As we relate to those who are weak, we are to ensure they do not draw our censure, our criticism, or our condemnation, all of which flow so naturally from our sinful hearts. We are to ensure we do not regard them as a trial, burden, or embarrassment. Rather, we are to accept them as a precious gift of God and to treat them with compassion, concern, and special affection. Their frailty is to be met with sympathy, their inability is to draw the love and help of Christ’s whole family. 

Have you ever known a family who has learned that it will soon welcome a child with special needs? It could be that prenatal testing has shown a developmental abnormality or it could be that they have deliberately chosen to adopt a child with disabilities. But either way, the family will necessarily undergo a time of preparation as they ready themselves for the inevitable special challenges to come. They will prepare their home, they will prepare their community, they will prepare themselves.
And when the day comes that the child arrives, you may observe that the entire family begins to accommodate themselves to her weaknesses. Not just over the course of her early days but over the entire duration of her life, they give her their help. If she cannot see, they become her eyes; if she cannot hear, they learn to sign; if she cannot walk, they carry her from place to place; if she cannot make decisions on her own, they make them lovingly on her behalf.
You may observe as well that there is a special kind of love given to this one child. The other children in the family may love one another, but each of them has a special affection for this sister. The mother loves all of her children equally, yet there is a special tenderness for this one who is especially needy. The father makes accommodation for all of his children in his final will and testament, but ensures special provision has been made for her. No one else is so well loved, so safely protected. Her weakness is actually her strength for it draws to her the love and help of the entire household.
Read More

Leadership isn’t about power as much as it is a unique opportunity to glorify the Lord by displaying His great power in our tremendous weakness. Rather than finding our identity in some sense of authority or accomplishment, we may return to meditate on the Savior’s merciful work in us and the great privilege we have in caring for His saints. We get to show them a tangible (though very flawed) portrait of what obedience looks like in our circumstances and culture.

The following post is part of our ‘The Work of the PCA Elder’ series. For the first post in the series, please click here.
The necessity of illuminating the sermon properly is found in the mental attitude of the people. Whether we like it or not, most of us preach to the ‘moving picture mind.’ It is the mind accustomed to images, pictures, scenes, rapidly moving. It certainly is not accustomed to deep thinking or long, sustained argument. Current magazines, billboards, novels, drama, rapid transit, all add to this popular method of visual thinking. We as ministers may not approve of the daily fare of the people; we may regret their inability to pursue abstract logic; we may wish them to prefer theoretical reasoning. But whatever our wishes, we must recognize that they regard thinking which is not imaginary and concrete as dull and uninteresting.
It’s hard to believe that Bryan Dawson published this argument for illustrating sermons almost a hundred years ago in his work, The Art of Illustrating Sermons. His almost prophetic depiction of the image driven culture must have seemed a terrible over-reaction when he wrote it in 1938 but couldn’t seem more accurate today. Illustrations in preaching are necessary because they make the theoretical and abstract concrete to the listener.
In many ways leadership in the church should be viewed through the same lens. Just as illustrations in a sermon take the abstract truths of the Scriptures and turn them into pictures we can see, noises we can hear, and sensations we can feel, so too does good leadership in the church provide living, breathing portraits of the truths of God’s Word. We talk of seeing the Word of God in the sacraments which is certainly true, but there is also a sense in which we can see the Scriptures acted out in the officers of the church. Do you want to see what holiness looks like in twenty-first century America? The elders of the church should provide a concrete, tangible example of what that looks like.
This is one of the many reasons why almost all the qualifications for office deal with a man’s character, and not with his abilities. Officers of the church are called to be men that are above reproach, faithful pictures of a properly ordered life. I suspect M’Cheyne was correct in his oft quoted contemplation, “The greatest need of my people is my own holiness.” This is certainly not to say that our people need holiness in their ministers for some redemptive purpose, but rather to further clarify the task of the elder to model holiness to the people of God. Few things complicate or cloud the example that I set as much as my own sin.
More specifically, I have found this type of thinking to be the most powerful and transformative to the weakest and the most wounded in the flock. So often those that have been the most hurt are those that struggle to understand the Lord’s good, gentle hand with His people. The pain makes it hard to understand how Christ could be so tender that “a bruised reed He will not break, and a smoldering wick He will not quench” (Matthew 12:20).
Read More
Related Posts:

The Soviet Union collapsed because it created a society built on fear and lies. The woke takeover of our institutions won’t bring us utopia, it will bring us the same misery and failure.

Saying two plus two equals four may now be problematic.
One of the key aspects of the left-wing cultural revolution that’s taken over America’s most powerful institutions is how it injects its politics and ideology into literally everything. That includes science, and now math.
Many states and school districts are embracing “woke math” for K-12 students, intentionally lowering standards and changing math curriculum to focus on attacking “white supremacy” and “paternalism” while denying objectivity.
There are at least some within these institutions now speaking out in opposition.
A group of hundreds of distinguished quantitative scientists put out a public statement condemning the transformation of science and math curriculum.
“The growing list of 471 signatories includes four winners of the Fields Medal in math; two winners of the Turing Award in computing; a Nobel laureate in physics and another in chemistry; 25 members of the National Academy of Sciences; and faculty at Stanford, Berkeley, CalTech, MIT and every top U.S. university for hard science,” The Wall Street Journal reported.
In the statement, the scientists explain why woke math will not only erode American competitiveness globally, it will also hold many students back from achievement and success.
The scientists noted California’s new math curriculum framework being considered by the state’s department of education as particularly harmful. The 800-page document, based on dubious research, would further transform the California public education system into a series of social justice activist boot camps.
The new curriculum relies heavily on a program called “A Pathway to Equitable Math Instruction.”

“The concept of mathematics being purely objective is unequivocally false, and teaching it is even much less so,” a document for the program reads. “Upholding the idea that there are always right and wrong answers perpetuate objectivity as well as fear of open conflict.”
Under the new framework, coursework will be transformed to dismantle “racism” in math. What is an example of racism in math? Asking students to show their work, apparently.
Besides reorienting math instruction away from, well, teaching math to teaching students to be social justice warriors, it also calls for the elimination of accelerated programs for gifted students.
Read More