Right now family serves an earthly purpose. But the day will come when it will be transformed into a glorious experience that is multiplied and magnified by the larger family to which we are united. As Randy Alcorn has said, “God usually doesn’t replace his original creation, but when he does, he replaces it with something that is far better, never worse.”

Okay, I’m going to say something that may sound unsettling, but I want you to think about it. Are you ready? The whole idea of family, in the way we experience it on earth, is only temporary. There is a day coming when the concept of family will be swept up into a more glorious and satisfying arrangement.
Don’t let that make you nervous. What awaits us is far more magnificent.
Marriage as a Sign Pointing Forward
One day the Sadducees tried to trick Jesus with a question about heaven. Jesus answered, “In the resurrection they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are like angels in heaven” (Matt. 22:30). Jesus is not saying that because marriage isn’t eternal, it’s time to toss it on the trash heap. No, he’s telling us that something even better awaits.
In heaven there will be one glorious marriage between Christ and his bride, and that marriage will satisfy and complete every desire we’ve had for marriage on this earth. In fact, the eternal marriage between Christ and the church is the very point for which marriage in this life exists.
Marriage on earth is a picture of that eternal reality. It mirrors a higher purpose.
Paul explains, “‘Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.’ This mystery is profound, and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church” (Eph. 5:31–32). In glory you will experience delight that far outweighs what you’ve experienced here and now.
Think about this. If your spouse is there, it’s hardly a stretch to think you’ll experience heavenly delight in Christ along with your spouse—the one you’ve delighted in most in this life. But being in heaven with your spouse will not be glorious because you go on being their mate; being in heaven will be glorious because together you will behold face-to-face the One to whom your marriage pointed.
In Pittsburgh, where I grew up, there is a beloved amusement park called Kennywood. Back in the day, yellow Kennywood signs all around the ’Burgh pointed in the direction of what we believed to be the ultimate amusement experience—cotton candy, caramel apples, delicious treats.
Oh, and did I mention the roller coasters that would stop your heart and expel the candy you had just gobbled straight onto the coaster tracks? Heck, throwing up at Kennywood was a rite of passage, something to boast about in English class on Monday.
The Kennywood signs pointed people in the direction of our deep desires for amusement park pleasure, but the signs were not the reality.
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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 11-20.

In 2022 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 11-20:

Rosaria Butterfield: “I Reject the False Teaching of Revoice/Side B Theology”

After we are justified by God, we can never return to Adam. What does this mean for someone like me who lived as a lesbian for a decade and believed I was gay? It means that homosexuality is part of my biography, not my nature. My nature is securely chained in Christ (Colossians 3:10-20). What does it mean if a Christian falls back into an old sin pattern? It means that he is acting against his true nature. How do we stop acting against our true nature in Christ when our flesh craves our old sin patterns? By going to war with our sin through the power of Christ’s blood.

Memorial Church Pastoral Staff Released From Missouri Presbytery At Their Request

At a called meeting on Tuesday, December 6, 2022, the PCA Missouri Presbytery voted to release the three ministerial staff members of Memorial Presbyterian Church in St. Louis, Missouri. The Presbytery voted to release Dr. Greg Johnson, Lead Pastor, Associate Pastor Keith Robinson, and Youth and Family Pastor Sam Dolby from the Presbyterian Church in America. The Presbytery acted under the provision of the Book of Church Order 38-3a.

“Whoever Looks at a Woman With Lust”: Misinterpreted Bible Passages

Instead of focusing on “lust,” if this passage is to be correctly taught, the emphasis should be placed squarely on the will: that is, “What is the proper response to sexual desire?” There are proper outlets for sexual desire, but it is the exercise of the sexual appetite outside these confines is the problem. Even prior to actually committing the act, once the will has turned towards illicit behavior, sin has already entered the heart and, once fully conceived, will bring forth death.

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.

Letter to Editor: From a Memorial PCA Member

Those who criticize Memorial often do so from beyond our walls. I write as one who worships weekly in her pews, who has walked with Greg Johnson through the last five years of controversy, who has seen the toll it has taken upon my leaders and the resources of our church– resources which should have been devoted to the care of the flock and the service of our community.

Abuse, the OPC, and the Psychologizing of Sin

Here is the real problem that I believe underlies the failure of those frequently using the term abuse to provide a clear, biblical definition: the preference of the term abuse dislocated from sin, moves abuse out of the moral and spiritual realm and into the psychological. In other words, it tends to shift the serious matters at hand from that which is properly clerical and refers them to the clinical.

The Vote Tally of PCA Presbyteries On Overtures 23 and 37

Thus far, 51 of the 88 PCA presbyteries have voted on Overtures 23 and 37. The remaining presbyteries will begin voting at their respective meetings beginning in January 2022, with 20 presbyteries voting during January; by then, a clearer trend will become obvious as to whether these amendments will receive the required 2/3 votes of the presbyteries.

2022 PCA General Assembly Preview

One former moderator of the General Assembly characterized this year as the “Pitchfork Assembly,” because of the outrage in the pews related to some of the events of recent years in the PCA. This is both cause for prayers of thanksgiving (i.e. that people in the churches are willing to sacrifice to send their elders to the Assembly and that God has raised up elders willing to do the work of the church) and prayers for peace (i.e. that God will pour out a spirit of humility and grace even as we contend for the faith once for all delivered to the saints so we may be united in truth and love).

12. Lessons Learned? Allegations at the OPC General Assembly

The major lesson from this assembly on this matter is that we need to double down on our Presbyterian principles. Witnesses and evidence with biblical process for those who are guilty and vindication for those who have been falsely charged. This has always been the Presbyterian way and is doubly necessary in the negative world.

An Assessment of the New Revised Standard Version: Gaywashing in the Translation

There is absolutely no doubt, based on extant evidence, that the term arsenokoitai in 1 Cor 6:9 is correctly translated as “men lying with a male.” If any updating of the NRSV were to be done on 1 Cor 6:9, it should have been done in the direction of translating arsenokoitai as “men lying with a male.” The previous NRSV translation of “sodomites” was not the best translation because “Sodom” is not part of the stem of this Greek noun…. What the NRSVue translators have done is to conform the biblical witness to their own ideological biases, biases that mitigate against the overwhelming evidence from morphology and historical context.
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Written by James Murphy, Ph.D. |
Wednesday, August 10, 2022
The Bible is a treasury of humanity’s highest ideals and yet the Bible is brutally realistic about human evil. The clash between those ideals and human reality gives the Bible great dramatic power.

The Bible is blamed for virtually every evil under the sun. Here is a summary of the rap sheet: Slavery and racism began with Noah’s curse on his son Ham. The Crusades, Western imperialism, Islamic jihad, and even Nazi genocide were all inspired by biblical holy war. The degradation of nature, cruelty to animals, and overpopulation are all endorsed by God when he commands Adam to subdue the Earth. God’s election of Israel as his chosen people led to three thousand years of conflict in the Middle East. When God tells Eve “your husband shall rule over you” we see the origin of all the horrors of patriarchy, from polygamy to wife-beating. As for child abuse, think of Abraham’s appalling plan to make a burnt offering of his son, Isaac. Biblical condemnations of sodomy gave us centuries of cruel persecution of homosexuals. It would appear that the Bible has a lot to answer for.
At the same time, many champions of human equality, the emancipation of slaves, the liberation of women, vegetarianism, pacifism, respect for nature, the rights of children, and the abolition of the death penalty also claim to be inspired by the Bible. After all, the Bible does insist that God created every human being in his own image, male and female alike, and that in Paradise we shall see war no more, nor killing of any kind. What could be a more ringing endorsement of human equality than the biblical assertion: “there is no longer slave or free, Jew or Greek; there is no longer male or female, for all of you are one”? As the most revered and reviled book in history, the Bible is routinely blamed for our evils and credited for our ideals.
In one dramatic biblical scene, Jesus debates Satan and both support their arguments by quoting verbatim from the Bible. Notoriously, the Bible can be quoted to defend contradictory positions about virtually all moral controversies. Whatever your opinion about slavery, gay marriage, divorce, capital punishment, polygamy, patriarchy, corporal punishment, race, sacrifice, war, or socialism, you’ll find support in the Bible. How could there be a coherent biblical ethics when the Bible is deployed as a weapon by all sides on every issue—when even the devil quotes Scripture?
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