The Reformation: Questions and Bible Readings for Discussion

Mike’s Bible Reading Journal
October 28, 2026

I was working on this handout for tonight’s study at Boatswain Bay Presbyterian Church and thought others may find it interesting and useful as we approach October 31 and Reformation Sunday.

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Part 1 — What do we already know?

Discuss: When you hear the word “Reformation,” what comes to mind?

Discuss: Who was Martin Luther? Where was he from?

• Martin Luther was born on November 10, 1483, in Eisleben, in Saxony.
• He spoke German and lived in the German lands of the Holy Roman Empire. That empire was a group of kingdoms and cities under one emperor.
• A country called Germany did not exist until 1871. He was German by language and people, and he lived in Saxony.
• He was a monk. He became a professor of the Bible at the university in Wittenberg, a small town in Saxony.

Part 2 — The question behind the Reformation

Read: Job 9:2. “Indeed, I know that this is true. But how can a mortal be righteous before God?”

Discuss: How would people in Boatswain Bay answer Job’s question today?

Discuss: Have you ever tried to make yourself right with God by trying harder?

• In 1505 Luther was caught in a thunderstorm and was terrified. He vowed to become a monk. He entered a monastery in Erfurt.
• As a monk he prayed, fasted and went to confession for hours. He still had no peace. He knew God is holy, and he knew his own heart.
• In 1510 he travelled to Rome on church business. He walked about 850 miles each way. That is roughly twice the distance from Grand Cayman to Miami. In Rome he found much religious activity and little peace.
• Luther found the answer while studying Paul’s letters for his lectures.

Read: Romans 1:17. “For in the gospel a righteousness from God is revealed, a righteousness that is by faith from first to last, just as it is written: ‘The righteous will live by faith.’”

Discuss: Whose righteousness is Paul talking about? How does a person receive it?

• Luther had read “the righteousness of God” as the standard God judges us by. He came to see it as the righteousness God gives as a gift to the person who believes.
• Luther later wrote that this discovery made him feel he had been born again and had entered paradise. Historians differ on the exact year, somewhere between 1513 and 1519.

Part 3 — Indulgences and the 95 Theses (1517)

Discuss: What is an indulgence? Has anyone heard the word?

• The church in Rome taught that God forgives the guilt of sin. It also taught that a debt of “temporal punishment” remains, to be paid in this life or in purgatory.
• An indulgence was a certificate from the church that cancelled some or all of that remaining debt.
• In 1517 a preacher named Johann Tetzel sold indulgences near Wittenberg. Some of the money went to rebuild St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome.
• People paid for themselves and for dead relatives. Many paid out of guilt and fear for the people they loved.
• On October 31, 1517, Luther sent 95 Theses to the Archbishop of Mainz. Theses were points for debate. The story that he nailed them to the church door in Wittenberg comes from later accounts. The letter to the archbishop is documented.
• Reformation Day is October 31 because of that letter.

Discuss: Why would a poor family pay money it did not have for a piece of paper?

Discuss: What does that tell us about guilt?

Read: Psalm 32:1–2. “Blessed is he whose transgressions are forgiven, whose sins are covered. Blessed is the man whose sin the LORD does not count against him and in whose spirit is no deceit.”

Discuss: Who covers the sin in this psalm? What does the forgiven man pay?

Part 4 — Who has the final word? (Augsburg 1518, Worms 1521)

Discuss: When church leaders and the Bible disagree, who decides?

• Augsburg, October 1518. The pope’s representative, Cardinal Cajetan, met Luther and told him to take back what he had written. He demanded the single Latin word revoco, “I recant.” Luther said he would gladly change his mind if he were shown from Scripture that he was wrong.
• Excommunication. In 1520 the pope condemned Luther’s teaching, and in January 1521 the pope excommunicated him.
• Worms, April 1521. Luther stood before Emperor Charles V at a gathering of the empire’s princes in the city of Worms. The examiner, Johann von der Ecken, an official of the Archbishop of Trier, asked him whether he would take back his books. Luther asked for a night to think. The next day he refused. (Johann von der Ecken is a different man from Johannes Eck, the theologian who debated Luther at Leipzig in 1519.) The record of his answer includes: “My conscience is captive to the Word of God. I cannot and I will not retract anything.” The famous line “Here I stand” is in the early printed versions. It is missing from some transcripts.

Read: Acts 17:11. “Now the Bereans were of more noble character than the Thessalonians, for they received the message with great eagerness and examined the Scriptures every day to see if what Paul said was true.”

Read: 2 Timothy 3:16–17. “All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.”

Discuss: The Bereans checked even the apostle Paul against the Scriptures. What does that say about how we should listen to a preacher, including the one standing here?

Part 5 — The Bible in our own language

Discuss: What difference does it make that you can hold a Bible in your own language and read it at home?

• Latin. Before the Reformation the Bible read in church was in Latin. Most ordinary people could not understand it.
• German. After Worms, Luther’s friends hid him in a castle called the Wartburg. There he translated the New Testament into German. It was printed in September 1522.
• English. William Tyndale translated the New Testament into English. It was printed in 1526. He was arrested and executed near Brussels in 1536. Much of his wording was carried into the King James Version of 1611.
• The Bibles in our pews today stand in that line.

Part 6 — The five “alones”

Discuss: Has anyone heard of the five solas? Sola is Latin for “alone.”

The Reformers used each of these phrases. Gathering them into a list of five came later, as a teaching summary.

Latin	Meaning	One Bible passage
Sola Scriptura	Scripture alone is our final authority	2 Timothy 3:16–17
Sola gratia	Salvation is by grace alone	Ephesians 2:8
Sola fide	We are justified through faith alone	Galatians 2:16
Solus Christus	Salvation is in Christ alone	Galatians 2:16
Soli Deo gloria	All glory belongs to God alone	Ephesians 2:9

Read: Ephesians 2:8–9. “For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God—not by works, so that no one can boast.”

Read: Galatians 2:16. “know that a man is not justified by observing the law, but by faith in Jesus Christ. So we, too, have put our faith in Christ Jesus that we may be justified by faith in Christ and not by observing the law, because by observing the law no one will be justified.”

Discuss: Which “alone” do you find hardest to believe about yourself? Why?

Part 7 — From Wittenberg to Boatswain Bay

Discuss: What does the word “Presbyterian” mean? Is it the same as “Reformed”?

People often mix up three words. Each one names a different thing.

Word	What it names	Where we see it
Presbyterian	How the church is governed: by elders (Greek presbyteroi)	Our session of elders, our presbytery, our General Assembly
Reformed	What the church believes	The Westminster Confession and Catechisms in the back of the Trinity Hymnal
Covenantal	How God deals with us: by covenant and promise	The legal promise (“do this and live”) and the gospel promise (Christ has done it, now live in Him); the five “alones” in Part 6

A church can be Presbyterian in government and drift from Reformed doctrine. A church can hold Reformed doctrine with another form of government. Boatswain Bay holds all three.

Discuss: Why is there a Presbyterian church in Boatswain Bay?

• Geneva. John Calvin taught in Geneva, Switzerland, from the 1530s.
• Scotland. John Knox studied in Geneva. He returned to Scotland in 1559, and Scotland’s Reformation followed in 1560. The Church of Scotland was governed by elders.
• The Covenanters. In 1638 the Scots signed the National Covenant. They bound themselves to God and to one another, and they held that Jesus Christ alone is head of the church. The people who signed were called Covenanters.
• Westminster. In 1643 the English Parliament called the Westminster Assembly. Scottish commissioners sat in it. It wrote the Westminster Confession of Faith and the Catechisms. The Shorter Catechism was finished on November 25, 1647. The Confession says, “God alone is Lord of the conscience” (chapter 20, section 2). England later set these documents aside. Scotland kept them, and through Scotland they reached Presbyterian churches around the world, including ours.
• The first settlers. Cromwell defeated the Scots at Dunbar in 1650 and at Worcester in 1651. Many Scottish prisoners were sold into Barbados as indentured servants in 1652. In 1655 Cromwell’s fleet recruited men in Barbados and took Jamaica. Around 1658, two men named Watler and Bodden left Jamaica and settled in Cayman. Mr. Bertie wrote in Cayman Emerges that among the original settlers were Scots who came by way of Barbados and had belonged to the army of the Covenanters.
• The mission. In 1846 James Elmslie came from Jamaica, sent by the United Presbyterian Church of Scotland. For the next fifty years the Presbyterians had the spiritual oversight of the island to themselves. Catechists such as Frederick McTaggart and James Panton kept school and taught the faith in the districts.
• Boatswain Bay. On Sunday, November 23, 1930, Bertie Ebanks and his sister Elizabeth walked three miles from West Bay to Uncle Billy Allen’s yard. Seven children came. They met under a sea grape tree for seven years.
• How we became PCA. The Sunday school separated from the West Bay church in 1958–59. Mr. Bertie wrote to World Presbyterian Missions after reading a Miami newspaper. David Calhoun came in 1961 as a seminary student. The mission’s denomination joined the Presbyterian Church in America in 1982.
• The last one left. In 1965 the Presbyterian churches of Jamaica and Grand Cayman joined the United Church. Boatswain Bay had already gone its own way. It is now the only Presbyterian church in the Cayman Islands.
• Founders Day is November 22. This year is the 96th anniversary.

Discuss: What would we lose if the Reformation had never happened?

Discuss: Who were the people in your family who taught you the faith?

Part 8 — Does it still matter today?

Discuss: Many of our neighbours and family are Roman Catholic. How should we talk with them about this?

• Rome’s answer. Rome answered the Reformers at the Council of Trent (1545–1563). Its decree on justification (1547) is still official Roman Catholic teaching.
• Assurance. Trent says no one can know “with a certainty of faith” that he has obtained God’s grace (Session 6, chapter 9). The Reformers said the believer can rest on God’s promise in Christ. Sunday’s sermon takes this up from Romans 4.
• Fairness. Speak about what Rome teaches in Rome’s own words. Speak about our Catholic neighbours as people we love.

Read: 1 Peter 3:15. “But in your hearts set apart Christ as Lord. Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have. But do this with gentleness and respect,”

Discuss: The Reformers said the church must keep being reformed by the Word of God. Where does our church need to keep being reformed? Where do I?

Sunday, November 1, is Reformation Sunday. We will open Romans 4:13–25.

In Luther’s own words

“Even though we are now in faith, the heart is always ready to boast itself before God and say, ‘After all, I have preached the law, lived so well, and done so much that surely He will take this into account.’ We even want to haggle with God to make Him regard our life, but it can not be done. With men you may boast, I have done the best I could toward everyone. If anything is lacking, I will still try to make recompense, but when you come before God, leave all that boasting at home. Remember to appeal from justice into grace. But let anybody try this; and he will see and experience how exceedingly hard and bitter a thing it is for a man, who all his life, has been marred and has worked righteousness to pull himself out of it and with all his heart would rise up through faith in the one mediator. I myself have been preaching and cultivating it through reading and writing for almost twenty years and still feel the old clinging dirt of wanting to deal so with God that I may contribute something so that He will have to give me his grace in exchange for my holiness. Still I can not get it into my head that I should surrender myself completely to sheer grace, yet I know that this is what I should and must do.”

— Martin Luther, sermon on 1 Timothy 1:5–7, “The Sum of the Christian Life,” preached at Wörlitz in 1532 (Luther’s Works, vol. 51)

Key dates

• 1483: Luther born in Saxony
• 1517: the 95 Theses (October 31)
• 1518: Augsburg
• 1521: Worms
• 1522: German New Testament
• 1526: Tyndale’s English New Testament
• 1560: Scotland’s Reformation
• 1638: the National Covenant in Scotland
• 1646–1647: Westminster Confession and Shorter Catechism
• About 1658: first settlers in Cayman
• 1846: Presbyterian mission to Cayman
• 1930: Boatswain Bay Sunday School begins
• 1982: Boatswain Bay’s denomination joins the PCA

Further reading

Two of my essays here on The Jack Miller Project go further into the Reformation.

• “Reformation in Context: Political Power, Ecclesial Authority, and the Gospel” (May 22, 2025). The popes, kings and councils of the Reformation, and the question of who rules the church and the conscience. Read the essay
• “Popes, Presidents, and the Kingdom of God: Why Christ Still Wears the Only Crown” (May 17, 2025). The story of kingship from Eden to Christ, and what the Reformers taught about Christ as King of the church. Read the essay

Bible quotations are checked against the NIV 1984. The Psalm 32 quotation follows the NIV 1984, which prints “LORD” in capitals.