• • Professor of Exegetical Theology
• • Assistant Faculty Marshal

Biography

Dr. Just has been on the faculty of Concordia Theological Seminary (CTSFW), Fort Wayne, since 1984. He is professor of Exegetical Theology and teaches New Testament, liturgics, homiletics, catechetics and pastoral theology. He has served as the chairman of Exegetical Theology department, dean of the Chapel, director of Deaconess Studies and co-director of the Good Shepherd Institute of Pastoral Theology and Sacred Music.

Just was born in Salem, Massachusetts, in 1953. His family lived in Mexico and Spain for 12 years during his formative years. He attended Phillips Academy in Andover, Massachusetts, and Union College, Schenectady, New York, receiving a Bachelor of Arts degree in history and English literature in 1975. He attended CTSFW, receiving a M.Div. degree in 1980. His vicarage was at South Shore Trinity Lutheran Church in White Bear Lake, Minnesota. He served Grace Lutheran Church in Middletown, Connecticut as pastor from 1980 to 1984.

He studied at Wesleyan University in Middletown, Connecticut (1982), and at Yale Divinity School (1983-1984), receiving his S.T.M. from Yale in New Testament and Liturgics in 1984. He received his Ph.D. from the University of Durham in England in 1990 in the New Testament. His doctoral thesis, The Ongoing Feast: Table Fellowship and Eschatology at Emmaus, was published in 1993 by Pueblo Publishing Company, an imprint of The Liturgical Press.

He has contributed a chapter on “Liturgical Renewal in the Parish” to Lutheran Worship: History and Practice by Concordia Publishing House (CPH). He has also written articles on preaching, liturgy and New Testament in various periodicals.  He wrote a two-volume commentary on the Gospel of Luke for the Concordia Commentary Series (CPH). The first volume appeared in December 1996 and the second volume in November of 1997. He also published the Lukan volume for the Ancient Christian Commentary on Scripture from InterVarsity Press, Thomas C. Oden, General Editor ( February 2003). He has published two additional books with CPH: one for pastors, deaconesses and laypeople for the visitation of the sick and dying entitled Visitation, and another book on the liturgy of the church entitled Heaven on Earth: The Gifts of Christ in the Divine Service, a book that expands his video series on the liturgy entitled Liturgy: Yesterday, Today, and Forever.

He was chairman of the Lectionary Committee for Lutheran Service Book for the Commission on Worship and a member of the Steering Committee.

He and his wife Linda have three children, Abigail, married to the Rev. Joshua Genig, and two sons, Nicholas, married to Haley, and Jacob.