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Higher Things
13 e 20 sid gs In in fo Th In er ce gh ren OM Hi nfe FR Co
Inside This Issue!
• A Little Bit of Latin Goes a Long Way • The Occult—Hollywood or Holy War? • The Church Musician in You • Marching for Life with the LCMS www
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Coming to Campus in 2013
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Visit us online: www.lcms.org/LCMSU Friend us on Facebook: www.facebook.com/LCMSU Or call us: 888-THE LCMS (843-5267)
Contents T A B L E O F
4 A Little Bit of Latin Goes a Long Way
By Rev. Mark Buetow Let a little Latin fly and your friends will think you are an intellectual heavyweight. Well, perhaps that’s a bit of a stretch, but once you’ve finished reading this article you’ll be familiar with two Latin phrases that help you focus on what’s important in salvation. And the good thing is that the focus is not on you!
6 One Hundred Percent Free— One Hundred Percent Servant
By Rev. George F. Borghardt One of our Lutheran distinctives is the desire to work out that delicate balance we call Christian liberty. This is just what Rev. Borghardt successfully communicates in his capable handling of the some of the principles from Martin Luther’s work, On Christian Liberty.
8 Marching for Life with the LCMS
By Megan Hammond The recent commemoration of the 40th anniversary of the Roe v. Wade decision brought about a great deal of controversy but it also invigorated those who stand for the unborn. Megan’s account gives you a small window into her life-changing experience at the LCMS Life Conference.
10 The Occult: Hollywood or Holy War?
By Rev. Christopher C. Tiews There’s something about the supernatural that seems so magnetically intriguing. Hollywood is clearly enamored with the subject. There are a host of TV series that supposedly profile people’s encounters with ghosts, demons, or other supernatural beings and plenty of movies that glorify these things in some way. Rev. Tiews shines the light of the Scriptures on this often distorted reality.
12 True Confession
By Dr. C. Matthew Phillips History doesn’t have to be a bunch of dry events laid out in chronological order with a lot of dates your teacher wants you to memorize that you’ll never use. And the same goes with our Lutheran heritage. See for yourself as Dr. Phillips provides a quick but thorough summary of the pivotal events surrounding the formation of our foundational document of the faith—the Augsburg Confession.
Volume 13/Number 1 • Spring 2013
HigherThings
22 The Church Musician in You
Bible Studies for these articles can be found at: higherthings.org/ magazine/biblestudies.html
By Bethany Woelmer It’s perfectly acceptable to admit to singing in the shower… we all know the acoustics are the best in there! But whether or not you think you actually have some sort of musical ability, Bethany will persuade you that making a joyful noise unto the Lord is something we can all foster to the glory of God and the benefit of our neighbor.
24 Trail Mix
By Jenny Sollberger Nothing satisfies the appetite during a challenging hike like a handful of trail mix. In the same way, nothing fills our spiritual hunger on the road of life like the Word of God. And, as Jenny articulates, trail mix is the best when all of its ingredients blend together with each bite, much the same way the Scriptures are.
Regular Features 18 Poetry Page
20 Christ on Campus Father May I?
By Heidi Bliese While various forms of social media have been a positive development in many ways, they are certainly not without pitfalls. One of those traps is called the comparison game. Facebook, for example, can easily become something that magnifies our covetousness or feelings of discontent. Heidi reminds us that who we are in Christ always trumps struggles like these.
28 Catechism The Table of Duties: Pastors and People By Rev. William M. Cwirla You’re a sheep...it’s one of your vocations in the context of the Church. Your pastor is your shepherd and that is one of his vocations. How does this play out in the Table of Duties? Rev. Cwirla artfully unpacks yet another part of the Small Catechism.
30 Bible Study “Incurvatus in se”
Be sure to check out this sample of one of our student Bible studies that links up with Rev. Buetow’s article on P. 4.
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Volume 13/Number 1/Spring 2013
Editor
Katie Micilcavage Art Director
Steve Blakey Editorial Associates
Rev. Greg Alms Rev. Paul Beisel Rev. Bart Day Copy Editors
Lu Fischer Dana Niemi Bible Study Authors
Rev. Mark Buetow Rev. John Drosendahl Rev. Sam Schuldheisz Subscriptions Manager
Elizabeth Carlson IT Staff
Stan Lemon Jon Kohlmeier Conference Coordinator
Sandra Ostapowich ___________
Board of Directors President
Rev. William Cwirla Vice-President
Rev. Brent Kuhlman Treasurer
Chris Loemker Secretary
Rev. Joel Fritsche Rev. Dr. Carl Fickenscher Rev. Jonathan Fisk Sue Pellegrini Matt Phillips Chris Rosebrough ___________
Executive Staff Conferences and Deputy Executive
Rev. George Borghardt Business Executive
Connie Brammeier Media Services Executive
Rev. Mark Buetow Higher Things® Magazine ISSN 1539-8455 is published quarterly by Higher Things, Inc., PO Box 156, Sheridan, WY 82801. No portion of this publication may be reproduced without the written consent of the executive editor of Higher Things Magazine. Copyright 2012. Higher Things® and Christ on Campus® are registered trademarks of Higher Things Inc.; All Rights Reserved. Printed in the United States. Postage paid at St. Louis, Missouri. For subscription information and questions, call 1-888-448-2359 or e-mail subscriptions@higherthings. org. (This phone number is only used for subscription queries.) For letters to the editor, write letters@higher things.org. Writers may submit manuscripts to: submissions@higherthings.org. Please check higherthings.org/ magazine/writers.html for writers’ guidelines and theme lists.
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One Hundred Percent Free— One Hundred Percent Servant
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“A Christian is a perfectly free lord of all, subject to none. A Christian is a perfectly dutiful servant of all, subject to all.1”
By Rev. George F. Borghardt
You don’t have to do the Law. You don’t.
You don’t have to obey the Ten Commandments. You aren’t even subject to them. There’s no test afterwards. There is no time when God will catch you on the last day and say, “Tsk-tsk, you missed one.”
Christ has fulfilled the Law for you. He took all the tests that God requires of you on your behalf. He turned in His assignment from God with your name on it. What God requires of you, Jesus did for you. What God wants you to do, the way God wants you to live, Jesus did in your place. Each step, each move He made. It was as if He said, “I’m doing this—not for me, but for you.” Check the Commandments. Read them. Mark them. Take them to heart. You’ll see for yourself what your Savior has done for you. In fact, looking at the Commandments, you’ll see what you’ve done in Christ. You did all of them in Christ—every last one of them! You didn’t miss even one in Jesus. There’s not a single commandment left for you to do. It’s like someone did your homework and took your tests, and you got the perfect grades. It’s like God has given you a snow day from the Law! No, it’s not “like” God has done these things, He actually has done them all for you in the Cross of Christ. There is no Law waiting around the next corner—no extra work hiding just out of sight. Jesus did it all. Every last commandment. Every last precept that God could come up with for you to do. Faith receives Jesus. Faith has everything because faith lays hold of Christ’s holy life and His sufferings and death. Faith hopes, loves, believes in nothing other than Christ’s cross alone. The Law has been perfectly done by Jesus’ holy life. That leaves you perfectly free. Completely free. Totally free! Christ is the end of the Law for those who have faith in Him. “There must be something for me to do.”“It can’t be that easy.”“If that were true then anyone could be saved.” These are those pesky objections we often hear or toss out there ourselves. Yes, yes, anyone could be saved. But many are not saved because they reject this very faith by trying to put themselves into the equation and do something for God.
God is pleased in Christ’s work alone, not your work. In fact, God doesn’t need you to do the Law. The Law can’t make you better in God’s eyes. In Baptism you have already been covered in Jesus before God. Now, there are some around you who could use you being so free as to be free for them. They could use you taking up the commandments, not to save yourself but for their sakes. They could use some love. They could use a break. They could use you serving them with some of Jesus’ cross-won forgiveness. Mom and Dad really need you to honor them. Your teachers and pastor could really use some respect, too. Your friends and neighbors need you to love them and give your life for them. Your girlfriend or boyfriend needs you to be chaste and decent. The people around you need you to respect their stuff and not take it from them. Your friends (and enemies) need you to defend them and speak well of them. And coveting? Nobody wants you wanting to have their stuff! Christ loved others. He put them first. He loved them more than He loved Himself. He loved you more than He loved Himself. He loved those around you, too. He gave up His life for all. He is Lord of all, and He served everyone. You are completely free, and you serve others...in Him. By faith in Christ, you have all that you need before God. You don’t need more works for God. You couldn’t get more works, even if you tried. How could you? You have Jesus’ works! Jesus has more works than you could ever do! He has works that He’s going to do through you for your neighbor.
Faith 1 Luther, M. (1999). Vol. 31: Luther’s works, vol. 31: Career of the Reformer I (J. J. Pelikan, H. C. Oswald & H. T. Lehmann, Ed.) (344). Philadelphia: Fortress Press.
Rev. George F. Borghardt is currently the Conference and Deputy Executive for Higher Things but will begin his first term as President of the Board of Directors on May 1. He also serves as Senior Pastor at Zion Ev. Lutheran Church in McHenry, Illinois.
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By Rev. Christian Tiews
Books and movies on angels, demons, exorcisms, and
the occult have been popular for years. Are supernatural things just a clever moneymaker, or are they really in the Bible—and thus to be taken seriously? Angels and Demons We do, in fact, find angels all throughout the Bible—whether as messengers in Sodom and Gomorrah (Genesis 19), announcing to Mary that she would conceive our Lord and Savior (Luke 2), or at the empty tomb (Mark 16). In the Book of Revelation we even see whole armies of angels as warriors. What about demons? These are former angels who rebelled against God and, as punishment, were cast out of heaven (Luke 10:18). Demonic activity occurs throughout the New Testament (Matthew 8, Luke 10, Acts 19, Revelation 12, etc.). In fact, did you know that the casting out of demons is Jesus’ second most common miracle in the Gospels? The leader of the demons is Lucifer (Latin for “The Light Bearer”), also known as Morning Star (Isaiah 14:12), Apollyon (Revelation 9:11), Abaddon (Job, Psalms, Proverbs, Revelation), a “roaring lion” (1 Peter 5:8), “prince of the power of the air” (Ephesians 2:2), the Evil One (Matthew 13, John 17, Ephesians 6, etc.), or Satan (the accuser, all throughout Scripture). Being a former angel, Satan is only a creature. Therefore, he is not capable of producing anything original and he is not all-powerful and present everywhere as God is but he is a deceiver, tempter, and accuser. The Evil One is also a con artist, taking the good things of God and twisting them into evil. Some examples: Darwinian evolution is a counterfeit of creation. Works righteousness is a counterfeit of salvation through Christ alone. We find works righteousness in all religions except Christianity, with the claim that humans can “work” their way to God/heaven/ Nirvana, etc. Some counterfeits of the legitimate intimacy between husband and wife are fornication, pornography, and “gay marriage.” The Occult The occult (that is, the “hidden” supernatural activities of the Evil One and his demons) is mentioned in the Old and New Testaments (Exodus 7, Leviticus 19-20, Deuteronomy 18, Acts 8, 13, Galatians 5, etc.) and includes mediums, psychics, and necromancers (people who communicate with the spirit world and the dead), sorcery, black magic, etc. What does the Bible say about the occult? Hands off! Don’t mess with it! So you see, the Bible discusses the supernatural and thus it is quite real—not just a figment of Hollywood’s imagination. The problem is that our Western culture tends to hide its head in the sand and pretend that the supernatural is nothing more than myths and fables. But closing your eyes does
not make something go away. Interestingly, most cultures outside of Western civilization are very much aware of the supernatural. It is we—the “enlightened” people in Europe and North America—who have blinded ourselves to this unseen reality! So what’s behind all of this? Ephesians 6:12 reveals: “For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places.” This Bible passage, in addition to many others (2 Corinthians 10:4, 1 Timothy 1:18, Revelation 12:9, etc.), shows us that spiritual warfare is real. By the way, this line of thinking is also fully in line with Lutheran teaching: “If we would be Christians, therefore, we must surely expect and count on having the devil with all his angels and the world as our enemies” (Large Catechism III, 65). In fact, demons and evil spirits are still being cast out in the name of Jesus, except we now have a special word for it: exorcism. You Are Armed On the Cross and by the empty tomb our Lord defeated death and Satan—the deceiver, tempter, and accuser. Jesus Christ fights our spiritual battles for us in His “whole armor of God:” the belt of truth, breastplate of righteousness, Gospel of peace, shield of faith, helmet of salvation, sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God, and prayer (Ephesians 6:10-19). All of these riches are embodied in the Means of Grace, which you regularly receive in the Divine Service. I don’t know about you, but knowing that spiritual warfare is real makes me want to receive Christ’s gifts and protection of Word and Sacrament all the more. These Means of Grace are my body armor, flak jacket, and IED-repelling Humvee in the spiritual war zone! So, DO NOT explore the things of Satan and meddle with Ouija boards, the occult, fortunetellers, psychics, etc. But DO make going to church regularly a life-long habit, DO receive the Sacrament regularly, read Scripture daily, and lead a “godly life” (1 Timothy 2:2). But most of all, remember that you do not have to fight against Satan, the tempter and accuser, and his demons, because the reality is that Jesus Christ has ALREADY won the war for you. And because Jesus has won, you have won as well!
S P R I N G
Rev. Christian C. Tiews serves as the associate pastor of Grace Lutheran Church, Tulsa, Oklahoma. He can be reached at RevTiews@glctulsa.org
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