It is a most remarkable providence; if one reads the protest against Presbytery’s action to preserve the church plant, the signers represent the elders from Covenant Presbytery’s wealthiest and most influential churches and committees. Yet the speech of a largely unknown, retired former Arkansas church planter was powerfully used by God to change the course of the debate, save the little church plant from dissolution, and preserve a witness for Himself in Jonesboro.

Editorial Note: What follows will be controversial and disturbing as it deals with abuse. Reader discretion is advised. In preparing this series, official documents and public comments have been extensively used to compose the narrative. No attempt is made to assign motives to any of the parties in this case. Reference will be made to inferences drawn by the judges on the PCA’s Standing Judicial Commission as they carefully reviewed the case and noted the process was “abused” and offenses “imagined” by a Temporary Session of Elders against the Jonesboro 7. Any objection to the use of the term “abused” should be directed to the SJC Judges rather than the author of this series who simply reports the judgment of the PCA General Assembly regarding the actions of the Temporary Session in this case.
This is Part Four in a series. You can read Part One, Part Two, and Part Three. I have also written about this mater on PCA Polity.
The men wanted to see a Reformed and Presbyterian Church planted in Jonesboro, Arkansas. Covenant Presbytery had established a mission congregation, Christ Redeemer, in that city under organizing pastor TE Jeff Wreyford.
However, the Jonesboro 7 had not perceived TE Wreyford’s philosophy of ministry to be heavily focused on Reformed distinctives. They had perceived some “progressive” tendencies.1
As such they conveyed their concerns to the elders serving on the temporary Session and stated their belief that other men should be considered as candidates for pastor when the time came for the congregation to elect one.
The Session, however, responded by charging the men with violations of their membership vows and sins against the Fifth and Ninth Commandments. The men, from a church plant of about 45 people, were summoned for a trial on July 12, 2021 at the Independent Presbyterian Church of Memphis, which in 2021 reported its average morning attendance to be 478; more than ten times that of the fledgling church plant.
The Session of Christ Redeemer consisted of – with the exception of TE Wreyford – pastors or ruling elders from IPC Memphis. That same Session would sit in judgment on the men.
Numerous witnesses were called by prosecutor TE Mike Malone, but none of them could give any specific testimony as to what the Jonesboro 7 had done to violate their membership vows and God’s Law. Undeterred by the lack of evidence, the Session found the Jonesboro 7 guilty and censured them with suspension from the Lord’s Table until they would show sufficient evidence of repentance.
But since neither the indictments nor the trial established what the men had specifically done that was sinful, giving “satisfactory evidence of repentance” would be difficult.
An Attempt to Participate
Ordinarily in the PCA, notice of appeal “shall have the effect of suspending the judgment” against an Accused.
Despite the men called by Presbytery to serve as pastor and to shepherd them in Christ’s Name having declined to show them where they had specifically sinned, the men still wanted to participate in the church, to be part of the PCA, and to partake in Christ’s body and blood by faith with the rest of His people at His table. So they appealed to Covenant Presbytery.
But the Session of Elders took the additional step of barring them from approaching the Lord’s Table even while their appeal was ongoing. SJC judges would later note that this would also have the effect of preventing the men from voting in a congregational meeting to elect a pastor, should a vote take place.
To explain their decision to take the extra step of keeping the censure in place even during an appeal, the Session simply asserted, “The judgement shared with you on 21 July 2021 contained sufficient reasons as to why you were being suspended from the Lord’s table.”2
A short time later the Session sent a correspondence to Covenant Presbytery alleging the Jonesboro 7 had “violated BCO 32-19 in the authorship” of their complaint and pleadings by an outside elder.3
The Session wrote,
New evidence has been presented that many of court documents dating back to the earliest correspondence between the appellants and the session bear the name “Dominic Aquila” as author…
We believe this to be potentially against BCO 42-2 and 42-4 which prevents circularizing court documents, as well as 32-19, which prevents the use of “professional counsel.”4
It is a curious interpretation of BCO 42, which places no prohibition on “court documents,” but rather prohibits “circularizing the court,” i.e. attempting to persuade the judges on the court to a certain opinion.
It is further curious the Session interpreted “circularizing” in the way it did, considering that on March 30, 2021 TE Robert Browning, the Covenant Presbytery clerk, had written to the Session about another matter and explained how “circularize the court” is to be understood: “This means there is to be no effort to influence or ‘whip’ the vote before Presbytery.”5
It remains unclear what evidence the Session had to indicate the Jonesboro 7 had retained professional (i.e. paid) counsel.
An Appeal Denied
The seven church members did not believe their elders had showed them where and how specifically they had sinned either through pastoral shepherding or by means of the process of a trial. At such a point, the Jonesboro 7 might understandably shake the dust off their feet and find a gospel centered, Christ exalting, God glorifying faith communion where they could be nurtured and shepherded somewhere else in Jonesboro. That was, after all, what RE Olson seemed to anticipate they needed to do in his testimony.
But these men were committed to the Reformed Faith and were committed to being Presbyterian. As such, they appealed their case to Covenant Presbytery, which had oversight of all the PCA churches in that area. Covenant Presbytery was also the body who had appointed the Elders of the church plant’s temporary Session.
It is likely the men were optimistic about their appeal. After all, the Presbytery had sustained the portion of their complaint months earlier that dealt with largely the same matters.
But if there was any hope of being vindicated at Presbytery, it was short-lived; the Presbytery assigned their case to a commission to review. That commission met on February 4, 2022, and “a motion was made by RE Josh Sanford, seconded by TE Dan Anderson and passed to deny the appeal in the whole. The vote was 7-0-0 in favor.”6
All seven men on the Presbytery’s judicial commission voted to deny their appeal, which would have to be ratified by Presbytery, which it did on May 17, 2022.
The Jonesboro 7 made several arguments pleading for relief from Covenant Presbytery.
They claimed the indictment itself was unconstitutional, since it gave no specifications regarding the sin as required by BCO 32-5; Covenant Presbytery, however, disagreed. The Presbytery reasoned: “the phrase ‘if possible’ gives broad discretion to a court” in what it includes in the indictment. Covenant Presbytery reasoned that the assertion “in the days leading up to and following August 3, 2020…” was sufficiently specific: at some point in the month of August the Jonesboro 7 did something that violated their membership vows and Commandments Five and Nine.7
In their appeal the Jonesboro 7 also claimed that improper, poor, and inadequate evidence was presented at trial to prove their guilt. In other words, the Jonesboro 7 claimed the evidence and testimony did not establish their guilt. But this argument also was rejected by Covenant Presbytery. Covenant Presbytery reasoned “BCO 42-3 does not state ‘poor’ evidence, as the allegation states, as grounds for an Appeal.” The Presbytery also accepted the assertions of the prosecutor, TE Mike Malone, in his closing argument to show “sufficient proof” of the guilt of the Jonesboro 7. This, despite, the fact no testimony was offered as to their specific guilt. Although RE Caldwell did testify as to his feeling the Ninth Commandment was broken.
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 Jesus “is the mediator of a new covenant” (Heb. 9:15) we no longer need to offer burnt offerings. Christ has, “by means of his own blood” secured “an eternal redemption” (v. 12), and purified “our conscience from dead works to serve the living God (v. 14). Dear believer, if today you lack assurance of God’s grace, look to Christ.

Many believers misunderstand God’s grace, and therefore lack assurance of it. They wonder if they are really saved. They live thinking they are never enough. They wonder if they forget to confess some of their sins if they will be kept from the kingdom of heaven. They may look at mature Christians and think they fall short of what it means to be a believer. But God doesn’t want His children to live this way. He wants His people to rest in His grace. There are many books of the Bible from which we could learn about the grace of God, and perhaps there aren’t too many Christians who would first think of Leviticus. Yet this book, which spans one month of time in Israel’s history, contains commands that repeatedly point us to God’s grace. In particular, it begins with commands concerning the sacrificial system God gave His people. Although we could focus on any one of the different aspects of this sacrificial system, I want to begin where the book itself begins, with the burnt offering (Lev. 1:1-17).
Not everyone in Israel could afford to bring the same kind of burnt offering, but the Lord, in His grace, made allowance for all peoples, whether rich or poor, to approach Him (Lev. 1:3, 10, 14). This did not mean that the rich could bring a lesser animal than they could afford. After all, sacrifice is supposed to be costly. But God, in His mercy, designed things so that all people had a way to come before Him and receive forgiveness of sins.
The animal would be accepted in place of the offerer in order to make atonement for his sins (Lev. 1:4). The burnt offering was a food offering with a pleasing aroma to the Lord.
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Written by J. Warner Wallace |
Monday, September 26, 2022
So, how are we to defend ourselves from the strategy of Satan? What, if anything can we do? Well, I hope you noticed a big difference between the way that Eve responded to Satan and the way that Jesus responded to Satan. Eve failed to resist the Devil’s temptation, while Jesus obviously succeeded. Jesus succeeded because he understood that the best defense one can have for any lie is to simply know the truth. The best defense is simply to have an answer at hand to respond to each lie of Satan.

I’ve written previously about the reasonable existence and reality of the personal being that we, as Christians, call “Satan”. You can examine the philosophical and Biblical evidence for his existence in prior articles. But once we are confident that Satan exists, it would be wise to try to understand how he operates, since evil often targets humans. In order to understand how Satan operates as he tries to impact our lives, let’s begin by summarizing his nature, for it is out of his nature that he acts to corrupt and ruin the lives of God’s children. A good place to start, as we examine what the Bible says about Satan, is simply with his name. Two words are commonly used to describe this being. The first name given to this being is “Satan”:
“Satan” = “Satanas” (GREEK) = “Adversary”
That’s an interesting name to give this fallen angel. He is God’s adversary, his opponent. This simple title tells us much about the nature of Satan. As an adversary to God, Satan opposes God; he is God’s opposite, and we already know who and what God is. God is truth:
1 John 1:5-7This is the message we have heard from him and declare to you: God is light; in him there is no darkness at all. If we claim to have fellowship with him yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not live by the truth. But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus, his Son, purifies us from all sin.
God is light and truth, Satan is darkness and deception.  The ‘other’ name typically given to Satan makes this clear:
“Devil” = “Diabolos” (GREEK) = “Slanderer” or “False Accuser”
Satan’s names say it all. From these two words, we already understand the nature of the Devil. He is God’s adversary because he is the opposite of God. Satan is all about darkness, deception and slander:
John 8:43-45You belong to your father, the devil, and you want to carry out your father’s desire. He was a murderer from the beginning, not holding to the truth, for there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks his native language, for he is a liar and the father of lies.
According to this passage, the very nature of Satan is that of deceit. But look again at John 8:43-45. Did you notice that Satan is not only described as a liar, but also as a murderer? According to this passage, Satan is a murderer because he is a liar. He murders by lying. In essence, this means that it is our acceptance of Satan’s lies that causes us to die:
Accepting a Lie = Death
These two things are related. Interestingly, we also know from scripture that something else leads to death:
Romans 6:23For the wages of sin is death
According to Paul (the author of Romans) it is sin that leads to death, and one way to describe sin is simply to understand it as a lie – told by Satan – that causes us to act against the nature and desires of God.
1 John 1:8-9If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us.
We sin when we accept a lie rather than the truth that God has given us in His Word. This is important reality for us to understand, because it illuminates the strategy that Satan employs when trying to cause us to sin. Let’s illustrate the relationship between accepting a lie and committing a sin with a few examples:
What is Adultery? It begins by believing the lie that sleeping with someone other than your wife is acceptable if it satisfies a need in your life or can be done without your spouse knowing. This sin is committed when we reject the truth that God has already given us about the nature of adultery.
What is Stealing? It begins by believing the lie that it is acceptable to take something that is not yours if your situation is bad enough or if the person who owns the property does not ‘deserve’ or ‘need’ it. This sin is committed when we reject the truth that God has already given us about the nature of theft.
What is Murder? It begins by believing the lie that it is acceptable to take the life of another if they have angered you enough or if you personally think they deserve it. This sin is committed when we reject the truth that God has already given us about the nature of murder.
Satan’s power is the power of deception. This is his tool. It is Satan’s goal to convince us that God’s Word is not as important as our fallen human nature and desire. As I’ve written elsewhere, all sin is motivated by one of three desires that Satan can pervert in an attempt to cause us to sin: financial gain, sexual lust, and the pursuit of power. Satan has attacked these three areas of desire from the very beginning.
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