By Dr. David P. Scaer, Chairman of the Systematic Theology Department

Older persons can evaluate life’s choices, especially the line of work they have chosen. One has several careers. Another lives simply to collect a retirement pension. Still another is content, but not really. Financial success is not really the ultimate goal. More men in mid-life look for an occupation to make a difference not only in their own lives but in those of others and so they choose to study for the ministry. Younger men take advantage of the experience of their older brothers and make that wisdom theirs.

The preaching of the Gospel of Christ changes a person’s relationship with God now and after death. People who die in Christ live forever. The church is the only human institution with divine and eternal dimensions. What God gave Christ, Christ in turn gave to the Church, which is His body. Ministers, in caring for Christ’s Church, are living statements to the world that life is more than what our senses tell us or the possessions we accumulate. Jesus appointed the twelve apostles as the first ministers to care for His church. Today He continues to provide ministers. Martin Chemnitz, one of the Lutheran fathers of the Church, described the office of ministers of the church this way:

To administer rightly the use of the keys of the church, or of the kingdom of heaven, by either remitting or retaining sins (Mt 16:19; Jn 20:23), and to fulfill all these things and the whole ministry (as Paul says, 2 Ti 4:5) on the basis of the prescribed command, which the chief Shepherd Himself has given His ministers in His Word for instruction. Mt. 28:20. (Martin Chemnitz, Enchiridion, p. 26)

The true minister preaches the same message which God gave Christ to preach and which Christ gave His apostles. Jesus sends us as preachers just as the Father sent Him. Since Jesus works through His pastors to assemble his church, the ministry is the work that uniquely matters both in time and eternity. It is not so much an occupation, something that occupies our time, but a vocation, the call of Christ to stand in His place and preach the same saving message and gather His people around His sacraments. In accepting this divine assignment, we join a succession of faithful pastors from the apostles to those loyal men who have served our own church body during the last 150+ years. Concordia Theological Seminary has been part of our church’s history from the beginning, making a difference for people that lasts forever.

From Volume 2, Issue 5, September/October 1998