Hebrews teaches us never to lose sight of the fact that the priesthood, sacrifices, liturgy and life of the Old Testament church are simply a rough copy. Christ is the original; He is the antitype, the pictures of the Old Testament form the type.

“Time past and time present are both together in time future,” wrote T.S. Elliot. His rhythmic words simply and eloquently describe the ordinary flow of history. But the letter to the Hebrews presents a very different perspective on God’s purposes and patterns in the flow of history. There, it would be true to say, the future determines the past and the present, rather than the other way round. To understand Hebrews — and thus to understand how the Bible as a whole works — we need to understand this riddle: The invisible is more substantial than the visible. The future comes before the past. The new is more fundamental than the old. What does all this mean? Simply put, it means that the story of the Lord Jesus, His person and work, is not a divine afterthought, a heavenly “plan b” hurriedly scrambled together when “plan a” went horribly wrong in Eden. No — the coming of Christ was in the plan before the Fall. Everything that precedes it chronologically actually follows it logically.
From one point of view, of course, the Old Testament serves as the model of what Christ would come to accomplish. But Hebrews teaches us never to lose sight of the fact that the priesthood, sacrifices, liturgy and life of the Old Testament church are simply a rough copy. Christ is the original; He is the antitype, the pictures of the Old Testament form the type.
This principle is given its clearest expression in Hebrews 9:23 which refers to the Old Testament tabernacle, priesthood and sacrifices as “the copies of the heavenly things.” Yet more picturesquely, Hebrews 10:1 describes the law as “but a shadow of the good things to come.” Copies depend on an original; a shadow does not exist apart from the person whose shadow it is and from whom it takes its shape.
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If we don’t schedule to talk, we often won’t. Sin is amazing, isn’t it? We have the God of the universe who loves us and is waiting to listen, we have the way freely open to him through the gospel of Christ, we have the Spirit enabling us to pray…and yet, we still struggle. Yet, we’re talking about needing to schedule times of prayer.

“Evening and morning and at noon I utter my complaint and moan, and he hears my voice.” (Psalm 55:17)
“Now Peter and John were going up to the temple at the hours of prayer, the ninth hour [3 pm]” (Acts 3:1)
“The next day, as they were on their journey and approaching the city, Peter went up on the housetop about the sixth hour [12pm] to pray.” (Acts 10:9)
“And Cornelius said, ‘Four days ago, about this hour, I was praying in my house at the ninth hour [3pm]…’” (Acts 10:30)

Perhaps in your Bible reading you’ve noticed these verses as well. Especially the ones from Acts, it’s fascinating to us modern, usually unscheduled pray-ers to see how Luke records the early Christians praying at specific times. And it’s not in the morning or evening only, but at 12pm and 3pm—in the middle of the day.
Now, let’s be clear, God’s word never commands us we need to pray at specific set times like this. There is much in the Bible—especially in the book of Acts—that is descriptive while not being prescriptive. Nevertheless, might be we misguided if we don’t see these descriptions and wonder if they might help us to pray?
It could be argued this was simply Peter, John, and Cornelius’s culture. And so it was. Even for Cornelius, a Gentile God-fearer (not a Jew), it seems that praying in the middle of the day was somewhat of a given. While in contrast, we live in a culture where scheduled daily prayers are only monastic. We know of “quiet times” in the morning, of praying before meals and bed. But habitual 12pm and 3pm times of prayer? That’s foreign. And why? Because, we say, “I’m working then.” Or, “I don’t have the time.” Or especially, “I’m busy.”
But guess what? So were they.
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Written by M.D. Perkins |
Tuesday, September 13, 2022
You may think Revoice is a distant concern or that the Nashville Statement is not the best or most robust response to the issues facing the church in the 21st century. But let’s not miss the forest for the trees—there is something sinister at work here that Christians need to see.

On August 29, 2022, Nate Collins, the founder and president of Revoice, decided to attack the Nashville Statement. His Twitter thread, posted on the five-year anniversary of the Statement’s release, called on all evangelical leaders who signed it to repent for having done so. He called the Statement a “form of spiritual abuse” against “sexual and gender minorities who adhere to the historic, biblical sexual ethic.” According to Collins, it was bullying, it was coercive, it robbed people of language, and, ultimately, it harmed “the least of these.”
Here is Nate Collins’ tweet thread in its entirety, posted at 9:27 AM on August 29, 2022:
The Nashville Statement is 5 years old today. Here’s how to repent from signing it.
Today is the 5th anniversary of the release of the joint @CBMW [Council for Biblical Manhood and Womanhood] and @ERLC [Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention] #NashvilleStatement. Many sexual and gender minorities who adhere to the historic, biblical sexual ethic experienced the NS as a form of spiritual abuse.
We felt bullied into compliance by evangelical leaders who were our spiritual heroes. The NS reduced us to pawns in a culture war and coerced us to fight a battle that we did not believe was biblical.
It also robbed us of language that we believe has enabled us to be faithful to scripture, as well as honest about our experience.
If you signed the Nashville Statement, but now see how it has harmed those whom our Savior has described as “the least of these”, here are some suggested steps you can take to repent:

Contact CBMW and ask to have your name removed.
Share with your friends and co-signers your decision and why you chose to remove your name.
For those you know personally who were negatively impacted by your participation, reach out and apologize.
For those who were harmed that you do not know personally, share publicly about your change of mind. (Post, tweet, or hey, even reach out to Christianity Today and see if they would be interested to do a piece. I suspect it would rate as newsworthy.)

Making mistakes—even big ones—does not have to be the end of the story, unless you let it be so. Just ask Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses, David, Peter, or Paul.[1]
These are quite strong—and striking—accusations to lay at the feet of evangelical leaders. It is expected from the godless world that “does not accept the things of God for they are folly to him” (1 Corinthians 2:14) but from someone who claims to hold to the “historic, biblical sexual ethic,” it is both sad and deeply concerning. After all, the Nashville Statement was intended to be a consensus statement articulating that historic, biblical sexual ethic that Nate Collins claims to believe. Yet he calls those who signed it perpetrators of “spiritual abuse.”
This is why I was compelled to respond to Collins’ tweets with an extensive rebuttal of my own.
Nate Collins represents a position that has been alternately labeled Side B, gay celibate theology, or the Revoice movement (named after the Side B focused conference and organization Collins founded in 2018). It is a more conservative form of “gay Christianity” that believes homosexual behavior is forbidden but that the experience of “sexual minorities” must be recognized by the church. I address the full spectrum of this position in the paper, A Little Leaven: Confronting the Ideology of the Revoice Movement.
So, why should Christians be concerned that the Nashville Statement is under attack by a major Revoice leader? You may think Revoice is a distant concern or that the Nashville Statement is not the best or most robust response to the issues facing the church in the 21st century. But let’s not miss the forest for the trees—there is something sinister at work here that Christians need to see.
Let me give three main reasons why Christians should be concerned by this most recent attack on the Nashville Statement and its signatories:

The nature of the attack
The charge of spiritual abuse
The hidden allegiance with LGBT activists and the “Affirming Church”

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