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Elisabeth Elliot, the Valiant

By Trevin Wax — 4 months ago

Elisabeth Elliot’s story reminds me of the importance of grappling with mystery and certainty, the realization that the more we know, the more we see there’s more to know. Here is a portrait of a valiant woman who knew her sins but, better yet, knew her Savior.

When I finished Lucy Austen’s biography of Elisabeth Elliot a few weeks ago, the book went first to my desk, not my shelf, because I knew I’d have to write something about this remarkable woman’s story. Elisabeth rose to prominence as the widow whose husband Jim died in 1956 with four of his fellow missionaries at the hands of Waorani men in the jungles of Ecuador. Her life was long, her ministry vibrant. Austen’s portrait reveals a woman of courage and conviction who developed spiritually and theologically over time.
In this telling, there’s no halo over Elisabeth’s head, no smoothing out all the rough spots. Austen’s admiration for her subject comes through, but the way she shows respect for Elisabeth is by refusing to sugarcoat the challenges that arose or ignore the doubts that hovered over her hardest years.
Strange and Compelling Love Story
Readers unfamiliar with the story of Jim and Elisabeth Elliot may be surprised at its roller-coaster highs and lows, and just how long it took before they agreed to marry. From the outset, the reader senses they were both right for each other and tortured in the way they sought God’s will for their relationship.
The twentysomething Jim could sometimes be callous, often immature, clearly in the throes of a throbbing passion for God yet confused because he was confident God had called him to a life of celibacy. Torn between his devotion to God and his interest in Elisabeth, opinionated to a fault yet with a charisma and grace that charmed and influenced those around him, Jim was both honest and obstinate. Often unaware of how his vacillating affected Elisabeth, his words and actions carved channels of both love and sorrow. They were called first to the mission field and only then to each other, and once married, the couple’s life was marked by intensity: a fierce devotion to God and to each other, and to the people they hoped to reach with the gospel.
Life After Tragedy
If you’re familiar with the story, you may think the most interesting part of Elisabeth’s life is wrapped up in the mission she shared with Jim, their commitment to a dangerous and remote place in the jungle while still in their 20s, and the circumstances surrounding his death. But Austen’s biography devotes more attention to Elisabeth’s life after the tragedy on the beach.
First, we see the grieving widow with a young daughter honor the story of her husband and his fellow missionaries by giving the world an account of their dedication. Then we see her return to the area, labor for many years in language development and Bible translation, and eventually live with and observe closely the tribe responsible for Jim’s death. Along the way, she wrestles with doubt and disillusionment, ponders the miracle of conversion, and bemoans the monotony of a missionary’s life. She struggles relationally with Rachel Saint (the sister of one of the missionary men killed), always wondering how to rebuild and restore what was broken. Once she becomes a writer and speaker in the United States, Elisabeth bucks the expectations set for a missionary widow, refusing to give American audiences the gauzy and inspiring stories they most want to hear, choosing instead to be honest about her experiences and observations.
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Why Wisdom Is Far More Valuable than Intelligence

By Campbell Markham — 4 months ago

Wisdom can be sought, learned, and increased. But the seeking begins with Jesus Christ and Him alone. Without Christ, without submitting to Him, we are forever condemned to the foolish harm of our souls, and the souls of those around us.

Did you know that people pass electricity through their brains (tDCS, “transcranial direct current stimulation”) in the hope of being more intelligent? They do this before IQ testing, hoping to gain an edge over others.
Intelligence is a valuable commodity. Higher intelligence opens the door to better university degrees at better universities. Better degrees open the door to more lucrative careers. More lucrative careers open the door to the Nirvana of homeownership, meals with top chefs, private schools for the kids, better medical and dental treatment, early retirement, travel, and all-important experiences.
Thus, intelligent people are the new rock stars. Jordan Peterson’s recent lecture tour in Australia was a sellout. The ubiquitous Stephen Fry—urbane, witty, mellifluous—hosts the British TV show QI and makes one feel that one could never fly at quite his own altitude.
In this environment it is difficult not to measure and value ourselves according to our intelligence.
Wisdom is far more valuable than intelligence.
God’s Word does not rate intelligence this way. A quick concordance check of the NIV Bible shows that the word intelligent appears nine times, clever appears twice, and the words smart, intellectual, bright,and brainy not at all. But the words discern and discerning appear 34 times, understanding appears 115 times, and wise and wisdom 455 times. Know and knowledge appear 1,250 times. Think, thought, consider, meditate, reason, and ponder appear 405 times. We are commanded 14 times to “Wake up!” In the KJV, the command “Behold!” appears 1,326 times. The Bible highly rates wisdom, wisely alert thought, and wisely used knowledge. Bare intelligence is irrelevance.
The reason is this: there is no necessary correlation between intelligence and morality, or intelligence and wise conduct. You can be a fool with a very high IQ. You can be an evil genius. You can be dim, and good. You can be slow on the uptake, yet wise. You can be dull, and yet very skilled at the worthwhile thing that you do.
At the end of the day, a person’s contribution to the world, their society, and their friends and family will be determined not by their intelligence per se, but by their wisdom and goodness.
Wisdom is about knowing how to act correctly in any given situation.
According to the New Bible Dictionary the Hebrew word ḥokmā, “is intensely practical, not theoretical…. wisdom is the art of being successful, of forming the correct plan to gain the desired results.” And so the craftsmen of the Tabernacle were given ḥokmā to undertake their highly skilled workmanship (Exod. 31:6). The Bible associates wisdom with skilled metalwork, woodwork, jewelry, embroidery, weaving, trading, politics, leadership, and military and nautical ability. Wisdom is not about being smart. Wisdom is about knowing how to act correctly in any given situation, to do a given task well. This is driven home by the startling observation of Proverbs 30:24–28:
Four things on earth are small,but they are exceedingly wise:the ants are a people not strong,yet they provide their food in the summer;the rock badgers are a people not mighty,yet they make their homes in the cliffs;the locusts have no king,yet all of them march in rank;the lizard you can take in your hands,yet it is in kings’ palaces.
Ants, badgers, locusts, and lizards frequently shame the sharp, clever, and intelligent. For whereas the latter so often misuse their intelligence to harm themselves and those around them, “dumb animals” act prudently, constructively, and well. (The lizard is my favorite: he lets men sweat and toil to build a great and luxurious palace, says “thanks for that” when it is done, and simply moves in.)
While intelligence may be fixed, we can increase in wisdom.
The implication is that whereas IQ, like your height and eye color, may be relatively fixed, wisdom can be sought, learned, and increased. It should grow deeper and wider with age and experience (Job 32:7, Heb. 5:12). With every journey around the sun we should learn by experience how better to look after ourselves and those around us.
That is why we will now hear, from Proverbs 8, Wisdom shouting out to us from the street corners, urging us to take hold of the gifts that she longs to lavish upon us all:
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The Means and Design of His Presence

By Bill Elliff — 4 months ago

We draw near in our day through the Word of God and prayer, continual repentance and faith, through the filling of the Holy Spirit and joining Him in His mission and continually abiding in Him. He is abundantly available to all those who seek Him, for it has always been His desire to dwell among us and be our God and us His people.

God plans for us to live in the constant, conscious awareness of His presence. He wants us to walk with Him in unceasing communion and unending joy. To this end, He has continually provided the means for this fellowship. If we cooperate, we will know the best of this in this life, a foretaste of eternity.
A Visible Reminder
As God was molding a new nation after He had delivered them from Egypt, He instructed Moses to build a tabernacle in the wilderness to aid this process. It would move with them in their travels and be placed among them when they stopped. It would be central to their encampment, always there, always present.
An Offering
Everything depended upon the people’s willingness to give. So God told Moses to raise an offering of materials to construct this dwelling place.
Tell the sons of Israel to raise a contribution for Me; from every man whose heart moves him you shall raise My contribution.Exodus 25:2
The materials were specific: gold, silver, bronze, fine linen, etc. All these beautiful elements were purposeful and to be given willingly from “every man whose heart moves him.” God could have created this Tabernacle from thin air, but He desired for its building to be a partnership with those He had created in His image. He made us like He is so we could join Him in what He does. And this joint venture was another stunning reminder of that plan.
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What Is Calvinism?

By Herman Selderhuis — 4 months ago

Essential elements of Calvinist doctrine include the sovereignty of God as demonstrated in His creative power and His providential care, the authority of the Bible as the source and norm for all of life, and both the sinfulness and responsibility of man.

The Term
Calvinism is a term that John Calvin did not like and one that often makes a wrong impression. It emerged as a term of insult from Lutherans trying to separate themselves emphatically from the Reformed doctrine of the Lord’s Supper. Although Calvin distanced himself from the term—just as Martin Luther protested the term Lutheran—it has nevertheless endured.
Calvinism involves much more than merely the theology of Calvin. First, there is much of Luther’s theology and Huldrych Zwingli’s theology in Calvin’s teaching, and there were quite a few other theologians who contributed to what is called Calvinism, including Philip Melanchthon, Martin Bucer, and Theodore Beza. It would be more accurate, then, to speak of Reformed Protestantism. Since, however, the term Calvinism is recognizable and widely used, it is still useful.
The Theology
Essential elements of Calvinist doctrine include the sovereignty of God as demonstrated in His creative power and His providential care, the authority of the Bible as the source and norm for all of life, and both the sinfulness and responsibility of man. Calvinism is distinguished by the abiding function of the law for the Christian life. In Calvin’s mind, the law of God as summarized in the Ten Commandments has continuing meaning and is regarded as the rule for the Christian life. Combined with a focus on the person and work of the Holy Spirit, Calvinism distinguishes justification and sanctification while stressing that both are vital, and stresses the importance of a godly lifestyle, a commitment to mercy, and a continuing reflection on law and justice as evidences of the true, saving faith by which alone we are justified.
Culturally, Calvinism (inside the church) led to resistance to the cult of images as a threat to the proclamation of the Word and (outside the church) to an impulse for art and culture as a means of worshiping God. The focus on the Word on the importance of knowing God resulted in a Calvinist “culture of reading” in schools, homes, and churches, which in turn made Calvinism a home for many intellectuals over the centuries. Calvinism’s openness to science comes from Calvin’s view that God is also revealed in creation. Scientific research contributes to the recognition of God, and this view gave great impetus to academics.
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Feminists, Duplicity and Hamas

By Bill Muehlenberg — 4 months ago

Ignoring Israeli women and the deplorable sexual violence they are experiencing simply because they happen to be Jewish really beggars belief and tells us all we need to know about so much of modern feminism and the MeToo movement.

The Australian Sky News host Sharri Markson has done a terrific job reporting from Israel this past week. Of course this was mainly done as an acknowledgment and a reminder of the horrific atrocities that happened on October 7, 2023 by Hamas, and are still happening by the terror organisation. We must never forget.
In her programs from Israel she had a number of moving interviews with victims of all this, including those who survived the day and were able to speak about it, and some who were finally released as hostages. We heard such tragic and shocking stories, especially as to what the women had to endure at the hands of their Islamist captors.
Sharri and others asked some obvious questions that still deserve answers: Where are all the Western feminists when you need them? Why have hardly any of them been speaking out for the Israeli—and other—females being treated so diabolically by Hamas? Why the silence? Why the selective outrage?
Yes, some voices over the past twelve months have been heard on this, but far too few. For example, late last year Candice Holdsworth asked, “Why can’t “intersectional feminists” condemn Hamas’s misogyny?” She said in part:
It is surely possible to express opposition to Israel’s military action in Gaza without whitewashing Hamas’s crimes. But in recent weeks it has been disturbing to learn just how many people are willing to deny Hamas’s atrocities, or to view its sadistic violence as a legitimate form of “resistance.”
When self-declared feminists join in with this apologism, they make clear that they do not see all women as worthy of the same moral consideration. The woke belief in an “intersectional” hierarchy of oppression, which paints Palestinians as eternal victims and Jews as oppressors, seems to have blinded them to the brutal violence that so many Israeli women were subjected to six weeks ago. Their rigid ideology will not let them see Hamas’s mass rape of women for the atrocity that it is.
Condemning Hamas’s violence against women really shouldn’t be difficult. It is a very peculiar kind of feminism that insists otherwise.
And a half year ago Nils A. Haug wrote about this as well:
The reality is that for all advocates for women’s welfare, especially in the area of sexual violence, the crucial concern at this time should be the terror perpetrated on defenceless females of all ages through acts of sexual depravity, torture, and death by Hamas in Israel on October 7.
The moral obligation of lovers of peace, and those who hold to the sanctity of human life, is to speak out against injustice. This is particularly so in crimes of violence against the defenceless. It is therefore fitting to expect women’s rights groups to speak out on behalf of traumatized females of all ethnic and religious categories.
This approach was ratified in by Nobel Peace Prize winner Eli Wiesel in his 1986 acceptance speech: “We must always take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented.” Archbishop Charles Chaput remarked that “tolerating grave evil within a society is itself a form of serious evil.”
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A La Carte (October 23)

By Tim Challies — 4 months ago

Audible (Amazon’s audiobook service) is offering a holiday special where your first three months are just $0.99 per month. In that time you’ll be able to download, listen to, and keep 3 audiobooks of your choice from their massive catalog. Set a reminder on your phone for 3 months from now and then decide if you’d like to keep or cancel the service. (You are eligible for the deal if you have not had an Audible membership in the past 365 days.)
Today’s Kindle deals include You Are Still a Mother which is a beautiful and comforting book for those who are grieving stillbirth or miscarriage. There are other good options as well.

Douglas Groothuis offers some simple but helpful advice on writing a meaningful card. “Writing cards is a way to re-humanize a de-humanized culture. Too much is too automatic and impersonal. When you pen (and I mean pen) a card, it bears the mark of your handwriting, your choice of ink and pen. A human—you—emerges from the thick lagoon of the pre-set, the template, the standard, the algorithm.”

Joni Eareckson Tada explains how God brings us bad in order to give us best. “When God lobs a hand grenade into life and rattles our faith to the core, we wonder how he’ll work the pieces of shrapnel together for our good. What does good mean, anyway?”

More than 500 years ago, Martin Luther effectively sparked the Protestant Reformation by posting his Ninety-Five Theses. How did an obscure Augustinian monk become the man God would use to set the world ablaze? Today, Ligonier Ministries is offering a free download of the ebook The Legacy of Luther, edited by R.C. Sproul and Stephen Nichols. Add this volume to your digital library and explore Luther’s life, teaching, and enduring influence. (Sponsored)

I enjoyed Ed’s explanation of the difference notebooks have made to his faith. “It’s my way of extracting the most value from each sermon. For me, listening and note-taking go hand in hand. And when I review, highlight and summarize, my understanding and retention skyrocket.”

“Imagine if Timothy had responded to Paul’s exhortation saying that he may or may not shipwreck his faith, depending on what the grace of God had in store for him. Yet we do speak this way in the wake of church scandals, and appear humble. But the renouncing of personal agency among Christian men regarding sexual sin is no virtue; it is cowardice.”

Cindy Matson: “I’d rather not write this article. Anyone who knows me knows that competitiveness lodges deep within my bones. I want to come out on top whether playing tic-tac-toe, four-square, taking a test, or parenting my kids. I size up the competition and track the most likely path to victory. Of course, I don’t always win. I lose. A lot. But that doesn’t mean I like it.”

I enjoyed reading this one. “Whether there is media coverage of natural disasters or not, regardless of the scale, you will find faithful Southern Baptist volunteers hailing from 45,000 churches around the United States donning yellow shirts and mobilizing to the affected area. With the two Hurricanes, Milton and Helene, the SBC has thousands of men and women on the ground in western North Carolina, Georgia, east Tennessee, and Florida.”

I would need to dedicate time to training and discipling them but also to just enjoying them. I would, essentially, need to woo and win my own children, to prove myself a worthy, valuable friend.

Having a gospel zeal means we’re about our Father’s business—sharing the gospel in word and deed, and caring for the least, the last, and the lost.
—J. A. Medders and Doug Logan Jr.

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One More Time on the Decree and Time, then, the Wild World of Ammon Hillman

By Rich Pierce — 4 months ago

Road Trip #2 as I move toward Mobile and Saturday’s important debate. Responded to yet another misunderstanding of the decree and time at the beginning of the program from Twitter, then dove into a wild video from some guy who is starting to get attention named Ammon Hillman. [Please note: I had some sound problems, but rolled the video back and picked it up; my apologies]. In this clip he makes wild (and false) claims about the Septuagint, early Hebrew, etc. and etc. I have found other material from this guy that is simply beyond blasphemous, and beyond absurd. I may provide further refutation of his many factual errors, but to be honest, some of his stuff is just beneath contempt. We will see!
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First Up: Get Your Soul Happy in God

By David Mathis — 4 months ago

I wake up hungry every morning. So do you.

We may or may not awake with empty stomachs, but deeper down, our souls growl ferociously. However much we try to satisfy that hunger elsewhere, and however many live in denial, God made our souls to hunger for him, and feed on him.

We want when we awake — and want and want and want. Some turn immediately to breakfast. Others dive right into an electronic device or screen. Some roll over and try to wrestle a little more joy from sleep. Yet the hunger remains. And that is no accident. God made us to start each new day with this ache — as a call to turn afresh to him.

Great Discovery of 1841

In his much-acclaimed autobiography, George Mueller (1805–1898), who cared for more than ten thousand orphans in England throughout his ministry, tells of a life-changing discovery he made in the first half of 1841.

In a journal entry dated May 7, he captures the insight he stumbled into that spring. The entry is one long paragraph of 1,500 words that rewards careful and multiple readings.

Over the years, I have read it again and again and seem to profit from it more each time. Mueller’s life-changing insight has proved significant in my own life. As I again reread this journal entry in recent days, I noticed several distinct aspects of this one lesson, which could be identified and sequenced to benefit readers today.

In short, Mueller’s great discovery was that “the first great and primary business to which I ought to attend every day [is] to have my soul happy in the Lord.” What a find! Just about any other duty would land as burdensome, but “get happy”? That is a deeply refreshing task.

Mueller restates the point as “the first thing to be concerned about was . . . how I might get my soul into a happy state.” The discovery is set against the backdrop of other things that are not his, and your, first calling: “not how much I might serve the Lord,” not setting the truth before the unconverted, not benefiting believers, not relieving the distressed, not behaving in the world as fits a child of God. None of these real, critical callings is “first and primary.” None of these is “the first thing.” Most important is not pouring out but first filling up. First thing first: get your soul happy in God. Find happiness in him. Obey your hunger for God and feast.

But then we ask, How? How does hunger lead to happiness?

Feed on God

Mueller answers that hunger becomes happiness as we satisfy our empty souls on God — which implies a certain kind of approach to God. We come to get, not to give. Many human satisfactions come from various deeds and achievements. Others come through reception of goods or honor. Still others come through the intake of food and drink. Among these other desires, God made our souls to long for such consumption — to receive God as food, to take and chew and savor. And to receive him as drink, slake our thirst, and revel in the satisfaction.

So, Mueller clarifies his lesson: “The first thing the child of God has to do morning by morning is to obtain food for his inner man.” He draws on the language of both nourishment and refreshment (as well as being “strengthened”). He approaches God, he says, “for the sake of obtaining food for my own soul,” and as he lingers in God’s presence, he tries to “continually keep before me that food for my own soul is the object of my meditation.”

Next, we might ask, Where? Where do you turn to find such food for your soul?

In His Word

Mueller’s answer — simple, and unsurprising, yet profound and transformative — is the word of God. To make sure we don’t miss it, he asks the question for us and answers it: “What is the food for the inner man? Not prayer, but the word of God.”

“Hunger becomes happiness through satisfying our empty souls on God.”

Now we pick up a vital part of the lesson. Mueller says that for years his practice was to awake and go straight into prayer. It might take him ten minutes or even half an hour to find enough focus to really pray. He then might spend “even an hour, on my knees” before receiving any “comfort, encouragement, humbling of soul, etc.” He had the goal right: get my soul happy in God. He had the direction right: come to feed on God. But he had the posture wrong. Or he had the order wrong. The lesson he needed to learn was come first to hear, then to speak. That is, first hear God’s word, then pray in response.

In God’s word, “we find our Father speaking to us, to encourage us, to comfort us, to instruct us, to humble us, to reprove us.” God’s word nourishes and strengthens the soul. His word leads, provides, warns, steadies. Then in prayer, we speak to God in response to what he’s said to us in his word.

Through Meditation

At this point, we might assume we know how to take in God’s word: just read it. After all, that’s what you do with a written text, right?

Mueller has one more clarifying word, and it might be his most important for us today: “not the simple reading of the word of God . . . but considering what we read, pondering over it, and applying it to our hearts.” In other words, he feeds his soul on God’s word through what he and many other great saints have called “meditation.”

This meditation is a crucial aspect of the lesson, and for us, almost two centuries later, it increasingly has become a lost art.

Mueller’s first mention of “meditation” clarifies what kind of reading he means: “The most important thing I had to do was to give myself to the reading of the word of God, and to meditation on it.” He then makes plain that meditation concerns the heart. Mere reading might fill the head, but meditation aims to comfort, encourage, warn, reprove, instruct, and feed the heart.

He doubles back to explain what he means again. “Meditate on the word of God” includes “searching as it were into every verse, to get blessing out of it . . . for the sake of obtaining food for my own soul.” Having chewed on one bite and savored it, “I go on to the next words or verse, turning all, as I go on, into prayer for myself or others, as the word may lead to it, but still continuously keeping before me that food for my own soul is the object of my meditation.”

He comes back once more to say he means “not the simple reading of the word of God, so that it only passes through our minds, just as water runs through a pipe, but considering what we read, pondering over it, and applying it to our hearts.” This series of three verbs may be the most help he gives us as to how we might meditate ourselves and not simply read.

Mueller would have us slow down, pause, and reread so that we might consider what we read, ponder over it, and apply it to our hearts — that is, not only or mainly to our practical lives but first and foremost to our inner person, to our hearts.

Such a deliberate, affectional reception of God’s word naturally leads us into prayer.

Then Prayer

Now, don’t think Mueller, in this life-changing lesson, is eschewing or marginalizing prayer. Rather, by putting prayer in its proper place (in response to God’s word), he helps prayer flourish.

Having heard from God in his word, and considered it, pondered over it, and applied it to my heart, “I speak to my Father and to my Friend . . . about the things that he has brought before me in his precious word.” Meditation soon leads to a response — in fact, “it turned almost immediately more or less into prayer.” The time when prayer “can be most effectively performed is after the inner man has been nourished by meditation on the word of God.” Now, having heard our Father’s voice all the way down into our souls, we find ourselves able “really to pray,” and so to actually commune with God.

Communion with Jesus

You’ll find in Mueller’s May 7, 1841, journal entry that “meditation and prayer” is for him synonymous with the phrase “communion with God.” To commune with God is not only to address him in prayer, nor is it simply to hear from him in his word. Communion involves both his speaking and ours. This is a Father-child relationship. God speaks first in his word, and we receive his words with the hunger, delight, and unhurried pace that fits the word of our Father and divine Friend. Then we speak humbly yet boldly in response, adoring our God, confessing our sins, thanking him for his grace and mercy, and petitioning him for ourselves, our loved ones, and even those who seem like enemies.

This hearing from God and responding to him Mueller calls “experimental [that is, experiential] communion with the Lord.” With “my heart being nourished by the truth,” he is “brought into experimental fellowship with God” in meditation and prayer. And not only with God the Father but “the Lord” Jesus, the risen, reigning Christ, seated on heaven’s throne, dwelling in us by his Spirit, and drawing near to commune with us through his word and our prayer.

Afterword

Several times, Mueller emphasizes that such communion with God is never a means to ministry and feeding others, yet God often appoints leftovers. Such early-morning meals, deeply savored in the soul, may “soon after or at a later time” prove to be “food for other believers,” but this is not the goal. Fodder for ministry is not the first and primary business each day, but food for our own souls. The point, and prayer, is soul-satisfying communion with the risen Christ.

Such a hungry and hedonistic approach to each new day was life-changing for Mueller. And it gave him the help and strength, he says, “to pass in peace through deeper trials, in various ways, than I had ever had before.” This approach has been significant for me too. Perhaps it will be so for you as well. As Mueller exults, “How different when the soul is refreshed and made happy early in the morning!”

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4 Important Things to Remember If You Are a Doubting Believer

By Nick Batzig — 4 months ago

Though he had doubts, John wasted no time in seeking to quench them. He sent some of his disciples to Jesus to ask him about his ministry. The example of John teaches us to distinguish between doubt and unbelieving skepticism. John had made the largest and most confident confessions about the identity of Jesus. Then, in a moment of weakness, he sent disciples to Jesus to ask him, “Are you the coming One, or do we look for another?”Jesus honored John for the way in which he had faithfully prepared the way for his Messianic ministry, by responding to John’s question.

Fifteen to twenty years ago, prominent figures in the missional movement began saying things like, “Our churches have to be safe places for doubters,” or “You should feel like you can come to our church with all of your doubts.” I always felt somewhat uncomfortable whenever I heard these statements—not because I think that our churches shouldn’t be safe place for people to express doubts, but because it seemed as if many were confusing the idea of doubt with the idea of unbelieving skepticism.
It is important to recognize that Scripture does not identity doubt with unbelieving skepticism. In fact, the most serious believers may have prolonged periods in which they struggle with doubt—a fact that the Gospel writers unfold in the account of John the Baptist’s doubts about the identity of Jesus while in prison.
During his earthly ministry, Jesus made the shocking assertion, “Among those born of women there is not a greater prophet than John the Baptist.” Christ praised John as having been “the burning and shining lamp” (John 5:35)—as one who poured himself out for the spiritual well-being of others. John’s ministry was marked by his selfless motivation to see Jesus exalted: “He must increase; I must decrease” (John 3:30). John likened himself to the friend of the bridegroom, who, upon hearing the voice of Christ, rejoiced that the Bridegroom had come (John 3:29).
John had the unique privilege of standing and pointing to the Redeemer in the flesh and declaring, “Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world” (John 1:29). John joyfully encouraged his own disciples to leave him in order to follow after Jesus, when Christ began his ministry. John was content to exist for the glory and exaltation of Jesus (John 1:35-37). However, after Herod had locked John up in prison as retribution for rebuking him for his sexual immorality (Luke 3:19-20), John began to have doubts.
Here are four important things to remember if you are a doubting believer.
1. Even John the Baptist Began to Have Doubts
There are two possible explanations for these doubts. Either John was struggling with the suffering that he was enduring and couldn’t square it with the prophecies of the Messiah that he read about in the Old Testament prophets; or John was doubting the identity of Jesus because he wasn’t fulfilling John’s Old Testament expectation that the Messiah would come bringing salvation and judgment.
John knew the prophet Isaiah had predicted that when Messiah came he would come “to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to those who are bound” (Isa. 61:1) This was, in fact, part of Jesus’ first sermon preached in the synagogue in Nazareth about himself (Luke 4:16-21). But now John was in prison for his testimony to Christ, and Jesus was even then delivering John from his imprisonment.
Believers may begin to doubt Jesus’ identity and God’s promises on account of his or her circumstances in life and inability to square those circumstances with what Scripture teaches. This is often a cause for doubts to arise in the hearts of even the most mature believers. So much of the Christian life is learning to walk through circumstances in which God has placed us when they seem contrary to what God has promised us in his word. We go back to the word to be strengthened in faith, even when we can’t square our circumstances with God’s promises.
2. John Remembered God’s Promises in Scripture
John also knew that the Old Testament prophets made clear that “the Day of the Lord” (yom Yahweh) would bring both judgment and salvation.
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The Constitution of the PCA Prohibits the Ordination of Men Who Experience Unnatural Lust

By Tom Hervey — 4 months ago

The Presbyterian Church in America (PCA) recently adopted changes to its Book of Church Order (BCO) that specify that an elder “should conform to the biblical requirement of chastity and sexual purity in his descriptions of himself, and in his convictions, character, and conduct” (BCO 8-2). Similarly, deacons are to be conspicuous for “conforming to the biblical requirement of chastity and sexual purity in their descriptions of themselves and in their convictions, character, and conduct” (9-3). It may be fairly asked what this means, as the phrases “chastity” and “sexual purity” occur nowhere else in the BCO. To understand the terms we are therefore compelled to consider their use in the other elements of our constitution, the Westminster Confession and Larger and Shorter Catechisms (BCO Preface III).
In considering this it is helpful to consider the original overture (O23) from Mississippi Valley Presbytery that urged the modification of BCO 8-2 and 9-3. In its “whereas” statements, O23 plainly states “the preservation of chastity in body, mind, affections, words, and behavior in oneself is an indispensable duty and qualification for office (1 Tim.3:2; Titus 1:5-9)” and that “any expression of sexual attraction or sexual intimacy that is not directed toward the fulfillment of a lifelong covenant of marriage between one man and one woman is contrary to nature and to nature’s God” (50th General Assembly Minutes, pp. 1022-24). In so doing it cites Larger Catechism (LC) Question 139, which says “all unnatural lusts” are “sins forbidden” by the seventh commandment, as are “all unclean imaginations, thoughts, purposes, and affections.” The positive duty enjoined by said commandment is “chastity in body, mind, affections, words, and behavior” (LC 138), i.e., exactly what O23 said in its whereas statement above. From this we see that “chaste” and “sexually pure” are matters of the heart and mind as well as of the body, and that they are opposed not only to immoral deeds, but to the lust that provokes such deeds, both in general and in the case of “unclean” and “unnatural” lusts in particular.
Now let us suppose that a man comes before one of our presbyteries seeking ordination, but that he, by his own admission, experiences what he calls “same-sex attraction.” Our constitution knows nothing of such terminology, and in its framework such attraction is an unclean and unnatural lust that is against the law of God. It is not merely a temptation, weakness, or potential moral liability, but one of those “sins forbidden” that LC 139 mentions. A man who experiences it is therefore not chaste or pure “in his convictions, character, and conduct,” nor in his “imaginations, thoughts, purposes, and affections.” For character and conduct bear an internal form in our hearts before they show themselves as outward deeds – “out of the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false witness, slander” (Matt. 15:19, emphases mine) – and a man who experiences unnatural lusts is therefore awry in his internal character and the conduct and affections of his heart and mind. Failing to meet the constitution’s requirements for his character and conduct, and possibly his convictions and self-description as well,[1] such a man ought to be deemed disqualified and be denied office among us when examined by presbytery.
Why This Matters
The immediate reason this matters is that I have correspondence which states that even some of those who are opposed to the errors of Revoice cannot see where our constitution forbids office to men who experience the lust in question, even those who have a public reputation as such. As can be seen above, our constitution requires chastity in thought and affections as well as in external behavior, hence someone who experiences unclean and unnatural lust is to be accounted unchaste in mind and therefore unfit per its provisions. Internal consistency and a faithful testimony to the egregiousness of the lust in question also require such a position. In the rules of discipline relating to the trial of teaching elders we read:
When a minister, pending a trial, shall make confession, if the matter be base and flagitious, such as drunkenness, uncleanness, or crimes of a greater nature, however penitent he may appear to the satisfaction of all, the court shall without delay impose definite suspension or depose him from the ministry.
We believe that a sin involving uncleanness is so heinous that even a minister who confesses it and seems to be sincerely repentant of the offense must be immediately suspended or removed from the ministry. Now if a man who has many years of fruitful labor and faithful service must nonetheless, on account of a single act of uncleanness, be suspended from the ministry, why should a man who is yet untested but admits to persistent unclean lusts not be deemed to be prohibited from ministerial office? Will anyone dare say that it is because there is a difference between lust in one’s own heart and acting upon such lust in external deeds? But what then is the meaning of this teaching of our Lord:
You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall not commit adultery.’ But I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lustful intent has already committed adultery with her in his heart. If your right eye causes you to sin, tear it out and throw it away. For it is better that you lose one of your members than that your whole body be thrown into hell. And if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away. For it is better that you lose one of your members than that your whole body go into hell. (Matt. 5:27-30)
Is it not that lust is to be deprecated just as strongly in the thoughts of the heart or in the gaze as in the physical deed? For if that were not so, how is it that he says to tear out one’s eye lest it cause one to sin and be damned? How could he say to take the same radical preventive action toward both the hand that does the deed and the eye that desires it unless both were equally culpable? But as it is with adulterous lust, so it is with unnatural lust to that which God condemns by euphemism (Lev. 18:22). It is the sinful root, whereas the deed is the sinful fruit; yet both are sinful and therefore at odds with chastity and purity, hence why LC139 cites Matt. 5:28 (and the aforementioned Matt. 15:19) as proof for its statement that God forbids “all unclean imaginations, thoughts, purposes, and affections” in the seventh commandment.[2]
I must also point out that what our catechisms and older translations of scripture call “uncleanness” is what modern translations usually render as “impurity,” the Greek akatharsía that appears in verses such as Col. 3:5 and Rom. 1:24 that are in LC139’s scripture proofs for such concepts as “unnatural lusts” (Rom. 1:24) and “unclean imaginations, etc.” (Col. 3:5). In short, where an older work refers to something as ‘unclean” in the matter of sexual morality we can usually refer to it as ‘impure;’ and I trust that it needs no elaboration that what is impure, whether “imaginations, thoughts, purposes, and affections” or actual deeds, is the opposite of the “sexual purity” that our constitution requires. (For that matter, “chastity” and “sexual purity” are synonyms, the Online Etymology Dictionary giving the following definition of chastity: “c. 1200, chastete, ‘sexual purity’ (as defined by the Church), including but not limited to virginity or celibacy, from Old French chastete ‘chastity, purity’ (12c., Modern French chasteté), from Latin castitatem (nominative castitas) ‘purity, chastity.’”)
All of which is to say that our constitution, when considered in its entirety, regards a man who experiences unnatural and unclean lusts as being internally unchaste and impure, and therefore disqualified for the offices of elder and deacon. The question that now arises is whether our presbyters will have the determination to enforce this which they have sworn to approve (BCO 21-5 and 24-6, Q.3) in the case of not only prospective but also current officeholders. Further, whether any current officeholders who find themselves disqualified by these provisions will fulfill their promise of “subjection to your brethren in the Lord” (BCO 21-5, Q. 4; 24-6, Q. 5) by complying with their removal from office, or else willingly resign it of their own initiative.
Tom Hervey is a member of Woodruff Road Presbyterian Church, Five Forks/Simpsonville (Greenville Co.), SC. The opinions expressed in this article are solely those of the author and do not of necessity reflect those of his church or its leadership or other members. He welcomes comments at the email address provided with his name. He is also author of Reflections on the Word: Essays in Protestant Scriptural Contemplation.

[1] If he regards his lust as being the result of an immutable sexual orientation, he is mistaken in his convictions, regarding his desires along worldly lines as a result of a fixed constituent part of man (sexuality/orientation), rather than as a result of the moral condition of his heart, mind, and will (which are susceptible to improvement as a result of sanctification). And if he has a public reputation as such because he regularly discusses it with others or refers to himself as experiencing such lust – especially if he refers to himself with the blasphemous affixing of the world’s term for a violator of Lev. 18:22 with what Acts 11:26 calls a member of our faith – then he does not conform to BCO 8-2’s requirement that he be chaste in his descriptions of himself, for he describes himself by his unchaste lusts.
[2] But does this not contradict James 1:14-15 (“each person is tempted when he is lured and enticed by his own desire. Then desire when it has conceived gives birth to sin, and sin when it is fully grown brings forth death”)? For James suggests a distinction is to be drawn between the desire that produces temptation and the sin that results when temptation has been yielded to, which suggests that if one resists the temptation he is therefore guiltless of sin. That is a correct distinction in one sense, but sin has multiple senses in scripture, sometimes referring to actual wrong deeds that we perform, and in other cases referring to the principle of anti-God lawlessness that resides within us that animates such actual transgressions.
Thayer’s Lexicon says that in James 1:15 “sin” refers to a “committed or resultant sin” “generally,” i.e., that it refers not to the principle of sin but to actual transgression, but without specifying the sin committed. In other words, the phrase “lying is a sin” is an example of the particular actual (“committed or resultant”) sin of lying, whereas “our sins offend God” represents actual sins in a general sense, without classifying them. James 1:15 falls in the latter category, which means the sin it talks about is actual, committed transgression of God’s law, not the evil impulse that precedes it. The desire he speaks of in 1:14, however, is sin in this latter sense, as the Greek epithymía it speaks of is inordinate desire (or “lust,” which is how many translations such as the KJV and NAS render it). In short, the evil desire or lust of James 1:14 is sin in principle, and it produces the temptation to commit actual sins in deed. Both the lust that tempts and the actual sin one is tempted to commit are sin, but in these two different senses, so that one can be guiltless of actual sin (if he resists the temptation) but still have within himself the principle of sin (lust) that produces the temptation.

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