A Lutheran Toolkit - by Ken Sundet Jones (Paperback)

About the Book

When Martin Luther and Philip Melanchthon were called by the Holy Roman Emperor to present their teaching at the 1530 Diet of Augsburg, they defended their proclamation on the basis of a short set of ideas that informed everything they did. Using personal stories, church history, and biblical material, Ken Sundet Jones takes those ideas as tools for building a sense of what God does in Christ and what God is doing in our lives today.

Book Synopsis

The "Lutheran" in the title doesn't mean The Lutheran Toolkit is just for Lutherans. It's about a Lutheran witness for the whole church and for all sinners with ears to hear. It's a slender book about the big theological ideas the evangelical reformers of the 16th century used as a lens for understanding God's work in Christ.

Starting with Philiip Melanchthon's 1530 Augsburg Confession, which was drafted to defend the preaching and teaching of Luther and his colleagues, Ken Sundet Jones sees its primary themes as a set of tools that God uses to build faith in us. He takes the reader beyond scholarly analysis and historical explanations and uses his own experience as a college professor, parish pastor, and sinner looking for mercy, to discover God's handiwork in our lives.

Each chapter takes as its starting point one of the foundational ideas presented to the Holy Roman Emperor and representatives of the church, including Sin, God hidden and revealed, justification, ministry, the Christian life, the church, sacraments, and vocation. These are not simply theological categories for scholars to debate or historians to recount. They're the lived experience of the faithful from the first believers, to big thinkers like Augustine and Luther, to people in the pews, at the supper table, in their careers, and at their deathbeds throughout the ages.

The tools in this kit continually point to Jesus as the one who promises mercy and abundant life -- and who has the power to deliver them. This is a word for those who've not yet heard it and for those who desperately need to hear it again.