The Roaring of Christ: How Zwingli’s Lectio Continua Preaching Advanced God’s Story of Grace

On January 1, 1519, Huldrych Zwingli climbed into the pulpit of the Grossmünster in Zürich and quietly did something revolutionary. Instead of following the church lectionary, with its short, rotating readings tied to feast days, he announced that he would begin at Matthew 1 and preach straight through the Gospel, verse by verse, “until we come to the end.”

This approach was called lectio continua—continuous reading and preaching through whole books of the Bible. It broke with the dominant pattern of lectio divina as practiced in the medieval church, where:

The Bible was often read in short pericopes,
In Latin,
Mainly for monks and clergy,
With a focus on meditative, allegorical application more than the plain sense for the whole people.

Zwingli’s move did not deny meditation or spiritual reading. But it insisted that entire books, in order, be opened week after week to the whole city, in their own tongue, with explanation and application. One writer says that when he did this, it was like letting “the roaring of Christ” be heard again in the church.

This article explores:

What lectio continua is and how Zwingli used it.
How it differed from the dominant lectio divina practice.
How it advanced God’s Story of Grace, strengthening freedom, unity, and accountability under the Triune God.
How its strengths and distortions still shape Western and American Christianity today.

Timeline: From Lectio Divina to Lectio Continua in Zürich

Early church / patristic era – Preachers like Augustine, Chrysostom, and Bernard of Clairvaux often preached through books of the Bible in sequence.
Middle Ages – The lectio divina tradition flourishes in monastic settings: slow, prayerful reading of Scripture (lectio, meditatio, oratio, contemplatio). Public worship, however, relies heavily on a pericope-based lectionary; the same passages repeat, many texts are rarely heard.
January 1, 1519 – Zwingli begins preaching through Matthew at the Grossmünster, announcing that he will “teach the history of Christ… as Matthew describes Him,” not according to human authorities but “according to the purpose of the Spirit,” diligently comparing Scripture with Scripture.
1520s–1530s – Zwingli continues lectio continua through Acts, Pauline letters, Peter, Hebrews, John, then the Old Testament—Psalms, Pentateuch, historical books.
Calvin – In Geneva, John Calvin adopts and expands this pattern, preaching through most of the Bible in a lectio continua style.
Reformed tradition – Continuous expository preaching becomes a hallmark of Reformed churches, influencing later Puritans, Presbyterians, and many evangelical traditions.

What Changed? Lectio Continua vs. Lectio Divina in Practice

Lectio divina (as commonly practiced in medieval Europe):

Often tied to monastic life, not everyday parish worship.
Scripture in Latin, far from the language of many lay people.
Short readings, selected by church calendar.
Emphasis on meditation and allegorical or moral meanings for personal devotion.

Zwingli’s lectio continua in Zürich:

Public preaching through whole books, usually in order.
Scripture explained in the people’s language, with clear teaching.
Intent to proclaim the “whole counsel of God”—not just favorite texts.
Applied to current issues in city and church: indulgences, immorality, mercenary service, poor relief, education.

One account summarizes:

“This was a revolutionary move… Week by week Zwingli preached through the Scriptures, laying a foundation for the Swiss Reformation from the very pages of God’s word.”

Another notes:

“Zwingli rightly believed that the quickest way to restore biblical Christianity… was to preach the ‘whole counsel of God’ verse by verse, chapter by chapter, book by book, Lord’s Day after Lord’s Day.”

This shift was not anti‑spiritual; it was deeply spiritual. Like lectio divina, it trusted the Spirit to speak. But it insisted that the Spirit’s voice be heard in the full breadth of Scripture, by the whole people, in ways that shaped public life.

How Lectio Continua Expanded God’s Story of Grace in Zürich

From Fragmented Texts to the Drama of Redemption

Instead of hearing isolated passages, Zürich citizens heard the whole shape of Matthew:

The genealogy rooting Jesus in Israel’s history.
The Sermon on the Mount, with its radical ethic of the kingdom.
Christ’s healings, parables, conflicts with religious leaders.
The cross and resurrection, and the Great Commission.

One writer explains that Zwingli “presented to his listeners the full drama of the gospel story, from the opening genealogies of Matthew to Christ’s Great Commission.”

This meant that God’s Story of Grace—from promise to fulfillment—became the framework for:

Personal piety.
Public ethics.
Civic reform.

It echoed the biblical vision where believers are urged to “let the message of Christ dwell among you richly”, and where church leaders are called to proclaim the whole counsel of God.

From Sacramental Control to Scriptural Freedom

Medieval parish life often revolved around sacraments controlled by clergy, with Scripture kept at a distance. Zwingli’s lectio continua:

Gave the Bible back to the people as a daily voice.
Exposed practices that lacked biblical warrant.
Taught that salvation is by grace through faith, not by buying indulgences or trusting rituals.

In this way, lectio continua served the Triune God’s work of liberation:

The Father spoke as King over all powers.
The Son was seen as the only mediator and righteousness.
The Spirit used the Word to convict, comfort, and unify.

In social terms, this helped break the monopoly of a clerical elite over spiritual knowledge, a step toward broader education, literacy, and conscience.

Building a Word-Shaped Community

Zwingli’s preaching did not stay in the pulpit; it reordered Zurich:

Monastic properties repurposed as hospitals and shelters.
Education reshaped to include Scripture and training for preachers.
Debates and disputations where lay leaders heard the Bible used to test tradition.

One modern reflection says:

“Through preaching, patience, and partnerships, gospel-transformation can take over a city and result in long-term political change.”

Lectio continua was the engine behind that transformation.

Implications for the Western and American Story

Literacy, Education, and the People’s Right to Hear

Systematic biblical preaching drove a hunger for Bibles, schools, and learning.

Over time, in Protestant regions:

Literacy rose, as people were taught to read Scripture.
Schools and universities were founded or reformed to train ministers and teach Scripture and languages.
The idea spread that ordinary believers have the right and responsibility to hear and weigh God’s Word.

These trends fed into broader Western ideals:

That people should be educated, not kept in ignorance.
That words and laws matter more than arbitrary power.
That the conscience of each person stands before God and must not be crushed.

In America, this played out in:

Traditions of expository preaching, especially in Reformed, Presbyterian, Baptist, and later evangelical churches.
A culture where the Bible influenced public debates about slavery, civil rights, and justice (though often on both sides of conflicts).
The expectation that citizens engage arguments, not just submit to authorities.

Law, Authority, and the Triune God

Lectio continua preaching also reinforced that God’s whole counsel—not just a few prooftexts—judges rulers and nations.

Zwingli and later Reformed thinkers argued that:

All authority is from God but limited and accountable.
Civil law should reflect God’s justice and mercy, not clerical or royal whim.
Christians should seek to shape societies where the weak are protected and the powerful are not above the law.

These ideas contributed to the intellectual climate that, centuries later, supported:

Constitutional government, with written laws and checks on power.
Emphasis on rule of law and rights, central to American political thought.

Of course, this history includes deep failures: laws used to defend segregation, oppression, and injustice. But lectio continua embeds a constant self-correcting pressure: as long as Scripture keeps being preached in context, it will expose idolatry and call communities back to repentance.

Realism: Dangers and Distortions of Lectio Continua

**A Pulpit Casting Light Over A Skyline**

Zwingli’s innovation is not pure light. There are shadows.

The Temptation to Weaponize the Word

Because Scripture was central to civic life in Zürich, it was also used:

To justify harsh measures against Anabaptists, including execution.
To sacralize political decisions, making it hard to question the council without seeming to rebel against God.

Lectio continua can be misused when:

Preachers read their agenda into long series.
The pulpit is fused with the state, making disagreement dangerous.

Over-Reaction Against Contemplation

In rejecting abuses, some Reformed contexts reacted so strongly against medieval mysticism that:

Lectio divina and contemplative prayer were sidelined.
The Christian life could become cognitively heavy, more about information than adoration.

Yet Scripture calls believers to both hearing and delighting in the law of the Lord, to meditate day and night, not just analyze.

The best path forward is not to choose between lectio continua and lectio divina, but to let ordered, contextual preaching feed deep, personal meditation.

Lessons for the Church Today

What might the Spirit be saying to churches, especially in the West and America, through Zwingli’s example?

Recover the Whole Counsel of God

Preach through books, not just favorite topics.
Let hard texts challenge our idols—on wealth, race, power, sexuality, violence.
Trust that the Triune God still speaks life and correction through every page.

Join Word and Public Life Without Oppression

Encourage believers to carry biblical convictions into law, education, and community work.
Reject the use of the state to crush dissenting consciences.
Defend religious freedom while speaking prophetically to culture.

Blend Preaching and Prayer

Let lectio continua feed not only minds but hearts, fueling prayer and Spirit-led obedience.
Encourage believers to practice a renewed form of lectio divina at home: reading, meditating, praying, and living the very texts they hear preached.

“Through preaching, patience, and partnerships, gospel-transformation can take over a city and result in long-term political change.”

When Huldrych Zwingli began lectio continua preaching in Zürich in 1519, he replaced short, repetitive readings with systematic, verse-by-verse exposition of entire biblical books. This shift broke the monopoly of a Latin lectionary, gave God’s Word back to the people, and fueled the Swiss Reformation, reshaping worship, education, and civic life. Over time, his model influenced Reformed preaching, Protestant literacy, and political thought that emphasized limited authority, rule of law, and conscience—contributions that echo in the modern West and American religious and civic culture. At the same time, Zwingli’s lectio continua was entangled with persecution of dissenters and a tight fusion of church and state that sometimes weaponized the Word. His legacy calls today’s church to proclaim the whole counsel of God with humility, to link Scripture with public justice without coercion, and to let the Triune God use both preaching and prayer to bring greater freedom, unity, and holiness into a fractured world.

Huldrych Zwingli: How the Swiss Reformer Fought for Freedom, Scripture, and Community

Preacher in black robes speaking to a crowd outside a stone church with Gothic architecture — Zwingli preaching

On New Year’s Day 1484, just weeks after Martin Luther was born, Huldrych (Ulrich) Zwingli entered a world trembling on the edge of change. Switzerland was a patchwork of cantons, proud of their independence, yet deeply entangled in foreign wars, selling their young men as mercenaries. The Church was rich and corrupt in many places; the people were often poor and spiritually starved.

Zwingli, a Swiss priest, humanist scholar, and musician, would become the leading reformer of Zürich and a driving force in the Swiss Reformation. When plague struck Zurich in 1519, he stayed instead of fleeing and nearly died. In his plague hymn, he cried to God:

“Help me, O Lord, my strength and rock;
Lo, at the door I hear death’s knock.”

That experience branded on his heart the truth that life and death are in God’s hands. It drove him deeper into Scripture and into a reforming fire that would reshape church, city, and eventually affect ideas of freedom and citizenship that echo into the modern West and America.

This article will show how Zwingli:

Put God’s Word at the center of public life.
Sought a Christian community where church and city walked together.
Advanced ideas that influenced later notions of limited authority and republican freedom—even as he fell into grave sins: persecuting Anabaptists and fusing sword and gospel.

Timeline: Zwingli’s Life and the Swiss Reformation

1484 – Born in Wildhaus, a mountain village in Toggenburg (St. Gallen canton).
1500–1506 – Studies at Vienna and Basel, exposed to humanism and Erasmus.
1519 – Called as people’s priest to Grossmünster in Zürich; plague hits, he nearly dies.
1519–1523 – Begins sequential preaching through the New Testament, starting with Matthew—radically different from the Mass system.
1523 – Zürich disputations; city council sides with Zwingli and begins official reformation.
1525 – New communion liturgy replacing the mass; public breaking with Rome.
1525–1527 – Split with Anabaptists; council persecutes them (some executed). Zwingli supports this.
1528 – Bern disputation; Bern adopts Reformation, aiding spread across Swiss territories.
1531 – Killed as chaplain at the Battle of Kappel, fighting for Zürich’s Protestant cause.

Through all this, Zwingli sought to bring the light of the gospel into civic life—but he also helped bind the sword to the church in ways that would wound many.

“Scripture Alone”: Zwingli’s Passion for the Word

Open book with reading glasses and coffee on balcony table overlooking city and river at sunset — City of Zurich

Zwingli’s core conviction can be heard in words later summarized as sola Scriptura—Scripture alone as the highest authority.

A later reflection of his stance says:

“I shall allow myself to be taught better, but only from the Scriptures, based upon the Scriptures which are inspired by God. Scripture alone is our ultimate authority.”

In Zürich he did something revolutionary:

He preached verse by verse through entire books of the New Testament, in the vernacular, explaining and applying the text.
He contrasted what he saw in Scripture with practices like indulgences, saint veneration, and the Latin Mass.

One description notes:

“As he began his ministry in Zurich… he read passages from the Bible in the language of his mostly illiterate congregation and, as he read, he would comment… providing interpretation and application to current issues.”

This embodied the conviction that faith comes by hearing the message of Christ. When people heard the Word clearly, the Triune God—Father, Son, and Spirit—could renew hearts, families, and even laws.

“Christ is our justification… our good works, if they are of Christ, are good; but if ours, they are neither right nor good.”
Zwingli

By insisting that Christ alone is our righteousness, he chipped away at systems of control built on fear, superstition, and human merit.

Church and City Together: Freedom and Its Dangers

Venn diagram showing characteristics of church and Christian community in Zürich with overlap of shared faith activities — A Venn diagram illustrating the intersection of church and Christian community life in Zürich, Switzerland.

Zwingli’s Zürich became a kind of laboratory for Christian civic reform.

He worked closely with the city council, seeing them as partners in reform.
One writer summarizes his view: “The Christian man is nothing else but a faithful and good citizen and the Christian city nothing other than the Christian church.”
Church and civic community were seen as “one indivisible body” governed jointly by spiritual and secular officers under Scripture’s authority.

He believed:

All authority is limited, delegated by God, and answerable to God.
Priests were subordinate to magistrates, not above them; the medieval papacy had erred by exalting itself over princes.

This had liberating effects:

The gospel shaped laws, education, and care for the poor.
The city defended the right to preach Scripture against outside bishops.
The idea that rulers are under God’s law, not above it, helped plant seeds for later constitutional thinking and republicanism.

Yet there was danger: by merging church and state so closely, Zwingli also created space for coercion in matters of faith.

He supported using political force to advance reform; “reform could be carried out using political force.”
Dissenters (like Anabaptists) faced fines, banishment, and even execution under “Christian” magistrates.

So Zwingli advanced freedom from Rome’s clerical supremacy, but often failed to defend freedom of conscience.

The Anabaptist Tragedy: When the Sword Took the Pulpit

Rusty metal shackles and several pairs of old, muddy shoes on a riverbank — Symbolizing drowned Anabaptists

In 1525, a group influenced by Zwingli’s preaching concluded that baptism should be reserved for believers only, not infants. They began baptizing each other as adults—thus the name Anabaptists (“re‑baptizers”).

Zwingli saw this as a grave threat to order and to his vision of a unified Christian city:

For him, baptism also marked belonging to the covenant community; it was a public sign that the whole city was under God.
Anabaptists, by rejecting infant baptism and refusing to swear civic oaths, challenged the tight bond between church and state.

He wrote harshly against them and supported the council’s decision to punish and, in some cases, execute them—often by drowning, grimly called “the third baptism.”

This is one of the darkest stains on his legacy:

A movement born from a desire to obey Scripture ended up persecuting other believers in the name of that same Scripture.
Instead of persuading by Word and Spirit, Zwingli too often relied on the magistrate’s sword.

God’s Story of Grace overrules human sin, but it does not excuse it. Here we must grieve and learn:

The Trinitarian God does not need coercion; He wins hearts by truth and love.
When church and state merge too tightly, violence easily masquerades as zeal.

Swiss Freedom and the Long Shadow Toward the Modern West

The Reformation in Switzerland, spearheaded by Zwingli, brought sweeping civil changes:

Abolition of the mass, images removed from churches, new structures for poor relief and education.
Councils and assemblies took on religious as well as civil duties, shaping a tradition of active citizen governance.

Over centuries, Swiss models of republican self‑rule and federal cantons influenced broader European and transatlantic political thought. Later Swiss thinkers would explicitly engage American constitutional ideas as they refined their own systems.

Thus, in a long, complex line:

Zwingli’s insistence that all authority is limited and answerable to God helped erode absolute clerical power.
His model of a Scripture‑guided community contributed to the idea that laws and governments must align with higher moral standards.
This, in turn, resonated with American ideas about law above rulers, freedom of preaching, and the responsibility of citizens under God.

At the same time, America had to learn—often through painful struggle—to separate church and state more clearly than Zwingli did, in order to protect conscience and religious minorities.

God used Zwingli to push the story toward freedom, but others had to correct his errors to protect unity in diversity.

Lessons for Today: Joining the Triune God’s Work of Freedom and Unity

Diverse group of people socializing outside Unity City Church entrance — People from various backgrounds socialize outside Unity City Church, highlighting community and inclusion.

What can churches and believers today learn from Huldrych Zwingli?

Put the Word at the Center

Zwingli’s greatest service was to let Scripture shape preaching, worship, and public life.

Churches today should major on clear, sequential teaching of the Bible, trusting the Spirit to change hearts.
Public engagement should flow from God’s Word, not from party platforms or cultural anxieties.

Honor Both Freedom and Community

He sought a Christian city, where everyone lived under God’s gracious rule. That desire is good:

The Trinity is a community of love; God wants human societies to echo this unity.
We should care about how laws, schools, and economies reflect God’s justice and compassion.

But we must also learn from his failures:

Coercion in matters of faith violates the gentle way of Christ.
We should advocate for religious freedom and conscience even for those who disagree with us.

Practice Humble, Repentant Politics

Zwingli’s political skill helped spread reform, but his willingness to use force against dissenters and to die on a battlefield as a chaplain shows the danger of fusing kingdom and nation too tightly.

For Christians today:

Engage politics, but remember that Christ’s kingdom is not of this world.
Be quick to repent when our side does injustice.
Seek policies that protect the weak, restrain abuse, and allow the gospel to be preached freely.

How This Article Shows God’s Story of Grace

In Zwingli’s story we see:

The Father ruling over nations and cities, calling them to accountability.
The Son as the only righteousness of sinners, the center of Zwingli’s preaching.
The Spirit working through Scripture to awaken whole communities—yet grieved when that same Scripture is used to justify persecution.

Zwingli helped move the Church:

From superstition to Scripture.
From clerical tyranny toward shared civic responsibility.
From unquestioned authority to the idea that all power is delegated and limited under God.

In a broken and fractured world, his life reminds us that:

God can use bold, flawed reformers to advance freedom and unity.
We must always test our reforms against love, justice, and the gentle heart of Christ.
The Triune God still invites us to build communities where Word, worship, and public life point to His kingdom.

Summary

Huldrych Zwingli (1484–1531) led the Swiss Reformation, centering preaching on Scripture and insisting that Christ alone is our righteousness. He worked with Zürich’s council to reshape worship, education, and care for the poor under God’s Word, helping to weaken clerical absolutism and nurture traditions of citizen governance that influenced later ideas of freedom and republicanism in the West and beyond. Yet he also supported the persecution of Anabaptists and fused church and state so tightly that dissent was punished with the sword. His legacy calls the Church today to hold together biblical authority, freedom of conscience, and a humble pursuit of justice in public life, joining the Triune God in building communities of truth, freedom, and unity.