What is at the heart of the Reformation?

Paul Thompson explains that the heart of the Reformation involved rediscovering the necessity of the sufficiency of Scripture. We have been given the very words of God. They are wholly true and completely trustworthy.

A need for reformation indicates a need for a return to the only source of authority, God’s Word. There are various seasons where reformation is needed. If there is a need to reform the Church, we must look to Scripture to determine what God desires and commands instead of merely looking to see how the previous generation did certain things. We cannot base our actions and beliefs upon the ever-changing standards that man decides to be right. 

Acts 4:12 (NKJV) – “Nor is there salvation in any other, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved.”

You know, at the very heart of anything that needs to be reformed is there has to be a rediscovery of where things began. And so at the heart of Reformation has to be a search for who we are from the beginning. So it really comes down to the necessity of the sufficiency of Scripture. We have been given to us a reliable, trustworthy copy of the very Word of God. And that needs to be the place where we start the formation of what we do.

So to reform something at that level is indicating that something has happened along the way that has moved or shifted away from that original place. So at the heart of it is we need to get into the place of its origin, the beginning. With the starting of a Reformation, there's seasons and times where reforming needs to happen. The clarity of when it needs to happen is when there's a clear movement away from where we should be. So if there's a need to reform the church in her methodology, say the way that she plants churches or the way that she ministers to the family, She has to ask deeper questions and older questions than just what did my parents do or how did the previous generation do something.