By Scott Keith –
I recently heard a preacher say that it is possible for preachers and teachers to “Gospel souls right into hell.” I really don’t wish to mischaracterize or impugn what the preacher was trying to communicate, but, needless to say, I was a bit shocked.
By Scott Keith –
“We will not be driven by fear into an age of unreason, if we dig deep into our own history and our doctrine and remember that we are not descended from fearful men, not men who feared to write, to speak, to associate, and to defend causes which were for the moment unpopular.” These are the words spoken by Edward R. Murrow as encouragement to those who would stand up in opposition to then Senator McCarthy’s hearings designed to root out all dissenters, whether they were guilty of being communists or not. Mr. Murrow goes on to remind us all of a simple yet exceptionally difficult reality: “We can deny our heritage and our history, but we cannot escape responsibility for the result.”
By Scott Keith –
Caleb and I were in Bergen, Norway this week at the Lutheran Study Days conference. The conference concluded with the Divine Service conducted by Pastor Jon Magne Sønstabø, who has served DELK’s (the local church) Bergen congregation together with Jan Bygstad.
By Scott Keith –
As many of you may know, I am a zealous advocate for doing apologetics. Apologetics is defined as the defense of the Christian faith. The simplicity of this definition, however, does not help one understand the complexity of the problem of defining apologetics. There is a great diversity of approaches when approaching the task of doing apologetics. Accordingly, I have learned and practiced apologetic techniques myself, and I have spent many years teaching them to others. For the most part, I use the evidential argument, but there are other methods as well.
By Scott Keith –
*This week, I have given my spot over to my good friend and mentor Johan Hinderlie. Besides putting up with me as a friend, Johan has served as a radio preacher, Bible camp director, parish pastor, and tour leader. But he gets most of his fun pretending he is Martin Luther. Sometimes his wife acts alongside him as Katy von Bora. They live in Minnesota enjoying their three married sons and six grandchildren. Enjoy!*
By Scott Keith –
Do you ever notice that Christians tend to treat their salvation like a participatory event? We act as if we had some hand in and that without our help, God will never be able to see it through to completion. We strut about as though we not only have something to be proud of but as if we deserve some heavenly credit. We wait, I think, for God to say thank you to us someday for all our hard work pulling ourselves up by our bootstraps. In fact, we all seem rather disappointed that God has not reached down from heaven and patted us on the back already.
By Scott Keith –
(Today, my wife, Joy Keith, has stepped up to proclaim a little Gospel to the readers of The Jagged Word. Enjoy.)
As I was growing up as a Gen-X-er on the South Side of Chicago, my parents used many a classic turn of phrase assumingly trying to teach my brothers and me life lessons. Things like, “If you eat your (insert canned green vegetable of your choice here), you’ll grow hair on your chest.” Or, “Don’t cross your eyes too long or they’ll stay like that forever,” “Don’t speak unless spoken to!” “Children are to be seen and not heard!” “Actions speak louder than words.” So, as the only daughter, I sure as shooting wasn’t going to eat green vegetables, and I didn’t want to marry a guy who did. EWWWW! Recently, as I am a grandmother (who knows better and loves her FRESH green vegetables), I am watching my own kids who are moving out, becoming adults, growing up, and being parents themselves, I’ve been reflecting on some of my life before I left my childhood home.
By Scott Keith –
Look at me! It’s cliché. In our age full of social media, selfies, and self-aggrandizement, we all want people to look at us. We want to be noticed. We want to be famous, if even for 15 seconds. We want the world to love us. It starts when we are young and just learning to do this or that, and we yell out to mom and dad, “look at me,” and it only gets worse from there.
By Scott Keith –
The Search
Thus, we are at the end of our brief investigation of Philip Melanchthon; his theology, teaching, writings (especially the Loci Communes), work as a theological ambassador, reformer, and good friend of Martin Luther. Too, this short series has attempted to show that many, if not all, of the attempts that have been made to reveal or identify tensions or error in Melanchthon’s theology, have arisen primarily from anachronistic presuppositions of inconsistencies with Luther, or problems that have their grounding in modern systematic and dogmatic relevancies.
By Scott Keith –
A Recap
The Reformation was firmly ensconced in the German lands and began to move to other countries. It even reached France. In 1534, Melanchthon was invited to France to defend the Lutheran position to King Francis, who seemed to favor the Reformation. Melanchthon responded that he would do what was within his power for the sake of true religion (CR: 2, 739). Melanchthon expressed a fond willingness to accept the invitation, though John Fredrick, his elector, refused to grant him leave to go. The refusal of permission to travel did not stop Melanchthon from keeping up correspondences with interested parties in France.
By Scott Keith –
By the 1530s, the Lutheran Reformation was ensconced in most of Germany. This time marks an interesting development in Melanchthon’s life and career. From this point forward, he was called upon to defend the faith in the halls of princes and before political leaders for the rest of his life. He served as a de facto Lutheran ambassador to lands considering adoption of Reformation theologies.
By Scott Keith –
The First Missteps:
Melanchthon was the consummate tinkerer and was never completely satisfied with anything he authored. Directly after the presentation of the Augsburg Confession and the publication of the Apology, Melanchthon began to make changes to the Augsburg Confession. These changes have become known as the Variata, or Altered Augsburg Confession. Up to 1540, these were mostly minor changes in wording. However, in 1540 and 1542, Melanchthon made changes to Article X, which caused considerable controversy. In Article X of the Variata, Melanchthon makes the language concerning the presence of Christ in the Lord’s Supper less precise to make the article more acceptable to the Reformed. While these changes were not extreme, they should not have been made as men had laid their lives on the line for what they originally signed in 1530. To change a document men had pledged their lives, reputations, and fortunes to defend is certainly a mistake.
By Scott Keith –
We All Love a Good Controversy
The late 1520s brought controversy to the budding Lutherans and Melanchthon. Among them was what would come to be known as the Antinomian Controversy. Johan Agricola, a colleague and preacher, had begun to argue that the Law no longer needed to be preached to Christians because the regenerate was free from the power of the Law.
By Scott Keith –
By Order of the Emperor
To develop a united front against the Turks, Emperor Charles V decreed that an imperial diet would convene at Augsburg to deal with the “evangelical problem,” among other things. The emperor announced that the diet would convene on April 8, 1530.
By Scott Keith –
Early Days at Wittenberg
Contrary to popular opinion, Melanchthon never served as a parish pastor. Unlike Luther, he was not known as a preacher. But as John Schofield points out in his work Philip Melanchthon and the English Reformation, his 1519 Bachelor of Divinity degree earned at Wittenberg and his appointment to the faculty at the University of Wittenberg made him the first ordained professor of Greek in Germany.
By Scott Keith –
Luther Under the Ban Melanchthon Hard at Work
In 1521—the same year Melanchthon married his wife—at the Diet of Worms, Martin Luther was convicted of heresy and placed under a Papal bull and an imperial ban. The ban meant that he was an outlaw and could be killed or imprisoned on sight. It was only the grace and quick thinking of his elector, Fredrick the Wise, that saved Luther’s bacon. Elector Fredrick whisked Luther off to the Wartburg castle for safe keeping. Yet, while Dr. Luther was contending with the Papal bull against him, confessing the Christian faith at Worms, and writing sermons for preaching in the Castle Church and elsewhere, Melanchthon was at work developing the first Lutheran “system” of theology. This work was destined to exert a powerful influence on the Lutheran Reformation and marks an epoch in the history of Christian theology. The work in question was entitled the Loci Communes Theologici, or Common Topics of Theology.
By Scott Keith –
Early Life and Education:
Philip(p) was born to George and Barbara Schwarzerdt in Bretten in 1497. Philip had four siblings: Anna (1499), Georg (1500 or 1501), Margarete (1506), and Barbara (1508). All were born in his grandparents’ house in the Electoral Saxon Residential town of Bretten. Melanchthon’s father, Georg Schwarzerdt, born in Heidelberg, was a master of gunnery founding and was skilled in forging lightweight, durable armor. Because of his skills, Georg was elevated to the office of electoral master of armorer and thus needed to remain in Heidelberg. Melanchthon’s mother, Barbara, came from the wealthy merchant family of Reuter.
By Scott Keith –
Yesterday I taught a class on Philip Melanchthon at St. John’s Lutheran Church in Frasier, Michigan. At the end of class, I was asked if I would recommend a short biography on Melanchthon suitable for a layperson. Sadly, I said no. Most of the short biographies are out of print and very expensive, and most the modern works are written for academic audiences. So, I decided to do a short series as a brief introduction to the life and times of Philip Melanchthon. As we continue to celebrate the 500th anniversary of the Reformation, I think that this series of blogs will be helpful and pair nicely with the two forthcoming Thinking Fellows podcasts on Melanchthon.
By Scott Keith –
(Hello, blogosphere. This little piece of satire was sent to me by a former student who for understandable reasons wishes to remain nameless. I hope you enjoy his first contribution to The Jagged Word.)
My First Lutheran Cruise:
Day 1: Dear Mom and Dad,
Thank you so much for buying my ticket to the S.S.S.S.S.F.S.G. (Steam Ship Sola Scriptura Sola Fide Sola Gratia) Luther; I’m having a really good time on the open seas. I’m normally afraid of the ocean, but I feel safe and secure within the theologically reinforced hull of this LCMS-sanctioned cruise ship. There are even a couple windows in case anyone decides to look outside. However, that rarely happens since there is so much great stuff happening inside. I was grateful to find out that my room was in the very back of the boat. Actually, now that I think of it, that’s where most of the people are staying. I heard rumors that there might be some rooms near the front of the boat, but I believe that they are mostly unoccupied or filled with the few non-Lutherans that are on the cruise.
By Coleen Sharp – Coleen Sharp is a wife and mom to four boys. She co-hosts the Theology […]
