Systematics

In Reading Backwards Richard B. Hays maps the shocking ways the four Gospel writers interpreted Israel's Scripture to craft their literary witnesses to the Church's one Christ. The Gospels' scriptural imagination discovered inside the long tradition of a resilient Jewish monotheism a novel and revolutionary Christology.

Modernity's incredulity toward the Christian faith partly rests upon the characterization of early Christian preaching as a tendentious misreading of the Hebrew Scriptures. Christianity, modernity claims, twisted the Bible they inherited to fit its message about a mythological divine Savior. The Gospels, for many modern critics, are thus more about Christian doctrine in the second and third century than they are about Jesus in the first.

Such Christian "misreadings" are not late or politically motivated developments within Christian thought. As Hays demonstrates, the claim that the events of Jesus' life, death, and resurrection took place "according to the Scriptures" stands at the very heart of the New Testament's earliest message. All four canonical Gospels declare that the Torah and the Prophets and the Psalms mysteriously prefigure Jesus. The author of the Fourth Gospel puts the claim succinctly: "If you believed Moses, you would believe me, for he wrote about me" (John 5:46).

Hays thus traces the reading strategies the Gospel writers employ to "read backwards" and to discover how the Old Testament figuratively discloses the astonishing paradoxical truth about Jesus' identity. Attention to Jewish and Old Testament roots of the Gospel narratives reveals that each of the four Evangelists, in their diverse portrayals, identify Jesus as the embodiment of the God of Israel. Hays also explores the hermeneutical challenges posed by attempting to follow the Evangelists as readers of Israel's Scripture--can the Evangelists teach us to read backwards along with them and to discern the same mystery they discovered in Israel's story?

In Reading Backwards Hays demonstrates that it was Israel's Scripture itself that taught the Gospel writers how to understand Jesus as the embodied presence of God, that this conversion of imagination occurred early in the development of Christian theology, and that the Gospel writers' revisionary figural readings of their Bible stand at the very center of Christianity.

What treasures of the Reformation can pastors, Christians, and the church make use of today when trying to navigate burnout and scandal? What should a person look for in a church?

In Reclaiming the Reformation, Magnus Persson examines his own journey from popular preacher where church was a party, to the Lutheran faith and a pastor in the Church of Sweden where he relishes the liturgy nourished by its historic roots. Persson relies heavily on Luther's book On the Councils and the Church to answer this question and explain his journey.

Originally titled Christ's Church, On the Marks of the Church - Reclaiming the Reformation shows the influence of Bo Giertz but also draws on many different influences from within and without the Lutheran tradition to explain how everything the church does needs to be focused on communicating Christ crucified for you.

The church does this through the Word, the liturgy, and the sacraments. Through these means the soul is nourished and matured to handle the distress and tribulation with which the world harries the church and her people. Here, true rest is found for the souls of pastors battered by the pressure to be the next biggest church in town before they burnout and check out with scandal. 

A Shepherd's Letter is Bo Giertz distilled and served neat. He wrote this book to introduce his theological agenda for the Diocese of Gothenburg to which he was elected bishop in 1949. Here, he takes a straightforward approach to the theological themes that guided his writing of The Hammer of God, Faith Alone: The Heart of Everything, and With My Own Eyes. What he wrote for the sheep of the Gothenburg diocese, has applicability for all Christians everywhere even today, and will enrich their understanding of the "faith once for all delivered to the saints" (Jude 3).

Take Courage is a collection of essays, written by pastors and professors, about the care and cure of souls in the 21st century. As spiritual physicians, pastors are called to diagnose and treat all those suffering with the disease of sin. This noble task requires much from these undershepherds who are placed over Christ's flock. Yet the Good Shepherd himself has provided the effective tools of this healing art: the life-giving word and sacraments. Pastors, then, specialize in applying the medicine of forgiveness and bringing comfort to broken consciences. Collectively, these essays teach and expound upon this theme.

This helpful book honors the 45 years of faithful service given by one such undershepherd, Harold L. Senkbeil. As a pastor, seminary professor, author, speaker, husband, father, and the executive director of DOXOLOGY, Senkbeil has consistently provided competent treatment for both laity and pastors by distributing the forgiveness won by Jesus on the cross.

In honor of the 450th anniversary of Philip Melanchthon's death in 1560, a second edition of his Loci Communes ("Commonplaces" or "Common Topics") has been issued. Originally published by CPH in English under the name Loci Theologici 1543, this book is actually Melanchthon's last Latin edition, published in 1559. Generations of Lutheran pastors learned theology from this book in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. This revised English edition includes several new features: a new translation of Melanchthon's "Definitions of Terms That Have Been Used in the Church," a new historical introduction, cross-references to the original Latin, a Scripture index, and an index of persons.

Melanchthon's Loci praecipui theologici is one of the several most significant and influential compendia of theology written during the Reformation. This translation, which presents the final stage of its textual development, had an enormous impact on developing Lutheran and Reformed theology, whether in its content or its method. The new edition of Preus's work with Mayes's introduction and translation of the appendix, "Definitions," is a welcome presence in Reformation studies.

Richard A. Muller, P.J. Zondervan Professor of Historical Theology

Calvin Theological Seminary, Grand Rapids, Michigan

The third and final "age" of Philip Melanchthon's Loci editions was not only longer but also more carefully worded and in some ways more overtly evangelical than the second "age" of 1535. Melanchthon was putting his best foot forward, yet he hardly backed down from flawed assertions such as the necessity of good works to retain faith. Here, this premise entered his treatment of the Law's first use. Students of the Lutheran confessional heritage cannot ignore this book!

Ken Schurb, Pastor

Zion Lutheran Church, Moberly, Missouri

Despite studying under Harnack, Holl and old Liberalism, Hermann Sasse became a prominent figure in confessional Lutheranism by the time of World War I. He was a prominent figure in the German ecumenical movement for years and untiringly advocated that real unity could only be the result of real doctrinal agreement.

He had the respect of Roman Catholics, Lutherans, Anglicans and the Reformed alike. In his later years, Sasse believed that the Lutheran Church -- Missouri Synod was the last hope for world confessional Lutheranism and dedicated his efforts to raising the Synod's consciousness of its worldwide significance.

This collection of the writings of Hermann Sasse is comprised, with several exceptions, of materials never before published in English. This volume compiles material from 1941 through 1976, including articles, papers, essays, theses, lectures, and pastoral letters.