December 1 is the anniversary of this monumental series and a good day to start reading one sermon per day

... or six sermons per week (leaving out Sundays, if you want to be exact), which will take you to Christmas Eve. 

This December 1 is the 501st anniversary of the beginning of the preaching of the series, which was published in 1524. (So in terms of publication, it is still the 500th, if anyone else is keeping track.)

Here is the hardcover at B&NPress, here is the paperback at Amazon, here is the Kindle, and here is the playlist of introductions to the series. See previous post for the soundtrack to the videos.

At the headwaters of the Reformed tradition

 ... we have this summary statement from Karl Barth's colleague on the Divinity faculty at the University of Basel: 

Luther becomes a reformer because he cannot reach the assurance of salvation in the system of the Roman Catholic church; Oecolampadius becomes a reformer because, in the Roman Catholic church, he does not find the new creature in Christ sufficiently realized. For Luther it is about justification; Oecolampadius says in connection with 1Thessalonians 4:3, “God’s will is our sanctification.” With Luther, faith stands in the foreground, with Oecolampadius, that which flows from faith, the “piety,” the “sanctity,” the “charity,” both individually and in the totality of the “mystical body of Christ.” Luther represents a Christianity more strongly characterized by Paul, Oecolampadius by John. 

—Ernst Staehelin, Breakthrough to the Reformation, pp. 128-129.

In case you were ever wondering what it means to belong to the Reformed tradition, this, I would suggest, is what it originally meant.

This Friday, December 1, marks 500 years from the first sermon delivered in this pivotal series on 1John

 

  

Cloth w/ DJ                                      Kindle                                      Paperback

Friday, December 1, 2023, marks the 500th anniversary of the beginning of this sermon series of twenty-one sermons by Oecolampadius preached every evening during Advent in December 1523 (leaving out Sundays, but leading upon toe Christmas Eve). Though it was a weekday (evening) series, the lectio continua style of straightforward, comprehensive Bible teaching (1) represented an historic reclamation of patristic expository preaching, and (2) set the standard that would be implemented by ordinance in all the pulpits of Basel some five years after these sermons were published. Though Oecolampadius was gone by the time Calvin arrived in Basel, every church in town was ringing with the form of preaching offered here. There can be no doubt that Calvin will have had a copy of the series, which sold through several editions in multiple languages very quickly. Surely for this reason, among others, Oecolampadius can be called, and indeed he has been called, Calvin's "spiritual father." 

Not only are the sermons lively, accessible, and illuminating, Oecolampadius' selected book of the Bible, The First Epistle of John, proves a perfect focal point for this Advent series, for a fresh approach to the then-current debates over the doctrine of justification, and as he himself says, the book is a veritable "Handbook for the Christian Life." 

Here is the playlist of videos consisting of one 30-minute introduction to "The Reformation of Preaching" and 16 very short intros to the individual (or occasionally groups of) sermons:

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLZZ9pVHWq-xaT3XJ5qBOIwmzg55ZPLx4X

Kindle available at Amazon:

https://www.amazon.com/Sermons-First-Epistle-John-Christian-ebook/dp/B075WRG9CV/ref=tmm_kin_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=1664564991&sr=1-1

Paperback available at Amazon:

https://www.amazon.com/Sermons-First-Epistle-John-Christian/dp/197589202X/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=1664564991&sr=1-1

Hardcover available at Barnes & Noble:

https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/sermons-on-the-first-epistle-of-john-johannes-oecolampadius/1128121419?ean=9781668519998

The First Year in Basel (corrected edition is up)

Corrected edition is up, just as the last days of 2023 (500th anniversary of Oecolampadius' first year in Basel) tick down. 

The First Year in Basel contains the earliest German mass (published three years before Luther's), the next nine letters between Oecolampadius and Zwingli (the first two having appeared in previous volume: The Sermon on the Vernacular and the Correspondence with Hedio), excerpts from the famous Isaiah lectures, three prefaces to his Chrysostom translations (including those to the Psegmata and the 66 Genesis homilies), the four Theses for a Disputation, a painful rant from Capito against his colleague Hedio and Oecolampadius' pastor response, and his long letter to Bernhard Adelmann On the Distributions of Alms (or not discriminating among the poor). All (or most of it) "first-time-in-English" stuff. Perhaps the latter might make for instructive reading in Basel at the Bank of International Settlements? That may be too much to hope for. But certainly Presbyterian "Matthew 25" churches should read this.

Return to God: Historical and Modern Confessional Sources for the Renewal and Regathering of the Church

My latest book gathers a number of sources together that (1) are previously unpublished or are translated here into English for the first time, (2) have struck me as important both in their original  time and context and (potentially) for our time and place, (3) share a common confessional conviction (in both the "penitential" and the "professional" sense), and (4) may be of particular value as the Church shakes off it Covid shackles and regathers to pray, sing (!), worship, celebrate the sacraments, and breath in the Holy Spirit together.

Two sermons from the American Awakenings are here: one by Gilbert Tennent (First GA) on how we should listen to sermons, and another by Samuel Miller (Second GA) on the glory of the Gospel. 

Several first-ever English translations are also included (which I mention here in reverse chronological order): 

• the long prayer from the London journal of the brilliant critic of the Enlightenment, Johann Georg Hamann; 
• a prayer of confession "for more difficult times" from Oswald Myconius (the successor to Oecolampadius in Basel)
• three pieces from the Oecolampadius corpus: 
• A Litany to God the Father (a clear attempt to reform the rosary in a more orthodox direction, this is a wonderful tool for commiting the life, work, and ministry of Jesus to memory)
• Questions and Answers for the Examination of Children (a child's catechism)
• Discourse at the Synod of Basel (1531), delivered not long before the Reformer's death and culminating in his own Profession of Faith.
• the opening and closing prayers of confession from the 1520 edition of Jodocus Windsheim's Confession of a Repenting Christian, to which Oecolampadius provided the preface. Earlier editions of this piece have roots going back to at least early 1517. It made a big impression on Oecolamapadius, who later wrote his own attempt to reform the penitential rite. 

These pieces by Windsheim—offered here only in partial translation for its 500th anniversary—surround his nine prayers of confession in response to the Ten Commandments (he responds to the ninth and tenth commandment with a single prayer), and this form in turn inspired my own eleven prayers of confession, offered here in the modern section of the book, in response to the Decalogue (one for the prologue and one each for the commandments) and with the current state of the church and the world in view. 

The modern section also includes four "scripture messages" or postils, if you will, consisting purely of biblical verses arranged in logical sequence and which may prove useful for either outreach or in lieu of a sermon where the services of a preacher are not available. With no pretensions of adding to the authoriatively confessional literature of the church, I have also included my own Twenty-four Theses as a personal confession of faith offered at such a time as this, in view of the social unrest of the age.

A short, basic introduction to John Oecolampadius

I'm happy to report there is quite a bit of buzz developing in the area of Oecolampadius research. Here is a short, basic introduction to John Oecolampdius: The Reformer of Basel, by way of my recent translation of a late 19th c. biography by Theophil Stähelin. Lord willing, there will be much more to follow, from yours truly and from many others, on this wonderful first generation Reformer. Meanwhile, here is your handshake proffered.

Errata Corrected

This is to document the recent correction of several errata in the first pressings of Johannes Oecolampadius (1482—1531), Sermons on the First Epistle of John (A Handbook for the Christian Life). In addition to a number of spelling corrections, two dates on p. 5 were off by a factor of ten: JO matriculated in Tübingen in 1513, not 1523, and he left Tübingen in the summer of 1514, not 1524. [Apologies to Jeff Fisher for introducing this error into a quotation taken from his fine work.] Also, on p. 9, I have changed "John Chrysostom" to "the Greek Fathers", and after "the sermons of Chrysostom," inserted the phrase, "begun in Mainz," which is more accurate. The influence of Chrysostom on JO is undoubtedly the most decisive, but as Staehelin's reconstruction makes clear at several points, it is only in Mainz that JO's work on this particular Greek Father begins. Any copies of this translation ordered after November 16, 2018 will reflect these most recent corrections. Anyone with earlier copies may wish to pencil in these corrections.

Kindle edition of the German reprint is up

In memory of Hughes Oliphant Old

I was saddened to read of the recent death of Dr. Hughes Oliphant Old, late Dean of Erskine Seminary and a rare historian of preaching and worship in the Reformed tradition. His textbook on worship ever a staple of the classroom, Dr. Old's scholarship on preaching crossed my radar screen again lately in the form of his contribution to Communio Sanctorum, a 1982 festschrift for J.-J. von Allmen, Old's essay being a study of the preaching of John Oecolampadius on the 500th anniversary of the birth of the Basel Reformer.

May the coming General Assembly in Portland not come and go without notice of Old's valuable work and his passing. In my own small way, and hopefully on the way to other projects related to the homiletics of the "house lamp" of the Reformation, I would honor the memory of both Dr. Old and the Basel Reformer, with this translation of Theophil Stähelin's mid-19th c. biography of John Oecolampadius.