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“Back to School”

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COVER STORY – CHRISTIAN EDUCATION

It’s just a loaded, emotive phrase, isn’t it? “Back to school.” Individual reactions vary wildly, depending on your station in life and how you are wired. Kids who love school get excited, those that don’t, not so much. Some parents tend to hear the phrase with relief, others with a sense of regret, even guilt—“Where did the summer go? We should have carved out more family time.” Teachers get that old familiar knot in their stomachs and, like pretty much every other occasion in life, retailers hear cash registers.

“Back to school” also means something else. 

To go “back” means that you first had to step away. Have you ever wondered how or why our current custom of summer vacation started? The standard answer is that it was agrarian-based; school went into recess for three months in the summer because children were needed on the farm. Anyone with any association to farming knows that obviously wasn’t the reason. The busiest times on the farm are planting and harvest (spring and fall) when kids are back in school.

“Back to School”

Remember Your Baptism

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“See, here is water. What hinders me from being baptized?”

(Acts 8:36)

When the Ethiopian heard the message of Jesus as the Christ, Who willingly gave His life for the sins of the world, he desired to be baptized into Jesus’ name. Would anything hinder him from receiving this great blessing and from being received by God? Would the color of his skin, his nationality, or his past sins make him unacceptable to the Lord? What joy and relief when Philip took him down into the water and baptized him! Nothing would hinder him from receiving the grace of God in Baptism and being made a child of God. No wonder “he went on his way rejoicing.” (Acts 8:39)

Do you want to go on your way rejoicing today, tomorrow, every day? Then remember your Baptism! Whether you can actually remember the day you were baptized or simply know that you were baptized as a child, remember the fact that you were baptized. For that is the day when you were connected with Jesus and everything He did for you.

Whenever you sin you deserve to die, for “the wages of sin is death.” (Romans 6:23) Remember your Baptism and rejoice, for that is when you were united with Jesus in His death. “Do you not know that as many of us as were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into His death? Therefore we were buried with Him through baptism into death.” (Romans 6:3-4) His death counts for you, and all your sins were paid for.

Your Baptism also connected you with Christ’s life. “We were buried with Him through baptism into death, that just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life.” (verse 4) We now have a new life with Christ. “I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me.” (Galatians 2:20)Remember Your Baptism

A Fruitful Christian Life

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In our family, there are few things we enjoy more than a freshly picked tomato out of our garden. As I write this article, the soil has been prepared and the tomato plants are in the garden and have been caged. We know that we will have to make sure the plants are watered and protected from little hands over the coming months. Our hope is that by the time this August edition of the Lutheran Spokesman arrives, we will be harvesting some of the first-fruits from our tomato plants.

However, those fresh tomatoes are not going to magically appear in our backyard. Nor are those plants going to survive if they are not regularly watered. We need the plant first, and then we need to take care of the plant in order to enjoy those delicious, vine-ripened tomatoes.A Fruitful Christian Life

Called by Christ to Be Servants of His Servants

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“‘When He ascended on high, He led captivity captive, and gave gifts to men.’ . . . And He Himself gave some to be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, and some pastors and teachers, for the equipping of the saints for the work of ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ, till we all come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a perfect man, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ.”

(Ephesians 4:8,11-13)

The day was Maundy Thursday. The location, an upper room in Jerusalem. Jesus was gathered with His disciples to celebrate the Passover. At the outset of the evening’s festivities, He stooped over, took a towel, poured water into a basin, and started washing the disciples’ feet. Peter tried to stop Him, thinking that this act of service was beneath his Master’s dignity. Jesus told Peter, “What you don’t understand now, you will later.” After completing the chore, He told His disciples, “I have given you an example, that you should do as I have done to you.” (John 13:15, for the full account see vv. 1-17)

Jesus was teaching a spiritual lesson that He wants His believers of all times to take to heart: He calls us to serve Him in those around us by kindhearted deeds. This is to be a response to the work of love He performed for us all by washing us clean of our sin by His blood shed on the cross. We rejoice to know that He views the acts of loving service we do for others as having been done for Him (see Matthew 25:40).Called by Christ to Be Servants of His Servants

True Pentecostalism

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COVER STORY – PENTECOST

Pentecostalism has gained popularity in recent years. While it uses the name of one of the church festivals, Pentecostalism is not biblical. It is an idea that searches for proof of God’s power outside the means of grace. Adherents pray for gifts of speaking in tongues or divine healing based on the strength of their faith in God. While true Lutheranism is focused on the principle of Scripture alone, Pentecostalism looks for God outside of the Bible. It’s a completely misguided idea that appeals perfectly to our selfish sinful nature.

Let us instead consider Pentecost as it is revealed in Acts 2. 

Many people had gathered in Jerusalem for the Feast of Weeks (Leviticus 23:15-22). The twelve apostles (Matthias had replaced Judas Iscariot) were gathered together as they heard the sound of a rushing wind. They had tongues of fire rest upon them and were “filled with the Holy Spirit,” (Acts 2:4) Who enabled them to speak in foreign languages. Clearly the Holy Spirit was poured out on the apostles and other early New Testament Christians in a special way as they spoke in tongues, healed others (Acts 3), and even raised the dead (Acts 20:8-10).

The Spirit equipped them for the task at hand. Gathered at Pentecost were the same apostles who had deserted the Son of God as He was led to the cross. Yet now, less than two months later, they boldly proclaimed the name of Jesus, no longer afraid to speak on their Savior’s behalf. These men, some of them former fishermen, found their sea legs in their new role as fishers of men. The Holy Spirit filled them with much-needed courage.True Pentecostalism