Ecclesia In Via Ecclesiological Developments In The Medieval Psalms Exegesis And The Dictata Super Psalterium 1513 1515 Of Martin Luther

In this book, Roger Whittall argues that Luther's teaching on the common priesthood (the "priesthood of believers") was a persistent element of Luther's ecclesiology and closely related to his understanding of the church as the communion of saints. Whittall's focus is the common priesthood's activity in the Christian community, moving beyond its contested relationship to the church's ordained ministry, or the views that limit its appearance to Luther's early polemical writings. Rather, the common priesthood stands alongside the public ministry. They are equal partners in the church's mandate to receive and speak God's word, to respond in prayer, praise, and joyful service of God's world and all its people. This wide-ranging investigation features later material not often considered in relation to the common priesthood. For Luther "priesthood" was a biblical expression of Christian spiritual life, worship, and service, forming both the personal faith of individual Christians and the corporate nature of the Christian community. Whittall also examines Luther's use of key biblical texts to link church and priesthood through the themes of unity and community, equality, and participation. Understood in this way, this priesthood still speaks powerfully to the identity and mission of the church today.

The Psalms forced Martin Luther to change how he read the Bible. In Psalms of the Faithful Brian German shows us Luther's reappraisal of the plain sense of Scripture. By following the canonical shaping of the Psalter, Luther refined his interpretive principles into a more finely grained hermeneutic. Luther inspires us to read the Psalms empathetically with ancient Israelites and early church fathers. He stirs us up to join the "faithful synagogue" in praying to and praising the Lord our God. According to many scholars, Luther established his approach to biblical exegesis on the claim that Jesus Christ is Scripture's content and speaker. While Luther used this formulation in prefaces, how did he really read the Bible? German applies pressure not only to how Luther scholars understand Luther's interpretive method, but also to how modern biblical exegetes approach their task—and even to how we read the Bible.

Many congregations today are beset by fears, whether over loss of members and money, or of irrelevancy in an increasingly pluralistic society. To counter this, many congregations focus on strategy and purpose-what churches "do"-but Cheryl Peterson submits that mainline churches need to focus instead on "what" or "who" they are-to reclaim a theological, rather than sociological, understanding of themselves. To do this, she places the questions of the church's identity and mission into a conversation with the primary ecclesiological paradigms of the past century: the neo-Reformation concept of the church as a "word event" and the ecumenical paradigms of the church as "communion." She argues that these two paradigms assume a context of cultural Christendom that no longer exists-focused on the church that is gathered-rather than the missional church that is sent out.

As celebrations of the five-hundredth anniversary of Martin Luther's initiation of the most dramatic reform movement in the history of Christianity approach, 47 essays by historians and theologians from 15 countries provide insight into the background and context, the content, and the impact of his way of thought. Nineteenth-century Chinese educational reformers, twentieth-century African and Indian social reformers, German philosophers and Christians of many traditions on every continent have found in Luther's writings stimulation and provocation for addressing modern problems. This volume offers studies of the late medieval intellectual milieus in which his thought was formed, the hermeneutical principles that guided his reading and application of the Bible, the content of his formulations of Christian teaching on specific topics, his social and ethic thought, the ways in which his contemporaries, both supporters and opponents, helped shape his ideas, the role of specific genre in developing his positions on issues of the day, and the influences he has exercised in the past and continues to exercise today in various parts of the world and the Christian church. Authors synthesize the scholarly debates and analysis of Luther's thinking and point to future areas of research and exploration of his thought.

By exploring how Martin Luther, Martin Bucer, and John Calvin interpreted a set of eight messianic psalms (Psalms 2, 8, 16, 22, 45, 72, 110, 188), Sujin Pak elucidates key debates about Christological exegesis during the era of the Protestant reformation. More particularly, Pak examines the exegeses of Luther, Bucer, and Calvin in order to (a) reveal their particular theological emphases and reading strategies, (b) identify their debates over the use of Jewish exegesis and the factors leading to charges of 'judaizing' leveled against Calvin, and (c) demonstrate how Psalms reading and the accusation of judaizing serve distinctive purposes of confessional identity formation. In this way, she portrays the beginnings of those distinctive trends that separated Lutheran and Reformed exegetical principles.

Martin Luther's thought continues to challenge people throughout the world in the twenty-first century. His paradigmatic shift in defining God and what it means to be human left behind a foundation for viewing human creatures that was anchored in Aristotle's anthropology. Luther defined the Revealed God in terms of his mercy and love for human beings, based not on their merit and performance but rather on his unconditioned grace. He placed 'fearing, loving, and trusting God above all else' at the heart of his definition of being human. This volume places the development and exposition of these key presuppositions in Luther's thinking within the historical context of late medieval theology and piety as well as the unfolding dynamics of political and social change at the dawn of the modern era. Special attention is given the development of a 'Wittenberg way' of practicing theology under Luther's leadership. It left behind a dependence on allegorical methods of biblical interpretation for a 'literal-prophetic' approach to Scripture. More importantly, it placed the distinction between the 'gospel' as God's unmerited gift of identity as his children and the 'law', the expression of God's expectations for the performance of his children in good works, at the heart of all interpretation of the Bible. This presuppositional framework for practicing theology reflects Luther's personal experience and his deep commitment to pastoral care of common Christians as well as his reading of the biblical text. It is supported by his distinction of two kinds of human righteousness (passive in God's sight, active in relationship to others), his distinction of two realms or dimensions of human life, and his theology of the cross. The volume unfolds Luther's maturing thought on the basis of this method.

The eleven essays in this volume demonstrate how Calvin and the Reformed tradition engage with the Old Testament. The articles address two main areas: Calvin's interpretation of certain Old Testament books, and how Reformed thinkers in the global world study, explain, and apply the teaching of the Old Testament in their own contexts. This volume is the expanded version of the papers presented at the 2019 Calvin Studies Society Colloquium. Contributors include J. Todd Billings, Allison Brown, Thomas J. Davis, Jeff Fisher, Christine Kooi, Maarten Kuivenhoven, Scott Manetsch, Graeme Murdock, G. Sujin Pak, Yudha Thianto, and Michael VanderWeele.