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Original pdf: Pfarramt

Translator’s Introduction

Although there remains general interest in the topic of the ministry among confessional Lutherans of North America, there is a lack of understanding concerning the details of the historical context on which much of the Reformation material on the ministry depends. This is related to the generally low familiarity with the Reformation languages, German and Latin. Together, these shortcomings have contributed to a lack of clarity among English-speaking American Lutherans regarding questions of the ministry and the use of Reformation material in doctrinal controversies on this topic. Without clarity of thought, there can be no progress. The translation of the following letter and of the Weimar edition introduction to it, as well as the inclusion of geographical concepts of church order, will help readers to understand this topic. Additionally, this letter may serve as a pattern and tool for understanding other Reformation materials frequently cited in the discussion of church and ministry among us.

These are individual works of Luther that were translated by me for Concordia Publishing House and included in edited volumes of Luther’s Works. These were translated in the 2008 to 2010 time frame and published a few years later.

Luther, Martin. 1545. *Sermon for the Twenty-first Sunday after Trinity, Eph. 6:10-17. *Translated by Mark D. Nispel. Edited by Christopher Boyd Brown. Pages 303-312 in Sermons V. Vol. 58 of Luther’s Works. Edited by Christopher Boyd Brown. St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House.

In 1539, Martin Luther completed Von den Conciliis und Kirchen, one of his most significant later works. The treatise represents Luther’s mature thinking on ecclesiology, a response to renewed Catholic assertions of church authority and an argument about what the councils of the church actually have power to decide. Unlike the polemical speed of his earlier writings, this work develops a careful, systematic analysis of the four ecumenical councils (Nicaea, Constantinople, Ephesus, and Chalcedon), tracing what each decided and how their decisions relate to Scripture. Luther argues that these councils created no new articles of faith; instead, they defended and articulated what Scripture already contained. The second half of the treatise turns from councils to the church itself, outlining seven marks by which the true church of Christ can be recognized in the world, a question of permanent importance for Lutheran theology.

© Mark Nispel, 1997 as a graduate student at the University of Nebraska Lincoln

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Original .pdf: Wittenberg Reforms in the University and the Early Reaction to Copernicus

**Paper for History 931: Cultural History of Science - Fall 1997 **

**Wittenberg Reforms in the University and the Early Reaction to Copernicus **

By Mark Nispel

In her 1973 contribution to The Scientific World of Copernicus, Barbara Bienkowska wrote,