I recently picked up a book by Dr. David C. Steinmetz called Luther In Context. It is the second edition of a book which was originally published in 1995 and consists of thirteen rather short chapters. Each chapter examines a particular issue comparing and contrasting the statements of Luther with those of his contemporaries (such as Calvin and Hubmaier) as well as the church fathers(such as Augustine). The book is written in a scholarly style but is fairly easy to read. I'm generally disappointed in these types of books. I've read a few on Calvin and most of them are attempts to make Calvin support whatever belief they are interested in rather than examining what Calvin's focus was. However, I have been pleasantly surprised by the honesty and accuracy in this book. I found the chapters comparing Luther's exaplanation of Romans 9 with that of Augustine very interesting as well as the chapter comparing Luther and Calvin's views of tradition. However, by far the chapter I found most interesting was that comparing Luther and Zwingli's views on the Lord's Supper. It really gave me a much better understanding of why Luther took the position that he did. I came away unconvinced of his position (I hold to the Calvin/Vermigli position) but it may me think more deeply about certain Christological issues.
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