Wednesday, June 25, 2014

FW: An Interview with Rev. Dr. Benjamin Mayes, Editor of Johann Gerhard’s Theological Commonplaces

Mayes on Gerhard…

 

Feed: Concordia Academic
Posted on: Wednesday, June 25, 2014 12:00 AM
Author: DawnW
Subject: An Interview with Rev. Dr. Benjamin Mayes, Editor of Johann Gerhard's Theological Commonplaces

 

LogocommonplacesAs Concordia Publishing House prepares to release the eighth volume in Johann Gerhard's magisterial Theological Commonplaces, the following interview with the series editor, the Rev. Dr. Benjamin T. G. Mayes, introduces Gerhard and his writing, and reflects on the place of this material in the 17th century and for pastors and scholars of the 21st century.

Who was Johann Gerhard and why is his work important?

Johann Gerhard was a Lutheran pastor and theologian who lived about 100 years after Martin Luther. He was born in 1582, just two years after the last Lutheran confession, the Formula of Concord, had been published. In 1606, the year before Captain John Smith established Jamestown, Virginia, Gerhard received his first call—a call to be a pastor and superintendent of 26 parishes, and a lecturer at a high school. He was only 23 years old. Before he was 30, he had become a doctor of theology and had published several books. In his mid-30s he was called to be a professor of theology at the German city of Jena, and there he spent the next 21 years, until his death.

Gerhard's writings built up the church and Christian believers and also defended the same against attacks. His works that built up the church include his Sacred Meditations, Meditations on Divine Mercy, School of Piety, his Aphorisms, his Bible commentaries, his many sermons, and, most crucial, his work on the first great Lutheran study Bible, the Weimar Bible of 1640. His works that defended the church against attacks include the Theological Commonplaces and the book called The Catholic Confession.

What are the "theological commonplaces"? Why did Gerhard write this series?

The Theological Commonplaces (Latin: Loci Theologici) are a multivolume work of theology that draws from Holy Scripture, presents the teachings of the early church fathers, and defends the truth against its opponents. It is Gerhard's most famous work. It began as disputations (debates) that Gerhard held with the pastors in his district as an exercise in studying theology and defending the church's faith. From there Gerhard put into writing all of his notes and preparations, so that the Commonplaces would be a treasure trove of divine learning for pastors and other Christians to learn and defend God's holy revelation in Christ Jesus.

As you work with this material translated from Latin, what have you found to be most challenging? What has surprised you most in the volumes so far?

A number of things surprised me. Gerhard uses a lot of words that are not found in the standard Latin dictionaries. (This is because modern Latin-English dictionaries are geared for use in reading the classics; but the Latin language had grown and developed a bit by Gerhard's time, over one and a half millenia later.) Also he quotes from Augustine and other early church fathers more than from Luther. He knew and quoted from medieval church law and ancient Roman imperial law. He knew philosophy and made use of it in order to clarify his arguments and criticize his opponents' arguments. His arguments are thoroughly biblical, and he is very clear on this, even though he knows and makes use of so many other testimonies to the truth. Finally, he often ends his chapters or commonplaces with a consideration of the "practical use" of each doctrine. This shows that theology was not an ivory-tower exercise for Gerhard. Each point of theology was derived from Holy Scripture and was meant for application to God's people as teaching, consolation, admonition, or warning.

This project is truly a team effort. Describe the roles of the people involved.

Dr. Richard Dinda, a professor at Concordia University Texas in Austin, originally translated the 19th-century edition (edited by Edward Preuss) into English, but this translation lay dormant for several years. Then in the 2000s, the Rev. Paul McCain and the senior leadership and board for Concordia Publishing House resolved to bring forth Dr. Dinda's translation in print. Since nearly the beginning I have been the general editor, tasked with checking the translation and adding clarifying footnotes, tracking down the plethora of works that Gerhard cites, and providing a suitable introduction. Dawn Mirly Weinstock has been the production editor from the beginning, putting together the parts of these large volumes like the pieces of a puzzle. Recently, the Rev. Joshua Hayes and the Rev. Heath Curtis have joined the team as assistant editors. Numerous others have contributed to make this series the acme of Lutheran theology in the English language.

What benefits will a parish pastor derive from interacting with Gerhard's Theologocial Commonplaces?

Gerhard's Commonplaces are more thorough than any work of classical Lutheran theology that we have in English. For example, Pieper devotes a little more than one page to God's immutabity, and Gerhard devotes about four times as much space to the same topic. Pieper is three volumes; Gerhard will be seventeen volumes.

Gerhard's Commonplaces are educational. By reading him, one can learn an enormous amount about God's Word, church history, philosophy, and clear thinking.

Gerhard's Commonplaces give us a window into how the Formula of Concord was understood in the generation after it was written.

Many of Gerhard's opponents had incorrect views that are popular today. For example, in Commonplace II, On the Nature of God, Gerhard is constantly arguing with Conrad Vortius, a late 16th- / early 17th-century Reformed theologian who was condemned at the Synod of Dort (1618–19). Vorstius denied God's eternity, using the very same arguments as Nicholas Wolterstorff currently uses. Instead of being eternal, God, for Vorstius and Wolterstorff, is a temporal, everlasting being, bound by time just as we are. Nowadays, open theism and the theologies of Karl Barth and Wolfhart Pannenberg have found open ears among many. Gerhard's Commonplaces can help pastors and theologians today connect to the entire Christian tradition, which from the early church through the Middle Ages and the Reformation affirmed such things as God's impassibility, eternity, immutability, omnipotence, and omnipresence. Gerhard can help us to break free from modern theology.

Gerhard does a thorough job with his polemics. Although it may be unpopular these days, polemics are still important. They help us to go beyond saying, "This is what we believe," to saying "and this is why." Gerhard especially argues against Socinians (anti-Trinitarians, who were commonly called "Photinians"), Roman Catholics, and the Reformed.

Yet Gerhard was not overly polemical. He loved the truth and was willing to attack errorists, but he did so with moderation. He always endeavors to represent his adversaries truthfully. This makes his writings all the more accessible to us today.

Gerhard gives thorough consideration to issues dealing with pastoral practice and ethics. Marriage is the largest volume in the series. (It deals also with celibacy, polygamy, forbidden grades of relationship, etc.) Many scholars have noted that Gerhard's Commonplaces are not only intellectual, but they are also pastoral and devotional.

Describe the value of the publication of this series for the scholar.

Gerhard is the third most important classical Lutheran theologian, after Luther and Chemnitz. He quickly became a standard for all later Lutheran doctrine. Everyone quoted him and interacted with his writings, until people stopped reading Latin.

The Commonplaces are filled to the brim with quotations from the church fathers, many of whom have never been translated. One can read large quotations from Augustine and Cyril of Alexandria, for example, and also quotations from figures known to, but not commonly read by, American Lutherans, such as Alcuin, Bernard of Clairvaux, Savonarola, and Jean Gerson.

Gerhard lived in an era that is basically unknown to us. We know a lot about the time from the Reformation to the Formula of Concord, and then from C. F. W. Walther to the present, but not about the time in between—a span of 250 years. (The United States is younger than that.) It is as if someone buried a treasure and left us a treasure map. We have known about Gerhard for a long time—that is the treasure map. But only now are we beginning to dig up the treasures themselves.

The forthcoming volume addresses sin and free choice. In addition to his constant dialogue with Robert Bellarmine, what other groups or theologians does Gerhard address?

531195Gerhard rejects Matthias Flacius's views on original sin; Flacius claimed that the substance of fallen man is itself original sin. Rejecting this view was important, since God remains the creator of mankind, and yet God is in no way the author of sin. This latter point is emphasized against the Reformed, some of whose writers made God responsible for Adam's fall. Nevertheless, Bellarmine and his Tridentine Roman Catholic colleagues remain the main opponent, as they minimized the gravity of original sin, claimed that evil desires are not sinful, and maximized the abilities of human free choice without the aid of God's grace. Gerhard, on the other hand, emphasizes the seriousness of human sin and the utter necessity of God's grace for salvation. In this way, He gives all glory to God and seeks salvation where God has put it, in the saving work of Christ, applied to us by the Holy Spirit.


 

To order On Sin and Free Choice, please contact CPH at 800-325-3040 or visit www.cph.org.

Click here to subscribe to Johann Gerhard's Theological Commonplaces series.

At CPH since 2006, Benjamin Mayes is the managing editor for Luther's Works: American Edition, the general editor for Johann Gerhard's Theological Commonplaces, and he oversees other book projects.


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Monday, June 16, 2014

FW: The Christian's Time

Weedon/Loehe…

 

Feed: Weedon's Blog
Posted on: Sunday, June 15, 2014 5:41 PM
Author: noreply@blogger.com (William Weedon)
Subject: The Christian's Time

 

A Christian lives his days with Christ and in comtemplation of Him.

 

His Days pass in remembering the sufferings of Jesus. When the clock strikes eleven, he knows that the bells are ringing in the noon hour of his Redeemer, when thick darkness overshadowed Him. In the afternoon at three o'clock, he breathes a greateful prayer of joy, for the Lord has finished. Every stroke of the clock calls upon him to consider what Christ did and suffered in that hour.

 

His Weeks are pictures of Christ's life. Sunday, at each return, is the brother of the Easter Day, the most joyful day of the week. It is preceded by days of repentance and suffering. Wednesday already brings the memory of the unholy bargaining of Judas with the high priests and murderers of Christ. Thursday divides his mind between the struggle in Gethsemane and the blessed institution of the Lord's Supper. Every Friday is a weekly "Good Friday." Every Saturday is a sabbath of the rest of Christ in the grave.

 

As in the week, so also the Year: it recalls the life, suffering and death of Christ, an ever new experience of what the Gospels narrate; itself a very Gospel of Christ our Lord.

 

--from Wilhelm Loehe's Seed Grains of Faith. p. 142, 143.


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Thursday, June 12, 2014

FW: Questions and Answers with Dr. A. Andrew Das

Das…

 

Feed: Concordia Academic
Posted on: Thursday, June 12, 2014 12:01 AM
Author: Laura Lane
Subject: Questions and Answers with Dr. A. Andrew Das

 

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Dr. A. Andrew Das took some time to reflect on his Galatians commentary. Read on to learn what led him to this writing, what he thinks about modern Pauline scholarship, and how he hopes his commentary will be influential.

How did you become interested in studying Galatians?

In 1992 J. Louis Martyn taught a seminar on Galatians at Yale while he was in the process of preparing his Anchor Bible commentary. This was my first taste of a Pauline epistle at the graduate level, and the course introduced me to a entirely new way of understanding Second Temple Judaism as well as to what is called "the new perspective on Paul and the Law" (it's not that new anymore).

The "new perspective" movement does not prioritize the Reformation's emphasis on sin and grace and abandons anything remotely "Lutheran" in the reading of Paul. The first-century apostle is absorbed, instead, with rejecting the view that the gentiles need to become Jewish in order to enjoy membership in the people of God.

After a Lutheran seminary, this was an entirely new way to read Paul's letters, and I returned to these discussions in my doctoral work. I also went back to the description of the Judaism of Paul's day as a religion based on God's gracious election of a people and mercy toward sinners. I developed what I have labeled a "newer perspective on Paul and the Law" (I guess it's not "newer" anymore). My 2001 Paul, the Law, and the Covenant lays out my approach to reading Paul. The Galatians commentary, then, is a chance to return to the biblical book that got me started in my professional work.

What unique contribution does your commentary make?

The Galatians commentary differs from some of the other commentaries in the series. Since Pauline scholarship has been largely neglected in conservative Lutheran circles, and since Galatians is not an excessively long biblical book, I have tried to be fairly thorough in my review of the professional literature. So you will find in the footnotes of the commentary reference not only to all the other commentaries on Galatians but also to a range of journal articles, ancient sources, and other professional materials.

My hope is that this commentary will get the conservative Lutheran audience up to speed on what is going on in modern Pauline scholarship.

At the same time, this Galatians commentary is the very first that is written from the standpoint of my "newer perspective" on Paul and the Law. I have argued at length why one can accept an understanding of Judaism as a religion largely of grace rather than of "works righteousness," the old caricature, and yet Paul understood that grace in terms of Christ and not the Mosaic Law. To take the path of Moses' Law is simply a dead-end with respect to salvation. For that matter, the Law of Moses itself points the way forward to what God would be doing in Christ.

How do you hope your commentary on Galatians will influence the ministry, preaching, and teaching of pastors?

I was frustrated as a teenager and college student by preaching and teaching that did not advance my understanding of the Scriptures beyond what I had gleaned already before my teenage years. I went to seminary and graduate school in the hope of finding a way to offer something back to that bored teenager from years before.

Pastors and teachers in the church need to remain active and genuinely curious about the ancient biblical text. That curiosity, combined with good study patterns in the parish and a good set of tools, would, I am convinced, make a difference for many potentially disengaging parishioners. I am hoping that this Galatians commentary would provide pastors and teachers with a useful resource for personal study in Scripture as well as for preparing interesting, meaty Bible classes and engaging sermons.

Another problem in our circles is what I call a sort of "Gnostic" preaching and teaching of the biblical text. Conservative Lutheran pastors jump too quickly to the analogy of faith or to other biblical books when preaching a biblical text. There is a place for that, but later on in the interpretive process. Lou Martyn was right to stress to his students and colleagues that we have to imagine ourselves in the first-century congregations addressed by Paul in his Letter to the Galatians. That original setting is the rightful context in which we must interpret these words.

Unfortunately, unless we have personal connections with the Doctor and his TARDIS (a fairly sophisticated time machine), we are not able to go back in time to sit in one of those Galatians congregations when the letter was first being read and studied. That means that we need to reconstruct, as best as we can, what that original context must have been like. We need to study the first-century culture. We mine Paul's letter for clues about the situation he was addressing. We test hypotheses about the original audience and situation. Then we go back and read the letter in view of that reconstruction.

This is the task not just of the scholar but also of the pastor, and especially of the congregation itself. Every pastor's job is to transport the congregation back in time to those original audiences. We have to appreciate Galatians on its own terms before we then branch out and understand Galatians in view of the larger Pauline corpus. Then we branch out and interpret Galatians in view of the rest of the New Testament and the rest of the Scriptural witness. Finally, we are able to look at how Galatians was received through the centuries and understood within the framework of Lutheranism.

The problem is that too often interpreters ignore the crucial starting point with the original audience, and, when that happens, it becomes very easy to get these words on the page to mean something that reflects more our own modern discourse. We read our own conclusions into an ancient text. If this commentary gets the point across about the need for good interpretive work, then that will be one measure of its success.

What was the best part about writing your commentary?

Of course, the best part about writing the commentary is to see the labors finally completed and in print. Hopefully others will find it useful and of value, and to the Lord be the glory!


About the Author
A. Andrew Das is the Donald W. and Betty J. Buik Chair at Elmhurst College. Dr. Das authored Solving the Romans Debate (Fortress, 2007); Paul and the Jews (Hendrickson, 2003); Paul, the Law, and the Covenant (Hendrickson, 2001); and Baptized into God's Family (Northwestern, 1991; 2d ed., 2008). He coedited The Forgotten God (Westminster John Knox, 2002).

His articles have appeared in Journal of Biblical LiteratureJournal for the Study of the New Testament,New Testament StudiesCatholic Biblical QuarterlyConcordia JournalConcordia Theological Quarterly, and Logia, as well as in Paul Unbound (Hendrickson, 2010), The New Interpreter's Dictionary of the Bible (Abingdon, 2009), Reading Paul's Letter to the Romans (Society of Biblical Literature, 2012), Unity and Diversity in the Gospels and Paul (Society of Biblical Literature, 2012), The Law in Holy Scripture (Concordia, 2004), The Oxford Encyclopedia of the Bible and Ethics (forthcoming), and The Oxford Handbook of Pauline Studies (forthcoming).

He was an invited member of the Society of Biblical Literature's Paul and Scripture Seminar and has presented at the Society of Biblical Literature; the African Society of Biblical Scholars; the Chicago Society of Biblical Research; the international Studiorum Novi Testamenti Societas, of which he is an elected member; and the Evangelical Theological Society. He is also a member of the Catholic Biblical Association of America and serves on the Holman Christian Standard Bible revision committee.

He received his M.Div. from Concordia Theological Seminary and did his graduate work at Yale University, Duke University, and Union Theological Seminary in Virginia. He served as a pastor at Trinity Lutheran Church (LCMS) in Lombard, Ill., from 2000–2002 and assisted as a pastor at St. John's Lutheran in Lombard from 2002–2004.


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Sunday, June 1, 2014

FW: Martin Luther on Music

Phillips…

 

Feed: Historia et Memoria
Posted on: Sunday, June 1, 2014 8:39 PM
Author: Matthew Phillips
Subject: Martin Luther on Music

 

"I would certainly like to praise music with all my heart as the excellent gift of God which it is and to commend to everyone.  But I am so overwhelmed by the diversity and magnitude of its virtue and benefits that I can find neither beginning nor end or method for my discourse.  As much as I want to commend it, my praise is bound to be wanting and inadequate.  For who can comprehend it all?  And even if you wanted to encompass all of it, you would appear to have grasped nothing at all." Martin Luther, "Preface to Georg Rhau's Symphoniae iucundae," in Luther's Works, vol. 53, pp. 321-322.

Martin Luther demonstrated his love of music, especially in Christian worship, throughout his adult life.  Luther studied music as one of the liberal arts.  In this famous preface, written in 1538, Luther described music as a divine gift that appears throughout nature but reaches its perfection in human beings.

"First then, looking at music itself, you will find that from the beginning of the world it has been instilled and implanted in all creatures, individually and collectively.  For nothing is without sound or harmony.  Even the air, which of itself is invisible and imperceptible to all our senses, and which, since it lacks both voice and speech, is the least musical of all things, becomes sonorous, audible, and comprehensible when it is set in motion….Music is still more wonderful in living things, especially birds….And yet, compared to the human voice, all this hardly deserves the name of music, so abundant and incomprehensible is here the munificence and wisdom of our most gracious Creator." Ibid., 322.

After Luther marveled at the human voice as an instrument that confounds philosophers, he praised the benefit of the divine gift of music.  He understood its power over the human mind and soul to be next to Holy Scripture.

"We can mention only one point (which experience confirms), namely, that next to the Word of God, music deserves the highest praise.  She is mistress and governess of those human emotions….which as masters govern men or more often overwhelm them….For whether you wish to comfort the sad, to terrify the happy, to encourage the despairing, to humble the proud, to calm the passionate, or to appease those full of hate….what more effective means than music could you find?" Ibid., 323. [Emphasis added]

For this reason, Luther explained that the ancient prophets and fathers combined music and God's Word.  Thus humans combine the gifts of language and song to praise God.

"But when [musical] learning is added to all this and artistic music which corrects, develops, and refines the natural music, then at last it is possible to taste with wonder (yet not to comprehend) God's absolute and perfect wisdom in his wondrous work of music." Ibid., 324.

 


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