1517-2017 grace alone, faith alone, Scripture alone

A Return to Grace: Luther’s Life and Legacy

As those books of the New Testament that the entire early church recognized as apostolic, the canonical books of the Old Testament and the homologoumena of the New Testament contain all Christian doctrine. In contrast to the Council of Trent’s condemnation of everyone rejecting any of the books of the Old Testament or of the New Testament that it considers canonical, the Evangelical Lutheran Church has always:

  • rejected the false doctrine in the Apocrypha
  • recognized that not every true herald of faith alone necessarily considers all the antilegomena as the word of God

Scripture alone—no council can impose its decisions in matters of conscience.

Therefore, to celebrate the 500th anniversary of the Reformation Martin Luther began in 1517, Dawning Realm will offer devotional material as a guide for reading all the homologoumena between May and December of 2017. More information on the canonicity of the Old Testament and New Testament books is provided by M. Chemnitz (Examination of the Council of Trent, Part I) and by F. Pieper (Christian Dogmatics, Volume I).

Those devotions are dedicated to Evelyn Hazel Townson. Quotations are from Luther’s Small Catechism and are in the public domain. Designations of Psalms for morning or evening are based in part on The Lutheran Hymnal, Concordia Publishing House, St. Louis, 1941, p. 167.