What can we learn from the past that will help us to successfully deal with the future? A seminary president-history professor gives us his take on faith and life for today. Join us for a conversation with the Rev. Dr. Lawrence Rast, President of Concordia Theological Seminary, Fort Wayne, Indiana. Pastor John Cain hosts.

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And welcome to another edition of engaging truth. I'm your host pastor John Kane from Nacodoches Texas, you know, today. Uh, we're talking about education in the, uh, very interesting times that we live in and we have a special guest today. We have, uh, the president of, uh, Concordia theological seminary in Fort Wayne, Indiana, uh, Reverend Dr. Lawrence rest, Jr. Welcome to the program, Larry.

Thanks, John. It's great to be here with you and to be with all the folks.

So this is an intro resting time. You've got, uh, things starting up again on campus.

Yep. We've just begun our 176 academic year. So we had a, we are having finishing up a celebration of our 175. And looking back to all that God has done, uh, in bringing together kind of a rag tag group of German, I, and then leading them forward into uncertain futures and being faithful to them so that, uh, we today can, uh, pick up that torch and carry it forward and keep proclaiming Christ to a world that certainly needs to hear, uh, the salvation he's won for us.

So you're also a professor of history, I leg history, religion. Yep. And, uh, as well as being a, uh, president of a seminary. So, uh, as we enter perhaps uncertain times, or we look back at the 20 year anniversary of nine 11, and, you know, we we're trying to chart the future through COVID and all the other things, are there some lessons that maybe we can pick up from the past to, uh, uh, steer a course for the future?

That's a great question. I, uh, you know, I think, um, too many of us and I was one of 'em when I, when I was learning history as a kid, just thought of it as a bunch of names and dates and data to be memorized briefly and then forgotten as soon as you took the exam. Uh, but in time you begin to realize there are some stories here, there are patterns that emerge and, and, and ways that folks have addressed real big challenges in the, in the history of, uh, not only the church, but also in our nation, uh, that can, can help us, uh, as we try and chart a path into the future. One of the basic things that I remind myself of, and I try to remind other folks of is that, uh, essentially the, uh, the, we, we kind of pine, we kind of long for this perfect past that once existed.

And I remind folks that the people who were making their way through those tough times back then thought they were just as bad as the times we find ourselves in now. And, uh, somehow they found a way through their challenges and brought us to the place where we are. So our task is to find our way through the challenges we face now and prepare the way for folks down the path once, uh, we're with the Lord in heaven. And, uh, uh, that's kind of the big picture use of history. But then as you look at more narrow kind of, uh, examples, you can begin to find ways where people really struggled with persecution or elements, you know, things that just came out of the clear blue sky. It seemed that they weren't prepared for, and the human will to make a way through is, uh, remarkable to see an action. And when you add God's grace to that really amazing things can happen,

Should define that for our listeners. God's grace.

Sure. And, and, and the way I think of it is, uh, as God's undeserved love and mercy toward us, uh, that finds its root in Jesus Christ, the one who came to us and lived for us and died in our place so that we would have a relationship with God, the father, and have the promise of everlasting life. Uh, so grace is all undeserved, it's a pure gift, and it's something, something simply to be received through faith, uh, as, uh, as undeserved, but nevertheless, life changing. So that's kind of how I think of that. And, uh, and when you begin to kind of reflect on that and, and, uh, dwell on that in terms of your own life and the, and the manner in which you address these kind of challenges that we'll be talking about, uh, it can really kind of transform everything, uh, in terms of, uh, moving from frustration and anger and, and, and that sort of perspective to one that says, how can I help my neighbor? How can I share the love I have received from God, first of all, with others who are struggling in the present time.

So your attitude for daily living can be informed by the faith. Well put, and, and, and you're preparing, uh, church workers, mm-hmm , um, but there's, there's probably some lessons to be learned that are great across the board for, you know, keeping our eyes on the right things or, you know, being a, a good witness or, or being a person who is strengthened and bolstered, um, for facing challenges. You have any, uh, suggestions for us.

If you think about it, uh, now of course, the town has grown around us and we very purposefully make sure that our students are engaged day to day with the world. So it's not just all a bunch of theological talk jargon, that sort of thing. We, we study very hard. We work at the academic side of things, very, very purposefully, but all of this in the end is to serve people and to help them deal with the challenges of this life, particularly in terms of the spiritual challenges that are so pronounced at the present time. And so we've, uh, for more than a hundred years actually have required that our students do what we call field work. Uh, and that means that, uh, every week they're going off to a local congregation and working with people, and that keeps them grounded, that keeps them connected, uh, to real life.

We also require a full year of what we call Vicarage, which is a kind of internship where students, both those who are going to be pastors and, and women who are going to be deacon this and spend a full year actually working in a local congregation, typically not in Fort Wayne, uh, learning the ropes as that we're in dealing with the real things and, and engaging real people because that's, uh, there's a kind of learning involved in that that is, is absolutely crucial for pastors and deaconesses and lay people as well to have we all work in this together. We all reinforce one another. We raise the kind of question for one another, that we can then turn to the scriptures to, uh, find answers for and to, uh, work together in our lives as God's people to, uh, to serve well, uh, both in terms of proclamation of the gospel, but also in terms of helping people who are in need.

So does what the world is going through. Do those events change in any way, the balance of, uh, uh, the education or how it's presented or, uh, or the experience that the students

And, and it was really impressive, uh, and remarkable to me how he, he preached on the event. He brought the text to bear on a real world situation that we were engaged with in real time. And, uh, you know, I, our, our students, everybody was in shock were all kind of, we were terribly dismayed about what had occurred, but to, uh, to see how a pastor had taken that circumstance had taken the unchanging order of God, the truth, and then applied it to our radically new circumstances was probably one of the most impressive learning situations I've ever been in, frankly. And it happened again, it just happened in real time. It happened, it was happening within minutes. Uh, sometimes things take a little bit longer, you know, you have a shift that takes place over the course of 50 years. Um, we have a tendency to think that whatever we went through as students is the way it's always been, uh, as a historian.

I remind folks that we've been doing it different ways, uh, really from the beginning. And, uh, and we adapt ourselves to new circumstances. We hold fast to that, which does not change namely Jesus Christ, who is the same yesterday, today and forever. Um, uh, but we also then are very sensitive to, uh, circumstances as they present themselves to us. And we work very hard to prepare our, our students for those changing circumstances, always knowing that, uh, we aren't very good profits, uh, and that, uh, what our students will face, the younger folks will face is probably something we haven't anticipated yet.

So you mentioned the unchanging gospel. You can you define that gospel for us

A little bit? Sure. Uh, and, and it has its center in Jesus Christ, uh, beginning and end. He is the alpha and the omega, uh, but the gospel of, of Jesus Christ, we've captured as, as Lutherans, who is part of the reformation tradition in several sayings that some folks may know some may not, but to do them in Latin, since I'm seminary, professor Sola scriptura. So feee solo gratia, uh, Solas, Christus, uh, everything is about Christ alone and his grace alone, which we received through faith alone, which we learned from the Bible alone, from scripture alone. Uh, and these emphasis on scripture as our soul authority, uh, pointing to Jesus Christ as the one who lived God's law, perfectly in our place, suffered the penalty for human sin once for all died and rose again, so that we might have eternal life. That's the heart of the gospel right there. It's all about Jesus for you. And for me,

That's a powerful message and we can spend our whole, uh, lives professional lives, uh, especially, uh, preaching about it, studying it, and, uh, never run out of those riches. It's a wonderful, wonderful message that, uh, indeed that we live under God's love and under his forgiveness and all of that, uh, has been earned for us by Jesus. So we don't have to worry about ourselves. We can worry about other folks

To speak. Exactly, exactly. Yep. Exactly.

So what's on your heart for our, our war world.

Um, great. Again, a great question. Um, a couple of years ago, I was invited by the president of the Luther church, Missouri Senate, after one of our church conventions, you also, we have this big brew AA, and everybody gets together and it's, uh, a week long of, uh, of parliamentary procedure. Uh and then after that, we get back to work, right. And so the president and the Senate invited me to, and his team invited me to come to St. Louis and to speak to leadership of our church body about, they said, talk about whatever you want, something historical or whatever. And so I thought, well, what could I say? That would be more, more than just more than just a story and more than, than just data. Uh, you know, as I mentioned a little bit earlier, and so I, I went back and I looked at a couple of, of experiences that folks in our church body had had over the course of our 175 year history as a church body.

And, uh, uh, and thought then about how that might fit into our present experiences and guide us and how we might respond to our present, uh, situation. So I told the story, uh, of our transition from German to English as a church body, when we were founded, you know, this, I mean, we, we were D D and Gaylor, the Missouri, Ohio under cotton, you know, the German evangelical Lutheran Senate of Missouri, Ohio, and other states. Uh, and we didn't drop the, the word German until 17, which by the way, was not coincidental in the mid world war I, um, but we've dropped the word German and then finally kind of under duress and unhappily, we stopped speaking German. Uh, I always, I always kind of get a kick out of the fact that we stopped calling ourselves the German evangelical Luson. And even while we were still speak most of the time that'll solve the problem.

Well, uh, in time we transitioned to English in the teens and, and twenties, and then the thirties, 19 teens, twenties, thirties, as we were making this transition, uh, people didn't anticipate this coming. They kind of looked out to the future and said, someday, well, probably we have to do more English language work, but then the war broke out and it had to happen immediately. And so when you transition a, a, you know, a, a 1 million plus member church body from one language to another and do so under duress in a very short period of time, that's tough. That's hard. And, and I can't imagine it, frankly, because I speak English, no English. I can read a bunch of other languages, but I, I speak English. I think in English, I dream in English, my heart language is English. And, uh, so to think of making that transition from German to a new language or, or from me from, in English to a different language being, and being forced to do so, wow, that's a big challenge.

It's certainly been much, much worse in the past when we go back 500 years and you look at the B plague and, you know, 30 to 50% of all of Europe, for instance, dying of it, you know, we're, we're, uh, nowhere near that. And yet, uh, people have the straw with authorities. I mean, we people question what we hear on the news and, and rightly so. And, uh, we find out that people have other motivations. So for many people it comes down to truth. And I was thinking back to, uh, the Roman governmental official punches pilot making that side comment to Jesus. Oh, what is truth . So can you give our listeners, uh, kind of the valuation, if you will, of God's truth? How, how do we know it? How

Do we trust it? Yeah. Good. Uh, again, these are great questions you're posing. Um, the, the, the really, I think unique thing, uh, about truth as we have it. Well, again, I, I sound like a broken record in this regard, but I keep going back to Jesus and, and, and our Lord says, uh, I am the way the truth and the life, not a way a truth, a life, but the truth. And so then having made a truth claim, if you will, for himself, uh, the people of the time actually rightly said, well, I'll wait a minute. How can this be? And, and of course they were also very, uh, challenged fact that he said, you know, he claimed to be God himself. I am, uh, and so, well, how can this be? And so the, the question became, where do you look for the, for, for this kind of authoritative revelation, this authoritative revealing, uh, as to, to determine whether or not this truth claim is correct.

And that kind of takes us back to our, our reformational roots. Once again, one of the things that Martin Luther emphasized over and over and over again is as wonderful as human learning is as important as it is to, uh, you know, to, to pay attention to political structures. And the like, as key as all human, uh, interrelationships are in the end, there has to be some authority that speaks and unchanging truth. And, and as Luther emphasized that, that is found in the holy Bible, in the scriptures themselves, because they are the word of God. A and so in going to the scriptures, we, we contest the truth claims of Jesus, of the apostles of the prophets of everything that's incorporated in that revelation. And, and look then, and say, is this consistent? Does it have, uh, an enduring value, uh, and enduring application to the lives of human beings and the what, what the scriptures do reveal is in fact that they are faithful, they are true, they are accurate, uh, and thus they're trustworthy, um, because they do come from the mouth of God and self they are inspired by.

Yeah. And so for we Lutherans, and, and for we Christians in general, we go back to the Bible, back to the Bible and, and look for, uh, uh, what God has revealed regarding himself there. And this brings us back to our earlier point. Once again, what do we see with respect to God? We see a loving God who seeks to restore humankind to himself, despite the fact that humankind has departed by virtue of its sin, beginning in the garden with Adam and E, but then repeated over and over and over by every single human being, uh, in the course of history, but then repeated over and over by God in Christ in welcome, welcoming us back to himself. I'd

Love to appoint our listeners to our website, E L M houston.org. There, you can find information about us. You can, uh, find podcasts of past programming. You can link to our other, uh, social media pages, and there are ways for you to contact us and also ways for you to support us financially. All you're on the air hosts are volunteers. And so your tax deductible donation goes far to purchase us airtime, going back to, uh, our guest president RA. Larry, uh, can you give our, listen a quick way to, uh, uh, check in on what is happening there at Fort Wayne? Do you have, uh, website and

It is www dot CTS. FW stands for Concordia theological seminary, Fort wayne.edu.

Thank you, professor, uh, president asked for being with us today and join us again real soon for another edition of an engaging truth. God's blessings.

Thank you for listening to this broadcast of engaging truth. Be sure to join us each week at this time, to help support our ministry contact evangelical life ministries, post office Fox 5 6, 8, Cypress 77 400, or visit our website Elm houston.org, or find us on Facebook evangelical ministries.