The ice gave me a fair amount of time for reading today, and I have to say this again: Luther's House Postils are pure gold. The Lutheran pastor cannot spend a better time preparing for a Sunday or feast day, after meditating upon the Word of God itself, than in reading through Luther's treatment in these wonderful volumes. How often he summarizes Patristic insight, yet always with his own earthy twist (see below: "Do we not see what seasoning God throws into the water?"). I just reviewed his homily for the First Sunday after Epiphany. Clear, joyous and bright. Enjoy, Dr. Luther, my brothers in Office - we need him and his insights now more than ever!
06 January 2009
A Day for Reading
The ice gave me a fair amount of time for reading today, and I have to say this again: Luther's House Postils are pure gold. The Lutheran pastor cannot spend a better time preparing for a Sunday or feast day, after meditating upon the Word of God itself, than in reading through Luther's treatment in these wonderful volumes. How often he summarizes Patristic insight, yet always with his own earthy twist (see below: "Do we not see what seasoning God throws into the water?"). I just reviewed his homily for the First Sunday after Epiphany. Clear, joyous and bright. Enjoy, Dr. Luther, my brothers in Office - we need him and his insights now more than ever!
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Hey Pastor, I've got this friend, and while he's not a brother in Office, he gets right into all this stuff generally associated with pastors, I mean to the point where he'll wade right in with them right here in the blogoshpere and have at, if you can imagine that. Where would I tell him to get the House Postils?
After Pastor Weedon spoke at the St. John Chrysostom Lutheran Preacher's Retreat this past summer I went and bought a set of Luther's sermons. On christianbook.com they had a seven volume set that was 39.00 or something (regular price was nearly 300.00 I think). I bought them and they are good so far. The last three volumes are the House Postils. I doubt you will find them any less expensive than that.
What Pr. Keith said! Alternatively, you could order them, I think, from CPH. Might cost more, though. You'll notice the marked difference between the early Church Postil and the later House Postil. House wins every time!
Revised comment!
From the material on christianbooks.com, it's hard to tell if it's the Kirchen- or the Hauspostille. But for the price -- which is about equal to one of the single CPH volumes -- how can you go wrong!
What's even more confusing is, my friend is sort of a purist, regarding the BOC as the confessional documents that you really need to know, and the rest as sort of an apocrypha, useful but not essential. Problem is, it was some of that "apocrypha" which led him to conclude the rest was on the right track -- the 1520 essays, particularly Babylonian Captivity.
On top of which, you read some things that say Luther thought his Postils the best things he ever wrote, and others that say he would devour them all like Saturn his children except for the Catechism(s) and Bondage of the Will.
What's a guy to do?
On top of that, since he's of English descent and logged time with monks of German descent, he's become a huge fan of Robert Barnes, whose confession of faith before execution Luther put into German with a preface as Bekenntnis des Glaubens. So where do you get that, or, which of the CPH volumes has that in it, can't tell online.
The Christian Bookstore set is absolutely the best "Luther" deal on the planet. You get the entire Church and House Postils.
It is important to keep in mind that one key difference between the two "postils" is that the "Church Postil" consists of Luther's notes for preachers, whereas the House Postils are actual preached sermons.
Church Postils tend to be earlier Luther, he did a lot of work on them at the Wartburg.
The House Postils tend to be later/more mature Luther.
They both are valuable, but I do prefer the House Postils to the Church Postils. Plus, the House Postils are a modern translation so you don't have to wade through the more difficult 19th century English.
Best buy is the CBD set. I highly recommend it. I just wish there was a digital edition of the whole kit-and-kaboodle.
Be aware, however, that it is a total lie to call these books "the complete sermons" of Luther. I've written Baker several times, or whoever is publishing these things to tell them this is simply a lie and incorrect. To my knoweldge there are extant over 2,000 of Luther's sermons, a lot, lot more than in these books.
They've never responded.
Here is a link to them:
http://www.christianbook.com/Christian/Books/product?item_no=11997&netp_id=200578&event=ESRCN&item_code=WW&view=covers
Well, my order is IN!
I mean, my friend's.
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