Dr. Naomichi Masaki is Professor of Systematic Theology, Director of the PhD in Theological Studies Program, and Director of the Master of Sacred Theology (STM) Program at Concordia Theological Seminary, Fort Wayne (CTSFW), Indiana. He joined the faculty in the spring of 2001. The areas of his teaching include dogmatics, Lutheran Confessions, Luther studies, and liturgics. While his particular interest remains in the doctrine of the proper distinction between Law and Gospel, the Lord’s Supper, and the Office of the Holy Ministry, his sense of appreciation for the legacy of Dr. Luther and the vitality of the Book of Concord is ever growing.

Born and raised in Kobe, Japan, he graduated from Rødde Folkehøgskole near Trøndhelm, Norway (1979), and received his BA (1985) and MA (1987) in Social Work and Counseling from Kwansei Gakuin University, Nishinomiya, Japan, and his MDiv with an emphasis in Missiology (1991) and STM in Systematic Theology with a minor in Liturgics (1998) from CTSFW.

Dr. Masaki was ordained into the Office of the Holy Ministry in 1991. He served as missionary-at-large and pastor in Ridgewood and Bergen County, New Jersey (1991–98).

He engaged in doctoral study at Concordia Seminary, St. Louis (1998–2000). In 2005, he successfully defended his dissertation, “The Confessional Liturgical Revival of Theodor Kliefoth and the Works of Liturgical Revision of the Preface in Nineteenth-century Sweden: The Vitality of the Lord’s Supper as Confessed in ‘He Alone Is Worthy!’” and earned his PhD in Doctrinal Theology.

He is the author of He Alone Is Worthy!: The Vitality of the Lord’s Supper in Theodor Kliefoth and in the Swedish Liturgy of the Nineteenth Century by Församlingsförlaget of Göteborg, Sweden (2013) and Community: We Are Not Alone by Concordia Publishing House (2007). His articles are found in several books and in Concordia Theological Quarterly, Lutheran Quarterly, Lutheran Theological Review, Logia, Homiletics, For the Life of the World, Concordia Pulpit Resources, Kwansei Gakuin Sociology Department Studies, Kyrka och Folk, and Journal of Lutheran Mission, for which he serves as contributing editor. He attends the International Congress on Luther Research regularly.