Dr, Moon Kee. Kim. 1999. A Renewal of German Lutheran Church through Ph. J. Spener's Preaching. Collected Papers on Christian Language Culture. Since the Reformation, the history of preaching has had a great meaning on Church history and the history o...
Dr, Moon Kee. Kim. 1999. A Renewal of German Lutheran Church through Ph. J. Spener's Preaching. Collected Papers on Christian Language Culture. Since the Reformation, the history of preaching has had a great meaning on Church history and the history of theology. In the 16th century, through Luther's Reformation, the German Lutheran Church was in the process of transitioning from a "sacraments centered church" to a "preaching centered church". In the "preaching centered church," preaching plays the most important role in Protestant worship services. The preaching mediates between God's language and man's language. From the beginning, the Christian Church communicated the Word of God through human languages. With this in mind, it seems that the Reformation has a correct understanding of the importance of language in the Church history.
Also, the Pietism movement, which arose in the 17th century from the German Lutheran Church, gave preaching an important position in the worship service. Following the tradition of the Reformation, Philipp Jakob Spener(1635-1705) founded German Pietism in order to renew the Church with Biblical preaching. His preaching was based on the form of the preaching of Lutheran Orthodoxy: exordium, interpretation of text, and dogmatics. Contrary to Lutheran Orthodox preaching, Spener avoided the theological controversies that existed among the Lutheran theologians. The words of his preaching were not pedantic and difficult, but simple Biblical words. In his representative work, Pia Desideria (1675), Spener proposed the renewal of the Church through the Word of God. His proposal agreed with the spirit of the Reformation. Specter recognized that the renewal of the Church could be continued by the Word of God preached only by the Biblical words. (Professor of Pyongtaek University)