Under theonomy…the implementation of all the old covenant death penalties was not supposed to occur until the culture had been spiritually conquered through spiritual means. That spiritual conquest was either temporally distant or strictly hypothetical, depending on the optimism of one’s eschatology.

A label can be confusing when its meaning changes over time. This may have happened with the term “theonomy” in Christian ethics. Many today think that theonomy teaches a flat application of all the penal codes found in Old Testament judicial laws. I learned a different definition over four decades ago when I studied under Greg Bahnsen. I was then taught that the Mosaic judicial laws are time bound, situation specific applications of the moral law to a particular culture at a particular point in redemptive history. We were to take from these particular applications general principles that we could then apply to our own time and place. The example repeatedly given was the Mosaic requirement to put a railing around the roof of a house (Deuteronomy 22:8). This judicial law applied directly to that time and place because houses then usually had a flat roof which was often used as a living space. It does not directly apply to today’s houses with sloped roofs that are never used as a living space. Yet we can deduce from the general principle behind this judicial law that the civil magistrate today has an obligation to require certain safety measures. Examples would be safety belts for cars, helmets for motorcyclists and railings for balconies and stairs. The risk of falling off a flat roof living space also serves as an approximate guide as to what degree of risk to life merits a legal regulation.
I was also then taught that the coercive power of the state is not the cutting edge of sanctified social change under the new covenant. Under the new covenant, the law of God is first written upon the hearts of people before it is written on the stone tablets of institutions and laws. To use more recent language, institutional reformation is downstream from spiritual revival. This implies that reforming civil laws is usually a long process that requires patient perseverance. Immediately and fully imposing godly civil laws on an ungodly society would require dictatorial powers. Because laws imposed in that way would not have a broad moral consensus within society, they would either be ignored or would have to be enforced with the oppressive power of a police state. Christian politicians should instead discern the extent to which God’s laws have been written on the heart of society as they seek every opportunity to make incremental improvements in law codes. The church’s role is to wage the spiritual warfare that conquers and transforms hearts; i.e., prayer, evangelism, discipleship, etc. In a spiral of social sanctification, progress in heart holiness both in depth and extent exerts a cultural influence that enables progress in civil statutory righteousness, which in turn confirms and encourages society’s growing ethical advances. Discipling a nation often has its ups and downs as it progresses through the stages of a fundamental paradigm shift.
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Christian families and philanthropists should demand that Christian colleges have a clear reason for their existence. In other words, they must be recognizably Christian and more in tune with Christian orthodoxy than the shifting contours of American culture.

In higher education, the demographic cliff of 2026 has been in the front windshield for a long time. What is the cliff? It’s the 18-year mark after the financial crisis of 2008 when it appeared the entire U.S. economy could be headed for a new Great Depression thanks to the cancerous impact of the subprime mortgage lending collapse. While the worst effects of the disaster were averted, it left a mark on the minds of many Americans. When people feel less secure and less optimistic about the future, they tend to have fewer children. That happened. Fertility declined in the wake of the crisis and hasn’t recovered since as the United States has moved below population replacement. 2026 is the year when it is believed higher education will begin to feel the inevitable effects of a smaller cohort of young people.
Enrollment in colleges has been down over the past decade. Those who follow the news in higher education know that small and private colleges seem to be closing with frequency. The latest to close was Eastern Nazarene University in Quincy, Mass. Just before that news hit, Cornerstone University in Grand Rapids, Mich., announced it was shutting down majors in the humanities. Institutions on more solid footing have nevertheless engaged in retirement buyouts and other reductions of the workforce.
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Pastors are men gifted by God and given to the church for the teaching and care of His very own flock, and they must approach their task with high regard and a holy life worth imitating. Only God can give pastors the grace to lead faithfully, but He can and has now for thousands of years. And those who do their job faithfully will one day be rewarded by the Great Shepherd and Guardian of our souls.

What is a spiritual leader in a church? Is it just a nice job? A good career? Something to do if you can’t really do anything else? Some people of whom not much is required who casually help others? How should we view pastors and spiritual leaders and how should they view themselves? But, more importantly, how does GOD view them?
Hebrews 13:7, 17-18 gives us insight.
Remember those who led you, who spoke the word of God to you; and considering the result of their conduct, imitate their faith.
Obey your leaders and submit to them, for they keep watch over your souls as those who will give an account. Let them do this with joy and not with grief, for this would be unprofitable for you. Pray for us, for we are sure that we have a good conscience, desiring to conduct ourselves honorably in all things.
Spiritual Leaders Must Be Imitatable
The pastor is human and will fail, but he must be above reproach and have a life worth imitating. Others are following and his character is his highest asset in leadership. This is why when Paul is reminding us of the qualifications of elders/pastors/overseers in 1 Timothy 3 and Titus 1, he doesn’t list SKILLS but 22 CHARACTER TRAITS and says that pastors “must be” these things. They are not an option, for the church will rise no higher in godliness than her pastors.
Spiritual Leaders Must Keep Watch over Souls
Pastors are responsible, like a literal shepherd with his flock to “keep watch” over the souls of those under their care. A pastor must “know well the condition of his flock and pay attention to his herds” (Proverbs 27:23). And he is to oversee them constantly and tend to their life and growth. This is a strong word that means to “stay alert, pass sleepless nights, stay watchful without falling asleep.” Spiritual shepherds are not watching over a flock for their own financial gain, but over the “souls” (the mind, emotions, wills and inner lives) of those entrusted to their care.
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Then too, it seems doubtful whether that is a reliable theory of the relation of one’s physical activities to one’s propensity for political violence. Maybe the challenge of weightlifting would have been an outlet for the young man’s anger and aggression, sure; but maybe it would have just made him a bulkier attempted assassin.

I have before me American Reformer’s Colin Redemer’s tweet of a picture of the attempted assassin of Mr. Trump, accompanied by the comment that “to help prevent tragedies like this in the future the USA must immediately implement mandatory weight training for all school boys five days per week.”[1] I confess, such a thing lays my brain prostrate. For as it is actually presented, the “traged[y] like this” referred to is not the late assassination attempt, but rather the assailant’s young countenance, what with its pale complexion, large glasses, and unimposing appearance. It is a strange notion that thinks weightlifting will improve such things. I’m not aware that deadlifts improve one’s eyesight such that glasses are no longer necessary, nor that, say, squats change one’s native skin tone or facial structure.
But perhaps it is not the young man’s appearance to which our tweeter objected. Perhaps it was his character. Perhaps Redemer thinks that weightlifting would have left him with a better character that would not have attempted to commit political murder. Maybe; but if that is what was meant, it was most emphatically not expressed well.
Then too, it seems doubtful whether that is a reliable theory of the relation of one’s physical activities to one’s propensity for political violence. Maybe the challenge of weightlifting would have been an outlet for the young man’s anger and aggression, sure; but maybe it would have just made him a bulkier attempted assassin. That is a theory of exercise science, political science, and psychology of which we shall have to remain ignorant. And whether or no it may prove useful in the case of other young men, I somehow doubt that schools across the country are going to mandate weightlifting because of the opinions of the director of education at American Reformer.
Further things come to mind. One is that the tweet above is an uncharitable thing to say even of a dead evildoer. Another is that, if what was objected to was the would-be assassin’s perceived lack of masculinity – as seems implied by the inclusion of his admittedly rather unflattering yearbook photo – then such an objection is nonsense. That young man did not lack masculine character. Indeed, he seems to have had an overabundance of it, far more than the average man of any political stripe—or girth. Attempting to murder a former president is not an act of cowardice, but requires an immense courage that is willing to face almost certain death. Nor did he lack conviction. He was so convinced of the correctness of his opinions and of Mr. Trump’s danger to our republic that he was willing to kill for them.
The evil of his case was that his masculine traits were misdirected to a wicked end and left unrestrained by a well-informed conscience. His courage was an evil courage, like that of Atilla the Hun, and his conviction was an evil conviction, like that of John Brown. Granting that weightlifting might dissipate many ill tendencies, it still does not provide positive moral instruction. And in this case the young man was in want of a thorough acquaintance with the command “you shall not murder” (Ex. 20:13).
But this is all beating about for needles and cones in a pine forest. Which is to say that it is a preoccupation with things that have a very prescient point, but which pale in importance in comparison to that larger thing of which they are a part. That larger thing here is the question of how someone who is so adamant about a renewal of robust, Protestant thought could make such a ridiculous and uncharitable statement as that tweet above. Redemer was previously vice president at the Davenant Institute, whose intellectual character is plain, and his main literary efforts until now have been in such things as editing poetry for Davenant’s journal Ad Fontes and modernizing Thomas Traherne’s works. There is quite a difference between that and being so obsessed with the benefits of weightlifting as to demand it for all schoolboys.
It seems the answer is that the two things are different manifestations of the same impulse, that the desire for intellectual rigor manifests in the work of editing and writing, and that a desire for physical vigor comes out in the promotion of physical strength. Both proceed from the same basic desire to be vigorous, disciplined, powerful, influential—in a word, a man. Surely there is not evil but good in those things taken separately, or even, in a certain way, together.[2] To want to have a sound grasp of the truth and a healthy, disciplined, useful mind and body that can benefit others is reasonable, surely.
But as seen in that tweet that has inspired this piece, the desire to be such things is not merely personal but is projected upon others as well. It is elevated into a universal ideal that is to be forced onto others via governmental power, as in Redemer’s desired mandatory weightlifting for schoolboys.  That policy would give the state effective ownership of schoolboys’ bodies, to abet the frightful influence they already have over their minds. It would enlarge the state’s tyranny to be over the whole person, and tell such boys that their bodies are not their own but belong to the state, because they have no right to be weak or undisciplined, and so they don’t grow up to be violent political zealots. He’s advocating for a position in which the state takes preeminence over the individual, in other words.
And it is that which bothers me about this, and about many of the people going about talking about masculinity and Christendom and all that. They object to much in our current government and culture and talk a great deal about liberty, not because they are committed to liberty as such, but because they have their own version of what state and society should be, and because they want to use the levers of power to bring it about. They do not object to the status quo because they believe individuals should conduct themselves (including in questions of exercise) as they deem best in accordance with their own values and circumstances and consciences. They object to it because they have their own ideals that they intend to shove on everyone else in all walks of life. And one of those things they want to force on others is their own view of manhood, a view that is narrow and mistaken, and that does not give sufficient consideration to the variety of masculinity God has providentially ordained for his sons.  (I won’t belabor that point now, but suffice it to say that I see no reason to think that God intends all of us to read Traherne and Protestant social theory, or to lift weights, or to be paragons of mental and physical achievement otherwise.)
Now let’s draw this idea of Redemer’s closer and make it more personal. Imagine the young men whom you know who look like the late gunman. Would you truly want them to be forced to take weightlifting courses because the local school board or the Department of Education mandated it? Would you like to have to explain to your son that the reason that he and millions of other boys like him have to lift weights is because this one guy on one occasion tried to kill one former president a couple of years after he graduated high school? Would you like to have to explain why our society so values the lives of the handful of men who are former presidents that we are prepared to make tens of millions of boys make a major change to their way of living for their ostensible safety? Or why our society is so utterly scared of young men becoming assassins that we think they should have to take mandatory physical education classes to hopefully prevent it? Would you like to try to explain why the government in the self-professed ‘land of the free and home of the brave’ is so paranoid and has such powers? Or again, if the tragedy lamented is not the late gunman’s deeds but his broader character, that society has determined young men have no right to be weak, or unmasculine, or to fail to meet a certain aesthetic appearance, and is therefore mandating they meet its standards for them?
For that matter, other questions arise. If Redemer is correct that boys lifting weights is right and necessary, and schools decline to mandate such a thing, is it then incumbent upon parents to do so? One imagines that would make for an interesting kitchen table conversation.
Dad: ‘Son, you’re going to start lifting weights.’
Son: ‘Why? I don’t like lifting.’
Dad: ‘Because I’m afraid you’re going to try to kill a former president if you don’t. Also, you owe it to everyone – us, yourself, the rest of the family, church, state, and society – to not be weak. It’s your masculine duty.
That son might be forgiven for rejoining that there are other ways he could be a loving and useful person. And if he was of an historical turn of mind, he might know as well that Luther and Calvin and many others of the great men of faith were not imposing, hang-about-the-weight-room types.
But this is all dealing in hypotheticals (however pertinent). To conclude more decisively, let it be said that when someone has gotten to the point where he is so worried about the daily exercise activities of multitudes of schoolboys whom he does not know that he wishes to express his will upon them via sweeping government fiat, we are well outside the realm of New Testament thought, with its “bodily training is just slightly beneficial, but godliness is beneficial for all things, since it holds promise for the present life and also for the life to come” (1 Tim. 4:8, NASB), and are very far into an arrogant presumption that thinks it has the right and the duty to worry itself with the affairs of others. Such a thing ignores the other-worldly character of our faith, and the liberty all believers have been granted in Christ to live to him as they see fit (Rom. 14; 1 Cor. 9). And when people begin to mesh civil and spiritual so readily, and to develop such a meddlesome spirit in Christ’s name, the rest of us who live in accordance with scripture-informed conscience rather than social vision might be forgiven for feeling rather irritated at that state of affairs, and well might we fear lest such a view proves more destructive to our faith and the church’s well-being and influence than many of our express enemies—especially when it expends itself in excesses as that statement which I have considered here.
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] Viewable at Mere Orthodoxy here, where I first encountered it.
[2] Less the desire for power and influence, which is often perilous.
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[Hypothetical Universalism] betrays not just a few but several core features of Reformed soteriology, and cannot make good on its own claim upon the efficacy of Christ’s death for the elect. But why should that be surprising given the intricate nature and interdependence of Reformed Christian doctrines?

An entailment of the Reformed doctrine of limited atonement is p:
If Christ died for S, then S will be saved.
Therefore, if p is true, S’ salvation is guaranteed by Christ’s death on behalf of S. Which is to say, it is impossible that Christ’s death for S does not result in S’ salvation given p.
Davenant Hypothetical Universalism (HU) rejects p by affirming that (a) Christ died for all and (b) not all will be saved.
The force of the argument is, He who willed and ordained that Christ the Mediator should sustain the wrath of God due to the sins not of certain persons, but of the whole human race, He willed that this passion of Christ should be a remedy applicable to the human race, that is, to each and every man, and not only to certain individual persons; supreme power being nevertheless left to himself, and full liberty of dispensing and applying this infinite merit according to the secret good pleasure of his will.Death of Christ
Furthermore, HU alleges that it is truly possible that a non-elect adult freely (and savingly) believes:
The death of Christ is applicable to any man living, because the condition of faith and repentance is possible to any living person, the secret decree of predestination or preterition in no wise hindering or confining this power either on the part of God, or on the part of men. They act, therefore, with little consideration who endeavour, by the decrees of secret election and preterition, to overthrow the universality of the death of Christ, which pertains to any persons whatsoever according to the tenor of the evangelical covenant.Davenant, Loc. Cit.
If the only freedom that can account for moral responsibility and do justice to the Reformed doctrine of total depravity is compatibilist freedom, then it is not possible for a non-elect person to believe freely and responsibly unless it is also possible for God to incline a person’s will to Christ after he has determined not to do so. Consequently, unless God can deny himself by acting contrary to his decree, HU consigns itself to incompatibilist freedom, which entails an implicit denial of the need for effectual grace to cause one to believe freely.*
Philosophically speaking, incompatibilism, which is not a Reformed position, does allow for the possibility of a non-elect person to believe by exercising libertarian free will. Consequently, HU implies libertarian freedom given HU’s axiom that “the condition of faith and repentance is possible to any living person.”
An Ironic Twist:
Only incompatibilism makes room for the possibility of saving faith for the non-elect. Or as Davenant would have it, the decree of predestination “is in no wise hindering or confining this power either on the part of God, or on the part of men.”
What must be grasped is that libertarian freedom cuts two ways. If it is truly possible that a non-elect living person freely believes the gospel, then it is equally possible that an elect adult will forever freely reject the gospel. (In which case, saving faith is uncaused and according to resistible grace.) Consequently, HU cannot consistently maintain that Christ’s death is effectual for the elect given the possibility of an elect person not believing according to libertarian freedom. In other words, the libertarian freedom that is required for the possibility of the non-elect to believe and be saved ends up undermining the need for effectual grace upon the free will of anyone who would believe. Therefore, by establishing the possibility of a non-elect person believing, Christ’s death cannot be effectual for the elect when there is nothing left to causally guarantee the requisite faith that’s needed to appropriate the benefits of Christ’s death. Or, more generally stated, (a) the metaphysical assumptions entailed by the possibility of any living person freely believing undermines (b) the causal guarantee that any living person will certainly believe.
If we try to introduce the necessary condition of irresistible grace for any living person to believe, then the possibility of any non-elect living person freely believing is confounded along with HU! That’s because the non-elect, after having been passed over in the eternal decree, cannot possibly be the recipients of irresistible grace, which in Reformed theology is a particular bestowal upon the elect that is, also, necessary for the efficacy of the cross.
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It may seem odd to call a catastrophe good, but Tolkien argues that “the eucatasrophic tale is the true form of fairy-tale, and its highest function.” In the Gospels, Tolkien writes, we find “the greatest and most complete conceivable eucatastrophe.” There is no greater tragedy than the unjust execution of the Son of God and no greater good than the salvation that came about as a result of Christ’s death. The staggering thing about the Gospels, however, is that “this story has entered History.” In other words, it really happened! This has staggering implications for what it means to be and to make disciples of Christ. Because Christ conquered Satan, sin, and death, we can as well.

Christ’s command to his apostles to go and make disciples (Matt. 28:16–20) is intended for all his followers. Every Christian must think carefully about what it means to be a disciple of Jesus and to make a disciple of Jesus. Though the commission remains unchanged since Christ first uttered it, each new generation encounters contexts and challenges for discipleship that are both old and new. This reality becomes clear if we look at the youth in our society and begin to ask how we might best form them into disciples of Christ. There has been an alarming, well-documented rise in loneliness, depression, anxiety, mental health disorders, and suicides among children and adolescents over the last two decades—not to mention “the great dechurching.” For me, as a high school teacher and a parent of young children, these trends are particularly terrifying. How do we make disciples of children who might be struggling with debilitating depression or doubts? How do we make disciples in a context where these increasingly common struggles press on us as parents and teachers alongside all the typical struggles of being sinful human beings making disciples in a fallen world?
Consumer or Contributor?
Recently, I was struck by an interesting observation from counselor and therapist Keith McCurdy. In over three decades of working as a therapist, he has found that a person’s mental health generally correlates to where they fall on a sliding scale from “consumer” to “contributor.” The farther down the consumer side, the less healthy they tend to be. I wondered, could McCurdy’s observation shed light on how we as Christians think about making disciples—especially of our children?
Since we believe we’re creatures made in the image of a creating God, McCurdy’s observation should come as no surprise. But we often forget a fundamental fact about being human: We were created to create. We exist to “glorify God and enjoy him forever,” as the Westminster Shorter Catechism famously puts it; a key part of our calling to bring glory to God is to bless our neighbors, to contribute in productive, valuable, meaningful ways to our communities. Adam was commanded to fill and subdue the earth. He was to be fruitful and multiply, creating a community that would exercise dominion over creation. However, Adam chose a shortcut to knowledge. Instead of learning through experience over a period of time, he sought to gain the knowledge of good and evil through a single bite. He would not earn or create knowledge. He would, literally, consume it. In fact, the Latin root for our word consume, consumere, means “to eat.” God had blessed Adam with all he needed for life, but he chose to reject God’s provision and consume the fruit. By this choice, Adam condemned and corrupted himself and his posterity. Evil entered the world. The image of God was broken and polluted by sin.
For us who live east of Eden, we’re tempted to believe that we exist primarily to consume rather than contribute something good to the world. In believing this lie, we too have become less human than we ought to be. It’s no wonder so many spiritual, mental, and relational maladies have skyrocketed in a culture that not only enables but encourages the acquisition of material wealth and pleasurable experiences more than perhaps any before us in history. In fact, modern society often deems the possession of wealth—whether in the form of money, prestige, a “following,” or experiences—as the ultimate sign of greatness. What we consume may not always be forbidden fruit, but it just as easily tempts us to believe it will make us “like God.”
Becoming a Dragon
These thoughts floated about in my head as I drove to work one morning listening to J. R. R. Tolkien’s much-loved story The Hobbit. I was struck by dwarven king Thorin Oakenshield’s description of dragons:
“Dragons steal gold and jewels, you know, from men and elves and dwarves, wherever they can find them; and they guard their plunder as long as they live (which is practically forever, unless they are killed), and never enjoy a brass ring of it. Indeed they hardly know a good bit of work from a bad, though they usually have a good notion of the current market value; and they can’t make a thing for themselves, not even mend a little loose scale of their armour.”
In Tolkien’s Middle-earth, dragons are the ultimate consumers. They hoard their treasure for the sole purpose of possessing it. They don’t offer anything to society; they take all they can and give nothing in return. They don’t enjoy their plunder, either, since they have no ability to discern good from bad or beautiful from ugly. All they seem to care about is more—how much they have and how much it might be worth.
Tolkien’s description of a dragon feels eerily familiar. How often do we approach life and work with the goal (or at least the secret desire) to accumulate wealth far beyond what we realistically need for a stable and enjoyable life? Every time we justify less than honest means of acquiring something, we become more dragon and less human; every time we store up wealth from selfishness or insecurity, we become more like Smaug sprawled jealously over his treasure hoard. The more we’re focused on amassing and consuming, the less we’re able to contribute truth, beauty, and goodness to the lives of those around us.
Tolkien’s friend and fellow Oxford don C. S. Lewis illustrated the dark reality of being consumed with consumption in a poem called “The Dragon Speaks.” In the poem, the dragon tells us his life story. He recalls hatching from his egg, “I came forth shining into the trembling wood,” and reminisces about his “speckled mate” whom he loved. This love, however, did not stop him from eating his lover—one of his great regrets: “Often I wish I had not eaten my wife.” Yet we discover the dark reason for the dragon’s remorse: eating his wife left him with sole responsibility for watching over his gold. He never sleeps; he only leaves his cave three times a year to take a drink of water, terrified someone will steal from him. He becomes a prisoner in his own home, a captive of greed and fear. The poem closes with a dark and malevolent prayer:
They have not pity for the old, lugubrious dragon.
Lord that made the dragon, grant me thy peace,
But say not that I should give up the gold,
Nor move, nor die. Others would have the gold,
Kill rather, Lord, the Men and the other dragons;
Then I can sleep; go when I will to drink.
The dragon’s obsession with his gold turns him into a murderous, lonely, pathetic character. His speech leaves us not in terror but full of pity for his sad existence. His obsession with treasure, his consumerism, has left him nothing but selfish anxiety. While our children’s frequent anxiety, loneliness, fear, and cynicism may not be directly caused by a personal dragon-like consumer mentality, they are certainly indirectly suffering the effects of such a mentality in the culture all around them.
This has important implications for discipling them. At the very least, we must teach and train our children to hold loosely to the things of this world. They must see them rightly: as good gifts from God, but not as ends in themselves. God is the ultimate good. Communion with him is the true goal. God’s kingdom is greater than ours. And, of course, forming our children into disciples that seek God’s kingdom, first and foremost, starts with our personal example. We will struggle to make disciples of Christ if we ourselves are more dragon than disciple.
Jesus and Dragons
Jesus warned us about the danger of becoming dragons. He told a story about a rich man who was a wildly successful farmer (Luke 12:16–21). The man had no place to store the enormous harvests he was enjoying year after year; so each time his barns got full, he decided to level them and build bigger ones in their place. Afterward, the rich man, feeling safe and secure, congratulated himself: “Soul, you have ample good laid up for many years; relax, eat, drink, be merry.”
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Word has just emerged that the Nazarene denomination has taken a bold stand against free sex. A Church of the Nazarene court has found Thomas Jay Oord guilty of affirming and advocating for the inclusion of LGBTQ+ members, contrary to the church’s teachings. The church stated in part, “The Church of the Nazarene holds that ‘the practice of same-sex sexual intimacy is contrary to God’s will.’ ”

Last month during Pride Month I wrote (“Gay Nazarenes”) about a book with the intriguing title Why the Church of the Nazarene Should be Fully LGBTQ+ Affirming by Thomas Jay Oord, a pastor of the Nazarene Church, and Lexa Oord (SacraSage, 2023), encouraging the Church to adopt the full practice of same-sex marriage. Since ninety-some leaders of the Church wrote contributions for the book, I took it to represent the official position of the denomination. I was wrong.
I received a letter from Thomas Hogan, Senior Pastor of Amazing Grace Church of the Nazarene in Walla Walla, WA., stating that the “The majority of the denomination does not agree with Thomas Oord who is undergoing a denominational trial because his teachings are not in line with the denomination.” This is good news, especially since I finished my article by calling on my readers to pray for the Nazarenes. Christian orthodoxy cannot afford to lose a church known by its faithfulness to the Scriptures, especially in the light of the growing social power the LGBTQ ideology. For instance, how disappointing it was to see the Olympic games, a celebration of physical health, mock Christianity by imitating the classic painting of the Last Supper by Leonardo da Vinci, including a group of drag queens enjoying the celebratory meal. In French the statement was made very clear and in rhyme: “La scène (the scene) de la Cène (the Last Supper) près de la Seine” (the river in Paris). In French, each key word sounds the same. The irony is that the water in the Seine is polluted, possibly interfering with some of the events. Inevitably, some swimmers are complaining of sickness.
Back to the Nazarenes. Word has just emerged that the Nazarene denomination has taken a bold stand against free sex. A Church of the Nazarene court has found Thomas Jay Oord guilty of affirming and advocating for the inclusion of LGBTQ+ members, contrary to the church’s teachings. The court’s statement is worth repeating:
We, the members of the Regional Board of Discipline, unanimously find to a moral certainty and beyond a reasonable doubt … that Thomas Jay Oord is guilty of conduct unbecoming a minister and of teaching doctrines out of harmony with the doctrinal statement of the Church of the Nazarene.” The Church of the Nazarene holds that “the practice of same-sex sexual intimacy is contrary to God’s will.
This is encouraging since many churches are giving in, such as the Open Way Church in Vancouver, Canada. Their Pastor Beth, who is “gay married” to another woman, invited pastor Carolina Glauster to preach in a Zoom service. Glauster is a Lutheran pastor who leads Mount Olivet Lutheran Church while also being in a proudly and open polyamorous relationship, having a “partner” and a “metamour” (the partner of your partner/ lover of your lover.) Inevitably there’s a bunch of openly practicing polyamorous men and women in this church. Naturally, Pastor Beth makes a point to gush over this relationship and polyamorous lifestyle, inviting any congregants who think they might want to explore this type of thing to get in touch with her.
Biblical Christians in many denominations can give thanks to God for the courage of fellow believers in the Nazarene Church and for their example to be followed throughout our movement. Certainly, we should love homosexuals, but we cannot endorse their sexual practice. As human beings created in God’s image, we are male and female, as the Scripture clearly states (Gen 1:27). In our sexuality, God calls us to bear witness to an increasingly unbelieving world.
Dr. Peter Jones was director of truthXchange, a communications center aimed at equipping the Christian community to recognize and effectively respond to the rise of paganism. Used with permission.
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Written by John R. Muether |
Tuesday, August 13, 2024
That discipline is a privilege does not mean that it is always enjoyable. It is often unpleasant. The wilderness wandering of Israel was a period of forty difficult (though not wasted) years.  This time of testing and humbling was the “way of the wilderness” (Ex. 13:18).  Moses describes it in Deuteronomy 8, saying in effect: “Keep in mind that the Lord your God has been disciplining you just as a man disciplines his son. So keep the commands of the Lord your God by walking in His ways and fearing Him.” Looking back, Hosea described this wilderness discipline as God’s “cords of kindness” and “bands of love,” as He called His son out of Egypt and bent down to sustain His people (Hos. 11:1–4).

Churches in the Reformed tradition seem to take church discipline seriously, even to the point of including it—along with the preaching of the Word and the administration of the sacraments—as a mark of the true church. An entire section of the Book of Church Order in many Presbyterian denominations is devoted to its proper exercise. There you will find detailed attention to the proceedings of church trials, appeals, and complaints.
Still, it is possible that even Reformed churches today suffer from an underestimation of the importance of church discipline. It is often reduced to the negative correction of sinful behavior. But discipline is much more than that. As J.I. Packer writes, “The Christian concept of discipline has the same breadth as the Latin word disciplina, which signifies the whole range of nurturing, instructional, and training procedures that disciple-making requires.” If Packer is right, then discipline is a synonym for discipleship, of which judicial discipline is only a part. Reflection on the value of positive discipline in the church is especially timely in our age of great skepticism toward institutional religion.
He Privilege of Discipline
The Rules of Discipline in the Book of Church Order of the Presbyterian Church in America note that “all baptized members, being members of the church, are subject to discipline and entitled to the benefits thereof.” You read that right: entitled to discipline. Our struggle to conceive of discipline as a privilege reveals our restricted use of the term. To be subject to discipline is simply to be a disciple, and church membership is a disciple’s proper desire for instruction and guidance in its fullest sense.
What might that look like? The Scots Confession (1560) helps us by directing church discipline to follow the scriptural practice of nourishing virtue and reproving vice, accounting for the positive and negative dimensions of discipline. For starters, churches do well to recover the lost tool of discipleship: catechesis. This should include memorization—by young and old—of the Westminster Shorter Catechism. Beyond implementing an overt catechism program, churches ought to strive repeatedly to cultivate the virtues of faith, hope, and love, and so they might frequently conduct studies on the Apostles’ and Nicene creeds, the Lord’s Prayer, and the Ten Commandments.
The Second Helvetic Confession (1566) goes into greater detail when it outlines at length the duties of the minister of the Word in chapter 18, “Of the Ministers of the Church, Their Institution and Offices.” Here we see the wide scope of his (and the elders’) calling to shepherd the flock. There are corrective actions described here, but most point to positive discipline, including teaching and exhorting the ignorant, urging the idle to make progress in the way of the Lord, comforting and strengthening the fainthearted, preserving the faithful in a holy unity, catechizing the unlearned, commending the needs of the poor to the church, and visiting the sick and those afflicted with various temptations.
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Written by Melanie A. Howard |
Tuesday, August 13, 2024
The Bible highlights a wide variety of (often disruptive and disobedient) activities that it describes without censure. The implication for student life staff and college administrators, then, might be to help channel students’ energies for dissent in positive directions that align with the biblical witness rather than to be quick to quash dissenting activity, even if it interrupts the status quo.

Late in the spring 2024 semester, several college campuses were rocked by student (and faculty) protests over the conflict in Gaza. More recently, the Chronicle of Higher Education broke a story about an instructor whose contract was not renewed after he had publicly opposed an increase in parking fees. On the surface, these events could appear to have little in common. However, despite what might appear to be radically different issues, both scenarios raise the same fundamental question: What is the place of critique or dissent on college campuses?
While this question has implications for all institutions of higher education, I would like to put a finer point on it: What is the place of criticism or dissent on Christian college campuses, and what resources from the biblical text might lend themselves to answering this question?
Rather than try to address larger questions about the freedom of speech or academic freedom on campus, I would instead like to inquire how the Bible itself might serve as a conversation partner in considering such questions. In doing so, I suggest that the Bible’s provision of multiple examples of dissenters can offer a valuable resource for Christian college communities as they consider the place of protest on their campuses. By implicitly condoning dissent, highlighting a diversity of methods for dissent, and offering parameters for appropriate dissent, the Bible offers a rich resource for Christian colleges discerning how to encourage and/or limit expressions of dissent on their campuses.
The Bible as a Resource for Considering Dissent on College Campuses
In the Bible, Christian campuses can find a resource to support conversations about dissent on campus. Based on the rich collection of examples of dissent found in it, Christian universities that look to that text as their ethical foundation have an additional source, beyond those drawn upon by secular institutions, for informing moral reflection about the ethics of protest and dissent.
There is a wide diversity of dissenting activities illustrated throughout the pages of the Bible. Although each of the following biblical examples deserves more consideration, a brief overview demonstrates the array of biblical examples of critique, civil disobedience, and/or protest:

Micaiah (1 Kings 22:1–40): The account of the prophet Micaiah provides an example of a figure who refuses to go along with the status quo, even when he has been instructed to do so (1 Kings 22:13). Instead, Micaiah vows to speak only the word that the Lord gives him (1 Kings 22:14), even though this word contradicts what his superior wants to hear. Ultimately, Micaiah points out that the positive (albeit false) prophecies from the other prophets were the result of spirits of deception that the Lord permitted to deceive King Jehoshaphat. Micaiah alone was faithful to the word of the Lord in declaring the truth about the forthcoming disaster.
Esther (Esther 4–8): The well-known story of Esther recounts Queen Esther’s daring quest to save the Jewish people from certain destruction. At a risk to her own life, Esther beseeches the king to spare the Jewish people. Although her action was risky and ran contrary to the plans that the leading rulers had made, Esther took it upon herself to resist and speak out against what she saw as a destructive course of action.
Shiphrah & Puah (Exodus 1:15–22): The Hebrew midwives Shiphrah and Puah receive an order from Pharaoh to kill any newborn boys whom they help to deliver (Exodus 1:16). However, they disobey this order and allow the babies to live. The text specifies that this action of protest against a direct order was due to their fear of God (Exodus 1:17).
The Magi (Matthew 2:1–12): The unnamed foreigners who are the first in the Gospel of Matthew to meet the young Jesus receive a direct order from Herod to alert him to the whereabouts of Jesus (Matthew 2:8).

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Remembering that we serve Christ as our Master will help us make the right choices and choose the right words when we find ourselves in the war zone. In 1 Peter 4:12–19, Peter focuses on the trials that Christians might face, urging his readers to “not be surprised at the fiery trial when it comes upon you to test you, as though something strange were happening to you” (1 Peter 4:12). Sounding a little like Paul in the opening section of Romans 5, Peter wants Christians to “rejoice” in tribulations (1 Peter 4:13; Rom. 5:3).

Peter’s first epistle is important for Christians to study. Here are three things you should know about 1 Peter:
1. Its Author, Peter, Who Was Singled Out by Jesus and Called the “Rock” (Matt. 16:18), Uses Similar Imagery in This Epistle
True, there has been some discussion about this verse and what exactly Jesus meant by it, but it seems clear that Jesus is addressing Peter, who had just confessed that Jesus was “the Christ, the Son of the living God” (Matt. 16:16). One imagines that Peter was fascinated by rocks and stones after that. Interesting, then, that Peter should make a great deal of it in his first epistle by referencing rocks or stones in 1 Peter 2:4–8. He cites three passages, from Isaiah and the final Hallel psalms (Psalms 113–118, recited at Passover), that specifically mention stones or rocks.
One citation references a “cornerstone” that God “will lay in Zion”—a reference to Jesus, a stone that the builders will reject (Isa. 28:16; Ps. 118:22). Think of how the Jews in Jesus’ day rejected Him. The last reference speaks of a stone, or a rock, over which men will stumble (Isa. 8:14–15). This rock “rejected by men but chosen by God and precious to him” is, of course, Jesus (1 Peter 2:4).
Peter wants his readers to understand that Christians are “living stones,” carefully and securely placed into the church that Jesus is now building, and in which Christ is the cornerstone. This building (the church) is supported by a promise: “The gates of hell shall not prevail against it” (Matt. 16:18).
2. First Peter Is Chiefly Concerned about the Shape of the Christian Life
Peter opens the letter by saying that Christians are chosen “according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, in the sanctification of the Spirit, for obedience to Jesus Christ and for sprinkling with his blood” (1 Peter 1:2). Peter spends over half of the epistle talking about what sanctification looks like, citing in chapter 1 what is sometimes called the “Holiness Code” from the book of Leviticus: “You shall be holy, for I am holy” (1 Peter 1:16; Lev. 11:44, 45; 19:2; 20:7).
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