In keeping with the journalistic tradition of looking back at the recent past, we present the top 50 stories of the year that were read on The Aquila Report site based on the number of hits. We will present the 50 stories in groups of 10 to run on five lists on consecutive days. Here are numbers 31-40.

In 2021 The Aquila Report (TAR) posted over 3,000 stories. At the end of each year we feature the top 50 stories that were read.
TAR posts 8 new stories each day, on a variety of subjects – all of which we trust are of interest to our readers. As a web magazine TAR is an aggregator of news and information that we believe will provide articles that will inform the church of current trends and movements within the church and culture.
In keeping with the journalistic tradition of looking back at the recent past, we present the top 50 stories of the year that were read on The Aquila Report site based on the number of hits. We will present the 50 stories in groups of 10 to run on five lists on consecutive days. Here are numbers 31-40:

Thoughts on the Present State of the PCA: A Series of Theses Presented by a Concerned Member—Part One

That the foremost sufferers of our present deeds are those that are tempted with homosexual lust. For they need to be encouraged diligently with the assurance that their sin belongs to the old man that was crucified with Christ (Rom. 6:6), and that they are new creations (2 Cor. 5:17) who have been cleansed of their sin and who can and will finally overcome it (Rom. 6:12-14). And yet we set before them as leaders and models men who proudly claim their sin as an essential part of their identity, and who name themselves by it.

The PCA Has Fallen into Error, and Can’t Get Back Up (Part 1-Creation)

Though the Creation Study Report is from 2000, Framework proponents are more numerous in the PCA than ever today. Which helps explain many of the PCA’s current problems. Men who are willing to bend scripture to accommodate secularists on creation–God’s foundational act that revealed Him to us as Creator–are more likely to bend scripture to appease the proponents of the latest secular fad.

Revoice Gay-Straight Friends Planning a Life Together

A “deep-dive” Revoice webinar entitled, “Better Together”: In this webinar we discover this gay-straight duo. It is there we discover why couple may be more descriptive than duo. Who are these men? The gay man is Art Pereira, a Student Ministry Director at Hope Presbyterian Church (PCA). His straight-friend is Nick Galluccio, a youth pastor at Stonecrest Community Church. Art describes his friendship with Nick as a family and a household. Those are his words. Why did he use the word household? Because they moved in together.

The Salt That Has Lost Its Savor: The Woke Church and the Undoing of America

This doctrinal malpractice has given us a generation of men, Christian and otherwise, who are what Lewis called “men without chests.”….They are the sort who will, upon reading this article, take great offense at what I have written here and waste no time in letting me know it, but are not particularly offended by the sixty-one million children murdered in the holocaust of abortion since 1973, by universities that are incubators of radicalism, by Democrats who are compiling a “hit list” of Trump supporters, or by the godlessness of the Marxism they openly advocate, which has killed no less than 125 million people in the twentieth century alone.

The Biblical View of Gender and Sexuality

Our denomination itself is experiencing a rise of those who would call themselves “progressives.”  But whatever their intentions are, their “progress” is nothing less than regress—for what they are espousing is far removed from and even blatantly contrary to Scripture and sound doctrine. Much of this error will be proposed or debated by these individuals at the PCA’s General Assembly in another week.

What’s Wrong with Our Church Praise Music?

True praise that God loves comes out of a whole heart, in the gathered assembly, as all the voices of the people together are raised, because the marvelous works of the Lord have been sought out, comprehended, and believed. People who have delighted themselves in Christ and his steadfast love shown to them in his wondrous work won’t have to ask about how to achieve true praise.

A Response to Missouri Presbytery’s BCO 31–2 Investigation of TE Greg Johnson

Note: The Session of Covenant Church, Fayetteville, AR, responded privately to Missouri Presbytery’s distribution of its report concerning our BCO 31–2 request, in an effort to encourage them to clarify their positions and to turn away from their theological errors.

Freidrich Schleiermacher, the PCA, and Side B Christianity

If religious feeling makes confessional truth subservient to the changing aspect of our communities, then it should be no real surprise that what we are seeing happen in the “current” sexual revolution is redefining of what is means to be confessional based on the religious experience of the moment. This is what the PCA is up against and, well, all of us together as believers in Christ.

The PCA Has Fallen into Error, and Can’t Get Back Up: Part 3-David Frenchism

But let’s get to the offences of white Christians themselves. Christians who voted for Trump because of their concerns about abortion, gay marriage, assaults on free speech, oppressive taxation, etc., are condemned for failing to “lay down their political arms.” We must understand, though, that this is only an offence for Trump voters. Those who, like French, took up their political arms to loudly support and vote for Joe Biden are guilty of nothing.

Johnson To The PCA: “Merry Christmas. Here Is A Lump Of Coal For Your Stocking”

There are several serious problems with Pastor Johnson’s reasoning here. First, his speech was highly biographical, emotive, and even prejudicial. He implied that anyone who disagrees with his position “hates” homosexuals. It equates traditional Christian sexual ethics with anti-gay bigotry. Second, he assumes that, except for his commitment to Christ, he might have taken a same-sex husband and had a family and that by not violating God’s natural and moral law thus he has made a great sacrifice for the sake of Christ and his kingdom.

Written by M. R. Conrad |
Thursday, March 14, 2024
The exclusivity of the gospel is not a new doctrine created by a modern fanatical sect. From the beginning of the church age, Jesus proclaimed that He is the only way to God (John 14:6), and He gave the authority and the command to share this exclusive gospel with every creature of every nation (Mark 16:15).

Have you been there? You’re just trying to obey God and be a good witness for Jesus Christ (Acts 1:8). But suddenly, your pleasant conversation turns combative. This was not your intention, but there you are. The friend you care about is upset, and you feel like it is your fault. All you did was share truth from the Bible, but now you are the bad guy. How did this happen?
Now, the tension could be your fault. Your approach could be abrasive, condescending, or even rude. But, then again, the trip line could have been the message itself. Those set on going their own way stumble on the exclusivity of the gospel.
Jesus stated in no uncertain terms that there is only one way to God: “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me” (John 14:6). Why does the exclusivity of the gospel often provoke such a vehement response?
Exclusivity Eliminates Your Own Way
If there is only one way to God, then one’s own way is futile. Trusting one’s own good works instead of trusting in Jesus Christ alone is going one’s own way. A life of good deeds done for God and others goes to waste when considered to be merit that earns favor with God. All the credit one labored for a lifetime to accrue ends up like Monopoly money—the amount is high, but the eternal value is nil.
In the minds of those attached to their own way, a loving friend’s words pointing out such truths becomes a personal attack. What is meant in love sounds like judgment. Instead of hearing a plea to come to safety, those set on their own way hear only condemnation that they feel they could not possibly deserve.
Yet, God clearly warns those who cling to their own way: “There is a way that seems right to a man, But its end is the way of death” (Proverbs 14:12). That death—eternal death—is not inevitable. The prophet Isaiah explains, “All we like sheep have gone astray; We have turned, every one, to his own way; And the LORD has laid on Him [Jesus] the iniquity of us all” (Isaiah 53:6). Going one’s own way is sin, but Jesus Christ paid for that sin by dying on the cross. To benefit from His sacrifice, those going their own way must submit to the only way to God by putting their faith in Christ alone (Acts 4:12).
Exclusivity Demands Humility
Few who cling to their record of personal morality view this as insisting on their own way.
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Scripture indicates the Sabbath will be kept until the end of history. Isaiah 66:22-23, regarding the new heavens and earth, says, “For as the new heavens and the new earth that I make shall remain before me, says the LORD, so shall your offspring and your name remain. From new moon to new moon, and from Sabbath to Sabbath, all flesh shall come to worship before me, declares the LORD.” This passage speaks of “all flesh,” a reference to all humans that includes the Gentiles (“all mankind,” NASB95). That the Sabbath continues in the new heavens and earth indicates the Sabbath did not end with resurrection of Christ.

The Fourth Commandment is of great controversy in the modern church. Many Christians today entirely ignore the Sabbath, and even many Reformed and Presbyterian ministers have moved far from a Sabbatarian position. Much has changed since early America, evidenced by the words of Conrad Speece (1776–1836), a Presbyterian pastor from Virginia, who said in an 1801 newspaper article, “Christians are generally agreed, in the belief of a divine warrant for the observation of the Christian sabbath.” Speece said this at a time when Christians in Virginia were a mix of Presbyterians, Anglicans, Methodists, and Baptists.
Yet it is ironic that the only one of the Ten Commandments debated as to whether it still applies today is the one explicitly rooted in the creation account—“Six days you shall labor, and do all your work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the LORD your God… For in six days the LORD made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested on the seventh day” (Exodus 20:9-11, ESV). Yet this rejection fits with the widespread cultural rejection of creational norms. 
It should also not be missed that the only one of the Ten Commandments outright rejected by American Christians today is the one regulating time. American life has become so busy, sometimes with both parents working outside the home and children’s sports crowding evenings and weekends. (And don’t forget the NFL on Sundays.) Is it just coincidence that Christians now reject God’s demand to devote an entire day each week to worship? Yes, there are theological arguments put forth against the continuing practice of the Sabbath, as we will see. But it cannot be ignored that there is increasing cultural pressure to abandon the Sabbath.
Sadly, American Christians have abandoned their Sabbatarian heritage brought by the British to the various colonies, including the Puritans in New England and the Scots-Irish in the backcountry. Even Virginia, which disestablished the Church of England in 1786, enacted that same year “A Bill for Punishing Disturbers of Religious Worship and Sabbath Breakers”—a bill ironically drafted by the rationalist Thomas Jefferson. Yet the American church played a large part in abandoning Sabbath practice by (1) providing little resistant to the repeal of Sabbath (“blue”) laws, (2) providing little resistance to professional sports being played on Sunday, which began in the early 20th century, (3) and outright rejecting the existence of a Sabbath day (and thus embracing Sabbath-breaking).
What I want to do in this article is argue that the Bible expects Sabbath practice to continue in the new covenant. In a subsequent article, I will respond to objections to Christian Sabbatarianism, including the objection that there is no evidence the Sabbath day changed from Saturday to Sunday. To be clear, Christian Sabbatarianism generally consists of the following affirmations: (1) The Fourth Commandment has a moral component, not just a ceremonial one; (2) The day has been changed from the 7th to the 1st day of the week because of Christ’s resurrection; and (3) The day should be devoted to the worship of God, not employment or recreations.
The Expectation of a New Covenant Sabbath
While the Fourth Commandment is not restated in the New Testament, it is important to acknowledge that none of the first three commandments are explicitly restated in the New Testament (no other gods, no images, not taking God’s name in vain). Jesus and the apostles did not need to restate these commands relating to God’s worship because they obviously still applied to Christians. Often called the “first table” of the law, the New Testament assumes these four God-directed commandments still apply.
The Sabbath command broadly concerns the regulation of time, with the requirement that God’s people work and then devote one entire day to restful worship. On what basis could such a command not apply in the new covenant? Does God no longer regulate man’s calendar or time in creation? Thus, while there is room to debate the specific application of the Sabbath command in the new covenant, we are arguing that the Sabbath command must continue to apply to the Christian. The reasons are as follows.
First, the entire Ten Commandments are the foundation of God’s law, or what Reformed theologians historically have identified as the “moral law.” The Westminster Standards teach that “The moral law is the declaration of the will of God to mankind, directing and binding every one to personal, perfect, and perpetual conformity and obedience thereunto” (WLC 93). So the moral law applies to all men, and it is written on the heart of Christians (Jeremiah 31:33). And what is the content of this moral law? “The moral law is summarily comprehended in the Ten Commandments” (WLC 98), which of course includes the Fourth Commandment. Hence the apostles can freely quote the Ten Commandments as binding on the church (e.g., Ephesians 6:1-3). While there were civil/judicial penalties in the Mosaic law for Sabbath-breaking, as well as ceremonial laws falling broadly under the Fourth Commandment (feast days and Sabbath years), the Sabbath command at its root is moral. The day has been changed to Sunday in the new covenant, but the specific day was ceremonial and could be changed, seen in that the Sabbath principle of six and one is upheld. Accordingly, God has established the Sabbath “in his Word, by a positive, moral, and perpetual commandment binding all men in all ages” (WCF 21.7).
Second, the weekly Sabbath command is rooted in creation (“For in six days the LORD made heaven and earth,” Exodus 20:11). What makes this relevant is that we still live in this created world. We live in the same world that Old Testament Israel did, and there is no basis for overturning such a creation principle. Nothing has changed in human nature that we no longer need weekly rest and worship. Our weekly schedule is regulated by God’s pattern set at creation (Genesis 1:1–2:3). Further evidence of such a creation order is that the Sabbath was practiced prior to the Mosaic covenant (Exodus 16).
Third, the weekly Sabbath is an important part of life as God’s redeemed. While the Sabbath was given for all mankind, the fall corrupted worship and Sabbath practice. But God restored Sabbath practice to its rightful place for His redeemed people. This is seen in that God delivered Israel out of oppressive slavery and into Sabbath rest, declared in the prologue to the Ten Commandments—“I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery” (Exodus 20:2). In fact, God’s redemption from slavery is given as the basis for the Sabbath in the restatement of the Ten Commandments in Deuteronomy 5:15— “You shall remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt.” Such weekly holy rest was a blessing as Israel anticipated eschatological (i.e., final) Sabbath in Christ (Hebrews 3–4). We still await the ultimate fulfillment of this rest in Christ’s return, so we still practice the weekly Sabbath as a foretaste of what is to come. Accordingly, if the Sabbath command no longer applies, then the new covenant is worse than the old covenant, not better (Hebrews 7:22). If the Sabbath command has been entirely abrogated, then Christians are no longer given a day each week devoted to God’s worship for their spiritual benefit. The Sabbath is for our good—we may not feel like spending the entire day in worship, but we need to spend the entire day in worship. So God calls us to set the day apart.
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