Monday, October 21, 2013
Acts 20:28 Keep watch over yourselves and all the flock of which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers. Be shepherds of the church of God, which he bought with his own blood.
FAITH OF OUR FATHERS: JOHN BUGENHAGEN
In early 16th century Germany the Lord God used the life and work of Martin Luther to shine a light on the central teaching of the Bible: We gain heaven not on account of our own good deeds, but because Jesus lived a perfect life and suffered for our sins. Yet while we refer to that period in history today as the "Lutheran" Reformation, the Holy Spirit was surely active in others besides Luther, leading them along the same path of discovery, uncovering for them too the precious truth of the gospel.
One of those others was John Bugenhagen. In 1504 at the age of 19, Bugenhagen became a teacher and the principal of the school in Treptow, a town on the Rega River in what is today northern Poland. As it happened, although his chosen career was not strictly theological in nature, he had much contact with the church through his students as well as through a nearby monastery. Eventually, at the urging of his friends and with an inner desire for the ministry growing within him, he studied for the priesthood and was ordained in 1509 at the age of 24, becoming vicar of St. Mary's church in Treptow.
As a priest, Bugenhagen believed that a person could earn heaven through a series of good deeds and that he could make up for his own sins. He admitted later in an autobiographical commentary that before 1520 he attempted to achieve righteousness before God through good works and confession.
What changed in 1520? That was the year Luther's essay on "The Babylonian Captivity of the Church" was published. This was the work that convinced Bugenhagen he needed to study carefully what the Bible taught about salvation by faith. The Holy Spirit led Bugenhagen to see this truth of Scripture and he found himself in agreement with Luther. In 1521 he moved to Wittenberg, Luther's hometown. While Martin was away at the Diet of Worms delivering his famous "Here I Stand" address, Bugenhagen taught his classes at the university.
In 1523 Bugenhagen became pastor of St. Mary's church in Wittenberg. Thus he became Luther's pastor and the Lord used him to help shepherd Luther around the many spiritual pitfalls and dangers that beset him. Bugenhagen was always a pastor at heart, shepherding the church of God which Christ had bought with his own blood. He did not have the analytical mind of a Luther or a Melanchthon, but he was a gifted organizer and contributed greatly to preserving unity in the early days of the Lutheran church. He died in 1558 at the age of 73, a pastor in Wittenberg to the last.
(To read more about John Bugenhagen, try the brief biography by Walter Ruccius available free of charge online: http://archive.org/details/johnbugenhagenpo00rucc)
