ECHO 2 Contents WINTER 2017, Volume 16 | No. 4 This magazine is produced three times a year to provide students, alumni, parents, friends and donors with news from the institution, articles 3 19 connecting our readers with our community and features on relevant Christian thought. The President Refugees Study Online MISSION STATEMENT Speaks through LBC | Capital Lancaster Bible College exists to educate Christian students to think and live a biblical worldview and to proclaim Christ by serving Him in the Church and society. 5 22 VISION Alumni The Legacy of the Lancaster Bible College will be a premier learning community that intentionally develops Reformation the head, heart and hands of servant ministry leaders for global impact. ACCREDITATION 10 25 Accredited through the Middle States Commission on Higher Education and the All the Way My God’s Gift for those Association for Biblical Higher Education Commission on Accreditation, LBC is also Savior Leads Me who Slow Down approved by the Pennsylvania Department of Education and the Association of Christian Schools International. LBC is approved to operate in Pennsylvania, Florida, Maryland and 12 31 Tennessee. LBC is authorized to offer online programs in all states where our online From High School Drop Business & Baseball students reside. Out to PhD Candidate EDITORIAL COMMITTEE Peter W. Teague, Ed.D. PRESIDENT 14 32 John Zeswitz, B.A. EXECUTIVE VICE PRESIDENT Unfinished Business Faculty & Staff Philip Dearborn, Ed.D., (‘90) Accomplishments PROVOST Josh Beers, M.A.B.S. SENIOR VICE PRESIDENT OF STUDENT EXPERIENCE 15 33 Rodney Carter, Jr., B.S. (‘15) From China to Students & Faculty DIRECTOR OF ALUMNI America Head to Houston Keith Baum DIRECTOR OF MARKETING & COMMUNICATIONS / EDITOR Karen Perago, B.S. (‘85) 17 35 MARKETING & ECHO PRODUCTION MANAGER An Unexpected Calling Events Kelsey Madas, B.A. (‘15) CONTENT CREATOR, MANAGING EDITOR Daniel Spanjer, Ph.D. CHAIR OF THE ARTS & SCIENCES DEPARTMENT COVER: Student YaHui (Naomi) Wang (‘20) pauses to pose on the lawn of LBC | Capital’s Lancaster campus. lbc.edu Read her story on page 15. ancaster Bible College took second and third place students were asked, “If you could start over, would in college rankings published by The Wall Street you still choose this college?” LBC earned a score of L Journal, edging out two Ivy League institutions 9.46 out of 10. For the college’s placement of the Career for the top spots. Preparation listing, those surveyed were asked, “Is your college effective in helping you to secure valuable LBC grabbed second place on a list of Top Schools for Right Choice, placing ahead of Duke University internships that prepare you for your chosen career?” and Brown University. The college also earned third The answers of LBC students gave the college a score place on a list of Students’ Top Schools for Career of 9.6 out of 10. Preparation, ranking ahead of Drexel University and “It never ceases to amaze me when these accolades, Dartmouth College. unpursued nor sought after, seemingly show up out The Wall Street Journal surveyed students and of the blue,” said Dr. Peter W. Teague, president of LBC. asked them a series of questions to determine each “It’s a testimony to what God is doing on our campus in institutions ranking. For the Right Choice category, and through the lives of LBC students!” ECHO 2 Refocus n observance of the 500th anniversary of the Protestant Reformation, our college theme this year I is REFOCUS, a call to be convinced afresh of the truth and power of the gospel. Appropriately so, our theme verse for the year is Romans 1:17: “For in the gospel the righteousness of God is revealed—a righteousness that is by faith from first to last, just as it is written: ‘The righteous will live by faith.’” This is the verse that captured Martin Luther’s heart and mind, and eventually led him to write the 95 Theses. LBC Distinguished Professor Dr. Harold Kime, who has taught over 40 years on the book of Romans, just published his commentary titled “Romans: A Reasoned Defense of the Gospel.” Kime writes, “Paul’s letter to the Romans is the capstone of his writings. The letter is a reasoned defense of his most basic theological proposition, namely that one gains a righteous standing with God by faith, not by any works of law.” Paul’s epistle to the Romans has been described as the fullest definition of the gospel in Scripture. In his lectures on Romans 1, Martin Luther said, “The sum and substance of this letter is: to pull down, to pluck up, and to destroy all wisdom and righteousness of the flesh... for God does not want to save us by our own but by an extraneous righteousness which does not originate in ourselves... but comes from heaven.” Romans 1:17 is Paul’s thesis statement for his epistle. It introduces themes central to the Christian faith - forgiveness of sins by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone - doctrines that he fleshes out in detail throughout the rest of his letter. The phrase “the righteousness of God” has prompted a great deal of discussion throughout church history. When Martin Luther was in his mid-30s, he was studying in one of the small rooms in the tower of his cloister, working on his lectures for the university where he served as a professor of theology. He hit a roadblock in his studies when he came upon this phrase in Romans 1:17. Like most around him, Martin Luther had been trained in the medieval scholastic tradition that thought Paul’s phrase “the righteousness of God” referred to the awesome holiness of God, before which sinners can only cower in fear. Scholars believe he would have read the verse as “The gospel reveals that God punishes sinners,” which of course is NOT at all what the gospel does. This thought terrified him, and he could not let it go. Luther possessed an over active conscience as a result of the religious culture in which he lived; today, some might label him a neurotic. He hoped becoming a monk would bring him the peace of God he craved. It was in the monastery that he spent many, many hours in the confessional trying to get right with God by confessing his every dark thought 3 ECHO and impure motive. Still, peace and comfort eluded him. The truth in this way: “Truth is an elastic concept. I make and longer and deeper he went into the system of confession shape reality, and I am at the center of the reality I have and repentance, his despair in trying to please God became shaped.” Or as William Henley wrote in the late 19th century greater and deeper. He would later admit that he began in his poem, “Invictus,” “I am the captain of my fate, I am the to hate a God who he felt demanded the impossible, who master of my soul.” It is a worldview that denies sin and the hammered sinners mercilessly with His law, only to hammer wrath of a holy God. There is nothing from which I must be them again with His gospel. saved; therefore, I need no savior. Now more than ever we must hold fast to the gospel and speak as those who stand But that day in his cloister was different. Wrestling once again under divine authority. We must stand on the authoritative with Romans 1:17, he received an electric shock of inspiration Word of God to know and follow the mind of God. when he understood “the righteousness of God” refers not “The gospel is to the attribute by which God is righteous in Himself, but a This year as our students study the Bible at LBC | Capital with status by which God regards us as righteous before Him. He a true understanding of the gospel and law, it will safeguard so simple that described what he experienced in these words: “I grasped the Word from being predominately an instruction manual small children can that the ‘righteousness of God’ is that righteousness by which rather than a living instrument of the Holy Spirt that shows through grace and sheer mercy God justifies us through faith. forth God’s work in the world on behalf of sinners in need of understand it, and Thereupon I found myself to be reborn and to have gone salvation. This distinction between law and gospel explains through open doors into paradise.” it is so profound how the Bible reaches out and grabs us, transforms us and At last Luther understood that right standing with God – frees us from the futile exercise of trying to merit God’s that studies by the justification - is given to people by God, and with fresh acceptance by our best behavior and works. wisest theologians assurance, his love for God burst back into flame! He explains Paul finishes Romans 1:17 with the words of Habakkuk 2:4, that his discovery was based on distinguishing between the “The righteous shall live by faith.” This can be translated will never exhaust righteousness of the law and the righteousness of the gospel, as “the one who by faith is righteous shall live.” It can also or that which can be earned by a man and that which is its riches.” mean that the one whom the Lord regards as righteous will given by God. Luther would later tell his friends that prior demonstrate an abiding trust in God and His promises, and to that day of enlightenment, “I regarded both [God’s law a life of faithfulness and obedience to Him.