For almost twenty years a cadre of brave, but largely unheeded, commentators such as David Wells and Udo Middelmann have been striving to alert Christians to the fact that church marketing gurus have fundamentally changed the pattern of evangelical churches. Instead of taking the commands of God as the starting place for determining how to go about structuring the church, the trend these gurus introduced was to remold the church after the model of the modern retail business. In the world of American commerce, first the homogeneous chain-store began to replace the smaller local mom and pop store, and then the chain stores were brought together in the one-stop shopping experience of the modern American shopping-mall. Following this model, church marketers have replaced smaller local congregations with larger, homogeneous, seeker-sensitive churches and in turn these seeker-sensitive churches have grown to become the modern megachurch offering a “one stop” shopping experience for the modern worshipper. It is not uncommon to find everything from a coffee-bar to exercise classes all housed in these large modern worship facilities. But commerce, as always, has moved on, and even the trip to the mall (with all its attendant parking and walking problems) has become a hassle for many modern consumers. The solution to those hassles is to do your shopping from home via the internet. Even the chain stores view it as a must to have internet commerce alongside of their traditional “brick and mortar” locations. Modern megachurches have followed the same trends, first by introducing “satellite locations” which allowed worshipers to experience the finely crafted worship of the main church on large screens in a smaller congregation and without having to travel long distances or deal with the parking difficulties that come when thousands of congregants assemble. According to Outreach magazine in 2000 only 5% of megachurches were “multi-site” but by 2010 it is expected that over half will be.

Now as a recent article in the Orlando Sentinel entitled Finding the Divine Online points out, the megachurches are taking the logical next step in following commercial trends – Online Worship.

The Following quote is from William Hendriksen’s commentary on Matthew and seems particularly apt, not only because of the various kinds of politicking going on in American churches at election time, but also because evangelicals in particular once again seem to be turning their desire from the pursuit of the heavenly country to the old social gospel lie that we can build heaven here on earth and undo the effects of the fall  without waiting for the eschaton.  Once again we are turning from the spiritual to the earthly, from the proclamation of the gospel to the pursuit of trendy political and economic causes. As one evangelical put it using phraseology that would have been pleasing to the old modernists but not at all in keeping with what Peter teaches us in 2 Peter 3:10-14 about God’s final plan for the world  – “What if the Church began to understand that God wants to fix this entire planet?”

Now since it is the business of the church to shine for Jesus, it should not permit itself to be thrown off its course. It is not the task of the church to specialize in and deliver all kinds of pronouncements concerning economic, social, and political problems. “The great hope for society today is in an increasing number of individual Christians. Let the Church of God concentrate on that and not waste her time and energy on matters outside her province.”²⁷⁵ This is not to say that an ecclesiastical pronouncement revealing the bearing of the gospel upon this or that not specifically theological problem is always to be condemned. There may be situations in which such an illuminating public testimony becomes advisable and even necessary, for the gospel must be proclaimed “in all its fullness” and not narrowly restricted to the salvation of souls. But the primary duty of the church remains the spreading forth of the message of salvation, that the lost may be found (Luke 15:4; I Cor. 9:16, 22; 10:33), those found may be strengthened in the faith (Eph. 4:15; I Thess. 3:11–13; I Peter 2:2; II Peter 3:18), and God may be glorified (John 17:4; I Cor. 10:31). Those who, through the example, message, and prayers of believers, have been converted will show the genuine character of their faith and love by exerting their influence for good in every sphere.

275 D. M. Lloyd-Jones, Studies in the Sermon on the Mount, Grand Rapids, Mich., 1959, Vol. I, p. 158. The two volumes of this excellent series should be in everyone’s library!

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What if the church actually began to understand that God wants them to “make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded you” and not waste precious redemptive time with utopian political schemes or playing at being Captain Planet and the Planeteers? If the church would simply do the work she has been called to, then society might be filled with individuals who were ready to obey the command: “let us do good to all, especially to those who are of the household of faith.”

The Elements of Public Worship

Appendix: Vestments

“Under the apostles there was great simplicity in administering the Lord’s Supper. Their immediate successors made some additions to the dignity of the ordinance, which are not to be disapproved. Afterwards came foolish imitators, who, by ever and anon patching various fragments together, have left us those sacerdotal vestments which we see in the mass, those altar ornaments, those gesticulations, and whole farrago of useless observances.” – John Calvin

“Not only has the Church of Rome corrupted the worship of God by a multitude of insignificant ceremonies, but even some Protestant Churches retain many of the usages of Popery, and enjoin the wearing of particular vestments by the ministers of religion, the observation of numerous festival days, the erection of altars in churches, the sign of the cross in baptism, bowing at the name of Jesus, and kneeling at the Lord’s Supper. These practices we justly reckon superstitious, because there is no scriptural warrant for them, and they are the inventions of men.” – Robert Shaw, The Reformed Faith

Christ and His Apostles did not wear any sort of special garments in the discharge of their ministerial duties, neither did the Elders and Deacons of the early church. For a long time after the church began the shift towards Episcopacy, all evidence indicates that the Christian clergy simply wore the normal attire of the populace. As even the Catholic Encyclopedia acknowledges: “In that period the priestly dress did not yet differ from the secular costume in form and ornament. The dress of daily life was worn at the offices of the Church”.  The period when this began to change was around the time of Constantine (324 AD). At that time, for a number of reasons distinctive liturgical garments began to be adopted.

Sometimes people ask if might be possible to take the elements of the Lord’s Supper to those who were not in the worship service or to simply have the pastor do a small “Lord’s Supper” service with the sick and the shut-ins.  In order to properly answer that question we need to first consider the nature of communion.

Communion is what happens in the midst of the gathering of the church to worship and that as such it cannot be “carried out” to those who were not present . As Charles Hodge explains:

“the Reformed Churches, teach that the Lord’s Supper is essentially a communion, in which the fellowship of the believer with Christ and with his fellow-believers is set forth by their eating and drinking of the same bread and the same cup. It follows that it should not be sent to persons not present at the administration, nor administered by the officiating priest to himself alone.”

However, this does not mean that it is impossible to administer the Lord’s Supper to those who are shut-in and cannot come to church. Rather than merely carrying the elements to them as the Roman Catholic church does, the solution is to bring the church to them, as Hodge explains:

To be honest, I don’t spend a lot of time defending drinking or smoking and none at all promoting it. In fact my only reasons for commenting on the subject at this time are the fact that:

1) I believe Old School Presbyterian Churches (OSPCs) should be (note I did not say must)  using wine in communion, and although this position was something of a “no-brainer “before the abstinence movement of the 19th century and prohibition, today it has become somewhat controversial as the majority of American evangelical churches use grape juice.

2) It is directly related to the broader and more important topic of Christian liberty and that those who would  prohibit all use of alcohol are guilty of making human judgment, and not the word of God, the final standard. John Murray warned in this regard:

The progress of knowledge, of faith, of edification, and of fellowship within the body of Christ is not to be secured by legislation that prohibits the strong from the exercise of their God-given privileges and liberties, whether this legislation be civil or ecclesiastical. Legislation can never be based upon the conscience of the weak or motivated by consideration for the conscience of the weak. If we once allow such considerations to dictate law enactment or enforcement, then we have removed the ground of law from the sphere of right and wrong to the sphere of erring human judgment. God has given us a norm of right and wrong, and by that norm laws are to be made and enforced. When we in the interests of apparent expediency erect laws or barriers which God has not erected, then we presume to act the role of law-givers. There is one lawgiver. When we observe the hard and fast lines of distinction which God has established for us and refuse to legislate on those matters that in themselves are not wrong, then we promote the interests of Christian ethics. When we violate these lines of distinction we confuse and perplex the whole question of ethics and jeopardize the cause of truth and righteousness. We dare not attempt to be holier than God’s law, and we dare not impose upon the Christian’s conscience what does not have the authority of divine institution.

[From "The Weak and the Strong" By Professor John Murray, The Westminster Theological Journal, Vol. 12, 1950.]

For some time now I’ve been thinking that if I were to write a book on current trends in Reformed and Evangelical theology, it would be entitled Reinventing Liberalism.

If one were to trace the course of Evangelicalism as it has stumbled along from the days of Fundamentalist/Modernist controversy and the split with the mainline churches to the present day, I believe we would find that the path that it navigated was actually circular. At the time of the break between Fundamentalists and Modernists, the root issues were the authority and inerrancy of the bible and the role of the culture in the church. Would the church continue to embrace Sola Scriptura, or would it succumb to the siren call of Homo Mensura and once again follow human wisdom into apostasy and oblivion? For years, even as they argued over what the Word taught, Evangelicals did their best to resist being absorbed by the culture and setting human wisdom over the teaching of scripture. Now however, evangelicalism seems to be succumbing on several different levels and in doing so we are actually repeating the fatal errors of the liberals we broke with.

Every minister must examine his motives for preaching the gospel in light of the final judgment as this anecdote from John Whitecross reminds us:

“A minister, in the early part of the 17th century was preaching before an assembly of his brethren; and in order to direct their attention to the great motive from which they should act, he represented to them something of the great day of judgment. Having spoken of Christ as seated on His throne, he described Him as speaking to His ministers; examining how they had preached, and with what views they had undertaken and discharged the duties of the ministry. ‘What did you preach for?’ ‘I preached, Lord, that I might keep a good living that was left me by my father; which, if I had not entered the ministry, would have been wholly lost to me and my family.’ Christ addresses him, ‘Stand by, thou hast had thy reward.’ The question is put to another, ‘And what did you preach for?’ ‘Lord, I was applauded as a learned man, and I preached to keep up the reputation of an excellent orator, and an ingenious preacher.’ The answer of Christ to him also is, ‘Stand by, thou hast had thy reward.’ The Judge puts the question to a third. ‘And what did you preach for?’ ‘Lord,’ saith he, ‘I neither aimed at the great things of this world, though I was thankful for the conveniences of life which Thou gavest me; nor did I preach that I might gain the character of a wit, or of a man of parts, or of a fine scholar; but I preached in compassion to souls, and to please and honour Thee; my design, Lord, in preaching, was that I might win souls to Thy blessed Majesty.’ The Judge was now described as calling out, ‘Room, men; room, angels! let this man come and sit with me on my throne; he has owned and honoured me on earth, and I will own and honour him through all the ages of eternity.’ The ministers went home much affected; resolving, that through the help of God, they would attend more diligently to the motives and work of the ministry than they had before done.”

- John Whitecross, The Shorter Catechism Illustrated

With my preceding post on Neo-Darwinianism in mind, I wanted to share the following quote from R.L. Dabney. I hope it will be an encouragement to OSP pastors who are sometimes wearied by having to labor in the midst of a culture virtually overrun by secular humanism:

While I was on vacation last week my daughter and I went into NYC and one of the places we visited was the Museum of Natural History. As we were walking around, I couldn’t help but reflect that if Neo-Darwinians set out to self-consciously build a Neo-Darwinian Cathedral, it would be the Museum of Natural History.

Everywhere you looked the displays and exhibits put evolution and materialism front and center. It was almost as though the curators wanted to make absolutely sure that anyone entering into the building might have a chance to take in the materialist gospel – “from nothing, came everything, and to nothing, everything shall return.” This was glaringly apparent in displays like “The Hall of Human Origins” which supposedly traces

Up until recently, commenting and interaction on Building Old School Churches (hereafter BOSC) has been fairly good. Obviously not everyone has agreed with the theology or individual stands taken by this blog and the various writers, but even that has led to some edifying discussion and good interaction.

Recently however, I published a piece talking about the historic Old School Presbyterian position regarding the validity of Roman Catholic baptism. This post was found and criticized by a Roman Catholic blogger who goes by the name “Oso Famoso” on his blog You are Cephas. This resulted in a good deal of negative comments, including a number from Roman Catholics who wanted to enter into Protestant vs. Roman Catholic apologetics or who simply wished to inform me in the strongest possible terms of how intellectually and spiritually deficient I am. I responded to some of the posts but most of the comments weren’t published for reasons which I gave at length in my replies. Mr. Famoso was not happy about this and indirectly accused me of Bloviating and then running away from an argument

Then something odd happened, we started getting over-the-top and frankly dopey anti-Roman Catholic comments from “Protestants” with oddly rednecky names who hadn’t been published on the net before and who weren’t generally the kind of protestant who would be at all interested in this blog. I published one of the less offensive ones and over on his blog Mr. Famoso followed up his blog with this comment:

I’m sure most of you already aware of this, but some Old School Presbyterian church planting efforts fail. The church fails to grow, and eventually the effort comes to an end.

Obviously we need to acknowledge that even this was the will of God and will ultimately be used for the good of His people, but at the same time we need to be zealous to ask whether there were factors that contributed to the failure of the plant.

More often than not, one of the simplest reasons the church plant failed was that it started from the wrong premise, namely that we are going to plant an Old School Presbyterian church that will meet the needs of the conservative Reformed people in the area. This premise is fatally flawed on two counts:

After beginning their 2008 General Assembly by announcing the largest one year drop in their membership since 1981 (57,000 members), the PCUSA has continued a banner year by deciding to also drop the ban on the ordination of practicing homosexuals and fornicators. AP reports – “The denomination’s General Assembly, meeting in San Jose, Calif., voted 54 percent to 46 percent Friday to drop the requirement that would-be ministers, deacons and elders live in “fidelity within the covenant of marriage between and a man and a woman, or chastity in singleness.” The ban, it should be noted, along with the gay “blessing ceremonies” but no gay “marriages” ban is roundly ignored in many presbyteries. For instance, the PCUSA church Joy and I attended in Falls Church back in 1993 had an openly gay associate minister who would often mention or even bring forward his “partner” when he spoke to the church.

At this point we should be weary of their pretending to pay any attention to the scriptures at all. As usual we have plenty of quotes from progressive ministers in the PCUSA about how this “paves the way for a vibrant church” (despite the fact that it is paving the way for an empty church) and how they are advancing the faith, etc. One wonders why on earth they can’t just declare that henceforth they are going to do what is right in their own eyes, which is, after all, what they’ve been doing for a century. But none of this is new. Christ’s church has had to put up with the same kind of doggerel since the Socianians of the 17th century. Despite their claims of a bright future via liberalism, the clear and incontrovertible evidence is that liberalism kills the church dead every time and merely ushers in atheism. I know the Devil never changes his playbook, and generally never shows his hand (he’s not called the deceiver for nothing after all) but at this point we should be thoroughly sick of the endless charade.

The simple lesson we can take away from this is that a liberalizing agenda has no end, no bottom and no stopping point until the church has simply been absorbed by the surrounding culture. Either adopt a self-consciously conservative line and fight tooth and nail to maintain and advance it, or your denomination is doomed.

It’s always either Old Paths or Broad Path, Sola Scriptura or Sola Cultura.

In the late 1980s a debate arose within the PCA that has troubled Presbyterians for centuries, namely is Roman Catholic Baptism valid, or should we baptize someone who was sprinkled in a Roman Catholic Church when we admit them to membership in a PCA church? In 1987 the PCA majority report of the Ad Hoc committee appointed to study the validity of certain baptisms determined that Roman Catholic baptism was indeed invalid, and thus no true baptism at all. This report was prepared by Frank M. Barker, Jr., Carl W. Bogue, Jr., George W. Knight, III, Chairman, and Paul G. Settle so it represented a fairly wide diversity of views within the PCA. They noted that the American Presbyterians in their GAs of 1790 and 1835 had determined that the Roman Catholic Church (hereafter RCC) was an apostate organization, and therefore no part of the true church. The almost unanimous opinion of the Old School GA of 1845 was also that being no part of the true church, the RCC could not administer a valid baptism.

If we were to go against the opinion of prior Old School Presbyterians by contending that the baptism of the RCC is valid, most modern Presbyterians would be put in the exceedingly odd position of admitting that they would not receive a member of the RCC into one’s own church by letter of transfer, because they judge them not to be members of a true church, but that they would acknowledge that their baptism, the sign and seal of entrance into the visible church, was valid. In fact, this silly situation would be only heightened by the fact that we specifically do not allow members of the RCC to come to Lord’s Supper because we do not consider them to be members in good standing of an evangelical church. In short in everything we do, we deny the RCC to be a part of the visible church. So to acknowledge their baptism as valid would be impossibly inconsistent – it simply has no possible foundation other than the highly suspect argument, “well the Reformers didn’t repudiate RCC baptism.”

Building Old School Churches

Last week I did an interview with the extremely patient guys from the Reformed Podcast Radio Show “Christ the Center” on the subject of Building Old School Churches.

If you can persevere past the point where “my mouth runneth over” in the beginning, it’s not a bad interview.

One of the most frequently debated questions amongst pastors in denominations that seem to trending ever more liberal is when they should leave. What is the straw that finally breaks the camel’s back? While some conservative men have been willing to stay in liberal denominations until they were forced out is such a policy really wise or biblical?

Before I attempt to tackle this question, let me state in the clearest possible terms that Pastors should deplore schism and not be seeking an excuse to abandon their denomination. Of all Christians, it should be the elders of the church who are least likely to be changing denominations like socks. If the government and constitution of their church remains the same as it was when they were first ordained, and their own beliefs remain the same then there are very few circumstances that should cause them to leave.

Let’s start the discussion by listing reasons that we should not leave our present denomination. Too many men have in Christian history have left their denominations or in a few cases refused to join themselves to any denomination merely because there are wolves within the sheepfold (Acts 20:29-31). When men do this they are failing to take into account that the visible church has always had a mixture of wheat and tares within her gates, and indeed that it is impossible to find an entirely pure church this side of glory. The church in every age, including that of the Apostles, has been afflicted with heretics and heresies, and yet God has always providentially preserved both His word and a godly remnant that has not “bowed the knee to Baal.” We have His assurance that death and Hell will never prevail over His church, but though she is “by schisms rent asunder and by heresies distressed,” she will ultimately triumph through Jesus Christ her Lord (Mat. 16:18).

The Elements of Public Worship Part VIII

Occasional Elements of Worship:

Religious Oaths, Vows, Solemn Fastings, and Thanksgivings Upon Special Occasions

“Stated festival-days, commonly called holy-days, have no warrant in the Word of God; but a day may be set apart, by competent authority, for fasting or thanksgiving, when extraordinary dispensations of Providence administer cause for them. When judgments are threatened or inflicted, or when some special blessing is to be sought and obtained, fasting is eminently seasonable. When some remarkable mercy or deliverance has been received, there is a special call to thanksgiving.” – Robert Shaw, The Reformed Faith

As we have been examining Old School Presbyterian worship our attention in previous installments has been focused on the ordinary elements of worship. That is, those elements that we are taught in the Bible to regularly observe in Lord’s Day services, regardless of what is going on in the world around us. Now, we turn our attention to those elements in our worship that are occasional. These are elements warranted in the Word of God, but which are only observed on special occasions dictated by God’s providence.

RUNNING UNSENT[1]

Introduction: Many of you will recognize Carl Bogue’s name. Carl has been a pastor in the PCA almost since it’s formation, and was for many years a stalwart defender of old school principles in that denomination. In addition to lecturing and teaching, Carl’s work has been published in a number of different venues and I have always been impressed by his grasp of Reformed history and biblical theology. I’m also glad that Carl has never hesitated to speak the truth about developments in the church, even when doing so made him decidedly unpopular. In that sense, Carl is an “Israelite indeed, in whom is no guile!”

The following article by Pastor Bogue dealing with critical question of calling to the ministry and the problems associated with those who serve without having been genuinely called has been out of print for some time now, but when I heard about it in connection to online discussion of this post I recognized that the material in it was more relevant than ever and asked for his permission to reprint it, which he graciously granted, even going so far as to entirely retype it as it was first produced in the era of the typewriter! 

 

Carl W. Bogue

“I did not send these prophets,

But they ran.

I did not speak to them,

But they prophesied.”

Jeremiah 23:21

Throughout the Scriptures there is a continuing theme of what we generally refer to as the doctrine of the call to the gospel ministry. Some were called and sent; others were not. For those called there was a promise of blessing. Judgment and lack of blessing were promised to those who ran unsent.

While many OSP churches have come round to using wine in the Lord’s Supper, there is a common misunderstanding among many churches that the kind of bread we use in communion should be unleavened. The biblical data does not support this position however, and the Old School Presbyterian consensus was always that the common leavened bread of our every-day use was the element we should be using at the Lord’s Supper.

Leaven itself is not sinful, even in the Old Testament it was used in the worship of the Lord. In Lev. 7:13 and Lev. 23:16-17 worshippers were commanded to bring sacrifices of leavened bread to the Temple. In the New Testament, leaven was used as an analogy for the gospel and the spread of the kingdom (Matt. 13:33, Luke 13:21) Although the Apostles were instructed by Christ to avoid the leaven of the Pharisees, Herodians, and Saducess, which was a reference to their doctrine and hypocrisy (Matthew 16:11-12, Mark 8:15, Luke 12:1), nowhere in the NT are believers instructed to avoid the leaven of bread or observe the Passover. The ceremonial avoidance of leaven in the Passover was one of the signs and shadows of the Old Testament and a part of the ceremonial law which Jesus fulfilled. It is bread and wine as ordinary elements that have an abiding value on earth and in heaven.

For those of you who may have read the On Deciding Whether A Child is Ready to Receive the Lord’s Supper and Contra Schenck posts and who are now looking for further resources on the status of the children of believers, I’d like to recommend the following audio resource:

Children of the Covenant – What is the Status of the Children of Believers?

This is a lecture given by Dr. Mark Herzer at the “Signs of Redemption” conference at Providence PCA in 2005. The conference discussed the Old School Presbyterian view of the sacraments and in so doing discussed a host of associated subjects including the status of Covenant Children, Paedocommunion, etc. I wish I had printed versions of the lectures to share, but unfortunately none are available.

  

In April of 1916, his ship Endurance crushed by ice, Ernest Shackleton, the Antarctic explorer left the majority of his crew on a bleak and barren rock called Elephant Island. Vowing to return and save them, he set out with 5 men in a tiny lifeboat to attempt the 800 mile journey to the whaling station on South Georgia. When he left, most of their provisions were running out, and the only prospect for food lay in the few Penguins on the island. Amazingly, Shackleton succeeded in making the perilous journey through the savage seas of the South Atlantic and landed on the wrong side of South Georgia. Never the one to give up, Shackleton then crossed over the mountains of the island, something no one else had ever done, and finally arrived at the whaling station a little over a month after he had set out. Unfortunately, the terrible Antarctic weather made the immediate rescue of his stranded crew on Elephant Island impossible. His men had to endure alone on Elephant Island for four more months, their hopes of rescue dwindling with their strength, until the day when Shackleton was finally able to make good on his vow and return to rescue them.

When Shackleton left his men, all he could offer them was a promise to try his hardest to return with help. They suffered terribly in the months while he was gone, having only what meager resources they had brought and what they could scrape from the rock they were stranded upon to survive on. That Shackleton made it to South Georgia and came back at all was only by the grace of God, and had he tarried much longer, it is certain that the men he was coming back for would have all died.

When Jesus Christ ascended into heaven He too was no longer bodily present with his followers, but Christ did not leave the church in the same manner that Shackleton was compelled to leave his men.

One of the questions that should concern pastors, Old School Presbyterian or not, is “what is the status of the children of believers or ‘Covenant Children’?” That question, after all, will dramatically affect the way in which we preach and teach and what we say when we baptize the children of believing parents and often it will be the make or break question that determines whether we press the youngest members to “close with Christ” and exercise their own personal faith in the Lord Jesus.

There are some excellent books that discuss this subject from an OSP point of view such as B.M. Palmer’s excellent work The Family. However, one of the books addressing the subject of covenant children, that is being recommended on that subject more and more often these days is The Presbyterian Doctrine of Children in the Covenant originally published as an article in Christendom in 1940, and subsequently reprinted by Wipf and Stock and now being reprinted by P&R. The fact that this work has come into vogue and is being reprinted by a Reformed publishing house and recommended by Reformed theologians is rather alarming for a number of reasons, not the least of which being how little people generally know about it’s author and the actual Presbyterian doctrine (as opposed to substance of Schenck’s thesis.) Let me try to briefly explain what I mean.

Intro: A little while ago, I asked Dr. Nick Willborn of Greenville Presbyterian Theological Seminary (GPTS) if he would mind writing something for the Building Old School Churches Blog on the critical subject of Theological education. He graciously consented to do so, and sent the following essay, which I hope you will find thought provoking.

Thoughts on Ministerial Education and Preparation

by Dr. C.N. Willborn

Everyone knows you can’t put into a man what God has left out. (I know; a gargantuan assumption in a day of low churchism.) Namely, I mean, ministerial gifts and supernatural calling can’t be put into a man. That seems to be a lost concept today—that God calls and gifts the men of his choosing to be his mouthpieces, his shepherds, his rulers, in his church. To illustrate, let me recount some comments I heard from a seminary professor friend of mine a few years ago. “A lot of the divinity students,” he said, “are here [at the seminary] because a job in their degree field didn’t pan out immediately upon graduation from university. Let me explain: a fellow graduates from college and doesn’t find a job right away. He sits down with his campus minister [probably not his pastor and elders as he ought] and laments his predicament. The campus minister says something like this: ‘you always liked coming to the weekly meetings and helping with activities, maybe you ought to go to seminary.’ The young fellow takes this word from the campus minister as divine revelation and heads off for seminary. Three or four years later, he finishes a M.Div. and now he is almost certain to come into the ordained ministry even if the gifts and calling are not there.” That’s what I call coming into the gospel ministry through the back door.

One of the responsibilities of sessions is determining whether a non-communing child is now ready to receive the Lord’s Supper. Over the years, it has become the custom in many Reformed churches, even Old School Presbyterian (OSP) ones, to assume that member children will be ready to come to the table at around the age of 13, and often it is the case that when they reach that age, they will simply be run through a communicants class and admitted to the table. In those circumstances, the process often becomes more of an age related right-of-passage – a Christian Bar Mitzvah if you will – than a serious inquiry into the actual spiritual condition of the child. And while it is sometimes the case that 13 will indeed be the age when a child comes to the table, the truth is that there is no magical age at which they are suddenly “ready.” Rather, children should be admitted to the table based on their own spiritual development and maturity. Our session, for instance, has interviewed and admitted six year olds whom we judged to be ready, and turned away older children whom we did not feel were ready to come.

The Elements of Public Worship Part VII
The Due Administration and Right Receiving of the Sacraments Instituted by Christ

Pt. 2 of 2

“Q 169: How hath Christ appointed bread and wine to be given and received in the sacrament of the Lord’s Supper?

A 169: Christ hath appointed the ministers of His Word, in the administration of this sacrament of the Lord’s Supper, to set apart the bread and wine from common use, by the word of institution, thanksgiving, and prayer; to take and break the bread, and to give both the bread and the wine to the communicants: who are, by the same appointment, to take and eat the bread, and to drink the wine, in thankful remembrance that the body of Christ was broken and given, and His blood shed, for them.” - The Westminster Larger Catechism Q&A 169

Previously we discussed what a sacrament is, and, in particular, we looked at the Sacrament of Baptism. Now we will be examining the other Sacrament that Christ gave to the Church: the Lord’s Supper.

Sean Lucas of Covenant Theological Seminary has posted an excellent article on his blog on the essential incompatibility of Sola Scriptura and the Regulative Principle with the practice of observing invented Holy Days in the worship of church.

Lucas notes in his article, “While I am aware that some would make a biblical argument for using the church calendar based on the OT development of sacrifical feast days (an argument that is not convincing to me), I would suggest that what we have for our place in the redemptive, biblical drama is actually a rhythym of 52 feasts days a year–the Lord’s Day in which Word, Sacraments, and prayer constitute the heart of the church’s “calendar.” “

His comment regarding the specious argument that the commanded Old Testament holy days provide the pretext for the invention of New Testament Holy Days reminded me of the comments of several Puritan divines, such as Thomas Watson, who dealt with the same argument as it was advanced by Roman Catholics and Anglicans in their own day. Watson answered:

“The ceremonies of the law, which God himself ordained, are now abrogated, and out of date. Christ the substance being come, the shadows fly away; and therefore the apostle calls the legal ceremonies carnal rites. Heb 9: 10. If we may not use those Jewish ceremonies which God once appointed, then not those which he never appointed.”

                  The Elements of Public Worship Part VII

The Due Administration and Right Receiving of the Sacraments Instituted by Christ

Pt. 1 of 2

Q92: What is a sacrament?

A92: A sacrament is an holy ordinance instituted by Christ, wherein, by sensible signs, Christ, and the benefits of the new covenant, are represented, sealed, and applied to believers.” – The Westminster Shorter Catechism Q&A 92

“For I received from the Lord that which I also delivered to you…” (1 Cor. 11:23)

During His earthly ministry The Lord Jesus Christ, instituted two Sacraments to be perpetually observed in the worship of the church until his return. These sacraments are Baptism (Matthew 28:19) and the Lord’s Supper (1 Cor. 11:23). Each of these sacraments plays a vital role in the life and worship of the church.

If you aren’t familiar with Pastor Mark Dever’s “Nine Marks” organization, you should be. Nine Marks exists to:

“cultivate and encourage churches characterized by these nine marks: Expositional Preaching, Biblical Theology, Biblical Understanding of the Good News, Biblical Understanding of Conversion, Biblical Understanding of Evangelism, Biblical Understanding of Membership, Biblical Church Discipline, Promotion of Christian Discipleship and Growth, Biblical Understanding of Leadership”

so there are many places where the mission of Nine Marks and the mission of this Blog overlap.

Recently Nine Marks sent out their 2007 Report Card, and on the first page of the Report Card itself was a quote from Dever that I found intriguing and perhaps one that most modern evangelical churches should give some consideration to:

I want to recommend a wonderful resource being made available by Immanuel Presbyterian Church, an Old School Presbyterian congregation in Norfolk, VA. Immanuel is making the entire Westminster Shorter Catechism available for download in high quality MP3 format. While this is not the first time the WSC has been recorded, this is the most professional version of it I have heard to date. This is a wonderful resource to make available to the members of your congregation, particularly so they can practice the catechism as they drive to and from work.

Also available for download on Immanuel’s “resources” page, are Pastor Bill Harrell’s “Minister’s Letters” in PDF format. I have been reading these for several years now and have often used them as meditations for prayer meetings, etc. I would commend them to you, especially as they give us a “pattern of sound words” that will go a long way in teaching young pastors how to write to their congregations.

BTW – Speaking of the Westminster Shorter Catechism, if you are ever looking for resources exegeting and explaining any of its questions and answers, do take a look at the Westminster Shorter Catechism Project of the Bible Presbyterian Church.

Intro: Admittedly this has only a tenuous connection to the subject of building Old School Churches, but today is 34th Anniversary of one of the darkest days in American history, the anniversary of the Roe vs. Wade Supreme court decision of January 22, 1973. Because the simple phrase “34th Anniversary” doesn’t really carry the weight it should Here are some comparative statistics that should put the effects of that decision in a more stark light:

Population of Iraq: 26,074,906
Population of Afghanistan: 29,928,987
Population of Canada: 31,006,347
Population of California (the most populous US state:) 35,484,453
Total Number of Legal Abortions in the USA since 1973: 48,589,993

If abortions continue at anything like their current rate, in less than a decade we will have topped the death toll for the costliest conflict in human history, the Second World War, which killed 54 million people. Americans, will have legally conducted the greatest bloodletting in human history at home in the Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave.

So to mark this sad anniversary, I’m publishing the text of a sermon I preached on the subject 2 years and 3 million lost lives ago on 1/23/2005 entitled Pleading for the Defenseless. I’ve updated the dates and stats to reflect the current situation:

Pleading for the Defenseless

Prov. 31:8 “Open your mouth for the speechless, In the cause of all who are appointed to die.”

There are many anniversaries that are observed with fond memories, such as weddings, graduations, and there are some anniversaries that while they involved loss are observed with pride, the anniversary of D-Day for instance. Some anniversaries are observed with sorrow, but are accompanied with renewed resolve and a determination that their like not be repeated – 9/11 for instance.

There are, however, a few events in history that should be a cause for national shame. August 24, 1572 for instance. On that day throughout the nation of France, without warning French soldiers and Roman Catholic mobs fell upon unarmed French Protestants, and slaughtered over 100,000 men, women, and children. It was said that the rivers were so choked with bodies that no one ate fish for many months. The St. Bartholomew’s day Massacre, as it came to be called, was greeted with jubilation in Rome and the Pope Gregory XIII had a medal struck to honor the occasion of the massacre of French Christians.

But as terrible as the anniversary of St. Bartholomew’s day is, it actually pales in comparison with one our nation just observed. Today, January 22nd, is the 34th Anniversary of the Roe v. Wade decision, in which the Supreme Court of the United States in a 7-2 decision officially removed all legal protection from babies in the womb. As of January 22, 1973 the person-hood of the unborn was legally revoked, and their killing for whatever reason was sanctioned.

In First Corinthians the apostle Paul wrote what was probably one of the most difficult letters of his life, he was writing to a church that was in crisis, in every sense. There was no unity and mutual love in the church, instead they were breaking up into individual cliques and parties. Theologically, on several issues they were in danger of leaving the faith once for all delivered to the saints and becoming heretical, morally they were fostering a spirit of permissiveness that was causing them to tolerate gross immorality. In terms of their worship, they were becoming addicted to excitement and showy sign gifts, and were turning up their noses at the solid preaching and teaching of Christ crucified. They were showing themselves to be desperately immature, not able to absorb the solid meat that they should have been craving. They were a sensual people addicted to sensation, and showed themselves to be carnal and not spiritual. Paul lamented: “And I, brethren, could not speak to you as to spiritual people but as to carnal, as to babes in Christ. I fed you with milk and not with solid food; for until now you were not able to receive it, and even now you are still not able; for you are still carnal.”

It’s almost like Paul was writing to the church today rather than in the first century! I hope that if we learn anything from the eerie similarities between the church then and now it will be that the problems of modern evangelicalism are nothing new, and that the answer to the problems of the Corinthian church are also the answers that we desperately need to be applying today.