Welcome to Higher Things!

Higher Things is pleased to announce the next set of Daily Reflections are now available. Though Christ has ascended, yet He is still with His church, among us by water, Word, body and blood. These Daily Reflections begin with the Festival of Pentecost and take us into the beginning weeks of the Trinity Season.

To download the Reflections as a PRINTABLE BOOKLET, click here.

To download the Reflections as an IN LINE PDF file, click here.

To download the Reflections in a .azw format for use with Kindle click here.

To download the Reflections in a .epub format for use with iPhone, iPad, Nook or other e-reader click here.

In Christ,
Rev. Mark Buetow
Media Executive
reflections@higherthings.org

For the past twelve years, Higher Things has been holding summer conferences for Lutheran youth. This year, with the theme of "Twelve," attendees will learn about the Church and the End Times. We invite you to worship and learn with us! Once again, we are offering "Higher Things for a Day" registrations that provide an opportunity to attend one of our conferences for one day a time! This one-day registration is perfect for those who as of yet don't know much about Higher Things to come and check things out for themselves, experiencing a day in the life of a conference attendee. It's also a great chance for those who can't get away for the entire 4-day conference to come for a part of it.

The "Higher Things for a Day" registration costs $50 per person, per day. With it, you may participate in all the events of the day(s) you attend. Join us for two or three worship services. Sit in on the plenary and breakout catechesis sessions. And have fun with us during the evening free time activities. The registration will also cover your meals on campus, conference materials, and a free T-shirt.

Registration forms are now available for download at http://higherthings.org/files/twelve2012/twelve-htfad.pdf.

In Christ,
Sandra Ostapowich
Conference Coordinator
ostapowich@higherthings.org

Time to get creative! How do YOU dare to be Lutheran? We want to see your film short at the Twelve conferences this summer! Here’s a project your groups can start working on now...

Submission requirements:

• 3-5 minutes in length.
• Narrative, documentary, animation, music video, or any other genre of film is acceptable.
• Submissions must be burned to DVD.
• Submissions must be received before May 31, 2012.
• Mail film short DVDs to:
  Higher Things Film Festival
  P.O. Box 155
  Holt, MO 64048
  

Download a flier for the event at http://higherthings.org/files/twelve2012/twelve-film-fest.pdf. Contact Tracey Dann (tdann1@cox.net) if you have any questions about the Higher Things Film Festival!

Rev. Marcus T. Zill, our Christ on Campus executive and a founding member of Higher Things, has indicated to our Board of Directors that he would like to devote his time and energy toward steering the upcoming UNWRAPPED-2013 National LCMS Campus Ministry Conference in January (http://unwrapped2013.org). This conference is an integral part of the ongoing efforts of the Synod to increase support of campus ministry through the newly formed Office of National Mission. We believe this to be a positive step in campus ministry and are delighted that our friend Marcus will play a significant role in planning this important conference.

On behalf of Higher Things' Board of Directors and its staff, I thank Marcus for his twelve years of zeal and leadership in bringing Higher Things to the place where it is today and also for his vision for Christ on Campus. We thank God for his labors among us and wish him our Lord's richest and abundant blessing in his work with our Synod.

Rev. William M. Cwirla, President

Now available: Higher Things Daily Reflections for the Easter Season 2012. These Reflections take us from our Lord's triumph on Easter Day, April 8, 2012 through the seven weeks of the Easter Season to the Eve of Pentecost, May 26, 2012. We also have new formats so you can read the Reflections on your iPhone or iPad, Kindle or any PDF capable device!

To download the Reflections as a PRINTABLE BOOKLET, click here.

To download the Reflections as an IN LINE PDF file, click here.

To download the Reflections in a .mobi format for use with Kindle click here.

To download the Reflections in a .epub format for use with iPhone, iPad, Nook or other e-reader click here.

In Christ,
Pastor Mark Buetow
buetowmt@higherthings.org
HT Media Services

Higher Things announces the "Apologetics Issue" of Higher Things Magazine, Spring 2012.

Christian youth are constantly bombarded by attacks upon their faith, being told that religion is silly or useless, and that it has been put out of date by science. Our young people need to know why their faith is both reasonable and historical and how to defend it when others attack.

Higher Things is pleased to announce that the "Apologetics Issue" of Higher Things magazine is being made available, FREE online in its entirely. Click here to access full articles and Bible Studies. Tweet it! Share it! Get the word out that some awesome apologetics resources are available for youth in this issue!

Don't forget to check back each Tuesday over the next several weeks as we feature one of the articles from this issue on our front page AND every Wednesday as Pastor Buetow gives a short apologetics video to help you as you learn to defend the faith.

In Christ,
Rev. Mark Buetow
Media Services Executive
buetowmt@higherthings.org

We are pleased to draw your attention to the recently released publicity for the UNWRAPPED - 2013 National LCMS Campus Ministry Conference!

Higher Things salutes the LCMS Office of National Mission for all that it is doing to increase synodical support of campus ministry. We pray that many college students, and those who work with them, will be blessed by all of these endeavors, including this conference.

We encourage you to read the recent Reporter article about the Conference, get connected at the conference Facebook Page, and forward this information to others who may also be interested.

Please note that in order to encourage maximum participation at UNWRAPPED, Higher Things will not be holding what would have been a tenth annual Christ on Campus Conference this summer. Whether you are a college student, or someone who works with them, we encourage you to do everything you can to attend this conference, and encourage those you know to do so too!

Rev. Marcus Zill, Executive
Higher Things, Christ on Campus
zill@higherthings.org

"Confessing Christ on Campus Since 1517"

The Plenary Speakers for this summer's TWELVE conferences are:

• Winston-Salem, NC
  
  • Rev. Klemet Preus, Glory of Christ Lutheran Church in Plymouth, MN
  • Rev. Charles St-Onge, Memorial Lutheran Church in Houston, TX


• Maryville, MO
  • Rev. Jeff Grams, St. John's Lutheran Church in Scottsbluff, NE
  • Rev. Tim Pauls, Good Shepherd Lutheran Church in Boise, ID


• Irvine, CA
  • Rev. Dr. Steve Mueller, Dean of Christ College, Concordia University in Irvine, CA
  • Rev. Kurt Onken, Messiah Lutheran Church in Marysville, WA


• St. Catharines, ON
  • Rev. William Cwirla, Holy Trinity Lutheran Church in Hacienda Heights, CA
  • Rev. Brent Kuhlman, Trinity Lutheran Church in Murdock, NE

Today is the last day to pay your conference registrations IN FULL before registration fees go up on March 1st.

tags: conference, news, plenary, twelve

Rev. Mark Buetow

Death. It happens suddenly in a horrible wreck on the highway. It happens slowly over a long battle with cancer. It happens to children in an accident. It happens to someone at the end of a long life. It happens in many ways, but one thing is for sure: Death happens to everyone.

We try to avoid it. Live carefully. Live a healthy lifestyle. Avoid dangerous things. Fight against death with medicine and medical technology. Put death off as long as possible with potions and creams and drugs and surgeries that try to erase the signs of aging. But as hard as we fight, death always wins. At some point, the lotions and potions won't help. The doctors and the drugs and the machines can't do anything else to stop it. Death comes, sooner or later, one way or another.

Well, what about God? We could ask Him to do something about death. But wait! He DID do something about death. He died! Crucified. Like a sinner. He took the curse on Himself. And make no mistake, death is an enemy and a curse. But God did it. He died. Died as if death were His fate too. Except Jesus didn't stay dead. Christ is risen! On the third day after He died, Jesus' tomb was empty! Jesus was and is alive!

What does that mean for death? It means that death is no longer the worst thing ever. It is no longer the final enemy. It is no longer our fate and lot in life and then that's it. Rather, Jesus has made sure that death is turned into a rest. A sleep. A nap. It's no mistake that Jesus once says about a dead little girl that she is "sleeping." It's no mystery that in the early church people who died were said to have "fallen asleep." And Jesus Himself says that He will come again and wake us up and give us eternal life!

The fact is, death has been overcome. Yes, we still die. This world and everything in it is passing away. But Jesus says His Word will never pass away and it's that very Word which promises we shall rise from the dead when Jesus comes again. It's Jesus' very Word which promises that we have an everlasting life awaiting us because He died and then rose again.

This is the Easter season, the forty days starting with Easter in which we celebrate that Jesus is risen from the dead and what that means for us who are dogged by death all the time. It is the promise and hope of a life beyond this life which sometimes ends abruptly or else fades away slowly. When we are sick and suffering and death is close, and on our minds, and at our doorstep, we simply smile and remind death of what Jesus did and that it cannot harm us.

Science and medicine and makeup and exercise and diet and all that can't stop death. Well who can do something about it, then? Jesus did. His own death on Good Friday and His resurrection on Easter are the real, true, and lasting answers to the problem and curse of death. Jesus did something about death. He beat it. And His victory over death is for everyone. Christ is risen! He is risen indeed! Allelluia!

In this last article spotlight from our Spring Apologetics issue, we present a regular feature, an article looking at a portion of the Catechism. Pastor Cwirla takes a look at the meaning of the First Petition of the Lord's Prayer and teaches us what it means that God's name is holy and kept holy among us. It's a great reminder of the regular content HT Magazine offers each and every issue!

Rev. William M. Cwirla

Hallowed. Now there’s a strange word! We don’t use it very much. We may occasionally refer to the “hallowed halls” of some historic old building or the “hallowed ground” of a former battlefield or cemetery. Most familiar of all is “Hallowe’en.” (Yes, the apostrophe belongs there!), All Hallows’ Eve, the evening before the Feast of All Hallows (Saints).

To hallow something is to hold it sacred and holy. Hallowed ground is holy ground. To hallow is to set something apart for holy, uncommon, godly use. So it is with God’s Name. God’s Name is holy in itself. We don’t make it holy; it simply is holy. Our prayer is that the Name of God may be holy among us.

God has a name. He went by many titles in the Old Testament, among them El, Elohim, El Shaddai, El Elyon, and Adonai. But those were not names of God but titles and confessions of God’s majesty and transcendence. When Moses stood before the Lord in the burning bush, he specifically asked for God’s Name. “Whom shall I say sent me? What is His Name?” And God revealed His name to Moses: YHWH. “I AM who I AM.”

Jesus puts human flesh on the Name. He is YHWH, “I AM” in the flesh. And so it is at the Name of Jesus, an ordinary human name, that every knee will bow and every tongue will confess that this man named Jesus is the Christ and the Lord (YHWH). The second commandment lies behind this petition. “You shall not misuse the Name of the Lord your God.” What we say and do will bring either honor or dishonor to God’s Name. When we speak lies, engage in falsehood, deception and false theology or treat God’s Name superstitiously like some sort of lucky charm, we dishonor it. When we live lives that are contrary to God’s Word and will, we bring dishonor to God’s Name.

On the other hand, when we believe on God’s Name and call upon it in every trouble, when we pray, praise and give thanks, and when we lead holy lives of faith in Christ, trusting Him for our forgiveness and to help us love our neighbor with works of goodness and mercy, we bring honor to God’s Name.

Do you remember Isaiah, the prophet? When he saw God enthroned, he confessed, “I am a man of unclean lips and I live among a people of unclean lips.” Do you recall what God did? He sent an angel to take a burning coal from the incense altar and touch it to the lips of the prophet.

Unless our lips are burnished by the Word, we will not honor God with our lips. Unless the Lord opens our lips, our mouths cannot declare His praise. The petition involves not only our lips but also our lives. God’s Word must have its way in our hearts, creating and enlivening faith. God’s Name is hallowed, holy among us, when we believe His Word and confess it, and when that Word bears the fruit of love for those around us in our lives of service.

“Hallowed be Thy Name” is the first of the seven petitions of the Lord’s Prayer, and rightly so. It begins with 
our Baptism and our baptismal identity as the children of God. God has placed His Name on us in our Baptism (Matthew 28:19-20), and in Baptism we are permitted to lay claim to the Name of God as one of God’s family.

Name and family go together. Our last names tell something about where we came from and who our people are. My name “Cwirla” is a very unique Ukrainian surname. Anyone I meet in this country by the name of Cwirla is a near relative. My name identifies me as one of the family, linking me to everyone who bears the family name.

When we speak and act dishonorably, we bring shame and dishonor on our family name. Our fathers and mothers would be right in saying, “Remember who you are and the name that you bear.” When we speak and act honorably, we bring honor to our fathers and mothers and all who bear the family name. How much more can we say this in Baptism! In Baptism you are part of God’s family, calling upon your Father in heaven, through your brother Jesus, by the Holy Spirit.

Father in heaven, “May your name be holy. Hallowed be Thy Name.” Father, remind us of who we are as your children. Shape our words and our works by your Word. Put to death the lies of the Evil One and the works of the old Adam in us. Put your Word into our ears and upon our lips, that we may call upon you in every trouble, prayer, praise and given thanks. Grant that we would honor your Name in all that we say and do as your baptized children. Amen.

Rev. William M. Cwirla is the pastor of Holy Trinity Lutheran Church in Hacienda Heights, California, and the President of Higher Things. He can be reached at wcwirla@gmail.com.

This week's article from the Spring Apologetics Issue highlights the religion of Islam and shows you how to confess the faith by taking the conversation back to who Jesus really is and what he has done of us.

Dr. Adam S. Francisco

Islam is and will continue to be a hot topic when talking about religion. There are a number of reasons for this. First, is its historic and present connection to violence, and even though many often argue against this, it is the obvious one. Second, is the emergence of Muslim advocacy groups in the media.

However, the one that is sure to keep Christians interested in the discussion is the increasingly common assertion of Islam that it is a legitimate religious alternative to Christianity. In view of this, it is important that Christians understand Islam and equip themselves to address Muslims with the Gospel.

Islam is a relatively new religion. It began with the preaching of a man named Muhammad (570-632 A.D.) in the Arabian town of Mecca. Although he was initially ignored and derided as an imposter, he was eventually acknowledged by those who became Muslims as a prophet through whom the creator of the universe spoke.

His message was recorded about twenty years after he died from the memories of his earliest companions in a book called the Qurán. Even though it is virtually impossible to verify its claims, Muslims regard it as the very word of God, wherein humans are taught how to order their lives in pursuit of and preparation for the “Day of Judgment.” Over and over it promises eternal life to those who believe in and submit to the law of Allah (an Arabic term for “God”), and threatens those who do not do so with eternal damnation.

Muslims regard Allah as absolutely sovereign, completely inimitable (or matchless), and essentially “one.” This, however, should not lead one to think that Muslims and Christians worship the same God. It is clear from the Qurán itself that Allah is quite different than the One True God. The Qurán rejects the holy Trinity and claims that Allah does not and cannot have a son.

The Qurán views Jesus as a mere human, and it in no way conceives of Him as the eternal Son of God. In fact, it considers the biblical teaching of Jesus’ divinity and the doctrine of the Trinity as a whole, to be an outright abomination.

The Qurán does consider Jesus to be a prophet, though. It even teaches that he was born of the Virgin Mary and assigns him the honorific title of Messiah. He does, however, play a different role as a prophet of Allah who taught Islam long before Muhammad, and, because Christians deviated from his teaching, they believe Jesus will eventually condemn Christianity.

This significant theological difference is equally matched by some of the differences in the narrative of Jesus’ life in the Qurán. For example, Jesus is said to have spoken to Mary immediately after He was born. It claims that He performed a number of miracles, including bringing to life a clay replica of a bird. And most troubling of all, it asserts that Jesus was not crucified but instead ascended into heaven while someone was crucified in His place.

It is this last detail that poses a tremendous barrier in Christian-Muslim discourse. For if Jesus did not die on the cross, the Gospel—the Good News that Jesus’ death and resurrection reconciled sinners to God—is unintelligible. Moreover, if Jesus did not die, then He did not rise from the dead. This, according to 1 Corinthians 15, renders the Gospel false.

So what’s the Christian to do who finds him or herself in conversation with a Muslim about religious matters such as these? First, we must not run or hide from having such conversations, regardless of how uncomfortable they may make us. Second—and this may seem counterintuitive—we must embrace such conversations, for these are the sorts of interactions that get to the heart of the matter.

It is a demonstrable fact of any normal approach to the events of history that Jesus was crucified on a Roman cross. Two eyewitnesses—Matthew and John—record it. Two companions of eyewitnesses to Jesus’ life—Mark and Luke—record it. The first and second century pagan and Jewish (respectively) Roman historians Tacitus and Josephus record it. It was, in the ancient world, a public fact (see Acts 26:26). There is no good factual reason to deny the crucifixion and death of Christ. The fact that the Muslim relies on a seventh century text like the Qurán betrays the ideological bias of someone who refuses to consider primary sources written much closer to the time when Jesus lived.

The question this begs to answer is: Why did Jesus die on the cross? There are lots of ways to answer this. Paramount in Christian-Muslim discourse is the legal answer. He had claimed to be coequal with God the Father. This, in the Jewish context of first century Palestine, was punishable by death, and is what led to His crucifixion.

But this is only half of the story. The Gospel writers claimed—from what they learned through the ministry of Jesus—that His life, death, and resurrection would take away the sins of the world.

Now, it is one thing to claim something. It is an entirely different thing to prove it. But Jesus did just this when He rose from the dead three days after His death. It is this event—also testified to by eyewitnesses—that serves as the final evidence of Jesus’ deity, as well as the proof that our sins have been forgiven and our justification has been made complete. This great news is not just for us, however. It is for the Muslim, too. May the Lord grant every Christian the courage and wisdom to declare this witness to Jesus when the opportunity presents itself!

Dr. Adam S. Francisco is an associate professor of history at Concordia University in Irvine, California. He can be reached at adamsfrancisco@aol.com

Confessing the faith means more than giving a defense just to unbelievers. What if you encounter someone who believes but believes in something false? In this week's Apologetics Issue article, Pastor Kuhlman teaches us how to react when the Mormons come knocking.

Rev. Brent W. Kuhlman

There they are! You spot them. White shirts. Black ties. Handsome young men. Sometimes they’re lovely young girls. They come in pairs. Walking down your street. Or riding bicycles on the sidewalk. Walking right up to your house! Then to your door. The doorbell rings. You open the door. And the first words out of their mouth are: “Hello, we’re from The Church of Jesus Christ of the Latter-day Saints (LDS).” Mormons!1

Be warned! They don’t come a knockin’ to chat about the weather or about how nice your house is. They are on a mission! A very dark mission to turn you from the Christian faith. To get you to deny your baptism. To deny the holy Trinity. To get you to trust in what you do or don’t do perfectly for “salvation.” To get you on the road to becoming a god yourself!2 And it all starts with that opening greeting at the door: “We’re from The Church of Jesus of the Latter-day Saints.” Their official name reveals a great deal of what Mormons believe. Let’s break it down.

When they say “the” church, the emphasis is on the definite article. It means exactly what it says! “The” means “only.” As in the one and only church that exists on the earth. Seriously! No joke! They’re part of it. You’re not. That’s why they are there at your door. That’s right. I said it. And it bears repeating. Mormons believe that they are the only true church on the earth.

Mormons believe that true Christianity went the way of the dodo bird or the dinosaurs (extinction) shortly after the death of the apostles. Up until 1820 the church of Jesus Christ did not exist! Really? For all those centuries Christianity didn’t exist? That’s right! That’s the entire point of their greeting.

Therefore, the Mormon god of this world, heavenly Father, who was once a man like we are, together with his son the Mormon Jesus, got the true church of Jesus Christ cranked up once again in 1820. It happened when a young man named Joseph Smith was praying in the woods to find out which denomination was true. Supposedly, that’s when Heavenly Father and Jesus show up in a vision and declare (and I paraphrase): “Joseph! All the denominations on the earth are false! We’re going to restore the true church again in these latter days! And we’re going to use you to do it! Mormonism is Christianity! Christianity is Mormonism! Now get to work! Spread the news!”

Then, in 1823, according to Latter-day Saint history, Joseph Smith received a visit from Moroni, the son of the prophet Mormon. Moroni revealed ancient gold plates that were written in the language of Reformed Egyptian (no such language, by the way). Smith is said to have translated the golden plates with a seer stone. The translation is the Book of Mormon, another supposed testament of Jesus Christ.

Bottom line: This is exactly why the Mormon missionaries are after you! In order to truly be a Christian you have to convert to Mormonism. You have to become a member of The [one and only] Church of Jesus Christ of the Latter-day Saints! Do not be fooled! Do not be deceived! Mormonism is not Christianity! Christianity is not Mormonism! Not even close! First, officially the LDS denies the Trinity even though they use the same terms as “Father, Son, and Holy Ghost.” When Mormons say Father they usually mean “Heavenly Father” (one of millions of gods)--the only God for this world. Did you catch that? Only for this world! That, of course, implies that there are other divinities with their own worlds and your goal as a Mormon is to achieve such godhood and have a world for yourself!

Second, do not be deceived when Mormons speak of Jesus. He is a different Jesus than the Bible teaches and the Creeds faithfully confess. For Mormons, Jesus is the first spirit child of Heavenly Father and that Satan is also his spirit brother. In addition, they believe that Jesus was conceived by Heavenly Father through physical relations with the virgin Mary and that Jesus married several women in his life. When Mormons speak of Jesus as their Savior or Redeemer they usually are working with three definitions: 1) Jesus did not do everything for your salvation but he did conquer physical death; 2) Jesus paid your debt and he is very patient with you as you work very hard to pay him back in full by your obedience to Mormon teachings (e.g. married in the temple, doing your mission, proxy baptisms for the dead, moral living, etc.), and 3) Jesus is your example, i.e. he shows you how to save yourself (become a god)!

Christianity is just the opposite. God is one divine being or essence (Deut. 6:4; 1 Corinthians 8:4; John 10:30). God is three distinct persons (Psalm 2:7; John 10:30; 15:26; Galatians 4:6; Matthew 28:19-20; 2 Corinthians 13:14; Matthew 3:16-17). Trinity! Triune! Three persons–one God! One God–three persons: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit!

Jesus was conceived by the Holy Spirit when Gabriel preached the divine word into Mary’s ears (Matthew 1:18-25; Luke 1:26-38). He is the only-begotten Son of the Father from eternity (John 1:1, 14, 18; 3:16; Romans 8:32. Jesus alone does the salvation verbs in Scripture. God was in Jesus reconciling the world to Himself (2 Corinthians 5:19). It is only the blood of Jesus that cleanses us from all sin (1 John 1:7). Faith only in the crucified and risen Jesus is what saves sinners (John 3:15-16, 36; 6:29, 40; 11:42; 20:31; Romans 1:17; 3:21-28; 4; 5:1-2; Galatians 3:11, 26; Ephesians 2:4, 8).

In addition, Jesus promised that not even the gates of hell would prevail against His church (Matthew 16:18). The church has always been around! Wherever the Word is taught in its truth and purity and the sacraments are administered according to Christ’s mandate and institution, the Lord Jesus is sustaining His church.

Finally, because of what Jesus has done for you and for your salvation, you are content to be creatures. We reject the satanic temptation to be like God (Genesis 3:5)! The Lord has good use for you as a human in service for your neighbor–even if that neighbor is a Mormon. And that can begin by replying: “Well hello there! I’m a died for and baptized Christian! Come on in and let me tell you about Jesus and his church to which I belong!”3

1 ”Mormon” is the name of a prophet in the Book of Mormon. Joseph Fielding Smith, a Mormon prophet, stated: “we should all emphasize, that we belong to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, the name the Lord has given by which we are to be known and called,” (Book of Mormon Manual, 126).
2 The Mormon terms of “exaltation,” “gaining eternal life,” and “having an eternal family” are synonyms for a Mormon’s ultimate goal: godhood! The essential text that teaches this goal is Doctrine and Covenants 132:19-20. One of the first things that a Mormon child learns is this couplet: “As man now is, God once was; As God now is, man may be,” (The Life and Teachings of Jesus & His Apostles, 59).
3 To help you to witness to Mormons see 
Mark J. Cares, Speaking the Truth in Love 
to Mormons (Milwaukee: Northwestern Publishing House, 1993).

Rev. Brent W. Kuhlman is pastor of Trinity Lutheran Church, Murdock, NE. He can be reached at kuhlman.brent@gmail.com

This article originally appeared in the Spring 2012 Apologetics Issue of Higher Things Magazine

Rev. William M. Cwirla

Evolutionary biologist and outspoken atheist Dr. Richard Dawkins writes, “Faith is the great 
cop-out, the great excuse to evade the need to think and evaluate evidence. Faith is the belief in spite of, even perhaps because of, the lack of evidence.” He asserts that people who believe in God suffer from a “god delusion” and might as well believe in a “flying spaghetti monster.”

So, is religious faith, specifically the Christian faith, unreasonable? Must you check your brains at the door of the church to be a Christian?

The book of Hebrews speaks of faith in terms of a conviction about unseen things. “Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen” (Hebrews 11:1). It goes on to say, “By faith we understand that the universe was created by the word of God, so that what is seen was not made out of things that are visible” (Hebrews 11:3). What is unseen cannot be tested scientifically the way Dr. Dawkins would like. But does that make faith unreasonable?

We reason in different ways. One way is to evaluate evidence and draw conclusions. This is the way of science, history, and crime scene investigations. Much of our day-to-day life is occupied with this way of thinking.

But we also think beyond the level of evidence. When someone says, “I love you,” you don’t reply, “Do you have any evidence for that?” If you say that, you probably won’t be hearing “I love you” very much, so don’t try this at home.

We also reason about abstract concepts such as love, beauty, justice, mercy and goodness. We write poetry and tell stories. We paint images of things we have not seen. We compose melodies we haven’t heard before. We are creative beings who think far beyond what is needed for our survival. To limit ourselves purely to “evidence,” which Dr. Dawkins proposes, would be a terrible failure of the imagination and our most human ways of thinking

The book of Ecclesiastes says, “[God] has made everything beautiful in its time; also He has put eternity into man’s mind, yet so that he cannot find out what God has done from the beginning to the end” (Ecclesiastes 3:11). We have “eternity” planted into our minds, causing us to look beyond and outside ourselves and imagine the transcendent and the holy.

In his letter to the Romans, the apostle Paul wrote, “Ever since the creation of the world [God’s] invisible nature, namely, his eternal power and deity, has been clearly perceived in the things that have been made” (Romans 1:19-20). God has left His fingerprints on the creation, so that His creatures might recognize His existence, power and deity. Only a creature with an imagination can look at the creation and ponder his Creator.

Consider the vast intricacy, order, and complexity of the universe, and the lavishly diverse beauty of life around us. Which is more reasonable? To say ,“In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth,” or “In the beginning nothing became everything all by itself?”

Skeptics like Dr. Dawkins argue that there is no convincing evidence for God. But what would constitute “convincing evidence?” How can an infinite, transcendent Being who is beyond the confines of time and space show His existence to us finite creatures who are bound by time and space? The only way would be for God to occupy time and space, which He did. “The Word became Flesh and dwelt among us” (John 1:14).

Is it reasonable to believe that Jesus is the eternal Word become flesh? What would constitute sufficient evidence? He did all sorts of miracles, “signs and wonders” that only God, or someone with the power of God, can do. He predicted that the temple in Jerusalem would be destroyed within a generation, which would have been like someone predicting the destruction of the Twin Towers on 9/11 forty years before it happened. And at least three times, Jesus predicted His own death and resurrection. To quote the great baseball pitcher Dizzy Dean, “It ain’t braggin’ if you can do it.” Jesus did it!

Is it reasonable to believe that Jesus rose from the dead? Consider the evidence. Over 500 eyewitnesses saw Him at one time. People ate with Him, touched Him, and heard Him speak. These people may not have been as scientifically sophisticated as we are, but they all knew that dead men do not ordinarily rise from the dead. Thomas wouldn’t even believe the news until he saw and touched the evidence for himself.

The apostle Peter went from being a wimp who wouldn’t even admit to a servant girl that he knew Jesus to becoming a powerful preacher of Jesus’ resurrection willing to risk his own life for the name of Jesus. All in 50 days! That’s quite a transformation, don’t you think? Many who claimed to have seen Jesus risen from the dead were tortured and killed but never changed their stories, even though they could have saved their lives by denying it. I wonder how many people who claim to have seen Elvis or Bigfoot or UFOs would stick to their stories if they were slowly tortured to death.

The people who were in power, the Romans and the Jewish religious leaders, had the means and the motive to get Jesus’ body and parade it through the streets to put an end to the rumors. Only one problem: There was no body.

What do you reasonably conclude? Jesus is risen from the dead. And if Jesus was right about His own death and resurrection, wouldn’t it be reasonable to listen to the other things He said? He claimed that Moses and the OT prophets spoke about Him and His death and resurrection. He promised that His apostles would be guided into all truth by the Spirit He would send. He promised forgiveness and eternal life to all who trust in Him. Given that He rose from the dead, doesn’t it seem reasonable to take His word on the Word, too?

Certainly we cannot by our own reason or strength “believe in Jesus Christ our Lord or come to Him” (Small Catechism, 3rd article). We cannot reasonably know the depth of our sin, the nature of God as Three in One, that Jesus’ death atones for the sin of the world, that faith in Jesus is righteousness before God, that Baptism is our spiritual birth, and that the bread and wine are Christ’s Body and Blood. Those things must be revealed to us by God’s Word and received by faith. But even these things are unreasonable. They are simply beyond our reason.

Dr. Dawkins calls faith a great cop-out and an evasion of the evidence. I think, on the basis of the evidence, faith in Christ is quite reasonable. In fact, it’s more than reasonable.

Rev. William M. Cwirla is the pastor of Holy Trinity Lutheran Church in Hacienda Heights, California, and the President of Higher Things. He can be reached at wcwirla@gmail.com.

Easter is everything! The resurrection of Jesus is the center of the Christian faith. Check out Pastor Fisk's article on ways we know the resurrection really happened and that the tomb was actually empty. It will help you as you confess the resurrection to those around you.

This article originally appeared in the Spring 2012 Apologetics Issue of Higher Things Magazine.

Rev. Jonathan Fisk

It's kind of an important question. I mean, if the resurrection didn’t happen, what on earth are we Christians doing? It’s not like it’s gaining us any power or money or anything. But if the resurrection did happen, then why is it that so many people in the world don’t believe it?

The resurrection did happen, and I can tell you how you can be certain of it. More than that, I can do it without telling you that you have to believe it just because the Bible says so. That’s the key thing. A lot of non-Christians in our world think that Christians are just a bunch of willfully ignorant nincompoops who believe in some book that fell out of the sky. But nothing could be further from the truth. Christians are Christians because something happened in history unlike any other thing ever: A guy named Jesus was murdered, but refused to stay dead. It’s not a leap of faith. It’s an historic fact that is as easy to prove as any other bit of history, if you aren’t too close-minded to consider the evidence.

1. Jesus was a real human. Even without the Bible, modern scholars have to admit that there was a Jewish man named Jesus who lived in the first century. Non-biblical writings like Flavius Josephus, Mara Bar-Serapion and the Jewish Talmud all mention Him as a real, historical figure.


2. The real human Jesus died by crucifixion and was buried. In the same way, some of these extra-biblical texts mention that Jesus was killed. They don’t go into detail, but only an ignorant person who gets all their information from internet forums will try to tell you that the real Jesus didn’t die, and wasn’t even buried.


3. This Jesus had real followers who took his death very hard. At this point, we have to start trusting the books of the Bible as eyewitness accounts. We don’t have to believe they are true. We just have to trust that they tell us what the people who wrote them actually thought. That’s what we do with every historical document about any piece of history, at least, until we find other history that tells us something different. So the guy who wrote John’s Gospel around 90 AD also claims he followed this real guy Jesus, and believed He was the Savior of the world before He was murdered, watched Him die, and then fell into despair.


4. Jesus’ tomb was found empty three days later. Next, the followers of Jesus who despaired after His death also tell us that they stopped despairing because He appeared to them as risen. But not just to them. Extra-biblical sources from Roman historians tell us that after Jesus was killed, “a most mischievous superstition...again broke out.” Yet another document, traced to Jewish sources, tells of a gardener named Juda who stole Jesus’ body. When you put all of these pieces of history together, and combine it with the fact that Christian belief in Jesus’ resurrection all started within walking distance of His tomb, there is only one reasonable historical answer: Somehow, some way, that tomb was empty.


5. The disciples stopped despairing and started preaching, even though it meant their own deaths. Both biblical and extra-biblical documents tell us that Christianity came from the meeting together of these followers, in order to worship their leader “Christ” and listen to his teachings. Rather than give this up, the same disciples who once fled, willingly faced gruesome and painful deaths.


6. Antagonists convert. James, Jesus’ brother by blood, and Saul, a man who made a business of killing Christians, were among these converts. More so, Saul’s own writings claim his reason for conversion was a face-to-face meeting with the risen Jesus.


7. This is the event upon which Christianity is founded. Christianity is not direct proof that Jesus rose, but it is proof that people who knew Jesus personally before His death believed that He rose.


8. Christianity was founded in Jerusalem. No one in the town where all this was happening could present the dead body so as to put a stop to it. Instead, the “stolen body theory” is preached even 
by the first skeptics.


9. They worshiped on Sunday. These new Christians, a bunch of Jews (whose religion insists they worship on Saturday) start worshiping on Sunday, because Sunday is the day when they 
believe the resurrection happened.


10. Do the math. The challenge for the non-Christian or the skeptic (which they are usually unwilling to take up) is to find an alternative historical explanation for where this Christianity came from which also fits all of these simple, documented facts. What could make orthodox Jews change their most sacred rituals, and go to the ends of the earth to tell others about it even though it only gets them killed? They say it was because they themselves saw this man risen from the dead. On top of this, the tomb was clearly empty and the man was nowhere to be found. So, what other explanation for all the facts can you come up with?

Over the last several hundred years the skeptics have tried. There’s the hallucination theory, and the swoon theory and that good ol’ stolen body theory. But none of those theories explain all of the above facts. You can’t steal a swooned body that gets up and walks away. Separate groups of people don’t experience the same hallucination. A Jesus who needed to be taken to the hospital would hardly have convinced terrified disciples to go out and die for him.

The simple reality is that there is only one explanation of the evidence that fits all the facts. It might be unbelievable, but it is anything but unreasonable. So put it in your pocket for the next time a skeptic attacks you with his claims that you are ignorant. Ask him how he explains what Tacitus says. Ask him why the Talmud called Jesus a sorcerer. Ask him to explain all the historical facts. Then, when he won’t (since he can’t), feel free to go right on believing the truth: that the resurrection did happen. Not only is it the best explanation for all of the real historical evidence, it also happens to be what the Bible says was God’s plan for the precise purpose of saving you.

Pastor Jonathan Fisk serves as pastor at Bethany Lutheran Church in Naperville, Illinois. He is also on the board of Higher Things and host of the popular Worldview Everlasting videos. He can be reached at revfisk@gmail.com.

Rev. Ian Pacey

So what about evil? If God is good, why does He allow evil? If He is all-powerful, why doesn't he prevent evil? Pastor Ian Pacey addresses the "problem" of evil and the Christian faith in this week's Article Spotlight from the 2012 Spring Apologetics Issue of Higher Things magazine.

Introduction
Of all the questions Christians encounter as challenges to our fundamental beliefs, the problem of evil is without a doubt one of the most popular. Why do we suffer? Why do terrible things happen to my family and friends? Why do horrors like 9/11 or Auschwitz take place? Why are “natural” disasters allowed to bring forth death and destruction? If there is a God, why do these things happen?

The Question or “Problem” of Evil
Formally, the question or the problem of evil (the typical term) goes something like this: Christians, on the basis of Scripture, believe God is omniscient (all knowing), omnipotent (all powerful), and omnibenevolent (all good). If God is omnipotent, He can do all things. If God is omniscient, He knows all things. If God is omnibenevolent, He desires to prevent all things that would frustrate or corrupt good. In other words, He would eliminate the very possibility of evil.

Let’s put this together: If God is who the Christians say He is, evil should not exist. Nevertheless, evil does exist. Therefore, as the argument goes, the God of Christianity does not. If there is any “deity” out there, because evil exists, he is not all powerful, or he does not know, or he does not care. In any case, He is not god as Christianity declares and He is not worthy of our concern.

Answer the Question!
As we begin, it is necessary to remember some ground rules. Too often, when we Christians are faced with this question and others like it, we often respond with nothing more than a challenge of whether those asking the question can even know good from evil. If the questioners cannot know good from evil, then they are in no position to ask the question. It is true that, without objective standards, the knowledge of good and evil is an utter impossibility. Nonetheless, this is not an acceptable answer. In fact, it is not an answer at all. What we need here is a real, truthful response to the problem of evil.

Defining Good and Evil
For Christians, the first part of our response is establishing basic, Biblical definitions. The claim we are countering is: The Christian view of God and evil cannot coexist. For this reason, we must first define what we mean by God and evil. Establishing the Christian view of God is fairly simple. For brevity’s sake, let’s go with something like the “supreme being.” When it comes to evil, things are a bit trickier. This is because evil is all too often identified as anything that causes pain. When it comes to evil, Christians do not narrowly define evil as what causes pain, but as any thought, word, and/or deed that is not in accord with God’s moral will.

Philosophical and Existential Problem of Evil
With God and evil defined, an answer can now be worked out. At the core, there are three basic points the Christian must make: 1. God is not the author of evil. He cannot go against His own will; 2. Evil exists because of human sin, or human desire to reject God’s will; and 3. The existence of evil does not necessarily preclude the existence of God. Man, not God, is responsible for evil. God could or does have reasons for allowing evil to happen.

Again, the charge skeptics make here is that it isn’t logical for God and evil to coexist. These three factors, taken as a whole, dismiss the logical problem of evil. The problem we now have is many who struggle with evil are not addressing it logically. Instead, they are working on the emotional or existential problem of evil. People in this situation see evil in the world and their gut level response is: “This cannot be right!”

The True Answer to Evil: Jesus
For those struggling for an answer at the gut level, the one answer, the best answer the Christian has to offer, is Jesus! Jesus as revealed in His life, His death, His resurrection, and His eternal promises. Jesus as summarized by what we call the Gospel. It may sound trite. It may sound cliché. But, overuse and abuse notwithstanding, Jesus is the best answer; He is the ultimate answer to our struggle with evil.

With the coming of Jesus in the flesh, what we have is nothing less than God coming into our world and declaring His war against sin, death, and the devil; against all evil. Follow this up with our Lord’s life, death, and His resurrection, by which He paid the debt for sin, and the reality is an actual, true overcoming of evil in this world and in the world to come. Does this mean evil will cease to exist in this life? No, it is not quite that simple. Scripture is clear on that point. What we learn in Christ is the fact that God is not indifferent to our troubles. By becoming man, Jesus has entered into our suffering, and in His death and resurrection, He has removed both the power and the problem of evil forever.

Rev. Ian Pacey is an LCMS Campus Chaplain at the University of Arizona. He can be reached at revpacey@yahoo.com

More than any other ancient writing, the New Testament has tons of evidence that show that it has been faithfully and accurately copied and transmitted down through the ages. Check out this week's article spotlight from the The Apologetics Issue of Higher Things Magazine where Pastor Mark Pierson highlights the amazing way in which the New Testament has been preserved and gives you the facts for reminding those who doubt, that the New Testament is a book as reliable as they come! Click here for a PDF copy of the article and a ready-to-use Bible Study based on the article.

Rev. Mark Pierson

I remember when it first dawned on me that there might be “problems” with the New Testament. As I casually flipped through the red-lettered words of Jesus in my parents’ study Bible, something surprising caught my eye. There, in the Gospel of John, I noticed a particularly strange footnote. It said something like, “This part is not the same in all ancient manuscripts.” This struck me as rather odd and out of place. Why would a note like that be in the New Testament? Does this mean we don’t know the whole truth about Jesus? Can a book that contains typos really be God’s holy Word?

Not all of these questions were at the forefront of my mind that day, but years later they popped up. In fact, one of the most common misconceptions about the New Testament (NT) is that it has been copied, translated, and altered so many times that it no longer resembles what the original authors wrote. Thankfully, an apologist—a defender of the faith—explained to me why the NT is actually the most trustworthy collection of texts from the entire ancient world.

The Older the Better: The Earliest NT Manuscripts
Have you heard those radio ads telling you to back up your computer before it crashes and all your data is erased? Well, as far as we know, the original writings of the NT have been erased from existence. Copies were made, but since neither computers nor the printing press existed back then, everything was preserved by hand for centuries. So how do we know some drunken monks from the Middle Ages didn’t change the text? Maybe somewhere along the line people put words into the mouth of Jesus, having Him claim to be God, or that His death would pay for our sins, when He himself never said such things. Could it be that the text was tampered with and we just don’t know it? The answer is NO, for at least two reasons.

First, the oldest surviving parts of the NT date all the way back to the beginning of the second century. This may seem like it’s still not early enough, since Jesus and the apostles lived in the first century. But keep in mind that most of the NT was written in the latter half of that century, such that only a couple of decades separate the last living apostle from our earliest copies. (In fact, even as I write this article, scholars are claiming a new discovery—a portion of Mark’s Gospel from the first century. The official report will come out next year, but this new find could make any time gap completely negligible.) Second, since discovering the Dead Sea Scrolls we have learned that texts could be used for a hundred years before they wore out and disintegrated. This means our oldest copies of the NT were likely made when the originals were still being read in the churches. Thus, it is far-fetched to think significant changes crept into the NT so soon after the apostles died while their original writings remained in circulation. Plenty of people who knew the apostles firsthand lived into the second century and could have prevented this from happening.

Too Much of a Good Thing? The Number of NT Manuscripts
“Thou shalt commit adultery.” How’s that for a commandment? This is what one version of the Bible actually said, due to a printer’s error. But what if this was our only copy of the Ten Commandments? Or what if we only had one other copy, which said “Thou shalt not commit adultery?” The fewer the manuscripts, the harder it is to know what the text initially said. On the other hand, if there are lots of copies to compare with each other, reconstructing the original is much easier. So how many NT manuscripts are there, and how well do they match?

Currently, there are 5,700 NT manuscripts in ancient Koine Greek (its original language). Add to that all the early translations into other languages, as well as quotations made by early Christians, and we have around 25,000 sources for the NT text. In fact, if all Greek copies were permanently destroyed, almost the entire NT could be reconstructed from these other sources alone. Scholars have even admitted that they are embarrassed by such a large quantity of manuscripts. After comparing them, altogether 99 percent of the NT has been established with confidence.

Quantity vs. Quality: The Variants in the NT Manuscripts
Returning to that footnote from the Gospel of John, I later learned that it was called a “variant.” Variants occur whenever there is not a letter-for-letter or word-for-word match between copies. Such discrepancies are actually quite common in the NT—a fact which some skeptics have pounced on and made into a big deal. “There are more variants in the New Testament,” they’ll say dramatically, “than there are words in the New Testament!” This is true, but also entirely misleading. The reason for so many variants has to do with the vast number of copies, not with a vast number of errors in the text.

For example, this article contains over 1,000 words. If someone were to copy it by hand and make only one mistake, that copy would be 99.9 percent accurate. Then let’s say 2,000 people copied this article, with each of them making one mistake. This would create twice as many variants as words, but each copy would remain 99.9 percent accurate. So the real question is not how many variants there are, but how significant the variants are.

Almost all variants in the NT have absolutely no bearing on what the text means. The most common of these are spelling mistakes and changes in word order. (In Greek, you can speak like Yoda and still make perfect sense). So can you tell what this verse is saying? “God gave his only Son, for love the world so much he did that whosever beleives in him will have life etneral and perish not.” Though this is an exaggerated example of a variant, you probably had no trouble figuring out what it means (“typos” and all). And of those few variants where scholars remain divided on what the original text said, none of them brings into question anything Christians believe about Jesus. You could literally 
cut out each of these variants from your Bible and your understanding of Jesus would remain the same.

Putting it into Perspective
To realize how well preserved the NT is, it should be compared with other ancient manuscripts from about the same time. Three historians who lived in the first century, Josephus, Suetonius, and Tacitus, make for helpful examples here. The time gap between them and the oldest surviving copies of their works is 800 to 1,000 years. For the number of manuscripts, there are 133 of Josephus’ writings, 200 for Suetonius, and only three for Tacitus. Reconstruction of Suetonius’ text often rests on speculation, and too few copies of Tacitus remain for comparison. Josephus is the best preserved of these, but that is largely due to the efforts of Christian copyists. Professional historians accept these texts as generally reliable sources, and yet the NT clearly has much stronger credentials.

It is evident that the New Testament has been preserved with remarkable accuracy. There is simply no reason to think we cannot know what the original texts said. The Jesus we find in our modern Bibles is the same Jesus who once walked this earth, who has taken away the sins of the world, and who is present in the midst of His church for you today. The Word who became flesh among us for our salvation has preserved His Word in the pages of the Bible to make sure that salvation is delivered to you!

Rev. Mark Pierson is currently working toward a Ph.D. in New Testament studies. He also has a passion for evangelism and apologetics. You can email him at markapierson@gmail.com.