Who am I? Why am I here? What is my purpose? How can I make a difference? These questions have to do with the topic of vocation. Vocation is more than what one does for a living in terms of one's career. Vocation is a lens that helps believers see the larger story of who they are regarding their calling with God through faith in Jesus and how they are called to love and serve their neighbors through their everyday callings. But how can one personally and practically apply this relevant tea...

Given a life spent in scholarship and controversy, it is easy to forget how much energy Martin Luther devoted to helping the common person understand and take comfort from Gods word. This commitment extended to even the most challenging of biblical texts, and nowhere is this more apparent than Luthers work on the lament psalms. Difficult to understand, and perhaps even more difficult to implement in life and devotion, the lament psalms played a key role in Luthers thought. More importantly...

Luther's oft-recounted life made a profound impact on his contemporaries. Some revered him; some hated him. This volume provides a brief narrative of the unfolding events that took place from his birth to a young entrepreneurial family through his turbulent career as university professor and public figure to his death while on a mission to reconcile a feuding princely family. Following parts of this narrative come "interviews" with friends and foes of his time, taken from a variety of sixt...

Ten percent of all royalties will go to the Soldiers of the Cross Fund to help professional church workers and their families who are experiencing financial hardships. The Bible is not an easy book to understand. In fact, it is not a single book at all, but rather a library of sixty-six books that were written by at least forty different authors on three continents over a period of fifteen hundred years. God's Timeline will show you the foundation, or grand story, that holds all of these b...

The Augsburg Confession is a unique document in the history of the Christian church, containing both a succinct summary of the heart of Christian teaching and a defense of the changes in practice introduced by Martin Luther and the Wittenberg reformers. Robert Kolb and Timothy J. Wengert invite readers on an accessible journey into the heart of this foundational confession--as well as the minds of primary author Philip Melanchthon and the other reformers at the heart of the emerging Luther...

Scholars routinely describe how Martin Luther prioritized the books of the New Testament that he believed most truly represented the gospel, the Living Word of Jesus Christ. Luther adored the Gospel of John and the Pauline epistles. Less well known is the admiration he had for the pastoral epistle of 1 Peter. Dennis Ngien's careful explication brings 1 Peter into the light of Lutheran biblical scholarship, demonstrating its standing for Luther alongside the Gospel of John and the Pauline e...

Questions about Lutherans and the Holy Spirit? This book probes Lutheranism from Luther to the Formula of Concord (1517-1577) and presents a striking consistency regarding the Holy Spirit among Lutheran Reformers. The Holy Spirit dominated Luther's writing, not only in theology, but in all aspects of living out God's will. Six of the theologians researched in this book were also pastors dealing with enormous challenges from government interference, war, religious disputes, and, as Luther d...

This study addresses what has been a previously unexamined subject in Luther scholarship and presents how Luther (re-)interprets the concept of purgatory in line with his biblical and theological insight. The book gives the background of the development of the doctrine of purgatory, particularly of penitential theology, as well as a brief summary of Luther's so-called Reformation breakthrough. Furthermore, it explicates how in the Explanations of the Ninety-Five Theses (1518) Luther articu...

In conversations about the Reformation, the name Martin Luther towers above all others. And rightly so. His work, vision, and writings set Christianity on a course of events that would forever change the way that most believers live and understand their faith. And yet, the Reformation was far more than Martin Luther. Around Luther were hundreds of people - fellow teachers and priests, politicians, artists, printers, and spouses - without whose activity and work the Reformation would have p...

Galvanized by Erasmus' teaching on free will, Martin Luther wrote De servo arbitrio, or The Bondage of the Will, insisting that the sinful human will could not turn itself to God. In this first study to investigate the sixteenth-century reception of De servo, Robert Kolb unpacks Luther's theology and recounts his followers' ensuing disputes until their resolution in the Lutheran churches' 1577 Formula of Concord.

From their formulation in the sixteenth century through the present day, every generation of Lutheran leadership has grappled with the centrality and importance of the Lutheran confessional writings.In this important new volume, Arand, Kolb, and Nestingen bring the fruit of an entire generation of scholarship to bear on these documents, making it an essential and up-to-date class text.The Lutheran Confessions places the documents solidly within their politi...

As a result of our sinful human nature, there can be no unmediated relationship between God and humanity, for God must wear a mask in all of his dealings with people. Moreover, human nature cannot recognize God, nor comprehend his nature, without a covering. Therefore God, in his grace and mercy, envelops himself in his word and works and reveals himself in certain forms. These concrete forms of the Holy Spirit are God’s way to people and a rejection of every way from humanity to God; they...