Getting Ready for Seminary: Vocation and Spiritual Life of One Preparing

By Rev. John T. Pless

The assignment to write an article on "vocation and the spiritual life of a college student preparing to come to seminary" came just after I received news of the death of my own campus pastor, Dr. August E. Wenzel, a man who was influential in my own pre-seminary days at Texas Lutheran College. Although our paths had not crossed for many years, his clear and evangelical preaching of Christ Jesus, his Texas-style humor, his genuine pastoral care, and his enjoyment of the ministry were a gift back then and have left their imprint on me to this day. Future pastors are shaped by those who shepherd them. I hope that you are blessed to have a campus pastor of such caliber. If you do, give thanks to the Lord, stick with your pastor, and learn from him.

My campus pastor loved Luther, and his love for Luther was infectious, spurring me on to read Gerhard Forde's Where God Meets Man: Luther's Down-to-Earth Approach to the Gospel, a book I credit with keeping me Christian in my sophomore year of college. That little volume opened the way to begin reading Luther himself with his radical insistence that it is not man who comes to God but God who comes enthroned on a cross to save the ungodly. Liberated from having to prove oneself to God, the Christian is free to live in the righteousness of Christ by faith alone. Vocation then does not become just another dead-end pursuit in the sinner's attempt to achieve security before God. Vocation is the life that begins with justification by faith and always returns to rest there.

A good grasp on the doctrine of justification is infinitely more than knowledge of an abstract, theoretical formula. In fact, there is nothing abstract about justification for at its heart is the crucified and risen Lord Jesus whose speaking in sermon and Sacrament declares flesh and blood sinners to be His own. Jesus' death and resurrection define our living and our dying. Justification by faith means that the end and outcome of your life have already been determined. Your destiny is secure in Christ. The pressure to secure it yourself is off. Christ has already done it. Trust what Jesus says about you in His Word of forgiveness. Vocational choices-even the decision as to whether to come to seminary or not-are penultimate. Justification by faith alone keeps vocation out of heaven; it keeps vocation down here on earth where it belongs. You are free now to live your life in that certainty, making the most of it for the good of this world. In retrospect, that was the exact message that I heard from Pastor Wenzel and one I hope you'll hear and remember too.

Rev. John T. Pless is Assistant Professor of Pastoral Ministry and Missions at Concordia Theological Seminary. He is also the author of A Small Catechism on Human Life, which deals with questions of life and death.