Evangelisk-lutherske kirker

Leppin explores the four "solas" of the Reformation -- Christ, grace, faith, and scripture -- as both anchored in the culture of late-medieval devotion and representing new, firmly demarcated formulae. Leppin helps readers understand that in the journey toward new theological understandings, continuity and discontinuity were inextricably linked.

We tend to remember hymns one at a time. We forget that the reason we can do so is because they have been made available throughout the centuries in hymnals. This edited collection explores the 500-year tradition of Lutheran hymnal production, illustrating how these books have influenced Lutheran faith and worship practice over time.

This book is a collection of letters from pastors and professors of theology meant to encourage young men who either desire to be pastors or are interested in theology and want to learn more. Each letter is a topic in theology that either relates to the Office of the Holy Ministry or is a doctrinal topic that is helpful for all Christians to know.

Luther's Works: The American Edition, published by Concordia and Fortress Press between 1955 and 1986, comprises fifty-five volumes. These are a selection representing only about a third of Luther's works in the Latin and German of the standard Weimar Edition, not including the German Bible.This volume contains Luther's commentaries on selected psalms beloved by Christians everywhere. They are for the most part the outgrowth of sermons and classroom lectures, family devotions, and private conversations held between 1524 and 1537. Figures of speech, allusions, and references not immediately clear have been carefully explained for a fuller understanding of the text. The archaic literary forms have been removed and obscurities of earlier translations cleared up. This is an updated version of an important piece in Luther's tomes of work seminal to theological consideration everywhere.

About this VolumeLuther's collected sermons for the church year were originally published in two series: the Church Postil and the House Postil. These were among his most popular works. Aside from his catechisms, they did more to teach people the Reformation than any other book. The new translation of the Church Postil follows the last edition of Luther's life, from 1540-1544, and includes Luther's often-extensive revisions to his own work, with significant variant readings from earlier editions translated in the footnotes.This volume includes the sermons on the Epistle and Gospel readings from New Year through Holy Week, plus "Meditation on the Holy Suffering of Christ" and "Sermon on Confession and the Sacrament." The appendix contains Luther's prefaces to earlier editions of the Church Postil. All the sermons include footnotes indicating Luther's edits over the course of his life, all rendered in clear, lucid English.Benefits of Luther's Works, American Edition, vol. 76 (Church Postil II):Accurate and clear translation. (An early 20th-century version of these sermons was inaccurate and stilted.)Presents the Church Postil as the mature Luther wanted it to be:Includes Luther's often-extensive revisions to his own work, with significant variant readings from earlier editions translated in the footnotes.Includes the version of the summer sermons that Luther approved (Cruciger's edition, not Roth's edition).Epistles and Gospels are interspersed as they were originally printed, showing the progression of Luther's teaching through the course of the church year. (The early 20th-century Lenker version followed the revisionist 1700 edition of Philipp Jakob Spener, not Luther's mature, final edition of 1540 and 1544.)Includes the careful, explanatory introductions and footnotes that have become a hallmark of Luther's Works: American Edition.Includes cross-references and a table showing where Luther's sermons can be found in the German originals.Fully indexed.Edited by Benjamin T.G. Mayes and James L. Langebartels.About the SeriesThe 28 planned new volumes are intended to reflect both modern and sixteenth-century interests and to expand the coverage of genres underrepresented in the existing volumes, such as Luther's sermons and disputations. The primary basis for the translation is the comprehensive Weimar edition.

This volume contains a selection of Luther's preaching on the first two books of the Bible roughly within the years 1523-25. Luther preached during these years in the context the controversies sparked by Andreas Bodenstein von Karlstadt, Thomas Münzer, and the Peasants' War. The question of the day was how contemporary Christians ought to respond to Moses' Law. Where his opponents claimed the laws still bound Christians in some areas like images in worship or ceremonial law, Luther aimed to clarify the role of the Law of Moses for Christians. He returnes frequently to theological themes from the early years of his public career and to autobiographical reflection, working to convey the significance of the conservative Reformation to a zealous new generation asking new questions about their relation to the Old Testament.This volume includes original English translations of the following works by Luther:Sermon and Introduction to Genesis (1523)Dr. Martin Luther's Exposition of Several Chapters of the Second Book of Moses [Exodus 1-18] (1524-25/1563)Sermons on Exodus 19-20 (1525/1528)Luther's Preface to Volume 1 of Lectures on Genesis (1544)

About This VolumeFrom the beginning of his work on the postils, Luther had stated that they were supposed to serve common pastors and people, and thus were to be the great devotional book of the Reformation.Martin Luther's collected sermons for the church year were originally published in two series: the Church Postil and the House Postil. These were among his most popular works. Aside from his catechisms, they did more to teach people the Reformation than any other book. Volume 75 gives the sermons on the Epistle and Gospel readings from Advent through Christmastide in fresh, clear English.Benefits of Luther's Works, American Edition, vol. 75 (Church Postil I)Accurate and clear translation. (An early 20th-century version of these sermons was inaccurate and stilted.)Presents the Church Postil as the mature Luther wanted it to be:Includes Luther's often-extensive revisions to his own work, with significant variant readings from earlier editions translated in the footnotes.Includes the version of the summer sermons that Luther approved (Cruciger's edition, not Roth's edition).Epistles and Gospels are interspersed as they were originally printed, showing the progression of Luther's teaching through the course of the church year.(The early 20th-century Lenker version followed the revisionist 1700 edition of Philipp Jakob Spener, not Luther's mature, final edition of 1540 and 1544.)Includes the careful, explanatory introductions and footnotes that have become a hallmark of Luther's Works: American Edition.Includes cross-references and a table showing where Luther's sermons can be found in the German originals.Fully indexed.Edited by Benjamin T.G. Mayes and James L. Langebartels.About the SeriesThe 28 planned new volumes are intended to reflect both modern and sixteenth-century interests and to expand the coverage of genres underrepresented in the existing volumes, such as Luther's sermons and disputations. The primary basis for the translation is the comprehensive Weimar edition.

In this brief epistle, Paul pleads for the reconciliation of the estranged Christians Onesimus and Philemon. In an original translation and commentary, Rev. Dr. John G. Nordling expounds Philemon in light of its theological purpose and its setting in the Greco-Roman world. It probes the specific circumstances under which Paul wrote the letter; how Philemon fit in with Paul's missionary travels; and who Philemon and Onesimus were within the Christian community.Nordling takes on slavery as a core topic of this commentary, taking the position that Onesimus was a slave who had run away slave in addition to a thief of Philemon's property. The introduction of this volume includes over a hundred pages of history and analysis of ancient slavery practices, and additional essays consider the implications of the language of slavery used in the New testament to describe the Christian condition.EssaysSlavery in Ancient SocietyPhilemon in the context of Paul's TravelsTheological Implications of Slavery in the New Testament.About the seriesThe Concordia Commentary Series: A Theological Exposition of Sacred Scripture is written to enable pastors and teachers of the Word to proclaim the Gospel with greater insight, clarity, and faithfulness to the divine intent of the Biblical text.The series will cover all the canonical books of the Old and New Testament, with an original translation and meticulous grammatical analysis of the Hebrew, Aramaic, or Greek of each text. The foremost interpretive lens centers on the unified proclamation of the person and work of Christ across every Scriptural book.The Commentary fully affirms the divine inspiration, inerrancy, and authority of Scripture; Each passage bears witness to the confession that God has reconciled the world to Himself through the incarnation, ministry, death, resurrection, and ascension of Christ His Son.Authors expose the rich treasury of language, imagery, and thematic content of the Scripture, while supplementing their work with additional research in archaeology, history, and extrabiblical literature. Throughout, God's Word emanates from authors careful attention and inculcates the ongoing life of the Church in Word, Sacrament, and daily confession.

This festival requires us to instruct the people in the dogma of the Holy Trinity, and to strengthen both memory and faith concerning it. This is the reason why we take up the subject once more. Without proper instruction and a sound foundation in this regard, other dogmas cannot be rightly and successfully treated. The other festivals of the year present the Lord God clothed in his works and miracles. For instance: on Christmas we celebrate his incarnation; on Easter his resurrection from the dead; on Whit-sunday the gift of the Holy Spirit and the establishment of the Christian Church. Thus all the other festivals present the Lord in the guise of a worker of one thing or another. But this Trinity Festival discloses him to us as he is in himself. Here we see him apart from whatever guise assumed, from whatever work done, solely in his divine essence. We must go beyond and above all reason, leaving behind the evidence of created things, and hear only God's own testimony concerning himself and his inner essence; otherwise we shall remain unenlightened.

Address to the Christian Nobility of the German Nation is one of the tracts written by Martin Luther in 1520. In this work, he defined for the first time the signature doctrines of the priesthood of all believers and the two kingdoms.

After establishing the full humanity of Jesus we still find an element in his life which transcends the human. To see Jesus as a "mere" good man like all other prophets is by no means sufficient to explain him. Moreover, the historical setting in which he grew up, the psychological mood and temper of the age and of the house of Israel, the economic and social predicament of Jesus family-all these are important. But these in themselves fail to answer one significant question: Why does he differ from all others in the same setting. Any explanation of Jesus in terms of psychology, economics, religion, and the like must inevitably explain his contemporaries as well. These may tell us why Jesus was a particular kind of Jew, but not why some other Jews were not Jesus. Jesus was brought up in the same conditions as other Jews, inherited the same traits that they inherited; and yet he was Jesus and the others were not. This uniqueness in the spiritual life of Jesus has lead Christians to see him not only as a human being, but as a human being surrounded with divinity.

Though undertreated by modern scholars, Martin Luther's lectures on Deuteronomy are critical to understanding his theological development as an exegete and also the course of the Reformation in the wake of Luther's return from the Wartburg in 1522. In these lectures, Luther engages deeply with Moses, whom he sees as an author, prophet, and ruler. These three ways of regarding Moses allow Luther to forge a new approach to the Mosaic law, shaping his response to what he perceives as the evangelical legalism of Andreas Karlstadt and Thomas Müntzer. By shedding light on these exegetical principles and connecting these lectures to surrounding events, Miles Hopgood brings new clarity as to why Luther broke with Karlstadt and the nature of his dispute with Müntzer, demonstrates the importance of the Hebrew Bible in shaping Luther's mature exegesis, and opens the door for fresh perspectives not only on the events of 1521-1525 but Luther's entire career as interpreter of scripture.

Luther's Works: The American Edition, published by Concordia and Fortress Press between 1955 and 1986, comprises fifty-five volumes. These are a selection representing only about a third of Luther's works in the Latin and German of the standard Weimar Edition, not including the German Bible.In this volume, Luther offers interpretations of three Old Testament texts that are often poorly translated and often misinterpreted. He gives fresh interpretations of Ecclesiastes and the Song of Solomon, calling upon readers to view them as "Solomon's Economics" and "Solomon's Politics." He then offers the reader a line- by-line commentary on 1 Samuel 23:1-7 as an example of simple, clear interpretation that keeps as its goal "to recognize our dear Lord and Savior clearly and distinctly in Scripture."

On the Freedom of a Christian, sometimes also called A Treatise on Christian Liberty, was the third of Martin Luther's major reforming treatises of 1520, appearing after his Address to the Christian Nobility of the German Nation and the work Prelude on the Babylonian Captivity of the Church

About this Volume"Upon reflection, it is obvious that a preface by Martin Luther would be a much sought-after addition to any volume coming out of his wing of the Reformation. Fortunately, not only for the authors who merited one of these paratexts, but for modern scholars as well, the reformer did take on the mantle of a 'writer of prefaces.' The results, collected in volumes 59 and 60 of Luther's Works, are strongly recommended reading for Reformation scholars, especially for those interested in his thoughts, activities, and acquaintances as well as his reading list during the quarter century after the Diet of Worms (1521), as he and many for whom he wrote prefaces were engaged in building the Lutheran church." -Andrew Villalon, in Sixteenth Century Journal 44, no. 3 (2013): 849.Never before in English, this volume presents Luther's prefaces from 1520-32 for the writings of both colleagues and opponents. In Luther's day, the preface was sometimes the most important part of the book. The preface used the most beautiful of language to praise the author, his work, and his arguments-and to decry his opponents. Publishers knew that having Luther's preface brought instant fame to any book.Some of Luther's prefaces are short, witty, and incisive; others are as long as treatises, with thorough discussions of important theology. Satirical, earnest, tender, combative-in his prefaces Luther is all these things. Over and over, Luther calls his readers to remember why the Reformation was needed, and not to take it for granted.About the SeriesThe twenty planned new volumes are intended to reflect both modern and sixteenth-century interests and to expand the coverage of genres underrepresented in the existing volumes, such as Luther's sermons and disputations. The primary basis for the translation is the comprehensive Weimar edition.

About this VolumeThese lectures give eloquent evidence of Luther's determined espousal of the doctrine of justification by faith. In 1531, the Reformer's position on this cardinal doctrine was identical to what he had set forth in his earlier series of lectures. Even so, a sharp difference is discernible to a careful reader. The Luther of 1535 has at his command far greater simplicity and pungency of expression than one finds in the work he compiled in 1519. With the passing of the years the Reformer grew in knowledge and exegetical skill. It is not surprising, therefore, that the lectures he delivered at a later period in his life overshadow the former series in popularity as well as in significance. His Lectures on Galatians reflect this development. About the SeriesLuther's Works: The American Edition, published by Concordia and Fortress Press between 1955 and 1986, comprises fifty-five volumes. These are a selection representing only about a third of Luther's works in the Latin and German of the standard Weimar Edition, not including the German Bible.

Since 1921, the Concordia Edition of Starck's Prayer Book has encouraged thousands of Christians in their personal prayer lives. This updated edition provides a comprehensive collection of prayers and meditations that speak to contemporary Christians while preserving the richness and depth of expression of the original.Johann Starck's prayers do what all genuine prayers do: they draw the believer into the internal life of the blessed Trinity and teach the joy of living in His presence throughout the day, week, year, the good times and the bad. From the PrefaceThis book is offered to Christians of the twenty-first century in slightly updated garb, who live in a world very different from that inhabited by a Lutheran clergyman of the seventeenth century, in the hope that those who use it will discover, in the vibrant faith that rings through and shapes these prayers from another era, the voice of the faith once delivered to the saints.

Many Christians struggle with prayer even though it's an essential part of the Christian life. "What should I pray for?" they may wonder. "How should I pray?" "What if my mind wanders?" "What if I get stuck praying the same thing every day?"When asked by his barber and good friend Peter Beskendorf for some practical guidance on how to pray, Martin Luther responded by writing this brief treatise, first published in 1535. This edition is a modern translation that brings us Luther's practical instruction, using his ITCP method:InstructionThanksgivingConfessionPrayerThis method anchors prayer in the catechism or other biblical texts, but allows the Holy Spirit to prompt thoughts via the Word, which may be chased more freely by the mind at prayer. Readers will find their prayer lives refreshed and invigorated as they become more comfortable raising supplications to God.