Heinrich Bullinger On Prophecy And The Prophetic Office 1523 1538

It has often been noted that the Protestant Reformation of the early sixteenth century witnessed a revived interest in the scriptural notions of prophets and prophecy. Drawing from both late medieval apocalyptic expectations of the immanent end of the world and from a humanist revival of biblical studies, the prophet appeared to many as a suitable role model for the Protestant preacher. A prominent proponent of this prophetic model was the Swiss theologian and church leader Heinrich Bullinger (1504–1575). This study by Daniël Timmerman presents the first in-depth investigation of Bullinger's concept of prophecy and his understanding of the prophetic office. It also engages with the history of the Zurich institute for the study of the Scriptures, which has become widely known as the »Prophezei«.

This book explores the origins and development of one of the most significant doctrines of Reformation theology. The innovative ways in which the Zurich reformer Huldrych Zwingli and his successor Heinrich Bullinger thought about the relationship between the Old and New Testaments left an indelible mark on the Reformed tradition in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Distinctively, Zwingli and Bullinger emphasized the continuity of both testaments and spoke of a single covenant between God and humanity. This would become one of the defining teachings of Reformed Christianity. This book follows the development of their "covenant theology" in the Reformation and argues for its adoption by John Calvin in Geneva and the German theologians of the post-Reformation era.

What is theologically and homiletically happening in 'prophetic' sermons? This empirical theological study offers an analysis of the prophetic dimension in contemporary practices of preaching, including sermons from Bonhoeffer, King and Tutu, and from Dutch local contexts. After a phenomenological opening, five theological concepts are extracted from the studied sermons: exposing destructiva; interrupting dominant discourses; recognising the Word; overcoming destructiva; and edifying the congregation. In this study, prophetic speech is reconstructed as an illuminative interplay between epiphanic and inductive aspects.

The dramatic task of re-imagining clerical identity proved crucial to the Renaissance and Reformation. Jon Wood brings new light to ways in which that discussion animated reconfigurations of church, state, and early modern populace. End-Times considerations of Christian religion had played a part in upheavals throughout the medieval period, but the Reformation era mobilized that tradition with some new possibilities for understanding institutional leadership. Perceiving dangers of an overweening institution on the one hand and anarchic "priesthood of all believers" on the other hand, early Protestants defended legitimacy of ordained ministry in careful coordination with the state. The early Reformation in Zurich emphatically disestablished traditional priesthood in favour of a state-supported "prophethood" of exegetical-linguistic expertise. The author shows that Heinrich Bullinger's End-Times worldview led him to reclaim for Protestant Zurich a notion of specifically clerical "priesthood," albeit neither in terms of statist bureaucracy nor in terms of the traditional sacramental character that his precursor (Huldrych Zwingli) had dismantled. Clerical priesthood was an extraordinarily fraught subject in the sixteenth century, especially in the Swiss Confederation. Heinrich Bullinger's private manuscripts helpfully supplement his more circumscribed published works on this subject. The argument about reclaiming a modified institutional priesthood of Protestantism also prompts re-assessment of broader Reformation history in areas of church-state coordination and in major theological concepts of "covenant" and "justification" that defined religious/confessional distinctions of that era.

Protestant reformers found the prophet and biblical prophecy to be exceptionally effective for framing their reforming work under the authority of Scripture-for the true prophet speaks the Word of God alone and calls the people, their worship, and their beliefs and practices back to the Word of God. uses the prophet and biblical prophecy as a powerful lens through which to view many aspects of the reformers in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. G. Sujin Pak argues that these prophetic concepts served the substantial purposes of articulating a theology of the priesthood of all believers, a biblical model of the pastoral office, a biblical vision of the reform of worship, and biblical processes for discerning right interpretation of Scripture. Pak demonstrates the ways in which understandings of the prophet and biblical prophecy contributed to the formation of distinct confessional identities. She goes on to demonstrate the waning of explicit prophetic terminology, particularly among the next generation of Protestant leadership. Eventually, she shows, the Protestant reformers concluded that the figure of the prophet carried with it as many problems as it did benefits, though they continued to give much time and attention to the exegesis of biblical prophetic writings.

A Companion to the Swiss Reformation presents the varied form taken by the Protestant Reformation in Switzerland over the course of the sixteenth century, highlighting regional differences as well as consequences for the Swiss Confederation as a whole.

Worship is the right, fitting, and delightful response of moral beings—angelic and human—to God the Creator, Redeemer, and Consummator, for who he is as one eternal God in three persons—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit—and for what he has done in creation and redemption, and for what he will do in the coming consummation, to whom be all praise ...

This book explores the Westminster Confession of Faith’s claim that “there is no ordinary possibility of salvation” outside of the church by asking what it means, whether it is biblical, and why it is important. The author concludes that the Westminster Confession rightly stresses the role of the church in bringing people to salvation without making this claim absolute. We should love the church because Christ loved it and gave Himself for it. He died for the church so that we might live in and with it. Let us study this subject with our Bibles in our hands, the Spirit in our hearts, prayer on our lips, and our forefathers helping us along. Table of Contents: Part One History—What Does WCF 25.2 Mean? 1. Reformation and Early Reformed Background 2. The Westminster Confession of Faith and Beyond Part Two Theology—Is WCF 25.2 Biblical? 3. The Church in the Old Testament 4. The Visible Church in the New Testament 5. The Invisible Church in the New Testament Part Three Practice—Why Is WCF 25.2 Important? 6. The Ordinary Necessity of the Visible Church for Salvation