Context and focus
To better understand Krapf’s views and theology, it is worth studying the Pietist fellowships in Württemberg to which he was connected.
Krapf wrote to Spittler (Founder and Director of St. Chrischona Pilgrim Mission) in 1859:
“I have searched through the writings of all centuries, but have found no writers who, like Bengel, Oetinger, Pastor Hahn and Michael Hahn, have so comprehensively expounded the entire truth of Scripture, so clearly developed its foundation and structure, so intimately connected the spirit and letter of Scripture and presented it so experientially. […] I consider it a grace of God that I have come to know those writings, but to equate them with the Holy Scriptures would be folly, and to impose them on others would be injustice and unkindness. I must therefore freely confess that I want to belong to the Michelians and cannot deny their point of view, but I must just as firmly declare that I embrace in love all God’s children who have come to the knowledge of the truth through other means.” [German text printed in Claus (1882), Ludwig Krapf, p. 181-82]
The last letter quoted by Krapf’s first biographer, Rev. Claus, culminates in the conviction:
“What Jesus is and has done counts before the Father, while everything we are or have done scatters like chaff before the wind. All our sins and virtues count for nothing, but only the believing look at the almighty Saviour and then it is enough, as the blessed [Dr Christian Gottlob] Barth said when he passed away.”
[German text printed in Wilhelm Claus, Dr. Ludwig Krapf, weil. Missionar in Ostafrika: Ein Lebensbild aus unseren Tagen (Basel: Spittler, 1882), p. 233]
Legacy
For an overview of Krapf’s life and legacy, read Rune Imberg, “Dr. Krapf – The (Almost) Forgotten Missionary Pioneer,” Svensk Missions-Tidskrift [SMT] / Swedish Missiological Themes 98, no. 1 (2010): 49–67:
Further reading
» Learn why, in Dunlop’s view, Krapf has received too little attention from English-speaking evangelicals (Article on ThinkGospel.com).
» Secondary literature on Krapf (with links)