More than a decade ago I stood in a square in old Boston listening to a very passionate guide talk about July 18, 1776 when the Declaration of Independence was read from the balcony of the Old State House there for the first time. One of my historical heroes, First Lady to be Abigail Adams, stood in the crowd that had gathered to hear the declaration read that day. She, an intelligent and thoughtful patriot, understood as much or more than anyone else in the square the significance of the moment.
As I listened to our guide and felt the momentary shadow of the importance of that moment years ago I briefly wondered what it would be like to experience such a day myself. To feel the weight of joy at the hand of God acting through the work of men for the good of a nation and to know the sober reality of the task now ahead. I did not really think I would see such a day in my lifetime.
But then yesterday, June 24, 2022, arrived and I sat awash with emotions at the news of the Supreme Court’s overthrow of Roe v Wade, declaring that the wicked decision which granted national legality to the murder of unborn children nearly 50 years ago was, in fact, not Constitutional after all.
The joy is weighty, overwhelming, deep. It erupted yesterday in happy tears in the middle of shopping and singing psalms at the top of my lungs while running errands. It exploded in thrown together plans for ice cream sundae celebrations with friends last night and the kind of bellylaughing that overflows from an abundance of joy. It was a good day. A feast day. A day that I will happily still be talking about when my hair is grey and my hearing is going. June 24 is a day that deserves the celebration and remembrance of generations to come.
This is a time for praise and thanksgiving to God who has used the work of men to bring about good for a nation who does not deserve His favor and grace. He has given us mercy once again and acted to stay the hand of those who wickedly participated in legalized murder, often gleefully. Mere hours after the decision abortion mills in Texas, Missouri, Louisiana, Alabama, Arkansas, South Dakota, and Wisconsin had halted their activities and closed their doors. There are children who were scheduled for death yesterday who are still alive today. Praise the Lord! Praise, oh servants of the Lord! Praise the name of the Lord!
This is a time for praise and thanksgiving to God who has used the work of men to bring about good for a nation who does not deserve His favor and grace.
It is also a time for solemnity. For repentance for the national sin of abortion that has been allowed to stain our land for so long. For mourning over the 60+ million lives that have been snuffed out in the womb, little image bearers whose slaughter should take our breath away and drive us to our knees. For recognition that the work of complete abolition is ongoing and that the struggle will be fierce and, likely, bloody before it is done. But this is a good work, a work that honors God, and a work from which His children must not flinch. Our God is a God of life and calls us to courage in the face of all adversity. The words of Proverbs are instructive to us as we look to the days ahead.
“If you faint in the day of adversity, your strength is small. Rescue those who are being taken away to death; hold back those who are stumbling to the slaughter. If you say, ‘Behold, we did not know this,’ does not he who weighs the heart perceive it? Does not he who keeps watch over your soul know it, and will he not repay man according to his work?” (Proverbs 24:10-12)
And it is a good time to remember that we are not the first to have stood in the weight of joy and solemnity, in the day of great matters and in the face of hardships in the struggle to come. John Adams wrote to Abigail on July 3rd, after the Continental Congress had finalized the draft of the Declaration, with this same mix of joy and resolve that all who love the cause of life should feel today.
“I am apt to believe that it [the date of the adoption of the Declaration] will be celebrated, by succeeding Generations, as the great anniversary Festival. It ought to be commemorated, as the Day of Deliverance by solemn Acts of Devotion to God Almighty. It ought to be solemnized with Pomp and Parade, with Shews, Games, Sports, Guns, Bells, Bonfires and Illuminations from one End of this Continent to the other from this Time forward forever more.
Our God is a God of life and calls us to courage in the face of all adversity.
“You will think me transported with Enthusiasm but I am not. — I am well aware of the Toil and Blood and Treasure, that it will cost Us to maintain this Declaration, and support and defend these States. — Yet through all the Gloom I can see the Rays of ravishing Light and Glory. I can see that the End is more than worth all the Means. And that Posterity will tryumph in that Days Transaction, even altho We should rue it, which I trust in God We shall not.”
May God give us this same spirit of rejoicing as we celebrate the overthrow of Roe now and in coming generations, and equal courage and conviction to give our toil, blood, and treasure in a cause that is more than worth all the means, the rescue of those being taken away to death and the full abolition of abortion in every State in this Nation of ours.

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Paul’s knowledge of the gospel was a gift of immediate special revelation. He made specific claims to this throughout his ministry and by implication virtually everywhere. In Galatians 1 Paul defended his apostleship by showing that his knowledge of the gospel came, not from any secondary source, but from revelation  (Galatians 1:1, 8, 9, 12, 16). This claim is reiterated in 1 Corinthians 2 where Paul wrote, “These things God revealed to us through the Spirit” (1 Corinthians 2:10) and “We impart this in words not taught by human wisdom but taught by the Spirit interpreting spiritual truths in spiritual words” (13). Paul reminded the Ephesians, “The mystery was made known to me by revelation,” following it with words such as “my insight into the mystery of Christ . . .as it has now been revealed to his holy apostles and prophets by the Spirit” (Ephesians 3:3-5).
Other phrases imply the absolute revelatory authority of the message given to the apostles and their immediate circle of New Covenant prophets. These phrases appear as elements of arguments or admonitions that assume Paul’s absolute truthfulness as a recipient of divine revelation: “the ministry that I received from the Lord Jesus, to testify to the gospel of the grace of  God” (Acts 20:25); “Now to him who is able to strengthen you, according to my gospel and the preaching of Jesus Christ, according to the revelation of the mystery that was kept secret for long ages but has now been disclosed and through the prophetic writings has been made known to all nations” (Romans 16:25, 26); “If anyone thinks that he is a prophet, or spiritual, he should acknowledge that the things I am writing to you are a command of the Lord” (1 Corinthians 14:35); “Our sufficiency is from God, who has made us competent to be ministers of a new covenant” (2 Corinthians 3:5, 6); “We refuse to practice cunning or to tamper with God’s word” (2 Corinthians 4:2); “that words may be given me in opening my mouth boldly to proclaim the mystery of the gospel” (Ephesians 6:19); “Therefore, my beloved, as you have always obeyed, so now , . ,. “ (Philippians 2:12); “not shifting from the hope of the gospel that you heard, which has been proclaimed in all creation under heaven, and of which I, Paul became a minister” Colossians 1:23); “and when this letter has been  read among you, have it also read in the church of the Laodiceans, and see that you also read the letter from Laodicea” (Colossians 4:16); “when you received the word of God, which you heard from us, you accepted it not as the word of men but as what it really is, the word of God, which is at work in you believers” (1 Thessalonians 2: 13); “If anyone does not obey what we say in this letter, take note of that person, and have nothing to do with him” (2 Thessalonians 3:14); “the glorious gospel of the blessed God with which I have been entrusted” (1 Timothy 1:11); “I charge you in the presence of God, . . . to keep the commandments unstained, . . . guard the deposit entrusted to you” (1 Timothy 6:13, 20); “the gospel for which I was appointed a preacher and apostle and teacher; . . . he is able to guard until that day what has been entrusted to me. Follow the pattern of sound words you have heard from me” (2 Timothy 1:11-13); “You, however, have followed my teaching, my conduct, my aim in life, my faith; . . . continue in what you have learned and have firmly believed, knowing from whom you learned it and how from childhood you have been acquainted with the sacred writings [Holy Scriptures]” (2 Timothy 3:10, 15); “at the proper time manifested in his word through the preaching with which I have been entrusted by the command of God our Savior” (Titus 1:3). Many others could be added to these, but the assumption is plain and simple that Paul ministered and taught under the persuasion that he was the recipient of divine revelation—the content of which distinguished between truth and falsehood, trustworthiness and deceit, certainty and speculation, life and death, heaven and hell.
Paul’s engagement with the entire process of revelation necessarily involved a principle of continuity with the past. While being a steward of the New Covenant (1 Corinthians 4:1, 2), he was bound to show how the present expansion of both revelation and the redemptive plan had perfect continuity with the past. In his first engagement after his conversion, he went to the synagogue to prove that Jesus “is the Son of God,” by “proving that Jesus was the Christ” (Acts 9:20, 22). Acts 13:16-41 gives a summary of a sermon in which Paul did exactly that. As Paul met with the Jews in Rome, Acts 28:23 says, “From morning to evening, he expounded to them testifying to the kingdom of God and trying to convince them about Jesus from both the Law of Moses and from the Prophets.”  The nature of Paul’s arguments from the previous revelation to its mature meaning in the apostolic revelation shows the seamless continuity of truth and purpose and the centrality of a Christological grasp of the Old Testament as an intention of the Holy Spirit. Examples of this could be found in each of his epistles, but particularly in Galatians and Romans Paul’s strong claims to having received his message by immediate revelation shows that the revelatory process is not independent of other factors as they developed in the progress of revelation. The necessity of the careful use of human thought, knowledge of the details of previous revelation, knowledge of the historical manifestation of Christ’s person, words, actions, and works, and deduction from the consistency of the Jesus phenomenon as exclusively expressive of the expectations of previous revelation all constitute the Spirit’s work in bringing revelation to its culminating purpose.
There is such a continuity between the life and thought of the apostle and the content of the revelation that even personal references that make their way into the text serve their discreet purpose in confirming the truth. “I do not know whether I baptized anyone else,” is a deeply personal operation of Paul’s mind, but also serves in sealing the point that he is making about avoiding division in the church. “When you come, bring the cloak that I left that I left with Carpus at Troas, also the books, and above all the parchments” (2 Timothy 4:13). Slices of life that show the personal relations of the apostle, his physical needs, and his desire for continued study and writing give the life context within which apostolic revelation arises and the kind of personal awareness that interpenetrate that process of the Spirit.
This should make us contemplate the relation between revelation and inspiration. All Scripture is inspired. This includes the received canon of the Old Testament and the writings of the apostolic community responsible for preaching and writing the revealed mysteries of the New Testament (2 Timothy 3:14-17). So, whether the words are matters of absolutely unknowable propositions apart from their being revealed or whether the words concern events and personal experiences already known through observation or deduction, their presence in the biblical account comes from the divine determination of inclusion for a specific purpose of edifying, instructive, contextual connections within the larger corpus of revealed truth.
A passage of pure revelation, therefore, is preeminently a revealed truth to the mind and thought of the preacher/writer but it also is inspired in the verbal communication to other persons and subsequent generations: “He is the image of the invisible God, the first born of all creation. For by him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things were created through him and for him” (Colossians 1:15, 16). That is simple, unalloyed revelatory truth and the language in which the revelation is given is inspired language. In this way, revelation and inspiration coalesce so that the inspired text itself consists of revealed truth.
In the same way, a text like this can be considered as revealed truth because of the peculiar purpose that God had in inspiring it to be included in the written text: “And so, from the day we heard, we have not ceased to pray for you, asking that you may be filled with the knowledge of his will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding” (Colossians 1:9).  Paul gives a historical report of his having heard of their conversion through the ministry of Epaphras and his consequent ceaseless prayers for them. The content of his prayer explored an important aspect of revealed truth concerning how one discerns God’s will. Not every aspect of that statement is revealed truth for Paul is reporting something that emerged in the context of his own knowledge and experience. The report, nevertheless, is a part of the inspired text and, therefore, bears the mark of God’s intention that the church in all generations would know this Pauline comment and be edified by it. Its inspiration, therefore, embraces the comment into the sphere of revelation.
Jesus spoke many words, gave many teachings to his apostles which were not recorded (John 21:25). Without contradiction such words from Jesus would be of canonical quality and would be unvarnished revelation. These words were not “written,” however, and so never became inspired Scripture. John saw a revelation from a mighty angel and seven thunders. He reported, “I was about the write, but I heard a voice from heaven saying, ‘Seal up what the seven thunders have said, and do not write it down’” (Revelation 10:4). He received a revelation but was not directed to write it down, so the revelation never became part of inspired Scripture. Inspiration, therefore, since it is the means by which revelation is preserved and accurately transmitted, may be seen as of revelatory in quality.
To receive all of Scripture, therefore, as the written revelation of God accurately and faithfully conforms to the Bible’s witness to itself. For the knowledge of the triune God and his gospel, for the health of the soul, for pure worship and devotion, for Christ-centered maturity, and for works that conform to divine regulation, the Bible is the lamp unto our feet and the light to our path.
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I used to say fatherlessness is the biggest problem in black communities. I was wrong. 

It’s more accurate to say fatherlessness is one of the biggest problems in black communities.

This is because we cannot separate black families from black churches. Black Americans are the most religious racial group in America. 47% of black Americans go to church at least once a week, compared to 34% of white Americans.

In his PBS documentary, “The Black Church: This Is Our Story, This is Our Song”, Henry Louis Gates Jr. said: “The importance of the role of the Black Church at its best cannot be gainsaid in the history of the African American people. Nor can it be underestimated.” 

He also said: “The [Black] Church is the oldest, most continuous, and most important institution ever created by African Americans.”

Therefore, the health of the important institution in black communities determines the state of another institution in black communities: family. Meaning, the reason why there are so many absentee fathers in black communities is because there are so many absentee churches in black communities.

Churches without good leaders inevitably lead to homes without good leaders. We cannot restore black families unless we reform black churches.

Black churches need reformation.

That, of course, doesn’t mean other churches do not need reformation. As Protestants, we should always be reforming—we should always be renewing our minds by scripture alone, in Christ alone, by grace alone, through faith alone, for the glory of God alone.

All American churches are in desperate need of reformation.

However, though much is said about lack of access to quality schools in black communities—very little is said about lack of access to healthy churches in black communities. Since churches are even more important than schools, we should be deeply concerned about the state of black churches.

This doesn’t mean there aren’t any healthy black churches. There are healthy black churches across America. However, they are significantly outnumbered by unhealthy black churches.

Churches without good leaders inevitably lead to homes without good leaders.

For instance, most of the biggest black denominations like National Baptist Convention, the Progressive National Baptist Convention, the African Methodist Episcopal Church, and to a lesser extent the African Methodist Episcopal Church Zion have expressed varying degrees of support for same-sex marriage and LGBTQ ideology.

Moreover, some of the most powerful leaders in the “Black Church” like Raphael Warnock have defended abortion and many more have welcomed pro-abortion politicians Stacey Abrams, Kamala Harris, and Lori Lightfoot to speak at their church.

Mark Hamilton, the pastor of Faithful Stones Church in inner-city Buffalo, says, “the Black Church acts as if says they’’re indifferent to Christ and his mission.” He added, “they have joined forces with people who are hungry for power.”

Faithful Stones Church is just a few feet away from the scene of the white supremacist mass shooting in Buffalo last summer. Hamilton and his church members played a crucial role in serving the community with groceries and especially, the gospel.

Hamilton said: “the hurt I felt for the families who lost loved ones [and] the crushed community I serve both as a minister of God and a minister of the gospel was extraordinarily deep.” 

However, as a pastor and a police officer, Hamilton had been grieving for his community long before the mass shooting. He says white supremacy isn’t the biggest problem in his community: 

“The white supremacist [mass shooter] was not from our community and was not the federal head for all white people in our community…White supremacy is not the biggest problem but the biggest distraction from the number one problem in the community, specifically…black on black crime by gang violence.”

Hamilton says churches in his community support critical race theory, LGBTQ ideology, abortion, and the prosperity gospel which “are harming the community.” Therefore, they need reformation, just like his church years before.

Like most churches in the community, Faithful Stones Church was once a prosperity gospel or Word of Faith church. However around 20 years ago, the church—led by Mark Hamilton’s father, Curtis Hamilton—denounced the Word of Faith gospel (and egalitarianism) and eventually became Reformed.

Through that process the church’s membership went from 300 to 40 members. However Mark Hamilton says, “we had a steady decline in membership but a steady increase in faithfulness to the scriptures.”

He also says what happened to his church is what other churches in his community need: 

We are reformed and reforming to be faithful to the scriptures and Christ our King…We are not a woke church but we are certainly awakened from the dead and alive to Christ…We are not ashamed of the gospel of Jesus Christ for it is the power of God for salvation.