I am convinced that removing the present wording of the statute of limitations in BCO 32-20 will lead to other serious problems and unintended consequences.  The proposed amendment will potentially open up members to harassment by the courts; it will allow the shepherding from elders to become lax; it will allow courts to settle for evidence that has been corrupted by time but fits a preconceived narrative; and, ultimately, it will harass and harm untold members of our congregations.

Removing the “Statute of Limitations” from the Book of Church Order (BCO) of the Presbyterian Church in America (PCA) is a serious matter, and I am concerned that last summer’s General Assembly hastily began that process without counting the costs.  If we move forward with the proposed substitute to BCO 32-20, I fear there will be significant unintended consequences.  I write in hopes that Presbyters across the PCA will better appreciate the wisdom of having a statute of limitations and, with Anton Heuss, I hope that the proposed replacement of BCO 32-20 will NOT be approved and that better language will be put forward.
As it stands today, BCO 32-20 begins, “Process, in case of scandal, shall commence within the space of one year after the offense was committed, unless it has recently become flagrant.”  This amounts to what some, including the SJC and an important commentator, have called a “Statute of Limitations” for church discipline,[1] at least for cases of “scandal.”  The new proposal sent to Presbyteries for their advice and consent removes this language altogether and only codifies the right the accused already has to object to indictments and names “degradation of evidence” as one possible ground for objection.[2]
Overture 22, which gave rise to the proposed language, and Howie Donahoe, the esteemed moderator of the 47th GA, raise a number of objections to the current BCO 32-20, but neither account for the significant costs of removing a statute of limitations altogether.  Nevertheless, I share their concern about abuse and other private sins that are not immediately known or discovered.  I wholeheartedly agree with criticisms of the current BCO 32-20 on this point, but this does not warrant overthrowing a statute of limitations altogether when an exception could be built into the BCO that provides a way to bring before the court cases of past abuse.
We need to remember why we have a statute of limitations in the first place, and I posit that there are at least three significant reasons to retain a statute of limitations for church discipline.

To Protect the Accused

A statute of limitations protects every member of the PCA from all kinds of harassment by the courts.  If a court declines to bring charges against a person, it can’t hold the possibility of charges over that person’s head in perpetuity.
Consider another situation.  Suppose a pastor or Session believes a church member is guilty of a particular sin, and, with a clear conscience, the church member does not believe he has committed it.  Or suppose a church member believes he is repentant of a certain sin, but his elders don’t think so.  What happens then?  Often in cases like these, the church member hears continual, frank, and strong counsel about how he needs to own up to his sin or to biblically repent of it.  The shepherds are doing what they believe is right: rebuking strongly from time to time, bearing with the individual over the long haul in a “pastoral” manner, calling him to be faithful to Scripture’s teaching, and seeking to keep the rest of the church pure from the potential defilement of sin.
But the actions of the elders wear down the church member. The elders don’t want to bring charges, so they are “patient.”  They don’t realize how the church member feels like the life is being squeezed out of him.  In these cases, forbearance isn’t the answer.  When the church member and Session legitimately disagree after prayerful dialogue and counsel, the pastoral answer is not to wait it out and hope the church member changes his mind.  The loving and right thing is often for the Session to bring charges.  From the Session’s perspective, he is in conscious sin, and it must be addressed immediately.  From the church member’s perspective, he has the right to have his case heard not just by his Session, but also to have it reviewed by the higher courts of the church.  It is a merciful thing that the church member has his day in court to vindicate himself and to appeal to higher courts for assistance.  We are Presbyterians, and this is Presbyterianism at its best.  This is good for both the Session and the church member because there will be resolution to the disagreement.
A statute of limitations requires Sessions to bring charges sooner rather than later.  It protects the accused from a forbearance in the name of pastoral kindness that ends up being harmful.  Where legitimate disagreement exists, a statute of limitations puts an end to it by requiring action, and it protects the accused from all kinds of potential harassment by the courts of the church.

To Encourage Diligent Shepherding

If a court is not able to bring a charge on day 366, it is forced to be diligent in shepherding its flock in the first 365 days after a disciplinable offense takes place.  When a court knows that a sin cannot be addressed through process after one year, a statute of limitations actually compels action.  We want to encourage the shepherds of the church to conscientiously care for the hurting and wandering sheep and not to let a sheep walk away from the fold for years before beginning the process of bringing him back.
When someone commits an offence of the sort that often gives rise to formal discipline, it often takes several months for the dust to settle, for the church to understand what happened, and for the offender and the offended parties to appreciate the fallout.  The spiritual realities are not usually immediately clear.  So the statute of limitations ought not be too short to require the court to act before it can shepherd the parties through these early days and gain clarity of the situation.  But it seems that a year has been plenty of time in the PCA to understand what happened, counsel the parties, assess their responses, and determine if formal process is fitting.  These situations are difficult, and courts must be diligent shepherds to adequately care for its members.  A statute of limitations requires them to be engaged intentionally from day one, and that is a good thing.

To Ensure Accurate Evidence

As time goes on, the quality of evidence degrades.  Memories fade.  Witnesses move away, die, or otherwise disappear.  Documentary evidence, whether digital or physical, corrupts or goes missing.  The immediacy of the offence is lost to time, and the accuracy of the remaining testimony decreases in quality.  Overture 22 admits as much.  Of course, there is no certain time where good evidence goes bad, but the principle still stands:  It is better to call upon witnesses and use evidence when it is as fresh as possible so that the accuracy and truthfulness of that testimony is best preserved and conveyed.
Additionally, the further one is from an event, the easier it is to falsify documents or to produce fraudulent testimony.  We minimize the risk of false accusations if we maintain a statute of limitations.
The substitute proposal includes an encouragement to courts to not entertain an indictment if the evidence has been too degraded, but such a question is far too subjective and could easily be answered to accord with the court’s view of the merits of the case.  I question the wisdom of placing this as the only named backstop on the court’s ability to do adjudicate ancient cases.  A bright-line statute of limitations takes this question out the hands of the court in the interests of fairness.
Conclusion
While I deeply appreciate the concern about some alleged offenses that may not be immediately known, I am convinced that removing the present wording of the statute of limitations in BCO 32-20 will lead to other serious problems and unintended consequences.  The proposed amendment will potentially open up members to harassment by the courts; it will allow the shepherding from elders to become lax; it will allow courts to settle for evidence that has been corrupted by time but fits a preconceived narrative; and, ultimately, it will harass and harm untold members of our congregations.
There are better ways to word an amendment to handle the problem of alleged offenses in the church than to remove a reasonable and limited time period altogether, avoiding throwing the proverbial baby out with the bathwater.
I urge Presbyteries to vote against the proposed amendment to BCO 32-20 and then let us find a better solution to the perceived problem.  Concerned members of the PCA can work to make sure a better alternative isn’t too far away.
Jason Piland is a Minister in the Presbyterian Church in America and serves as Associate Pastor of Redeemer (PCA) in Hudson, Ohio.

[1] See, e.g., Grace RPC Session v. Heartland Presbytery, Case No. 93-14, M23GA, 113–121; Morton H. Smith, Commentary on the Book of Church Order of the Presbyterian Church in America, 5th ed. (Greenville: Southern Presbyterian, 2004), 313.
[2] The full text of the proposal is as follows:
The accused or a member of the court may object to the consideration of a charge, for example, if he thinks the passage of time since the alleged offense makes fair adjudication unachievable.  The court should consider factors such as the gravity of the alleged offense as well as what degradations of evidence and memory may have occurred in the intervening period.

Written by Nicholas T. Batzig |
Tuesday, September 28, 2021
The exodus of Israel from Egypt is to remind us of the anti-typical exodus that Jesus has already accomplished through His death and resurrection. What all mankind needs more than anything is to experience the true exodus from Satan, sin, and death.

The exodus is the great redemptive act of the Old Testament. There is no other act of God that so clearly captures the essence of the redeption that He provides for His people in the Old Testament. Yet, the exodus of Israel out of Egypt was typical of the greater exodus that the people of God have through the death, burial, and resurrection of Christ.
Jesus spoke of His death as “ἔξοδον αὐτοῦ” (His exodus) “ἣν ἤμελλεν πληροῦν ἐν Ἰερουσαλήμ” (which He was about to accomplish in Jerusalem” (Luke 9:31). As God delivered Israel out of the bondage of Pharoah and the Egyptians, so Jesus redeems His people from Satan, sin, and death. As Israel passed through the Red Sea on the dry land that appeared out of the waters (a picture of new creation), so Jesus brings about a new creation through His atoning sacrifice on the cross, and His resurrection from the dead (2 Cor. 5:17).
The exodus of Israel out of Egypt was typical of the ultimate spiritual exodus believers experience through the redeeming work of Christ; nevertheless, the relationship of the Old and the New Testaments are united in the redemptive purposes of God–from Genesis 3:15 to the fulfillment of all things in Christ. One can err in only seeing Israel’s exodus out of Egypt as a physical deliverance. Geerhardus Vos explained the spiritual nature of Israel’s typical exodus, when he wrote,
“Redemption is here portrayed as before everything else a deliverance from an objective realm of sin and evil. The favorite individualizing and internalizing of sin finds no support here. No people of God can spring into existence without being cut loose from a world opposed to God and to themselves in their very origin. The Egyptian power is in this respect as truly typical as the divine power that wrought the deliverance. Its attitude and activity were shaped with this in view. What held under the Hebrews was not mere political dependence, but harsh bondage. Their condition is represented as a condition of slavery. The Egyptians exploited them for selfish ends regardless of Israel’s own welfare. Ever since, redemption has attached to itself this imagery of enslavement to an alien power. John 8:33-36, as well as Rom. 8:20-21, reach back into these far origins.”
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The great need of the hour is collective humility and repentance for our sins, for our selfishness, for our idolatries, and our attempts to make our home in this world in denial of our heavenly citizenship. 

One of the most important things Christians should talk about right now is repentance. With the plethora of problems we are facing at the moment, the fact is that, almost universally, among Christians, there lacks a deep humbling of ourselves before the Lord in true repentance.
It really is the height of arrogance for us to avoid the question of why nothing is going well. We are plagued by wars and rumors of wars, economic fall-out, corrupt leadership, and a lingering pestilence that has brought mass confusion as we watch the systematic destruction of a nation before our eyes. And the people seem to expect the government to save us as de facto God. Yet, we angrily respond in outrage to the newest hypocrisy of the day, lobbing “gotcha articles” for our side and the corresponding pot shots toward our enemies. But maybe we’re missing the real issue, the most important of issues.
Fire From the Throne
The reason things are not going well and why it feels like everything is going to hell in a hand basket is because temporary judgments are being issued from the throne room of heaven. You cannot have this kind of chaos, disorder, abuse, sickness, and confusion part from what David called the heavy hand of the Lord. But Christians, by and large, seem afraid to talk about God’s temporary judgments. For clarity, I’m not talking about the Pat Robertson kind of stuff, namely, that God is judging because of some specific group of sinners. Jesus corrected that thinking in Luke 13. Let’s move on from that to a right understanding of dark providence.
We sing from the psalms that Christ “judges the nations” and executes justice on oppressors, as the wrath of God is revealed from heaven in the present (Rom. 1:18ff). We are told from the book of Revelation (a book meant to encourage the church in times of great persecution and satanic assault by the corrupt, beastly governments of this world), that God, in answering our cries and prayers, throws fire back down on the earth. That this fire comes in the forms of the “earth burning up” or the “sea becoming blood” or the “water becoming bitter” is meant to be understood as God answering the cries of his elect (see. Rev. 8).
Why then are Christians falling apart in shock over the things that are happening on the earth? The governmental grabs for power, the ungodly responses, and the many oppressions in the earth by the wicked, are desperate attempts to “save Babylon” from heaven’s divine blows. Yet, we act like we can stop this and “save America.” We sit in front of our computers and yell angrily at the wicked for taking our “freedoms and rights” as if our purpose is to bring calm to the storm in America through activism, on social media. Does anyone stop and think for a minute that what we are facing are symptoms of the world’s panicked response due to divine judgments from the throne? God hears the cries of his people; when we pray, he repays, this is what deliverance from Egypt by plague should have taught us.
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Written by T.M. Suffield |
Tuesday, September 28, 2021
To keep the Sabbath—the very aim of creation—is to understand that you are part of a complicated pattern of time, of bringing order to chaos, and knowing that you are a creature rather than the Creator. We keep weekly the day of stopping, of not-creating, so that we learn these truths from the world around us.

The Bible starts with seven words. Then the second sentence has fourteen words. Then there are seven paragraphs each describing a day in this week of seven days. The seventh of these includes three parallel seven word phrases.
None of this is an accident. In our modern day with our modern eyes it can look like an accident, but it’s a deliberately formed piece of writing that is trying to instruct us. With our modern eyes we expect a sentence to do one thing, the first sentence of the Bible is doing so many different and layered things we can scarcely count them. We need new eyes.
In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.
Instantly we are confronted with time: God is there in the beginning before the heavens and the earth. We are confronted with the creator: it is God who creates as an act of fiat. We see that God creates from nothing, and in a few sentences time we discover that he does it by speaking. We can read this in parallel with other creation myths that the Hebrews would have known like the Enuma Elish and note the stunning parallels and differences that show us how different Yahweh is to the gods of the Babylonians, and much more besides.
But I’d like to start somewhere else.
This seven word sentence starts with the word בְּרֵאשִׁית, which we usually translate ‘in the beginning’. Nothing wrong with that translation, but it’s worth noticing that the Hebrew idiom which means first or beginning is ‘from the head’. Which means not a lot at all in and of itself, it’s idiomatic and arguing from etymology ends you up thinking a butterfly is a sort of fairy that attends milkmaids churning.
Except, with open eyes that know the hymn of Colossians chapter 1, the idea that from the head God created the heavens and the earth is evocative, to say the least. From him and to him and through him, in fact.
The opening word of the Bible announces—to those with eyes of faith—that the world is created from Jesus, and that everything else flows from him too. It preaches the gospel, that there is a Head in God who we can follow to be saved.
That’s not really where I wanted to start, either.
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Written by Andy H. |
Tuesday, September 28, 2021
The order of salvation must be understood against the backdrop of man’s total depravity and moral inability. Therefore, God initiates and he does so by sovereignly, effectually calling by life-giving regenerating power. Man then responds in faith and repentance and conversion, and as a result of that he’s joined to Jesus Christ, justified freely, by the grace of God, separated from the bondage of sin, adopted into the family of God.

Faith and repentance, union with Christ, justification all happen at the point of salvation. In addition to that, following justification—not even following, but accompanying it—is what we call definitive or positional sanctification. You would know that when the Bible talks about sanctification, it talks about it in three aspects of positional sanctification, progressive sanctification, and perfect or final sanctification. Definitive or positional sanctification is, when by the Spirit of God, we are freed from the bondage of sin. As Paul says in Romans 6, “having been freed from sin, you’re now enslaved to God.” All believers have been positionally and definitively sanctified. All believers have been freed from the bondage of sin. They have been delivered from the dominion of and darkness translated into the kingdom of God’s beloved son.
Paul told the Corinthians, “You are the sanctified, you have been sanctified in Jesus Christ.” And he said in 1 Corinthians 1:2, “to those who had been sanctified.” They are already sanctified in Jesus Christ. Paul said in 1 Corinthians 6, “such were some of you, but you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ.” Past tense actions that have separated us from sin. All believers at the point of salvation are positionally sanctified. That means set apart in consecration to God, separated and free from the bondage of sin.
Adoption
Peter said, “that you are kept by the power of God for an inheritance ready to be revealed.” This world is not our home, we are not to seek the things of this life. Our home is in heaven, our inheritance is in heaven. Our Father is in heaven and every spiritual blessing is ours now and shall be then. He is no longer a righteous judge, he is a loving Father. This is the order of salvation of effectual calling, regeneration, conversion, union with Christ, justification, positional sanctification, and adoption.
All I’ve just mentioned happen instantaneously and it often happens upon the subconscious, non-experiential part of man. The question is how is that salvation applied to us? It is applied by God, the powerful effectual call, regenerating grace causing us to be born again, giving us the gift of faith and repentance that we come to Christ is true conversion. We’re joined to Jesus Christ and we are set apart to God, justified freely by his grace, adopted into his family.
Progressive Sanctification
After that, the adventure and the journey of progressive sanctification begins. We’re told to grow 2 Peter 3:18, “into the grace and the knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ.” Peter says in 2 Peter  2, “like newborn babies long for the pure milk of the word,” that you may grow in respect to salvation. Sanctification as you well know has two parts. Ephesians 4 and Colossians 2 talk about this: the mortification of the old man, and the renewal of the new man into the image of Christ. Now hear me carefully, salvation has several dimensions. We have been saved, we are being saved, we will be saved. We have been pardoned from the guilt of sin, we have been freed from the power of sin. We are being cleansed from the pollution of sin and one day we will be freed from the presence of sin.
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Written by Keith A. Mathison |
Tuesday, September 28, 2021
Many [evangelicals] are looking to the culture for direction on ethical questions. A century ago, Christian liberalism did the same thing. It looked to culture for its categories, its definitions, its standards. Liberalism did this because it self-consciously rejected biblical authority. Antinomian evangelicalism is doing this inadvertently because its hermeneutical principles effectively render four-fifths of the Bible ethically irrelevant.

I recently watched a short video of a lecture by my mentor and former pastor Dr. R.C. Sproul. In it, he explained that his ministry from the early 70s to the early 90s had been focused on addressing the catholic questions of Christianity—the doctrine of God, the doctrine of the Person and work of Christ, the doctrine of Scripture, and such. During those first twenty years, he wanted to minister to broad evangelicalism, and these were the foundational doctrines under attack everywhere. But having addressed all those issues over the course of twenty years, Dr. Sproul says in his lecture that he wants to begin focusing on the distinctives of Reformed theology. He believed that the broad evangelical church could never be truly healthy until it was Reformed. He made the point that “Unreformed Christianity has failed.”
One of the things he said in this lecture especially caught my attention. He said that the broad evangelical church has been “pervasively antinomian.” I’ve been thinking about this comment a lot since watching the video, and I believe it makes a point that we need to seriously consider, namely, the fact that there is a radical difference between broadly evangelical ethics and distinctively Reformed ethics. There is a difference in the way each addresses ethical questions, and there is a difference in the sources used to answer those questions.
One of the doctrinal issues that separates broadly evangelical theology from confessional Reformed theology is covenant theology. The majority of evangelicals reject Reformed covenant theology, often because of its implications for our understanding of the sacraments. Among those evangelicals who are dispensationalists, the differences are even greater. Why is this significant? Because a rejection of Reformed covenant theology results in a very different hermeneutical approach to the Bible. The impact of those covenantal and hermeneutical differences is evident when it comes to how each handles the Old Testament in general and biblical law in particular. And how we approach biblical law is enormously important for our approach to Christian ethics. This is where Dr. Sproul’s charge of “pervasive antinomianism” arises.
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Our identity in Christ should only be seen as something glorious! No longer are we slaves to those sins that once defined us, but now we belong to our heavenly Father. He clothes us in the righteousness of Christ, our elder Brother, and He gives us a new identity by making us new creations.

During my freshman year of college, I made a friend who informed me that he was adopted during his elementary years. It was an overall great experience for him, and he and his family shared a deep love for one another. During our second semester, his adopted dad passed away. You could see the tears building up in his eyes as he spoke about his father’s sudden massive heart attack.
My friend attended his dad’s funeral and returned to college a week later. As he returned, we sat and talked about our faith and his dad’s death. Then he began talking about the shock he felt to be listed as a son in the obituary. Even more, he begins to tell me how his dad left him money in a trust for the future. He was shocked to learn that he received the exact same amount as his two brothers and sister. Being the only adopted child, he admitted that he assumed that he would receive less. He kept saying repeatedly, “I didn’t realize that my dad loved me like them.”
I was struck by his words. As he spoke to his mother about his feelings, he admitted that he never would have imagined that his dad considered him as a true son. To this his mom replied, “Son, on the day you were adopted, everything changed.” Everything changed. He was a son. A true son!
This made my mind race to Paul’s words in Romans 8:14–17 about our adoption into the family of God.
For all who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God…you have received the Spirit of adoption as sons, by whom we cry, “Abba! Father!” The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, then heirs—heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ…
While the word “identity” might not appear in this text, there is no doubt that the Apostle Paul is clearly teaching that there is a radical change within the life of the believer at the moment of their salvation. Just like the declaration from my dear friend’s mother, at the very moment of our adoption, everything changed.
Our Adoption by our Heavenly Father
While our adoption into the family of Christ is not the full picture of our salvation, it is a vital element of our redemptive story. As the Apostle Paul reminds the church at Corinth of these gospel truths, he proclaims this hope on the heels of a challenge to turn away from every evil habit that pursues them internally and externally. He begins to list specific sins for the Corinthian believers; to proclaim that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God.
Or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who practice homosexuality, nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God. (1 Cor. 6:9, 10)
In Paul’s exhortation against worldliness, he continues to remind those who have professed faith in Christ that they were identified of these very sins and, as such, would not receive the gift of the kingdom.
And such were some of you. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God. (1 Cor. 6:11)
The key phrase: “And such were some of you.” Clearly, the Apostle Paul is referencing an identity change that has taken place in the life of these believers. They are no longer sinners, but saints; no longer unrighteous, but righteous. It is a radical change, and one that cannot be undone.
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Every Christian I have ever met has an interest in and a desire for pleasing God by living in accordance with His will. When it comes to personal decision making—especially in seemingly large, life-affecting decisions (“Is this God’s will for my marriage partner?” “Is it God’s will for me to accept this job offer?”), we want God to give us His counsel, His advice, His direction. There is certainly nothing wrong with that. In especially hard decisions, we want to make an appointment with God and sit down across the desk from Him and explain to Him the situation and the decision we face and then to sit back and listen and have Him tell us exactly what decision to make. Or—maybe even more honestly—what we want is for God to decide for us so that we won’t have to.
The question is, does God direct us when we make personal decisions, and if so, how can I find that guidance? Or, can I know in advance God’s will for me in matters not explicitly spelled out in the Scriptures? While we cannot know God’s infallible will about anything except that which is revealed in Scripture, we are not to think that we have been left on our own with no assistance from God. The issue is not one of God’s willingness to assist but of the methodology by which God has stated He will give that assistance. What we find is that finding God’s will in personal decision making is a process, not an event. It is a process wherein we follow principles that God has given in His Word.
Here, then, are the means by which God has promised to give us the aid we so desperately desire when it comes to making specific decisions for our lives. While they are listed in no particular order (except for the first two, which are necessary and foundational), when woven together they are the means by which God ordinarily directs us in the way we should go.
1. The Bible: God’s revealed will and “our only rule of faith and life.”
God’s speaking in His Word is the only inerrant and infallible source of guidance and counsel concerning any decision. “Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path. I have sworn an oath and confirmed it, to keep your righteous rules” (Ps. 119:105–6). We can know with certainty that any decision that involves violating what God has already said cannot please Him.
2. Prayer: Rooted in faith that God hears and cares.
He is a loving Father and is delighted to help in the decision-making process. “Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives, and the one who seeks finds; and to the one who knocks, it will be opened” (Matt. 7:7–8). “If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask God, who gives generously to all without reproach, and it will be given to him” (James 1:5).