Why infant baptism matters (Calvin's Institutes, Battles edition: p. 1359, vol. 2)

As he so frequently does, John Calvin points us back to gratitude for God's goodness in 4.16.32 of his Institutes:

Now I think no sober person will be in doubt how rashly they stir up Christ's church with their altercations and contentions over infant baptism. But it behooves us to note what Satin is attempting with this great subtlety of his. He is trying to take away from us the singular fruit of assurance and spiritual joy which is to be gathered from it, and also to diminish somewhat the glory of the divine goodness. For how sweet it is to godly minds to be assured, not only by word, but by sight that they obtain so much favor with the Heavenly Father that their offspring are within his care? For here we can see how he takes on toward us the role of a most provident Father, who even after our death maintains his care for us, providng for and looking after our children. Should we not, following David's example, rejoice with all our heart in thanksgiving, that his name may be hallowed by such an example of his goodness (Ps. 48:10)? It is precisely this which Satan is attempting in assailing infant baptism with such an army: that, once this testimony of God's grace is taken away from us, the promise which, through it, is put before our eyes may eventuallly vanish little by little. From this would grow up not only an impious ungratefulness toward God's mercy but a certain negligence about instructing our children in piety. For when we consider that immediately from birth God takes and acknowledges them as his children, we feel a strong stimulus to instruct them in an earnest fear of God and observance of the law. Accordingly, unless we wish spitefully to obscure God's goodness, let us offer our infants to him, for he gives them a place among those of his family and household, that is, the members of the church.

How to be a sick Christian

Victor Austin's "How to be a Sick Christian" in the January 2015 issue of First Things is an immensely practical and helpful bit of pastoral advice. Austin writes as a fairly high-Church Episcopalian, so not all his points of application have direct correspondences in presbyterian faith and practice. However, "call your pastor" applies to pretty much every Christian everywhere, and we presbyterians are well-reminded that liturgical ritual brings a form of comfort different than, but not in opposition to, words grounded in Biblical truth.

This side of glory, illness is not an aberration in our lives: it is a univeral experience which, because we all hope to avoid it, most of us experience as an interruption to, rather than a piece with, our ordinary Christian lives. Until the Son of God, who first came to us in order to share our flesh with us, comes again for us in glory, we must learn to bear and sanctify our fallen-fleshly lives as did he.

1st day with solar panels

Over the last two days, our new solar panels were installed and set up.

Today the weather is overcast and rainy.

Two brilliant commentaries

In "Liturgy and Interchangeable Sexes," Peter Leithart considers Paul's 1st Timothy 2:12-14 commentary on Genesis 2-3 to show how "liturgical order and sexual order stand together;" that is, if male and female are interchangeable in the pulpit and at the Lord's Table, then they shall be in the bed as well.

In a different vein, Mark Tatulli, in his Lïo strip, offers the last word (in non-verbal form) on the shamefully large number of comic strips in today's newspapers which are either simply republished or carried on by lesser lights after their original, wildly inventive creators have died:

Why I Am a Catechetical Preacher (If “Catechesis” Is Defined Broadly Enough)

By the time I graduated from seminary, I was committed to consecutive expository preaching. I believed this was the method best suited to bring out the whole counsel of God’s Word and to guard both the congregation and preacher against unhealthy overemphasis on any  particualr doctrinal point. It seemed to me then, as it seems to me now, there are basically four ways in which the preacher can determine his text for the coming Sunday morning:

1) Choose his texts one by one as each Lord’s Day comes;

2) Preach through a book in a consecutive, expository manner;

3) Preach according to a catechism; or

4) Follow the Church calendar.

Method 1 poses certain dangers for the preacher, if not the congregation. If he chooses his texts each week, he runs the risk of avoiding exegetical, homiletical, and doctrinal challenges. Moreover, he may very well stick to a few tried and true topics, flattening out both his own and his congregation’s grasp of Scripture.

While catechetical preaching brings exposure to the full breadth of confessional doctrine, I must confess I was prejudiced against it by exposure only to its worst form. I had never heard a catechetical sermon before I took an elective course in preaching taught by a prominent minister in the Dutch Reformed tradition. One course requirement was to prepare a catechetical sermon outline; mine was graded down because I submitted an exposition of a Scripture text which illustrated the catechetical question’s doctrine rather than an exposition of the words of the catechism itself. 

I also had a presbyterian professor who encouraged the students to consider catechetical preaching. As an example of why this would be helpful, he pointed to a general ignorance amongst many of the assurance Christian parents may take that their children who die in infancy are in covenant with Christ. However, this is not a truth taught in the Shorter Catechism; it seemed to me, then, I would more likely have occasion to proclaim this doctrine if I preached through books of the Bible. And, in fact, this has been my experience: consecutive expository preaching does introduce a range of subjects much broader than found in our confessional standards, and for that reason ought be pursued.

Many, perhaps most, OP ministers have never considered following the Church calendar in their preaching, save for the occasional Easter or Christmas Eve message, but I grew up in mainline Churches where this is the rule, and some of my favorite reformed writers recommend it. Still, it struck me as unduly repetitive. Moreover, the annual returns to Christ’s birth, death, and resurrection struck me as at odds with the linearity of Biblical history. Christ’s Cross work was once and for all; a repetitive cycling back to it seemed to undermine this all-important truth.

I readily grant that choosing a book of the Bible to preach through is still a choice, one which pastors and sessions should make together with a weather eye toward the congregation’s needs in that season. Nonetheless, any given book of the Bible has “surprises” (I preached through 1 Corinthians in order to discuss Church unity, and found myself delivering sermons on sex and gender issues besides!) which will keep the preacher on his exegetical toes and, often, address previously unknown needs within the body. Entering the pastorate, I could think of no reason I would ever do anything other than consecutive expository preaching.

What changed me was a pastoral consideration of my congregation’s needs and how best to address them from the pulpit. Over the years, I discovered some fairly basic doctrines, such as the nature of the Spirit’s work in the present age, are not very well fixed in the minds of many (who often expressed a desire to understand it better). During state elections, congregants asked me why we should even care whether homosexual marriage is legal. It became clear to me that both sections of our Catechisms (what man is to believe concerning God and what duty God requires of man, WSC #3) need to be set before our people in a systematic way. Accordingly, our session agreed a number of years ago that I would preach a catechetical sermon once a month, after our fellowship meal.

From the beginning of my ministry, I had been beset by complaints that I did not preach an Easter sermon. Beside the fact that I was preaching on texts the session had chosen, I would usually respond, “Why Easter and not Pentecost?” The danger of such a question, of course, is that one may ask it of oneself. “Why not Pentecost?” What would happen if people heard a sermon about the outpouring of the Holy Spirit on the New Testament Church once a year? Might they begin to realize every Christian has Spiritual gifts? Likewise, four weeks of Advent each year may begin to help the believer ground all his expectations and hopes in our Lord’s Second Advent, when he will raise up our bodies in glory and make us perfectly blessed in body and soul forever.

That is, I came to realize that while we presbyterians have our Larger and Shorter Catechisms, the Church universal has a catechism in the Church year. In Hebrews 6:1-2, the Apostle reminds us of the basic catechetical doctrines of repentance and faith, baptism, ordination, the resurrection, and eternal judgment. These themes are visited in Advent (Christ’s Second Coming and baptism alongside John the Baptist’s ministry), Epiphany (the revelation of Christ to the world), and Eastertide with Pentecost (Christ’s and our resurrections), sometimes at greater length and in more detail than is found in the Shorter Catechism.

And so we have our current practice at Park Hill Presbyterian Church. From Advent through Pentecost, I preach texts in the morning which have been determined by the Revised Common Lectionary. People get Christmas and Easter, and Pentecost as well! The remainder of the calendar year, it’s consecutive preaching through some book of the Bible. In the evenings, I preach through another Bible book, with the exception of that monthly catechetical sermon. In this way, we are shored up in the essentials of our faith: not only our presbyterian faith, but our catholic and apostolic faith.

Sadly, but perhaps inevitably, recent seminary graduates get some things wrong. Thankfully, the ministry of Word and sacrament provides many learning opportunities, and sometimes both pastors and congregations learn from them.

Chiasm at Chick-Fil-A

 It really is true: once you start studying Biblical Hebrew, you see chiasms everywhere.

Theses on preaching: remember the kids

Some free-associating this afternoon called to mind a candidate for ministry who was to fill our pulpit some years ago. He was interested in employing certain theological categories and asked whether he could simply refer to them by name, or would have to explain them. From my experience, he wasn't alone: any number of pastors, particularly in their home congregations, can get into fairly technical weeds, the understanding of which would require some advance study. It may be that these men have particularly well-trained members, but I wonder.

It seems to me that in any congregation, at least any congregation with hope of surviving many years, there will always be the ignorant and unlearned. I speak, of course, of children. The presence of children, if nothing else, should compel preachers to use as simple and vivid language as possible, and to explain theological terms and ideas even if they are extraordinarily common. How else will all those erudite and learned pastors get well-trained members who they can lead through the theological weeds?

My doctor is trying to kill me

I have been diagnosed with "cochlear hydrops," which means there's a wee bit of fluid in my inner ear  which leads to a persistent sense of "ear fullness" (i.e., how your ears feel when you ascend in altitude just before they pop) and of very mild dizziness. Since I enjoy neither of these symptoms, I am on the only known treatment (which is 40% effective, yay!), which aims to reduce said fluid by the use of diuretics, a low-sodium diet, and avoiding caffeine; this last because caffeine can reduce  the vascular flow which might enable the fluid to pass out of my inner ear.

The eyebrows of my otologist (ear doctor; I didn't know that word, either) raised noticeably when I told him I typically drink four or more cups of coffee per day; he told me to cut way down, preferrably to none. However, "the nation's top nutrition panel" "said that consuming as many as five cups of coffee each day (400 mg) is tied to several health benefits," according to the Washington Post.  Turns out that "moderate" coffee consumption is 3-5 cups, which means I am, at my most excessive, moderate. (Full disclosure: to get through presbytery meetings, I often double my consumption; however, it's church coffee, which we all know hardly even counts.)

For once, your tax dollars are spent on a good cause: vindicating my dubious lifestyle choices. Thanks, federal government!

Puritan Sacramentalism (Calvin's Institutes, Battles edition: p. 1319, vol. 2)

Many defectors from Protestantism, particularly of the reformed and presbyterian variety, to Roman Catholicism or Eastern Orthodoxy cite a desire for a more serious and ceremonial liturgy. In "Puritan Sacramentalism," Peter Leithart argues that a simpler liturgy, stripped of unnecessary ceremony, takes the Spirit's work in and through the sacraments more seriously.

ADDENDUM: John Calvin echoes this sentiment, with just a wee bit more polemicism, in 4.15.19 of his Institutes of the Christian Religion. A couple choice lines:

By these experiences let us learn that there is nothing holier or better or safer than to be content with the authority of Christ alone.

How much better it would be to omit from baptism all theatrical pomp, which dazzles the eyes of the simple and deadens their minds...

Let Us Consider: a homily from Hebrews 10:23-25

(This homily was delivered at the opening of the April 3, 2012 stated meeting of the Presbytery of the Dakotas [OPC].)

Given the age in which we live, whether you’ve ever preached our text, you’ve almost certainly turned to it as you’ve exhorted a Church member to more faithful attendance at Sunday services. And well you should! Particularly when we understand the connection between the eschatological Day of Hebrews 10:25 and the Sabbath day of Hebrews 4, this text calls us to see the Church’s Lord’s Day services as the primary place to discharge our Christian duties of mutual edification and encouragement. Nonetheless, because the Apostle directs us to love and good deeds, a category broader than liturgical action, we are also called to dedicate ourselves to assembling together for encouragement, on the basis of our shared hope, on other occasions as well. If all our people understood and lived out these few verses, our congregations could all be more vital and uplifting places. A great many of our congregations’ problems would disappear if all our members considered how to stimulate one another to love and good deeds.

In most sermons there comes what I like to think of as the “Nathan moment,” when the preacher turns the sermon back on the congregation and announces, as the prophet Nathan did to King David, “you are the man” (2 Samuel 12:7).

Brothers, you are the man.

We have neglected to stimulate one another to love and good deeds and have forsaken mutual encouragement. While we all get along quite nicely when forced together by our bylaws and Form of Government twice a year, only a crazy man would suggest the other 359 days of the year are filled with edification and comfort. Indeed, we are often blithely unaware of the most momentous events in one another’s lives and congregations until the spiritual reports are delivered on Tuesday morning. [Stated meetings of the Presbytery of the Dakotas are preceded by reports on the spiritual progress of the congregations, with prayer for each.] We sit together in council, but we are not as faithful as our Lord in our brotherly duties to one another. We worship together twice a year, but do not seek out other occasions to assemble together.

This being so, what are the works fitting to our corporate repentance?

While institutional reforms might do us some good, and I intend to make several suggestions along those lines, we must first acknowledge no reform will do us any good unless we first make a heart commitment to recognize one another as brethren to whom we not only are accountable, but to whom we each need to be accountable. A number of years ago this body considered charging its Sessional Oversight Committee to regularly visit the congregations of our Regional Church. During those debates, a brother confided to me that he feared such visitations not only would not be a help, but would become a hindrance due to unwise committee members. To this day, I rather suspect his sentiment is shared by others.

That, of course, is why we must commit ourselves to considering how to stimulate one another to love and good deeds. We would be fools to think ourselves immune to the American diseases of individualism, congregationalism, and confident exceptionalism. We will each, I am sure, continue to believe that we are right and, on certain occasions, the body wrong; precisely because we believe that, we must begin seeking out each other’s counsel and offering prayer for one another. We must act as though we need mutual edification if we are ever to learn the true depths of that need.

To begin, then, ask not how the Presbytery of the Dakotas can encourage you, but how you can encourage the presbyters of the Regional Church of the Dakotas. What can you do to build relationships with the men in the congregations geographically closest to yours? How can you come to know the sister Churches throughout our region well enough to pray for them intelligently when the last presbytery meeting was five months ago? What can you do to bring together the members of our various congregations throughout the year?

Secondly, honesty should characterize our meetings: without any institutional changes at all, honesty and transparency would enable us to minister to one another, and care for the Churches under our supervision, much more effectively. An anecdote: a number of years ago, I e-mailed another pastor asking how our congregation could pray for his. This was one of those providentially orchestrated moments when he needed someone to talk to: as e-mails led to phone calls, I learned of divisions within the congregation and session, and serious questions as to his future in that call. At the next presbytery meeting, I listened with interest and surprise to the spiritual report from that congregation. Not only was there no mention of trouble, one got the impression of an active and Spiritually vital place. Of course, he wasn’t lying: even the most troubled Church is still a Church, and one can usually find enough good things to bring to presbytery that none need suspect some bad news is being omitted. Ever since, I’ve taken our Tuesday morning reports with a grain of salt.

This congregation’s problems could not be kept under wraps indefinitely, and eventually the pastor left and the presbytery got involved. By that point, it was too late for us to offer much help, and this Church went into a period of severe decline. Here we come to the really depressing part of my story: those of you who’ve been in the Regional Church of the Dakotas for the past 12 years, as I have, will have some trouble figuring out which congregation I’m talking about. Depending on how one judges these things, we’ve had about a half-dozen de facto Church splits or sudden pastoral resignations during my tenure here, and a large portion of those have come to a head shortly after a stated meeting of presbytery at which no mention was made of the brewing crisis. We cannot help sessions, congregations, or pastors who refuse to give an honest accounting of their congregational lives. Brothers, give us the opportunity to encourage you and counsel you toward more perfect love and a greater plenitude of good deeds. You owe it to this presbytery and to your congregations by virtue of your ordination vows, not to mention by virtue of our duty to Jesus Christ, the Lord and head of his Church.

Thirdly, let us consider our institutional life. Our bylaws were not delivered atop Pike’s Peak on tablets of stone, and could be much improved. Other presbyteries have found ways to address some of the problems which chronically plague our Regional Church, and we would do well to learn from the brethren. 

Less formal mechanisms are also open to us. I have used my time as moderator to promote gatherings before our stated meetings convene which create opportunity for discussion of issues of interest to our Regional Church and to the broader Church as well. (Such gatherings are held regularly by the Presbytery of Northern California and Nevada.) By design, we debate rather than discuss during presbytery meetings. Since this is how presbyteries are supposed to function, that is a good thing. However, those debates would be much improved if we had other occasions to engage in dialogue: the nuances of a man’s position can rarely be fully communicated in a floor speech. Thankfully, we are presbyterians, and when such a thing has been done three times, it has become an inviolate tradition.

Some further suggestions: perhaps our ministers and elders could gather together in geographically convenient groups for prayer and discussion every couple months. Perhaps similarly grouped meetings of deacons could gather to coordinate on local needs. Perhaps the  stated clerk could distribute communications a month before the presbytery convenes so those documents could be studied and men could meet to gain a better understanding of the issues we will be called upon to judge when we sit in formal assembly.

All this will take time and energy, commodities precious to each one of us. But brethren, what choice do we have? We have been called into the service of the Great High Priest, who offered himself as the once and for all sacrifice for our sins. Let us draw near to him with sincere hearts. Let us confess our hope by discharging our presbyterial office according to the cruciform standard of his own work on our behalf. Let us consider how to stimulate one another to love and good deeds, and all the more as we see the day drawing near. He is faithful; let us be found, by his grace and the power of his Spirit, faithful to our calling as well.