Tuesday, March 4, 2008

Studying Luther's Doctrine



A Luther Statue Is Expected
At Our Anti-Luther Seminaries.
Stare long and hard, children. One look is all you get today at conservative schools.

A former Roman Catholic asked me about studying Luther.

Roland Bainton's Here I Stand is still a fine book about Luther and the Reformation. My wife, son, and I heard Bainton lecture, visited him at Sterling Library. He helped me with my dissertation. He was a fine historian but a Unitarian at best. He earned his PhD in New Testament but earned tenure as a church historian. His Scriptural views are Unitarian at best. Nevertheless, he opened all his classes with prayer.

The five-volume Luther's Sermons is the best place to start. He is the greatest theologian, preacher, and Biblical expositor of the Christian Church. We know Luther's doctrine best through his sermons. Read them and re-read them. Read them out loud to someone.

What Luther Says is another fine book to own.

I love his Commentary on 1 and 2 Peter.

His Galatians Commentary is enormous but worth careful studying. John Bunyan read it almost as much as the Bible. But who reads The Pilgrim's Progress anymore? Far more edifying is something by C. Peter Wagner or Paul Y. Cho.

Roman Catholics might want to read Luther's Catholic Christology, published by Northwestern Publishing House. That would be good to read along with Chemnitz' Two Natures of Christ.

Many of the Luther classics are printed in Grand Rapids. Gasp. That is a Calvinist center. Yes, they pay more attention to Luther than the Lutherans do.