A fallen world is full of reasons to lose heart. From the large-scale tragedies of war, famine, and natural disasters, to the more personal tragedies of broken relationships and broken dreams, it can be difficult to avoid discouragement--even for the believer. And yet, Scripture calls us to a life of hope, based not on wishful thinking or avoiding our problems but based on who God is, what he has done, and what he is still doing. In this short, giftable book, pastor Jason Meyer shows you that though the reasons for discouragement seem strong, the reasons we have to take heart and hold on to hope are stronger yet. Through biblical truth and personal stories, Meyer encourages the weary and anxious believer by shining light on the nature of reality, the nature of God, and the intersection of the two in our daily, rubber-meets-the-road lives. The result is a book that lifts our spirits in a world that too often seeks to drag us down.

Tuomo Mannermaa's Two kinds of Love is a provocative work offering a distinctly different interpretation of Martin Luther's theology. Luther, in Mannermaa's treatment here, emerges as a unique theologian of love whose central theology paradigms-the theology of the cross, justification by faith and salvation by grace, and dues absconditus-can be understood fully only within the framework of love. Book jacket.

There has been a distinct tendency in modern scholarship to underestimate Luther’s teaching on love by overemphasizing his teaching on justification. Calling this tendency into question, this volume advances the thesis that Luther’s teaching on faith and love operates as the overriding thematic pair in the dynamics of Christ and the law—structurally and conceptually undergirding the 1535 Galatians commentary. The research situates itself in the landscape of Luther scholarship via a special attention to Finnish Luther scholars and scholarship. The project argues that in the discussion of proper righteousness and holiness, Luther’s redefined love emerges in harmony with faith. His views on Christian freedom, the Christ-given law of love, the twofold way of fulfilling the law, and his Christological premises demonstrate the logical rationale for reintroducing love. This love, designated as a fruit of faith, is incarnated in three major relations: love toward God, toward others, and toward self.

This volume (volume 5) features Luther's writings that intesect church and state, faith and life lived as a follower of Christ. His insights regarding marriage, trade, public education, war and are articulated. His theological and biblical insights also colored the way he spoke of the "Jews" and Turks, as well his admonition to the German peasants in their uprisings against the established powers.

To mark the 500th anniversary of the Protestant Reformation, Paul Hacker’s landmark study Faith in Luther: Martin Luther and the Origin of Anthropocentric Religion appears now in a new English edition. Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI, in his final memoir in 2016, remembers Paul Hacker as “a great master, someone with an unbelievably broad education, someone who knew the Fathers, knew Luther, and had mastered the whole history of Indian religion from scratch. What he wrote always had something new about it, he always went right to the bottom of things.” No doubt one of the “things” he was referring to was Martin Luther’s view of faith, which Hacker explores in this text. A unique contribution to ecumenical studies, Faith in Luther engages the primary texts of Luther, assessing them for how they reveal Luther’s novel conception of faith and how the development of “reflexive faith” impacted Luther’s spirituality and theology—and the world.

Forty years of in-depth research on Martin Luther's theology has left Oswald Bayer uniquely qualified to present this comprehensive study. He does so with clarity and care, simply enough for nontheologians to access. This remarkable book offers the basics of Luther's understanding of theology, discussing his response to the philosophy of science tradition, the formula by which he studied theology, and the basic philosophy that informed him. Bayer then takes Luther's stance on Christian dogmatics and ethics and applies it to our own theological understanding in the modern age. With such a complete Lutheran dogmatic concept -- the first of its kind offered -- the stunning inner consistency of Luther's theology and its ease of application to contemporary studies become unmistakably clear. Martin Luther's Theology is a valuable tool for students and teachers of theology and for those looking for a guide into the mind and heart of Luther -- a theologian for today.

The classic collection of Dr. King’s sermons that fuse his Christian teachings with his radical ideas of love and nonviolence as a means to combat hate and oppression. As Martin Luther King, Jr., prepared for the Birmingham campaign in early 1963, he drafted the final sermons for Strength to Love, a volume of his most well known homilies. King had begun working on the sermons during a fortnight in jail in July 1962. While behind bars, he spent uninterrupted time preparing the drafts for works such as “Loving Your Enemies” and “Shattered Dreams,” and he continued to edit the volume after his release. Strength to Love includes these classic sermons selected by Dr. King. Collectively they present King’s fusion of Christian teachings and social consciousness and promote his prescient vision of love as a social and political force for change.