"Sacred Roots: Faith at the Stake: Michael Sattler and the Cost of Discipleship" by Finny Kuruvilla

The one may be overpowered by another, two can withstand him, and a threefold cord is not quickly broken.

Welcome to Strength to Strength. Our mission here is to advance Jesus' kingdom. One of the ways we're doing that is through faith-building testimonies. And so we have today a testimony of a story of someone in the past. This isn't a personal testimony, but it's a history of Michael Sattler and his life and writings by Brother Finney Crivella.

And I want to mention that Finney's book, King Jesus Claims His Church. I should hold one up here, but I think mine's loaned out currently. We want to promote this book especially for our upcoming series that will be around the theme of radical living in the 21st century, and that's building on our Sacred Roots series.

So Finney's book, King Jesus Claims His Church, is currently 10% off on Strength to Strength books, so you can go there and find that there.

So back to our talk for today. We're happy to have Brother Finney Crivella on to share the story of Michael Sattler, a man who had a short life with a large impact. This talk will examine the life and thought of Michael Sattler within the context of the early 1500s, highlighting the Schleithaim Confession as a formative theological statement. Sattler's witness and martyrdom illuminates the ethical and ecclesial costs of discipleship amid 16th-century religious upheaval. And like usual, we'll have a time for question and answer at the end.

So why don't we have a prayer, and then I will turn it over to Finney. So let's pray this morning.

Father, I thank you for your goodness. Thank you for your mercies again this morning, and I thank you for the fellowship of the saints that we can experience in this way through this way of connecting digitally. But I also thank you for saints in the past who can look at their lives and be challenged and inspired and maybe convicted to be followers of Jesus, to be disciples, to live as Jesus lived. I just pray as we think about the life of Michael Sattler today that that can be a reality for us. We pray that your kingdom would come and your will be done, and that this time spent here could be towards that end. I pray your blessing on Brother Finney as he shares and all of us as we think together.

May you be glorified. In Jesus' name, amen.

Amen. Thank you, Brother Wendell. Yeah, it's a real honor to be with you all here speaking about a person whom I admire very much, Michael Sattler. As you heard earlier, I began studying him in 2009 when we were attending a conservative Anabaptist church, and he has continued to be a significant influence in my life. And so with that, I'd just like to begin with the presentation that I have.

It's entitled The Contributions of Michael Sattler. And what I'd like to do is first set the stage with just looking at a map. I'm the type of person who, if I don't have some orientation, it's hard for me. It's hard for me to understand exactly what's going on and the context. These are a number of the key cities that are good to know for studying early Anabaptism and the early Reformation.

So just looking at a number of these cities, up here on the upper right is Wittenberg, and that's, of course, where Martin Luther would nail the famous 95 theses to the cathedral door back in 1517. And then the Reformation, of course, quickly spread because of the power of the printing press. Another key figure and key person who contributed to the Reformation, the saying is that he laid the egg that Luther hatched, was Erasmus, who was working in Basel, and he was the one who had had the Greek New Testament published. And it is very difficult to overstate how important the study of the original languages were for the Reformation and for early Anabaptism. It was very, very powerful because people could suddenly read directly the New Testament, not reading it through the Vulgate, but read it in the original language, and that created a very powerful, fresh appreciation of the scriptures.

It is one of the many reasons why I encourage the study of Greek and Hebrew, is that there's something about that power of studying the Bible in the original languages that things come alive, and it is truly one of the great stories of the Reformation. Conrad Grebel was a very good Greek scholar. He was widely appreciated to be one of the top Greek scholars alive at the time who would greatly admire Erasmus and himself be quite accomplished in his Greek work. The other two cities here that are specifically marked are Zurich.

Zurich is, of course, where Zwingli was, and Zwingli was one of the early leaders of the Reformation who, with great enthusiasm, was adopting many of the principles that had flowed down from Wittenberg here. And he attracted a group of young people, mostly in their 20s, and the most important three would be Conrad Grebel, Felix Mons, and George Blauroch. And there, as they sat at his feet and were basically discipled by him, they wanted to press into the conclusions of the Reformation. And in particular, the main thing that they began with was the Mass and how to think about the Mass. The Mass was the focal point for Grebel, especially in his early years as he really retrieved and unpacked something called the Regular Principle, which basically says that unless there is sanction or warrant from the New Testament, then we shouldn't be worshiping God in man-made ways.

And so for that reason, the Mass was rejected with many of its trappings early on, and Grebel, in particular, was quite strong on the importance of returning to these New Testament forms of worship. However, Zwingli was not as keen to be as radical as this group of youngsters were. And so back in 1523, they had a parting of ways where Zwingli basically said, "Let's not rock the boat too much. We don't really need to abolish the Mass yet." And that marked a major event, certainly in the history of Anabaptism, where the three young people, Mons, Grebel, Blauroch, were disillusioned and began to meet on their own. And interestingly, baptism, as I said, was not the first issue.

It was really the Mass that began as they wanted to recover the New Testament practices on worship. And then later on, attention moved towards baptism. Geneva is mentioned here because this is the city where John Calvin would be, and Calvin is, of course, one of the other primary leaders. You can see these three little faces here for those who are looking at it on video. For those who are only listening by audio, it's worth just noting here that all of these cities were located not in the country of Germany or the country of Switzerland. That would be anachronistic. They all resided in a territory known as the Holy Roman Empire, which really is a confederation of various city-states and almost a confederation of princes and various networks there.

And so we really shouldn't speak about the country of Germany or the country of Switzerland at this time. Voltaire had the famous quip that the Holy Roman Empire was neither holy nor Roman nor an empire, which is true. But this lasted for over a thousand years until Napoleon. And one cannot understand the history of the Reformation without understanding all of the complex dynamics within the Holy Roman Empire. So yeah, so Zurich, as I mentioned, was really the key city where Anabaptism was born. Of course, this is in modern-day Switzerland.

But I want to also point out, because the topic of our session this morning is Michael Sattler, I want to point out the connection that he has to Grebel, Mons, and Blauroch. So to recap so far, just some of the high levels now that we have talked about the map, from 1517 onward, from Luther's work there at Wittenberg, the ideas of the Reformation are swirling in the air, and they are rapidly being disseminated, as I mentioned, because of the printing press. And Grebel, Mons, and Blauroch were initially these very enthusiastic supporters of Zwingli, but split over the issue of the Mass, not over baptism yet.

It was about two years later, it was January 17th, 1525, that they held a debate, a public debate on the issue of infant baptism. Zwingli took the side of being in favor of infant baptism. So this was an even more deepening of the rift between Zwingli and his students, his former students, Grebel, Mons, and Blauroch.

And in this public disputation, the verdict was that infant baptism would prevail and that everyone had eight days in order to have their young children baptized, their young babies baptized. Grebel himself had a daughter who had not yet been baptized, and so this was what forced the issue.

This particular conclusion there in Zurich made people basically choose sides. Are you going to submit to the council's decision and have your babies baptized, or are you going to reject that? And that's why the famous date, January 21, 1525, four days later, we have the first rebaptism as George Blauroch asks Conrad Grebel to baptize him. You might wonder on why it was then. Well, now you know why. It was because it was just four days after this eight-day window in which they were really forced to make a decision here.

And as they were deliberating there, this was what catalyzed these mostly 20-somethings to make the decision to take a rebaptism. And of course, the name Anabaptist means baptized again. Ana in Greek means again, and of course, baptized means to be water baptized. And so they took the second baptism as adults after their infant baptism. And very quickly, this fledgling Anabaptist movement spreads their message in the areas around Zurich. And I want to highlight this point.

I know many of you know this, but it is worth repeating. I am struck by this continually whenever I study, especially that first generation, including Sattler, is they were people who were very, very committed to evangelism, discipleship, and church planning. I mean, within weeks to months, they are on the move, traveling in surrounding areas in order to have their message spread. And they know that it's dangerous. I told you there was this council decision on January 17th saying that you must have your children be baptized there. And so in the face of this edict, they were out preaching their message about repent, believe, and be baptized in contradiction to that.

And they found a hearing. And so they saw growth in many of the cities around Zurich, many of the cities and towns around Zurich, which led to a counter-reaction. The authorities said, "Well, wait a minute, you're not obeying our verdict. And in fact, not only are you not obeying what we told you to do, you are teaching others to contradict our decision." And so this led to an important move, which was in March of 1526. So you can see that's roughly a year later, the three leaders were sentenced to life imprisonment. And they were supposed to be put in prison where for the rest of their life, they would only be allowed to eat bread and drink water, a very sad punishment.

However, they escaped just two weeks later. And this is another thing that you'll find is that there was not as tight security as we would have today, and so often leaders would escape or Anabaptists would escape. And what do they do? They return right back to their evangelism, their discipleship, and their church planting.

And again, they are just relentless. You might think, "Wow, I just escaped from a life sentence. I need to get far away here and just lay low." But that is the exact opposite of what they did. However, when they went back, when people like Grebel, Mons, Blauroch went back to the various places that they had already evangelized and discipled, what they found was often disappointing.

The movement was clearly splintering, and you had dissent on some key issues. So Balthasar Hugemeyer, he claimed that the use of the sword was valid. So even though he was an Anabaptist, and in fact, he was a very educated Anabaptist who made a strong case against infant baptism, he disagreed on a key tenet here.

Many within the Anabaptist movement had become very mystical and spiritual. Some even rejected the use of the New Testament. Some denied the validity of the Lord's Supper and baptism. Almost a Gnostic-type impulse there. Hans Hutt, another early Anabaptist, preaches that, "Subjects should murder all the authorities for the opportune time has arrived."

There was this sense that many Anabaptists had that the end of the world was near and that it was the opportunity to bring the kingdom of God on earth through force. And so Grebel, Mons, and Blauroch saw this and were quite horrified at this splintering and all of the differences. And they themselves were not recognized or appreciated. They were called names. They were rejected. And so the whole movement here was looking quite fragile and in a place of weakness. From illness, Grebel, who I would say was the most important, and I think this would be consensus, the most important of those early leaders, he dies in the summer of 1526. Okay, so try to keep the timelines in your mind clear here.

That baptism was January 21, 1525. And so just roughly a year and a half later, he dies from illness. And he's less than 30 years old at his death. But this is very important because he is a very accomplished Bible scholar. He knows Greek. He knows the principles of what created early Anabaptism. And he, sadly, is taken out of this world. Mons is martyred by drowning on January 5th, 1527, so less than two years after that January 21 rebaptism date. And so we have Grebel and Mons, two of the preeminent leaders who are very quickly taken out.

Blauroch will die a couple of years later, but he's on the move. It is not looking promising at this point. One of the things that I'll say too that has helped me to understand early Anabaptist history, and I will say that one of the burdens that I have is especially people who have Anabaptist history, that they would study their history.

It is an amazing history with so many people to admire, so many lessons to learn. I have found in general that it's good to learn a few bite-sized vignettes and to make those almost like anchor points, and then you fill out after you have some of these anchor points. And at Sattler College, where I've had the opportunity to teach, there's a useful website. You can either Google it or the link is shown on the screen here, where there's several bite-sized vignettes that'll take you less than five minutes to read. And if you were to go through each of those per day, you would have a really nice framework built out. So this was something that faculty and students collaborated on in order to celebrate the 500-year anniversary of that January 21, 1525 baptism that happened last year.

So I would encourage you to do that, and I would encourage you to invest in reading the history. It is very profitable. It's not always easy, but it is profitable. I'm going to give you some recommendations at the end about specifically for Sattler about how to start. Okay, now turning to Michael Sattler.

So here is shown a map, and this map actually has the borders of modern-day Germany on it. And for those who can see on the screen, in the southwest portion, there's an oval that has a dark green around it.

And that is the Black Forest. This is a very important area for many reasons. It is where the Danube River begins that flows eastward toward the Black Sea. It's very important historically. This is where Sattler would go on to become a monk in the Black Forest. Now, we know very little about Sattler's life. It's almost surprising how little we know about his life. And you have to do a lot of patchwork, a lot of educated guessing, a lot of grabbing statements from diverse sources in order to put together even a very rudimentary construction of his life. One can do it, but it's not particularly robust. And as I said, there's a lot of guesswork that is here.

We don't know when he was born. Sometime around 1490 is the consensus. And he becomes a prior of a Benedictine monastery of St. Peter's in the Black Forest. Now, you might wonder, what is a prior? The way that these monasteries were structured, the most high-ranking position would be called an abbot, an abbot of a monastery. The second-ranking position is called a prior.

And so Sattler is recorded not from himself, but from another contemporary that he was a prior of this monastery. And so that's significant because we know that there was a lot of moral decay in these monasteries. Luther famously was an Augustinian monk who was very disillusioned with what he had experienced in the monastery. Now, we wish we knew about Sattler's experience there. We don't, unfortunately, so we're taking only a guess. But it is likely, at least, that some of that disillusionment happened to him there. He leaves sometime in the year 1525. For those who know the history, of course, I mentioned before, this is when that first baptism has happened. But he's in Germany. He's not in Zurich when that baptism happens.

It's probable that he leaves because of the peasants' revolt. The peasants' revolt was an uprising where peasants who were treated very poorly, who were very disenfranchised, who were heavily taxed, who had just complete abandonment by those who should be protecting them and leading them, they were quite trampled. They ended up revolting, and they actually took over the monastery, St. Peter's, that Michael Sattler would have been prior of. And so, again, we know very little here, but sometime that year, they take over, and he ends up leaving. And we do have record that he ends up in Zurich later in that year. Now, we don't know if he encountered Grebel, Mons, and Blauroch there. It's likely that he did.

We don't have any records of that. But given how important they were for the early Anabaptist, it is at least likely that he did. He himself, Sattler himself, would be rebaptized, not then, but only until somewhere around mid-1526, maybe around July of 1526. And that's based on various letters that we have from others. We don't know who baptized him or any of the details around that. Again, very, very sparse information that we have. But we do know that later on in 1526, and this becomes very important as we're going to see, he appeals to two Protestants, Martin Bucer and Wolfgang Capito, in Strasbourg on behalf of fellow Anabaptists who were apparently in prison there.

And so now he's in Strasbourg. Strasbourg was known to be a more tolerant city. And Bucer and Capito, we have letters back and forth between Sattler and them. And I'm going to read to you from Sattler who's written to them later on in the presentation. But he's appealing to them. And then in February of 1527, he oversees the document has different names, but it's sometimes called the Schleifheim Confession or the Schleifheim Brotherly Union is probably the more accurate term.

And then he's ultimately captured. He's captured by Catholics. He's put on trial with other Anabaptists, and he is killed on May 20th, 1527. Which, if you pay attention, that means that he has only been an Anabaptist for less than a year. So baptized somewhere in the summer of 1526, and he's killed just a year later. So a very short period of ministry, at least as an Anabaptist, which is quite remarkable.

So what are some of Sattler's contributions? So as I mentioned, his ministry was so short, it was less than a year, that it's hard to build a lot on that. But I will say this, and this we do know with a high degree of certainty, that from the time of his rebaptism as an adult there, he did intense evangelism, discipleship, and church planting, just like we saw with that original trio of leaders.

You see this again and again and again and again with the early Anabaptism, is that once they learn, once they come to believe these truths, they go out and they preach, they share, they disciple. Sattler was very much in that stream.

His martyrdom, which is just an absolutely remarkable event, was a poignant example of joyful suffering under duress. He conducted his trial in Latin. So we do know that he must have been well-educated. The Hutterite Chronicle records that he was familiar with Latin and Hebrew.

And so he was certainly well-educated. He was obviously a leader. He was speaking on behalf of those who were in trial. And he was found guilty, and they decided they would cut out his tongue. They would tear out his flesh with hot tongs in seven places, and then he would be burned at the stake. And he did it with such joy, with such character, that this actually became a signature moment for Anabaptism to see one of the great leaders die with such grace. Now, I think I will agree with John Howard Yoder, who has noted that his greatest contribution is probably his crystallization of Anabaptist principles.

And this happens in a couple of places. It happens early on, as he writes to Bucer and Capito, but certainly the pinnacle of that is the Schleifheim Confession or the Schleifheim Brotherly Union. So crystallization is a great term.

My PhD is in chemistry, and so it's something that I've done a lot of in the lab. And what you will do is you'll take a solution, and there's something that you're trying to purify, but it's mixed with other things. And if you can correctly do it, a crystallization is where you have something where the molecules are spinning in the solution in a disordered manner.

But in crystallization, you will get them to come into an order. And once there is order, then other molecules will join with that seed of order, and then it grows and grows and grows. And it's a very powerful motif because out of disorder, you have order. That order catalyzes more order. And then in the lab, what we would do often is you would take that solution and you would pour it over a filter, and all of the contaminants that were in the liquid would pour away, and you're left with a solid material that would be on the filter paper. And that's considered one of the best ways to purify a substance is through crystallization.

And so Grebel, at least that we have any record of, Grebel, for all of his greatness, doesn't crystallize early Anabaptism. If you have a chance, it is fascinating to read. What we really have from Grebel are his letters where he's writing to various people, and you can see his thought develop over the years that we have his letters. But we don't have that crystallization. Mons doesn't do it. It is Sattler who does this. And so this is what Sattler we should celebrate the most. Of course, the ministry that he did, I'm sure, was significant. Certainly, his martyrdom is one of the most admirable examples of dying and suffering well for Christ. However, in terms of his enduring effect, it was his crystallization of these early Anabaptist principles, particularly because by this time, in May of 2027, when he's killed, Grebel is dead.

Felix Mons is dead. Who is going to be leading? What is this going to be like? And we really need to have these principles distilled because you have Anabaptism going in all these directions and a lot of confusion that's happening there.

I want to use this scripture as a little bit of an inspiration. When I read Acts 14, I think this, to me, is just the kind of zeal and the kind of pressing into evangelism that we should have, and it's certainly what the Anabaptists modeled. So I'll read this here. "Then Jews from Antioch and Iconium came there, and having persuaded the multitudes, they stoned Paul and dragged him out of the city, supposing him to be dead.

However, when the disciples gathered around him, he rose up and went into the city. And the next day, he departed with Barnabas to Derby. And when they had preached the gospel to that city and made many disciples, they returned to Lystra, Iconium, and Antioch, strengthening the souls of the disciples, exhorting them to continue in the faith and saying, 'We must, through many tribulations, enter the kingdom of God.'" Now, I hope you caught this. This was Acts 14, verses 19 to 22.

In verse 19, it says that Paul was stoned, and he was stoned so severely, it appeared at least like he was dead. But what does it say in verse 20? The disciples kind of inspect and try to figure out what's going on. And in fact, he's not dead. He gets up. And the next day, he goes to Derby and preaches there. You might think, "I'm injured. I need to take a break. Time to take a little holiday on the Black Sea or go back to Antioch and rest for a while." No, he gets up and he goes the next day and preaches there. And I love how when he sums up and he returns back to those cities, these are the cities of Galatia, the famous letter to the Galatians was written to.

What is the one line that we have when he exhorts them to continue in the faith? It's that we must, through many tribulations, enter the kingdom of God. And I think this passage is so iconic for me about the book of Acts and early Anabaptism, this theme of relentless suffering evangelism, persevering through tribulations. This is what marked Grebel, Mons, Blauroch, and Sattler.

So what I want to do for the second half here is talk about his writings. Because we know so little about Sattler's life, we really have to rely more on his writings. The earliest extant writing that we have from Sattler is his letter to Bucer and Capito. And we're actually going to read the whole letter in a few minutes here.

I think it's so worthwhile to read these sources for yourself. As I mentioned, I have a burden, especially for those who have Anabaptist heritage, to encourage them to read for themselves some of these primary sources. The next writing that we have is the Schleifheim Confession. This is from February of 1527. And then finally, we have Sattler's letter to the church at Horbe, where he writes while imprisoned. So we really only have these three writings. That's it. But they're very significant. Now, we have four documents from his trial. We have one pretrial account, and then we have three independent accounts of the actual trial proceedings, but none of them were written by him. They're still useful because we can get a sense of how he behaved and what he said, but they're not from his own pen.

I will say there are some tracks that are attributed to him. Our confidence is much lower that they are by Sattler himself. I'll mention them. One of them is on divorce. There's a handful of them, and I'll give you some references at the end if you want to look at them. But because we're not really confident that they're from him, we're not going to dwell on them. The three canonical sources, if you will, the letter to Bucer and Capito, Schleifheim, and the letter to Horbe are really where we should be spending our time. And I think, in general, because we have such sketchy reconstruction, it's better to major and to focus on the writings of Sattler.

I think that's where we can really learn him best. Now, I want us to read, as I said, the whole of the Bucer and Capito letter. And I think it'll give us a good feel for who Sattler is, what his heartbeat is. And I know when I read him and just those three writings, even though they're not particularly long, it'll take you to read all of his writings, it'll take you 20 or 30 minutes. It won't take you long.

I'm excluding some of those tracks there, but those three core writings, but they are so powerful. Now, Bucer and Capito, I mentioned before, they are in Strasbourg. This is this more tolerant city that Sattler goes to, and he's appealing to them to release some Anabaptists who are in prison. Now, Strasbourg, because it was more tolerant, Calvin had been there.

Later on, he would be there. Anabaptists would go there. And it was somewhat of a place of discussion and sorting out of ideas. Hans Denk had been there. He had been exiled from the city. But at this moment, at least, there are some Anabaptists who are in prison there. And interestingly, the verse that Bucer and Capito seem to be emphasizing is the following. It's 1 Timothy 1:5, where it says, "Now the purpose of the commandment is love from a pure heart, from a good conscience, and from sincere faith."

Okay, so what they say again and again is, "Hey, this is all about love. Christianity is all about love. The purpose of Christianity is love." And they use that in their debating with Anabaptists, and we'll see Sattler writes about this, to say, "Don't be so stuck on some of these particular issues. Just be a loving person." Now, this should sound a lot like what you hear today.

When you go and have conversations with people today about, pick whatever the topic is that you're passionate about, you will hear as probably your first or second item of pushback is, "Hey, all that matters is love. Why are you so nitpicky and Pharisaical about all these things?" Well, that goes way back to the 1500s, even before that. But certainly, in the Anabaptist movement, this verse and the sentiment was used again and again. So that's the context. And again, I think the best way to experience Sattler is to read Sattler. And so we're going to do that now. So I'm going to read this, and then I'll make some comments. So it's split here over several slides, so I'll take it slowly here.

So here is the earliest writing that we have from Michael Sattler's hand. "Grace and peace from God our Father through Jesus Christ our Savior. Dear brothers in God, as I recently spoke with you in brotherly moderation and friendliness on several points, which I together with my brothers and sisters have understood out of the scripture, namely out of the New Testament, and you for your part, as the ones asked, answered in similar moderation and friendliness as follows.

Paul writes in 1 Timothy 1 that love is the end of the commandment, wherefore it is necessary that all of the commands of God be guided by the same. I'm not able to so conceive in my understanding and conscience that this may be done as you do it with every point, namely with baptism, the Lord's Supper, force or the sword, the oath, the ban, and all the commandments of God. What hinders me is the following." Okay, so before I go on, let me comment here.

So number one, you can see that Sattler writes in a cordial manner. He's saying, "Dear brothers in God." It's not a hostile opening. And he's saying that we spoke in a brotherly way and friendliness on several points. And you notice that Sattler, in general, is an organized thinker. And I'll show you this more, but he will organize things under headings, points, articles. And that is why he was able to crystallize Anabaptism.

And he says here, "You are citing this verse, 1 Timothy 1, about love." And he's saying, "Yeah, I of course agree that love is very important and is the end of the commandment. But when it comes to the particular applications, we don't agree." And he lists baptism, the Lord's Supper, sword, oath, etc. Okay, so that's how it opens.

How does he continue? And he makes a list of points here. Number one, "Christ came to save all of those who would believe in him alone." Number two, "He who believes and is baptized will be saved. He who believes not will be damned." This is a quotation from Mark 16:16. "Faith in Jesus Christ reconciles us with the Father and gives us access to him." That's the third point.

The fourth point, "Baptism incorporates all believers into the body of Christ, of which he is the head." Number five, "Christ is the head of his body, i.e., of the believers or the congregation." Six, "As the head is minded, so must its members also be." Number seven, "The foreknown and called believers shall be conformed to the image of Christ." Number eight, "Christ is despised in the world, so are also those who are his. He has no kingdom in this world, but that which is of this world is against his kingdom." Number nine, "Believers are chosen out of the world. Therefore, the world hates them." Number ten, "The devil is prince over the whole world in whom all the children of darkness rule."

Okay, before I go on, the list isn't quite done yet, but I want to make some comments. So number one, he talks about the importance of believing first, of faith in Jesus. Okay, so everybody who is going to be saved must have faith. And then quoting Mark 16:16, "He who believes and is baptized will be saved," is obviously going to be an important text for the Anabaptists. The order is important, believing and then being baptized.

And then notice here how really this kind of interplay between faith and baptism, it goes to the first four articles. Faith reconciles us with the Father. It's not just having infant baptism when you were a baby. Baptism is what incorporates believers into the body of Christ.

And then points 5 through 10, and I hope you felt this because this is Sattler, this is early Anabaptism here. There is this tremendous emphasis on being in Christ, about being, as he says in point 6, "As the head is minded, so must its members be." Number seven, "Conformed into Christ's image." And then number eight, "Jesus is despised." So guess what? Those who are his are going to be despised. Number nine, "Believers are chosen out of the world. Therefore, the world hates those believers."

And then 10, "The devil is the prince over the world in whom all the children of darkness rule." Okay, so I hope you feel a strong sense of polarity, a strong sense of duality here. Let's go on. Number 11, "Christ is the prince of the Spirit in whom all who walk in the light live." Number 12, "The devil seeks to destroy. Christ seeks to save." Notice again the duality, the polarity. The flesh is against the Spirit, and the Spirit against flesh. Those who are spiritual are Christ's. Those who are carnal belong to death and to the wrath of God. Number 15, "Christians are wholly yielded and have placed their trust in their Father in heaven without any outward or worldly arms." 16, "The citizenship of Christians is in heaven and not on earth." 17, "Christians are the members of the household of God and fellow citizens of the saints and not of the world." 18, "But they are true Christians who practice indeed the teachings of Christ."

Number 19, "Flesh and blood, pomp and temporal, earthly honor and the world cannot comprehend the kingdom of Christ." And then the last point, number 20, "In some, there is nothing in common between Christ and Belial." Okay, I hope your heart is stirred in reading this and hearing this. Again, you see this keen awareness of the danger of the world, this polarity.

There's only two places to be. You're either with Christ or you're against him. And outlining who's with Christ, it's those who practice what he says is. It's those who have trust in their Father. They're not bearing arms. It's those who reject the ways of the world. Okay, so you can see here in Sattler, this very first document that we have from him, what will become later on the Schleifheim Brotherly Union. We see a lot of those elements here.

He goes on to say in this letter, "Such considerations and still much more of the same kind, which do not now come to mind, hinder me, my dear brothers, from understanding your general assertion on every subject, which you advocate with the words of Paul cited above.

Therefore, my beloved in God, I know of no comfort in all despair except to address a humble prayer to God the Father for you and for me, that he might be willing to teach us in all truth by his Spirit.

Herewith, I commend you to the Lord, for as I understand it, I can no longer remain here without doing a dishonor to God. Therefore, I must, for the sake of my conscience, leave the field to the opposition. I beg you herein that you will understand this as an act of Christian humility on my part. The Lord will ultimately dispose." And so he's saying here, "This is what I believe."

Even though you're citing that verse from 1 Timothy about love being the end of the commands here, this is what I believe. And he's saying here, "I'm going to leave Strasbourg, and I'm going to leave the field to the opposition, trusting in the Lord here." And then it ends here with this final paragraph, "Be mercifully considered, I pray of you, of those who are in prison and do not permit a merciful judgment to be superseded by a blind, spiteful, and cruel one.

Those who are in error, if that they were, are not to be coerced, but after a second admonition, avoided. Christians admonish benevolently out of sympathy and compassion for the sinful and do not legally coerce persons by," and then in brackets, "by torture this way or that.

May the Lord God have mercy on us all and give us a spirit to lead us in the way of Christ Jesus, through whom we can again come into our kingdom, fatherland, and citizenship. The Lord be with all your dear brothers in God. Amen. Michael Sattler, your brother in God and the heavenly Father." Okay, so we read the entirety of his first writing. So I told you there's really three writings that we canonically have from him, and we've read down one of them. It wasn't very long, as you can see. But it gives you such a great feel for him and for his spirit. I think he was simultaneously a kind person, but also a person not willing to compromise.

I hope that that theme of duality came through, that danger of compromise, and an unwillingness to just brush over specific commands with sentimental ideas that are marked by the word love. Okay, we do not have time to read the whole of the Schleifheim Brotherly Union. If you haven't done it, I would encourage you to do so. It is easily the most important document that Sattler is behind. He actually did not put his name to it, but due to a variety of factors, there's a very high degree of certainty that this was Sattler. And I would say it's the near unanimous consensus that this is Sattler's at least framing and that he oversaw it. I do want to just read a little bit of it, not actually getting into any of the articles.

We could spend many, many hours going through the specific articles. I think it was a genius document, one of the most powerful writings from the 1500s. But it opens with a brotherly union of a number of children of God concerning seven articles. And that's why I said it's probably better to call this a brotherly union rather than a confession.

So I'm not going to read hardly any of this, but I do want to point out a couple of things here. In this paragraph here, and oh, I should say this, a lot of people, when they read Schleifheim, they start with the seven articles. That's a mistake. There are a few paragraphs that begin the seven articles that are very worthwhile ones carefully reading here. So unfortunately, we don't have time to do that here, but I want to read a couple of paragraphs from it. Here on this paragraph, it says, "Beloved in the Lord, brothers and sisters, first and foremost, we are always concerned for your consolation and the assurance of your conscience, which was previously misled, so that you may not always remain separated from us and by right almost completely excluded, but that you may turn again to the true implanted members of Christ who have been armed through patience and knowledge of self and have therefore again been united with us in the power of a godly Christian spirit and zeal for God."

So you notice here the importance of the conscience, and you notice here how he's trying to pull together people. So Anabaptism is scattered. There are divisions. There's all kinds of thoughts here. And he's saying, "Let's come together. Let's somehow unite." Now, we don't know very much about the specific catalyst for Schleifheim, but we do know just from reading it alone that there are people who are like-minded, but they're separated, and he's trying to bring them back. He goes on to say, "It is also revealed with what cunning the devil has turned us aside so that he might turn and he might destroy and bring to an end the work of God, which in mercy and grace has partly begun in us.

But Christ, the true shepherd of our souls, who has begun this in us, will certainly direct the same and teach us to his honor and our salvation. Amen." And I want to read a little bit more here where it says that here on this paragraph, it says, "A very great offense has been introduced by certain false brethren among us so that some have turned aside from the faith in the way they intend to practice and observe the freedom of the Spirit and of Christ. But such have missed the truth and to their condemnation are given over to the lasciviousness and self-indulgence of the flesh.

They think faith and love may do and permit everything, and nothing will harm them nor condemn them since they are believers." Okay, this paragraph is a very powerful paragraph. There's a lot of debate about who these false brethren are. Are they the Protestants? Are they Anabaptists who have turned to one of these splintered sects, maybe taking up the sword or rejecting some of the specifics of the New Testament? And I think John Howard Godor is probably right when he says that it's probably both groups.

It certainly sounds like some of these are Protestants. They're kind of using this banner of the word love. It says here, "They think faith and love may do and permit everything." Doesn't that sound a lot like the Vuster and Capito letter?

But this turning aside from the faith makes it sound like maybe there were some who are among the Anabaptist community. I think that's probably right, that Schleifheim is intending to be commenting. It's written to people who are Anabaptists or Anabaptist sympathizers. And the false brethren are those that are leaving the core teachings of what began with Grebel, Mons, and Blauroch. And he's trying to rally them together as he crystallizes early Anabaptism around these seven points.

So we don't have time to read this. I really hope you can do it. Since we're almost at time here, I want to give some resources and then summarize. So the first resource that I'm going to recommend is called The Legacy of Michael Sattler. And I'm actually holding it here as well. You can't see the editor or the translator, but it's John Howard Goder. And this is basically just the sources that we have. So I know nobody can read here the table of contents that I'm holding, but he gives a brief introduction, a very brief introduction, and then he goes through and has the Schleifheim Brotherly Union.

He has the letter to Buser and Capito. He has the letter to Hor, which is a lovely letter. That's the third letter that we have, the third source from him. And then he has the martyrdom accounts and then the Capito letter. So what Buser and Capito wrote to Sattler is there. And then those tracts that have been attributed to Sattler, although we're much less confident. So one is called On Divorce. One is called On the Satisfaction of Christ, On the Two Kinds of Obedience, On False Prophets and Evil Overseers, and an Epistle and some other things like that. So it's quite short, and it's a fairly straightforward read. I would say that this is, if you had to have one, this is probably it, more because it's just Sattler's writings and the writings around him.

So this is my number one recommendation. My number two recommendation is shown on the far right. It's called I Appeal to Scripture. This is more recent by Andrew St. Marie. This is from 2018. And the reason I like this one is that it's very readable, and it's intended for a general audience.