Presbyterian comes from the Greek word for elder. These are elected by the people. The elders meet as the ruling body of each particular church, and the elders of a region meet together as a broader court, dealing with the ministry of the whole area. Usually once a year, all the elders of the denomination, or a representative group of them, meet as a General Assembly, or Synod, to resolve questions of importance to the whole church, as did the apostles and other leaders in Acts 15.

Don’t revile those who haven’t come to appreciate your thinking. Reason gently with them, recognizing that you could be wrong and arrogant to boot. Don’t be reflexively critical of everything that comes out of a different tradition. Be humble enough to consider that other traditions may have something to teach you. Be teachable before you start teaching them. Take the beam out of your own eye.

In criticizing other theologians, traditions, or movements, follow biblical ethics. Don’t say that somebody is a heretic unless you have a very good case. Don’t throw around terms like “another gospel.” (People who teach another gospel are under God’s curse.) Don’t destroy people’s reputations by misquoting them, quoting them out of context, or taking their words in the worst possible sense. Be gentle and gracious unless you have irrefutable reasons for being harsh.

I believe the NT teaches that the teaching and ruling offices in the church, that is, the eldership, are limited to men. 🧵 In 1 Cor. 14:34–35, Paul teaches that when the elders of the church meet to judge whether a prophecy is authentic, the women should not participate in this judgment. In 1 Tim. 2:11–15, Paul says that women should not participate in the official teaching of the church, nor

So many of our worship battles are far worse because of a shortage of servant hearts. 1/ Young people (I assume that young people are usually the advocates of contemporaneity), can’t you see that your fathers and mothers in the Lord need to have their old songs? Using only the new ones is hard for them—just as hard as it would be for you to use only the old ones. 2/

We hear the titles of Israel, kingdom of priests and holy nation, again in the NT, in 1 Pet. 2:9, where the apostle says, “You are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession.” So the NT church, like OT Israel, is God’s own special people, 1/ the continuation of Israel. Significantly, the Greek translation of Deuteronomy uses the term ecclesia, “church,” to represent the “gathering” of the people into God’s presence. Israel was the church of the old covenant; the NT church is the Israel of the new covenant, 2/

In the NT, Jesus pronounced the blessing of God on infants (Luke 18:15–17). Jesus wasn’t just showing affection for the babies. Blessing is a very serious matter in Scripture. In blessing, God places his name on his people, as the high priest did in Numbers 6:27. 1/ In blessing the children, Jesus put his name on them. Significantly, baptism in the NT is baptism into the name of Jesus (Acts 2:38; 8:12, 16; 10:48; 19:5; 22:16). Further, in Acts 2:39, Peter proclaims that the promise of the new covenant is “for you and for your children.” 2/

The perseverance of the saints. This doctrine does not teach that everybody who makes a profession of faith is eternally saved. Scripture is fully aware that some professing Christians apostatize, turn away from the truth. Judas Iscariot is the paradigm case. 1/ In John, many who “believe” in Jesus later turn away (John 6:66; 8:31–59). There are solemn warnings about apostasy and apostates in Hebrews 6:4–8; 10:26–30; 1 John 2:19. 2/

[Regeneration] is a divine act, causally and temporally prior to any human thought or act. So there is no reason to suppose that this blessing is given only to adults or to people of a certain level of intellectual maturity. It is in this context that we should understand the leaping “for joy” of the unborn John the Baptist when his mother met Mary the mother of Jesus (Luke 1:41, 44). This passage does not describe a typical random movement of an unborn baby. Rather,

Reformed theology has often distinguished between the special teaching office, which consists of the ordained elders, and the general teaching office, which includes all believers. 1/ The special office has distinct qualifications: an extraordinary spiritual maturity together with unusual, Spirit-given ability to teach. The church recognizes these qualities through the laying on of hands. 2/

The civil laws are defined as the laws of the state of Israel as it existed in the Old Testament period. There are a number of problems, however, with this concept: 1/ The laws of the Pentateuch rarely indicate precisely who is to enforce them. Some fall under the authority of judges (e.g., Ex. 21:22), while others are the province of the priests (e.g., Lev. 1–9). Sometimes the elders play a role (as in Deut. 19:12). 2/

As I get older, I am less and less impressed by people, including theologians, who think they have everything figured out. 1/ Theologians readily confess God’s incomprehensibility as a doctrinal point, but often they go on from there to write as if they had that ultimate and final knowledge that belongs to God alone. We need to get over the idea that theology takes all the mystery out of the world. 2/

The great question confronting modern humanity is this: Granted that the universe contains both persons (such as you and me) and impersonal structures (such as matter, motion, chance, time, space, and physical laws), which is fundamental? Is the impersonal aspect of the universe grounded in the personal, or is it the other way around? Secular thought generally assumes the latter—that persons are the products of matter, motion, chance, and so on.
Let us think through the consequences of both views.

People sometimes say that Scripture is sufficient for theology, but not for other areas of life, like science, history, plumbing, politics, car repairs. But that idea misunderstands the sufficiency of Scripture. Remember always: Scripture is sufficient as the word of God. It gives us all the words of God we will ever need. So Scripture contains all the word of God we need for theology—but also for ethics, politics, the arts, plumbing and car repair.

Periodic reminder. When there is a controversy, don’t get on one side right away. Do some analytical work first, on both positions. Consider these possibilities: (a) that the two parties may be looking at the same issue from different perspectives, so they don’t really contradict;

Christian counselors must hold firmly to the sufficiency of Scripture. But of course if they have ONLY Scripture, and refuse to apply Scripture to situations and people, then their counseling can’t get off the ground. Of course Scripture is our rule, our ultimate authority. But everyone understands that we USE Scripture by APPLYING it to situations outside of Scripture. So to use Scripture, we must understand things beyond Scripture.

It is important to remember that the object of our faith is Christ, not faith itself... certainly we should not look inward without looking outward at the same time.
But it is important not only to look at God’s promises, but to see how God is fulfilling those promises within us. The continuing presence of sin should not discourage us, because God does not promise to make us sinlessly perfect in this life. But he does promise growth in grace, growth in holiness. When we see that, it increases our confidence that God’s promises apply to us.

As I indicated [in ST], overseers must be competent to teach, preach, and maintain orthodoxy in the church. Overseers should not be elected or appointed if they have not shown a detailed knowledge of Scripture and the gospel. One way to determine their orthodoxy is to prepare them to endorse a formal doctrinal statement.
But there is no evidence that this was done in NT times.

Even though there was no confessional subscription during the biblical period, it is possible to argue

A few years ago there was a debate in the Presbyterian Church in America (PCA) on the nature of confessional subscription. Some argued for strict subscription, in which an officer must subscribe to every statement in the confession. Some strict subscriptionists allow for ministers to take exceptions to minor points of the confession, but they forbid the ministers to teach or preach their exceptions. Looser forms of subscription include system subscription, the present formula of the PCA,

Gentleness is not usually one of the first qualities we look for in a pastor. In fact, I think gentleness is one of those Christian virtues that falls through the cracks when we’re evaluating ourselves and others. Ironically, the concept of gentleness seems itself to be very gentle. It doesn’t shout out at us; it almost seems to hide within those long lists of virtues.

It is impossible to exclude absolute certainty in all cases. Any argument purporting to show that there is no such certainty must admit that it is itself uncertain. Further, any such argument must presuppose that argument itself is a means of finding truth. If someone uses an argument to test the certainty of propositions, he is claiming certainty at least for that argument. And he is claiming that by such an argument he can test the legitimacy of claims to certainty. But such a test of certainty, a would-be criterion of certainty,