The PCA would profit by constantly remembering the focus of its vision. What has been its call as a church and as a denomination? What has been my call as a pastor and elder during the time God, in His providence and mercy, has granted me to use and fight in this life?  These questions are important as we are seeing the decline of historic denominations such as the Church of Scotland and Evangelical Lutheran Church of America. These cases show the consequences of abandoning the focus of our task in favor of other agendas. There are definitely many organizations and groups in the world that can excel on these social agendas. The paradox is that when churches adopted social agendas in an attempt to become relevant, they instead became irrelevant and therefore had to close their doors.

Please note that the Editorial Board of Presbyterian Polity does not necessarily endorse all views expressed on the blog of this site, but the editors are pleased to present well-crafted position papers on issues facing Presbyterian churches and denominations. What follows is one such paper for our readers’ consideration. ~ The Editors
As I am heading to the 51st General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in America (PCA) this year in Richmond, VA, I am remembering last year’s excitement of the Golden anniversary. The most encouraging part of the 50th GA was the recommitment to the foundational principles of the PCA . Most of the discourses given by the representatives of the PCA Committees and agencies emphasized the need to remain loyal and faithful to the Bible and the Westminster Standards. 
While we must be confident that good intentions and efforts continue in the PCA this 51st year, we must also be vigilant in keeping our denomination’s first love. Commitments and recommitments tend to wear off and to decrease with the passage of time. Consider, for example, the excitement of the  2017 GA concerning racial reconciliation. For good or for ill, it is evident that today this is no longer crucial and in the best of cases has become a secondary issue in the PCA. One may argue that this won’t happen on a central issue such as confessionality, but the example of large denominations losing their fidelity demonstrates the importance of considering what we can do to press on. Allow me to share some of my suggestions to keep alive our first love.
Gratitude
First, we must have a spirit of gratitude. Showing gratitude to God and to our denomination decreases any spirit of dissatisfaction that we may have. When we lack gratitude for the PCA, we may run the risk of becoming overly critical and negative which can sometimes produce unnecessary confrontation. A heart that is grateful to be part of the PCA will prompt us to have a spirit of gentleness and wisdom. Gratitude will develop a spirit of tranquility and ‘gentleness’ in those who are siding with the truth and that know its victory. This temperament is also one of the qualities which is required of an elder (Titus 1:8) and is an important characteristic that must be applied when participating  in our church courts.
Hence, we must be grateful to God for the strengths of our church and its accomplishments. We not only have encouraging statistics of growth, but have also made some progress in protecting our denomination from temptations to compromise doctrine and morals. The rejection of the doctrinal error of Federal Vision in 2007 and the rejection of the moral error of Revoice in 2023 are two recent examples of this progress. Furthermore, the PCA has made significant progress standing against Side B homosexuality and the various methods it uses to advance in today’s world. I know these types of actions which clarify the PCA’s position moved some to leave the denomination because these leaders’ recognized that their ideas aligned better with other denominations. However, we can be grateful that our denomination did not fall into the trap of becoming soft and tolerant in evaluating its ministers in their consistency with biblical doctrines (FV) and morals (Revoice) and spurs us on to greater fidelity in the future.
Repentance & Self-Examination
On the other hand, gratitude and celebrations must be balanced with a spirit of repentance from our sins. This requires self-examination in light of the Word. We must keep an autocritical and repentant spirit that goes deep and applies to our own corners and “tribes” where we are laboring. While it is easier to criticize our denomination as a whole, it is more complicated to criticize our own tribes and our own organizations in our local sphere of influence. What are the blindspots of our local organizations and ministries? Is my practice consistent with the Bible and our Standards? In which sense may my accommodation to this world be deceiving me in realizing and confessing my sins of commission and omission? 
Accountability
If we recognize our shortcomings, we must also recognize that we all have a tendency to go astray. Therefore, just as it is important to maintain accountability within our local sphere, so also do we need to maintain accountability within the denomination. As repentant sinners – but still sinners – we tend to fail and to justify our failures, but our denomination can correct this with a good system of accountability. I think we need to move beyond the excitement of 50 years and ask how we can evaluate the consistency of the denomination to confessional fidelity. We must appreciate the discourses and the commitment of the chairmen of our committees and agencies, but we must keep them accountable. Usually the reason provided against accountability is the idea that we must think the best of our brothers and the best of our committees, agencies, and missions. While it is true that we may run the danger of becoming overly suspicious,  we must also reject the tendency to predict the outcome of our denomination in a historicist fashion.
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My dear friends, glory is our reward with the Lord. “If you are insulted for the name of Christ, you are blessed because the Spirit of the glory of God rests upon you.” We need to get our eyes off of this earth and off the temporary problems we have, and on the eternal reward day that is coming. The payday is coming. And God is no man’s debtor. whatever you have suffered, however, we have been faithful to him, that will all be brought up at the judgment seat of Christ. Again, eternal rewards are ours. Let us be faithful. 

So far, we have pondered on the reality of suffering in the world, and have seen from the Bible that suffering is to be expected for Christians, especially since we are engaged in spiritual warfare. Remember that we are not only to teach these truths faithfully, but also to model them in our own lives.
The third thing we need to continually teach our people about is the divine perspective on suffering. If you have your Bible, I do want you to see this yourself. I want you to open 2 Corinthians 4. Now, here’s a passage of Scripture, that I am not exaggerating when I say I’ve used it hundreds of times in my life, it could even be 1000! And I want you to use this when we face suffering and when we help other people, because we do not just deal with our own suffering, as shepherds. Along with that, we have to be faithful to help others through suffering. In fact, I think we spend more time helping other people through suffering than ourselves. And we need to know what Scripture text to go to.
I remember I was training this young man in our church about visitation, going to hospitals dealing with people’s problems. And I remember the first time we went out and an issue came up with the people we were talking to, and I took them to this passage. And this young man said to me later, when we left, “You know, I literally had no idea what Bible verse to open to?” He said, “I’m glad you showed me.” I said, “Well, that’s why I brought you along. So you know how to open your Bible and comfort people who are suffering and help yourself.” Let’s look at 2 Corinthians 4. Second Corinthians, is an amazing book. It is the most autobiographical of Paul’s books, and there is no other book in which we get these insights into Paul as a shepherd of the Lord’s people. And you see at one moment his severity and next moment, tenderness unlike anything else So in verse 16, he says, “For we do not lose heart.” Well, my friends, if anyone should lose heart and get depressed and discouraged, it was the Apostle Paul. He had more problems than all of you put together and multiplied. This man had every problem there is. I have never been whipped, I have never been left at sea, never been hungry. I mean, this man experienced everything. He sat in jail, he had people trying to stone him to death, whip him to death. “We do not lose heart!” Oh! I want to find out why he doesn’t lose heart, because I lose heart so easily.
“Though our outward self is wasting away.” Now if you’re over 55 you know what this means. The outer nature is wasted away. Well, you lose muscle, your skin sags, you have to have glasses, you go get hearing aids, some people get wigs (I look better this way!). And then we have knee replacements and hip replacements. Replacements seem to be nowhere near what they can repair in your body. The outward nature is wasting away, and well, it will end in your death. Now, this is my verse for my philosophy of aging. Are you ready? “Although the outward nature is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day.” If you’re over 50, you better know this verse. Although the outward nature is decaying (you can do some things to slow it down, but it is going to win), the inner man, the new man in Christ, in the Holy Spirit who lives within us, every day he is being renewed. Well, that is an amazing truth, isn’t it? Your inner man is being fed and he is growing, he is expanding, he is maturing. That should be your philosophy of life.
[In fact, I was going to speak to you about this whole thing: About being a growing leader, a maturing leader. Sadly, many stop growing when they get to be about the age of 40 and older. They do not read anymore, they do not go to conferences, they do not have a greater vision for the world. That is a very, very big problem. But this text says, the inner man is being renewed every day. He is growing. He is learning and expanding. That’s what I want to do as I age.]
Now I want you to get the balance hereof words very beautifully balanced. I wish I had a scale to show this but you can imagine a weighing scale. “For this light momentary affliction…”  or  suffering “is preparing for us…” Well, that’s good to know. “An eternal. weight of glory beyond all comparison.” In other words, these are not comparisons. This is what happens. It is an eternal weight of heavenly glory. Here on earth what we face is a light, momentary affliction. That’s the divine perspective. And he says it is not comparable. So in this life, you have many afflictions, sorrows, heartaches, setbacks, losses, and sometimes very severe, and they really can hurt. But the divine perspective says it is light and it is momentary, lasting a very short time. A whole life here on earth is a very short time. But it is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory.
Now, if you want to know a little bit more about this glory, you go down to Chapter 5 verses 1-10.
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Written by Carl R. Trueman |
Friday, January 13, 2023

Yes, the culture is a mess. Yes, I fear what the world will look like in which my granddaughter will grow to adulthood. Yet I rejoice at the blessing I have in being able to see her, to hold her, and to delight in her. Christianity is, after all, a religion that sets priorities. Dealing with the crazy people reducing our culture to rubble is important but it should be cheerfully done. After all, it is hard to be unhappy when cradling one’s granddaughter in one’s arms.

Much of the last three years of my life, when I have not been in the classroom, I have been giving public lectures and interviews on the major changes and challenges that the sexual revolution and its various offshoots—the transgender chaos, the pressures on free speech—have helped to unleash. It is a bleak story that does not become more encouraging with each retelling. And more times than I care to remember I have been asked at the end of these lectures or interviews what gives me hope or keeps me cheerful in such circumstances.
In flippant moments, I state the obvious: “I don’t read Twitter” or “I never believe what my wife tells me people say about me online.” But then I offer the serious answer: We know who will win in the end. God’s promise is to Christ’s church, and, by His promise, all will be well.
That is true, but as with so many truths that trade in claims about the distant future or lack any easily articulated immediate content, it can also be trite. Not trite in the objective sense because it is, as noted, true. But trite in the subjective sense, in that it is an easy answer to give and one that can on occasion be an excuse not to engage seriously with the present, rather like telling the bereaved husband that it’s OK, he will be reunited with his wife on the day of resurrection.
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