When tempted to complain in counseling about the never-ending, recurring problems, we must develop or maintain the same view of ministry as the Lord Himself. It is no coincidence that the “raw material” from which the Lord Jesus wants to create men and women in His image is usually somewhat more problematic than the average, even in comparison with the world. This is by no means a systemic flaw but part of God’s plan, and thus fully intended (2 Tim 1:9).

Has your congregation ever experienced brothers and sisters getting into open disputes about topics like the exact sequence of end-time events or even the color of the church carpet? Are you sometimes tired of the many brothers and sisters who are unwilling to forgive? Do you wish you had more members with whom you could have a good conversation about topics from history to politics? Why is the discipleship process so challenging, and seemingly the same issues must be taught or practiced repeatedly?
Why, of All Places, Are So Many Challenging People in the Church?
We all know that pastors and counselors face never-ending challenges. Suppose one looks at how little their congregation is reflecting the wisdom and character of our Lord and Prince of Peace; one could almost inwardly resign a little and conclude that the conditions in the congregation are worse than outside in the world. This is not so, but the apostle Paul enlightens us at the end of First Corinthians about a fascinating truth, which to my knowledge, is rarely preached or spoken about:
For consider your calling, brothers: not many of you were wise according to worldly standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth. But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong; God chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not, to bring to nothing things that are (1 Cor. 1:26-28).
Paul observes that very few among the Corinthians stood out for intelligence, influence, or distinguished lineage. One could put it even more drastically: the raw material from which the Lord Jesus builds His church is usually anything but attractive in terms of its starting material, not even by worldly standards. On the contrary, it is precisely that which counts for nothing in the world that God has chosen: If we were to stop at verse 26, we could still argue that God has called a few extraordinary people into His church. But in verses 27 and 28, Paul becomes even more explicit: As a rule, God usually calls people into discipleship who are not attractive by human standards, who have a flaw somewhere. Please allow me to make a drastic comparison: In commerce, we call it a “second choice,” or in the industry, “rejects.”
Read More
Related Posts:

Never has there been any point in God’s eternal existence when the Son was not begotten by the Father. If there had been, then the relation of Father and Son would be merely temporal and there would be no way of maintaining a singularity in the divine essence while affirming a real plurality of persons. Without generation as an eternal operation of God, tritheism or modalism are the only alternatives. This truth of eternal generation helps in the interpretation of certain passages of Scripture. For example, no doctrine gives greater aid in understanding John 5:26 than this. “For as the Father hath life in himself; so he hath given to the Son to have life in himself” (KJV). 

This article is part 12 in a series by Tom Nettles on Remembering Jesus Christ. (Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6, Part 7, Part 8, Part 9, Part 10, Part 11).

The first of the ecumenical creeds was formulated in a council called by the emperor Constantine. According to historians Eusebius of Caesarea and Lanctantius, Constantine was converted to Christianity as he prepared for a battle with Maxentius in the year 312. His victory, which he attributed to Christ, made him the sole ruler of the western portion of the Empire. After a dozen years of gaining more knowledge of the church’s organization and doctrines, Constantine, aware of a theological controversy that stirred the church, made arrangements for church bishops to meet in Nicea (present day Iznik in Turkey) to settle the dispute. Around 300 bishops were able to come with only half a handful of representatives from the west.
The controversy that prompted the call to Nicea focused on the teaching of a presbyter of Alexandria Egypt named Arius (260-336). Arius strongly concluded that the monotheism necessary to Christianity eliminated the possibility of any other personal entity sharing the status of absolute deity. In a letter to his friend Eusebius of Nicomedia in 318 during the initial tensions of the controversy, he complained that Alexander “greatly injures and persecutes us . . . since we do not agree with him when he says publicly, ‘Always Father, always Son, ‘Father and Son together,’ . . . ‘Neither in thought nor by a single instant is God before the Son.’” Arius instead taught that “before he was begotten or created or ordained or founded, he was not.” He, that is, the one called the son, is not “a part of the unbegotten in any way” but was “constituted” by God’s “will and counsel, before times and before ages.”[1]
Arius’s affirmation, therefore, of the lordship of Christ could not mean that he was co-eternal with the Father and of the same nature. The phrases anathematized at the end of the Nicene Creed 325 represent some of the phrases that Arius used to define his understanding of Jesus, the Christ. Because only God is eternal, Jesus is not; and so, “There was when he was not.” Since he is begotten, he must have come into existence subsequent to the Father and, therefore, “begotten” is taken as a synonym for “created.” Since he is created, he cannot be of the same eternal immutable substance as the Father and is, on that account, of a different substance. Since he is a created moral being, even though the first of all created things, he is mutable and could have sinned. The Father, however, endowed him with the power of creation, set him forth to be the redeemer of the fallen race, a task that the Son effected without blemish and thus gained the status of savior. In order to be like us and succeed where we failed, he had to take our flesh. In his person, however, his humanity consisted only of the body while the created logos constituted the rational soul of the person Jesus.
This savior concocted by Arius, therefore, was neither God nor man. The views of Arius show that a single theological principle pressed with a relentless, but false, logic uninformed by other revelatory propositions leads to destructive conclusions.
Among the most important of the biblical theologians opposed to Arius was a young deacon at Alexandria named Athanasius (296-373). Athanasius had written a book entitled On the Incarnation of the Word.[2] In it he had discussed how the incarnation of the Son of God solved an apparent dilemma. God intended to bring his creature man to a state of glorious fellowship with God. He also threatened that if his creature disobeyed then death would be the certain outcome. How can God complete his purpose for man and at the same time keep true to his word? The incarnation is God’s answer to this apparent dilemma. The one who was both God and man could take the death man owed for “all men were due to die,” thus fulfilling the veracity of God’s word and the honor of God. At the same time, he brought to glory the human nature that he shared with the creature, thus fulfilling the divine purpose for man. Athanasius was well-armed in biblical knowledge and in theological reflection for the vital corrective that the Arian speculation demanded.
Though the Council had negative fall-out in church-state relations and the eventual authority of canon law, the most important result of the Council of Nicea was the adoption of the creed. To show the pivotal importance of the substance of this creed we will point to five short insertions. Eusebius of Caesarea (the first church historian) proposed the confession used at baptism by his church (or something very similar) as a possible statement to bring unity to the deeply divided council. When the Arian party agreed to sign the proposed statement, the party led by Alexander of Alexandria (d. 328) and his young deacon Athanasius (296-373) knew that no real unity could be gained by such a tactic. A creed that simply embraced the serious doctrinal disagreements would only perpetuate substantial disharmony and lead to constant dispute. Preeminently, ambiguity about the legitimate object of worship would in fact endorse a principle of idolatry and capitulate to the impression that Scripture itself was not clear in its christological focus. The wisdom of God would be impugned for leaving us without clarity on the status of the one he called “My beloved Son.” What could be more absurd in Christianity that to leave the christological issue a matter of opinion, ambiguity, and diverse formulation?
Read More
Related Posts:

We must know that God especially condescends to us as we gather with His people on His Day. If we truly believe that, we will be motivated to prioritize Lord’s Day worship in our lives. Who wouldn’t, like the Psalmist David, say, “One thing I ask from the LORD, this only do I seek: that I may dwell in the house of the LORD all the days of my life, to gaze on the beauty of the LORD and to seek him in his temple…for a day in your courts is better than a thousand elsewhere” (Ps. 27:4; 84:10).

Slowly but surely, I am learning that I am not an abnormality within the PCA. That comment has nothing to do with my quirkiness, and I would have friends who, at this point, would like to highlight all of my peculiarities. No, that comment has everything to do with my feelings as I moved away from my childhood Pentecostalism into Presbyterianism during my freshman year in college. For the longest time, especially as I began the PCA ordination process, I thought I was the only one with such a drastic denominational move. Many often asked, referring to my “spiritual faith journey,” how I left the Pentecostal church and became a confessional Presbyterian. I was asked this question so often that I admittedly got tired of answering the question. Nevertheless, as the denominational pendulum swung in my life, I tried denying anything and everything I had learned in my upbringing. It wasn’t until Dr. Doug Kelly, one of my predecessors here at First Presbyterian Church – Dillon, challenged me over lunch to not forget the suitable lessons that I had learned from my fellow believers in the Church of God (the Cleveland, TN flavor of pentecostalism).
As I began to wrestle with that appropriate challenge, I thought about everything I disagreed with – spiritual gifts, emotionalism, altar calls, eschatology, sanctification, etc. As my mind automatically started at the negatives, I quickly began thinking that there was nothing I should hold on to theologically. Yet, after a few days, I grabbed hold of a particular lesson that I believe is of utmost importance and one we would all do well to remember – on the Lord’s Day, as we gather together as God’s people, we are truly meeting with a living, powerful, and holy God.
Looking back, I thank God for my parents and their commitment to have me in the local church for morning and evening worship on the Lord’s Day.
Read More
Related Posts: