Lutheran Carnival XXXI

Welcome to the Thirty-First edition of the Lutheran Carnival. If this is your first time here, the carnival is simply a collection of posts from Confessional Lutheran's from the past couple weeks or so. In addition to the collection of posts, we also look briefly at the life and work of a notable Lutheran. For this Carnival, I have selected to look at the life and work of Johann Gerhard.

Johann Gerhard was one of the earliest Lutheran Theologians. He was born October 17, 1582 and died August 10, 1637. Although not extremely well known today, he was, in my opinion, one of the most important Lutherans in History. His importance lies in the writing of his Loci Communes Theologici . The Loci was one of the first attempts at writing a complete Lutheran Systematic Theology, something that many Lutherans find essential today. He also wrote a series of pieces known as "Sacred Meditations" which are somewhat well known today. I am reading through these for the first time, and the seem to be a combination of Doctrine and Devotion. I'm not sure if they would be dogmatic devotions or devotional dogmatics. I would probably lean towards the former. In any case, I have really enjoyed the ones that I have read so far, and would highly recommend them.

For more information on or from Johann Gerhard, see these links:

English Translation of Sacred Meditations (from the Wisconsin Lutheran Seminary Library)

MP3 file of August 17 Issues Etc (The second half hour of this file discusses Johann and was very enjoyable)

Wikipedia Article on Johann

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Now, on to the posts:

Dan at Necessary Roughness has provided us a post with some insightful notes on Matthew 12 and 13 with Parables in Matthew at CEN

Kevin Spaeth from Die Heilige Kirche (who also happens to have a quote from Johann Gerhard here) discusses the relationship of Calvary to The Lord's Supper. In Sacred Time in the Sacrament Kevin explores how we are united every week, through the sacrament, to Christ's holy sacrifice at Calvary.

John from Confessing Evangelical has made a couple of contributions to this Carnival. The first is entitled Praise God, *because*... In this post, John argues that, when praising God, we should follow the example of the psalms, which always give us the"because" - the reason *why* we should be praising him ("For great is his steadfast love toward us...").

John has also added a post entitled Fouquet's "severe but sensual" Madonna in which he posts a copy of a stunning 15th century painting of the Madonna, as modelled by the mistress of the French king.The comment thread swiftly degenerated into a discussion of one particular, erm, feature of the painting, but John's reason for posting it was the striking composition and use of colour, honest.

Ask the Pastor includes two posts with this edition of the Lutheran Carnival. One woman wonders, is it Pastoral Counseling or Sexual Abuse? Pastor Snyder answers her questions about the "counseling" she is receiving from an unscrupulous wolf in shepherd's clothing who, rather than helping her with her lusts encourages her to give in to them. In Christian Use of Drugs and Alcohol, he compares drinking with the use of marijuana and other drugs.

The latest review at Luther Library comes from John bar Thunder. Doctrine Is Life examines two new volumes of Robert D. Preus's collected writings from Concordia Publishing House.

At Aardvark Alley, Orycteropus Afer continues to rely on a couple main themes, supplemented by whatever strikes his fancy. One of these themes involves promoting and encouraging confessional Lutheran blogging. Recent posts touching on the topic include answering the question, What Is the BBOV? He replies by talking about using blogrolls to lead more readers to all of our blogs.

The Aardvark also continues to publish hagiographies and historical commemoratives. Included among these during the past couple weeks was a detailed account of Saint Bernard of Clairvaux, which includes Luther's opinion of the 12th Century monk.

There were also two submissions from Theresa Be Strong In The Grace. In her first submission, The Masks of God Revisited, the overall theme of the post is how, Through the Grace of Christ, we are able to look at all of our daily activities through the lens of our Faith. She arrives at this theme after attending the funeral of a 4 month old Pastor's son.

The author also contributed the post Contemporary Praise and Worship Music: A call to arms or a chance to teach? In this post, the author speaks of her struggle to deal with the ideas of Contemporary Christian Music after being introduced to the "rich scripturally based liturgy and the timelessly-true hymns of praise and worship" found in the Lutheran church.

We also have two contributions from the same author at Katie's Beer. The first is entitled Is God Still Speaking To Us? In this post, the Author discusses the idea of "modern prophets", anyone who believes they receive the word of God apart from scripture. The second is Eternal Memory: I just want to know who I am. The author here speaks of the desire to be known by others, as well as by God. She compares this to the lyrics of a popular song from a few years ago.

Kelly from Kelly's Blog has contributed a post entitled Children making "personal Decisions". In this post, the author discusses the intention of parents who dedicate, as opposed to those who baptize.

Charles at St. Charles Place has added a good look at the "proper" mode of Baptism in The Eisegesis of Immersionism. In this post, Charles challenges the idea that Immersion is the only valid form of baptism and shows that those who believe so are guilty of eisegesis (Reading one's own pre-concieved notions into scripture).

Finally, Rev. Watt at Watt's What has given us a post on connections to the past in United...In Howard.

Well, that is all the posts for this Carnival. I hope it has been enlightening to you. You have had the chance to learn about a great theologian in Johann Gerhard, as well as experience discussions on everything from art to the sacraments to vocation to why we praise God to the Communion of Saints. I want to sincerely thank all of those who have contributed posts to this carnival, as well as to all of the Confessional Lutheran Bloggers who have been a great support to me and, I'm sure, to Lutheran's everywhere. Keep on Blogging!!

SOLI DEO GLORIA!!