Theological Education

An observation that my good friend Heath Curtis has made lately more than once needs to be underscored: our theological education had huge gaps, and if you are looking to fill those gaps, there is hardly a better person to be reading than Johann Gerhard (and above all his Loci that CPH is now publishing).

There is literally almost NO controversy that we think of as "modern," no crisis in practice, no challenge from the polemics of others, that he has not already visited, prayerfully thought through, listened to the Sacred Scriptures, the Church Fathers, and canon law on, and provided a genuinely Lutheran answer to. Seriously. He continually blows me away.

Pastors and theologians: put some more Gerhard in your diet. You will be utterly amazed. Just a page or two a day! It's the education in God's Word, Church History, and practical application that you've been looking for.

And I'd add that one thing I LOVE about Gerhard is that his rich dogmatics do not come unglued from a fervent commitment to prayer and to clear, practical preaching. Pious, yes, without "pietism." Profound insight, with no sense of theological showmanship. You just can't do much better than reading him and let him bring you into the depths of Scripture!

Special thanks to Bishop Heiser's Repristination Press and to our own Concordia Publishing House for making so many of his works accessible to this generation!  May it continue the renewal among us English speakers that began with the bringing of the great works of Chemnitz into our language a generation or two ago.