The blue blazer is a manly, wise, and presbyterian choice. Every elder should have at least one. Even better if you find one that fits from the 50%-off rack. And remember to buy it a little big[1] since decades of fellowship meals and one-on-one breakfast meetings can have their expansive effect. Blessed is the elder who serves long and wears out (or maybe even outgrows) more than one blue blazer.

What equipment does a newly minted Ruling Elder need? I would propose the following: the Bible, the Westminster Standards, the Book of Church Order (BCO), a phone for texting members and fellow elders (there is lots of texting), an email account, and that most presbyterian item of men’s clothing – the essential blue blazer.
Why a blazer? A blazer is a solid-color coat – safe, humble, versatile, and frugal. A blue blazer is not going to impress, alienate, or overawe anyone. Let me put this gently: If you wish to impress with your creative and fashionable sartorial choices, you might not be elder material. If you are to stand out, let it be for your character, not for the cut of your suit; let it be for humility, not for haute couture; let it be for commitment to truth, not for the loudness of your plaids and patterns.
The modern “freedom” of informality and nearly limitless choices of dress and self-expression is, as many have noted, a source of stress. The plethora of choices makes confidence and ease even harder to achieve. What is appropriate for this or that setting? Is this too much? Is that not enough? Guess what works in nearly every setting from worship service to classroom, from funeral to wedding, from a hospital visit to a fellowship dinner, from presbytery committee meeting to General Assembly: the humble blue blazer. Pair it with jeans, khakis, or dress pants. Wear a tie or don’t wear a tie. Pair it with a casual shirt or a dress shirt. The blue blazer is almost infinitely adjustable.
The blue blazer says, “I take this event, job, or situation seriously, but I do not take myself too seriously.”
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Peter Singer from Princeton argues that children up until the age of two do not possess full moral status, and parents would be able to choose to euthanize them.3 Michael Tooley, Professor Emeritus from Colorado University, pushes this to about five years old. Now that we have grown used to sacrificing the defenseless young, why not move on to the defenseless aged? The catchy new motto could be: Every grandma should be a wanted grandma! Culture has advanced itself back to infanticide and euthanasia. In Canada, euthanasia accounted for 3.3% of deaths in 2021, and they are currently wrestling with euthanasia for the mentally ill.

What are the signs of a culture advancing from basic survival mode to a developing culture? Is it an alphabet and written language? Is it farming and improved technologies for higher quality and more productive farming? Is it industrialization? Very likely, each of these or all these combined demonstrates advancement in culture. One of the things that never occurred to us as being an important sign of advancement was the practice of human sacrifice! That is until we read Study Points to Human Sacrifice in Europe. The article discusses strong evidence of human sacrifice in a period dated between 26,000 and 8,000 B.C., or what is called the Upper Paleolithic. The author, Heather Whipps, writes:
Investigating a collection of graves from the Upper Paleolithic (about 26,000 to 8,000 BC), archaeologists found several that contained pairs or even groups of people with rich burial offerings and decoration. Many of the remains were young or had deformities, such as dwarfism.
The diversity of the individuals buried together and the special treatment they received could be a sign of ritual killing, said Vincenzo Formicola of the University of Pisa, Italy.
What, then, do these findings indicate to Heather Whipps?
Human sacrifices have never been apparent in the archaeological record of Upper Paleolithic Europe, though they pop up much later among more complex ancient societies, such as the Egyptians. The Maya and the Aztec would also cut out hearts or toss victims from the tops of temples, historians say.
What sort of human beings were apparently being sacrificed? Well, it seems that a good portion of them were defenseless children and/or handicapped individuals and people with physical challenges or deformities. Some were pre-teens, and one of the allegedly sacrificed individuals had congenital dysplasia. Another adolescent was a dwarf. The common theme here is that these sacrifices involved children. Why were they sacrificed? The writer doesn’t really go into that and, incidentally, does not seem bothered overmuch by the findings. There was no horror reflected in the foregoing remarks. However, what is asserted is that the presence of human sacrifice indicates a more advanced society than the simple hunter/gatherer type society that was previously envisioned. The author conjectures:
The new findings could mean the hunter-gatherers were more advanced than once thought.
Even putting these two ideas “advanced civilization” and “child sacrifice” together is rather breathtaking in its callousness, is it not? Until quite recently at least, most of us would never have considered a society that practiced human sacrifice “advanced.” We would instead have called it barbaric.
If, however, child sacrifice does indicate an advanced civilization, then certainly Western culture has “advanced” quite rapidly in recent decades as it sheds the Christian worldview. It seems to us to be advancing ever more quickly today as godlessness holds increasing sway over our culture. Let’s take a quick look back and track our “advancement.”
American Feminist leader Victoria Woodhull, who in 1872 became the first woman to be nominated for president by a political party, stated:
Thus society, while expending millions in the care of incurables and imbeciles, takes little heed of or utterly ignores those laws by the study and obedience of which such human abortions might have been prevented from cumbering society with their useless and unwelcome presence. Grecian and Roman civilizations were, it is true, deficient in the gentler virtues, the excess of which in our day is hindering the progress of the race rather than helping or ennobling it. They, by crushing out the diseased and imperfect plants in the garden of humanity, attained to a vigor and physical development, which has never been equated since. And in so doing they were entirely in accord with nature, whose mandate is inexorable, that the “fittest” only shall be permitted to live and propagate. She is a very prodigal in her waste of individual life, in order that the species be without spot of blemish.
Not so our modern civilization, which rather pets its abortions and weaklings, and complacently permits them to procreate another race of fools and pigmies as inane and useless as themselves.1
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Written by Grover E. Gunn |
Monday, November 14, 2022
Notice what Paul said, “Such were some of you, but you were washed.” The converted sinner must no longer identify with the sin that once enslaved him. He must be willing to say, “That is what I once was, but that is not what I now am. For the old me that once was has been crucified with Christ.”

In Genesis 35, God appeared to Jacob while he was living in Shechem. God then specifically commanded Jacob to return to Bethel and to erect an altar of worship there. Now that God had fulfilled His promise to take care of Jacob during his flight from home, Jacob needed to fulfill the vow that he had made there at Bethel decades earlier. Jacob’s time of halfway obedience was over, and now he obeyed God as the angels obey God in heaven. Jacob obeyed fully and without delay.
Jacob prepared his household for an encounter with God. Some in Jacob’s household may have possessed some idols that they had taken with them from Padan Aram. You might remember the household idols that Rachel had taken from her father Laban. Others in Jacob’s household probably possessed idols that they had recently plundered from the city of Shechem. Certain earrings were also idols.
There was nothing intrinsically evil about an earring shaped, for example, like a crescent moon. There was, however, an extrinsic problem with such jewelry in a culture where such a shape was associated with a moon god or goddess.
Jacob told his household to put away all such idols. Valuable as these objects might have been, everyone, without delay or resistance or complaint, turned such objects over to Jacob, who then buried them. The word here translated “hid” can refer to hiding for later retrieval, like a pirate’s burying treasure on an isolated island. The word can also refer to hiding something that needs to remain hidden, like Moses’ burying the Egyptian whom he had slain in his days as a prince in Egypt. In this context, the meaning is hiding something to remain hidden because what is being hidden is something forbidden.
In addition to putting away their idols, Jacob commanded everyone to put on new clothes. This is similar to how Israel prepared to meet God at Mount Sinai under Moses by washing their clothes. Both changing clothes and washing clothes can symbolize changing one’s character through a spiritual renewal. The Apostle Paul later used this symbolism when he commanded Christians to put off their sinful ways of living and to put on righteous ways of living. The Spirit of God must have been moving in Jacob’s household because they obeyed both his commands without questioning them.
This principle of burying idols and changing clothes continues to apply today. For example, if a man today seeks to be ordained as a minister or elder or deacon, then he needs to bury his idols and change his clothes. There are those who have engaged in homosexual acts in the past, who now claim to be converted and called to ordained service in the church. This is possible, even as the Apostle Paul made the transition from persecutor of the church to sacred apostle.
Yet some who make this claim today refuse to bury their idols and change their clothes. They say that their sinful desires are an aspect of their essential self that cannot be changed. They refer to themselves as gay Christians. Some continue to dress and groom in ways that culturally identify them as homosexuals. Some continue to participate in and celebrate certain identifying aspects of homosexual culture.
Our response to this must be an insistence that men bury their idols and change their clothes as a minimal requirement for being ordained as ministers or elders or deacons. Our response in new covenant terms must be the like the statement of the Apostle Paul in 1 Corinthians 6:9-11:
Do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? … And such were some of you. But you were washed, but you were sanctified, but you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus and by the Spirit of our God.
Notice what Paul said, “Such were some of you, but you were washed.” The converted sinner must no longer identify with the sin that once enslaved him. He must be willing to say, “That is what I once was, but that is not what I now am. For the old me that once was has been crucified with Christ.” How much more this should be true of those who seek to be ordained as officers in the church.
Dr. Grove Gunn is a Minister in the Presbyterian Church in America and is Pastor of the MacDonald PCA in Collins, Miss.
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