The Work of Faith: Divine Grace and Human Agency in Martin Luther's Preaching [Hardcover]

Many scholars assume that Luther advocates for a Christian life in which human beings are always passive recipients of Gods grace as it is delivered in preaching, and mere instruments through which God works to serve their neighbors. The Work of Faith: Divine Grace and Human Agency in Martin Luther's Preaching offers a different reading of Luthers views on human agency by drawing on a fresh source: Luthers preaching. Using Luthers sermons in the Church Postil as a primary source, Justin Nickel argues that Martin Luther preached as though Christians have real, if secondary, agency in the lives they lead before God and neighbor. As a result, Nickel presents a Luther substantively concerned with how Christians lead their lives.Justin Nickel is the Baxter Weant and Frances assistant professor of Lutheran Studies at Lutheran Theological Southern Seminary of Lenoir-Rhyne University.

It has always seemed odd that the Luther charged with breaking the church is also the Luther charged with encouraging passivity in the face of injustice. Perhaps we could make better sense of the great reformer if we listened to the way most in his day heard him: through his sermons. Justin Nickel rightly argues that expanding what we read of Luther expands how we understand Luther. Though he has been widely criticized for a passive conception of graced human agency, his preaching contradicts this misreading. The Work of Faith shows us Luther himself as an agent, a master of rhetoric who reaches out to minister to his congregants. Nickel shows that Luther calls Christians to intentional agency, even returning to the law in a manner transformed by love. Perhaps, he suggests, our problem with Luther is us: we tend to think of freedom as autonomy, but Luther thinks grace and freedom are not competitive, but compatible. Jesse Couenhoven, Villanova University

Focusing on his oft-neglected sermons as key resources for understanding Martin Luthers theology, Justin Nickel persuasivellS'