think it's 31,
where God is warning Egypt.
(35:49):
And he says, "Look at Assyria,
"they were this beautiful tree."
Well, Assyria was probably the worst enemy
the Israelites ever had.
And they complained to God,
"Why are you letting this happen?"
Okay, but after any one of the,
whether it's the Assyrians or the Babylonians
or the Persians or the Romans,
after violence comes widespread peace,
(36:15):
a peace that's imposed,
but fallen man needs that,
and then comes prosperity.
So there's this pattern all the way through,
but that's what government does.
It uproots-
Often it does this in a very,
well, it always does it in a very violent way.
It uproots evil, provides possibility for good
(36:38):
and prosperity, but then it's going to pay.
Augustine says it's going to pay.
Oh, one more thing, the Anabaptists.
So what I see in the Old Testament is,
yes, we need government.
Even now we need government
because of the evil of men's hearts.
And the kinds of things that have to be done,
(36:59):
the kind of wisdom that's needed
is not the kind of wisdom Christians have.
And it's got to be done.
The worldly men want prosperity.
And they don't want violence.
So they're going to use violence
to get rid of the violence
and then have prosperity.
The Anabaptists look back at this.
We know they were being challenged and they said,
yes, God's people in the
(37:19):
Old Testament bore the sword
and God let them bear the sword.
Although he also told them,
he doesn't really want them to have a king,
but if you insist.
Okay, so in the Old Testament,
God's people were allowed to bear the sword.
In the New Testament, we hear his heart.
And it's that his people
should not bear the sword.
(37:39):
And the early Anabaptists said,
so the early church got
this, they were non-resistant
and God took the sword from the Jewish people
in the Jewish Roman war.
So he didn't even want them to have it.
This is how the Anabaptists saw it.
So I think it's very clear if one gets,
(38:00):
this is one of those places
I think that you need to go
beyond just what the Bible says,
simply because it's important to know
historically what happened.
Yeah, what happened.
Yeah, I see what you're saying.
It's interesting, other Anabaptists,
Peter Riedemann mentions, you say,
whenever we see the government of God,
it's a reminder to us of the wrath of God.
God gave us this
government and in Hosea had mentioned,
(38:21):
I gave you a king in my wrath
and I took him away in my anger, I think it says.
And so this idea is, he works with that.
He works with us as people, he has mercy on us,
but I agree with you, it's not the best.
So they're saying, we
were given this way of Christ
to spread the kingdom of God on earth.
They have a right, but that's not the church.
(38:43):
That's not the people of God.
But we can't rebel against
it, we shouldn't be negative,
we shouldn't be these
rebels or anything like that,
but that's our place.
And I think that is so well articulated
in the Schleitheim Confession.
Yes, we should honor them.
I do think it does, I don't think it means
we can't tell the truth.
Yeah, to be prophetic still.
I'm talking about a ruler, we should respect him,
(39:06):
but we can tell the truth.
And be able to be prophetic to our generation.
Amen, well said.
So we have separation from the world, right?
Which is one of the points, you have the sword,
like these different things that are removed,
like pulling the Anabaptists back
from what would have been mainstream expectations
of society, so to speak.
(39:26):
There's another big one
here, and that's the oath,
that's the last one listed in the Schleitheim.
I'm curious why it's last, and what does it say,
what is it about?
Talk to me about that.
Well, I think some of the first ones,
they just build into each other,
and then I think some of the last ones are,
and if we're this kind of
people, we will do this.
And this is stuff that's done normally.
(39:48):
So for instance, the sword,
which we were just talking about,
in an emergency in the Middle Ages
and during the
Reformation, everybody was expected,
every able-bodied man was
expected to pick up the sword
and defend his city.
So these last couple of things are telling us
that there's certain
things that our society does,
(40:09):
and these are definitely not what we do.
The sword clearly plugs into, well, they all do,
they all plug into separation.
And the oath, medieval society was structured
on a hierarchy, and you pledged loyalty
to the man above you.
(40:29):
Now, of course, the
peasants, they were at the bottom,
and I don't know that they had to pledge
their loyalty, but a citizen did.
Okay, and go up the ladder.
So one lord, a lower lord,
would pledge his allegiance
to the lord above him, et cetera,
right up to either the king or the emperor,
or in the church to the
(40:50):
pope, eventually, at the top.
And so the society in their mind was structured
by what I swear, that I'm going to follow you
when you tell me what I have
to do because you're above me,
which has some very interesting,
repercussions, thank you.
If he and I are peasants and I hit him,
(41:12):
then that doesn't matter.
But if you're our lord and I hit you,
I'm either gonna be
really badly beaten or killed.
What happens depends on
where you are in that structure.
So they're actually talking about,
when they're not doing the oath,
they're rejecting in a lot
of, at least in some ways,
(41:32):
the hierarchy of the way
society was structured at the time.
They were willing to obey.
Right, right.
But they also insisted, we
are in the image of Christ,
I'm in the image of
Christ just like you, my lord.
And that means something, I'm gonna obey you.
But I think they would have been horrified
at the fact that if I did something to you,
(41:53):
I would be punished more than if I did it
to my fellow peasant.
So that's part of it.
So this is why it's so
disruptive on the one side,
on the Catholic, Protestant side.
It's also a commandment.
The Lord said it and James said it.
And it's pushing us, as it says very clearly
(42:13):
in the scripture, make your
yes, yes, and your no, no.
And you can't do any more than just say to say,
I'll do this if it's possible.
The quote from Aaron, you're right,
they come right out and quote
the scripture, Matthew 5:37,
let your yes be yes and your no, no,
for anything more comes from evil.
And then it goes on, so there's therefore,
we reject all swearing of oaths.
(42:35):
And it says, particularly those of loyalty
to kings and nations.
For Christ has forbidden
his followers all swearing,
whether true or false, by heaven or by earth
or by Jerusalem or by our head.
God's people trust in the invisible,
not the outward things.
Hence oath are forbidden to them by Christ.
(42:55):
So I like your point there.
And again, they took their citizenship
in the kingdom of God very seriously.
Just like in the early church,
when you said Jesus is
Lord, it meant Caesar is not.
And so it had some huge implications.
So when they were trying
to be followers of Christ
and not parts of these
worlds and they were separated,
(43:16):
they meant that, but they were genuinely feeling
like they were part as Jesus is our king,
he's our president, he's
gonna be who put our loyalty to.
There was some differences,
what there's Brother
Stephen about some groups said,
okay, you could affirm,
I'm telling you the truth.
We see Paul sometimes saying that type of thing.
And there were different discussions
on how that would be worked out.
(43:38):
I think Marpeck had some difference.
Marpeck says you can swear an oath
in government issues, I believe.
Just affirmations of I am telling the truth.
Are you telling the truth?
Oh no, he actually did, I think so.
Okay, is it an oath?
We should look this up a little bit.
But here it's very strongly put
and it kind of ties into that whole concept
of who they are as a people.
(43:58):
It does.
And that makes me think of one more thing
that says this all hangs together.
And it also points to the
society that this was done in.
One of the accusations against the Anabaptists
was you're the new monks and nuns.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
You don't live in a monastery.
Yes.
You do marry, but the very
things we're reading here,
(44:20):
it's amazing.
I don't know that this always happened,
but sometimes when a person, okay, first of all,
if I'm living in medieval,
well, my background is English.
If I'm living in medieval England
and I really want to be a good Christian,
I will separate from the world by doing what?
Living in a monastery.
Go to the monastery.
(44:41):
Oh, I see, like that.
Okay, separation from the world.
And at least in some cases I have read,
this is my second baptism.
Yes.
Think about that.
And that means that they even realized
that baptism was this change in life.
Now they of course thought that,
well, in the infant there's no change in life,
(45:01):
but they thought, well, yeah, it provides
for that essentially.
And they didn't go to war.
The monks and nuns were
not supposed to go to war.
Now later on there was a corruption there
and there were some military orders.
I recognize that.
But essentially monks and
nuns were expected to be
what we would call non-resistant.
(45:22):
Interesting.
All this stuff is, it's all Matthew,
the Sermon on the Mount,
Matthew 5, 6 and 7 .
And in the early church,
everyone was supposed to do that.
As the church and the state
grew closer and closer together,
individuals who saw that
started forming little communities,
not withdrawing from the church.
(45:43):
And they became the monasteries eventually.
And the monasteries tried to
live like the early Christians.
And I know there are all
kinds of complications there.
But it's interesting, what we were doing
is essentially saying this
belongs to all Christians.
Yeah, that's amazing.
We aren't supposed to,
it's not just monks and nuns
that are supposed to live this way.
(46:03):
That's great.
The last quote I have here
is, "Dear brothers and sisters,
"these are the articles of certain brethren
"who had formerly been in error,
"but have now come to one mind in the Lord,
"to God be praised and glory."
So it's amazing, it's amazing confession
of such an early age.
(46:23):
What a conclusion piece.
And when I read it here again recently,
I was struck by how relevant it still feels.
It's like its five hundred years old and you read it,
it's like, "Well, this is really interesting."
So hopefully people seeing this say,
"Maybe I should pick that up and read it."
I hope so.
I hope so too.
Yeah, amen.
(46:44):
If they read Matthew 5, 6 and 7 ,
the Sermon on the Mount and
think that is still relevant,
that's exactly what these guys were,
at least partially what
these guys were working off of.
And some of the details like having a society
that's very hierarchical might not fit with us,
(47:05):
but the same thing might be able to be said
about the Sermon on the Mount
at this point or that point,
but the thrust is still relevant.
Yeah.
Yeah, amen, well said.
Thanks for listening to this episode of Anabaptist Perspectives.
If you found this interesting make sure and check out our YouTube channel called Anabaptist Origins
(47:26):
which is all about the first hundred years of the Anabaptist story.
You can find that link in the description down below.
And of course you can find all our content on our website at anabaptistperspectives.org.
Thanks for listening, and we'll catch you in the next episode.
Before we get into today's
episode, a little context.
This year we filmed a 10-part documentary series
called "Anabaptist Origins,"
which explores the first 100
years of the Anabaptist story.
And for that, we did an
entire episode on Michael Sattler
and the Schleitheim Confession.
For that episode, we
filmed a roundtable discussion
about what is the Schleitheim Confession
(00:22):
and why does it still matter
to us today, 500 years later?
And that discussion is today's episode.
We had the privilege of
filming at a beautiful castle
in the Czech Republic, the same castle
where the Anabaptist
theologian Hubmaier was imprisoned
before his execution and the same city
where the first Hutterites were expelled
for not taking up the sword.
(00:43):
Be sure to check out the
Anabaptist Origins YouTube channel
for more content like this
and enjoy this special episode.
All right, so let's get deeper with Schleitheim.
We talked some more of the backdrop, the context,
(01:03):
things like that, but let's get into
the actual confession itself.
And the first question I
have is why should we even care
about a confession that was
written almost 500 years ago,
1527? Mm-hmm.
Is it relevant?
Does it matter?
Why should we care? I'll let you go.
That's remarkable to me how much it matters.
I look at the Schleitheim
Confession and it's good stuff.
(01:23):
I mean, you can tell the things that were written
in the times, but the topics that it covers,
and we'll, I guess, be
getting into a few of these,
but they're very pertinent.
And I find it something that really is a good way
to look at the things that
are important to a brotherhood.
And the whole idea of coming together
and doing things like this to settle issues
(01:44):
is important even of itself.
But yeah, yeah, I like it.
So could you give us a broad outline
of what is it even about?
What is Schleitheim about?
Well, some of it you can actually miss.
First of all, they, in the cover letter,
it's clear they're Trinitarian.
So they are not disagreeing
(02:04):
with their Catholic forefathers
on the Trinity or the
divinity and manhood of Christ,
nor, and the Protestants have the same view.
So this is, these seven things are where,
there's two points to them.
One is, this is where we disagree
with the Catholics and Protestants.
(02:26):
And the other is, in the
confusion of the beginning,
this is where some of the
people who want to be Anabaptists,
who have been
re-baptized, have made some mistakes.
So it's about two things.
And there's a real, the real significance
to what they chose and even the order.
(02:47):
The order is important.
First of all, there's baptism.
That's how you get into the church.
That's how you receive the
grace of God through Jesus.
The Anabaptists
recognized that order was necessary
and problems could come up.
Either a person came into the church,
not fully believing or slipped back.
(03:08):
And so they, the next one is,
what do you do when that happens?
It's the ban.
And they also say during,
when they write about the ban,
it should be done just before communion.
So that brings us to the next one.
So baptism brings us into the church.
There may be a time when
someone needs to be excommunicated.
A discipline that's in there.Or disciplined, yeah.
But the next thing is when you're in the church,
(03:30):
the baptism plants you
into a new community of love.
That's the breaking of bread.
And what do these people do?
So that's one, two, three,
baptism, ban, breaking of bread.
And so what do these people do?
They separate themselves
from the evils of the world.
That's four, five pastors in the church.
(03:51):
They were people that believed in order.
And so the question of what does a pastor do?
And then two things that apply to everyone
who is baptized and part of the church,
do we take up the sword?
This was a huge question at
this time for many reasons.
So I'll just leave it at that for right now.
And then Jesus and James said, don't swear.
(04:16):
So is that, how do you take that?
Exactly, are we gonna do or not.
That's one that came up all the time.
Oh, and the government
almost always required an oath.
So that seventh point is the oath,
which would have been a
pretty big thing at the time,
right, where you're
having to swear allegiance to,
blah, blah, blah, this and that.
So that's the number, the order's important,
(04:37):
and we can talk about it from there.
Yeah, well, so let's go through each of those
and hit a little more detail of
why were these particular seven chosen?
What were they communicating about that?
What do they say?
What's the context around it?
So let's go back to baptism.
So point number one, baptism.
Get into some more detail,
whichever one of you would like to go first.
(04:57):
Well, it says something very beautiful.
This baptism is for the person
who is willing to walk in the resurrection.
I love that line.
And so you are committed, and they make it clear,
this doesn't mean you're perfect.
That's an accusation that
was lobbed at the Anabaptists
over and over again.
(05:18):
And they're not claiming perfection.
They're saying that God gives us grace
if we come into the body of Christ,
and that's our intention,
to walk in the resurrection.
And then there is another line
which hits the nail on the head
of what the problem is.
What's problematic with both the Catholic
and the Protestant churches?
(05:40):
And Sattler used language
that I wouldn't use today
for a couple of reasons.
Well, he says, infant baptism is the first
and chief abomination of the Pope.
Oh, that's really strong.
It's very strong.
It's very strong.
And I do think it is the problem.
(06:02):
And I wanna tell you a story.
Years and years and years ago, I was at work,
I was working just outside of DC,
and for lunch, a bunch of
us were eating together,
and I was looking at the Washington Post
after I finished eating.
And the US Catholic
Bishops Conference was meeting,
and I saw a headline.
So I started reading this,
(06:23):
and maybe two paragraphs down,
one of the bishops got up and said,
why do we have so many pagans in the pew?
And I said, I read this to
everybody that was there,
and I said, I wish I were there.
I'd raise my hand, it's
because you baptize babies.
It doesn't keep someone from later committing.
And if you're a Catholic,
you never think about getting baptized then.
(06:45):
So I don't think
everybody who's in a Catholic pew
is a pagan, and this
bishop didn't think so either.
But if you baptize babies,
everybody thinks I'm a Christian already.
It is the chief abomination.
Now, and so it leads to
all kinds of horrible things.
That's amazing.
You know, again, this
idea of faith being required,
(07:07):
not an empty sacrament,
not something that you're just doing in ritual,
and it automatically guarantees it,
but is there at least some
kind of faith in a person
that makes them ask and receive this?
So I have the quote you mentioned,
and I agree with you, Brother Stephen,
that this line I have highlighted
to walking in the resurrection of Jesus Christ.
Listen to how the context is it.
It's actually beautiful.
(07:28):
It said, "Baptism shall be given to all those
who have learned
repentance and ammendment of life,
and who believe truly that
their sins are taken away by Christ,
and to all those who walk in
the resurrection of Jesus Christ
and wish to be buried with him in death,
so that they may be resurrected with him,
(07:48):
and to all those who with this significance
request it of us and demand it for themselves."
And so I agree with you.
I think this idea,
they're not looking at salvation
as a just one-time entry into the club.
You either did this as a
baby, or you did it as an adult,
you said the sinner's prayer, you did whatever.
It's those who are signing up
(08:10):
to walking in the resurrection of Jesus Christ.
The power of the resurrection, death to yourself,
alive unto Christ Jesus, and
literally walking in there.
I agree with you.
I think that's a beautiful statement there.
So yeah, baptism, number one.
I like your emphasis there on the order.
Well then that takes us right naturally
(08:31):
into point number two, the ban.
So if you've got a front
door that's getting you in,
then if you've then turned
away, what's the back door?
Yeah.
Well, the very fact they have a ban
says they're not expecting
that anyone's going to be living
a perfect life, but they're recognizing
there may be a need to discipline someone.
Anabaptism is about discipling,
(08:53):
but sometimes you come to the place
where you have to discipline.
And so they very specifically are saying
a person who won't listen,
this is mentioned in the article,
a person who won't listen to the brotherhood
after the third admonition should be excluded
so that he understands the
(09:14):
severity of what he has done.
And so it's not to make a perfect church,
a church that where no one is sinning,
it's to make a church
where everyone's trying to walk
in their desire is to walk in the resurrection.
Now it's interesting in the letters,
that we will read later when he's in prison,
he's actually appealing to
(09:35):
them to be doing this very gently
and not to forget love and to do this.
And it's true that this was a point
for the reformers as well.
From what I understand,
one of the marks of a church
in the Reformed setting is to
have some sort of discipline
that it's not supposed to be
just this church full of pagans
that we do have a disciplined life.
(09:55):
And so this was a cry in the Reformation
to have something like this,
but this does become a contentious point, right?
Was they work out the kinks in this,
we're going to pick this
up when we get in Holland
and particularly this does become an issue.
I have a quotes here and I'll just read it.
Just a piece of this one for the ban.
From the Schleitheim Confession, I guess,
(10:16):
article number two.
"The ban shall be employed with all those
"who have given themselves to the Lord
"to walk in his commandments.
"And with those who are
baptized into one body of Christ
"and are called brethren or sisters,
"and yet slip sometime or fall into error and sin
"and are unaware of it or fail
(10:38):
"for some reason to be corrected.
"The same shall be admonished twice privately
"and the third time publicly
"according to the command of Christ.
"And if he will not amend
after the third admonition,
"he shall be banned as a false brother
"and cast out of the church."
Yeah, so they meant business.
They did that.
(10:59):
But also maybe I'm getting
this off track here a little,
but the other groups were saying,
instead of banning you, we're gonna like
actually literally exile you, kill you, beat you.
That's right.
Isn't there some contrast
here that's worth noting?
Yeah, they mention this.
Okay, because it's like, wait a minute.
Yeah, we may ban you from our congregation,
(11:19):
but it's not like we're gonna kill you.
Whereas the Catholics and Protestants
were actually doing that to the Anabaptists.
There's some interesting
contrasts going on there.
And it was interesting you brought in.
They did exile sometimes.
They didn't always execute,
but they didn't treat people well.
Yeah, like they would maybe exile you
and take all your possessions in your land
or something and say--
And when we get down to the sword.
(11:40):
It's pretty aggressive.
And the Anabaptists say,
well, we're not gonna do that.
That's a great point.
And I think it explicitly states that.
So when it deals with the sword
and how they use this for their punishment
with the church state situation,
all we have for our maximum thing
is to take you out of the church.
You're right, to make the distinction.
That was a pretty big difference, yeah.
(12:03):
Baptism was number one.
Ban is point number two.
And point number three is the breaking of bread.
So talk to me about that,
because this was a big point of diverting
from both the Catholics and the Protestants,
at least initially.
Yeah, initially.
Well, and like I said, the order matters.
So you get into the church through baptism.
The ban is to make a person
(12:24):
aware of the need for discipline.
Hopefully nobody has to be banned.
And it mentioned specifically
under the article of the ban
that it will be done just before we break bread.
So we make sure that the whole congregation
is walking in the resurrection.
And then, so the breaking of the bread,
(12:45):
the importance here is that
they don't really get into,
you can tell from what they write
that they don't believe
what the Catholics are saying.
I don't think they go, trans-substantiation,
they're not agreeing with that.
They don't really get into
detail about what they mean,
except this is the body
of Christ meeting together
(13:05):
to break the bread and drink the wine
to remember what he's done for us.
So it could sound just memorialist.
And there's no real clear
wording that would make you know
it's not or that it's only that.
But the emphasis once again
is we now have been planted
into the body of Christ.
(13:26):
And we're celebrating that.
Yeah, I felt the same thing.
When you look at it,
I mean, you look at some other Sattler's records,
particularly at the trial,
you get a little more of this,
but this slight time confession seems to be
almost purposely vague on some of these nuances
of it doesn't say.
And I like when it comes to the mysteries,
when it comes to the sacraments,
(13:47):
since we don't know, I like these confessions
that just say more of what
it is and not what it's not.
And I think that you're right,
it brings this importance of this gathering.
I have just a little excerpt
here from them on this point.
It says this, whoever has
not been called to one faith,
one baptism, one body
(14:09):
cannot be made one bread with us.
And is not to be admitted
to the communion of the saints.
And so that idea of this is my body
and what that means to be coming together
in a communion, worshiping
God in spirit and in truth
and in reality in that way meant more than them
(14:31):
than just an empty ritual
done in all the right procedures,
but yet not having an effect on your life
or a moral expectation of what you would have
as you come together.
One of the things they like
to bring out in the early days
is the 1 Corinthians 11
passage where Paul is saying,
"When you come together,
it's not the Lord's Supper."
(14:52):
So it's kind of a verse they would use
against this concept of ex opere operato
where just because you're coming together
and claiming all the right things,
I can assure you it's the Lord's Supper.
They're quoting Paul back saying,
"It's not the Lord's Supper."
And so this idea of this pure gathering,
or trying, not perfect,
but just trying to walk
together in the resurrection,
(15:14):
that precious time is what
they had for their communion.
So I think that's special.
So you had breaking of bread
and then that goes straight
into the separation component.
So that fits very much with
what you were just describing,
this coming together, this group that,
but also we're gonna be
separate from the worldly system,
(15:34):
the worldly empires,
whatever, however they phrase that.
Talk to me about that section.
Because again, this is a major component,
especially for Anabaptists today still.
It would be interesting if Sattler had lived
to see how his
congregations would have worked this out
under his leadership.
(15:55):
But what is really clear is
that everything is divided
into two kingdoms, the good, the evil, the light,
the darkness, and he just goes down
through everything basically.
And we are to avoid doing and not doing,
depending on what those who
(16:16):
are in the kingdom of darkness,
depending on what they either do or don't do,
we're to avoid that.
Now that could become kind of,
we base what we do or don't
do off of what the world does.
And I don't think he would have meant that.
And maybe sometimes we've
fallen into that a little bit,
but rather his emphasis is
(16:36):
what is really the light,
what is really the darkness?
And let's be willing to stand and be different.
Yeah, that's amazing.
So separation means that we are nonconformed
to the world.
That's amazing.
It's interesting this whole two ways.
It sounds like an echo of the Didache.
Now the Didache wasn't even discovered at this time.
(16:58):
So there was no way he was reading it,
but just I guess reading the same scriptures,
just this putting this, there are two ways,
darkness and light.
And it is a bit jarring
to read the way he puts it,
but if you look at 2 Corinthians chapter six,
and then going in where it talks about,
it is a New Testament principle.
(17:18):
A lot of times people hardly even look at that,
what Paul is telling us in
2 Corinthians chapter six
to come out from the
world and do not be upon them.
I mean, And do not be of them.
And that idea that even comes with a promise
that if you come out of the world,
I will be a father to you
and you'll be my sons and my daughters.
And so those promises that are there,
he then goes right into 2
(17:39):
Corinthians chapter seven,
having these promises, let's cleanse ourselves
from all filthiness of the spirit,
both the flesh and the spirit,
perfecting ourselves in
holiness and the fear of God.
And so that's a paraphrase,
but the idea is this concept,
this New Testament concept means something.
It's gonna mean something to different groups,
(17:59):
even of the Anabaptists,
we see the different
groups doing this differently.
It's gonna mean something today differently.
But the question it asked me,
it challenged me still to this day, okay,
so how am I applying it then?
How am I applying the separation from the world
since that is a clearly biblical teaching
and they're right to bring it
out, in my own application?
(18:19):
I think it still matters.
So they go from that point to,
they use the word shepherds, I believe,
in the Schleitheim Confession
or pastors, church leaders,
and so forth.
What were they saying in
that point of the Confession?
Well, the most obvious thing is,
once again, we have order.
So it's not just a free for all,
(18:41):
they have order and it even says
what they expected the shepherds to do.
But I think there's even some deeper things here
that I don't know if they just had,
there's some issues here
that are real and that they got,
but they didn't necessarily spell out here.
And one of those is,
we believe in the priesthood of the believers.
(19:03):
If the pastor is driven away or killed,
we will immediately choose
someone from the brothers
to lead the church.
This isn't [?] in that hour.
Yeah, it says in that, I don't know that.
Or that soon.
Yeah, so when that happens,
(19:24):
the church should be those
who have really committed
themselves to Christ and are seeking to walk
in the resurrection and you can choose a brother
from among them to lead the church.
So one thing that's kind of implied,
but not specified is we believe
(19:44):
in the priesthood of the believers.
And I think anybody at that
time would have understood that
because that was part of the problem
with the peasant revolt that Luther had preached
the priesthood of the believers
and they were taking him seriously.
And this is right around the same time.
So I think that when they heard, you know,
that a brother could stand in immediately
(20:07):
for the pastor who was taken,
that would have made perfect sense to them.
We're all brothers, we're all priests.
Any one of us could take that position.
That's been something that's, that Anabaptism,
particularly conservative Anabaptism has kept.
I mean, it's kind of
surprising when I started coming
into the circles, how, you know, common brothers,
(20:31):
and then you go and be ordained
and then suddenly you take up that.
And everybody should be getting, be willing
and getting at a place where you could be used
for that purpose in that servanthood.
Here's a quote from the Schleitheim that says,
"The shepherd in the church of God shall,
according to the rule of Paul,
(20:51):
be one who is of good repute among those
who are outside the faith.
He shall be a teacher, a
admonisher, and a disciplinarian,
a man with good understanding,
rightly dividing the word of truth.
He shall exhort the church and teach and admonish
from the word and shall
lead out in breaking of bread
and in all things that the body of Christ needs."
(21:11):
And then actually from that,
then the congregation's response to them,
it says that this brother should be supported
by the church, which has chosen him,
so that he may be able to serve at all times,
whenever there is need, and to be present
with all the brethren for teaching,
admonition, and correction.
And if he should be expelled, apprehended,
(21:34):
or fall by the sword, another shall be ordained
in his place, so that God's little flock
and people may not be destroyed.
It's interesting.
What do you think it means by the support there?
We're not talking about, you know,
oh, they were on some salary or something, right?
No, but as he had need because he put time
into the church, we should take care of him.
(21:56):
So, and that could mean, you know,
if he's a farmer and has,
can't get all of his work done,
well, we should help him.
Yeah.
It's obvious.
It even gives the context so
that he could be ministering.
Yeah.
Yeah, yeah.
We need to make sure we do that.
Yeah, yeah, that's good.
That's shepherds.
And then it transitions to the next point,
(22:17):
which is the sword.
And this one, I think, is particularly important
because some have said, oh, this teaching
on not using the sword, you know, non-resistance,
there was some ambiguity there,
and there was lots of
different approaches and opinions.
But the Schleitheim
confession is very straightforward
(22:37):
on their teaching on the use of the sword.
So talk me through that,
and its significance for us today.
Okay, well, on the ambiguous side,
you know, we looked at Hubmaier,
and Hubmaier did think there could be a time
to pick up the sword.
So that would be, he wasn't ambiguous,
(22:58):
he was on the other side of the question.
And then there is a North Anabaptist confession
from a place called Wismar,
and there it's, the document we have
seems a little bit corrupted,
but it does sound like that perhaps
an Anabaptist Christian could be a watchman
(23:20):
or defend a watchman on the walls, maybe.
But it is ambiguous,
and it's questionable whether
we actually have the document
the way they said it.
But the vast majority of early Anabaptists
followed through on what
Conrad Grebel wrote about,
as far as we should be sheep,
(23:42):
not people that pick up the sword,
but we should be sheep in this world.
And then Schleitheim picks that right up
with this section on the sword.
And one of the interesting things it does
is it actually brings the arguments
that the non-Anabaptists would have.
And then he will give an answer.
The answer is, and then it,
(24:04):
I think always refers back to Christ.
Christ did this or Christ said this.
Excellent.
So like at one point,
it says, "Should we defend the good?"
And one point it says,
"Well, if there's a disagreement about,
let's say an inheritance."
And it's pointed, they go right to Jesus said,
(24:25):
That's not for him to do,
and we should follow him.
So this sword thing is kind
of comes out of everything
before this that we're called to something higher
than what the churches like the Protestant
and Catholic churches are saying.
They're saying, "There is a
time when you may have to fight
and maybe kill someone."
(24:46):
And the Anabaptists are saying,
"Well, we wanna follow Christ.
We wanna walk in the resurrection."
And they give specifics about
what their neighbors ask them
and what Christ's answer would be.
That's good.
And what I think is one of
the most significant things
with this is the way he sets up the two kingdoms,
(25:07):
which has hardly I see articulated this well
since the early church.
In the early church, we get it very clearly said
that it's very clearly stated
that God did institute human government.
And those are given to us from God.
Romans 13 is there and we
cannot hide from Romans 13.
It actually says, it even calls in Romans 13
that he is a minister of God
(25:29):
and was not given the sword in vain.
The deeper understanding of that, however,
and then looking at the early church
is that that same sword that
the apostle Paul was speaking
of in Romans 13 cut Paul's head off.
And so God uses these swords.
He brings order into this world,
but we are given a
different calling in this world.
(25:49):
And that you see in the
early church explicitly stated.
You see Justin talking to the emperors
and with this kind of language.
You see Origen actually talking about this.
Tertullian certainly talks about this.
It is early Christianity.
When I started looking into non-resistance,
maybe it was the same way
for you, brother Stephen,
is that the pacifist kind of
argument sometimes confused me
(26:10):
because I looked at the Old Testament
and I believed all the word of God was true.
Like I had to do something with the Old Testament
and I had to do something with the New Testament
and these things.
And when I, the early church kind of helped me
to bring in these two kingdoms.
But then when I started to
look into different expressions
of people who believed in loving your enemies
and that kind of a thing, it got confusing.
(26:31):
But when I read this, it
actually was like, thank you.
He understands it in a patristic,
a very early Christian way and it's profound.
And so I'll give it to you here from his quotes.
I just think it's well done.
The sword is ordained of God
outside the perfection of Christ.
(26:51):
It punishes and puts to death the wicked
and guards and protects the good.
In the law, the sword was ordained
for the punishment of the
wicked and for their death.
And the same sword is now ordained to be used
by the worldly magistrates.
He recognizes that.
In the perfection of Christ, however,
only the ban is used for a warning
(27:12):
and for the
excommunication of the one who has sin
without putting the flesh to death,
simply the warning and
the command to sin no more.
And so again, like you
said, looking at the objections,
now many who do not
understand Christ will for us,
will ask whether a Christian
may and should use the sword.
(27:32):
The answer is this, just
like what you were saying,
Christ teaches and commands us to learn of him.
For he is meek and lowly in heart.
He himself forbade the woman taken in adultery
to be put to death,
even though the law of
his father had commanded it,
Christ wants to be Lord and
King over all without force.
(27:55):
Therefore he gave his followers the rule,
love your enemies, do good to them that hate you
and pray for them that persecute you.
His disciples must not engage in worldly strife.
And so I just think that's so well put.
And when you get that,
it brings the whole Bible together.
(28:17):
You see, even in the way in the Old Testament,
the way that God would use Nebuchadnezzar
or the Assyrian armies and
he calls them things like my--
Rod of my wrath.
Rod of my wrath and my minister.
And so when they use that kind of terminology,
we see that God has always operated like this
(28:39):
and we get to the new
covenant, it's the same way.
And so this I consider brilliant.
And the way it's done is in retaining
and bringing back this
ancient early church understanding
is I think is one of the more profound things
in this statement.
Could I say a few things on the sword too,
because I was never in the military.
(29:00):
I was in the last draft for the Vietnam War
and my number was too low, so it didn't matter.
But when I gave my life to the Lord,
I thought I knew two things.
One, I want to serve the Lord.
And the other was his people don't kill anyone.
And that's not exactly non-resistance,
but it's the beginning.
And I'd just like to share a few things
(29:21):
that I think are important about that.
Absolutely.
And one of them is you mentioned Romans 13.
N.T. Wright, I believe did his first major work
on the book of Romans.
And one thing that he said is watch the pronouns.
Is it saying you or is it
saying they or is it saying we?
(29:44):
So watch the pronouns.
Well, watch the pronouns in Romans 13.
Mr. Wright didn't do that.
If you look at chapter 12,
it's about receiving the gifts
and then living the life, the
Christian life, and it's you.
Now in English, you is not, when it's a command,
(30:05):
it's not expressed, but it's you do this, you do that.
So it just says do this, do that.
Okay, but that's you, okay?
It's talking to us.
It's talking to us Christians.
13 then, the first seven or so verses are they.
Interesting.
They are the ministers of God.
They bear the sword for
(30:27):
vengeance and for protection,
for our good.
And you pay them- them, okay?
You pay them custom taxes, reverence, honor,
whatever it says.
And then it shifts back to oh, no man, anything.
That's us, you, Owe no man, anything.
(30:48):
And then it goes down after that.
So for instance, one
thing it says is overcome evil
with good, you overcome evil with good.
It also says as much as lies within you live
at peace with all men.
And so all of 12 and the rest of 13
after the first seven
verses, the non-Christian can't do.
(31:10):
We can barely do it.
You know, we need the Spirit
and sometimes we just ignore him.
But anyway, okay?
Are you saying that N.T.
Wright in this case was wrong?
He missed, no, he's right.
I was right in saying that.
I'm saying he missed, he missed his own point.
Right, right, right.
Because he is not non-resistant.
I saw, I wasn't there.
I saw a time when he spoke somewhere.
(31:31):
I don't remember where it was.
And a young man, obviously hoping for a yes,
got up and said, "Aren't you a pacifist?"
And he said, "Well, I am a
bishop in the Church of England.
It's a state church."
Okay, okay, okay.
Now I'm paraphrasing.
And I am in Parliament.
He was in Parliament.
He gives speeches.
(31:52):
Well, he was in the House of Lords.
"And no, I'm not a pacifist."
Which means he wasn't
paying attention to his own.
Now, I do that too.
I'm absolutely sure that I
may hit the nail on the head
about a particular issue and miss it somewhere.
But he missed it in 12 and 13 of Romans.
Which is, Romans is kind
(32:12):
of his theme, so to speak.
That's excellent.
I love that point that you're making
of the difference there.
It's his point.
It's his point, well, it's good.
I love it.
And you think of this whole concept.
And he's talking about
this walk in the resurrection,
being followers of Christ.
This and about the, we being like these cities
that we're gathering a
community, not part of this world,
(32:34):
but a community of faith.
It's truly putting to
practice, you know, in Isaiah,
when it gave the prophecy of the increase
of this government and
peace, there shall be no end
when the Messiah will come.
And so we see that gathering together
and putting the teachings of Jesus
as the cure for humanity is such a powerful thing
(32:57):
to get behind.
And you just mentioned Isaiah,
so I wanna say a little
bit about the Old Testament.
Okay.
Most Christian and Jewish interpreters
of the Old Testament
would say that the government
was established after the flood.
Where it says in chapter nine
that an animal will be killed
if he takes a man's blood, but so will a man.
(33:20):
So the take, if a human life is lost,
it means that the blood of
that other person must be shed.
Now that is not God's heart.
You go back to where the first murder occurred,
that's where you see God's heart.
God warns Cain.
He says, you don't have to do, you don't,
(33:41):
we don't even know what's up, but Cain is angry
because his brother was favored
because his brother did what
he should, and God warns him.
And nonetheless, Cain kills his brother.
And then God doesn't say, he doesn't say,
I want everyone to go after you and kill you.
He says, I'm gonna put a mark on you
so that you will not be killed.
(34:02):
There's a reason God's heart is always to repent
and come back.
Now, the law is different
because mankind is so corrupt.
And the chapters from chapter four to 11
show how corrupt we became.
So we need a really strong restraint.
(34:23):
And that's where you get government.
God institutes government
to really pull back on us.
But even after that, in the Old Testament,
you see so often, this is a restraint.
It's not God's heart.
You hear it with the
setting up of kings and the way,
you are rejecting me in
that you've asked for a king.
When the Israelite people demanded a king, yes.
(34:46):
But God works with them where they are
and he gives them that king.
But he sure doesn't give them what they want.
But another thing that's interesting,
God did establish government.
And I agree with Augustine, in The City of God,
he says that every nation, every empire
was established by violence
and it will end in violence.
(35:07):
But in between, now this is not Augustine,
in between that establishment by violence
and being wrecked by violence,
one of the things that
happens over and over again
in the Old Testament is
this area has been pacified,
you could say, and all of a sudden it prospers.
(35:27):
And this is represented in the Old Testament
by either calling this place
a mountain with lots of fruit
or a tree that provides shelter for animals
and food and all that.
And I remember being shocked
when I think it's Ezekiel 31,
it's either 30, I think it's 31,
where God is warning Egypt.
(35:49):
And he says, "Look at Assyria,
"they were this beautiful tree."
Well, Assyria was probably the worst enemy
the Israelites ever had.
And they complained to God,
"Why are you letting this happen?"
Okay, but after any one of the,
whether it's the Assyrians or the Babylonians
or the Persians or the Romans,
after violence comes widespread peace,
(36:15):
a peace that's imposed,
but fallen man needs that,
and then comes prosperity.
So there's this pattern all the way through,
but that's what government does.
It uproots-
Often it does this in a very,
well, it always does it in a very violent way.
It uproots evil, provides possibility for good
(36:38):
and prosperity, but then it's going to pay.
Augustine says it's going to pay.
Oh, one more thing, the Anabaptists.
So what I see in the Old Testament is,
yes, we need government.
Even now we need government
because of the evil of men's hearts.
And the kinds of things that have to be done,
(36:59):
the kind of wisdom that's needed
is not the kind of wisdom Christians have.
And it's got to be done.
The worldly men want prosperity.
And they don't want violence.
So they're going to use violence
to get rid of the violence
and then have prosperity.
The Anabaptists look back at this.
We know they were being challenged and they said,
yes, God's people in the
(37:19):
Old Testament bore the sword
and God let them bear the sword.
Although he also told them,
he doesn't really want them to have a king,
but if you insist.
Okay, so in the Old Testament,
God's people were allowed to bear the sword.
In the New Testament, we hear his heart.
And it's that his people
should not bear the sword.
(37:39):
And the early Anabaptists said,
so the early church got
this, they were non-resistant
and God took the sword from the Jewish people
in the Jewish Roman war.
So he didn't even want them to have it.
This is how the Anabaptists saw it.
So I think it's very clear if one gets,
(38:00):
this is one of those places
I think that you need to go
beyond just what the Bible says,
simply because it's important to know
historically what happened.
Yeah, what happened.
Yeah, I see what you're saying.
It's interesting, other Anabaptists,
Peter Riedemann mentions, you say,
whenever we see the government of God,
it's a reminder to us of the wrath of God.
God gave us this
government and in Hosea had mentioned,
(38:21):
I gave you a king in my wrath
and I took him away in my anger, I think it says.
And so this idea is, he works with that.
He works with us as people, he has mercy on us,
but I agree with you, it's not the best.
So they're saying, we
were given this way of Christ
to spread the kingdom of God on earth.
They have a right, but that's not the church.
(38:43):
That's not the people of God.
But we can't rebel against
it, we shouldn't be negative,
we shouldn't be these
rebels or anything like that,
but that's our place.
And I think that is so well articulated
in the Schleitheim Confession.
Yes, we should honor them.
I do think it does, I don't think it means
we can't tell the truth.
Yeah, to be prophetic still.
I'm talking about a ruler, we should respect him,
(39:06):
but we can tell the truth.
And be able to be prophetic to our generation.
Amen, well said.
So we have separation from the world, right?
Which is one of the points, you have the sword,
like these different things that are removed,
like pulling the Anabaptists back
from what would have been mainstream expectations
of society, so to speak.
(39:26):
There's another big one
here, and that's the oath,
that's the last one listed in the Schleitheim.
I'm curious why it's last, and what does it say,
what is it about?
Talk to me about that.
Well, I think some of the first ones,
they just build into each other,
and then I think some of the last ones are,
and if we're this kind of
people, we will do this.
And this is stuff that's done normally.
(39:48):
So for instance, the sword,
which we were just talking about,
in an emergency in the Middle Ages
and during the
Reformation, everybody was expected,
every able-bodied man was
expected to pick up the sword
and defend his city.
So these last couple of things are telling us
that there's certain
things that our society does,
(40:09):
and these are definitely not what we do.
The sword clearly plugs into, well, they all do,
they all plug into separation.
And the oath, medieval society was structured
on a hierarchy, and you pledged loyalty
to the man above you.
(40:29):
Now, of course, the
peasants, they were at the bottom,
and I don't know that they had to pledge
their loyalty, but a citizen did.
Okay, and go up the ladder.
So one lord, a lower lord,
would pledge his allegiance
to the lord above him, et cetera,
right up to either the king or the emperor,
or in the church to the
(40:50):
pope, eventually, at the top.
And so the society in their mind was structured
by what I swear, that I'm going to follow you
when you tell me what I have
to do because you're above me,
which has some very interesting,
repercussions, thank you.
If he and I are peasants and I hit him,
(41:12):
then that doesn't matter.
But if you're our lord and I hit you,
I'm either gonna be
really badly beaten or killed.
What happens depends on
where you are in that structure.
So they're actually talking about,
when they're not doing the oath,
they're rejecting in a lot
of, at least in some ways,
(41:32):
the hierarchy of the way
society was structured at the time.
They were willing to obey.
Right, right.
But they also insisted, we
are in the image of Christ,
I'm in the image of
Christ just like you, my lord.
And that means something, I'm gonna obey you.
But I think they would have been horrified
at the fact that if I did something to you,
(41:53):
I would be punished more than if I did it
to my fellow peasant.
So that's part of it.
So this is why it's so
disruptive on the one side,
on the Catholic, Protestant side.
It's also a commandment.
The Lord said it and James said it.
And it's pushing us, as it says very clearly
(42:13):
in the scripture, make your
yes, yes, and your no, no.
And you can't do any more than just say to say,
I'll do this if it's possible.
The quote from Aaron, you're right,
they come right out and quote
the scripture, Matthew 5:37,
let your yes be yes and your no, no,
for anything more comes from evil.
And then it goes on, so there's therefore,
we reject all swearing of oaths.
(42:35):
And it says, particularly those of loyalty
to kings and nations.
For Christ has forbidden
his followers all swearing,
whether true or false, by heaven or by earth
or by Jerusalem or by our head.
God's people trust in the invisible,
not the outward things.
Hence oath are forbidden to them by Christ.
(42:55):
So I like your point there.
And again, they took their citizenship
in the kingdom of God very seriously.
Just like in the early church,
when you said Jesus is
Lord, it meant Caesar is not.
And so it had some huge implications.
So when they were trying
to be followers of Christ
and not parts of these
worlds and they were separated,
(43:16):
they meant that, but they were genuinely feeling
like they were part as Jesus is our king,
he's our president, he's
gonna be who put our loyalty to.
There was some differences,
what there's Brother
Stephen about some groups said,
okay, you could affirm,
I'm telling you the truth.
We see Paul sometimes saying that type of thing.
And there were different discussions
on how that would be worked out.
(43:38):
I think Marpeck had some difference.
Marpeck says you can swear an oath
in government issues, I believe.
Just affirmations of I am telling the truth.
Are you telling the truth?
Oh no, he actually did, I think so.
Okay, is it an oath?
We should look this up a little bit.
But here it's very strongly put
and it kind of ties into that whole concept
of who they are as a people.
(43:58):
It does.
And that makes me think of one more thing
that says this all hangs together.
And it also points to the
society that this was done in.
One of the accusations against the Anabaptists
was you're the new monks and nuns.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
You don't live in a monastery.
Yes.
You do marry, but the very
things we're reading here,
(44:20):
it's amazing.
I don't know that this always happened,
but sometimes when a person, okay, first of all,
if I'm living in medieval,
well, my background is English.
If I'm living in medieval England
and I really want to be a good Christian,
I will separate from the world by doing what?
Living in a monastery.
Go to the monastery.
(44:41):
Oh, I see, like that.
Okay, separation from the world.
And at least in some cases I have read,
this is my second baptism.
Yes.
Think about that.
And that means that they even realized
that baptism was this change in life.
Now they of course thought that,
well, in the infant there's no change in life,
(45:01):
but they thought, well, yeah, it provides
for that essentially.
And they didn't go to war.
The monks and nuns were
not supposed to go to war.
Now later on there was a corruption there
and there were some military orders.
I recognize that.
But essentially monks and
nuns were expected to be
what we would call non-resistant.
(45:22):
Interesting.
All this stuff is, it's all Matthew,
the Sermon on the Mount,
Matthew 5, 6 and 7 .
And in the early church,
everyone was supposed to do that.
As the church and the state
grew closer and closer together,
individuals who saw that
started forming little communities,
not withdrawing from the church.
(45:43):
And they became the monasteries eventually.
And the monasteries tried to
live like the early Christians.
And I know there are all
kinds of complications there.
But it's interesting, what we were doing
is essentially saying this
belongs to all Christians.
Yeah, that's amazing.
We aren't supposed to,
it's not just monks and nuns
that are supposed to live this way.
(46:03):
That's great.
The last quote I have here
is, "Dear brothers and sisters,
"these are the articles of certain brethren
"who had formerly been in error,
"but have now come to one mind in the Lord,
"to God be praised and glory."
So it's amazing, it's amazing confession
of such an early age.
(46:23):
What a conclusion piece.
And when I read it here again recently,
I was struck by how relevant it still feels.
It's like its five hundred years old and you read it,
it's like, "Well, this is really interesting."
So hopefully people seeing this say,
"Maybe I should pick that up and read it."
I hope so.
I hope so too.
Yeah, amen.
(46:44):
If they read Matthew 5, 6 and 7 ,
the Sermon on the Mount and
think that is still relevant,
that's exactly what these guys were,
at least partially what
these guys were working off of.
And some of the details like having a society
that's very hierarchical might not fit with us,
(47:05):
but the same thing might be able to be said
about the Sermon on the Mount
at this point or that point,
but the thrust is still relevant.
Yeah.
Yeah, amen, well said.
Thanks for listening to this episode of Anabaptist Perspectives.
If you found this interesting make sure and check out our YouTube channel called Anabaptist Origins
(47:26):
which is all about the first hundred years of the Anabaptist story.
You can find that link in the description down below.
And of course you can find all our content on our website at anabaptistperspectives.org.
Thanks for listening, and we'll catch you in the next episode.
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