The Life and Work of John Knox with Douglas Bond (Part 1 & 2) DMW#240

Part two of the life and works of John Knox with Douglas Bond. Here we go exploring theology doctrine and all of the fascinating subjects in between. Broadcasting from an undisclosed location. Dead men walking starts Podcast.

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You're just playing squirrely. So guys welcome back to another episode. Last week you heard part one of our series on John Knox. We had Douglas bond on. Today you're gonna hear part two of that series.

Part one kind of covered maybe the first 30 or 40 years of his life. Part two will finish up his life and death and then move into Kind of the theology that he left behind the political ramifications that he had during his time.

We did a little personality profile on him as well, I'm not gonna spoil it for you that was very exciting to kind of find out his personality and what type of guy he was and Douglas bond just a great brother in the Lord just met him recently.

Spent I think an hour and a half with us going through the life of John Knox. I thought it was very important to do that just for me personally. I knew some things about John Knox and he's one of my favorites, but didn't know everything and Doug just did a great Job of really I'm giving us all the details you can tell he's very excited.

When he's talking about history and church history and the Reformers and you can find out more about Doug at bond books net he's written over 30 books and Some of them fiction some of them historical fiction some of them not some of them biographies.

I mean just great books. And he's carried everywhere, you know Reformation books and Banner of Truth I think have him and I mean all the good publishing companies sell his books. So check them out at bond books net.

That's also linked up below here. But I don't have too much more to say than that then set that up for part two. I'm sure if you listened last week to part one you go boy. I got to hear the end of this.

Because it's just such a great story part two with Douglas bond starts right now. Yeah, so Doug Thanks so much for being on the podcast. Appreciate it brother my pleasure entirely. So what we wanted to do with this episode was I really wanted to focus in on John Knox the great reformer.

You know, I know a lot of people will throw around his name. It'll come up with some quotes and I kind of want to do a deep dive on his life. We haven't really done a profile on a reformer in quite a while in the five years of this podcast it's probably been three or four years and I was scrolling through some stuff on Ligonier and came across your book the mighty weakness of John Knox.

And I said man, I would like to know more about John Knox. I'm sure my listeners would too and Like I've said on this podcast many times before doing a podcast. It's kind of selfish because I just bring on much smarter men than me.

I ask him questions I'm interested in and then I get to sit here and learn and hopefully brings value to the listeners to you know. But before we get into John Knox. Can you tell us a little bit about yourself?

Maybe family testimony kind of your travels and journey?

Sure, well, thanks for having me Greg. It's a it's a delight to be here. I am. I have the great privilege of Giving you a very boring testimony I'll be honest. You know, I I was I was. I was raised in an earnest and godly Christian home by a godly father godly mother.

Praise God. We had family worship every day. You know, we would every time the church doors were open. We were there.

And.

I'm just so grateful for that. I you know, I think of what it says in Isaiah. The psalmist repeats it to that that God has hemmed me in behind him before that's my life. You know, I I live in an area.

We live here in an area where I know lots of people. You know, I was at the grocery store a couple days ago and you know, here's somebody I hadn't seen for a little while. Chatting with her. She's expecting their fifth baby and just catching up and tell her to greet her parents and siblings and all that and then well.

Here comes somebody else, you know, and and I had taught all their kids and in a classical Christian school. And you know, that's that's my life, you know, I can't go to Costco. You know, I can't you know, I'm gonna bump into people all the time and that's just a wonderful wonderful thing.

It's kind of the way I think God intended things to be that you know, he wants us to know that you know, the eyes of the Lord are in every place beholding the evil and the good and growing up in a Christian home growing up in a community a solid solid church and God God blessing me with a Christian family myself and six children and Heading off right after this to take a strawberry milkshake to my newest a granddaughter Bridget she'll get a couple hours actually, but that's my regular routine, but Anyway, just so so blessed.

By.

The the providence of God his kindness his sovereignty. Yeah, I could have been born anywhere I could have grown up in any other family and here I I Was placed in in a godly home and and then by the grace of God Absolutely desperately wanted more than anything else for my family.

To be a.

Godly Christian home as well and Perfectly, so oh I wish heaven heaven's coming. You know Daily, you know, we can we start over every day, you know, and we get to say, you know, help help me Lord I need your word speak to me in your word your servants listening, you know.

And and then teach your kids to do the same thing a family worship is such a central part of my testimony really Singing the the praises reading the Word of God. I remember my father dyslexic he was very much a Mathematician engineer.

I I think he was a genius. I didn't get any of it but but you know, he would read one word at a time in the scriptures and he always read and As I got older I realized you know, what? Maybe it may be in my teen years.

I was a little embarrassed because my dad it wasn't this eloquent reader. My mother was she was English side of the English literature side of the brain and all that and And yet my father loved the Word of God every word, you know each word and so, you know God gave him dyslexia so that he would read one word at a time.

And we would hear him read slowly and with with this reverence and awe and dignity and Huge impact on my life. Godly parenting it can never be underestimated. Doesn't always bear fruit at the time. I have many friends who Struggle with with prodigal children and and it's a it's such a grievous thing.

But the story's not over yet you know, you know, it's you know, I Think I think it's so easy to be the the LFS build out and so far and go to people and prognosticate why they're having All their problems why their kids?

Oh, please don't do that, you know to people love them you know. Embrace them as the as the father of the prodigal kid. That's what the church and body of Christ is for it's for compassion not condemnation.

Those who suffer in in those kinds of things and of course, there's an epidemic of it right now, isn't there?

In the church and and.

There are kids wandering at the moment because of being encircled by pressures in our culture that are just Hammering away at them. But greater is he who's in us than he who's in the world and the gates of hell will not prevail against.

The church and God makes promises to his children. Family covenantal promises. And we can embrace those and we can live faithfully in the midst of sorrow and sadness and. And hold our kids up to the Lord and and and see him see him in all of his power.

Come and and answer prayer and raise up those who are who are falling. Yeah, so that's my it's really my testimony. Is that over and over again? God's hand me and behind it before and he's placed his gracious hand on me.

You know, don't worry Harry, you know, I'm not. I didn't actually color it this way. The Bible says, you know. So, um, but you know, that's just kind of what it is now and and God is faithful.

But yeah, you know I heard you say something in the beginning. And I just got to push back on it a little bit not push back in a negative way. But I always do when I hear this when you say I have a boring testimony, right?

I just was raised in a Christian home and I have a friend who's now a pastor and He's a younger guy and as a young man, he was knew he's called the ministry and he said that once to me. Well, I don't have a very exciting or it's kind of a boring testimony and I think of the Western Christian Church.

We think there has to be this this crazy, you know Conversion story. I was in sin and the Lord, oh and I was you know dead in the street but then the Lord lifted me up and it's like no generational salvation is is Biblical and I would argue probably one of the most beautiful things number one.

Number two for all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God and every single one of us to serve hell. So in his graciousness that he's decided to save us is amazing in and of itself and I actually celebrate when I hear Testimonies like yours where you were hemmed in and you were a generational Christian and there's generational salvation.

There and hearing God bless your family your family's family and on and on I think it's a beautiful thing and I would love it if in the Western Christian Church that became the norm. Instead of kind of the you know anxious seat altar call make a choice and you know.

And you'll feel better in the morning like there's something about being raised with biblical godly parents and I kind of like that my friend he goes. I don't know if I could point to one single day I just always knew God and surrendered to him since a young child.

I said, that's a beautiful thing. You know, we even see with Timothy and the scriptures that his grandmother Probably raised him in the faith and his mother. So Yeah, I always like to point that out let's let's celebrate when we hear of generational Christians like that and that's awesome.

But.

Yeah, let's get into it here. John Knox. One of my personal heroes I think I think there was a rowdy side to him that I kind of identify with a little bit of a Rebellious spirit that the Lord has to keep in check with me raging against tyrants and shaking my fist and making sure I'm not doing.

But doing it out of wanting to see justice served through the glory of God. But I want to know a little bit more about him and you seem to be the guy to come to you. So can we start at the beginning maybe like who was John Knox?

Who was he influenced by. Maybe start as a younger man and we'll kind of work through life. Yeah.

Absolutely, let me let me launch in and dive in and and you know Ask questions along the way or or push back whatever, you know, that's great. You know, I think it's it's helpful to get John Knox in the in the larger context of The Renaissance of the 16th century.

It's a high Renaissance. I'm I'm with CS Lewis on this I think that that the Renaissance owed an enormous debt to the high Middle Ages and Takes far too much credit, you know to itself, you know, it named itself the rebirth, you know of all things Greek and Roman and Recovery of culture from the Dark Ages and all of that.

That's bogus in my opinion I think that you have you go back to the greats one of my heroes is John Wycliffe, you know. And you know what was happening in England in the 14th century with the recovery of the vernacular Which was Middle English and you know was not fully or English that we would understand today.

It's already happening over in Bohemia Which gets me on to a book I'm writing right now, so I'll try to avoid that right now. But you know, this is high Middle Ages. This is early 1300s. They've already got a vernacular Bible in Prague Before Wycliffe is even present.

There was enormous Enormous learning enormous love of the scriptures that was beginning to happen. I mean Wycliffe is standing on the shoulders of Thomas Bradford II, you know, who was already one of the giants of the the Middle Ages.

As a man of learning, but as a godly man, a man of the scriptures and a theologian. So that is a really important thing to keep in mind. Nobody knows for sure. Here's here's john Knox emerging on the scene and he's a nobody.

I mean, he is like You know, he doesn't come from. He's not well born. He's from the wrong side of the tracks. He came from a town called Hattington just outside of Edinburgh. And nobody knows historians haven't really agreed, even to this day, although there's more consensus about it now, but About when he was born.

There's no month and day of the month when john Knox was born and the year was disputed for 150 years. We pretty much settle in and I lead tours related to my book. So in 2014 we we had a we had a Knox Quincentenary tour for his 1514 birth.

Not everybody would agree that that was a quincentenary some put a little bit earlier, but I think that's a mistake. So think of the timeline of history. It's linear horizontal thing definite beginning in the beginning, God and a definite and Think of 1514 as sort of a hinge point at the moment.

And I'd like to fill in some of what was going on in Knox's world for a few minutes here at the beginning. If I may, so If we go back two years before that. In 1512 in Paris, you have the first burning at the state.

The first Huguenot martyrs in 1512. Which gets me on to a whole other topic which I absolutely love and that's the Huguenots hammer the Huguenots one of my books, The Betrayal with Calvin and on the Huguenots and all.

And.

The Reformation of the 16th century began in Paris at the University of Paris, not in not in Wittenberg. With an alien, the 95 theses, it was well underway. There was already a vernacular Bible based on the based on the bowl game translated by Jacques Lefebvre de Taples.

And that's what people were reading and hearing preached and all even in the even in the halls of the University of Paris, which Calvin would come to as a 14 year old. So another hobby horse, but I'll leave it there for the moment.

There's already martyrs in Paris and then 1542 years later, he's Knox is born. He's a two year old. Well, let's see when he's a one year old, we got to go there. Maybe your coffee lover. I don't know.

But you know when he's a one year old coffee is introduced to Europe and some people like to connect what happens the next year when Knox is a two year old, and that is Erasmus is Greek New Testament is, you know, compiled from the best manuscripts and published.

And that's 1516 and some people say, oh, that's because coffee coffee was there and that was helping Erasmus was work. That's a little bit, little bit Conjectural there but but then when when Knox is three years old, you know, three year old toddler.

I've got a three year old grandson right now. And you know he's toddling around the house, you know, talking and laughing and having a great time. Luther, you know, marches down the street to the castle church.

In Wittenberg and nails his 95 theses on the on the on the castle door. Bear in mind to that Luther is is protesting particularly protesting As in Protestant this practice of indulgences and of course you go back 200 years before that and Wicklow is writing out and decrying this This this fraud of of indulgence selling you can buy indulgences today in the Roman Catholic Church, you can use American Express MasterCard visa, you know, you can do it today.

That's not something that Trent altered. And so the practice of buying and selling indulgences and thinking that you're buying forgiveness of sins on some level for yourself or for someone else is still very central to Roman Catholicism.

But 1517 so when he's a four year old all Rick is mainly is eating sausage during Lent, and then he's he's preaching at the gross monster in Zurich preaching the gospel. The five solace the justification is by, you know, by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone to the glory of God alone.

We never want to forget the fifth of souls. And where do we get that The first one solace Torah, the Word of God alone, not the traditions, not the conclusions of of councils and all of that over the over the centuries, but the Word of God alone.

And then we fast forward to 11 year old john Knox. 11 year old. I got one of those two grandson granddaughter. 1525 and Tyndale has translated the New Testament into Ben modern English, you know, there's been the Wycliffe Bible in Middle English couldn't understand that today.

My, my English students that had me at the classical Christian high school. They can all recite from the Wycliffe's Bible, but 1525 you got his preface. He had to teach people in the preface how to read the Bible.

They didn't even know how to do that, you know, they didn't have a vernacular Bible. They didn't need one because of the doctrine of papal supremacy, which said folks going to tell you what it means. Anyway, you don't need to read your Bible, just do what the Pope says just nod and say okay and light the candle and put the money into the little copper and everything's going to be.

And so Tyndale has to first publish this preface, which in its own right was a classic and was being smuggled in Scotland in in in bales of cloth from Antwerp, where he were Tyndale was doing his work and correspondingly, and this is also a big passion of mine.

Is the wedding of Martin Luther to Katie on Bora Katerina Von Bora happens in 1525 my tour next June is a quincentenary of that wedding. It's an anniversary tour and we started in Frankfurt. We haven't Prague and all, but, um, so this is 11 year old john Knox.

At this point, if we fast forward to when he's 20 years old, Henry, the eighth Issues his act of supremacy, which was really just a greedy covetous king who looked around his, his, his realm and saw that the Roman Catholic Church on half the property in In in what is called the UK today and he wanted you wanted his fair share.

So he issues an act of supremacy, which declares himself to be the head of the church. The disillusionment of the monasteries. He seizes all of the shrines and all the wealth and and and prosperity in the lands and all of the revenue from those lands for himself.

That's 20 year old knocks at the same time that that's happening. You've got the Jesuits and Ignatius Loyola and the move move toward the move toward the counter reformation coming.

So very quickly, let me interject here. So you're saying as a 20 year old, if we put it into our minds. If there's a young person out there now and they're saying, oh, we're going through all this political and spiritual theological tyranny and weird, crazy stuff.

This is kind of what was happening with john Knox. He's a young man and he's seeing the shifting of power between king and in church and being taken over and right so pretty pivotal moment, I would think in the mind of a 20 year old young man.

Absolutely. And at this point, we don't. The records aren't really very clear. But again, because he was a nobody. You know, we don't have records of where he went to university was at St. Andrews was a Glasgow.

Nobody knows for sure. He did attend some university. There's no record of him, you know, graduating having a theological degree or anything from any of these universities. He was just a nobody and but, you know, let's, I think it is good to sort of role play in our own minds.

We've got we got 20 year olds right now who are just bombarded with political rhetoric. They're bombarded with theological conflicts going on progressive Christianity is gaining steam and it's so subtle.

You know, what is it Ambiguity is is sort of the the the necessary ingredient to heresy you you have to say the same words, but you mean something different. So it's, it's the playbook that was happening back in nations day 120 years ago.

And we shouldn't be surprised, but we if we don't learn our lessons from history. We're just going to repeat them over and over again. And that's one of the reasons why I'm so passionate about guys like john Knox and Greats like Anna Bohemia back in Wycliffe's day and and all that were, you know, godly godly people standing against a world politically and theologically that was dead.

And that was much in need of the light of the truth of the gospel as as ours is and it's so incumbent on us that we that we raise up that generation of 20 year olds and beyond who really get the passion for this.

You know, with if we fast forward two years past the the act of supremacy there in Britain, which was affecting Scotland, of course, to because Scotland was a subordinate kingdom to to the crown in London.

But you have john Kalman who's been on the lam for three years writing his Institutes of Christian religion and trying to stay one head one step ahead of the The king of France, who wanted his head on a platter, but in 1536 you have the first draft of five drafts of the Institutes, which would be so defining would be a runaway bestseller went viral, we would say today.

After its first printing there in Basel, Switzerland, Switzerland, and at the same time is is when we see john Knox completing not not completing a degree, but ending his time in university. And and trying to and the reason we know that is that he was ordained a priest at St. Mary's collegial church to south of Edinburgh, a little ways.

And I love to take my people to these particular places that you know don't really have a tourist attraction. Otherwise, but that's where he was ordained and by the Bishop of Dundling. And so he's ordained a priest, but he was a priest without a parish.

Again, we say priest. Remember, by this time, the the Britain was under the King of England. Henry VIII is still alive for another 10 years or so, and he is he doesn't really care about a theological reformation.

He's just, he's just kind of riding in on the skids of theological reform happening in Cambridge, particularly. But he wants to seize more stuff. He was the quintessential covetous man who wanted things and more more things for his coffers and the power that he gained from having more stuff.

And more a bigger bank account, as it were, and he wanted the control over the church control of of the, you know, of lay investiture, you know, who's going to be the Archbishop of Canterbury, who's going to be the Archbishop of York, who's going to be the Archbishop of St. Andrews up in Scotland, you know, Henry VIII control of those things so Knox doesn't have a parish and it wouldn't be Roman Catholic and Scotland at this time because the Queen Regent would marry James V Was the Princess of France and there's a lot of Mary's in this particular moment to you've got Mary Tudor coming on here pretty soon.

You've got You've got Mary of Guise, Mary of Lorraine, the French princess who's married to the King of Scotland, James V. They have a child, son, who's going to be eventually, I mean, that's a daughter, who's going to be Mary, Queen of Scots is going to have a son.

Who's going to be James VI of Scotland, James I. This gets very confusing and people, you know, the Mary's and all that, but it's fascinating. This is where Knox is plopped down in the midst of all of this political controversy.

And the thing was, Mary Guise was actually the functional A ruler of Scottish politics. She had a standing French army to back her up and she wanted without, she wasn't even thinly veiled, she wanted to turn Scotland over to France.

And of course, the Scots and the English haven't been getting along for centuries. And so there was there was this impulse to maybe that's a good move for some in Scotland thought that it would be mostly the Roman Catholic leaning ones.

So Knox has got to get a job. He's got to feed himself and he is offered a Tutor position with Hugh Douglas, who was a minor laird in a little castle there south of in Long Nidry. It's still a place there near the coast, south of Edinburgh.

He has two sons and a neighbor kid who come and are daily, they're daily going to be Tutored by this, you know, wet behind the ears. He has no experience, you know, as a priest or anything, but he's going to be training them in Latin and so forth.

And and all it's about this time that you have the rise of you have the rise of Other greats. Now, again, one thing. One thing that's so wonderful about church history is we think john Knox brain. He's the guy that started it all and not in Scotland.

No, actually not. There were there were several Leading edges before that, including the Lawler's from back in the 1300s. The, the Christians who had come under the influence of Wycliffe's poor preachers.

Had been up in Scotland, too. And there were whole Lawler families that generationally for 200 years had been passing on the Word of God, not in its completeness at this point, but in you know what they did have in their own language and they were They were raising their children and the things of God, the, the Dukes of Camp Campbell there at Loudoun Castle and and and and many others along the way.

You had Patrick Henry much earlier. One of the first martyrs of the 16th 16th century and and well before before Knox, but you have another man that felt that came, you know, grew up out of the The, the blood of the martyrs there in Scotland, named George Wishart and Wishart was was amazing, amazing man who came on the scene on in a Scotland.

It was had had the most in Europe, probably the most corrupt political political Realm at the time and also corrupt ecclesiastical ecclesiastical realm to so you have these to the church and state, both of which were rank and full of graft and problems.

You've got the Queen Regent as the head of the civil government entirely corrupt. We want to, we want to pass this thing off to the French. And in the, the, the, the Bishop of St. Andrews card Cardinal beaten was this corrupt ecclesiastical guy.

I mean, he was really, really bad. I can't overstate it. If you wouldn't, if you don't mind if I read just a little bit from the mighty we just to give you a little bit of a vignette of what's going on here at the time.

Knox world was a turbulent one. There was perhaps no place in 16th century Europe more in need of reformation and Scotland. In Murray described it as a brutal water kingdom dominated by covetous bloated clerics, as well as by a corrupt civil power.

Yet in such a just such a world. God was providential at work. Don wickless law lords and proclaim the gospel of Christ in Scotland since the late 14th century and more recently, the zealous young nobleman Patrick Hamilton.

Approach price been arrested tried and subjected to a gruesome six hour burning before some salvators college. By 1523 Luther's teaching on justification by faith alone had made its way into Scotland by his books and pamphlets devoted smugglers spirited English Bibles into Scotland by cartload And solo scripture and the reform gospel was penetrating the corrupt universities of the realm.

Meanwhile, peasants saying popular ballads exposing clerical abuses celebrating God. Medieval church men were not amused. There were a few bloated Clerics more corrupt and Cardinal beat and St. Andrews was a tyrant and inquisitor sumptuous and ruthless.

This is Ian. In Murray again the historian with his guards and his ladies and his seven bastard children determined to stamp out the rising tide of reformation beaten it Influence the passing of a savage parliamentary act against quote damnable opinions, contrary to faith and the laws of Holy Kirk.

But teeth to the new policy on January 26 1544 beaten ordered for men hanging for breaking lent and refusing to pray to saints probably a package. Not satisfied he arrested a man's wives as a young mother her crime praying in Christ's name instead of Mary's during her labor pains.

Beatens henchman sees the woman's newborn infant and condemned the mother to public drowning. This is in Perth.

It was.

Brutal time and Knox is surrounded by this and he sees the corruptions all around him and the people of Scotland, the grassroots people are are really tired of it.

They say,.

This young mother first child her. She just sees her husband hanged and then they sees her little baby and they put her in a dunking stool there in Perth and they drown her in the river. Because she prayed to Mary in her labor pains.

I mean, she didn't pray to Mary. She prayed to Jesus. This was this country. So in need of reformation. It was just, it was just horrible. Well, Knox is going to come under the influence of George Wishard is like Philip, you know, he's ubiquitous.

He's appearing everywhere. How did he get, you know, up there in Inverness. He was just down in, you know, in In Galston, you know, in Ayrshire. How did he do that, you know, I mean, the roads are terrible.

You know, there's no helicopters. Anyway, that's how that's the schedule that you see for George Wishard. God is using him mightily and protecting him. He was much sought after by Cardinal Beaton and by Mary, the Queen Regent Mary Geese, mother of Mary, Queen of Scots.

And so it was He was the most wanted guy in Scotland. Well, Knox by this time and we don't have a blow by blow of his conversion. You know, it's like Calvin. Calvin didn't write it with Luther. We've got it.

You know, it's like I've entered into the gates of paradise. He's writing all about all this stuff, you know, I mean, he was just He processed it that way. He wrote letters and all. Well, you know, Calvin, we get hints about his conversion through like prefaces to his commentary on the song, commentary on Genesis, little snippets along the way.

Well, Knox wasn't as prolific a writer as Calvin. Calvin's, you know, you got, you got a big, big shelf for Calvin's complete works. Knox, you got five, you got five volumes, you know, that fits on the whole We only have two sermons, written sermons.

We have 4000 written sermons with John Calvin. Plus all these commentaries and all. Of course, Knox was running to keep ahead of the henchmen that wanted to, you know, wanted to assassinate him. There were hits put out on Knox as things would progress here, but Knox at this time with some other young men had gathered around George Wishart as his supporters and as his defenders.

Now, these guys were not trained knights and all that, but one of them came up with a claymore. You know, think of, you know, Mel Gibson and the blue face and all that. And, you know, the claymore you had to put on your back because it was too long ago on your hip.