David H. Splane: The “Slave” Is Not 1900 Years Old (Matt. 24:45)

Luther's That Jesus Christ Was Born a Jew explicitly expresses hope for Jewish conversion.

The unqualified claim erases a major chronological change. Luther's later hostility is amply documented, but it cannot establish that he consistently regarded Jewish conversion as impossible.

In 1523 Luther urged different treatment of Jews partly in the expectation that some might become Christians. By 1543 he advocated severe repression and expressed bitter disappointment. These positions must be distinguished rather than compressed into 'could never.'

Luther's 1522 New Testament includes both Hebrews and James, alongside prefaces expressing his reservations.

The authentic quotation does not substantiate the stronger assertion that Luther rejected these books from his Bible. He questioned their apostolic standing and theological value while retaining them. Describing the issue simply as rejecting passages that displeased him also substitutes a motive judgment for his stated arguments.

In 1522 Luther called James an 'epistle of straw' in comparison with writings he considered especially effective in presenting Christ. His prefaces discuss apostolic authorship and theological tensions. Hebrews is anonymous; modern critical scholarship generally rejects Pauline authorship, so the talk's description of the disputed material as 'Paul's writings' is also problematic.

Calvin, Institutes, book III, chapter 21, distinguishes the election of a people from the election of particular persons.

This converts a complex doctrine of election into collective national salvation or damnation. No source is supplied, and the formulation misrepresents the doctrines being used to explain Protestant missionary behavior.

Reformation theologians discussed biblical Israel, collective election, providence, and differing national access to preaching. Those discussions are not equivalent to teaching that every member of a particular nation has one predetermined eternal destination. Calvin explicitly distinguishes collective privileges from individual election.

Calvin devotes Institutes, book IV, chapter 16, to defending infant baptism through biblical argument.

The talk replaces the reformers' actual arguments with an imagined concession to tradition. Whether their biblical arguments succeed is a separate interpretive question; it is historically inaccurate to present their normal defense as knowingly unsupported by Scripture.

Defenders appealed to covenant continuity, circumcision, household baptisms, and Jesus' reception of children. Standard translations do not contain an explicit command to baptize infants, but the absence of such a command is not equivalent to the reformers admitting that no biblical case existed.

Eric Ives, The Life and Death of Anne Boleyn, treats her fall as a contested court-political crisis, not an established corporate Church of England response to discovering Bible patronage.

The speaker turns a contested political-religious explanation into a simple institutional persecution story. Anne had conservative enemies, but her fall involved Henry, Cromwell, court politics, succession concerns, and fabricated or highly doubtful criminal allegations. Her evangelical connections were not merely a newly discovered secret.

Anne supported religious reform and evangelical personnel. Historians debate the relative roles of Cromwell, Henry, factional conflict, and religious policy in her execution. Cranmer, the archbishop of Canterbury and himself a reformer, expressed shock and praised her previous support.

Carey's Enquiry argues vigorously for foreign missions from within a Calvinistic Baptist setting.

This is a monocausal explanation with an invalid implication: a predetermined end can be understood as occurring through appointed means, including preaching. The talk does not demonstrate that the named reformers personally reasoned 'why bother?' from predestination.

Historians also identify limited overseas access, political insecurity, institutional resources, and views about the continuing scope of the apostolic commission. Reformed Christians participated in overseas ventures, and later Calvinists such as Carey became major missionary organizers.

The New Cambridge History of the Bible, volume 2, documents medieval biblical transmission through manuscripts, vernacular texts, liturgy, and preaching.

The material barriers were real, but the argument equates lack of personal ownership or Latin literacy with lack of access to biblical instruction. It also moves from western Europe to a conclusion about Christianity over nineteen centuries. The insinuation that the source was effectively unavailable is substantially stronger than the evidence permits.

Complete manuscript Bibles could be costly, but biblical books also circulated separately. Medieval Christians encountered biblical material through readings, sermons, devotional works, and translations. Eastern Christian communities used several languages other than Latin.

Luther, The Babylonian Captivity of the Church, defends the continued reality of bread and wine while affirming Christ's bodily presence.

The speaker correctly distinguishes Luther's real-presence theology from Zwingli's commemorative emphasis and correctly notes Luther's opposition to the Mass as a propitiatory work. However, 'become' and 'just not a sacrifice' obscure important differences from Roman Catholic teaching.

Luther's sacramental theology affirms Christ's body and blood with the bread and wine rather than requiring the bread and wine to cease being bread and wine. He expressly criticized transubstantiation as a compulsory explanation.

The approximate date is sound. It does not establish the subsequent theological inference that biblical instruction was unavailable before printing.

Surviving Gutenberg Bibles provide material evidence for production in the mid-1450s. Manuscript copying, public reading, preaching, and other forms of transmission preceded printed editions.

The comparative institutional point is broadly correct. Nevertheless, maritime access, imperial sponsorship, resources, and religious orders also explain the difference. Activity cannot simply measure sincerity. The unidentified historian's quotation cannot be checked in context.

Catholic missions expanded greatly through Portuguese and Spanish networks. Christian communities had reached China centuries earlier through the Church of the East, so the rhetorical question about who brought the gospel into China requires chronological qualification.

This presents an organizational doctrinal revision as the necessary outcome of historical inquiry. A selective survey of medieval access and Reformation controversies cannot prove that no qualifying teacher or group existed anywhere across nineteen centuries. The unstated criteria also allow unspecified anointed individuals to exist while excluding them from the organizational category of the slave.

Matthew's passage contrasts faithful and abusive servants in an eschatological exhortation. Mainstream critical interpretation does not derive from it a uniquely identifiable modern governing body or a nineteen-century gap in its existence. The 2013 Watchtower formulation identifies the slave with a small group appointed in the modern period; that is a Jehovah's Witness doctrinal interpretation, not an independently established historical finding.

The broad identification is defensible, but it compresses different theological systems into one formula. In particular, election and condemnation were not always treated as symmetrical divine decisions. The shared label does not by itself explain their attitudes toward evangelism.

Wycliffe defined the true church in relation to the predestined; Calvin systematically discussed election and reprobation; Luther emphasized divine sovereignty and denied autonomous human choice in salvation; Zwingli developed a strong providential theology. Their differences matter when drawing behavioral conclusions.

The central persecution claim is well documented and should not be dismissed. However, the dramatic presentation blurs the roles of magistrates and theologians, adds an unattributed speech, and incorrectly equates believers' baptism with a universal insistence on immersion.

Felix Manz was drowned by Zurich authorities in January 1527. Early Anabaptist practice included pouring as well as immersion. Their defining dispute concerned baptism following personal faith rather than the exclusive use of one baptismal mode.

Luther's preface to Robert Barnes's confession honors Barnes after his execution, contradicting a blanket claim of German evangelical rejoicing.

Different reactions to different executions are possible, but the speaker supplies no instance. Generalizing about 'the German evangelicals' erases significant differences among both the victims and their continental observers.

Henry executed evangelicals including Robert Barnes in 1540. Barnes had substantial Lutheran connections, and Luther publicly honored him following his execution rather than rejoicing at his death.