Axt-Piscalar / Ohlemacher / Schuegraf Lutheran Dualities

Guidance for Preaching the Gospel
1. Auflage 2022
ISBN: 978-3-374-07210-1
Verlag: Evangelische Verlagsanstalt
Format: PDF
Kopierschutz: 1 - PDF Watermark

E-Book, Englisch, Band 4, 112 Seiten

Reihe: Lutheran Theology

Week for week preachers are faced with the task of helping their listeners to read the Bible with its wide range of different texts. The so-called dualities of law and gospel, faith and works, old and new covenant, promise and fulfilment are a key to understanding these texts. They have long been taken in the Lutheran churches as an aid to understanding the Bible. However, they have often been misunderstood and in particular used as criticism of Jewish theology.
This manual deals openly with this history of interpretation. It encourages a contemporary and critical approach to the dualities by describing their different theological backgrounds and illuminating their significance for the present. It explains how the dualities can encourage a lively preaching culture that combines theological understanding of the Bible with an interpretation that is suitable for the contemporary situation.
The book was written in the context of the United Evangelical Lutheran Church of Germany and supplemented by a preface for the English-language edition.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Axt-Piscalar, Christine

Ohlemacher, Andreas

Schuegraf, Oliver

Inhaltsverzeichnis

Content

Introduction

The evangelical way of interpreting the Bible in the church . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
1 Human existence before God: law and gospel . . . . . . 27
1.1 Law and gospel - “so what?”. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
a) Enlightening effect of an old distinction?. . . . . . . . 27
b) A distinction that helps to reflect . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29
1.2 Law and gospel – the two facets of the Word of God and how they open up our existence. . . . . . . . 30
1.2.1 Martin Luther’s distinction between law and gospel. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30
1.2.2 Understanding from the perspective of systematic theology. What does the distinction between law and gospel achieve? 37
1.2.3 Luther’s distinction between law and gospel and our preaching . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41
1.2.4 Consequences for sermon preparation . . . . . . . . . . . . 45
a) Gospel without law . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47
b) Law without gospel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48
c) Legalism in preaching: What matters is “that you do not make Christ into a Moses” . . . . . . 48
d) Preaching legalism or preaching the law?. . . . . . . . 50
e) Consequences for the grammar and semantics of preaching . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52
f) Consequences for structuring the sermon and holding the attention span. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53
g) The fundamental importance of the duality of law and gospel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54

2 The other dualities. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57
2.1 The distinction between faith and works. . . . . . . . . . . 57
2.1.1 Introductory remarks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57
2.1.2 The decisive point: Relief from the striving for perfection . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59
2.1.3 Consequences for sermon preparation . . . . . . . . . . . . 67
2.1.4 Consequences for structuring the sermon . . . . . . . . . 70
2.2 The distinction between the old and new covenant . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73
2.2.1 Introductory remarks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73
2.2.2 The promise of a new covenant in the Old Testament. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 74
2.2.3 Reference to the new covenant in the New Testament, especially in the tradition of the Last Supper of Jesus. .. . . . . . 76
2.2.4 The new covenant and the permanent election of Israel. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77
2.2.5 Ministers of the new covenant. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 82
2.2.6 The covenant theology of the Letter to the Hebrews . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 84
2.2.7 Consequences for the celebration of the Lord’s Supper and the preparation of sermons . . . . . . 86
2.3 The distinction between promise and fulfilment . . . . 92
2.3.1 Introductory remarks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 92
2.3.2 Use of the two terms. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 94
2.3.3 The duality as a method of Early Christian scriptural interpretation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 96
2.3.4 Clarifying the terminology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 97
2.3.5 This duality in Luther’s theology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 98
2.3.6 On the current relevance of the duality . . . . . . . . . . . 100
2.3.7 Consequences for sermon preparation . . . . . . . . . . . 101

3 Conclusion: The importance of Lutheran dualities . . . . . . . . . . . 103
Appendix . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 107
Members of the VELKD Commission on Theology 2015–2021. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 107