“...the household of God, which is the church of the living God, a pillar and buttress of the truth.”
Our Lord Jesus Christ declared that the gates of hell would not prevail against his church. This wonderful promise has sustained the ministry of God’s people down through the centuries. The Reformers reclaimed the biblical truth that the church is not just a hierarchy of ordained officers; it is not merely a building, whether magnificent or small; it is not merely a Greek word for a collection of people gathered together. The Greek word for church is Ekklesia, which means those that are called out or called together. And our English word “church” (or the historic Scottish—“Kirk”) comes from the Greek word, Kurios, which means the “Lord’s.” And so, biblically speaking, the church is intended to be the congregation, gathering, or assembly of God’s people called together to serve the Lord in this world.
Westminster Theological Seminary exists to train specialists in the Bible to proclaim the whole council of God for Christ and his global church. And so in this issue of Westminster Magazine, we seek to encourage the work of the church, as evident in our title, “O Church Arise.” It is our prayer that the Lord will refresh, strengthen, and renew his church here in America and around the globe, as the church rises up to fulfill the Great Commission of Christ in Matthew 28 to make disciples of all the nations. And in this way, fulfill the creation mandate given to unfallen mankind in Genesis 1, as those created in God’s image. As members of Christ’s church, we are called to increase, to harness the created order for man’s good and God’s glory, and humbly to rule as vice-regents of the King of Kings and Lord of Lords.
Our prayer is that this issue—focusing on the church and her relationship with the family, individuals, seminary leaders, as well as the church’s worship and life—will be an encouragement to you and your congregation. Thank you for being part of the Westminster community! May the Lord use the truth shared here to bless you, your ministry, and your local church. Let us rise together in Christ’s name as members of the universal church of Christ to honor him, our Savior and Lord!
In his service,
Peter A. Lillback, President
Volume 4 | Issue 2 | Spring 2024
Editor–in–Chief
Peter A. Lillback
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Abram Hammer, Machen Hall in the Spring
Perhaps as you assess the condition of the churches around you today the words of Nehemiah 1:3 echo in your heart, “The wall of Jerusalem is broken down, and its gates are destroyed by fire.” Outside the walls of the church the culture has turned decidedly hostile toward us. Within its walls we have witnessed the corruption of too many prominent leaders and the collapse of several promising and storied ministries. The residual consequences of the global pandemic and the weaponization of political tribalism has left church members divided and caused pastors to leave the ministry at an alarming rate.1 The temptation for the church in a season such as this is, as Francis Schaeffer pictured it, “to pull up the drawbridge on the citadel and lob the occasional truth boulder across the walls at the culture.”2 Or on the other hand, as Machen warned, to adopt the dogma and direction of the culture in order to preserve the church’s institutional sustainability.3 For a faithful and faith-filled church, neither of these responses is an option. Instead, we must take up the cross of Christ on the mission Christ has entrusted to us and continue to build and extend the walls of Christ’s church until he returns and he completes the walls and gates of the city of God (Rev. 21:12). To continue to arise in the cause of Christ the church needs the pastoral leadership Christ has appointed.
The church in Ephesus was a church which had experienced a great work of God and had been provided with some eminent pastors. In the course of just a few years Christ had established a church which led to the preaching of the gospel and the planting of churches throughout the region, the conversion of multitudes who had been enslaved in pagan practices, and the development of multiple leaders to serve Christ’s church (see Acts 18:19-19:20, 20:28), even amidst severe cultural hostility (19:21-41). The church had been pastored by none other than Paul, Timothy, and John. But the fact that Timothy had to be sent to Ephesus to put the church back into order in terms of doctrine, leadership, and practice (1 Tim. 1:3, 3:15) reveals that even a church which has experienced a great work of God and been graced with gifted pastors can decline and even die (Rev. 2:1-7) if its leadership is not wholeheartedly attentive to the biblical precepts and priorities Christ has prescribed for his church (Acts 20:28-30). The good news
is that Christ himself has provided the leaders his church needs to continue to be built up in him, and amongst them are pastors.
The inspiring mini-series Band of Brothers chronicles the true story of Easy Company of 101st Airborne Division in the European campaign during WWII. One episode in the series depicts the company’s endurance in the forest of the Ardennes during the Battle of the Bulge. A low point in the story is depicted as the company’s field commander, who is worn out by the strain, leaves the men in the field as he goes back to HQ to “make a phone call.” As the church moves forward on Christ’s mission in this age we do not have a commander who has retreated to HQ leaving us leaderless in the field. King Jesus is not passively watching from heaven as his church fights the good fight. He is there as head over all power and authority and, by his Spirit, is with us (Matt. 28:20; Acts 2:1, 17) and, by that same Spirit has given gifts to his church (Rom. 12:4-8; Eph. 4:7) amongst which are pastor-teachers to build us up and equip us for our service in his cause (Eph. 4:11-16).
That pastors are leaders in Christ’s cause is not always appreciated as it ought to be and, in fact, is resisted in some philosophies of pastoral ministry. But the fact that pastor is translated from shepherd in the New Testament demonstrates that a significant function of a pastor is moving sheep (God’s people) from where they are to the green pastures God has prepared for their provision and protection. Even at a most basic level, moving people from where they are to where God has purposed them to be is leadership. William Still made this connection when he described the work of the Pastor, “The Pastor by definition is a shepherd, the under-shepherd of the flock of God. His primary task is to feed the flock of God by leading them to green pastures.” 4 Timothy Witmer has shown that, in the background in which the Scriptures were written, kings were often styled as shepherds since their responsibility was to protect and provide for their people.5 This background helps us to understand the picture in Ephesians, that when the risen King (Eph. 1:2021) gave under-shepherds to his people (Eph. 4:11-12) to build them up in his likeness and equip them for his service (Eph. 4:13-16) he was providing them with leaders to move them into his purposes together. A pastor-teacher
is a Christ-appointed leader who must know, according to the Scriptures, where God’s flock should go and how to get them there. For the Church to arise on its Christgiven mission it needs Christ-appointed pastoral leadership.6 In the space provided here we’ll consider three core practices for how pastors lead the people of God into the purposes of God.7
Irecall a reading in my early ministry where a seasoned pastor said, “Don’t tell me what you believe about the Bible. Let me hear you preach, and I’ll tell you what you believe about the Bible.”8 Another said, “we seldom live what we profess, we always live what we believe.” At times churches which seem to be based on the Bible encounter corruption or experience atrophy because, while they hold formally correct positions about the Bible, the Scriptures are not functionally authoritative for how they lead. Too many pastors confess the authority and sufficiency of the Scripture but when it comes to the practices of leadership in the church the Bible exercises, at best, a nostalgic and marginal influence. The apostle Paul believed that, precisely because the Scriptures are God’s inspired and authoritative word (2 Tim. 3:16), they are sufficient to equip pastors (the man of God) to do everything Christ has entrusted them to do (2 Tim. 3:16-17). He was also keenly aware of the corrupt and hostile context in which the New Testament church would have to live and work for Christ (2 Tim. 3:1-5), so he provided Timothy with a strategy that, in any context, would endure at any time; preach the word! (2 Tim. 4:2) The authoritative exposition of the Scriptures (preaching) was to permeate every facet of Timothy’s leadership in Ephesus (2 Tim. 4:2-5). Paul knew that this strategy was not only enduring but also effective on Christ’s mission. The great work of God that Ephesus experienced was directly tied to the fact that he had prioritized preaching during his own service in that city (Acts 19:6-10, 20, 20:18-21, 25-27, 31). The apostle believed that, because of what the Scriptures are and because of what they can do (Isa. 55:11; Jer. 23:29; Heb. 4:12-13), pastor-teachers must fulfill their stewardship through the preaching of God’s word. This apostolic precept has formed the functional priority for mission leading pastors throughout history. John Calvin’s leadership of the Reformation in Europe,
particularly as it was expressed through the church in Geneva, was driven by his relentless and prolific exposition of God’s word.9 And Charles Spurgeon, whose ministry was so expansively used of God, was overt about the priority of preaching in the leadership of his ministry:
I do not look for any other means of converting men beyond the simple preaching of the gospel and the opening of men’s ears to hear it… when the good old truth is once more preached by men whose lips are touched as with a live coal from the altar, this shall be the instrument in the hands of the Spirit for bringing about a great and thorough revival of religion in the land.10
The eminent Old Princeton Theologian, Archibald Alexander, renowned not only for his leadership of that strategic seminary but also of a disciple-multiplying church (Pine Street) in Philadelphia stated his conviction that, “God has indeed appointed the preaching of the gospel as the great instrument of the instruction and moral reformation of men, and nothing should be allowed to supersede this.”11 Historically, the church has been led into maturity in Christ and on mission for him by pastors who prioritized the exposition of the Scriptures in their ministry.
A pastor-teacher is a Christ-appointed leader who must know, according to the Scriptures, where God’s flock should go and how to get them there.
This does not mean that preaching is the sole leadership function of the pastor or the only ministry the church needs to be built up in God’s purposes. While all ministry in a healthy church flows downstream from the pulpit, in a healthy church there will be a lot of ministry taking place downstream from the pulpit. Preaching that is not only prioritized but purposed to the ends
for which God has appointed it will cast a compelling biblical vision and define biblical strategies that translate into a discipling system which equips God’s people for worship, for growth in Christlikeness, and for ministry to one-another and their neighbors.12 It is through his word, particularly as it preached by those Christ has appointed, that Christ himself speaks to his church (Rom. 10:14-17; 2 Cor. 5:20; Heb. 12:25) and Christ himself leads his church. Therefore, pastor-teachers lead by proclaiming the Scriptures not only to teach the church its doctrine but also to set its direction
When my children were very small, we lived in an area that received heavy snow fall. It was often so deep that our little boys’ little legs would not carry them through the snow, until I got in front of them and made big footprints into which they could place their feet and follow me home. I had to lay down a pattern of walking that they could emulate if they were to get where they needed to go. Similarly, Paul expected pastors to walk in front of God’s people in such a way that his life would show them where the word he was preaching was leading them, and they could follow him there. When he told Timothy to “set the believers an example” (1 Tim. 4:12), he used a word which meant he was to typify in his character what he taught in his content. The gospel Timothy proclaimed was to mold his own manner of life as a pointer to the Christ on whom his message centered.13 A pastor’s walk must be integrated with the word he preaches.
This desperately needs to be reemphasized in our age when high profile betrayals of pastoral trust have caused many to feel that leadership is inherently toxic, particularly if the offending leader wields the word of God. When there is serious disintegration between the doctrine and life of a pastor, it is not merely a personal problem; it betrays the reputation of the one who appointed the pastor. Pastors who preach to lead people to Christ and his purposes for their life in him must imitate him in their leadership.
This will mean, at least, that they will earnestly pursue personal sanctification (1 Tim. 6:11; 2 Tim. 2:22), adopt a cross-shaped pattern of servant-leadership (1 Cor. 1:17ff), and be willing to lay down their life to stand for the glory of God and the good of the church in an oppositional culture (Acts 20:24; 1 Tim. 6:12). And, not least, they will be
motivated in their leadership by the supreme Spirit-produced affection, love (1 Tim. 1:5, 6:11; 2 Tim. 1:7). Loving pastoral leadership desires and acts for the eternal good of God’s people, even if it costs the leader. . . his life.
The good news is that leaders who have been appointed by Christ can grow in their commission to exemplify Christ to his people because a pastor is a son in Christ before he is a servant of Christ (Rom. 8:14-15; Gal. 4:6-7). Christian pastors are Christians before they are pastors. That means that they are united to Christ and, therefore, Christ is for them (Phil. 3:9) and in them (Gal. 2:20). As believers they are justified by God, having acquitted and accepted them as righteous before him solely on the ground of Christ’s righteousness imputed to them (Rom. 3:21-26, 4:22-25). He has sanctified them having delivered them from the dominion of sin (Rom. 6:6-14), and is progressively sanctifying them in his likeness for his glory (2 Cor. 3:17-18). And this gospel-grown Christ-imitating exemplary leadership can not only instruct God’s people but also inspire them to lead for Christ’s sake in the relationships and responsibilities God has given to them.
The opportunities for and challenges to Christ’s cause both within and outside the church’s walls are too numerous for a pastor to respond to effectively by himself. And Christ never intended him to. One of the purposes for which Christ has given pastors to his church is to lead the members of his church into the works of service he has apportioned to them (Eph. 4:7, 12).14
Pastoral leadership that desires to build up Christ’s church in the current cultural moment will be intentional about equipping the saints to employ their grace given wisdom, gifts, and resources to advance the purposes of God in the spheres where they live, worship, and work. As stewards of God’s word pastor-teachers have the opportunity and responsibility to train believers in the character, convictions, and competencies for their ministry to one-another within the church (Rom. 12:4-8; Eph. 4:15-16; 1 Pet. 4:10) and for their God-given opportunities to witness to the world outside the church (Col. 4:5-6; 1 Pet. 3:15). And though this witness does not have the transformation of society as its end, believers are called to do whatever they do, wherever they do it, for God’s glory in Christ’s name (1 Cor. 10:31; Col. 3:17). As Pastors lead the saints into
all of the good works for which God has created them in Christ (Eph. 2:10) they will apply their teaching to provide biblical vision, convictions, and ethics for all of life in all of the spheres where God has providentially placed his saints. Harry L. Reeder III translated this priority of pastoral leadership into a vision that the church would actually become “a leadership factory and distribution center”15 for the culture versus what is usually the case, the culture shaping the leadership of the church. In a recent conversation with a pastor from another nation, he educated me on how his great nation had benefited historically from leaders with a Christian worldview. The country’s hospital system, educational institutions, and even the constitution with its commitment to the rule of law were the product of leaders who had been trained with a biblical view of humanity, science, and government. Pastoral leadership that is committed to building the church in this generation and for the next must invest itself in developing believers to lead for Christ’s glory in every sphere of society. One shudders to imagine where the world would be if William Wilberforce had lacked the intentional pastoral leadership of John Newton. For the church to be built from decline and decay to maturity in Christ and mission for Christ, the entire body must arise and work together (Neh. 2:18, 4:6). Pastors must equip them for that work.
The work will be completed. Not because of the pastors who lead the church but because of the one who appointed pastors. Pastors are simply instruments in the hands of the archetypical leader, the King of Kings, and he said he would build his church and the gates of hell would not prevail against it (Matt. 16:18). Jesus did not make that promise amidst a sympathetic culture, and he did not envision a sympathetic culture when he commissioned his appointed leaders to establish and extend his church amongst the nations (Matt. 28:18-20, cf. Matt. 10:22). But Jesus has never made a promise he won’t or can’t keep. And, as in the Ephesian church’s story, Jesus is yet in the midst of his church (Rev. 2:1), leading us and giving us life (Eph. 4:16). Pastors have the great grace-given privilege and responsibility to follow his lead and, with the unshakable hope in his promise, lead his people into his purposes. That’s a call worth pouring out your life for.
John Currie (DMin, Westminster Theological Seminary) is professor of pastoral theology at Westminster Theological Seminary, where he teaches preaching and leadership. As a pastor, he has led churches in Canada and the United States with a commitment to the priority of expository preaching. His latest book is called The Pastor as Leader: Principles and Practices for Connecting Preaching and Leadership (Crossway, 2024).
1. https://www.barna.com/research/pastors-well-being/https:// www.barna.com/research/pastors-quitting-ministry/.
2. Francis Schaeffer, The God Who Is There (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1998), 170.
3 J. Gresham Machen, Christianity & Liberalism (Glenside, PA: Westminster Seminary Press, 2023), 4–8.
4 William Still, The Work of the Pastor (Fearn, Ross-Shire, UK: Christian Focus, 2001), 17.
5. Timothy Z. Witmer, The Shepherd-Leader (Phillipsburg, PA: P&R Publishing, 2010), 11-12.
6. On parity and plurality of elders of which a pastor is one. …Pastoral leadership is given not only by those titled pastor but by the elders together with the pastor. The wholehearted attentiveness of both teaching and ruling elders working in concert with one another is essential to healthy pastoral leadership and healthy churches.
7. For a book length treatment of the principles and practices of pastoral leadership see John Currie, The Pastor As Leader (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2024).
8. See John F. MacArthur Jr, Our Sufficiency in Christ (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 1991).
9. Herman J. Selderhuis, John Calvin: A Pilgrim’s Life (Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 2009), 112.
10. See Currie, The Pastor as Leader, 126; cf. Charles Haddon Spurgeon, C. H. Spurgeon Autobiography, vol. 1, The Early Years, 1834–1859 (Carlisle, PA: Banner of Truth, 1985), v.
11 A. Alexander, “Suggestions in Vindication of Sunday Schools,” in Princeton and the Work of the Christian Ministry: A Collection of Addresses, Essays, and Articles by Faculty and Friends of Princeton Theological Seminary, ed. James M. Garretson, 2 vols. (Carlisle, PA: Banner of Truth, 2012), 1:345.
12. For further explanation of how these critical leadership functions are practiced through preaching see Currie, The Pastor as Leader, 87–106.
13 I. Howard Marshall and Philip H. Towner, A Critical Exegetical Commentary on the Pastoral Epistles, International Critical Commentary (London: T&T Clark, 2004), 561.
14. For a more detailed explanation of this interpretation of Eph. 4:12 see Currie The Pastor as Leader, 187–188.
15. See Harry L. Reeder III, 3-D Leadership, 13, 33–34.
In The Pastor as Leader, John Currie equips pastors to be men of God who competently carry out their purpose: leading God’s people through the preaching of God’s word. By integrating these two primary roles of the pastorate, readers will learn how to faithfully and confidently proclaim the Scriptures as they communicate biblical vision and strategy for the church’s mission.
“This book has quickly become one of my favorite books on the pastorate. It is filled with robust biblical exegesis, sound theology, affection for Christ, and helpful real-life application. Currie’s experience and expertise as a pastor and mentor to pastors shows on every page.”
JASON HELOPOULOS, Senior Pastor, University Reformed Church; author, The New Pastor’s Handbook
crossway.org
When Thomas Witherow died in 1890, The Witness newspaper commented, “He wrote because he had something to communicate.”
The three publications contained in I Will Build My Church are testaments to this statement. Thomas Witherow wrote on polity, baptism, and the Sabbath because he believed that he had something to say—something that God had already said on these issues in Scripture. That is to say, Witherow did not write out of personal interest, nor did he only write on topics pertaining to his hobby horses; rather, he wrote in response to the exigencies of his moment in history. His writing arose out of events and circumstances relevant to his time in the nineteenth century and local to his ministry in the Presbyterian Church in Ireland. Witherow believed that he had something to say on each of these topics specifically for his time and place in history, and so he wrote to communicate.
Witherow wrote The Apostolic Church (the work from which the following passage is excerpted) as part of a denomination-wide offensive by Presbyterian clergy to reassert their principles on ecclesiology against two opponents: the dominance of Episcopacy, on the one hand; and the tendency toward Independency within Presbyterianism, on the other. For Episcopalians (e.g. Anglicans) and Independents (e.g. Baptists, Congregationalists, Methodists, Pentecostals, Free Evangelicals, etc.) today, Witherow presents both a challenge and an option. According to Witherow, the challenge for Episcopalians is that Prelacy falls short on every principle of biblical polity, making it an entirely erroneous system, and therefore without right to claim precedence in the apostolic church. Likewise, the challenge for Independents is that it falls short on three of the six biblical principles, making it an entirely deficient system, and therefore without right to claim precedence in the apostolic church. Witherow, however, does not stop after dismantling Episcopalian and Independent claims; he also provides a constructive alternative: Presbyterianism. The bold and confident claim of Witherow is that Presbyterian polity meets each of the six biblical principles, and therefore has a right to claim precedence in the apostolic church. Since Witherow begins with an inductive study of Scripture, establishing the principles of polity on God’s Word, Presbyterianism emerges as the biblical option.
—Jonathan GibsonThe word church in our common discourse is used in a variety of senses. Sometimes it signifies the material building erected for divine worship; sometimes it means the people usually assembling in such a building; sometimes the aggregate body of the clergy
as distinguished from the laity; sometimes the collective body of professing Christians. As general use is the law of language, it does not become us to take exception to the variety of significations that are given to the term by our best writers; nor can we even say that much practical inconvenience arises from them, inasmuch as the accompanying circumstances usually determine the specific sense in which the word is to be understood. But it is never to be forgotten that, when we come to the interpretation of the Word of God, the variety of senses commonly attached to the term is altogether inadmissible, and would, if adopted, darken and corrupt the meaning of divine revelation. The word church in Scripture has always one meaning, and one only: an assembly of the people of God—a society of Christians. The Greek word ecclesia, in its primary and civil sense, means any assembly called together for any purpose (Acts 19:32); but in its appropriated and religious sense, it means a society of Christians, and is invariably translated by the word church. Examine the Scriptures from the commencement to the close, and you find that the word church never has any other meaning but that which we have stated. Let any man who feels disposed to dispute this statement, produce, if he can, any passage from the Word of God where the sense would be impaired, if the phrase society of Christians, or Christian assembly were substituted for the word church. This, we are persuaded, would be impossible.
Though the meaning of the word church is always the same in Scripture, let it be observed that its applications are various. It is applied, at the pleasure of the writer, to any society of Christians, however great, or however small. Examples of this fact will not fail to suggest themselves to all who are familiar with the Word of God. We give a few passages as specimens:
Colossians 4:15: “Give my greetings to the brothers at Laodicea, and to Nympha and the church in her house.” There the term is applied to a society of Christians so small as to be able to find accommodation in a private dwelling-house.
Acts 11:22: “The report of this came to the ears of the church in Jerusalem.” There it means a society of Christians residing in the same city, and including, as we know on excellent authority, several thousand persons.
Acts 7:38: “This is the one [Moses] who was in the congregation in the wilderness with the angel who spoke to him at Mount Sinai, and with our fathers. He received living oracles to give to us.” Here the word signifies a
society of Christians: an assembly of God’s people so large as to include a whole nation, consisting at the time of at least two million in number. The term is also applied to the people of God in the days of David, when residing in Canaan, spread over a great extent of territory, and amounting to many millions (Heb. 2:12, compared with Psalm 22:22–25).
The truth is that the word church has only one meaning, but it has a variety of applications. The term of itself never conveys any idea but a society of Christians.
1 Corinthians 12:28: “And God has appointed in the church first apostles, second prophets, third teachers, then miracles, then gifts of healing, helping, administrating, and various kinds of tongues.” Here the term means the society of Christians residing on earth; for it was among them, not among the saints in glory, that God raised up men endowed with apostolic and prophetical gifts.
Ephesians 5:25: “Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her.” The word is here used to signify the society of Christians in the largest sense: all for whom Christ died—the whole family of God—all saints in heaven and all believers on earth, viewed as one great company.
Let it be observed, however, that, amid all this variety of application, the word church never alters its sense. Its meaning in every occurrence is the same. However applied, it never ceases to signify a society of Christians. But whether the society that the inspired writer has in view is great or small, general or particular, is to be learned, not from the term, but from the circumstances in which the term is used. In every instance it is from the context, never from the word itself, that we are to gather whether the society of Christians, intended by the writer, is to be understood of the collective company of God’s people
in heaven and earth, or only of those on the earth, in a nation, in a city, or in a private house. The practice—into which the best expositors of Scripture are occasionally betrayed—of taking up some idea conveyed by the context only, and regarding that idea as entering into the meaning of some particular word, has been shown by a late eminent critic to be the origin of those numerous significations—perplexing by their very multitude—appended almost to every word in our classical dictionaries, and the prolific source of errors in the interpretation of the Word of God. This is obviously what has led many to suppose that the word church has two meanings—signifying something different when referring to the universal body of believers, from what it does when denoting the body of believers connected with a particular locality. The truth is, that the word church has only one meaning, but it has a variety of applications. The term of itself never conveys any idea but a society of Christians; it is the context that invariably determines its general or particular application. It is manifestly inaccurate, therefore, to maintain that an idea, invariably conveyed by the context, enters into the meaning of the term; when, as all must admit, the term, apart from the context, does not suggest either a limited or universal application.
Had we occasion to speak of the several Christian congregations of a province or nation in their separate capacity, it would be quite in accordance with the scriptural idiom to designate them the churches of that region. None can forget how frequently the Apostle Paul speaks of the churches of Syria and Achaia, Galatia and Asia. So, if we required to speak of the individual congregations of Christians in Ireland—the separate Christian societies scattered over the country—we might denominate them the churches of Ireland, there being nothing in existing ecclesiastical usages to make such language either unintelligible or liable to be misunderstood. But it deserves to be noticed that, when we use such phrases as the “Established Church of Scotland,” the “Episcopal Church of America,” or the “Presbyterian Church of Ireland,” there is no departure whatever from the scriptural sense of the word. The meaning of the word in Scripture, as we have seen, invariably is a society of Christians, and this is precisely its meaning in any of the above phrases; the context, at the same time, limiting the Christians in question to those professing certain principles, and belonging to a particular country. When we employ, for instance, such a designation as the Presbyterian Church of Ireland, the word
church is used precisely in the scriptural sense to denote a society of Christians, which we learn from the context professes Presbyterian principles and resides in Ireland.
The Christians of a district, or a province, or a kingdom, holding certain principles in common, if viewed as a collective community, are a church, exactly in the sense of the Scriptures.
The propriety of applying the term to signify the Christian people of a country, does not arise from the fact that they are ever assembled in one congregation, either personally or by representatives, but from the fact that the mind contemplates them as a collective body. All saints in heaven and believers on earth are styled the church, not because they are assembled either literally or figuratively, but because, in the view of the mind, they are regarded as a great society, separated from the world, and united by common principles into one great brotherhood. And so the Christians of any denomination, though composing a multitude of congregations, may, in their aggregate capacity, be properly styled a church, not because they are either figuratively or literally assembled, but because, in the view of the mind, they are regarded as a collective body, distinguished from others, and united among themselves, by the profession of a common creed. It was once doubted whether the Scriptures contain an example of the word church being applied to the Christians of a country. The science of biblical criticism has now set that question at rest in all time coming. The true reading of Acts 9:31 is, “So the church throughout all Judea and Galilee and Samaria had peace and was being built up. And walking in the fear of the Lord and in the comfort of the Holy Spirit, it multiplied.” No man, with the slightest pretentions to scholarship, can now hesitate about
receiving this as the original form of the text, when it is known that the lately discovered manuscript—the Codex Sinaiticus—is in its favor, no less than A B C, these four being at once the most ancient and valuable manuscripts of the New Testament now extant. Not to speak of the evidence derivable from the ancient versions and the Fathers, the united voice of these four manuscripts is enough to settle the correct form of any text. Their testimony as to the original reading of Acts 9:31 none can question; and to that passage we confidently point as a clear instance of the word church being applied to the Christians of a country, viewed as one collective society, though in reality divided into many separate congregations.
Some writers, indeed, give a different account of the matter. They tell us that the universal community of Christians in heaven and on earth is called in Scripture the church, not because they are viewed as one great brotherhood, united by common principles, but because they “are at all times truly and properly assembled in Jesus.” It is a mere fancy to suppose that the mind ever takes such a fact into account, when employing the term in its universal application. But, if so, it does not alter the case. The Christians of a particular district, or of a province, or of a nation, may be properly designated a church for the same reasons, because they also “are at all times truly and properly assembled in Jesus.” There is no sense in which all the Christians on earth and in heaven are “assembled in Jesus,” that the Christians of any particular country are not thus assembled. If the whole is assembled, so also are the parts. Take the matter either way, the Christians of a district, or a province, or a kingdom, holding certain principles in common, if viewed as a collective community, are a church, exactly in the sense of the Scriptures. They are a society of Christians
Thomas Witherow (1824–1890) was born in Ballycastle in the north of Ireland, where he ministered and taught for 45 years. After pastoring a Presbyterian church in Maghera for two decades, he became professor of church history and pastoral theology at Magee College in Londonderry, where he served until his untimely death at the age of 65. Witherow wrote prolifically and on a variety of topics, but he remains best known for his defense of Presbyterian beliefs.
Of the many metaphors in Scripture used to describe the relationship between God and his people, arguably one of the most intimate and comforting of those doctrines is that of adoption. Though the flower of adoption is most beautifully expressed in the New Testament, the promising seed of the doctrine is surely found in the soil of the Old Testament.
In the book of Exodus, the Lord refers to the nation of Israel as “his people.” Pharoah’s harsh subjugation of the Israelites is not simply wrong as a matter of
principle to the Lord, it is something he also addresses personally. Israel is like a child to him—a frail yet beloved infant whom God chose, adopted, and cared for. So affectionate is God toward his people that he refers to Israel not simply as his “people” but also as his “son.”
Thus, he says in Hosea 11:1, “When Israel was a child I loved him, and out of Egypt I have called my son.”
Matthew 2:15 takes up this language from Hosea 1 to show that while Israel was God’s adopted child, Jesus is God’s Son incarnate, begotten but not made. Just as
Israel went down into Egypt and was brought up by the hand of God, so the Son of God went down into Egypt and was brought up as well. These things preview Jesus Christ’s dying and rising again. His descent into death and being held by death for a time was his entering the spiritual reality to which Egypt pointed. But his triumphant resurrection was an even greater Exodus out of this world into heaven itself.
This beautiful language blossoms in the New Testament when not only is the church referred to as the
family of God (i.e., his “bride” in Eph. 5), but even his adopted sons and daughters (John 1:12). As the Son of God has gone before us and on behalf of us, he has now been granted a beautiful, eternal inheritance which includes his family—the church. This is why so many New Testament books refer to the people of God as the family of God. Not only is the church collectively spoken of this way; we too, as individuals, are able to cry out to our God in heaven not simply as our God but even as our “Father” (Rom. 8:15). It was “In love [that] he predestined us for adoption” (Eph. 1:5) so that not only might we become part of his inheritance; being united to him by the work of the Holy Spirit, we now share in that eternal inheritance of the glorified Son as Spirit-filled sons and daughters of God in the gospel (Eph. 1:11). The Spirit of God not only enables us to call out to God as our Father, he also assures us that we belong to God, and that we can never lose our eternal inheritance (Eph. 1:14). Such is the glorious status of the adopted sons and daughters of God.
One of the most beautiful summaries of our blessed adoption is found in the Westminster Confession of Faith, chapter 12 Of Adoption:
All those that are justified, God vouchsafeth, in and for his only Son Jesus Christ, to make partakers of the grace of adoption, by which they are taken into the number, and enjoy the liberties and privileges of the children of God, have his name put upon them, receive the Spirit of adoption, have access to the throne of grace with boldness, are enabled to cry, Abba, Father, are pitied, protected, provided for, and chastened by him, as by a father: yet never cast off, but sealed to the day of redemption; and inherit the promises, as heirs of everlasting salvation.
“Vouchsafeth” is an older term meaning, “to give or grant in a gracious manner.” God has graciously taken us into his family in which we find many blessed rights and privileges, as well as responsibilities. Being adopted means we have, by his grace, both a people and a place to which we belong. One cannot help but love the tender way in which God himself is described as a Father who pities, protects, and provides for his children. This is what a good father does, but our Father in heaven is not just good, he is perfect, and he does all things perfectly
well, both for his glory and even for our good. A loving father never un-adopts or “casts off” his children, and neither will our Father in heaven do so to us. We are his, and his promises are ours, and there is nothing sin, sickness, suffering—even Satan—can do to sever our adopted status in the family of God. We did not obtain our adoption by our own merit; nor shall we be able to maintain it by our own merit. It is the work of God in our hearts, uniting us to Christ and maintaining and strengthening that union more and more by the work of God’s Spirit, and through outward and ordinary means of grace (the preaching of God’s word, the sacraments, and prayer).
The doctrine of adoption is precious to our family. Seven years into marriage my wife and I were without children, but not for a lack of desire. We learned after many humbling tests and expensive medical procedures that we would never be able to have children biologically. In God’s providence, when my wife was a child, she survived a ruptured appendix that should have killed her. But instead of ending her life, this event would forever shape her future. Her body dealt with the infection by scarring over parts of her internal organs, making it impossible for her to conceive.
Sometimes God’s
“yes” is actually “no.”
I will never forget the day we had our last surgical procedure—our last attempt at fixing what was broken within us. But sometimes God’s “yes” is actually “no.” The doctors rolled her back to her room where I was waiting. He explained very gently that the answer was clear: we were not going to bear children through her womb. While she slept, God and I had something of a wrestling match in that hospital room. All she ever wanted was to be a pastor’s wife—and a mom. I could not understand why God would take something so right from someone who seemed like she would be so good at it. The strange confluence of tears and anger were hard to manage. When she woke up, the answer she was waiting for was rolling down my cheeks. So, we sat there together, silently surrendering our hopes and dreams. As Samuel
Rutherford would sometimes say, we were learning to “kiss a striking Lord.”
Sometimes the best way to deal with grief is not to bury it down but to deal with it. Our way of dealing with it may seem a little strange, but I will share it with you. Sometime before this last surgery I had a table made for my wife by an Amish family in Pennsylvania. It had eight chairs. Two for us, and six for the kids we had planned on having. In addition to having six chairs, we had already picked out six names for those six children we were going to have. I have pastored for twenty-three years now and have sadly had to walk beside many people who have lost loved ones, even children. For my wife and me, our way of processing our grief was to put all the names we had picked out on pieces of paper and set them around the table. In our own way, we both greeted and said goodbye to those children that day. In many ways, it was like all our children died at once.
During this painful story, it would be honest to say that the blow made us somewhat numb for a while. Not angry, not cynical, certainly not mad at one another; just numb. But numbness wears off, and hope springs again. Some months later, we began the prospect of adopting. It was not our plan A, but God had a plan, and it was even more beautiful than ours.
On a pastoral visit one day, I passed a crisis pregnancy center that advertised adoption services. It took more courage than I can describe to turn around and go into that building. But I did, and there I met some of the most beautiful people I would ever get to know. After some months of classes and background checks, we were approved to adopt—and we waited. Then one day a phone call brought us home from vacation in a flash. A little girl had been born, and we had been picked. On the one-hour drive to go meet her, my wife may have gone through all nine months of pregnancy at once emotionally! We even pulled over and had a great cry together, prayed together, and then pulled into the agency where we would meet our first child—a beautiful little girl—for the first time. It would be hard to overstate how magical that moment was when she was placed in our arms. All those years of wanting to have children (but not), all those humbling tests and expensive procedures, even all those tears ... were swept away into soaring joy. The only thing more beautiful to me than our daughter’s eyes that day was my wife’s eyes.
If the hope we lost the year before felt like death,
the joy we were now experiencing was like life from the dead. Her story and ours were ones of brokenness. Yet God took two broken stories and fused them into one beautiful whole. She needed us, and we needed her. Now, she is college bound, a beautiful young lady with a close walk with God and a very promising future—and a big heart for the broken.
Fourteen months later, God would once more add to our family. The day before I preached my goodbye sermon to a church I had planted and pastored, God gave us our first son. His story was complicated and difficult, as was our life at that moment. We were in the midst of a fragile transition, but so was he. He was born with a disability that God granted him—a dynamic that would forever shape his and our lives together. But as time would tell, he was made for us, and we were made for him. He needed a wonderfully patient, perceptive mom who could figure him out, and he needed a dad who was big, strong, and somewhat stubborn. The early years dealing with neurological divergence were not easy, but he has grown into a strong, capable, handsome young
man with a bright future (and he loves the fact that he is now bigger than his dad).
Sometimes hard providences seem to roll over us like waves. But so also do God’s kind and gentle providences. Our third son was born badly addicted to heroin, cocaine, and nicotine. That morning, my wife had prayed that God would “give us our William.” We fell in love with that name while reading Ranger’s Apprentice to our older kids (now nine and eleven). The main character in the book is an adopted boy named Will. So, we named our son Will. He goes by William, and he is now seven years old, wonderfully healthy, strong, and almost alarmingly handsome.
Though our quiver was getting full (and we were getting older!), God was not done. We felt we had room in our hearts and lives for one more child, and we prayed regularly for the child to come. Then, one day, while I was doing a funeral for an older woman at church, my wife showed up with her hands shaking like a leaf. My mom lives with us—and I assumed the worst—that something had happened to her. My wife’s shaking hand held
a piece of paper in it with four names, two of them girl names. She looked at me and said, “We need to pick one.” Two hours away, a little girl had been born to a mom brave enough to carry her to term, but too weak to care for her daughter. She gave an adoption agency parental rights, and they picked us. We now had four kids: Kirra, Carl, Liam and Liarra.
One of the neat things about adoption is what we call “finalization.” This is the day children become legally yours. Having stood before four different lawyers for each of our children, I have been intrigued by the declaration that “Your child is now entitled to receive from you as though he or she was naturally born to you.” But also (and just as importantly), “You are now also entitled to receive from your child as though she or he were naturally born to you.” Adoption is a two-way street: parents receive from their children, and children receive from their parents. Adopted children, once legally finalized, are no less children in the family than children that are naturally born. They are really and truly part of the family. It is a wonderful privilege for them, and a wonderful privilege for us.
My wife often says that her body needed to be broken so that we could be the family we are…broken pieces together made into a complete picture of love by God. Christ’s body was broken so that we as broken pieces could together be made into the beautiful family of God.
One of the great extensions of being adopted into a Christian family is the blessing of becoming a part of a church family. From the vows taken at a child’s baptism, to conversations at church and in living rooms, adopted children are just as much a part of the church family as any other children. And God uses them to bless our churches, just as he uses our churches to bless our children. I love pastorally reminding the church at a baptism that the children around the room are, in a sense, ‘all of our children.’ We may only drive four kids to church, but there is a room full of kids that very much love and need their extended family. From Sunday School teachers, to pastors and elders, to faithful prayer warriors who quietly lift them up—a church family is a blessed gift to our covenant kids, no matter how they came into the covenant.
Adoption is not only important in the Bible, in the family, and in the church; it also has an important place in church history. In his book, The Rise of Christianity, Rodney Stark makes the interesting suggestion that one
of the reasons that Christianity spread so quickly and broadly was that when the Romans went through cities murdering, destroying, and pillaging (all in the name of Pax Romana—the “Peace of Rome”), they would often not bother killing infants, but would abandon them on the ‘trash heaps.’ Christians, according to Stark, came in quickly behind the Roman soldiers and would rescue these abandoned children—and raise them. This, according to Stark, aided the rise and spread of Christianity. Hopeless, abandoned children were given life and families and were raised in the arms of the church.
To outsiders looking in, it painted the church in bright, beautiful colors as not only having hearts of compassion, but bravely risking their own lives and comfort for the sake of those who bore the image of God. In short, adoption is beautifully evangelistic.
It is arguable that the family has never been more under attack than it is today. Family is important to us because family is important to God. He created us not simply as ‘beings’ but specifically as ‘persons.’ A being simply exists; a person functionally relates. No person was ever designed to live in pure isolation either from God or other human beings. God made us for himself, and he made us for one another. As Saint Augustine said, “You have formed us for yourself, O God, and our hearts are restless until we find our rest in Thee.” I might add to this that we were meant for one another—for family. And the most beautiful family in the world is the church. We are the adopted sons and daughters of God. Jesus gave his life for us that we might find our life in him. He is our faithful elder brother. God is our adoring Father. As many have said, “God is our Father and the church is our mother.” However it is that God has brought us into the body of Christ—the family of God—let us be thankful. For if there is nothing God loves more in this world than his church, there can be no greater form of love and service to God than this: to love his family.
Eric B. Watkins is pastor of Harvest Presbyterian Church (OPC) in San Marcos, California. He has taught at Westminster Seminary California and Mid-America Reformed Seminary. He is the author of The Drama of Preaching, and has written for Tabletalk and New Horizons.
Do you know where thunderstorms come from? Thunderstorms form when hot meets cold, when warm, moist air confronts cold air and lifts into the atmosphere. Thunderstorms are products of confronting opposites. We don’t see those opposites distinctly from the ground. All we see are the effects of their convergence.
A similar phenomenon is happening in modern Western culture. The hot, unstable air of a decades-long mental health crisis is confronting the chill of individualism in what some are calling an epistemic crisis—that is, a crisis over how we can know anything truly. And so anxiety meets doubt, depression meets skepticism, internal anguish meets external culture wars. The inside rages against the outside. And as with thunderstorms, while we can’t see the broader systems so easily, we certainly experience the effects of their collision.
This is where the church finds herself—in the midst of a storm that seems to demand both nothing and everything from her. From one angle, she seems set apart from both the healthcare system and secular culture. What could she say of consequence on either front? From another angle, she holds the keys to the kingdom of heaven (Matt. 16:19). Where else can people go to find rest? Jesus said the church is a city set on a hill, burning with a brilliant light (Matt. 5:14–16), but how can she possibly respond to the gathering darkness?
What the church has to offer is actually critical to both the rise in mental health problems and our epistemic turmoil: heart care. Or, in this article, what I’m calling cardiac rest
Allow me to set the scene for both the mental health and epistemic crises before showing how the church can respond with her Christ-won, Spirit-empowered cardiac care.
The mental health crisis in the West has been gathering numbers for decades. I’ll focus on just two threads of that crisis here—anxiety and depression—using figures for the United States. Right now, nearly 1 in 5 Americans is being treated for an anxiety disorder (I’m one of them, by the way). That’s some 40 million people. For adolescents (ages 13–18), the numbers are even worse: nearly 1 in 3 (31.9%).1 Depression statistics aren’t much more encouraging. Some studies suggest 8% of
American adults (21 million) battle major depression each year, and 15% of youth (ages 12–17). The suicide rate for Americans in 2022 was the highest it has been since 1941, leading to nearly 50,000 deaths. Those are bleak numbers.
People can get fixated on causality, which I’m convinced is too complex to pin down. Many factors have likely influenced what people are experiencing—a rise in technology and its attendant social changes, drug and alcohol abuse, influential worldviews that encourage introspection and self-exploration without offering any sense of stability. What matters for the church isn’t finding a precise explanation for what has caused mental health to worsen. Certainly, causes can influence treatment, so it is good to study these things and form educated guesses. But that doesn’t change the fact that people are showing up on the doorsteps of the church right now, regardless of whether we think we know why they’re suffering. At root, what’s at stake for people suffering from anxiety and depression is a deeper sense of peace, wholeness, and contentment that remains amidst life’s changing circumstances.
If the mental health crisis is the hot air, our Western individualism—with its expressivism and commitment to subjective truth—is the cold.
In her book Untrustworthy, Bonnie Kristian addresses our epistemic crisis, a crisis of both knowing the truth and trusting in certain authorities to communicate it. In the foreword to her book, David French writes, “We not only don’t know what’s real, we don’t even know how to discover what reality is. We live in an age of earned distrust.”
What’s led to this epistemic haze and earned distrust? Phenomena such as “fake news,” widespread conspiracy theories, and a pervasive skepticism of authorities have all played a part, as has social media. But taking these factors together, Kristian argues that we have forgotten how to know things (epistemology) and how to weigh the truth claims of others. And so now, especially postCOVID, we live in a climate characterized by “distrust, animosity, and escalation” (pp. 16–22). For instance, hate for the opposition is more of a driving factor in our attempt to “know” things than is careful research and critical thought, guided by the biblical principle of speaking the truth in love.
Our epistemic crisis has led to some strange cultural movements, perhaps most notably the thralldom of people to their emotions, precluding the possibility of civil discourse. The topic of identity is perhaps the most familiar to us. Kristian explores something called identitarian deference—the idea that anyone who wants to say something about anything must defer to a certain authority, namely the authority of the person claiming a particular identity. So, if I want to make a claim about homosexuality, my claim is void unless I am homosexual. Subjectivity—my personal experience—has become the ultimate authority. You can see how this would evaporate civil discourse. Kristian quotes Mark Lilla to spell it out: in today’s public discussions, “the winner of the argument will be whoever has invoked the morally superior identity and expressed the most outrage at being questioned” (p. 139).
The heart and its ethical posture towards God always lies beneath the head...epistemology always builds on top of ethics.
The epistemic crisis essentially traps people inside themselves. It whispers that the only trust worth possessing is self-trust. Or, at its best, it encourages people to trust only a small faction of humanity based on emotive responses to world events. To combat this, Kristian offers a “practical epistemology” that upholds the virtues of studiousness, intellectual honesty, and wisdom.
While there is much to commend in Kristian’s book, I would argue that our greater problem is not, in fact, epistemological. It runs deeper. Look at what Paul says in Romans 1:21 about the epistemic problems of unbelievers. “For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened.” Rebellious disobedience of the heart leads to blind futility in the head. Because they have insurgent hearts,
God gives unbelievers over to debased minds (1:28). The heart and its ethical posture towards God always lies beneath the head. Put differently, epistemology always builds on top of ethics.
Even more support for this comes from 1 Corinthians 2:6–16. Here Paul talks about the only source of true knowledge: God’s revelation climaxing in Jesus Christ, the “exclusive and comprehensive principium for human knowledge” (Gaffin, Word & Spirit, p. 314). After exegeting the passage, Richard B. Gaffin Jr. makes a cutting observation: The wisdom of God—which includes all true knowledge about God, people, and the world—“is not ultimately cognitive or merely intellectual” because its “controlling point of reference is Christ,” who must be received in the heart by the work of the Spirit. Christ’s death and resurrection, Gaffin writes, is “Paul’s ultimate epistemic commitment” (p. 315). And so, “for Paul, it is not a matter of the primacy of the intellect, but of the heart” (p. 328).
Applying that principle to the twenty-first century, I would say that our epistemic crisis is really a cardiac crisis—a heart crisis. And we express that crisis in a simple question: whom can I trust? And bound up with this question is the ultimate heart question: whom do we most love? Whomever or whatever the heart trusts and loves most becomes the authority for knowing truth. But more on this in a moment.
To understand our cardiac crisis, we first need to set out what the church—and only the church—can offer: a revolutionary approach to suffering. Then we’ll come back to see how the church can engage with people and lead them to cardiac rest in Jesus Christ.
Both the mental health crisis and the epistemic crisis are instances of mass suffering. This is important to start with because only the church can respond to suffering in a way that doesn’t fall into selfpity, on one side, or spring towards self-congratulation, on the other (assuming the suffering is overcome). Jesus and the Apostle Paul portray suffering not as a crushing weight to carry or a looming boulder to climb, but as a trodden path to walk. And on that path, stamped by the humble feet of Christ, something truly divine happens.
Jesus said that any disciple of his must take up his cross and follow him (Matt. 16:24). In layman’s terms,
Jesus is saying, “If you want to be my disciple, keep death in your back pocket.” At the same time, ironically, he claimed that he was the resurrection and the life (John 11:25). The Apostle Paul added that we are to be always carrying around the death of Christ in us so that his life would be manifested in our bodies (2 Cor. 4:10). So, in some bizarre, Jesus-esque way, we are to suffer with Christ in a continual dying that somehow manifests the resurrection life of our Lord. “Suffering with Christ” (Rom. 8:17; Phil. 3:10) and being conformed to his death is a path that, oddly enough, leads to life. Do you sense how revolutionary this is? Suffering isn’t a weight to uphold or a boulder to climb; it’s a path to walk, and that path leads to life.
I first realized this through an article by Richard B.Gaffin Jr., called “The Usefulness of the Cross,” now republished in Gaffin’s selected shorter writings: Word & Spirit. Gaffin draws a few striking conclusions after looking at 2 Corinthians 4:7–11 and Philippians 3:10. But perhaps the most potent one is this: “mortality and weakness, taken over in the service of Christ, constitute the comprehensive medium through which the eschatological life of the glorified Christ comes to expression” (p. 179). Put simply, our weakness and suffering for Christ is the means through which we experience his resurrection life. Gaffin even goes as far as to say, “Where the church is not being conformed to Christ in suffering, it is simply not true to itself as the church” (p. 184). Suffering isn’t something for Christians to get away from; it’s something for them to flee into
So, for the Christian, suffering is a path leading to life. Good things—the best things—come not despite suffering but through it. This is the way of Christ, the way of the cross. And this is the way of Christians. Such a view of suffering sets the church up to respond powerfully to the twin crises we’ve looked at by making the heart central to all human experience. As the Counting Crows put it, we can “get right to the heart of matters; it’s the heart that matters more.”
Let’s now return to the discussion about the heart and its trust. Both the mental health and epistemic crises often assume that the primary problem is in the head, not the heart. In the broader culture, mental health problems are treated almost exclusively as
physiological or psychological. And the epistemic crisis is popularly referred to as a problem with “people just not thinking.” And yet the Christian view of suffering, which certainly applies to both crises, assumes that the heart is central. How does this help the church respond?
I believe it should respond by consistently offering cardiac rest, something given exclusively through Christ via the proclamation and application of the gospel. What exactly do I mean? There are many names we could use—e.g., shalom, peace with God—but I chose cardiac rest because it resonates with both the language of the gospel and our everyday experience.
In the Gospel of Matthew, Jesus says that the pure in heart will see God (Matt. 5:9), that our hearts dwell with our treasure (Matt. 6:9), and that we think and speak out of the overflow of our hearts (Matt. 12:34; 15:18–19). The heart, in other words, is the epicenter of life; it determines our relationship to God, our highest values, our thoughts, our speech, and our actions. For Jesus, it’s always the heart that matters more. And, as we saw earlier, the same applies to Paul’s thought in a passage such as 1 Corinthians 2:6–16.
In terms of our everyday experience, our hearts situate us for spiritual weather, and they do that by turning us towards our deepest longing. James K. A. Smith once wrote, “the heart is the existential chamber of our love, and it is our loves that orient us toward some ultimate end or telos. It’s not just that I ‘know’ some end or ‘believe’ in some telos. More than that, I long for some end. I want something, and want it ultimately. It is my desires that define me. In short, you are what you love” (You Are What You Love, p. 9). He’s saying that our hearts are always facing a certain direction as we’re struck by the winds of God’s providence. And based on that direction (our deepest longing), we are either running or resting. When Augustine wrote, “Our heart is unquiet until it rests in [God]” (Confessions 1.1), he knew that our hearts are always looking for a home, a place to rest, someone to trust without reservation. And that place of rest and trust is God himself—the greatest and most satisfying longing of every wanting heart. The great news of the gospel isn’t that we have to make our way home to God; it’s that God has made himself a home for us (John 14:23). We don’t have to seek our rest because our rest has sought us out. Our heart, the epicenter of life, has a home. It has a highest home and deepest trust in the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
Cardiac rest, then, is the heart’s repose in the presence of God, its rest in the greatest love. This repose was foreknown by the Father, purchased by Christ, and applied by the Spirit. Put differently, cardiac rest is the soul’s satisfaction in being fully known and fully loved by the one it longs for and trusts in most
Let’s apply this notion of cardiac rest to one aspect of the mental health crisis. It’s clear that the heart, with all its longings, is shaped through suffering, and mental illness is nothing if not suffering. In a host of ways, mental illness is a shaping experience. This was one of my main points in Struck Down but Not Destroyed, a book about my long-term battles with an anxiety disorder. I talk about hard things as shaping things. And so, in the midst of my anxiety, I find myself asking, to what (or whom) am I being shaped? This is a question all people should be asking because shaping is happening to all of us. As John Mark Comer wrote recently, “Stasis is not on the menu. We are being either transformed into the love and beauty of Jesus or malformed by the entropy of sin and death” (Practicing the Way, p. 71). The question isn’t, “Am I being shaped?” It’s, “To what or whom am I being shaped?”
Now, as a Christian, I have an answer to that question. I’m being shaped to the person of Jesus Christ by sharing in his suffering (Rom. 8:29; Phil. 3:10). I have the gracious gift of cardiac rest because my greatest longing and trust—for my Father, Savior, and Comforter—is presently and eternally satisfied. Cardiac rest means that I’m at peace being “formed into a person of self-giving love through deepening surrender to and union with the Trinity” (Practicing the Way, p. 80). That doesn’t mean I don’t suffer. It just means I know the purpose of my suffering and can change the sorts of questions I ask. Rather than asking, “Why am I anxious about X?” I ask myself, “God, how do you want to shape me to Christ through this?” Cardiac rest changes the questions that we ask ourselves
But many people in the world don’t have an answer to that question of shaping. They are being shaped; they just don’t know to what or to whom. And this is where the church should be speaking. But let me say this very carefully in order to be faithful to Jesus and the Apostle Paul: the church should not be preaching Christ as the
immediate end of all mental suffering. As we saw earlier, the elimination of suffering is not the end-goal for the Christian. Rather, we long to share in the sufferings of Christ in order to be raised with him in newness of life. Having said that, the church should be preaching Christ as God’s answer to our longing for cardiac rest amidst mental illness. That will help people struggling with mental illness to start asking different questions. And the choice of question makes a world of difference.
I can ask my doctor, “How can I get on a different medication regimen to completely eliminate all of my anxiety?” That would lead to one type of answer. Or I could ask my pastor, “How do you think God can use my anxiety to shape me to the character of Jesus Christ?” That would lead to a very different type of answer. The question you ask matters. The church should be helping people ask the deeper questions.
While there is no simple, one-size-fits-all treatment for the host of mental health issues in our world, there is a single truth that the church needs to emphasize in every discussion: Jesus Christ alone gives the cardiac rest you seek in the midst of your turmoil. His presence with you in your suffering is as certain as the sun rising. And by his presence, you can ask the deeper questions, assured that your greatest love and fullest trust is at home within you through Spirit-wrought faith.
What about the epistemic crisis? How does the concept of cardiac rest help here?
Though there are certainly cognitive habits we can acquire to be more circumspect in what we believe as true or false, the roots of the epistemic crisis run deeper than epistemology. Remember, epistemology always builds on top of ethics; the heart undergirds the head. Educating the world about the practice of critical thinking, weighing sources, and seeking humility isn’t bad. But this is symptomatic treatment for a disease that can’t be educated out of people. Are people duped by fake news? Yes. Do they fall prey to conspiracy theories? Sure. Do they struggle to confess that objective truth exists? Indeed. But why are they doing these things? The short answer is that they lack cardiac rest. Cardiac rest—the soul’s satisfaction in being fully known and fully loved by the one it longs for and trusts in most—offers people an epistemology that is steeped in trust for
the highest authority: the speech of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit in Scripture.
In other words, those who have cardiac rest are fully trusting of the Trinity. And the Trinity is revealed in Scripture and in nature (though the latter must be interpreted through the former). It’s in Scripture that we learn what it means to truly love another person, what it means to be holy, and thus what the real difference is between true and false, right and wrong, honesty and deceit. We weigh and respond to the claims of others with “the mind of Christ” (1 Cor. 2:16). Such a mind cares both about what really exists or happens and what it means
Jesus Christ alone gives the cardiac rest you seek in the midst of your turmoil.
Plenty of people in our world want to talk about “reality” or the news or the latest political blunder. Far fewer want to talk about what it means on a deeper, theological level. This, again, is where the church should speak. Meaning is only relevant when tied to a narrative that extends beyond the present, beyond the past, and ahead of the future. If we can’t make any statements about who people are, why we’re here, and where we’re going (questions of the heart), then why are we worried about making “factual” statements about the world and what happens in it? The latter are pieces of stone dislodged from the sculpture they belong to.
As a Van Tillian, I believe all facts have a divinely governed context. And the church, by grace and through God’s revelation, is the only institution that has a revealed eternal context for all facts. This doesn’t mean that we won’t talk about culture or the news unless people relate it to Jesus (a common mischaracterization of my position). But it does mean that we won’t be satisfied (we won’t have cardiac rest) when people try to give things value and meaning in isolation from the God who ordains all that comes to pass and is restoring all things in Christ.
Any two people can argue about whether or not a presidential candidate made a particular promise in
a campaign speech. One will be wrong, and the other right (in most cases). But that’s not the same thing as understanding the meaning of that promise in relation to the overall purpose for humans as image-bearing creatures of God, all of whom are being shaped to someone or something. To answer the latter question, we need cardiac rest, and its attendant epistemology based on the revealed word of the God in whom we trust (what theologians call a revelational epistemology).
Let me end with some practical applications for the church, seen as both a home and a hospital. The church is a home for saints who have surrendered to the shaping work of God. Each member of the church clings to the grace-gift of cardiac rest as the swells and storms of life roll through our days, months, and years. It’s important to see the church as a home for saints because the connotation of the word “home” invokes the senses of belonging and fellowship or communion with others. This is especially pressing for the mental health crisis, where isolation and loneliness push sufferers further away from those who would encourage and pray for them. In writing about the church, Herman Bavinck said, “The believer . . . never stands apart by himself; he is never alone. . . . From the first moment of his regeneration . . . the believer is, apart from his will and apart from his own doing, incorporated in a great whole, taken up into a rich fellowship” (The Wonderful Works of God, pp. 495–496). The rich fellowship of saints who possess cardiac rest is exactly what people need in the throes of mental illness. In a time when mental illness is still either stigmatized by the church or at least looked at as not deserving any special treatment, the church needs to assert itself as a communion-saturated home that welcomes suffering saints into its fellowship. Being with others does profound good for the soul. Every heart needs a home, a place that purges loneliness. But the church isn’t only a home for saints. It’s a hospital, too.
Someone once said to me, “Isn’t God just a crutch?” I responded the best way I knew how, with the theological training I received at Westminster.
Yes, he is.
And a cast.
And a sling.
And an antidote.
And a surgeon. And a hospital. And we’re all terminal.
The church as hospital proclaims and applies the balm of cardiac rest to the myriad tensions and trials of God’s people—reminding them that such tensions and trials are stepping stones on the path of Christ-conformity. Resurrection life is coming and can surface in a host of ways in everyday life: in renewed patience, in creative kindness, in newfound encouragement, in sympathy for others, in hope that surpasses all circumstances.
The church is both a home for saints and a hospital for sufferers as it offers the cardiac rest that only Christ can give.
The church needs to continue the daily work of proclaiming Christ as the only means of finding cardiac rest in a restless world. But as she does so, there are three concrete things she can do to serve those in the mental health community and those caught in the epistemic crisis. Each of these things presupposes the Christian view of suffering and the centrality of the heart.
Practice the art of listening. People perennially underestimate the power of an open ear. Those seeking cardiac rest and its application to their lives sometimes just need to be heard. Note that this is different from advising people. We often rush to advise when that’s not what the person wants or needs. Part of the cardiac rest we find in God through the gospel is the peace of knowing we are fully heard, understood, and loved by the God who knows exhaustively and loves fiercely. The art of listening and asking good follow-up questions, without cutting others off by inserting our own experience, can go a long way in helping people see the church for who she is: the bride of Christ, who listens for the voice of her good shepherd and follows him where he calls. Sometimes our following means letting our lips lay fallow.
Learn to ask the deeper questions. In tandem with the first practice, the church can start to ask people the deeper questions—the hows that sit above the why of Christ-conformity. This gives us the opportunity to restate the revolutionary view of suffering that only Christians have. If all our suffering draws us nearer to Christ
and brings resurrection life in its wings, then we need to ask questions that keep bringing people back to that reality. For some, this will mean asking the how questions of Christ-conformity. “How is this experience able to shape me to Christ?” For others, it may mean asking the deeper questions about meaning Invite and invest. Inviting people into the church and investing personally in relationships is something that will serve both the mental health community and those struggling with what to know and who to trust. Doing this meaningfully requires time and follow-up, which are hard to come by in our culture. Inviting and investing in people is not a shortcut or quick fix. Saying “yes” to one relationship will mean saying “no” to a host of other com mitments. The church must be prepared to do less so that it can do more, to invest more in the depth of relation ships rather than focusing on the breadth of increasing numbers.
As the systems of mental illness and epistemic crisis continue to converge, the church can stand strong and confident by upholding Christ and the one thing that every person desperately needs and constantly seeks, no matter how much they may rebel: cardiac rest in the God who knows and loves every suffering saint into glory. In the midst of every storm, he stays. And in the midst of our current storm, we need to proclaim his presence and the offer of cardiac rest in the God who knows and loves us more than we can imagine.
Pierce Taylor Hibbs (MAR, ThM Westminster Theological Seminary) serves as Senior Writer and Communication Specialist at Westminster Theological Seminary. He is the award-winning author of almost 20 books, including Theological English (a 2019 ECPA Finalist) Struck Down but Not Destroyed (2020 Illumination Book Awards), The Book of Giving (2021 Illumination Book Awards), The Great Lie (2022 Illumination Book Awards), and One with God (2023 Illumination Book Awards). He lives in Pennsylvania with his wife and three kids.
1. These statistics are taken from the Anxiety and Depression Associ ation of America, the National Institute of Mental Health, the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention, and Mental Health America.
Stephen Coleman recently co-edited a volume entitled Mallephana Rabba: Aramaic Studies in Honor of Edward M. Cook , which was published by Gorgias Press in 2023. In that volume he also contributed an article entitled “When Time is Not Money: A Cognitive Linguistic Approach to עדנא in Daniel 2.8” Stephen was just appointed Chief Editor of Unio cum Christo: Union with Christ , which will now be published through Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht. In May, Stephen, with John Currie, led a tour of Greece and Turkey with Westminster’s pastoral fellows, following the footsteps of Paul.
Brandon Crowe recently launched a special YouTube channel, Clarity and Brevity, which features short conversations on the Bible and theology. He submitted a book manuscript on the Biblical theology of James, which will be published by Lexham Press in due course.
John Currie’s The Pastor as Leader was published by Crossway in April 2024. He also wrote an article for the May issue of Tabletalk entitled “No Flawless Church.” In June of this year, John will present a leadership seminar at Tenth Presbyterian Church for Tenth’s regular training series. Also in June (18–21), John will teach a course on pastoral leadership at RTS in Atlanta. Later this summer, John will speak at Queens Presbyterian Church’s Retreat at Sandy Cove in August (2–4). Also in August (5–8) John will speak at the OPC Church Planter Training Seminar in Oostburg, Wisconsin. Finally, John will speak at Grace Presbyterian Church (OPC) family retreat in Vienna, Virginia on August 9–10.
Rob Edwards recently published a book review of J.H. Bavinck’s newly translated volume, Personality and Worldview, in the most recent volume of the Westminster Theological Journal. He also has an essay titled, “The Robust Role of General Revelation in Van Til’s Apologetic,” in the recently published volume of lectures delivered at the Van Til and the Future of Reformed Apologetics conference. Rob will be the keynote speaker at the New Covenant Fellowship (PCA) missions conference April 12–14, 2024 in Mechanicsburg, PA, and will be delivering a lecture on evangelism at Mid-America Reformed Seminary this coming fall.
Mark Garcia recently delivered lectures for the annual Theology Night at Tenth Presbyterian Church (PCA) in Philadelphia, PA. The lectures considered “How Worship Tells the Story of Jesus.” Mark is continuing to write a commentary on Romans for an upcoming commentary series. He is editing two volumes of essays on the Nicene Creed and the Reformed tradition in commemoration of the 1700th anniversary of the Council of Nicea in 2025. Also, Mark taught “Water, Bread, and Wine: A Theology of Ecclesial Elements” for Greystone Theological Institute in January and February 2024.
Jonathan Gibson recently gave several lectures, including the Ron Tabor Public Lectures at Western Reformed Seminary in Seattle, for the men’s retreat at University Reformed Church in East Lansing, and for the OPC Church Conference in Dayton, Ohio. Later this summer, Jonny will speak at the IPC Catalyst Conference (June 11–13), and the Cheyenne Reformation Conference (September 27–29). His My First ABC Book of Bible Verses was published by New Growth Press
in February, 2024. Jonny’s Ruined Sinners to Reclaim: Sin and Depravity in Historical, Biblical, Theological, and Pastoral Perspective was published by Crossway in April 2024. Finally, Jonny’s Interpretive Lexicon of Old Testament Hebrew and Aramaic is due out with Zondervan in July 2024.
Peter Lillback wrote an extensive forward for Coral Ridge Media Ministries edition of Christianity and Liberalism. He has an article to be published by Wipf & Stock in their forthcoming volume on public theology, entitled “Lost & Found: Public Theology in the Secular Age.” Peter is also pleased to soon host the board of World Magazine on Westminster’s campus.
Alfred Poirier participated in an interview, which was conducted by Peter A. Lillback, on Church Discipline. Alfred recently gave a seminar for Tenth Presbyterian Church’s Leadership Training Seminar in January. He spoke at the Preaching Conference at Evangelical Pentecostal Church in January.
Vern Poythress published Biblical Typology: How the Old Testament Points to Christ, His Church, and the Consummation with Crossway in April 2024. His Making Sense of the World: How the Trinity Helps to Explain Reality was published by P&R Publishing in May 2024. Vern also participated on Optiv Theology Podcast, hosted by Andy Schmitt, where he discussed his book The Miracles of Jesus
z Westminster in Your City
Westminster recently hosted events in California, Wisconsin, and Toronto, Canada to connect with alumni and friends of the seminary. If you or your church are interested in partnering with the seminary on an event, please get in touch by writing us at communications@wts.edu.
z Gaffin Lecture
The 16th Annual Gaffin Lecture occurred on March 13th. Did you miss it? Visit Westminster’s YouTube page to view Phil Ryken’s lecture.
z Groundbreaking Ceremony
Westminster will break ground on the new academic building in conjunction with the 2024 graduation ceremony. Please join us in praying for a safe and successful construction, and for the Lord to bless our students as he has through Van Til Hall..
z Faith in the Public Square
Westminster hosted a special Faith in the Public Square event in Bonita Springs, Florida. Dr. K. Scott Oliphint, Dr. Brian Mattson, and Dr. Peter Lillback gave talks on Christianity and cultural issues then participated in a time for Q&A.
z Graduation
Graduation will occur on Thursday, May 23. Congratulations to all our graduates!
z Assemblies General: PCA & OPC
Westminster will be at the PCA General Assembly (June 10–14 in Richmond, VA) and at the OPC General Assembly (June 19–25 in Seattle, WA). Please stop by our booths to say “hello,” and keep an eye on your email for details about alumni dinners.
Nathan Nocchi (NN): It is a pleasure to connect with you, Stafford. We’re keen to learn more about you and your family. Could you tell us a bit about your life? How did you come to faith in Jesus Christ?
Stafford Carson (SC): Patricia and I have been married for 47 years. We have three grown up children, and two grandchildren. I was raised in a Christian home. I can never remember a time when, if you’d asked me, “Do you love Jesus?” that I wouldn’t have said yes. My parents were both Bible-believing Pentecostal Christians. They were very devout and very committed. I was raised in an atmosphere of devotion and commitment to Christ, having the gospel explained to me from my earliest days. I learned just how important it was that we follow Jesus, and that we bring glory to him in our lives.
I remember one evening, as a 16-year-old, having listened to a sermon on “The love of Christ constrains us.” I was at that adolescent stage where I was thinking seriously about what it means to follow Christ and this was a moment of clarity for me when I came to understand the demands of Christian discipleship. I was aware of God’s hand on my life and I knew that I really needed to follow Christ wholeheartedly.
NN: Did that set you on a trajectory to undertake theological studies?
SC: No, not immediately. I went to university, studied biology, and became a biology teacher. While at university, I began to read more theological books. In those days, I began to read people like Martin Lloyd Jones, Francis Schaeffer, and I was part of a Bible study group at university. We were studying the book of Romans, and about the only resource we had was John Murray’s commentary on Romans. I also remember reading J. Gresham Machen’s The Christian View of Man, and that moved me in a very clear, reformed direction at that stage. So, having been raised in a Pentecostal home and in a Pentecostal church, I came to understand something of the richness of reformed theology, particularly as it related to how we are saved by God’s intervention in our lives. It’s God’s work, it’s his grace, which is
determinative. We come to trust him and believe in him only because he has first worked in our lives.
I taught biology for 5 years. My main interest, however, was theology. Every lunchtime, every break, I would have a theology book in my briefcase, which I loved to read. At this stage, I thought that if I were ever to study theology, there was only one place that I wanted to go. And that was Westminster Seminary.
Back in 1971 I had a summer job on the New Jersey shore with a group of friends from university. One Saturday night, we made our way from Cape May to Wildwood, and we walked on the boardwalk there. We happened to come upon the Boardwalk Chapel and heard a young man speaking and singing, who, we were told, was a Westminster Seminary student. It was an extraordinary experience for me to meet a real-life person from Westminster! I got a copy of a catalogue from Westminster and I read it avidly. I knew the names (and middle names!) of all the faculty in the 1970s, Edmund Prosper Clowney, Richard Birch Gaffin, Meredith George Kline, Raymond Bryan Dillard, Owen Palmer Robertson, and John McElphatrick Frame, without having met any of them. Eventually it became possible for Patricia and I to come to Glenside in 1978 to begin studies.
NN: While studying at Westminster, did you happen to have a favorite class? One that was formative for your own theological thinking?
SC: I enjoyed everything! I loved church history, and biblical theology especially. I wanted to be able to open the Bible and make sense of the whole flow of redemptive history. It was at Westminster that I felt a call to ministry. I remember reflecting on John Frame’s words that “theology is the application of the Word of God to all of life” and realizing that the study of theology should not occur in a vacuum or be a purely intellectual pursuit. It had implications for our personal lives, and for me, the privilege of studying at Westminster was critical in discerning a call to gospel ministry. In the Lord’s providence, I returned to Ireland to serve the Presbyterian Church in Ireland (PCI).
NN: The PCI’s motto is Ardens sed virens, “burning but flourishing.” Is the PCI “burning but flourishing” today? Have there been any lasting effects of the Ulster Revival in 1859?
SC: Just above that motto is a burning bush, which is the symbol of the PCI. In almost every Presbyterian church in Ireland, you will see a burning bush, usually on the pulpit, in a window, or somewhere in the church. The PCI’s first General Assembly met in 1840 and its very first action was to commission missionaries to India. From the outset, PCI has been energetic in addressing the challenges of global mission.
The Ulster Revival in 1859 brought new life and vitality to the church. In fact, recently I was back at the first congregation where I served as minister in Kells, County Anthem, a congregation that was formed as a direct result of the 1859 revival. They called their first minister in 1874, and he himself was a convert from the revival. The church just celebrated its 150th anniversary! There are many presbyterian churches in Northern Ireland that were begun, and many that were spiritually renewed, as a result of the 1859 Revival. It is estimated that 100,000 people in Ulster were converted to Christ and the whole community was affected in significantly positive ways. Today, while the bush continues to burn, the church is facing a number of challenges which are affecting many churches in the West. In the United Kingdom, we are seeing a marked and notable decline of denominations. More recently, the clerical sex abuse scandal in the Roman Catholic church has had a devastating impact on Irish society’s view of Christianity. In particular, in the Republic of Ireland there has been a massive movement away from traditional Christian values in the areas of moral theology. In both the UK and the Republic of Ireland we now have very liberal laws in the areas of marriage, gender identity, and abortion, and those who hold to biblical values are often opposed and marginalized. As one Irish historian has put it, the old Christian Ireland is dead.
NN: Were not some of these issues addressed at the PCI General Assembly in 2018?
SC: Yes, indeed. Much of this came to the fore at the General Assembly that year. At that time, I was Principal of Union Theological College in Belfast, and convener of the Doctrine Committee. We had received a request from
a presbytery asking for pastoral guidance in a situation where same-sex parents were requesting baptism for their child. We gave a very clear and pastorally-sensitive response to what it meant to make a credible profession of faith, but the media severely criticized the church for “turning away these children.” Essentially, the media was reacting against the orthodox, biblical stance that our church was taking. But in facing that challenge, I am thankful that PCI has remained faithful to Scripture and continues to uphold biblical standards.
The PCI is also experiencing a shortage of ministers. We have many more congregations than we have ministers. So, we are praying earnestly that the Lord will give us suitably-qualified people who are called to the ministry, that they might come and serve within the PCI. Ireland needs Christ, and we are grateful for many faithful congregations which are eager to see Christ’s kingdom extended. But for those congregations to grow and flourish we need gifted and competent ministers.
NN: Would you like to share any personal stories about missions work during your time as a pastor?
SC: I have had the privilege of serving three congregations in PCI, and each of them has faced the challenge of reaching out to their communities. Each congregation has sent out a number of missionaries to various parts of the world, and in that context the evangelical church in Northern Ireland has “punched above its weight” in the
task of global missions. So prayerful and practical support for global missions has been an ongoing interest and activity throughout my ministry. I have had the opportunity to teach in Nepal, Myanmar, South Korea, and Hungary and to be with missionaries in Singapore, Cambodia and Ethiopia. Mission strategy has changed over the years, but it still remains a central task for the church today to share the good news of the Gospel with a needy world.
NN: Returning to Westminster, your current role pertains especially to this ministry. Can you tell us about it?
SC: My official title is Senior Director of Global Ministries. I retired as principal of Union Theological College at the end of 2020, and soon after Dr Garner asked me to join a Global Ministries Advisory Council. After sharing in several Global Ministries prayer meetings, Dr Garner invited me to serve the seminary as Director of Global Ministries. I began full-time in March 2022, and I can say that it has been a very exhilarating and exciting position to be in. Westminster, as your readers may know, has a long history of involvement in global ministries, beginning with our early work in China. Interestingly, the Bible College in China that Jonathan Chao’s father, Charles Chao, studied at had been founded by an Irish Presbyterian missionary! This Irish missionary had connections to Princeton and had a friendship with Geerhardus and Johannes Vos. Johannes Vos went to China to teach in the Newchwang Bible College and through his teaching Charles, and then Jonathan, were established in the reformed faith and became instrumental in recruiting and placing Westminster alumni in key positions in China. In this past year, I have visited Beirut, Cairo, Dominican Republic, and Hong Kong as we have sought to develop and support key initiatives in theological education. Many of those involved in the leadership of local churches in the developing world have little or no theological training. This means that churches are often vulnerable to false teaching and are frequently unclear about the central tenets of the Christian faith. Many local pastors crave solid biblical teaching and training so that they can build strong and vibrant Christian churches and fellowships.
NN: On the topic of theologians, is there a specific theologian that has really shaped your thinking about missions and the intersection between Christianity and world religions?
SC: J.H. Bavinck’s The Science of Missions has been very helpful. His writings had lain dormant for a number of years, but many are picking up on them now. For me, his solid biblical basis for missions is enormously helpful, as well as his work on religious consciousness and elenctics. Having said that, I have benefited greatly from all the publications of the faculty at Westminster, including Harvie Conn, Edmund Clowney, and Richard Gaffin.
NN: As we reflect on the theme of this magazine, ‘O Church Arise,’ Is there anything that you would like to say about this hymn, perhaps in relation to missions?
SC: I think the hymn (by a Northern Irish couple!) highlights the truth that involvement in missions introduces us into a spiritual conflict. In seeking to advance the kingdom of Christ, we are engaged in spiritual warfare and we ought not to be surprised that it is often challenging, bruising, and difficult. But there is the great hope that ultimately Christ’s kingdom will triumph and He will be victorious. The hymns puts it well:
“When faced with trials on every side We know the outcome is secure And Christ will have the prize for which he died
An inheritance of nations.”
NN: You were recently appointed to the Barker Chair. Can you tell us about this new position, and the work you would like to do?
SC: The creation of the Frank Barker Chair of Missions and Evangelism honors the late Rev. Dr. Frank Barker for his years of Christian ministry, including his decades-long service on the board of trustees at Westminster Theological Seminary. Westminster seeks to perpetuate Dr. Barker’s ministerial commitments, by training Westminster students in the pattern of his zealous and humble evangelistic ministry.
Through our Global Ministries initiatives, I hope to support Westminster’s commitment to faithful, practical ministry so that the seminary can perpetuate the rigorous application of Reformed theology in missions and evangelism. By offering robust theological education in a number of different languages, we aim to continue the mobilization of mission-hearted, biblically trained, pastor-evangelists who will be “an army bold, reaching out to those in darkness”.
To
Dr. Van Til, Professor of Apologetics in Westminster Theological Seminary, gave this address to the 1959 graduates at the commencement exercises in May. It has a message of far wider application, however.
JESUS was gradually preparing twelve men for the glorious task of bearing witness unto him in the world. He was planning to give unto them his Spirit. That Spirit was to lead them into the truth. Guided by that Spirit they were officially, in the name of Christ, to tell men who he was and what he had come to do in the world.
Ere long, after the resurrection, one of the twelve would stand fearlessly before the priests, the captain of the temple and the Sadducees, and say: “This is the stone which was set at nought of you builders, which is become the head of the corner. Neither is there salvation in any other: for there is none other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved” (Acts 4:11-12).
Whence this boldness? Was it now safe to bear witness to the name of Jesus? Certainly not! Imprisonment and a martyr’s death—they knew it all too well—likely awaited them.
What was the secret then? They now knew, with a knowledge of absolute conviction, that Jesus was the Son of God. “But Peter and John answered and said unto them, Whether it be right in the sight of God to hearken unto you more than unto God, judge ye” (Acts 4:19).
In the light of this conviction their three years of training with Jesus took on new meaning. The things that they had seen and heard were now to them the
deeds and words of the Son of God. The world must hear of what he had said and done. “For we cannot but speak the things which we have seen and heard” (Acts 4:20).
When forbidden to speak they poured out their hearts to God the Father. “For of a truth against thy holy child Jesus, whom thou hast anointed, both Herod, and Pontius Pilate, with the Gentiles, and the people of Israel, were gathered together, for to do whatsoever thy hand and thy counsel determined before to be done” (Acts 4:27-28).
“And when they had prayed, the place was shaken where they were assembled together; and they were all filled with the Holy Ghost, and they spake the word of God with boldness” (Acts 4:31). Then men took note of them that they had been with Jesus.
To speak the word of God with boldness, that will also be your task. To proclaim the name of Jesus as the only name under heaven given among men, whereby they must be saved, that is also your assignment.
Does the magnitude of this task overwhelm you? Does it seem utterly unlikely that, in the midst of the clamor of a secularized culture and the false faith of an apostate church, your voice should be heard at all? Then note how the Apostles too were overwhelmed, and hear what Jesus said unto them.
“And the apostles said unto the Lord, Increase our faith” (Luke 17:5). Note the agony that comes to expression in these few words.
Only gradually had it begun to dawn upon them that they were to be official interpreters and witness-bearers of all that they had seen and heard. They were not to be the merely passive recipients, with many others, of a great future for their nation. The kingdom of heaven of which they had heard Jesus speak was not to be a kingdom of external and national proportions only. Judas thought it would be that and finally committed suicide. He saw not who the king of this kingdom was till it was too late.
But on the others there came the gradual dawning of the light. When the paralytic borne of four was healed by Jesus they exclaimed: “We have seen strange things today.” They heard him read in the synagogue at Nazareth from the prophet Isaiah: “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor, he hath sent me to heal the broken-hearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovering of sight
to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised, to preach the acceptable year of the Lord” and then, after closing the book heard him say: “This day is this scripture fulfilled in your ears” (Luke 4:18-19; 21). What did he mean by saying this, they asked themselves.
When John the Baptist sent unto Jesus and asked: “Art thou he that should come? or look we for another?” (Luke 7:20) did they realize what Jesus meant in his reply to John? “Go your way, and tell John what things ye have seen and heard; how that the blind see, the lame walk, the deaf hear, the lepers are cleansed, the dead are raised, to the poor the gospel is preached. And blessed is he, whosoever shall not be offended in me” (Luke 7:22-23).
These strange things that they had seen and heard were done and said by this strange, this different man, their Master. “Master, Master, we perish!” they cried in the storm on the lake. “Then he arose,
and rebuked the wind and the raging of the water: and they ceased, and there was a calm” (Luke 8:24). On that occasion their Master said to them, “Where is your faith?” And they being afraid wondered, saying one to another, “What manner of man is this! for he commandeth even the winds and water, and they obey him” (Luke 8:24-25).
Oh yes, they believed! But how they doubted still. The strange things they saw and heard took on new significance for them now as they were seen to proceed from him who was Lord of life and of death, who drove even the demons from the hearts of men.
The Lord does not question the genuineness of the faith of his disciples. He assures them that the faith that he has given them is enough for their seemingly impossible task.
And what marvel this? Jesus “gave them power and authority over all devils, and to cure diseases. And he sent them to preach the kingdom of God, and to heal the sick” (Luke 9:1-2). Not mere passive recipients of the Master’s favor, but positive, authoritative ambassadors for him, for his name, for his power to drive Satan and all his works from the hearts of men, such was to be their task.
How carefully and prayerfully did the Master prepare them for this task. Would they boast in their authority to drive forth demons from the hearts of men, to tread on serpents and scorpions, in their power “over all the power of the enemy”? (Luke 10:19). Then the Saviour tells them: “Notwithstanding in
this rejoice not, that the spirits are subject unto you; but rather rejoice, because your names are written in heaven” (Luke 10:20).
Would they deal harshly with the little lambs of the flock? Then Jesus tells them that it were better that a mill-stone be hanged about their necks and that they be cast into the sea than that they should offend one of his little ones.
Will they be proud of their office and thus become unforgiving toward their fellow-believers in Christ? Then Jesus tells them to forgive their brethren again and again. All this accounts for the great urgency of their prayer to increase their faith. The disciples begin to realize that the coming of the kingdom is bound up with their Master as the King. They have seen how the Scribes and Pharisees have tried to reduce their Master to the level of a fanatic who must be put out of the way. Will they dare to stand up for him at all costs?
Is it wonder that they cry out: “Lord, increase our faith?” How will they be able to lead the multitude, stand up to an apostate church, defy the demons and control their own unholy passions? Only if they have a great faith, they think.
How will you be able to proclaim the only name under heaven given among men by which men must be saved? The rulers of the church of our day, no less than those of Jesus’ day, will seek to reduce your Christ to an instance of a class. There was Buddha. There was Socrates. There was Mohammed. And there was Jesus. Do they not all illustrate, you will be told, the principle, that is a law, by which pioneers in religion appear upon the scene of history? Surely Jesus must have honorable mention in the list of pioneers of religion that have appeared, but his is not the only name by which men must be saved, they allege.
And from what do these pioneers of religion save the common run of men? Not from sin. There is no sin; there is only libido. There is no wrath of God to come; there is only a sense of guilt, a left-over from man’s animal ancestry. There is no God who rules over all; there is only the idea of a ‘God’ developed in the course of human evolution. Therefore Jesus Christ is not the Son of God; he did not cast out demons. He did not forgive sins. And if he did anything for any man he did
it for all men from all eternity so that none of them ever were lost or could be lost. The modern ‘Christ’ has no little ones who must not be offended. And to forgive one another means only to recognize that no one has ever done anything wrong in the first place! Thus many teach today.
Surely you who have spent three years with Jesus here, at this school, not merely so as to see and hear the great things that he did and said, but to prepare yourself for the task of proclaiming his name unto men, will you not today cry out in agony of soul: “lord, increase our faith.”
Hear then the all-sufficing answer of the Saviour. “And the Lord said, If ye had faith as a grain of mustard seed, ye might say unto this sycamine tree, Be thou plucked up by the root, and be thou planted in the sea; and it should obey you.” The Lord does not question the genuineness of the faith of his disciples. He assures them that the faith that he has given them is enough for their seemingly impossible task.
Faith in him will enable you to stand fearlessly before those who have usurped rule in the church and yet would depose the head of the church.
Faith ... will enable you to defy the hosts of hell.
The Saviour knows that for them the task is impossible. It is as impossible spiritually as the transplanting of a large, deep-rooted tree would be physically. Do you not think your task to be impossible? Would you be able to lift any of the large rocks that even a twenty-five ton crane cannot handle? Yet, do not be discouraged. Do not rush for a large mallet in order with great violence to
crush those rocks. Your whole lifetime might be spent and you yourself be exhausted before you had done more than break off a few chips.
It is faith in your Christ that will do with utmost ease what for you is utterly impossible. Faith, that is, in the Christ of the Apostles. Not faith in the modern Christ. The modern Christ is as powerless as you find yourself to be. But the Christ of the Apostles is the Creator of all, and Lord of all. He has defeated Satan. He has redeemed his people from the wrath to come. He will make all things work together for good for those who love him, who are the called according to his purpose.
Faith in this Christ enables you to be ever-forgiving. Faith in him will make you ever solicitous for his little ones. Faith in him will enable you to stand fearlessly before those who have usurped rule in the church and yet would depose the head of the church. Faith, as a grain of mustard seed, will enable you to defy the hosts of hell.
What is impossible with men is possible with God. He who knew no sin was made sin for us that we might be made the righteousness of God in him. After his resurrection, the Apostles could not but speak the things they had seen and heard. Their fearlessness in doing so amazed the religious leaders of the day. Their boldness in proclaiming the name of Christ, built up the little ones for whom Christ died. Their boldness gave them a true humility and a forgiving spirit.
May you undertake your task in your day with such faith in Christ, the all-conquering, the all-victorious Christ, to the amazement of unbelief, to the establishment of his church and to the praise of the Father.
Cornelius Van Til (1885–1987) was born in the Netherlands and moved to the United States as a boy. He earned a PhD from Princeton University and taught at Princeton Seminary before joining the faculty at Westminster, where he taught systematic theology and apologetics for more than 40 years.
In my life and ministry over the years there have been many concerns: How to live in the world but not be of the world, what it means to be a member of the church and the body of Christ, how to truly care for people and bring the whole gospel of Christ to a needy world.
At the same time I have had a perpetual concern over how we so quickly develop a programmatic approach to these issues. Yes, we must have a lattice for the vine to grow, but I fear at times we default to a formulaic response too quickly. Some things aren’t easily fixed by way of discipline and determination. “One size fits all” does not work in ministry. There are often complexities in each situation that are not exactly like others. Yes, there are common realities, but there can also be unique differences that require us to “size up” the situation and need.
Perhaps my greatest concern has been how that has affected our approach to the issue of discipleship. Every believer struggles with how to be consistent and how to grow in their walk with Christ. We are looking for help and encouragement in this lifelong pursuit. In the American church in particular, it has become at times a very complicated and even expensive venture. So much to do and so much to buy! The “How To” section of most Christian bookstores still seems to sell the most. The quest to find a solution to the dilemma of following Christ is that perpetual hunger that feels insatiable.
The purpose of this article is not to provide a long critique of some of those movements within evangelicalism. Instead I want to call us to reconsider the simplicity as well as the complexity that comes with discipleship. Compared to the rest of the world we have a plethora of abundant material to help us in our pilgrimage. My concern is not only for those who have limited access but even for us who are surrounded with all we need. Is it not sufficient to suggest that the first century believers had the same essence of what we have to grow fully and richly in Christ? They had the Scriptures, the Holy Spirit, and the fellowship of believers who were in the same race to focus on Jesus and live in and with him until the end. The church is called in every disposition to provide the biblical warrant for training someone in the depth of knowledge as well as the character of Christ.
The call to living out the Christian life is not found
primarily in a book or a program or an article. These indeed are instruments to help us in our pilgrimage to strive to continue on in the journey of following Christ. In a real sense we should never be satisfied with our current status and always want to be growing. As the Apostle Peter reminds us in his final words, “But grow
in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ” (2 Pet. 3:18).
In that same vein of being reminded, I would like to suggest a two-fold understanding of that common call to discipleship. One metaphoric way is to use the adage of a two-sided coin. There is a marriage of two distinct
images that make up the coin, and both are necessary for its value and use. You truly cannot have one side without the other.
For the sake of simplicity let’s call the coin the gospel and the two sides, content and context. I believe this paradigm is applicable in any and every venture that claims the name Christian. Whether it is institutional or relational, there must be an ever present balance and reality of knowledge and grace. To emphasize one over the other is to produce an unbalanced view of Christ and his calling.
The content of the gospel is clearly the knowledge of our God which is only found in the word of God. That short answer has lifelong implications and expectations. To be educated in the knowledge of our triune God is not the ability to get quick answers to crises or concerns. Rather, it is a worldview that must affect every aspect of life. Look no further than the history of “Christian Education” as the passion and conviction to train the next generation not simply for behavior modifications but for knowing the fullness of our God and his history in their world and lives.
When I completed my first two years at a local community college, I transferred into a Christian college as a non-believer and was increasingly overwhelmed, challenged, and converted as I was educated in the whole counsel of God. The call to know God was not simply experiential but had the equal call of knowledge or intelligence. Academic excellence was always a challenge for me and often intimidating as I realized how much I didn’t know or remember! At the same time, in the context of this Christian college I was called to live out what I was learning. But the call to live out the gospel in holiness must be grounded not in traditions or appearances but in the truth revealed. The less truth driven, the more image driven we become.
The opening chapter of the Westminster Confession of Faith lays the foundation for life and understanding which can only be found in the word of God. “The whole counsel of God concerning all things necessary for His own glory, man’s salvation, faith and life, is either expressly set down in Scripture, or by good and necessary consequences may be deduced from Scripture…” (WCF 1.6)
The Bible is not merely a reference work to address issues of life but in many ways is life itself. As any true student of this word will tell you, it is the story of history written by broken men but overseen by a Holy and
Sovereign God. At the same time we are to spend our lives learning and relearning that history that finds its fulfillment in the Christ of history.
As a recent new seminary student expressed to me after his first class, “I’m learning and loving so much already that I want to be in seminary for the rest of my life!” I assured him he will be, not primarily in Westminster but in the “School of Christ.” This book contains everything we need to understand who we are and what we are called to. It is also the textbook for our curriculum in this school and all the rest of our learning flows out from this one book.
The Bible ... is the story of history written by broken men but overseen by a Holy and Sovereign God.
J. Gresham Machen, one of the founders of Westminster Theological Seminary, states in his classic work, Christianity and Liberalism, “Christianity is founded upon the Bible. It bases upon the Bible both its thinking and its life” (p. 81). Yes, it is that important. There are countless ways to study God’s word and, similar to our Lord’s nature, yet there can be no doubt that it is the uncompromising foundation for everyone who professes Christ. Whether you teach this book in a seminary or lead your family at home, there can be no growth in the Christian life without a growing knowledge of this unique book of the history of redemption.
Yet the subtle reality is that knowledge can often seemingly have no personal effect. I remember my Systematics professor, Dr. Gaffin, made a passing comment about orthodoxy that I still recall writing in the margin of my notes (handwritten back then!). He was emphasizing the importance of seeing the Bible as the book of pure and life transforming orthodoxy. He then mentioned how many churches were described as places of dead orthodoxy. His comment was simply that an observation like that was an oxymoron. True orthodoxy must produce life in those who proclaim it and those who receive it.
This is a natural segue to the second portion that is necessary for true discipleship, which is context. The challenge right up front for this aspect is that it cannot be addressed by way of a program or process of implementation. It’s one of those nebulous things we talk about but don’t always know how to produce on a regular basis.
Where and how is the truth of the Scripture to be worked out? Is it in the classroom, the church, in our homes, or our private study? The obvious answer is “yes” to all of these scenarios. There is no place that the word of God and the work of God are not to be displayed in and through the lives of his people.
The idea of context implies the horizontal dimension of life for the believer. When people are together in the name of Jesus, what should be some identifying qualities? For the sake of context let us consider Paul’s description in Philippians 2:1-5 as our backdrop, which provides a paradigm for any relationship a Christian is connected to in life:
So if there is any encouragement in Christ, any comfort from love, any participation in the Spirit, any affection and sympathy, complete my joy by being of the same mind, having the same love, being in full accord and of one mind. Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves. Let each of you look not only to his own interest, but also to the interests of others. Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus…
Christ's presence is not limited to an experiential and legitimate emotional encounter with Jesus by his Spirit but, I would suggest, transcends even that dynamic. The picture Paul paints for us is twofold and reflects a pattern in most of his letters. He calls us first and foremost to remember our identity in Christ. This identity is not primarily a conceptual one but a living reality that affects our whole being. The biblical facts of encouragement in Christ, comfort from love, participation in his Spirit, affection and sympathy are life producing and not suggestions for living. It truly is a mindset that is more than a collection of principles and concepts. It engages the inner being with a consistent call to remember who we are and to whom we belong.
The second thing Paul often does is call us to a
natural reflection of our identity in how we look at others and treat them as well. The hallmark of humility is an immediate reflection of the character of our Savior. His motives and mind led him to not look down on others but to tenderly “look at them.” Heart to heart. Mind to mind. Person to person. That was done simply by taking a genuine interest in those nearest him.
Yes, Jesus was indeed confrontational with those who were using the word or truths of God to support a way of life that actually brought dishonor and division among people, especially people who should have known better and clearly didn’t “know” God as the Lord. Their religion became their identity and not the living Redeemer who was the source of all truth and life. They turned the things of God into a cause or movement with its own traditions and means of righteousness that bypass the need for integrity of heart.
Yet the people Jesus walked through life with were drawn to his humility, truthfulness, and safety. They didn’t always “get” what he was saying but they couldn’t imagine processing life without him. To walk and talk together only made life all the richer. The more they got to see and know him the more they wanted to be known by him. His death and resurrection were the sealing events when they realized he was ushering in not a new revolutionary movement with principles to perform but a living revolution that was the most personal of all. His words were so penetrating that the effect was eternal. Nothing would be the same nor outside of his presence and ongoing influence.
The outpouring of his Spirit at Pentecost was the culmination of that permanent, personal work of Christ with his people. He would literally walk through life for the rest of their earthly lives into eternity.
The context of the Christian life is a growing awareness of the presence of Christ most clearly seen in how we see and treat others in his name.
So what does all this have to do with discipleship? Perhaps it might be too redundant or familiar, but it is also a plea to step away from some of the complexities of our approaches to the call to follow him and look again at its essence.
I trust I’m not being too naive in suggesting that Christ himself made it simple with a profound outcome
when he declared to those crowds who often surrounded him, “...If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me” ( Luke 9:23).
Notice that call is not primarily performance but faithfulness. Follow him. Go with him. Abide in and with him.
In Christ we have everything we need for discipleship. He himself is the living Word or the very content of the gospel. That knowledge is revealed in life as we walk through the pages of his revelation as he explains the Scriptures, and our hearts burn within us.
The people Jesus walked through life with were drawn to his humility, truthfulness, and safety.
At the same time Jesus is the context of this gospel as well. His presence by his Spirit is the reality of how we know him and live with and for him. We are not merely representing him objectively but personally as well. It’s not some mystical or ultra pietistic movement but a conscientious awareness of the living Word living among his people. Here’s a bottom line to consider by way of reality and reputation for those of us who claim to be his followers. Listen to how the disciples were described by those opposed to Jesus, “Now when they…perceived that they were uneducated, common men, they were astonished. And they recognized that they had been with Jesus” (Acts 4:13).
Uneducated, common men. May that be your reputation today and everyday until that great day when we will see him in all his glory.
Jerry McFarland is dean of online students at Westminster Theological Seminary. Previously he served as senior minister at Third Reformed Presbyterian Church for two years and as associate pastor at Tenth Presbyterian Church for four years, both located in Philadelphia. He also served as Westminster's dean of students from 1995 to 2007. He is an ordained minister in the PCA.
In John's Gospel, we read, "Behold the Lamb of God," as John the Baptist points to Jesus. Few of us stop and think, “But he isn’t a lamb; he’s a man.” Why? Because we know John the Baptist is appealing to the entirety of the Old Testament imagery of the “Lamb” when he points to Christ. In other words, it is only natural that we use the whole Old Testament for building interpretive momentum in Christ’s person and work as the once and for all sacrificial Lamb of God. This type of OT to NT illumination ought to be commonplace in every category of theological investigation. Our doctrine of God, our doctrine of man, salvation, Christ, and so on, ought to have this basic interpretive momentum as we conform our doctrine to the word of God. To put it another way, we ought to be sola-scriptura Christians and
“tota-scriptura” Christians. By that, I simply mean that we ought to allow the whole counsel of God to inform our doctrinal positions.
Unfortunately, when it comes to the doctrine of the church, particularly the doctrine of church polity, we often overlook our “whole-Bible” method. To rephrase: it’s not uncommon for arguments between different denominational convictions (Baptist, Lutheran, Episcopal, Roman Catholic, Presbyterian, Methodist, etc.) to be waged with our whole Bibles open in the arenas of sacraments, or soteriology, or eschatology. But all too often, when it comes to convictions in church polity, we are myopically prone to only consider the pages of the New Testament. I find this short-sightedness to be one of the many reasons the church fell into a hierarchical model for much of her post-resurrection existence. Or why mega-church “campus” models arose more recently
in the West. Relegating church polity to a strictly New Testament discussion removes certain proper hermeneutical guardrails and skews the church away from decency and order. For instance, much ink is spilled on the issues surrounding Peter as “the Rock” in Matthew 16. Maybe Jesus is referring to the new Pope? Maybe Jesus is referring to a confession? These are all plausible suggestions. But little to no attention is given to the Old Testament background for the entire passage. This should be a first step in the discussion, not an ad hoc consideration. Hopefully this summary will correct such methodological memory lapse.
Before we dive in, the surface diagnosis for why such a methodological memory lapse occurs in the first place is usually due to our good and faithful position that Jesus Christ, fully God and fully Man, is the one who built the church. So then it stands to reason that there would be
no church before his incarnation. Before Jesus, no church. During and after Jesus, the church is born. In one sense, this position is true. Jesus is the foundation of his church, and his mission on earth was the single most important advancement of the Kingdom of God until his second coming. However, this reasoning is not helpful if what we mean is that the church simply did not exist until Jesus’s earthly life, death, and resurrection. For those who have a covenantal hermeneutic, this idea should not be surprising. And certainly the fact that the church was promised from the Old Testament is something every Christian sect holds to, to some degree or another. We must remember that Jesus did in fact build his church anew in his earthly ministry. However, as he “rebuilt” (Acts 15:16) and advanced the church into a new estate (Eph. 2:15), he did so in continuity with his work before the Incarnation. This can be easily seen if we use our basic OT to NT momentum paradigm.
The Old Testament Roots of “Church”
Let’s start with the word “church” itself. The first time we see this word used in the New Testament is in Matthew 16. The Greek word here is ekklesia. Two Greek root words smashed together; “ek” - out, and “kaleo” - call. A “called out” community of God. But why did Jesus choose this word and not the Greek word “house” (where the English word church comes from)? Is this the first time God has used this word? Does it have any OT momentum? It may surprise you that the answer to this question is an emphatic “yes.” Let’s look at the first time the word “church” appears in Scripture. It is not Matthew 16. That is the first time Jesus utters the word in his earthly ministry. Rather, the first time we see this word requires a little bit of Hebrew knowledge. The Hebrew equivalent for “church” is the word “qahal.” This is often translated as “assembly” or “multitude.” The first time we see this word is in the Abrahamic promise in Genesis 28:3, where Jacob rehearses the promise passed down to him from his grandfather Abraham. “God Almighty bless you and make you fruitful and multiply you, that you may become a company (qahal) of peoples.” That word “company” is qahal. I will make you a “company” or church of many nations. This itself is not a new idea in Scripture. The promise to Shem in Genesis 8 is one in which his tents will extend to Japeth, the coastland peoples. The tents of Shem will inherit and gather
in many from the gentile nations. The word tent itself is a metaphorical “dwelling” or “house” that Japeth will be gathered into. This is nothing short of the great commission in OT seed form. So it should not strike us as odd that the Abrahamic many-nations qahal promise is in fact a recapitulation of the Shem promise that continues on in covenant history as it unfolds.
Here are a few instances of the word qahal/ekklesia being used in the Old Testament: Job 30:28, Exodus 12:26, Leviticus 4:13-14, Numbers 10:17, Psalm 107, Joel 2:6-7, Joshua 8:35, 1 Samuel 17:47, 1 Kings 8:14, and 1 Chronicles 13:2. I cite this list to demonstrate that not only is qahal/ekklesia frequently used in the Old Testament, but it also spans the entire Old Testament canon. Upon careful investigation of the majority of these instances found in Scripture it would be reasonable to arrive at the same conclusion as Stuart Robinson,
It is one and the same power which rules and guides throughout all ages alike. In the theophanies of the first period of the revelations of God, it is Jesus Messiah who assumes transient visible form and converses with men. In the theocratic era it is still Jesus Messiah who sits invisible upon the visible throne, between the cherubim, to rule and council his Church. In the inspirations of the theopneustic era it is the Spirit of Christ in the prophets that “doth testify of the sufferings of Christ and the glory that shall follow.” And after the Word made flesh has ascended to the throne of his glory, it is still he who, in the exercise of all power given to him, commissions his agents to go forth, and who sends the Comforter to carry on the work of salvation.1
But what about the New Testament? Of course we will find the word ekklesia in use, but does the New Testament itself testify to an “ekklesia” in the Old Testament? Once again the answer is “yes.” For instance Acts 7:38, where Stephen says, “This is the one who was in the congregation (ekklesia) in the wilderness with the angel who spoke to him at Mount Sinai, and with our fathers. He received living oracles to give to us.” Here Stephen is telling the Sanhedrin that Moses was delivering the law to the church of the Old Testament. Another instance is Hebrews 2:12 quoting Psalm 22, “I will tell of your name to my brothers; in the midst of the congregation (ekklesia) I will sing your praise.” Psalm 22 of course is about
the sufferings of Christ that will be fulfilled in the future. Nevertheless, the idea of the church (congregation) is already seeded in the Old Testament.
Often, when it comes to convictions in church polity, we are myopically prone to only consider the pages of the New Testament.
One last elusive example is Paul’s description to the Galatian church of a child moving from under the law to being an heir. In Galatians 4:1-3, Paul writes, “I mean that the heir, as long as he is a child, is no different from a slave, though he is the owner of everything, but he is under guardians and managers until the date set by his father. In the same way we also, when we were children, were enslaved to the elementary principles of the world.” Paul is arguing to the church in Galatia that a child is held under guardians and managers (the law), until a date set by his father. Then at the appointed time the child is released from guardianship. The analogy Paul is making is that the church (we) was at one time being held under guardianship until Christ appeared. To make explicit what Paul is saying implicitly, the we (the Galatian church in unity with Paul) did not begin existing at the time of Christ’s appearing, but was already in existence in a child-like estate under guardians and managers.
Much more can be said about these passages. The simple point is that even the New Testament looks back to the Old Testament and sees not just a nation, not just a people group, but a church. It is no surprise that the WCF 20.1 describes this reality as the “jewish church.”
As briefly sketched out above, the church, called out of darkness and gathered together by God and for God, has roots all the way back to
Abraham. This basic momentum from the Old Testament to the New Testament ought to cause us to inquire one layer deeper into the study of ecclesiology, that layer being church polity. How does Christ structure and rule his church? What is the organizational architecture of the House of God? Did Christ build his church in a hierarchical model, a congregational model, a presbyterian model, or episcopacy model? Time does not allow us to fully, and charitably, hammer out such nuanced matters. However, is it wise for us to at least consider the Old Testament to New Testament momentum as a baseline in terms of leadership. Another way of getting at the issue would be this: “Why did the Apostles appoint elders in each new town as the church was growing?”
We must remember that Jesus did in fact build his church anew in his earthly ministry. However, as he “rebuilt” and advanced the church into a new estate, he did so in continuity with his work before the Incarnation. This can be easily seen if we use our basic OT to NT momentum paradigm.
As we investigate, two things are clear in terms of ecclesiastical structure. First, the continuity of office and leadership in the office of “elder.” It seems to be no accident at all that the office of “elder” was the basic office of leadership set forth in the New Testament. Even a cursory glance will demonstrate this reality. Second, the New Testament itself recognizes this basic continuity. When we ask the New Testament itself why this special term of ‘elder’ is used, it will point us back to the Old Testament momentum.
When we open our Old Testaments to ask the
questions of officer and rule, we will find that in each major epoch there is a common office, that being the office of “elder.” Samuel Miller helpfully summarizes,
As soon as we begin to read of the Apostles organizing Churches on the New Testament plan we find them instituting offices of precisely the same nature and bestowing on them for the most part the very same titles to which they had been accustomed in the ordinary sabbatical service under the preceding economy.2
Miller is capturing the reality that “elders” as the leaders of the people of God go back further than even Israel as a nation. And they continue their function no matter the status of that national identity. Abraham’s servant-elder arranged the meeting between Rebekah and Isaac (Gen. 24:2). It was the elders to whom Moses had to prove his credentials (Ex. 3:16). It was the elders that were instructed with the Passover lamb (Ex. 12:21). The elders were with Moses when he received the Law (Ex. 19:7). The elders led the conquest with Joshua (Jos. 8:10). The elders anointed King David (2 Sam. 5:3). The elders sat with Elisha, Jeremiah, Isaiah, and Ezekiel. The elders were instructed with rebuilding the Temple (Ezra 6:8). So it should be no surprise that Paul commanded Titus to appoint elders in each city. Even Peter considered himself a co-elder (1 Pet. 1:5). The elders had an equal standing with the Apostles at the Jerusalem Council (Acts 15). Noticing this broad continuity Robinson writes,
From the first to the last dispensations of God recorded in Scripture, as shown before, the uniform exponent of a government in the Church is the office of elders, (πρεσβύτερος) and if a name of distinction for the Church visible, considered as a form of spiritual government, is to be applied to it, “Presbyterian” has been the proper title from the days of Israel in Egypt to the present.3
Secondly, when we ask the New Testament itself, we notice that the office of elder is in continuity with the office of the Old Testament. Here are a few examples. Notice John’s vision of the throne room of the Lamb in Revelation 4. There we see twenty-four elders surrounding the throne. Why 24? This is most likely a reference
to twelve in the Old Testament and twelve in the New Testament. Robinson writes,
The elders, under the dispensation of the Spirit, still occupy their position towards the Church, appointed by the Holy Ghost to take oversight, as is the Church of old. And again, in the prophetic vision of the glorious Church of the future, John saw the great congregation, still in eternity, as in time, represented by four and twenty elders,—twelve for the ancient and twelve for the new dispensation,—but one body, uniting together in casting their crowns, the symbol of their official authority, at the feet of Him whom they unite to acknowledge as Head and Source of all authority in the Church in all ages.4
Another example can be seen in the famous hall of witnesses in Hebrews 11. As we meditate on all these incredible demonstrations of the Lord working throughout redemptive history in the lives of Able, Noah, Abraham, Moses, etc., notice the Greek description of these heroes in Hebrews 11:2, “For by it the people of old (πρεσβύτεροι/ elders) received their commendation.” In other words, these listed patriarchs, prophets, and kings were all elders One last example can be seen in the Old Testament looking forward. Take note of the rich description given to us in Joel 2:16, “Gather the people. Consecrate the congregation (ekklesia); assemble the elders ( presbuteros); gather the children, even nursing infants. Let the bridegroom leave his room, and the bride her chamber.”
The beauty of a redemptive historical hermeneutic must be deployed for even matters pertaining to ecclesiastical polity.
You may be thinking this passage is only about the Old Testament saints. However, as you continue reading the chapter, you’ll find that the Lord gathers the
people together for the purpose of blessing them with his Spirit being poured out. (Joel 2:28). This is fulfilled in Acts 2 on the day of Pentecost. The simple point is that if Joel 2:28 is about the church (which it is), so too is Joel 2:16.
The church ... has roots all the way back to Abraham.
More needs to be said on the topic of Old Testament to New Testament momentum for our understanding of the church, finding the balance between continuity and discontinuity: the principle of connectionalism the church must seek to maintain in light of the fact that she is to reach the ends of the earth with the witness of the gospel; the questions of jurisdiction and court structure. All of these topics rightfully require special attention. But as we dive into each special area of ecclesiology, may we keep the whole of our Bibles open. The beauty of a redemptive historical hermeneutic must be deployed for even matters pertaining to ecclesiastical polity. As James Bannerman states, “The Church of the Old Testament, like the Church of the New, had the Second Person of the Godhead for its Founder and its Head.”5
Jonathan Brack is Senior Director of Communications and Media at Westminster Theological Seminary. He earned his M.Div. from WTS. He lives in Cyprus, Texas, where he enjoys fishing, pickleball, and catechizing his two kids, Julianne and Tuffy.
1. Robinson, The Church of God, 51.
2. Miller, The Ruling Elder,
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In the 1960s, Wilbur A. R. Siddons, the founding pastor of Westminster Presbyterian Church in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, wrote a letter to a newspaper explaining why he could no longer, with a good conscience, hold the position of pastor in his mainline presbyterian congregation. He took a firm stand for the inspiration and infallibility of Scripture. On reading the letter, a group of people from two different presbyterian churches approached the pastor and said they wanted him to pastor a new church that stood on the word. Seven decades later, Westminster’s current senior pastor, Dr. Chris Walker, notes the sacrifice it took, beginning without much money or a building, and jeopardizing social standing when influential employers were at those same churches being left behind. “So you were leaving places of influence and security and doing so in a way that was a risk,” he said. “We have at least one—if not two—of our founding members who took additional mortgages on their house so that they could help support a new church financially.”
The decision to leave the United Presbyterian Church was difficult for Siddons, who had been a pastor for around twenty-five years in the denomination. He and twelve others began meeting to discuss starting a new church, and about eight weeks later, 200 people attended their first worship service, said Eric Conner, Siddon’s grandson-in-law, a long-time Westminster member and the church’s historian-in-residence. “And you can’t say that’s anything but God’s hand through that whole process,” he said.
The church’s bold stand for biblical truth in its founding mirrors that of Westminster Seminary, where, in fact, Walker earned his Master of Arts in Religion
and Doctor of Ministry degrees, just as his predecessor, Michael Rogers, and multiple fellow pastors—John Light, Tucker York, and Matt Collins—all received degrees from the seminary. While the cultural pressures the church faces today have changed since Siddons left the UPC, the principle for maintaining faithfulness to Scripture remains the same for both Westminsters. Dr. John Currie, professor of pastoral theology at WTS, has studied along with some of Westminster Church’s pastors, and taught others. He explained the formative importance of teaching when facing any cultural challenge to biblical precepts, not simply the most current one. The goal is for pastors to move from precept to practice in their role: “We want to root them deeply—theologically and exegetically and biblically, so that they develop the biblical theological worldview that equips them to speak to any issue at any time,” he said. For Walker, an emphasis in his studies on the original languages as well as the systematic foundation at WTS grounded him theologically, giving him the tools to study Scripture.
The church has flourished since its founding as a hospitable and warm congregation. This is due to the focus
on Scripture. According to Walker, “really the whole question in the church context is how are we beholding Christ, serving Christ, worshiping Christ, and how he is the tie between us as God’s people and the focus of all that we do.” In other words, if we believe that we as the church are members of one another and Christ’s body, then serving, welcoming, comforting, and encouraging one another—effective ministry—should follow. Walker described that transition from precept to practice: “If we take the focus off … the academic study and focus instead on what we have learned to be true about God, about our Savior, about the church, love for one another and love for Christ should be the natural result.”
One area of strength for Westminster Church is hospitality through missions. “I think one of their great expressions of hospitality is how they’ve opened their lives and their church to the stranger, really, those who are in need,” Currie said. “So it’s a very warm church.” The church dedicates about thirty percent of its annual budget to its Great Commission Committee and to missions. “I don’t think that’s an accident where for the last 56 years, this congregation has dedicated hundreds of thousands—and over the
course of the years, millions—of dollars to missions, and we are feeling God’s blessing through that by a strong and growing and dedicated congregation,” Conner said. There are more than 1,300 communicant members and about 300 non-member attendees.
The church’s largest outreach effort is to the refugee communities in Lancaster. Through that work, multiple ethnic groups now attend the church, including a group from Burma, a group from Congo, as well as multiple people who speak English as a second language from various backgrounds. Instead of following a carefully strategized plan, this ministry has organically developed in response to God providing opportunities to serve. “While we certainly had some desire to meet folks and help folks who were coming, the way that developed into an opportunity for outreach and service wasn’t something we could have foreseen,” Walker said. For example, an elder in the church, from Kenya, is able to connect with the Congolese immigrants uniquely because he speaks Swahili.
Conner remembers a church service in 2022, the first combined service of English, Congolese, and Burmese, with three interpreters preaching the same message to the same congregation. “And it was really a good picture of how Revelation describes where all tongues and nations will come together,” he said.
Walker notes that when worshiping with Christians from around the world, you hear about God’s work of building the church in far reaches. As God has brought unexpected opportunities for service to the church, its work in the community is still a part of the founding vision. “I would give some credit to those who founded our church fifty-five years ago, as well, and wanted mission and proclamation of the gospel to be core to who we are …”
In addition to a large team of current pastors, Westminster has the unique situation of its retired pastors still attending as members of the congregation. While pastoral transitions can be fraught and difficult, faithfulness to the church’s commitments through mentorship from one pastor to the other has smoothed the way for Westminster, allowing its legacy to be passed down from leader to leader. Dr. Rogers, who was senior pastor before Walker, showed strong character by investing in him and setting up the church for success, according to Currie. “Sometimes pastors can be intimidated by having others around them who might be able to replace them,”
Dr. Currie said. “I think it’s a testimony to Dr. Rogers that he was willing to have people around him that he actually would intend to replace him.”
“To see Dr. Rogers and his humility and his support, I’ve never felt that he was looking over my shoulder or criticizing certain things to the congregation, or that he held court, that people could bring their questions— there was never any of that,” Dr. Walker said. “It was a 100-percent humility and support for me, and I think if a transition’s going to go badly, the retiring senior pastor probably is a big determiner of why that might happen.”
Really the whole question in the church context is how are we beholding Christ, serving Christ, worshiping Christ, and how is he the tie between us as God’s people and the focus of all that we do?
Rogers hopes that his legacy of ministry is seeing young men receive a call to ministry due to his influence: “I get a great deal of satisfaction from seeing young men start out in the ministry and get their legs under them, and seeing growth in response to that,” he said.
Dr. Walker also experienced a session of strong and humble ruling elders when he was installed as senior pastor. While a pastor is called to preach, when it comes to shepherding and caring for the church and setting a tone, the ruling elders are on the front lines. He said a healthy session of godly and humble men was one primary reason he was confident about taking the call.
A good transition requires transparency from the leaders, who should give visibility, voice, and a vote to the church body, Currie said. In response, the congregation has a mutual responsibility to support the transition after they’ve exercised their voice and vote. Transparency is key, agreed Conner, who has been on multiple search committees for the church. One question he and other members of the committee asked candidates was, “What would
your relationship be to the pastor emeritus?” They wanted someone who would be willing to consult the pastor emeritus in a healthy way and maintain a good relationship.
Incoming pastors should get to know a church—and let a church know them—before seeking to make changes. Currie emphasized the importance of preaching faithfully to gain trust as a man of the word. Changes should be collaborative with elders. Walker described not getting sidetracked by new ideas: “your key should be to listen, to learn, to love people and to just love Christ and preach Christ. And if Christ is held high, and we’re getting to know one another, that really sets us on the same page if there are things we want to grow in and do better.”
Rogers observed that for the next generation of Presbyterian pastors, their energies should continue to focus on building the local church, as families, fathers, mothers, teens, and children need to witness the local church’s work for the gospel. “I still want to see individual churches and Presbyteries as centers for the battle for people’s souls and hearts and minds and pastors who are willing to make preaching their first task. You’re doing a lot of pastoral counseling right from the pulpit if you’re doing it right,” he said.
While it might seem that the state of church attendance in America is bleak, and that the only way for the church to appeal to the broader culture is through compromising truth, Westminster Presbyterian Church in Lancaster shows otherwise. It is a uniquely large and diverse congregation that has thrived on biblical teaching. Like WTS, Westminster Church was founded in the wake of departure from orthodoxy within the local mainline Presbyterian church. For the past fifty years, she has stood on a foundation of faithfulness in the face of change and challenges. This legacy of commitment to upholding faithful adherence to Scripture and defense of its inerrancy—the influence that shapes it to this day— helps the church to flourish as a vibrant and hospitable congregation that prioritizes Scripture.
Anna Sylvestre is Associate Editor for Westminster Magazine. She and her husband Abraham live in Texas and recently welcomed their son Isaac. She has an MA in journalism from Baylor University and has bylines in World Magazine.
- 1 Timothy 3:14 Master of Divinity Pastoral Fellows Master of Arts in Theological Studies
Rigorous Academic Study, Mentorship, Ministry Experience.
Devote yourself wts.edu/mats
The online Master of Arts in Theological Studies equips nonvocational ministry professionals and ministry leaders with a strong theological foundation, enabling them to serve with confidence and apply Scriptural truths to their life, work, and ministry.
This Spring, Westminster Magazine had the opportunity to sit down with Luke Laird, an online MATS student, for a conversation about his testimony, work, and experience at Westminster. Luke and his family live in Nashville where he writes songs with artists like Carrie Underwood, Kacey Musgraves, Rodney Atkins, and more. This interview has been condensed and compressed for clarity and concision.
Westminster Magazine (WM): Can you tell us a little about how you came into songwriting? How did that start?
Luke Laird (LL): Yeah, I always loved music growing up. When I was a little kid in the eighties, I had a boombox, loved listening to tapes, recording myself playing piano and guitar, and just always loved music. From the time I was a kid, I was writing songs, even if they were just little choruses. It was just a fun, creative activity. And then in high school, I kind of got serious once I realized there was a such thing as songwriters, and I took a trip to Nashville. I’m like, “Wait, these guys wrote the songs on the radio that I know?” Like a lot of people, I assumed whoever sang it wrote everything. That’s when I thought, “That’s what I want to do.”
WM: Who were your heroes at that point? Who were the songwriters who inspired you?
LL: Well, again, I didn’t know. I got really into country music in high school, in the nineties when it blew up. But I was also into popular music. So all the grunge, like Nirvana, all that stuff that was really popular. I loved nineties hip hop and Dr. Dre, Snoop Dogg, all that stuff—just people who are really good at what they do. And so when I came to Nashville, that’s when I really started looking up Nashville songwriters. So I saw this guy, Tony Arata, at the Bluebird Cafe, and he wrote one of Garth Brooks’s biggest songs called “The Dance.” And so I got to meet him, and he was super nice. I got his autograph, and I was just like, “Man, what a cool life. . . I wouldn’t mind doing that.”
WM: So how did you come to know the Lord? Was your family in the church?
LL: Yeah, I grew up in the church. My parents took us pretty much every Sunday. And my Dad was an elder in some of the churches that I grew up in. This was in Northwestern Pennsylvania at the time. We were members of a PCUSA church. And so I grew up going to church believing. It’s interesting, especially now that I’m older, but I wouldn’t say I was really into theology. I probably didn’t even know what that meant as a teenager and even in college. So I got to college and didn’t really get involved in the church. I was like, “Ah, this is freedom,” you know? I could do whatever I wanted.
And I did that. Church wasn’t really convenient for me. So I did probably what a lot of parents fear, and went to college and partied. I met some great friends. I never was like, “Oh, God isn’t real,” but I just didn’t have time for him. . . And then, it’s like when something hard happens, then you pray, you know?
Once I was out of school, I got my first songwriting and publishing deal. So I’m working as a songwriter, getting paid—not a lot of money—but basically living my dream. But I was still drinking a lot and not part of a church.
I got my second DUI when I was 27. And it was a rock-bottom moment. I’m in jail for the night and then I get sentenced to 48 hours in a more “real” jail. And in that time I remember praying, “God, this is not how I want my life to go.” Because at some point someday I wanted to get married, to have kids, and I can just see this is not headed towards something like that.
In that moment God’s grace felt very real, almost like a physical thing. In his kindness, I think that’s when I really came to the end of myself as far as having no control over this. This is God. Even though I’m living one way, he just keeps grabbing me. And I came out of there, and it’s not like something immediately happened, but the desires of my heart started changing. I wanted to know God.
Sometime within a few years of that, I read Tim Keller’s The Reason for God. It wasn’t like I had to be convinced that Christianity was the way. I was agreeing with him. Everything I was reading, it just resonated. It wasn’t matching up with how I was living my life yet, but I was
like, “This is true.” And I think that’s when I started to wonder, “What’s Reformed theology?” And then I read some R. C. Sproul stuff, and I remembered as a kid my dad had some of his books on a bookshelf that I never read. But it was like, “Wow, God really is in control of all of this. He has, since the time that I was a little kid, been right there.”
So I got sober that year, that first year after I got out of jail. It’s not an overnight thing, but I started to pray over the last 10 years, “God, I want to know you.” And part of the answer to that prayer was this program at Westminster. I just had a hunger to know God and to want to interpret Scripture properly.
David Filson works at my kid’s school. And he and I would have some of these discussions, and then one day he asked me, “Man, have you ever considered seminary?” So then I was kind of nervous, but excited because I felt like I was at a point in my life when I that was something I could maybe handle. I was never a great student, but I always tell people it’s different when it’s something you’re really interested in. So Westminster’s been such a blessing. . . I’m so excited to open my Bible in the morning. I just never know what God’s going to reveal.
WM: Can you tell us about the experience of joining the MATS while you’re working as much as ever, involved with your church, and raising your family?
LL: I am grateful that I can make my own schedule so I can I can plan things out. I know if I have a paper due on Saturday, I’m not gonna book something else on Friday. I think it’s all a time management thing. And I just do one course at a time. I’m not in a rush to knock it out. So that’s been helpful. I need to finish this class, and then I’ve got two more. So for me, it’s been a pretty good pace. And of course, some of the classes require more time than others, but I’ve really enjoyed it. It’s been good. I listened to the lectures a lot, when driving, so that’s helpful too. And then I like that you can go back and do it on your own time. ...
WM: What was your experience like learning the theology? Did it challenge you?
LL: I’m a thinker and I contemplate a lot, but I’m like, “Man, there are people that are just so much smarter than me.” I’ll hear some of the professors, and I could
study from now till the day I die and never grasp some of these things like they do. But, you know, you don’t have to be smart to be a child of God. Everybody has different gifts. A child can grasp the gospel. So that’s keeping the main thing the main thing. But to know God, it’s such a gift. And Scripture is just endless.
WM: So what do you plan to do with your degree after you graduate?
LL: I don’t feel called to be the pastor of a church at this point. I’m not going to say what God’s going to do, but I’m open to however God would use me. I’m around people almost daily who don’t know Jesus. Maybe this is a way that God can use me and my education through Westminster. If there are some more difficult discussions or something, I could be a little better equipped—still in humility—to talk with people.
Often people ask me, “You’re getting a seminary degree, so what are you going to do with that?” It started as, I just want to know God, and I feel as if it’s helped me dig deeper into his word. But I don’t know how God’s going to use that, but I know he will. And that’s okay. I feel like I’m right where I’m supposed to be as far as my occupation goes, but who knows? That can all change too. You kind of hold it with open hands, I guess.
WM: Have you found that if you’re talking about faith, someone will have a hard question for you? Or do they try to avoid the issue?
LL: Sometimes. But a lot of times people just want to know why you think the way you do. I’ll be real honest with people. It’s not like, “Hey, I got my life together now.” The thing about the gospel is we’re all sinners. So you can be real vulnerable and be like, “I definitely have regrets or there’s things I’ve done that I’m not proud of.” But you can be open with people so they don’t think, “Oh, you’ve just lived this perfect life.” The deeper I know God, the more aware I become of my mess-ups or my fallenness. But it doesn’t crush me. He’s shown me his grace.
Most of the people I’m around are songwriters, and there’s some really smart people, but there’s also people who just want to know how you’re dealing with life. They’re dealing with the anxiety that comes from working in a business that can be cutthroat. It can be so uncertain. There’s not like, “Hey, if you do A, B and C, then D’s gonna happen,” or something like that. But how do you deal with just the unsteadiness of what we do? For me, I can say I don’t put all my value in what I do because it is all going away. It doesn’t mean it’s not hard when something doesn’t work out like you hoped it would, but it gives you an eternal perspective.
WM: How has diving deeper into God’s word affected your songwriting?
LL: One thing I think about—and probably more so since I’ve been taking these courses—is the idea or the reality of redemption. If you listen to my songs, you’re not always going to say, “Man, I really love the redemptive quality of that song,” but my favorite songs do have that in them. I want to give a sense of hope or just trigger a response in people as far as maybe just thinking about their life.
That doesn’t mean I’m just going to write Christian music. Some of the most Christian songs I have are not what would be considered a church song. It’s dealing with the human condition and stuff like that. But sometimes it’s just fun. It doesn’t have to be a deep song, you know? I love writing fun songs too, that can maybe put a smile on somebody’s face.
And a lot of times I’m working with artists who are trying to get across what they want to say. And I work with so many talented people. Whatever success I have is because I’m at least smart enough to recognize when somebody’s really good at what they do, and just listen, and not think I have to be the one that comes up with everything.
WM: What are your thoughts on church music?
LL: A lot of bad church music has turned people off. But I had to get over that pretty quick because being a musician. . . God taught me a lot about patience by sitting through the worship part of church. The music in our church right now is pretty great, but it’s so easy to be critical and just be judgmental and I’m in my head, wondering “Why is the drummer playing eighth notes?” Just the dumbest thing. That’s not even what it’s about. Some of the strongest churches have probably what we would not call the best music in the world. But are they telling the truth? So, I’ve learned to say, “Lord, just give me patience, and I’m here to worship you.” You know, I’m not the best musician in the world either.
WM: It’s incredible what Jesus puts up with when we think about ourselves. How could we not be patient with others?
LL: Yeah. Jesus is extremely patient.
The Westminster brand made tangible
This past summer, three Westminster students enjoyed a unique opportunity to participate in an archival project in France, discovering unknown influences for the Reformation thinker and author of Institutes of Elenctic Theology, Francis Turretin. Although Institutes has earned a reputation as a difficult text, Dr. Todd Rester describes its publication as “a major advance in Reformation studies, and not only in understanding the theology of the 17th-century Swiss-Reformed, but also in understanding the history of Reformed thought in the American context.” This same sentiment has been echoed by theologians like Scott Swain and the late R. C. Sproul. Swain has said that the Institutes is “one of the best gifts that an aspiring student of theology could receive,” and Sproul likewise remarked that “if you would ask me who I think were the three most important theologians in all of history, I would say [Jonathan] Edwards, [Thomas] Aquinas, and Francis Turretin.”¹ Furthermore, the recent and upcoming republications of works by B. B. Warfield and Charles Hodge show budding interest in theologians strongly influenced by Turretin. But, according to Rester, one pitfall of the currently available edition of Turretin’s work is that it is often poorly cited or lacks proper citation altogether, leaving readers unable to understand well the context of his thought or his engagement with other theologians.
To remedy this situation, Westminster students, led by Dr. Rester, searched through the multi-generational library of the Turretin family. It was Dr. Rester who discovered that, back in the 1980s or 1990s, an archivist in France told seminary faculty in Aix-en-Provence that there was material once owned by the Turretins that had not been adequately explored since the 1700s or 1800s. On scouting the archive prior to this trip, Rester found an 18th-century handwritten auction catalog once belonging to a bookseller who had acquired the Turretin family library, which spanned six generations, starting in the 15th century when the family were still Italian Catholics. “So, this family is a really unique collection in its own right. It’s multi-generational, not just of a library,
but of theologians and pastors. And you can see all the different changes and challenges that are hitting Europe from the 16th through the 18th century in terms of theology in that collection,” Rester commented.
The obscure 740 page catalog was promising on two levels. First, there was the opportunity to discover which texts Turretin likely would have been engaging with intellectually and citing in his Institutes. And, second, Dr. Rester quickly realized that the catalog could serve as a roadmap for the vast library in Aix-en-Provence. So, for two weeks in the summer of 2023, he invited two MDiv students, Shelby Myers and Tyler Ivey, as well as PhD candidate Enoch Chow, to the south of France to explore the archive, catalog in hand. Over ten days the team logged 200 hours, wading through precious original sources. Their hard work wasn't long in paying off either: "We went in one day, and the archive had identified 132 books or so that belonged to the Turretin family. By the time we left, that number was well over 375, with 150 of those constituting new entries into the Turretin catalog," Rester reported.
[Turretin’s Institutes] is a major advance in Reformation studies... also in understanding the history of Reformed thought in the American context.
But the team also recovered theological treasures in their own right. Dr. Rester and Tyler Ivey recalled finding one item that belonged to Benedict Turretin (Francis's father): a first edition of a John Calvin tract,
only the fourth or fifth copy known to exist. A few pages later (the books were sometimes multiple works bound together) they found another Calvin work of which only six or seven copies remain throughout the world. “It was like going into a gold mine where there’s more gold ore than stone,” Shelby said. They also discovered a first edition work of Swiss Reformer Heinrich Bullinger, which Shelby had set aside without realizing it. “I had picked something up so special, but because everything I was holding was so special, I kind of lost a sense of what was special. It was surreal,” he said.
A defining moment for Enoch was a discovery relevant to scholarship he had already embarked on prior to the trip, a project on Turretin’s engagement with protestant scholar Louis Cappel. From Glenside, Enoch had been using an online database to access the texts. But in France he found Turretin’s own copy of the work by Cappel and was able to compare Turriten’s quotations of Cappel with the original text—it seems Turretin quoted from memory since the word order between the two was different. For Enoch, the experience revealed the importance of archival work; previously, he hadn’t considered the importance of context. “We’re not only interested in the content of the book, but we’re also interested in the intellectual history and context of the work itself and how the books actually got to the archive in France,” he said.
Furthermore, camaraderie among the group flourished. Tyler fondly recalled Dr. Rester’s penchant for gelato, something the group enjoyed each evening. At one shop, they found out the owner had spent time in Louisiana, Todd’s home state. The owner closed up and invited the group for drinks. It was the spontaneous opportunities and new experiences like this that made the archive trip even more extraordinary.
With this initial exploration of the archive completed, Enoch has returned to Westminster to continue his PhD under Dr. Rester. “To be able to be on a project with him, going on the trip with him was very impactful for me,” he said. Working with Dr. Rester helped him see his diligence and desire to build relationships with others, even the archivists, taking the time to appreciate and understand the importance of their work.
One consistent appreciation across participants was the mutual respect they enjoyed as scholars. Dr. Rester fully involved them in the process, teaching them
valuable skills to take into their future ministry or academic work. He taught them how to build relationships with the archivists. Enoch recently applied that learning experience in an archive in Philadelphia. He took the time to communicate with the staff and appreciate their job, and they went out of their way to help him find sources. For his own part, Dr. Rester says that while it’s
common for schools to teach paleography (old handwriting) and Latin, it’s uncommon to include students in advanced academic field work. “I can give you assignments in lecture form, but getting your feet wet, as it were, in the archives, working with manuscripts, seeing the practical aspects of doing research, that’s something I want to see Westminster PhD students excel at, and it’s something I want to see future students at Westminster be exposed to,” he said.
While the group found success, there is still plenty of work to do with regard to the project. There are multiple archives with additional related material, suggesting the possibility of far more to discover. There are plans for Westminster Seminary Press to publish a catalog that lists theological and philosophical treatises, as well as commentaries. Dr. Rester also hopes to partner with other institutions for academic
conferences and research on related topics, seeing the potential to bring together a unique group of likeminded institutions and communities through the project. According to Tyler Ivey, “There is a treasure trove of stuff waiting for someone to find and to discover and put the blood and sweat into making something useful for the church.”
Anna Sylvestre for Westminster Magazine her husband Abraham live in Texas and recently welcomed their son Isaac. She has an MA in jour nalism from Baylor University and has bylines in
T H E S E L F A T T E S T I N G G O D
N O V E M B E R 2 0 2 4 N A S H V I L L E , T N D E T A I L S F O R T H C O M I N G W H
“From afar they raise their voices like torches, and they cry out, as from some lofty and conspicuous watchtower, admonishing us where to walk and how to direct the course of our work steadily and safely.”1 These words were penned by Eusebius of Caesarea (265–339 AD), the progenitor of the discipline of church history, from whom we receive passages, excerpts, and lines of various church fathers and their interlocutors. To enter the world of the ancient church is to enter a world of heroes and heresies. From Marcionism in Rome, Gnosticism in Alexandria, and Montanism in Phrygia, all of which began during the first two centuries of the church’s history, heroes of the faith rose to the occasion to ardently defend the truth received from Christ and his apostles, which is contained in the Scriptures. Their “voices like torches” were as vocal lights, resounding with the authority of Scripture and shining in the brilliance of its truth. Today, we can read them “from afar,” and receive instruction for our own day, seeing in this history, as Cornelius Van Til states, “the victory of Christ over Satan.”2 To this end, let us now travel to this ancient world to consider two heroes of the faith and the heresies with which they engaged. And in doing this, we can see how the church can arise today.
Irenaeus was known as a peacemaker, an apologist, and a theologian. He was born in the second century just after the era of the Apostolic Fathers. Irenaeus was just one generation removed from the Beloved Disciple John, knowing personally one of John’s disciples, Polycarp of Smyrna.3 The second century was a turbulent period for the church. Although the later persecutions under Decius and Diocletian were systemic and far-reaching, there were still sporadic and occasional persecutions that took place during Irenaeus’s time. According to the tradition preserved by Eusebius, Irenaeus himself carried a letter to the bishop of Rome which detailed a series of events during the reign of the Stoic Marcus Aurelius in which Christians were persecuted in Lyon, the area where Irenaeus served. Those who claimed the name of Christ and observed the Lord’s Supper and the gathering of the saints were persecuted. Many God-honoring and faithful Christians had lost their lives. The risk of losing one’s life was not the only threat facing the second-century church. Irenaeus was, as an
ardent defender of the apostolic teaching, principally engaged with the heresies that were circulating and unduly influencing the churches. In general, he offered a diagnostic explanation of the rise of heresy, tracing its origins to Simon Magus (Acts 8), the first heretic whom the Apostles confronted. He argued, in plain terms, that doctrinal errors “spring from Simon, the father of all heretics.” 4 For Irenaeus, the heretics derived their intellectual and spiritual patrimony not from the Apostles commissioned by the Lord Jesus Christ, but from new teachers who were influenced by worldly philosophies and the teachings of demons. With the piety and safety of the church in view, Irenaeus sought to “adduce proofs from the Scriptures” so that they would have the “means of combating and vanquishing those who, in whatever manner, are propagating falsehood.”5
In Irenaeus’s day, one of the chief exponents of a pernicious and false doctrine was Valentinus, the leader and founder of a prominent Gnostic tradition in Rome. Valentinianism spread throughout the Empire, persuading many. Indeed, even in Irenaeus’s town of Lyon, there was a sect of the Valentinians called the Marcosians. A devoted disciple of Valentinus named Ptolemy wrote that this Gnostic school had received the “apostolic tradition by succession,” and thus, they were specially equipped to “prove all points by the teaching of the Savior.” 6
It should be duly noted that Gnostics such as Valentinus and Ptolemy understood the “teaching of the Savior” to include a secret wisdom tradition that was not transmitted to young acolytes, but only to those who were spiritually mature. In fact, Gnostics oftentimes articulated a hierarchical anthropology, maintaining a three-tiered gradation of spirituality. This secret teaching was necessary to interpret Scripture, without which the Scripture would be ambiguous. For the Valentinians, this key opened an allegedly authentic view of reality that spoke of God as both male and female, of creation being emanated from that God through Aeons in the Word, and of salvation only through a mystical knowledge that unites one to Sophia. It is rather obvious that this Gnostic teaching is indeed predicated on a secret tradition, for it is found nowhere in Scripture!
Irenaeus’s argument goes precisely in this direction. He argues that “the tradition from the apostles does thus exist in the church,” and so we must return “to the Scripture proof furnished by those apostles who also write the Gospel, in which they recorded the doctrine regarding
God…”7 In other words, the teaching that is to inform our doctrine, life, and practice is that doctrine recorded in the Scripture by the Apostles, which is the doctrine taught in the true church. This is, as Irenaeus says, ὁ κανὼν τὴς ἀληϑείας or regula veritatis, the rule of truth. With the further triumph of Nicene orthodoxy in the fifth century during the time of Theodosius, Valentinianism was waning. The truth prevailed, and the Lord had as his instrument Irenaeus, an assiduous defender of orthodoxy.
Our travels now bring us to the fourth century in the Southern portion of the Empire: North Africa. Augustine Aurelius was born in the year 354 in the Roman province of Numidia (present day Algeria), and is considered to be one of the greatest theologians to have ever lived. Augustine was classically trained in the Trivium (grammar, logic, and rhetoric), the basic form for education in antiquity, as Plato’s dialogues show. Augustine proved himself to be an accomplished teacher and skilled orator at a young age, skills that would prove indispensable in a battle with heresy that took place later in his life, namely, the battle against the teachings of Pelagius, a British monk. In the fourth century, philosophies such as Neoplatonism and Manichaeism were quite prominent, so much so that Augustine had wandered through the labyrinth of these philosophical systems prior to his conversion to Christianity. But with regard to the stability of the church and the teaching of the Scriptures, Pelagianism was a far more pernicious force.
Beginning with Emperors Nero and Caligula, moral decadence had increased in the Roman world. Historians have sometimes argued that this period of decadence had, in fact, contributed to the downfall of the Roman Empire. Within the church and prior to the rise of Constantine, Christians were persecuted, and because of this, were eagerly longing for the coming of the Lord, saying, “Maranatha!” After the rise of Constantine, however, when Christianity was deemed an acceptable religion within the Empire, some historians have said that the cry, “Maranatha,” had become the cry, “pro mora finis” (delay the coming!). In other words, Christians in the Empire were growing increasingly comfortable in their new circumstances, worshiping freely and having a
prominent political presence.8 It was in this context that Pelagius came to be concerned about moral laxity, which he saw in the Christian churches, and he was not alone in this concern, having intelligent defenders in Julian of Eclanum and Caelestius, who developed his views. There is something of the earlier Novationist controversy in Pelagius’s concern as well. Do we have the power to stand firm amid persecution? Can we do what is right when the tides of our culture run against us? The beginnings of Pelagianism can be traced back to a concern about moral responsibility and freedom of the will.
Do we have the power to stand firm amid persecution? Can we do what is right when the tides of our culture run against us?
While what Pelagius argued for and what his disciples argued for may not be the same thing, history shows that what came to be known as Pelagianism essentially argued that original sin was not an imputed nature transmitted to all Adam’s descendants. In fact, there is no such thing as original sin. Sin, in this view, is when one follows the example of Adam. In other words, the only sin attributable to Adam’s progeny is the sin which they actually bring about by virtue of the exercise of their own will.9 Moreover, man’s ability to choose between good and evil was seen to be still intact, which had obvious implications for grace and salvation. When Pelagius was summoned before a council in Palestine, he had denied that a phrase from his work, “all men are ruled by their own will,” subverts the authority and work of God. But was this true?
Augustine disagreed. Augustine ventured the argument that, after the fall of mankind in Adam, man’s nature had become corrupted in such a way that man is not able not to sin (non posse non peccare). In man’s original estate, man had an ability to sin ( posse peccare) and not sin ( posse non peccare). For all of mankind after Adam, grace was not only required for the beginning of faith (initium fidei) but was required for good works. To
be sure, Augustine was not claiming that we are robots without true moral agency. He was simply tending to the scriptural witness, following “the authority of Holy Writ,”10 that in the fall we are left in ruin without God’s gracious help. Augustine argued that “unless the will itself is set free by God’s grace from the servitude in which it was made the slave of sin, and is helped to overcome its vices, mortals cannot live rightly and religiously.”11 As one historian put it, Augustine’s view of grace and the human will has “overwhelming consciousness of human dependence, awe, and reverence before the majesty and sovereignty of our Maker.”12 Augustine’s arguments dealt a profound blow to Pelagianism, and at the Council of Ephesus in 431 (a council to which Augustine was invited), Pelagius was declared a heretic.
Preceding the fierce debate between Augustine and Pelagius, the church, on numerous occasions, sailed through the Scylla of Pelagian moralism and the Charybdis of theological fatalism. The debate about grace, freedom of the will, and moral responsibility, however, would not open again in full force until the time of the Reformation. In 1506, the collected works of Augustine were printed in Basel, bringing the question to the fore again. In part, it is on the basis of the Lord’s work in Augustine in the fifth century, that the Reformers were likewise able to respond to errant views of grace.
Philip Melanchthon, a significant reformer in Germany’s Reformation, once said that “We must search for the truth; let us love, let us protect, and let us pass it on uncorrupted to our posterity.”13 In Irenaeus and Augustine, we find profound instances of faithfulness, which are instructive for our own day. These men labored tirelessly, seeking the truth, loving it, and defending it, for the sake of Christ and his church.
What can we learn from our travels through the ancient world? Perhaps the most obvious thing to glean is that there is nothing new under the sun. As in Eusebius’s day, there are ancient watchtowers which have seen in the distance the theological conflicts on the battlefields. And like those who called out from the watchtower, our voices must likewise resound with the truth. Even though the world is rapidly changing around us, we must stand firmly on that which does not change: the
inspired and inerrant word of God. Like Paul before the Ephesian elders in Acts 20, the church must not “shrink back from declaring the whole counsel of God.” Without the sure basis of Scripture, how can we “be alert”? Therefore, let us see in Irenaeus and Augustine a sound pattern, and let us walk the ancient paths, those paths which our forefathers tread by the holy glow of sacred Scripture, so that we too might walk boldly and faithfully, even into and through this modern world.
Jerry Timmis is Vice President of Stewardship at Westminster and enrolled in the MATS program. Jerry is an ordained ruling elder in the OPC. He served most recently at Redeemer Presbyterian Church in Ada, MI.
Nathan Nocchi is the Assistant Director of the Craig Center for the Study of the Westminster Standards and Managing Editor of Westminster Magazine. Nathan is also undertaking PhD studies in historical theology at Westminster Theological Seminary.
1. Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History, Book 1. Cap. 4.
2. Cornelius Van Til, The Knudsen-Dooyeweerd Criticism of My Apologetics, part 1 (1974), 7–8.
3. Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History, Book 5. Cap. 20.
4. Irenaeus: Against Heresies, Book II, Preface.
5. Irenaeus: Against Heresies, Book 3, page 55.
6. Ptolemy, Letter to Flora.
7. Irenaeus, Against Heresies, Book 3, page 55-56.
8. See Roland Bainton’s introduction in Early Christianity
9. Henry Chadwick, The Penguin History of the Church, Early Church, V1, 256.
10. St. Augustine of Hippo, Confessions (Cincinnati, Illuminated Content, 2020), 92.
11. Peter King, Augustine on The Free Choice of the Will, On Grace and Free Choice, and Other Writings, 130.
12. Henry Chadwick, The Penguin History of the Church, Early Church, V1, 263.
13. Philip Melanchthon, Loci Communes.
Nathan Nocchi: It is a pleasure to reconnect with you again to learn about how the Lord is working in you and through your ministry. To begin, why don’t share about your upbringing and internal call to ministry, and what brought you to Westminster?
Joseph Fischer: It is great to be here, Nathan. I started to gain a sense of a desire for pastoral ministry around my junior year of high school. At that time, my then youth leader had hosted a seminar on how to teach the Bible, and I attended that. That was held on a weekly basis, and that was really the first place where I was preparing little five-minute sermonettes. Just the process of opening the Scripture, seeking to understand it, to apply it, and then to communicate those reflections to others was when I first felt an internal call. The way I've sometimes described it is, there's this scene in Eric Liddell’s Chariots of Fire where his sister is really upset with him because he's supposed to go to China and he's running as an Olympian. And he says to his sister, I know that I was made for China, but when I run, I feel God's pleasure.
And I felt very much like that in that seminar. I felt God's pleasure, and it was meaningful. So, from there, as that was developing, I then began receiving confirmation from my youth pastor. In fact, he asked me, “Hey, why don't you consider serving and help me lead children's school, giving Sunday school lessons?” And that was where the internal call started to intersect with the external. And so I increasingly wanted to pursue pastoral work, but being that I grew up in a tradition that did not have a clear pathway to do so, that was a bit disorienting. I was confused.
To make a longer story short, I kind of bumbled around for about eight months, and then eventually enrolled at a local community college, all while serving at our church. And it was in that context where I thought that I would finish my undergraduate studies and head to seminary. Within my first two years of college, my theological convictions began to develop and flourish. I had become acquainted with a Reformed soteriology in the thought of John Calvin. And because of this, a mentor who studied at Westminster and was ordained as a teaching elder at Redeemer Presbyterian in New
York City suggested that I consider Westminster, which, in the Lord’s providence, was not too far from where I was living.
NN: You are now serving as a campus minister at Rutgers University through RUF. How did the Lord lead you in that direction?
JF: Going into my final year at Westminster, I was serving part-time at a PCA church plant. It was becoming clear that a full-time position at this particular church would not become available to me, so I began thinking about where I can serve the Lord next. I had a heart for seeing healthy churches pop up in New Jersey, and more healthy ministries in general. Through the influence of Dr. Rob Edwards, I began to consider campus ministry. He shared his experience being a campus minister with RUF, and I would hear him discuss it in Westminster’s courses on evangelism and missions. I knew that there was not an RUF ministry at Rutgers University, which is the state university of New Jersey.
This is a university with nearly 40,000 undergraduate students, and about 84% of them are from New Jersey and half of them stay in New Jersey. And so I thought to myself that if a ministry at Rutgers could be organically and intimately connected to the church, and students could be reached with the gospel and then equipped to serve Christ in His kingdom, that would be a sort of pipeline to the churches in our state. So, I wanted to be a campus minister with this in view, not just a kind of rogue agent of Christianity. I wanted to be called by the church, sent by the church, and encourage my students to get connected to the church.
I regularly reiterate to students that if you are actually going to persevere in your faith, you must be connected to Christ’s body. It is one of my priorities to ensure that students are forming vital connections to the local church, and making sure that the local church is taking ownership of the ministry on campus. Just one example of this happened last semester when we held our weekly small group Bible study, and I arranged a mealtrain asking members from our church to provide a meal for each of our meetings. It was a beautiful thing when I
was able to announce that this meal was provided by this family from this church. I would tell students that you are loved, not just by me and my wife, but the church of Jesus Christ.
NN: What are the interactions like with students at a university that large? With the increasing political and cultural tensions in the public square, which we are all very well acquainted with at this point, how have things changed on the university campus? Are many hostile to your work for the gospel? What challenges have you faced?
JF: I often get this question, and to be honest and perhaps even to my surprise, there have not been many “in your face” challenges. For example, the administration itself is open-minded in terms of letting all voices be heard, even ones that they disagree with. I think part of this has to do with the large Muslim and Jewish populations at Rutgers. I believe the university has had run-ins with the Jewish students and their lawyers, and that did not exactly go in the administration’s favor. I think they are
less inclined to try to police religious speech in particular and religious behavior in general. So, any kind of opposition would be from the general student population. We do these bi-weekly tables where I have a whiteboard with some kind of question designed to raise spiritual conversations, questions like “are people born good or bad? Or “Are the gospels reliable biographies of Jesus?” I find that students are generally ignorant of these questions and are therefore intrigued. So, it seems to me, there has not been much animosity, but more apathy or indifference.
NN: So, in many respects, then, it is more like a teaching ministry than it is evangelism or anything else.
JF: Yes, that is right. As an example, I had a young woman ask “Who is Jesus?” She was genuinely unaware of Jesus. She said, “I have heard of Nazareth, but I have never heard of Jesus.” Additionally, many students just do not understand the concept of grace. They think behavior modification is all that is needed. There is a lot of work to do that is essentially teaching by nature.
NN: Why do you think this is the case? Is it primarily a problem with the church, or is it more basic than that, such as the family?
JF: It seems to be at a more basic level. Many of the students that I interact with did not have families that regularly attended church. They were not catechized in any meaningful way. Many of them understand Christianity by way of the caricatures that are promulgated in the media. I believe it was Timothy Keller who said that evangelism was like connecting the dots in people’s minds. People had the dots in their minds, such as objective morality, a common belief in a god, life after death, etc. Today, however, you have to draw the dots and then connect them. This caused me to think carefully about the fundamentals and how I would want to communicate them.
NN: As we think about the fundamentals and how we ought to communicate them, how has Westminster prepared you for this ministry at Rutgers?
JF: Westminster has helped me become a clearer thinker. The curriculum has helped me to engage the Scriptures, which is the whole counsel of God, at a sophisticated level. And while I learned much, I also saw how much I did not know. It was a humbling experience. One important truth that I gleaned from my studies is that while the Scriptures teach objective truth, which is inerrant and inspired, the application of that truth, in individual conversations, requires nuance. It is not as simple as providing information and expecting everyone to “get” it. And so while I grew confident because of my studies at Westminster, I also learned to be patient. I have found that working from the point of contact of the image of God, that all people are in a covenantal relationship with God, is vital for these conversations. And Westminster provided me with this toolbox, which is robust enough to address the concerns of students. I have also found that the redemptive historical framework has been a huge blessing to students at RUF. When they see the Scriptures as an unfolding narrative culminating in Christ, they are filled with wonder at the majesty and work of God.
NN: Praise the Lord for His work in these conversations! How have you been blessed by these interactions?
JF: One of the greatest blessings has been spending oneon-one time with students to see if they understand the basics of Christianity. These experiences remind me of Richard Baxter’s The Reformed Pastor, where he remarks that it is oftentimes the case that 30 minutes in private is more beneficial than 6 months of preaching. These sorts of experiences give you the opportunity to interact with the person, which goes a long way. And, sometimes, it is through these experiences that students get an idea or theological concept for the first time. In certain respects, it is like a father who helps take the training wheels off, and doing that for multiple children! I thank God for these experiences as they are such an encouragement, spurring me on in the work.
And to return to an earlier point, this makes me want to thank Westminster for faithfully training ministers. Part of my heart for why I am at Rutgers is that I would like to see young men trained up and go into the ministry. Dr. Robert Edwards, as it happens, was replaced by one of his students who had gone to Westminster. That is a beautiful storyline. Right now we have a young man who is a freshman, and he just started interning at our local church as he is trying to figure out his call to ministry. I think that, perhaps, I am investing in a young man who will go to Westminster, and come back to replace me, should the Lord call me elsewhere. This gets me excited for the work at Rutgers, and the work that Westminster has done since 1929.
NN: Brother, thank you for these thoughts and this encouraging conversation. How can our readership pray for you?
JF: There is an increasing spiritual hunger amongst young people. I believe this comes from a greater access to so much pleasure, which facilities the realization that those things are fleeting. For students who feel this way, it is my prayer that God would have our paths cross, so that their desert souls may be satiated by living water that Christ alone offers. So please pray that the Lord would direct our pathways. Also, prayer for what will be our third year at RUF would be wonderful. Last year was a particularly good year for our ministry, and this next academic year can be even better. So please pray that the Lord will work through this ministry for His glory.
In searching for beauty’s source, we encounter ultimate reality. In this new contribution to worldview thinking, Poythress shows how all creation reflects the Trinitarian God —and where philosophers go wrong.
“There may be no better Bible interpreter in conservative Reformed circles than Vern Poythress.”
William Edgar
“A deeply and distinctively Christian account of beauty and knowledge. . . . Clear and incisive.”
Christopher Watkin
Anewspaper headline questioning personhood and the right to life in Alabama in 2024 would likely raise some eyebrows, especially in our current political context with its orientation to identity politics. However, if one were to peruse that article and inspect it more closely, they would find that the issue at stake was not racism, but the status of so-called “clumps of cells,” which is not, so goes the argument, an issue to any comparable degree. In fact, the latter is chiefly a matter of religious belief, which, in the current American framework, is precisely that which should be sequestered to one’s private life; whereas the former is a non-religious matter of human and civil rights and, therefore, that which should govern life publicly.
In the current discourse, many have recently stated that the overturning of Roe v. Wade on June 24, 2022, was “a clear sign that the upper echelon of American legal power was delivering for evangelical extremists.”1 This sentiment was expressed repeatedly in most of the mainstream media outlets, becoming, as it were, a war horn against a coming theocratic politic propounded by those predominantly on the Right. As Linda Greenhouse recently remarked in her New York Times article, “the nation is awash in religiosity” and America is increasingly becoming aware of the “peril of the theocratic future toward which the country has been hurtling.”2 In response to this concern, a recent article in Politico written by a former evangelical pastor argued that the notion that life begins at conception is, in fact, a nineteenth-century
Roman Catholic invention; it is certainly not a doctrinal tenet of the historic protestant tradition. Thus, we as rational protestants ought not align with the Roman Catholic position, for their position logically prohibits the use of “reproductive technologies.”3
The world is God's and declares his glory and power. As such, any claim about that world is necessarily a theological claim. . .
All of this commentary has been prominently recirculating since the recent decision pronounced by Alabama justices in a civil case. With regard to this civil case, the story4 is that in 2020 a patient at a hospital in which a fertility clinic was housed happened to enter into a cryo-preservation unit where embryos were being stored for future use. The patient had removed several embryos, and because of the sub-freezing temperature control of the unit, dropped the embryos, which resulted in their being destroyed. The parents of those embryos
had pursued legal recourse against the hospital and clinic, appealing to a state statute called the Wrongful Death of a Minor Act, which was first enacted in 1872. After being rejected by the state courts, their pursuit eventually led them to the Alabama Supreme Court.
We need scholars who return to the sources of our tradition, so that we might have light for today. And the light shone here in this court case is indeed light from days past.
At the Supreme Court, the terms “unborn,” “children,” and “sanctity of life” were explored by the justices. This was done with a view to establish whether embryos, regardless of geographical location, were understood, at the time of the enactment of the Wrongful Death of a Minor Act, to be relevant to embryos in these peculiar circumstances of 2020. Supreme Court Justice Parker established that Alabama’s constitution understands that “human life is an endowment from God,” which is based upon the common law tradition expounded by the notable jurist William Blackstone. Parker adduces a passage from Blackstone in which it is said that “[l]ife is the immediate gift of God, a right inherent by nature in every individual.”5 Even though, as Parker notes, it is a recent phenomenon in the legal sphere that “sanctity of life” means that one cannot unjustly take a life, he argues that the notion is predicated upon the teaching of the Scriptures concerning the image of God in Genesis. To further support this idea, he cites theologians like Augustine and John Calvin, as well as the seventeenth-century theologian Petrus Van Mastricht’s Theoretical-Practical Theology Notably, Parker utilizes Westminster Seminary’s Todd Rester’s translation of Mastricht, particularly his commentary on the image of God, to support the argument regarding the sanctity of life. On the basis of
these (and other) arguments, it was ruled that embryos are protected under Alabama’s Wrongful Death of a Minor Act.
This is one of the many reasons that Christian scholarship is vitally important. Good scholarship generates greater access to Christian texts, texts which can be instructive and formative for future deliberations in church and society. As Justice Parker noted, “The goal of constitutional interpretation is to discern the original public meaning, which is “‘the meaning the people understood a provision to have at the time they enacted it.’” We need scholars who return to the sources of our tradition, so that we might have light for today. And the light shone here in this court case is indeed light from days past. The world is God’s and declares His glory and power. As such, any claim about that world is necessarily a theological claim; any claim about what it means to be human, is thus, intrinsically religious. And in the spirit of Blackstone, any articulation of natural rights utterly detached from the Supernatural is improper.
In this case, there was a clear victory of life over death. Christians ought not be ashamed when the truth prevails and the good is promoted. Indeed, one should not only not be ashamed of these changes, one should be eager to see the good flourish. As J. Gresham Machen once wrote, “The Christian cannot be satisfied so long as any human activity is either opposed to Christianity or out of all connection with Christianity. Christianity must pervade not merely all nations, but also all of human thought.” Where Christianity flourishes, all of life flourishes in the light of truth. As another divine in the seventeenth century, namely Johannes Althusius, put it, “what would human life be without the piety of the first table of the Decalogue, and without the justice of the second?”
1. https://www.msnbc.com/the-reidout/reidout-blog/christian -nationalists-republicans-rcna141239.
2. https://www.nytimes.com/2024/02/29/opinion/alabama -abortion-ivf.html.
3. https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2024/03/21/ life-conception-christian-theology-00147804.
4. For another summary, see https://publichealth.jhu.edu/2024/ the-alabama-supreme-courts-ruling-on-frozen-embryos.
5. https://publicportal-api.alappeals.gov/courts/68f021c4-6a44 -4735-9a76-5360b2e8af13/cms/case/343D203A-B13D-463A -8176-C46E3AE4F695/docketentrydocuments/E3D95592 -3CBE-4384-AFA6-063D4595AA1D.
O Church, arise, and put your armor on; Hear the call of Christ our captain.
For now the weak can say that they are strong In the strength that God has given. With shield of faith and belt of truth, We’ll stand against the devil’s lies.
An army bold, whose battle cry is Love, Reaching out to those in darkness.
Our call to war, to love the captive soul, But to rage against the captor;
And with the sword that makes the wounded whole, We will fight with faith and valor.
When faced with trials on every side, We know the outcome is secure.
And Christ will have the prize for which He died: An inheritance of nations.
Come, see the cross, where love and mercy meet,
As the Son of God is stricken;
Then see His foes lie crushed beneath His feet, For the Conqueror has risen!
And as the stone is rolled away, And Christ emerges from the grave, This victory march continues till the day
Ev’ry eye and heart shall see Him.
So Spirit, come, put strength in every stride; Give grace for every hurdle, That we may run with faith to win the prize Of a servant good and faithful.
As saints of old, still line the way, Retelling triumphs of His grace, We hear their calls, and hunger for the day
When with Christ we stand in Glory.
Charles Piazzi Smyth, The Great Comet (1843)
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