To my pastors, and pastors everywhere: Thank you. Thank you for continually encouraging us to keep running this race, pressing us to run better and faster. Thank you for reminding us that we’re almost there- that we can end well. What you do really does make a difference.

It was desperation that made me do it.
My ears perked up when your weekly message ended with the familiar reminder that the pastors are available to meet with people experiencing various issues in their spiritual walk.
A troubled relationship with one person had created ripples of conflict in other areas of my life and I had found myself in what I thought was an inescapable and intolerable situation. I was certain I was right, but that provided no resolution to the conflict in which I was engulfed.
The multiple facets to my situation were like hundreds of strands in a knot with which I wrestled inwardly day and night. I could not see another way and I was emotionally distraught. I don’t like to ask for help, but I had come to the end of my own resources. I emailed you for a recommendation to meet with someone in our church counseling ministry, but you and your wife offered to meet with me instead.
I’m not sure what I was expecting but I know I did not expect that what I learned in our meetings would eventually alter the curve of my Christian walk forever. I know I did not expect the level of compassion that you both showed me. So often we avoid asking for help because we don’t want to dispel the church myth that we have it all worked out, and appear weekly with shiny, happy smiles. I’m utterly grateful for that compassion. When you began to slowly unravel my knot in the light of scripture, and I saw that my problem was deeper than the other person, your compassion made the hard admission of my failings so much easier.
When it would have been possible to get involved in the details of my conflict, you kept the focus on God’s Word, the Bible. It was with skill that you applied those ancient Words to my wound. I remember you telling me that no matter how wrong I thought someone else was or how badly I felt I had been treated, I was still answerable to God for my own behavior. Well of course I knew it at some superficial level, but that day it got my attention and I realized that my failure to live by that very concept was probably keeping me from growing spiritually. Although I hadn’t realized it before, I think I (and many others) believed that some poor behavior is justifiable. Some wrong reactions are admissible. But Jesus didn’t add an “except when” to the charge to love one’s enemies. It became clear that if I was going to go on saying that I believe in God, I was going to have to humble myself and do what He said. Even the hard things. The cost of which, of course, was my own pride and comfort.
As a result of our meetings, the Sermon on the Mount, perhaps Jesus’ most famous words, took on new life. And I have to tell you, I felt a fair amount of dismay when I measured my behavior against those hard words. “Love your enemy.” “If anyone forces you to go one mile, go with him two miles.” “Pray for those who persecute you.” “Forgive us… as we have forgiven others.” “Lay up treasures in heaven where neither moth nor rust destroy… for where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.” “Judge not, that you be not judged.” “Why do you see the speck that is in your brother’s eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye?” “Whatever you wish that others would do to you, do also to them.” “The gate is narrow and the way is hard that leads to life, and those who find it are few.” “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord’, will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven.”
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John Murray demonstrates from the totality of Scripture’s witness that our faith cannot be our righteousness. This is clearly the work of a systematic theologian and not that of an exegete enamored with a single text believing it has the power to uproot and upset an entire system of thought! 

For those who believe that God does not accept and account a person righteous by imputing to them faith itself, the act of believing, or any other evangelical obedience, as the Westminster Confession contends, a passage like Romans 4:3 is hard to understand.  Not because of the grammatical construction. We see it in Genesis 15:6, from where Paul derives the quote, and we see the same construction in other places like Psalm 106:31. There we read that Phinehas’s killing of an Israelite man and Midianite woman was “counted to him as righteousness.” So, were the Westminster divines simply oblivious to something so plain as Romans 4:3 when they wrote chapter eleven or is there something that we might be missing?
The divines also state that “all things in Scripture are not alike plain in themselves” and therefore require some work on our part to understand them. Therefore, I opt for the latter. We are missing something. But before we can start talking about what is missing from our understanding of the text, we need to start a little farther back.
Unity of the Theological Disciplines
To put it simply, what’s missing is the unity of the theological disciplines. We ought to think of the disciplines as a pyramid. At the foundation is the Bible, God’s Word. The Old Testament and the New Testament form the foundation of the pyramid. These disciplines include, at the very least, a study of the original languages and exegesis. Having done their work, these exegetes hand up the fruit of exegesis to the Biblical theologian whose method is historical in character. After he are finished, the historical theologians assess the development and continuity of a particular doctrine or movement.  And finally, the ripened fruit of these disciplines is handed to the queen of the sciences, systematic theology, and she assesses and organizes the evidence into a logical concatenated system of thought.
However, today the disciplines have gone rogue. Scholars have placed a chasm between the testaments and the queen has been accused of being a Greek philosopher in disguise. As a result, it is each discipline for itself. So, today it might help us to think about our opening example from the perspective of one scholar who appreciated the unity of the theological disciplines.
John Murray was a professor at old Westminster, and he was both a New Testament exegete and a first-rate systematic theologian who understood the need for the theological disciplines to respect and work together for the well-being of the church. Consider what Murray wrote in his essay titled, “Systematic Theology.”
Systematic theology is tied to exegesis. It coordinates and synthesizes the whole witness of Scripture on the various topics with which it deals…. Thus, the various passages drawn from the whole compass of Scripture and woven into the texture of systematic theology are not cited as mere proof texts or wrested from the scriptural and historical context to which they belong, but, understood in a way appropriate to the place they occupy in this unfolding process, are applied with that particular relevance to the topic under consideration.  Texts will not thus be forced to bear a meaning they do not possess nor forced into a service they cannot perform.  But in the locus to which they belong and by the import they do possess they will contribute to the sum-total of revelatory evidence by which biblical doctrine is established. We may never forget that systematic theology is the arrangement under appropriate divisions of the total witness of revelation to the truth respecting God and his relations to us men and to the world.[1]
Thus, in the work of exegesis, Murray is unwilling to do systematic theology and yet systematic theology is the end and capstone of the vital process of interpreting Scripture. This is a valuable lesson. In our haste to prove a point we must not press a particular passage to teach more or even less than it does. Or, as Murray puts it, we should not ask a text to bear a meaning that it cannot sustain. Now, you can already see how this applies to Romans 4:3.
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The greater issue before us is [the] disturbance of the peace and purity of the church. We ought not hinder ourselves from rectifying a clear and present problem today, on the possibility that it might not be a perfect solution.

Every year dozens of Overtures are sent to the General Assembly of our denomination for consideration. For those who aren’t aware of our polity and process, an Overture is a proposal from a lower court (think church or presbytery) to a higher court (the General Assembly) with regard to a specific action. In short, it’s how things change in our denomination. Each year, dozens of Overtures are submitted, considered, and voted upon. If an Overture passes at the General Assembly, it must then be approved by 2/3’s of the Presbyteries, before returning at the following year’s General Assembly for final approval. In June, the General Assembly voted to send down 12 overtures to be considered by the Presbyteries. Most of these overtures are not controversial, but several are in response to controversies in our denomination, and have caused much discussion. While others have written about how best to prepare for these upcoming discussions at the Presbytery level, my desire is to simply share my opinions regarding these matters, and how I think the PCA should respond. I’ll skip over the overtures that passed the Overtures Committee with 90+%, or passed the General Assembly in Omnibus(without debate), in order to focus my thoughts on the 4 overtures which have been deemed the most “controversial”.
ITEM 4 (Overture 29)
Amend BCO 16 by adding 16-4 Regarding Qualifications for Church Office:
This Overture would add the following paragraph to chapter 16 of our Book of Church Order, on the subject of qualifications for Church Officers:
16-4 Officers in the Presbyterian Church in America must be above reproach in their walk and Christlike in their character. While office bearers will see spiritual perfection only in glory, they will continue in this life to confess and to mortify remaining sins in light of God’s work of progressive sanctification. Therefore, to be qualified for office, they must affirm the sinfulness of fallen desires, the reality and hope of progressive sanctification, and be committed to the pursuit of Spirit-empowered victory over their sinful temptations, inclinations, and actions.
This overture is a “re-do” of Overture 23 from last year. Many of the arguments against the previous versions of this overture had to do with the language of “identity”, which has been removed here. I voted for Overture 23 last year, as I did not agree with the concerns surrounding the identity language. I voted for Overture 29 this year, as the qualifications listed here are consistent with a biblically orthodox, and confessionally faithful understanding of how a church officer is to understand his battle against sin, and the work of progressive sanctification. I believe Overture 29 should be passed, as it is a helpful overture, which really shouldn’t be controversial.
ITEM 5 (Overture 31)
Amend BCO 21-4 and 24-1 by adding the following paragraphs regarding requirements for ordination:
21-4.e In the examination of the candidate’s personal character, the presbytery shall give specific attention to potential notorious concerns. Careful attention must be given to his practical struggle against sinful actions, as well as to persistent sinful desires. The candidate must give clear testimony of reliance upon his union with Christ and the benefits thereof by the Holy Spirit, depending on this work of grace to make progress over sin (Psalm 103:2-5, Romans 8:29) and to bear fruit (Psalm 1:3, Gal. 5:22-23). While imperfection will remain, when confessing sins and sinful temptations publicly, the candidate must exercise great care not to diminish the seriousness of those sins in the eyes of the congregation, as though they were matters of little consequence, but rather should testify to the work of the Holy Spirit in his progress in holiness (1 Cor. 6:9-11).
24-1 In the examination of the nominee’s personal character, the Session shall give specific attention to potential notorious concerns. Careful attention must be given to his practical struggle against sinful actions, as well as to persistent sinful desires. The nominee must give clear testimony of reliance upon his union with Christ and the benefits thereof by the Holy Spirit, depending on this work of grace to make progress over sin (Psalm 103:2-5, Romans 8:29) and to bear fruit (Psalm 1:3, Gal. 5:22-23). While imperfection will remain, when confessing sins and sinful temptations publicly, the nominee must exercise great care not to diminish the seriousness of those sins in the eyes of the congregation, as though they were matters of little consequence, but rather should testify to the work of the Holy in his progress in holiness (1 Cor. 6:9-11).
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