Dr. B.T.D. Smith, who taught the Synoptic Gospels (Matthew, Mark, and Luke) at Cambridge in the 1940s was into the sport of finding faults in the Bible, especially after he trashed his profession of faith in Christ. The testimony of eyewitnesses like J.R. Stott verify that Smith had no truck with Biblical authority and that a sadistic, almost Frankenstein-delight was to ridicule the supposed blunders in the Word of God. For example, one of his students vividly remembers his mocking tone when he addressed the history recorded in Luke 3:1,* when– after licking his chops– he lisped: “Thith pathage thimply brithleth with difficultieth!” *The historical accuracy of this passage is challenged by higher critics. A good Bible commentary will explain the issues and defend the accuracy of Luke’s history.”
2. Bible Ignorance on the American Frontier
During the early days of American frontier history, church membership was mostly at ebb tide. For example, in 1800 only 7 per cent of the population was churched (just as on The Mayflower, only twelve were members of the first New England Church). Thus, (at least for a few decades) the US frontier was a kind of “howling wilderness” where theological ignorance reigned supreme. To illustrate: historian Ross Phares in his book, The Story of Frontier Religion, recounts a Presbyterian evangelist who accosted a woman on the frontier while seeking a colleague of his own Presbyterian ilk: “Are there any Presbyterians in this country?” The woman, assuming that the stranger must be a hunter (as he had emerged out of the woods), responded: “Wal, I just couldn’t say for sure about that. These woods is full of most very kind of varmet, but I ain’t paid much attention to ‘em. You might take a look around there on the back side of the cabin where my husband keeps his varmet hides, and see if he’s got any Presbyterian hides nailed up. If there’s any Presbyterians in this country, he’s bound to have caught one by now.”
3. Good-Humored Presbyterians
On the mission field on the American West the Presbyterian ministers tended to be well-schooled, polite, and good-humored. For example, one minister who applied for lodging at a tavern was easily identified by the landlord before he spoke a word: “Stranger, I perceive that you are a clergyman. Please let me know if you are a Presbyterian or a Methodist.” “Why do you ask?” queried the Presbyterian. “Because I wish to please my guests, and I have observed that a Presbyterian minister is very particular about his own food and bed, and a Methodist about the feed and care of his horse.” “ Very well said,” responded the Presbyterian. “ I am a Presbyterian, but my horse is a Methodist.” (B.A. Botkin, A Treasury of American Anecdotes, p. 123)
4. Was There Once a “Good Pope”?
John Calvin is famous for his kudos of Gregory the Great (540- 604), even praising him as “the last good pope.” If true, what did Gregory do to earn Calvin’s splendiferous acclamation and respect? Such praise deserves an investigation. Here’s a dossier of virtues: a. Gregory excoriated abuses in the Church, including ungodly Popes who lorded themselves over God’s sheep. b. Gregory opposed the idea of one, universal Pope, who ruled over all Christendom, defining a good pope as “the servant of the servants of God.” c. Gregory was a zealous evangelist, deputizing missionaries to convert the pagan Anglo-Saxons. When he first saw English boys in the slave market in Rome, his missionary gene went public, when he famously corrected an unflattering ethnic assessment that described them as mere“Angles,” to which he trumped,“Not Angles, but angels.” He seemed to view every stripe of man as a candidate for the Gospel. d. He was a prolific writer of Dialogues and commentaries, such as Job, Ezekiel, and the four Gospels. e. He battled the Arian and Donatist heretics to the glory of God. f. He sent Augustine of Canterbury and Paulinus of York to preach the Gospel to the Anglo-Saxons. g. He is called the patron saint of musicians, singers, students, and teachers, and perhaps even the father of the Gregorian Chant. h. His epitaph contains the self-effacing appellation: the“consul of God.” i. His most famous books are his Pastoral Care which delineate the duties of a bishop, and– his Dialogues which address the Medieval idea of the holy. j. The second book of the Dialogues provide a biography of St. Benedict of Nursia. k. While he possessed consummate administrative skills, he was particularly known for a consecrated life of prayer and contemplation. l. He is tagged by some as “the father of Christian worship,” because of his zeal to make the worship in Rome more Biblical. m. He wrote hymns, one of which is published in the blue Trinity Hymnal (#134), which begins: O CHRIST, OUR KING, CREATOR LORD, SAVIOR OF ALL WHO TRUST IN THY WORD,…” Thus, Calvin crowned him not as “the good last pope,” but, “the last good pope.”
5. Telling Pulpit Inscriptions
What words are the most suitable to adorn a Protestant pulpit where the lively preaching of the Word is at a premium? We hear of pulpits that showcase John 17:17, “Thy Word is Truth,” or 1Corinthians 2:2 ,“I am determined to know nothing among you, save Jesus Christ and Him crucified,” or the Ten Commandments, or John 14:6 “I am the Way, the truth, and the life,” or Sola Scriptura, etc.* At the All Souls Church in London where the late John R.W. Stott ministered for many years we hear Stott’s biographer (Timothy Dudley-Smith) plugging the request of the Grecians for Christological preaching in John 2:21,“Sirs, we would see Jesus.” *Sola Scriptura is an excellent pulpit inscription. Yet, there are two warnings: First, it must not be used to nullify the doctrine of toto scriptura (that is, all of Scripture); and, it must not be employed to baptize the notion of nuda scriptura, which discounts the derivative authority of the creeds of the Church.
6. A Misapplied Mantra for Missions?
When churches hold a Missionary Conference, a banner or theme is often chosen to mark the occasion. Sometimes “errors of enthusiasm” are made such as employing Acts 1:8, where the resurrected Christ commanded,“And you shall be witnesses unto me in Judea, Samaria, and unto the uttermost parts of the earth.” Whatever could render such a wonderful text problematic? The principal reason is that by the time the Book of Acts was finished and with Paul under house arrest in Rome, he was preaching the Gospel “unhindered” to the Gentiles (which fulfilled the command of Acts 1:8). (See also Colossians 1:6, 23; Matthew. 24:14; 2 Timothy 4:17). As Dr. Richard Gaffin Jr, clarified: “Acts 1:8 is not addressed directly to the church today. It is not a mandate for present worldwide witness. The ‘you’ in Acts 1:8 is not a general ‘you”; it does not include the church of whatever time and place in history. It is addressed specifically and only to the apostles concerning worldwide task they eventually completed.”* *A better slogan for a modern missionary conference is Matthew 28:19-20, which commands the Church to evangelize “to the end of the age.”
7. The Bicyclist
The late John R.W. Stott preached a sermon at rch in London that warned the people about attending churches that were so distant from their immediate neighborhoods that they were forced to drive distances that were too remote and taxing to be practical. In his congregation was a young woman (a student) who traveled to All Souls from a great distance and whose tender conscience about cycling in front of the closer neighborhood churches began to throb guiltily. Her heart and soul thoroughly wedded to All Souls, she took steps to reroute her Sunday morning journey, avoiding the sight of all the competition, even if such maneuvering lengthened her travel time to All Souls (which it did).
“Lux Mundi” is the magazine of the International Conference of Reformed Churches, of which the RCUS is a member. See what’s happening around God’s world.
In our last update, I mentioned that Omaha Reformed was experiencing a new thing. Instead of having new members and families come and stay, as we had the first five years of our mission, we had several families either move closer to family, retire, or get assigned to different duty stations. Our numbers were and to a degree are diminished. However, over the last year and a half, we are encouraged that the Lord has brought us a number of individuals and two families. Some of these are already members, while others are still in the process of joining This past Sunday one of these families, Benjamin and Shellie Pratt, by the public profession of faith joined the member- ship of Omaha Reformed Church. We took 4 months going through The Basics of Christianity and the Reformed Faith. During the service, we received them as members and they could join in celebrating the sacrament of the Lord’s Supper. Afterward, we enjoyed a soup-themed fellowship meal at which we welcomed Isaiah Forba back from a three-month deployment. It was a joyful day.
Vermillion Church News
Confirmation was held at Providence Reformed Church, Vermillion, SD on December 11, 20. We rejoice to have the confirmation of Dreaka and Cora Haverhals.
In 2019, the Synod created a Strategic Planning Special Committee to review our practices and to suggest ways in which the RCUS can use our limited resources to more faithfully advance the kingdom of God. Two years later, the committee presented its report. It said, in part: “Instead of only relying on our own perceptions of the strengths and weaknesses of the RCUS, your committee sought counsel from ten other denominations by sending them a series of questionnaires addressing a variety of subjects. “We asked leaders and experts in these denominations to offer “unofficial” counsel and promised that they would not be named in our report. These leaders and experts came not only from our fraternal churches, but from the Associate Reformed Presbyterians, Presbyterian Church of America, Evangelical Presbyterians, Southern Baptists, Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod, and others…. “We divided our subject areas into Home Missions, Missionary Training, Church Planting, Foreign Missions, Technology, Communications (including social media), Pensions, and Planned Giving. We also divided our committee into Teams: Best Practices, Missions, Technology, Communications, and Finance, to handle the work of drafting, circulating, collecting and collating our questionnaire responses.” It was a major undertaking, involving hundreds of hours of interviews over two years, and collecting thousands of pages of manuals and documents. We were humbled and gratified at the willingness of denominational leaders with whom we had little or no previous contact, to engage with us, and share their resources and experiences. The majority of the committee’s recommendations were adopted, but it is one thing to adopt, and quite another to implement, particularly when it meant changing the ways to which we had become accustomed. We learned about financing church plants from the Southern Baptists, how to structure pension plans and planned giving from the Missouri Synod Lutherans. We learned about how to be welcome new congregations from the Conference of Conservative Congregation Churches. Virtually all of these denominations offered insights into funding foreign ministries, building successful home missions, and utilizing digital communications. While some of the practices of others were “non-starters” for the RCUS, a surprising number were solid, practical, and financially responsible. The most visible change you may have noticed is our new website, specifically designed to welcome those inquiring about joining a conservative, Reformed denomination. A new Communications Committee built a social media presence on Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn. We designed a new logo featuring our founding date of 1725, anticipating our 300th Anniversary in 2025. We collected emails from all church officers – not just delegates to synod – and regularly communicate broadly about the activities and ongoing needs of the church. We sought out digital experts who helped make our website a destination that now gets several times as many visits as denominations many times our size. Synod established a Welcoming Committee to handle inquiries received from our website. Those inquiries have already resulted in the addition of a new church and ministers who found out about pulpit vacancies on our site. Committees began meeting monthly, becoming much more active. Our Finance Committee has brought on a part-time development director to meet with those interested in planning a legacy for the ministries of the church. To be sure, we have a long way to go. The 2022 Synod encouraged our Home Missions Committee to revisit the Special Committee report with a goal in view of finding ways to plant churches more effectively. The Orthodox Presbyterian Church has regional Home Missionaries who travel from home mission to home mission, proactively encouraging the congregations to give and to evangelize. The Southern Baptists require a church planter to be trained in church planting before going on the field. The Associate Reformed Presbyterians look for locations where a church can reasonably foresee growing to 300-500 members, and to insist that these new churches then engage in church-planting themselves. If a home mission does not grow annually in numbers or giving, the Presbyterian Church in America pulls funding and invests their resources elsewhere. The Southern Baptists are, surprisingly, even more strict. The church planter, after being trained, must find a church to “sponsor” him, paying his salary. He must then find people to fill four key roles before the work can be designated as a Southern Baptist church. They are: 1) a facilities person, who finds a location to meet and and secures chairs, a piano, hymn books, etc., 2) someone to run the Sunday School program, 3) someone to oversee music, from the pianist (or whatever instrument is available) to the children’s choir, and 4) a finance person who opens the checking account, makes deposits and – most interestingly – sits down with the core families and the proposed budget and asks for commitments for the year. In other words, the nation’s largest Protestant denomination provides church-planter training, Sunday School materials, etc, but seldom direct funding. It works for them, but that doesn’t mean it will work for us. What almost certainly would work is requiring members in the church plant to share the workload instead of leaving everything to the pastor and his wife. What clearly does not work is investing funding in a prospective church plant whose members aren’t interested in inviting people to church, sharing the work, or making a financial commitment. The Welcoming Committee reports, perhaps surprisingly to some, that most of those contacting the RCUS through the website rarely even mention funding. They are looking for a church that is faithful. That, of course, should be encouraging to us. Our “growth problem” is not, primarily, a financial one. We simply were not reaching out and welcoming those of like faith eager to be part of a confessional, sound Reformed denomination. Thankfully, that is changing. I would encourage your prayers for those serving on the Welcoming Committee as they come alongside inquiring groups. Pray for the dedicated brothers on our Home Missions Committee as they labor to foster home mission congregations committed to building a genuinely Reformed witness in their communities. Remember the brethren on the Finance Committee who are implementing many of these “best practices,” to ensure we are careful and productive stewards of the resources God has entrusted to us. None of us want to be the steward who buried his talent. The pandemic had as much to do with our improved use of technology as our intentional acts. We learned to livestream, we learned to communicate remotely, and we learned that these new skills can continue to be useful in spreading the gospel and growing churches. City Seminary and Heidelberg Theological Seminary, two schools closely associated with the RCUS, adopted online classes. Today, they continue offering online classes – in the Philippines and throughout Latin America. They use Zoom, Google Classroom, and WhatsApp, enabling students around the globe to train for the gospel ministry. Online giving became the norm in many congregations, often resulting in a growth in giving. We’re more informed than ever before about our mission partners like Westminster Biblical Missions, Reformed Faith and Life, etc., and diaconal works such as Hope Haven. The world has changed remarkably in the last two years, and yet we are still the RCUS. We are, if anything, more committed to our confessions. Our pastors and elders, though wearied, have not faltered. We are acutely aware that for 297 years, our Reformed Church has persevered, though not without struggles. We stand in a long line of those who sacrificed and labored so that there would be a Reformed Church for their children and grandchildren. We feel the weight of it, but it has also strengthened our resolve. And like those who have carried the banner in generation after generation, we know that we persevere only by the grace of our Sovereign God.
Predestination is the doctrine that the sovereignty of God determines the eternal destiny of all things, including the salvation of souls. It is a sometimes controversial doctrine, and there are many different interpretations of it. It is most commonly associated with the writings of St.Paul, Augustine, John Calvin, and Martin Luther.
Some people believe that predestination means that God has chosen an elect people to be saved, giving them the gift of faith in Christ and His substitutionary sacrifice on the cross, while passing over others, leaving them in their sin and unbelief. Others believe that predestination means that God has chosen to save all people, but that some people will reject his salvation. Still others believe that predestination means that God has chosen to save some people, but that he will not force them to accept his salvation.
The doctrine of predestination is based on the Bible, which teaches that God is sovereign and that he has a plan for the universe. The Bible also teaches that God is loving and merciful, and that he wants all people to be saved. How then, can God allow some people to perish?
A Protestant principle of Bible interpretation, or hermeneutics, is that “Scripture interprets Scripture.” This means that verses are not to be interpreted in isolation, but within the context of the whole Bible. What the Bible teaches, in both the Old Testament and New, is that we are born sinful, a result of the fall into sin of our first parents, Adam and Eve, in the Garden of Eden. This is called the doctrine of Original Sin. To make matters worse, we increase our guilt by sinning in thought and deed every day. In fact, the Bible says we are ethically “dead in our trespasses and sin.” Since all have sinned, all are guilty and condemned to eternal punishment. The story doesn’t end there, however, but unfolds into the glorious story of redemption, made possible when God’s Son offered His own life on the cross to redeem us from the guilt and power of sin, if only we believe.
So where does predestination fit into this story? The Bible says that, even though all have sinned, God has graciously given the gift of faith in Christ to His chosen people, enabling them to repent of their sins and be forgiven. In the fourth chapter of Ephesians, St. Paul explains this doctrine:
““Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ, just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before Him in love, having predestined us to adoption as sons by Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the good pleasure of His will….”
Ephesians 1:3-5 NKJV
The doctrine of predestination can be a difficult doctrine to understand, and it can be either a source of comfort or anxiety, depending on how it is interpreted. It is important to remember that the doctrine of predestination is not the only doctrine in the Bible, and that it is also not the most important doctrine. The most important doctrine is the doctrine of salvation, which teaches that Jesus Christ died on the cross to save His people from their sins.
The biblical doctrine of predestination is most commonly associated today with Reformed and Presbyterian churches. If you would like to explore how the sovereignty of God and predestination can be a comfort to the believer, a good introductory book is The Reformed Doctrine of Predestination, by Loraine Boettner. A free audio version is available here.
"The heavens declare the glory of God; And the firmament shows His handiwork. Day unto day utters speech, And night unto night reveals knowledge. There is no speech nor language where their voice is not heard."
(Ps. 19:1-3)
Well, the weather has been a bit frigid so far this winter. The snowstorms seemed to correspond perfectly with our plans for trips into Sioux Falls to pick up friends and family from the airport. Now that made for some interesting travel! After the several days of bitter cold, the many inches of snow falling over all surfaces, the driving wind piling that same snow into four foot tall snow drifts in the yard; after all this, it was indeed a pleasant relief to enjoy temps in the mid 20’s, the bright shining snow and calm skies. God is good. In the “heat of the day” of these recent days, my lovely wife and I enjoyed pleasant strolls around town. We were amazed at the glorious crystalized frost flakes from the morning fog; at the symmetrical patterns in the snow drifts, and even at the beautifying effect of the pure white snow upon an otherwise brown landscape. These are but a few of the multitude of evidences of which the Psalmist speaks in this 19th Psalm of the testimony of God concerning Himself. God shows us a glimpse of Himself in the creation which is all around us. Now we must be careful, this psalm is not saying that creation is God, nor is it saying that creation is “just like” God. Rather, in this psalm we hear King David contemplate the many ways in which creation “speaks” the words of God to all people. God is not silent. So far from being silent is God, that the psalm speaks of a virtual shouting whereby the word of God is declared clearly, boldly, and universally across the globe. This is called “general revelation”; that is, all of creation actively proclaims the truth about the nature of God, so much so that the wonder of God cannot be honestly denied. The Apostle Paul picks up this line of thought in the first chapter to the Romans:
For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead, so that they are without excuse, because, although they knew God, they did not glorify Him as God, nor were thankful, but became futile in their thoughts, and their foolish hearts were darkened. Professing to be wise, they became fools. (Rom 1:20-22)
Verse two of this 19th Psalm reminds us that this speech, or utterance, or revelation of God is continuously being set upon display. True knowledge of God is being shown. All of creation shows us something of the wonder, glory, faithfulness of our God! Every time that we witness the wonder of God, in its beauty, severity, or awesome power; it is as if we are seeing God declare to us afresh:“I am here and I have shown Myself in all of my power and glory.” The Dutch theologian, Abraham Kuyper (1837-1920) is famously remembered for his insight into God and His creation with these words:“There is not a square inch in the whole domain of our human existence over which Christ, who is Sovereign over all, does not cry, Mine!’ Often times we look upon the glory of the sunset, or the won- der of the summer skies, and see the handiwork of God. This is good, the heavens indeed declare the glory of God. But let’s not stop there, but with fresh eyes look all about us, as every facet of creation speaks clearly, and to all, the wonder of our creator God. The big picture, as well as the minutia, proclaim the wonders of the Lord. It is easy to be overwhelmed by the added struggles of living with the cold and storms; but this is just a brief encouragement to take a closer look, and to consider what we truly learn about God, as we witness His handiwork today. Have a blessed week.
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