Magdeburg Confession of 1550

A new English translation of a very important historical confession has recently been released for sale: The Magdeburg Confession of 1550. Until this edition was published in the fall of 2012, I believe it has only been available in Latin and German. It may not be in print for long, so make sure to get it sooner than later.

The pastors of Magdeburg issued this confession on April 13th, 1550, as a response to the tyranny of Charles V.

• What constitutes a tyrannical government?
• How ought Christians to behave when faced with conflict from their own tyrannical government?
• Are Christians supposed to obey a tyrannical government without limitations? 
• If so, what are those limitations?

These questions and others are answered by the pastors of Magdeburg in their Confession. In response to Charles the fifth's tyranny, they declared, "Divine laws necessarily trump human ones."

This English translation is translated by Dr. Matthew Colvin, who holds a Ph.D. in Latin and Greek Literature from Cornell University. It contains a detailed historical introduction by Dr. George Grant, Pastor of Parish Presbyterian Church, Founder of New College Franklin, President of King's Meadow Study Center, Founder of Franklin Classical School, and author of dozens of books in the areas of history, biography, politics, literature and social criticism. The foreword is by Matthew Trewhella, Pastor of Mercy Seat Christian Church, Milwaukee, WI.

Humanity and its Goal

In his book, After You Believe: Why Christian Character Matters, Bishop N. T. Wright discusses the telos, or goal, toward which all of human existence aims. He writes:

Creation, it seems, was not a tableau, a static scene. It was designed as a project, created in order to go somewhere. The creator has a future in mind for it; and Human--this strange creature, full of mystery and glory--is the means by which the creator is going to take his project forward. The garden, and all the living creatures, plants and animals, within it, are designed to become what they were meant to be through the work of God's image-bearing creatures in their midst. The point of the project is that the garden be extended, colonizing the rest of creation; and Human is the creature put in charge of that plan. ...And that, as the New Testament declares, is also the goal for which we are aiming--indeed, the goal of all human existence.1

1. N. T. Wright, After You Believe: Why Christian Character Matters [Harper One: New York, NY; 2010] pp. 74-75 

Matthew: Symmetrical Sermons

In Matthew: His Mind and His Message, Peter F. Ellis provides a helpful symmetrical (chiastic) outline of Matthew's gospel:

Sermon                                           (f) ch. 13

Narratives                              (e) ch 11-12     (e') ch 14-17

Sermons                            (d) ch 10                  (d') ch 18

Narratives                      (c) ch 8-9                         (c') ch 19-21

Sermons                    (b) ch 5-7                                 (b') ch 23-25

Narratives           (a) ch 1-4                                            (a') ch 26-28


Ellis then rightly observes that the sermons are:

...artfully balanced both in length and subject matter, with the first (5-7) and the last (ch 23-25) concerned principally with the theme of "discipleship"; the second (ch 10) and the fourth (ch 18) with the mission of the Apostles and the use of apostolic authority in the community, and the central discourse (ch 13) with the Church as Kingdom of heaven on earth. Such an arrangement and symmetry can hardly be a matter of chance.1

1.  Peter. F. Ellis, Matthew: His Mind and His Message (Collegeville, MN: The Liturgical Press, 1985) p. 14 

Pillars of Matthew

As Peter Leithart has aptly noted, "One of the most obvious things about Matthew is that it includes five large sections of teaching."1  From this there follows what was noted in a previous post (cf. The Importance of Red Letters, Sept. 2012), namely that chapters 5-7 begin the first of those five lengthy sections of teaching in Matthew's Gospel (chs. 5-7, 10, 13, 18, 23-25).

Not only are the five lengthy discourses of Jesus evident simply by flipping through any conveniently colored Bible with the words of Jesus in red, but Matthew appears to have intentionally placed five distinctive phrases within his gospel to distinguish the end of each section. Each of the five discourses end with an identical phrase, "when Jesus had finished" (7:21, 11:1, 13:53, 19:1, 26:1), indicating that Matthew structured his gospel around those five discourses.

1. "Now when Jesus had finished saying these things, the crowds were astounded at his teaching..." (7:28)
2. "Now when Jesus had finished instructing his twelve disciples, he went on from there to teach and proclaim his message in their cities." (11:1)
3. "When Jesus had finished these parables, he left that place." (13:53)
4. "When Jesus had finished saying these things, he left Galilee and went to the region of Judea beyond the Jordan." (19:1)
5. "When Jesus had finished saying all these things, he said to his disciples..." (26:1)

This five-fold structure of Matthew's gospel has also been noted by a wide variety of biblical scholars. For instance, F. F. Bruce points out the intentionality of Matthew's main structure in one of his famous books, stating that:

The sayings of Jesus are arranged so as to form five great discourses, dealing respectively with (a) the law of the kingdom of God (chapters 5 to 7), (b) the preaching of the kingdom (10:5-42), (c) the growth of the kingdom (13:3-52), (d) the fellowship of the kingdom (chapter 18), and (e) the consummation of the kingdom (chapters 24 to 25).2 

In his famous exposition of Matthew's gospel, D. A. Carson says:

The point is that the five discourses are sufficiently well-defined that it is hard to believe that Matthew did not plan them as such.3

And even though R. T. France finds the "geographical outline of the story" to be "more satisfying" than  discerning Matthew's narrative structure through "verbal division markers",4 he nevertheless admits in his massive commentary on Matthew's gospel that:

Recent discussion has often focused on the search for fomulae which may be taken to mark structural divisions. By far the most prominent is the slightly varying formula which concludes Matthew's five main collections of Jesus' teaching...(7:28; 11:1; 13:53; 19:1; 26:1).5

Likewise, Craig Keener remains skeptical about how to interpret the five-fold structure of Matthew, but he nevertheless points out its plausibility in his socio-rhetorical commentary on Matthew's gospel:

This Gospel [i.e. Matthew] may divide chronologically into three sections; the teaching material divides topically into five. ...Most scholars identify five discourses by the closing formula "when he had finished speaking" in 7:28; 11:1; 13:53; 19:1; 26:1.6

According to Peter Leithart, these five discourses of Jesus are intentionally highlighted by Matthew and "are like five pillars that hold up the book of Matthew"7, set between the Gospel's own opening and closing statements -- statements which mirror the opening "book of Genesis" and closing "Decree of Cyrus".8

1.  Peter Leithart, The Four: A Survey of the Gospels (Moscow, ID: Canon Press, 2010) p. 121
2.  F. F. Bruce, The New Testament Documents: Are They Reliable? (Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1981; first published in 1943) pp. 37-38
3.  D. A. Carson, The Expositor's Bible Commentary: Matthew (Grand Rapids, MI: Regency Reference Library, 1984) p. 51
4.  R. T. France, The New International Commentary on the New Testament: The Gospel of Matthew (Grand Rapids, MI/Cambridge, U.K.: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2007) p. 4
5.  Ibid., p. 2
6. Craig S. Keener, The Gospel of Matthew: A Socio-Rhetorical Commentary (Grand Rapids, MI/Cambridge, U.K.: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2009) pp. 36-37
7.  Peter Leithart, The Four: A Survey of the Gospels (Moscow, ID: Canon Press, 2010) p. 121
8.  Ibid.

Humanitarianism and Resentment

In his book Idols for Destruction: The Conflict of Christian Faith and American Culture, Herbert Schlossberg argues that "if humanism is the theological arm of the Religion of Humanity, the ethical arm is humanitarianism"1 (emphasis mine). According to Schlossberg, humanitarianism's praise of the lower class in America has been so enthusiastic that it has effectively produced the "divinization of the poor"2 and a distinctive form of idolatry: resentment. 

Schlossberg writes:

When Judas criticized the use of expensive ointment to anoint Jesus, it was ostensibly due to his concern for the poor (John 15:5f.).  In general this phenomenon praises the worthiness of what is unsuccessful or debased while expressing contempt for the exceptional and successful. Along with the exaltation of the poor comes the abasement of the middle class... Thus the poor are foils through whom resentment can strike at the successful while hiding its evil intentions under a mask of goodwill. A common humanitarian complaint is that the poor are not sufficiently interested in their own welfare, making it necessary for the humanitarian gospel to be preached among them... 

The dual effort to raise the lower classes and debase the higher has long been called "leveling," and in recent years has grown into the movement with the awkward name of equalitarianism (often used in the French form, egalitarianism). Equality in its original meaning in the United States required that immutable privileges of birth and position be uprooted from the new nation. There was no longer to be king or nobility; hereditary offices were abolished, and people were to reach whatever station in life their qualities and their efforts earned for them... 

As society erases social distinctions and moves toward a leveling... the demand for equality is not satisfied, but intensified. People do not envy a Rockefeller his millions as much as they envy their neighbor a ten percent differential in income. All inequalities, monetary or otherwise, are more galling to the envious when they are nearby, when the advantage is held by those whom one knows and when it is seen daily. The leveling movement has nothing to do with justice, because its impulse is not to raise those who are down but to topple those who are up; resentment is the motive.3

Is it true that, generally speaking, Americans have divinized the poor in this sense?

And if true, how many Christians have unknowingly imbibed these secular ideals, thereby fueling further resentment?




1.  Herbert Schlossberg, Idols for Destruction: The Conflict of Christian Faith and American Culture [Crossway Books: Wheaton, IL; 1990] p. 50
2.  Ibid., p. 54
3.  Ibid., pp. 54-55

None has clean hands

As I was researching some commentaries regarding Jesus' Sermon on the Mount and the subject of mammon (an Aramaic word which Jesus used to describe material possessions), I came across some interesting comments by Herbert Schlossberg. In his book, Idols for Destruction: The Conflict of Christian Faith and American Culture, Schlossberg spends an entire chapter discussing "Idols of Mammon", and I thought his insights about its destructive pathologies shed a lot of light upon a number of concerns I have with America's moral decline. He writes:

When Jesus told his disciples they could not serve both God and mammon, the reason he gave was that the two were rival loyalties and that if one were loved the other would be despised (Matt. 6:24). This admonition came in the midst of a portion of the Sermon on the Mount that warned against the preoccupation with wealth and material possessions...  Instead, the disciples [of Jesus] were to seek the kingdom of God first... The mammon described here as the rival of God, therefore, is the idolatrous elevation of money and the material possessions it will buy...  Like idolatries, it finds ultimate meaning in an aspect of creation rather than in the creator. And like all idolatries it finds outlet in destructive pathologies that wreck human lives. 

Those pathologies cannot simply be subsumed under such labels as liberal, conservative, or radical. The ideologies common to American politics all have a share in them; none has clean hands...  If that contention seems odd, it is only because political rhetoric, the media, and the educational establishment have badly distorted the political and economic landscape, making it appear that the only alternatives to liberal idols are conservative idols. 

Those whose loyalty is to mammon quite naturally cast anxious eyes on the property belonging to others, and that is why the apostle called covetousness a form of idolatry (Col. 3:5; Eph. 5:5)... It often accompanies envy, which is a discontent at or resentment of another's good fortune. Envy precedes covetousness and is itself the object of sever biblical censure. The chief priests demanded that Jesus be condemned because they were envious of him (Mark 15:10). In the long list of wicked acts by which Paul described the conduct of the reprobate, envy comes directly before murder (Rom. 1:29)...  

On the other hand envy may act in a more straightforward, less devious, way by simply striving to take what it desires from those it envies. In most cases, this action is associated with the idolatry of mammon, and it accomplishes its end by practicing one of many forms of theft. That is why the command "You shall not steal" (Ex. 20:15) is not only an ethical injunction but also a warning against practicing the idolatry of mammon.1

Outright stealing is widely recognized as an expression of idolizing mammon. But aren't there other ways -- less obvious ways -- to accomplish the same thing?

What about political programs which monopolize your capital investment and redistribute to others without your approval or sanction? Is that not legalized theft?

What about the continual debasement of "money" and its purchasing power through inflationary policies? Is that not another direct product of the idolatry of mammon?




1.  Herbert Schlossberg, Idols for Destruction: The Conflict of Christian Faith and American Culture [Crossway Books: Wheaton, IL. 1990] pp. 88-89

The Importance of Red Letters

In a previous post, the narrative of Jesus' young life in Matthew's gospel (chs. 1-4) was closely paralleled with the life of Israel, beginning with the birth of Israel and continuing with an exodus out of Egypt all the way up to Mount Sinai where Moses ascended to receive God's Law (cf. Beginning, Birth, & Exodus; Sept. 2012). As F. F. Bruce has noted in his book, The New Testament Documents: Are They Reliable?,

[Matthew] the evangelist is ...at pains to show how the story of Jesus represents the fulfillment of the Old Testament Scriptures ...that the experiences of Jesus recapitulate the experiences of the people of Israel in Old Testament times. Thus, just as the children of Israel went down into Egypt in their national infancy and came out of it at the Exodus, so Jesus in His infancy must also go down to Egypt and come out of it, that the words spoken of them in Hosea 11:1 might be fulfilled in His experience, too: 'Out of Egypt have I called my son' (Mt. 2:15).1 

But these are only a few brush-strokes of the entire gospel-landscape which Matthew painted for his Palestinian-Jewish audience.

As Matthew's narrative continues in chapter five, a new and unique sort of texture is added: we find Jesus teaching for the first time and He is teaching for a very long time! In fact, if one were to flip through a red-letter bible a few times, it's very noticeable that once Jesus ascends the Mount in chapter five, a very lengthy discourse begins, leaving page after page with only red-lettering, and it doesn't end for a few chapters when Jesus descends the Mount (at the end of chapter 7).

As Peter Leithart has noted in his book The Four: A Survey of the Gospels, 

The first discourse, the Sermon on the Mount, is clearly modeled on the revelation at Sinai. Jesus is on a mountain, after having passed through the Jordan and spent forty days in the wilderness. From the mountain, He quotes from the law, and teaches His disciples that they must produce a righteousness that surpasses that of the scribes and Pharisees. He is Moses on the mountain, or Yahweh delivering the law to His people.2

As can be seen easily with any red-letter copy of the Bible, chapters 5-7 begin the first of five lengthy discourses in Matthew's Gospel (chs. 5-7, 10, 13, 18, 23-25). Each of the five discourses end with an identical phrase, "when Jesus had finished" (7:21, 11:1, 13:53, 19:1, 26:1), indicating that Matthew structured his gospel around those five discourses.

But if the first discourse, the Sermon on the Mount, is intentionally modeled after the revelation at Sinai where Yahweh delivered His law to His people, what portions of Israel's history are the remaining four discourses modeled after?

1.  F. F. Bruce, The New Testament Documents: Are They Reliable? (Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1981; first published in 1943) p. 38
2.  Peter Leithart, The Four: A Survey of the Gospels (Moscow, ID: Canon Press, 2010) p. 124