God has gifted you with faith in the Captain of your salvation, Jesus Christ (Heb 2:10). His sinless life, His death on the cross, and His glorious resurrection are the only things that can uphold you on that day of dread and gladness. A faith in anything else has no backbone and is empty. Only Christ can save. Only faith in Him has a backbone.

As a kid who grew up in the 90s, certain songs get stuck in my head. One of those (especially after the movie Space Jam) was the song I Believe I Can Fly. (I apologize to all of you who now have that song stuck in your head). This songs acts as a cheesy metaphor for the “I can do anything” attitude of our culture. It’s catchy, it’s well produced, but let me ask an annoyingly literal question for a minute: Does believing you can fly, yes, even believing you can touch the sky, make you able to actually fly? (Bear with me). Of course not! And even if you who sing that song loud enough and with enough sincerity, even then, a loud thud will be heard outside your window when you try to fly off the roof of your house. You know why? Because as much as faith matters, faith without a backbone is useless.
Useless Faith
There are many people who will scoff at my silly example of “believing you can fly,” but how many people are basically doing the same thing, except with a religious flair. This faith without a backbone is all too common. “God knows my heart. He wouldn’t send someone like me to hell,” or “God has promised to give me health, wealth, and prosperity,” or “Jesus isn’t the only way. He is just one way among many.” Where do you get that information? How are you coming to these conclusions? Your reasoning? Your moral standards? I’ll tell you one place you aren’t getting those thoughts: The Bible.
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The most important label—one that cries out for acknowledgment from the thousands of pages of his mighty corpus—is follower of Jesus. Bavinck loved the God who saved him by grace, and amid the complexity and brilliance of his thought, there is always a doxological current. As Bavinck put it: A theologian is a person who makes bold to speak about God because he speaks out of God and through God. To profess theology is to do holy work. It is a priestly ministration in the house of the Lord.

Herman Bavinck (1854–1921) was the finest theologian of the neo-Calvinist movement—a Dutch movement that began under the initiative of Abraham Kuyper (1837–1920), which has spread to many nations across the world over the last century. Kuyper was the most public figure of the movement and Bavinck the most precise theologian. We now think of them together, akin to the way the word Reformation recalls Luther and Calvin. As George Harinck explains, “We take the name Abraham Kuyper and Herman Bavinck not as the name of two individuals but as a brand name . . . like Goldman and Sachs or Mercedes and Benz. Together they stand for neo-Calvinism.”
What is (or was) neo-Calvinism, and how does Bavinck fit? It is important to know a bit about Herman Bavinck to answer these questions. Bavinck was born to a Christian home, one that was full of the rhythms of Reformed spirituality. His family took part in the secession movement (the secession church separated from the state church in the Netherlands in 1834 for doctrinal and practical reasons). After Bavinck grew up, he attended the secession seminary in Kampen for a year and then left for Leiden University, seeking a prestigious and scientific education. He navigated an academic environment that can be labeled “modern”—a post-Enlightenment culture of discovery where traditional Christian confessions and creeds were less important and often neglected. Nevertheless, Bavinck remained Reformed and confessional in his theology through this season and into his career (we could use the term orthodox to describe this commitment).
As a young man, and through the multiple contexts he navigated, he developed a character of humility that led to an invaluable skill: the willingness to learn from anyone, especially modern philosophers, while remaining unwaveringly committed to the biblical faith that he learned as a covenant child. In the Netherlands, the Reformed church subscribed to the Three Forms of Unity: the Belgic Confession, the Canons of Dort, and the Heidelberg Catechism. Bavinck was a confessional theologian and a master dogmatician who worked within the theological framework of the Three Forms of Unity, attempted to think and write according to God’s thoughts laid down in the Bible.
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One of the finest expressions of Romanticism today is Donna Tartt’s prize-winning novel The Goldfinch. Published in 2013 to critical acclaim and commercial success, it is a classic Bildungsroman in which a teenage boy, grief-stricken by the death of his mother, follows his emotions into a series of increasingly unwise decisions, complex relationships, and the criminal underworld. At the same time, it is the tale of a piece of art: a small Dutch painting of a chained goldfinch, the theft and concealment of which drive much of the plot. The book is full of quintessentially Romantic themes: childhood innocence, pity, the sublime, unrequited love, introspection, solitude, intense emotions, drug addiction, and self-discovery.

Nobody can agree on exactly what Romanticism is. Pinning it down is like nailing jelly to a wall; there have been literally thousands of definitions suggested, and many are either so narrow that they exclude important figures or so broad as to be virtually meaningless. The etymology of the word is convoluted. We move from Rome to the vernacular Roman language to popular Romance languages more generally to popular writings more generally (“romances”) to the roman or novel to the identification of poetry that is romantische (“romantic”) as opposed to klassische (“classical”) and only then to a movement called “Romanticism,” by which time the first generation of Romantics had already died. And none of this quite explains why we also use the word “romantic” to describe the mystery of love—although it is a delightful coincidence that Amor is Roma spelled backward.
The term is nebulous by design. Friedrich Schlegel, credited with coining it in something like its modern sense, wrote to his brother in 1793: “I cannot send you my explanation of the word ‘romantic’ because it would be 125 sheets long.”1 When Isaiah Berlin delivered the Mellon Lectures on Romanticism—which he viewed as “the greatest single shift in the consciousness of the West that has occurred,”2 and “a gigantic and radical transformation, after which nothing was ever the same”3—he began by saying that although people might expect him to define the term or at least explain what he meant by it, “I do not propose to walk into that particular trap.”4 He then demonstrated what a hopeless tangle it was by quoting a wide range of thoroughly irreconcilable definitions, drawn from many of the movement’s key thinkers, before offering an (admittedly brilliant) eight-hundred-word summary of his own.5
If describing Romanticism takes Isaiah Berlin eight hundred words, it is clearly foolhardy to try and outline it in just eight. Nevertheless, for the sake of clarity, here it goes:
1. Inwardness. All that is most important in life, from personal feelings to artistic creativity, comes from inside a person rather than outside. Introspection is good, and authenticity matters more than compliance with expectations. In Hegel’s oft-cited definition, Romanticism is about “absolute inwardness.”6
2. Infinity. There is a longing for the indescribable and inexplicable over the delineated and defined, whether in nature, art, architecture, or (especially) music. “Art is for us none other than the mystic ladder from earth to heaven,” wrote Liszt, “from the finite to the infinite, from mankind to God.”7
3. Imagination. Only by allowing one’s ideas to run free, unconstrained by schools, rules, or reason, is genuine creativity possible. This is why death, sex, dreams, and nightmares are such important sources of inspiration; it is why Blake desired “to cast off Bacon, Locke, and Newton from Albion’s covering, to take off his filthy garments and clothe him with imagination.”8
4. Individuality. What counts is the specific rather than the universal. “I am made unlike anyone I have ever met,” declared Rousseau on the opening page of his Confessions. “I will even venture to say that I am like no one in the whole world. I may be no better, but at least I am different.”9
5. Inspiration. Great artists began to be viewed as geniuses: inspired and inspiring figures who broke rules, transformed art, lived differently, and became iconic. The obvious example is the cult-like admiration of Beethoven, for his behavior and image as much as his music; it was of a completely different order to the admiration of the equally gifted Mozart just a generation before.10
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Navigating the tension of vocation in exile involves a loving sensitivity and some amount of nuance but must always remain anchored in God’s vision for human flourishing, unswayed by cultural tides. Embodying and expressing this vision requires courageous, loving resistance. And part of resisting is remaining rather than retreating. This has been God’s plan for his people in exile since the earliest days.

But seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile, and pray to the LORD on its behalf, for in its welfare you will find your welfare. (Jer. 29:7)
During most of my college years, I worked part-time at a bank. I started as a teller before eventually becoming an assistant branch manager. The job paid well, especially for a young college kid, and was straightforward. It was the sort of work that was easy to leave behind when the workday ended. But as many do in their early 20s, I became increasingly discontent. The job was fine, but it wasn’t meaningful. It didn’t satisfy my growing need for purpose and significance.
A job is necessary, but what most people are seeking is vocation—their voice (from which the word is derived) into the world, their unique contribution to the ongoing conversation of human history. The ability to potentially “disrupt the industry” always begins with the angst of “What should I do with my life?”—an expression of vocational longing.
But the question is somewhat misleading. Tim Keller writes, “A job is a vocation only if someone else calls you to do it and you do it for them rather than for yourself.” Vocational calling isn’t found within; we receive it from another. Vocation is a gift given, not a treasure hidden.
In her essay titled “Why Work?,” Dorothy Sayers quotes the French philosopher Jacques Maritain and writes, “If you want to produce Christian work, be a Christian, and try to make a work of beauty into which you have put your heart; do not adopt a Christian pose.” Vocation is the calling to serve others by creating a heartfelt work of beauty. An artist’s painting, an engineer’s code, a teacher’s lesson, a baker’s cake, a stay-at-home parent’s myriad of responsibilities—these and so much more are vocation, the gift of invitation to offer our best effort, to God’s glory and for the good of others, in the various places and spaces we occupy.
While we live in exile on this side of eternity, the gift of vocation, when received gratefully and stewarded responsibly, offers immense hope and opportunity for followers of Jesus. Vocation offers us a chance to truly disrupt things—not just industries but culture itself. Vocation as exiles calls Christians to disrupt a culture of self-interest with sacrificial, self-giving love by leveraging skills and resources in partnership with others, for God’s glory and the good of all.
Setting Up Shop in Exile
In Acts 18, the apostle Paul makes his way from Athens to Corinth and meets a married couple there, Aquila and Priscilla. Aquila was a Jew from the Roman province of Pontus (in modern Turkey), but many scholars believe Priscilla was from a wealthy, aristocratic Roman family. 
Luke tells us the couple had recently relocated from Italy because Emperor Claudius had commanded all the Jews to leave Rome (vv. 1–2). Since she was married to a Jewish man, Priscilla was expelled from her homeland along with her husband. Together they land in Corinth, where they meet Paul. The three of them, brought together by their shared experience as exiles in a land not their own, work together.
Paul, Priscilla, and Aquila were “tentmakers by trade” (v. 3). Because of the itinerant nature of Paul’s work, it’s unlikely he carried the necessary materials to set up shop and launch an operable tentmaking business of his own in the various places his travels took him. It’s far more likely he carried a few smaller tools with which he could execute minor repairs. But in Corinth, he partnered with Priscilla and Aquila, who’d established a viable tentmaking business there.
These three exiled followers of Jesus shared their skills and resources, set up shop in a frenetic foreign city, and presumably went about the work of crafting tents for a wide variety of clientele. And in a competitive marketplace like Corinth, it’s safe to assume they held their work to a high quality standard. They wouldn’t have been in business long otherwise. Finally, as we learn from the broader story of Paul’s missionary journeys and Priscilla and Aquila’s significant influence on a number of churches throughout the region, tentmaking was simply the exterior of a much deeper, much more meaningful vocational engagement in exile.
For the Good of All
At the risk of stating the obvious, Paul, Priscilla, and Aquila didn’t make “Christian” tents. They were Christians who made tents for all. Evidence indicates they would’ve made leather tents. At the time, leather tents were purchased in bulk by the Roman military to house their soldiers during long treks to battle, making them a likely client. This is a fascinating tension for Christians. Does vocation in exile require an ethical compromise?
What does vocation in exile mean for the medical professional when it comes to the sanctity of life? What does it mean for the business owner when it comes to serving customers who uphold values distinctly counter to Scripture? What about for the parent when it comes to juggling her child’s schedule between academics, sports, and church?
I recently talked with a friend about the tension she’s experiencing as a public school teacher. Faced with mounting pressure to affirm and teach modern cultural mores around sexuality and gender, she’s navigating the complex intersection between personal faithfulness and public witness. Her courageous conclusion was that the two are one and the same. The most loving thing she could offer her students, their families, and her fellow faculty was a loving, resilient, and kind but firm commitment to what she believed to be true, while also leaving enough room for meaningful dialogue with those who disagree with her position.
Vocation in exile necessitates clarity and conviction coupled with empathy and compassion. Ultimately, there’s no vocation, no human endeavor, that works toward God’s glory and the true common good while also directly violating God’s plan for his glory and our good. This would be an untenable incongruity. Navigating the tension of vocation in exile involves a loving sensitivity and some amount of nuance but must always remain anchored in God’s vision for human flourishing, unswayed by cultural tides. Embodying and expressing this vision requires courageous, loving resistance. And part of resisting is remaining rather than retreating. This has been God’s plan for his people in exile since the earliest days.
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[Christ] suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died, and was buried. He descended into Hell. Because we believe that Jesus was a personal actor in space-time history, we deny that his death was merely symbolic. He suffered an unjust conviction and was crucified by the Roman authorities, who knew how to execute people effectively. We thus also deny the swoon theory that Jesus did not truly die on the cross, but only appeared to die and was taken down from the cross alive (as taught by Ahmadi Muslims and some older biblical critics). Jesus not only died but “descended into hell,” meaning that he continued to exist after his death to fulfill God’s purposes. This denies a humanistic account of Jesus as a mere mortal who simply died a martyr’s death and ceased to exist at his death.

Although it was not literally written by the original Apostles of Jesus Christ, The Apostles’ Creed has served as a foundational document and liturgical element in Christian churches since the fourth century. It represents the teachings of the Apostles even though they are not its authors. Its authors are unknown. The Apostles’ Creed’s purpose is not to replace the Bible, or to be the only creed for the church, or to reduce Christian truth to its statements. Rather, it summarizes biblical doctrine and is meant to be recited corporately by followers of Jesus. Its affirmations are necessarily part of Christian doctrine, and all three branches of Christianity affirm it (although not with the same interpretation of every aspect). There is spiritual power found in collectively confessing these truths with conviction on a regular basis and it is a good idea to memorize the Creed as well.
Few Americans believe the Apostles’ Creed today, and many outright oppose the God of the Bible and Christian doctrine. Opposition to Christianity is so strong that Aaron Renn, in his book Life in the Negative World, says that Christians must use new strategies to address the current setting, but without altering the biblical message itself. Renn advocates for a “counter-catechesis” to equip Christians to know what they ought not believe, given their Christian convictions in a hostile world. Thus, this essay, “A Counter Catechism.” There is, in fact, more to a formal catechism than the Apostles’ Creed, but many catechisms include it. We start here. After each statement of the Creed will follow what the Creed denies relative to the subject. The judgments are based on the law of noncontradiction: A is not non-A. Or, you cannot affirm anything about reality and its opposite as both being true in the same way and in the same respect.
The Apostles’ Creed and Some of What It Denies

I believe in God,the Father Almighty,Creator of Heaven and earth;

Since God is a personal and all-powerful being, who is the originator and designer of the universe, we deny that God is an impersonal force or principle, as taught in some Eastern religions and occultism. We also deny that God is a mother in the sense of an earth goddess. We deny that God is identified with the cosmos, as taught by pantheism. As Creator, God is transcendent in his self-existent being (Acts 17:15), and we deny that he is one with contingent creation. However, as omnipresent, God is immanent, and is closer to use than we are to ourselves (Augustine). But this doctrine does not compromise God’s transcendence. As Isaiah wrote.
For this is what the high and exalted One says—he who lives forever, whose name is holy:“I live in a high and holy place,but also with the one who is contrite and lowly in spirit,to revive the spirit of the lowlyand to revive the heart of the contrite. (Isaiah 57:15)
Since God is one God, we deny both polytheism (many finite gods) and dualism (one good god and one evil god). As God said to his people, “Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one” (Deuteronomy 6:4). We further deny that there are many gods, but we worship one of them as supreme for us (henotheism). This is the teaching of Mormonism. As Isaiah proclaimed:
“You are my witnesses,” declares the Lord,“and my servant whom I have chosen,so that you may know and believe meand understand that I am he.Before me no god was formed,nor will there be one after me. (Isaiah 43:10)
2. and [we believe] in Jesus Christ, His only Son, Our Lord,
Since Jesus Christ is God’s only Son and our Lord, we deny that any other supposed god or savior has attained his exalted status (Matthew 11:27; John 14:6; Act 4:12; 1 Timothy 2:5). We further deny any teaching that denies Jesus as God’s only Son and our Lord, whether explicitly (such as Islam and Baha’i Faith) or implicitly (all non-Christian religions). Jesus was not an avatar (as are Hindu saviors), a manifestation of God (as in Baha’i Faith), a mere prophet (as taught in Islam), a mere sage (in the tradition of Buddha or Lao Tze or Confucius), nor was he a deluded mere mortal (atheism and much of Judaism).

Who was conceived by the Holy Spirit,born of the Virgin Mary,

Because Jesus was supernaturally conceived by the Holy Spirit (Isaiah 7:14; Matthew 1:18; Luke 1:26-35), we deny that Christianity can dispense with this doctrine and still be Christianity at all (theological liberalism).
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Written by Carl R. Trueman |
Friday, August 30, 2024
When abortion advocates dehumanize the baby in the womb, they dehumanize themselves too. Ours is an age when so much of our culture encourages us to treat others made in God’s image as less than human. This is true, from the comparatively trivial trashing of others that is the favored idiom of those who seem to live online, to those at the DNC in Chicago this week, exulting in the slaughter of innocents.

A Planned Parenthood mobile clinic has been offering free abortions just a few blocks from the 2024 Democratic National Convention in Chicago, which concludes today. The DNC is not officially involved, but that is a minor detail, given that abortion has the status of a creedal non-negotiable in the upper echelons of the Democratic Party. The clinic is simply actualizing the central plank of the Democrats’ election campaign. Its proximity to the convention is entirely appropriate—as is the presence of an eighteen-foot-tall inflatable IUD, named “Freeda Womb,” erected by the group Americans for Contraception. It is a stark reminder, along with the performances of Kid Rock and Hulk Hogan at the Republican National Convention last month, of how unserious today’s American politics has become. Where, one might ask, have all the grown-ups gone?
But there is a deeper issue with the grandstanding of abortion that goes well beyond the problem of showcasing moronic entertainers at a political convention. The move from abortion being sold to the public as “safe, legal, and rare” to being celebrated as a necessary social good is revealing. In part it is a reaction to the overturning of Roe. But it is more than just a reaction; the celebration of abortion as something to be proud of started long before 2022. Something deeper must have taken place within our culture. And this brings me once again to the inadequacy of characterizing our modern world as “disenchanted.”
The glee with which abortion is advocated and the anger that any restrictions upon it provoke indicate that we need a different category to capture our current cultural ethos. In a disenchanted world, one could imagine abortion being seen as a necessary evil. The demands of the workplace, the economy, and society at large might make it so. In a world where rape and incest exist, sometimes the options for addressing such evil might themselves involve a degree of evil. I disagree with that logic, but it seems consistent with the regretful moral resignation that disenchantment might involve.
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A Christian repents murdering others with their attitude and sass and picks up the cleaver to begin murdering the sin that caused it. A Christian is the one who picks up the bayonet and goes to war, as Romans 8:13 says, not one who continually succumbs to their hostilities and rage. Here is what I am saying, dear Christian, the good and the sweet confidences of our Christian faith (the assurance of salvation) are not for the sluggard and slothful but for those who are waging an all-out war against their sin.

You shall not murder. – Exodus 20:13

The Murder of Disordered Passions
Embedded within the command “thou shalt not murder” is the understanding that it reaches far beyond the mere prohibition of physically taking another person’s life. The Westminster Larger Catechism in question 135 elaborates on this brilliantly, stating that

“the duties required in the sixth commandment are all careful studies, lawful endeavors, to preserve the life of ourselves and others by resisting all thoughts and purposes and by subduing all passions, which tend to the unjust taking away of any life.” – Westminster Larger Catechism Q135

This catechetical exposition highlights that murder is not just the bloody and homicidal result but actually begins before the knife is drawn, before the gun is aimed and before the bomb is thrown. As the catechism teaches, murder begins with disordered passions. Before a person will ever dream of performing a sinister coup de grâce, their heart will have executed that person a million times through anger, malice, bitterness, jealousy, envy, and even a million micro-annoyances.
We are All Serial- Killers
For this reason, the commandment not only calls us to be innocent of grabbing the Tommy gun and mowing down our adversaries and not only innocent of planting claymores in our enemy’s tomato garden; it also calls us to a life of inward purity of heart. We are called by God to mortify our sinful passions and to beat them into submission so that anger no longer walks unchecked within our serial-killing hearts.
In his Sermon on the Mount, Jesus gives us full license to speak, think, and interpret this commandment in this way. He intensifies the understanding of what murder is by exposing the pickled and festering root lying dormant underneath it. And that, Jesus tells us, is good old-fashioned anger.
For instance, in Matthew 5:21-22, Jesus says this:

“21 “You have heard that the ancients were told, ‘You shall not commit murder’ and ‘Whoever commits murder shall be liable to the court.’ 22 But I say to you that everyone who is angry with his brother shall be guilty before the court; and whoever says to his brother, ‘You good-for-nothing,’ shall be guilty before the supreme court; and whoever says, ‘You fool,’ shall be guilty enough to go into the fiery hell.” – Matthew 5:21-22

Contrary to many popular opinions of who Jesus is, He did not loosen the standard. In fact, he ratcheted it up so that even the sweetest, pillowy-handed grandmother can be considered (in some ways) on the same level as John Wayne Gacy and Jeffery Dahmer. Like those fiendish men, she has a pile of bodies that she has dismembered with a thousand glares, hacked with ten thousand razor-bladed comments, and buried with a million mental weapons like agitation, frustration, bitterness, and resentment.
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We remain firmly Presbyterian in polity, with the highest court being the General Synod. What seems to be at the center of this confusion is a short phrase in the new FOG “in order to:” That phrase indicates that the synod has the authority to do those things (organize, receive, divide, dissolve, etc.). And that it consults with presbyteries regarding the presbytery’s business/actions – not to get their approval of synod’s actions.

The Associate Reformed Presbyterian Church (ARPC) is one of the oldest Presbyterian denominations in the United States. It is organized in a series of ‘courts’ or congresses that bring accountability to each level of the church. The highest court of the ARPC is the General Synod, which is comprised of the various presbyteries (geographical groupings of churches). Being Presbyterian is quite different than being Episcopal (rule by one individual or small group of bishops, etc.) or being Congregational (each congregation individually decides what is right and only associates, as it pleases, with others). It is however striking the number of times those claiming to be Presbyterian really are desiring to be Episcopal or Congregational.
At the center of this current issue in the ARPC is Second Presbytery, which has been comprised of the state of Georgia and roughly half of the state of South Carolina (primarily the Greenville area). It is the opinion of many that a cult of personality centered around Chuck Wilson has been running Second presbytery through favoritism, intimidation and manipulation of church rules. This has been going on for some years. Even after he requested removal from the roll (while in the middle of an investigation into charges of child molestation), Mr. Wilson continued to have influence through a handful of ministers and elders that followed him and retained power within Second Presbytery.  They attempted to derail the action of the General Synod, at its meeting this past June, with all sorts of creative methods of interpreting parliamentary minutia. Some were blatantly absurd, such as the application of a rule requiring written reports to have signatures (commonly done for handwritten reports submitted during the meeting) towards the packet of reports sent out to the delegates of Synod. (Which does not contain ANY signatures on any reports, nor has it in the past 50 years). Each of these spurious attempts were incorrect and addressed in the June meeting.
Some have continued to portray this as a violation of the church constitution, though it clearly is not, and in general (whether they realize it or not) make an even stronger argument, by their actions, of the presbytery’s dysfunctional situation. There is no crisis of the ARP church constitution, more a crisis of conscience on the part of a few, who would prefer to continue in their ways rather than repent or be held accountable.
At its June meeting, the General Synod voted overwhelmingly (86% voted in the affirmative) to dissolve Second Presbytery, effective September 1, 2024. This merely takes away the perceived authority of the few who cling to power. No churches were to be closed, nor ministers automatically excluded. All that happened was the physical boundaries of Second presbytery were absorbed into the two adjoining presbyteries (Georgia into Tenn/Al and SC into Catawba/rest of SC). An orderly effort was begun to matriculate the churches and pastors into their new presbyteries. By action of the Synod, ARP Churches within those geographic bounds were assigned to the new presbyteries Sept 2, 2024. Should any wish to leave the denomination, there is a process outline in the Form of Government for the churches (takes approximately a year). Since ministers’ ordination credentials reside with a presbytery, they were to make appropriate transfer applications by that date (otherwise they would be without ordination credentials after Sept. 1).  At the synod level a commission was formed to handle any matters overall, such as any distribution of property, etc. At no time has there been any discussion regarding funds that Second Presbytery has accumulated from the closing and sale of former church properties. It is well presumed that it would be in some way set aside for the continued work of the churches in the former presbytery. There have been attempts by some, yet again, to frame this as some sort of violation of the church’s constitution and procedures in an effort to gain funds. Since the Synod meeting, there have been attempts to twist and torture the wording of the Form of Government to have it confess to all sorts of nonsense, in an effort to undo, cast doubt upon or reverse the action of the highest court of the denomination.  One can only hope these men handle the Word of God with more care than they do the church constitution.  Since June we have seen a continuation of the pathetic attempt to hold onto power by about a half dozen ministers and the churches they influence. Additionally, some have reached out to Second Presbytery churches with lies and disinformation (telling them that one Presbytery seeks to gain/sell/dissolve the church, etc.).
The overwhelming majority of the ministers and churches in the former Second Presbytery are excited about this transition.
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There are many adjectives that you could rightly use to describe the Christian life. Joyful, satisfying, hopeful are a few of them. Then there are those that are equally true, and yet a little more difficult to accept. Words like arduous, disciplined, and troubled fit here. And in that long list of adjectives sits one more that perhaps you haven’t considered recently:
Ironic.
When a situation is ironic, it means that what it appears to be on the surface is actually far different – and maybe even the opposite – deep down. Irony is a kind of contradiction of what is visible and what is real. While that description doesn’t really fit around things like “rain on your wedding day” or “a free ride when you’ve already paid,” it does fit alongside the Christian experience. Because for the Christian…
The mourners are comforted.
The empty are filled.
The least are the greatest.
These things are all true about the kingdom of God for that kingdom is, in many ways, an upside down kind of kingdom because what is actually true is not what appears to be true. There is one particular irony of the Christian life that we would do well to remember today, though, and that is the fact that for the Christian, weakness is actually strength. JI Packer, in his classic work Knowing God, describes that dynamic like this:
“God uses chronic pain and weakness, along with other afflictions, as his chisel for sculpting our lives. Felt weakness deepens dependence on Christ for strength each day. The weaker we feel, the harder we lean. And the harder we lean, the stronger we grow spiritually, even while our bodies waste away. To live with your ‘thorn’ uncomplainingly—”
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