The congregation recently released a special statement highlighting its troubled history and explaining why the church changed its name to “Redeeming Grace Church.” The statement also explained why the congregation left the Reformed Presbyterian Church of North America denomination. One factor in such a separation is that it would allow the church to welcome back some of the former leaders sanctioned for their roles in the abuse case.

WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. – A West Lafayette church at the center of “minor-on-minor abuse” allegations opted to change its name to put the “painful chapter in our story” behind them.
A December 2021 Indy Star investigation found Immanuel Reformed Presbyterian Church Pastor Jared Olivetti and elders Keith Magill, Ben Larson and David Carr failed to act with urgency in responding to inappropriate behavior and sexual offenses by a boy at the church.
In January of 2022, the national governing body of the Reformed Presbyterian Church announced that Olivetti must refrain from exercising his duties as pastor pending the result of his ecclesiastical trial, which resulted in his defrocking.
The congregation recently released a special statement highlighting its troubled history and explaining why the church changed its name to “Redeeming Grace Church.” The statement also explained why the congregation left the Reformed Presbyterian Church of North America denomination. One factor in such a separation is that it would allow the church to welcome back some of the former leaders sanctioned for their roles in the abuse case.
“If you do know us by the name ‘Immanuel,’ it’s likely you know something of the negative publicity and very hard years recently suffered by our congregation,” the statement reads.
“Those years began with the revelation of minor-on-minor abuse in and around the congregation. As we worked through that painful chapter in our story, our former elders worked to follow the pertinent laws, to believe and support the victims, and to honor Christ.”
The IndyStar investigation revealed that leaders at the West Lafayette church were informed that children from multiple families had been abused and harassed by another minor within the congregation, according to internal church documents obtained by IndyStar.
The ecclesiastic trial revoked Olivetti’s ordination and status as an elder, the IndyStar reported, forbidding him practicing in any capacity within the denomination. He has also been suspended from participating in sacraments such as communion.
Olivetti and his fellow elders were found to have kept the abuse from church members for more than four months, even as they learned of additional transgressions.
The perpetrator, a teenage boy, was a relative of the pastor. Rather than immediately recuse himself, Olivetti continued to shape the church’s response, taking advantage of his position as a leader to interfere with the investigation, according to the IndyStar reporting.
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You are living in a world in which the Anointed Son of God is the Shepherd of the nations. That is the reality, it cannot be reversed by UN decrees, or even by your own sinful failures. Christ who won You, shall bring you at last to glory. He who He justified, He will also sanctify and glorify.

Introduction
The first two Psalms form a sort of introduction to the Psalter. Where Psalm 1 introduces us to the contrast between the blessed life of walking with God and the miserable life of walking with the scoffers and evildoers, Psalm 2 presents an eschatological vision. The first Psalm tells us how to live in the here and now, and the second Psalm goes on to lay before us the glorious future under the global reign of the Messiah.
The Text
1 Why do the heathen rage, and the people imagine a vain thing? 2 The kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers take counsel together, against the LORD, and against his anointed, [saying], 3 Let us break their bands asunder, and cast away their cords from us. 4 He that sitteth in the heavens shall laugh: the Lord shall have them in derision. 5 Then shall he speak unto them in his wrath, and vex them in his sore displeasure. 6 Yet have I set my king upon my holy hill of Zion. 7 I will declare the decree: the LORD hath said unto me, Thou [art] my Son; this day have I begotten thee. 8 Ask of me, and I shall give [thee] the heathen [for] thine inheritance, and the uttermost parts of the earth [for] thy possession. 9 Thou shalt break them with a rod of iron; thou shalt dash them in pieces like a potter’s vessel. 10 Be wise now therefore, O ye kings: be instructed, ye judges of the earth. 11 Serve the LORD with fear, and rejoice with trembling. 12 Kiss the Son, lest he be angry, and ye perish [from] the way, when his wrath is kindled but a little. Blessed [are] all they that put their trust in him.Psalm 2
Summary of the Text
This Psalm pits mankind’s word against the Word of God’s Messiah. This song opens with the question which often confronts God’s people (v1). Why do the goyim rage? Why do the people have brains full of daydreams? Earth’s kings & rulers have called a war-council to determine what to do about Yahweh & the one He has Anointed (v2); they issue the results of their council: “let us overthrow the Almighty (v3).”
How does God respond to this challenge? He laughs (v4). Then He replies with the Word of His wrath (v5). What judgement shall these rebels bring forth upon themselves? How will He vex them? Despite their raging, despite their protests, despite their vanity, His anointed King shall reign from Zion (v6).
The Messiah then speaks. He reveals to the nations God’s decree. This Christ is Yahweh’s begotten Son (v7; Cf. 2 Sam. 7:14). This Sonship comes with the right to ask of the Most High for an inheritance of nations (v8, Cf. 1 Kg. 3:5, Is. 7:10-16); the Anointed Son might shepherd the nations firmly to either obedience or damnation (v9). He has every right to crush the nations into powder. But He holds out wisdom to the kings of the nations (v10). Obey His imperatives. Serve Yahweh with joyful reverence (v11). Kiss His Son in humble love, and so His lawful wrath might be removed (v12). This done, all the covenant blessings of Eden & Sinai held out in Psalm 1 are offered to these nations by trusting in the Christ of Yahweh.
An Apostolic Favorite
At the Apostolic Psalm-sings this second Psalm was likely a crowd favorite. It is one of the most cited Psalms in the NT. After Peter and John’s examination before the Chief Priests, after healing the lame man, the early Christians lift up a prayer with one accord. This congregational prayer quotes this Psalm and applies it to Herod, Pilate, and the threatening of the chief priests and elders (Cf. Acts 4:24-31). The wicked opposition to Christ had been foretold by David’s Psalm, and this emboldens the early church to stand courageous even in the face of the threatenings of those same rulers. A sort of second Pentecost takes place at the offering of this prayer.
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More importantly, debating the constitutionality of the bill avoids the real crisis afflicting students in public schools. It’s not so much that they don’t know right from wrong (though this is obviously a problem); it’s that too many lack the very capacity to know right from wrong. Thinking morally and empathetically requires some degree of imagination, logic, and an ability to control one’s feelings—in other words, it requires maturity. This is why most Christian churches usually wait until a child reaches “the age of reason” (usually seven or eight years old) before teaching things like the Ten Commandments and Christ’s parables.

The Louisiana legislature is about to pass a bill that would require every public school in the state to post the Ten Commandments in each classroom. The bill’s author, Rep. Dodie Horton, explained that the “purpose [of the law] is not solely religious” but also serves to “display the history of our country and foundation of our legal system.”
On cue, the disestablishmentarians took immediate issue with the bill, arguing that it was synonymous with theocratic indoctrination. As an attorney from the ACLU put it, ”Public schools shouldn’t be used to religiously indoctrinate or convert students.” Some unsuspecting non-Christian students may see one of these posters, ponder its implications, and literally come to Jesus.
One can only hope! But the greater likelihood is that they will see it as just more clutter on teachers’ already busy walls, next to the Gandhi and Malcolm X posters, across the from the motivational Garfield poster, and right behind the state, national, and Pride flags up front. Perhaps some conservative teachers might try to use it to tame their less civilized classes, while some progressive teachers will see it as yet another reason to whine about the stupid conservatives running their state.
But most teachers will probably post it on their walls … and ignore it—much like they do with posters of learning objectives, school mission statements, bullying hotlines, and all the other meaningless content mandated from on high. Somehow, miraculously, the response to the dysfunction of public schools is supposed to be remedied by one more visual that indirectly encourages them to make better choices.
None of this is to say that the critics are right. Nor is this to say that the idea behind the bill is wrong. Rather, it is to say that, as it stands, the bill does not go far enough in addressing the moral illiteracy plaguing public schools.
Along with their innumerable academic deficiencies, too many of today’s students are selfish, shortsighted, irrational, and utterly superficial. They fail to recognize that all actions have consequences, that other people have feelings too, and that they are ultimately responsible for the way they behave. Many of them struggle to differentiate between right and wrong, good and bad, truth and falsehood. Even a good number of juniors and seniors whom I work with in Advanced Placement English classes will draw a blank when encountering the words “virtue” and “vice.”
Naturally, this carries significant implications for their education on multiple fronts. In some cases, schools descend into a “Lord of the Flies”–style anarchy where students brutalize one another, as frequently happens in Louisiana’s urban campuses. In other instances, high-achieving students will lie and cheat their way to the top, only to fail miserably when they leave the permissive, grade-inflating environments of school and college.
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