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

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.

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, but whose ideas would outlive empires.

This is the story of the Reformers before the Reformation. By the late medieval period, the

Roman Catholic Church had become Europe's most powerful institution. 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 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. In this environment of spiritual 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 Luther would nail his theses 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 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 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. 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.

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 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 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.

Wycliffe's writings traveled across Europe and found fertile ground in Bohemia, where a young priest named

John Huss began preaching similar ideas. Huss served as Dean of the

Faculty of Philosophy at the University of Prague and Pastor of Bethlehem Chapel.

Both were positions that gave him a platform to challenge church corruption.

Like Wycliffe, Huss 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.

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. Huss refused to back down from his convictions, even when church authorities demanded his silence.

In the year 1414, Holy Roman Emperor Sigismund promised

Huss safe passage to the Council of Constance, where church leaders planned to address the ongoing crisis of authority.

But once Huss arrived and refused to recant his teaching, the council imprisoned him.

Despite the Emperor's guarantee of safety, they tried him for heresy.

The council offered Huss a choice, renounce his beliefs or face execution.

Standing before the most powerful religious authorities in Europe, Huss chose martyrdom.

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 councils, but on truth and justice.

On July 16, 1415, church authorities burned

John Huss at the stake. His last words reportedly were,

Lord Jesus, it is for thee that I patiently endure this cruel death.

I pray thee to have mercy on my enemies. The executions of Huss 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.

This betrayal convinced many that the institutional church had moved beyond redemption.

Both Wycliffe and Huss had planted seeds that would germinate in the early 1500s.

They proved that people could challenge the church's corruption, that ordinary 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 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 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 Huss had died defending.

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