The Pro-Child Life
If anyone had good reason to shuffle past the children — “Sorry, kids, not now” — it was Jesus. No one had higher priorities or a loftier mission. No one’s time was more valuable. Yet no one gave his priorities or his time so patiently to those we might see as distractions. On his way to save the world, our Lord paused and “took [the children] in his arms and blessed them, laying his hands on them” (Mark 10:16). His life and ministry were full, but not too full for children.
Ever since Eden, God has given children a crucial role in the coming of his kingdom. “I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring,” God told the serpent (Genesis 3:15). And so, ever since Eden, there has also been a long and desperate war on children.
The biblical story shows us just how ruthless this world’s anti-child forces can become: Pharaoh casting Israel’s sons in the Nile (Exodus 1:22). Demonic “gods” bidding parents to pass their children through fire (Jeremiah 19:4–5). Herod slaughtering Bethlehem’s boys (Matthew 2:16).
Our own society is not above such bloodshed: more than sixty million invisible headstones (from the last fifty years, and still counting) fill America’s fields. Much of the modern West’s aversion to children appears, however, in subtler forms. Today, we are having fewer children than ever, later than ever. We diminish, and sometimes outright despise, stay-at-home motherhood. And too often, we treat children as mere accessories to our individualism: valuable insofar as they buttress our personal identity and further our personal goals — otherwise, inconvenient.
As Christians, we may be tempted to assume that this war on children exists only out there. But even when we turn from the world of secular individualism and carefully consider ourselves — our hearts, our homes, our churches — we may find strange inclinations against children. We may discover that anti-child forces can hide in the most seemingly pro-child places. And we may realize, as Jesus’s disciples once did, that children need a larger place in our lives.
Pro-Child on Paper
As with most Christians today, the disciples of Jesus grew up in a largely pro-child culture. Their views of children may not have been as sentimental as ours sometimes are, but they knew kids played a key role in God’s purposes. They remembered God’s promise to send a serpent-crushing son (Genesis 3:15). They regularly recited the command to teach God’s word “diligently to your children” (Deuteronomy 6:4–9). They cherished God’s faithfulness to a thousand generations (Exodus 34:7).
But then, one day, some actual children approach the disciples. And as Jesus watches how his men respond, he feels an emotion nowhere else attributed to him in the Gospels: indignation.
They were bringing children to him that he might touch them, and the disciples rebuked them. But when Jesus saw it, he was indignant. (Mark 10:13–14)
The disciples likely had the best of intentions. To them, these children (or their parents) were acting inappropriately; they were coming at the wrong time or in the wrong way. Not now, children — the Master has business to attend to. They were about to discover, however, that far from distracting the Master from his business, children lay near the heart of the Master’s business.
In the process, they also warn us that claiming a pro-child position does not mean living a pro-child life. You can theoretically value children and practically neglect them. You can say on paper, “Let the children come,” while saying with your posture, “Let the children keep their distance.” You can look with disdain on the anti-child forces in the world and, meanwhile, overlook the precious children in your midst.
We, like the disciples, may hold pro-child positions. Our churches may have pro-child programs. But actually being pro-child requires far more than a position or a program: it requires the very heart and posture of Christ.
Heart of Christ for Children
“Jesus loved children with a grand and profound love,” Herman Bavinck writes (The Christian Family, 43). And do we? Answering that question may require a closer look at our Lord’s response when the little children came to him.
How might we become more like this Man who made his home among the children, this almighty Lord of the little ones? Among the various pro-child postures we see in Mark 10:13–16, consider three.
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Knowing Scripture
Written by R.C. Sproul |
Friday, June 30, 2023
Though the Bible is not like any other book in that it carries with it the authority of divine inspiration, nevertheless, the inspiration of the Holy Spirit over a written text does not turn verbs into nouns or nouns into verbs. No special, secret, arcane, esoteric meaning is poured into a text simply because it’s divinely inspired. Nor is there any such mystical ability we call “Holy Ghost Greek.” No, the Bible is to be interpreted according to the ordinary rules of language.It has often been charged that the Bible can’t be trusted because people can make it say anything they want it to say. This charge would be true if the Bible were not the objective Word of God, if it were simply a wax nose, able to be shaped, twisted, and distorted to teach one’s own precepts. The charge would be true if it were not an offense to God the Holy Spirit to read into sacred Scripture what is not there. However, the idea that the Bible can teach anything we want it to is not true if we approach the Scriptures humbly, trying to hear what the Bible says for itself.
Sometimes systematic theology is rejected because it is seen as an unwarranted imposition of a philosophical system on the Scriptures. It is seen as a preconceived system, a Procrustean bed into which the Scriptures must be forced by hacking off limbs and appendages to make it fit. However, the appropriate approach to systematic theology recognizes that the Bible itself contains a system of truth, and it is the task of the theologian not to impose a system upon the Bible, but to build a theology by understanding the system that the Bible teaches.
At the time of the Reformation, to stop unbridled, speculative, and fanciful interpretations of Scripture, the Reformers set forth the fundamental axiom that should govern all biblical interpretation. It is called the analogy of faith, which basically means that Holy Scripture is its own interpreter. In other words, we are to interpret Scripture according to Scripture. That is, the supreme arbiter in interpreting the meaning of a particular verse in Scripture is the overall teaching of the Bible.
Behind the principle of the analogy of faith is the prior confidence that the Bible is the inspired Word of God. If it is the Word of God, it must therefore be consistent and coherent. Cynics, however, say that consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds. If that were true, then we would have to say that the smallest mind of all is the mind of God. But there is nothing inherently small or weak to be found in consistency. If it is the Word of God, one may justly expect the entire Bible to be coherent, intelligible, and unified. Our assumption is that God, because of His omniscience, would never be guilty of contradicting Himself.
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What Do We Actually Need?
We need people who are self-starters, able to create new ministry opportunities and manage them well so that the work can grow. We need people who like the idea of being given freedom and flexibility to make the most of the opportunities on our doorstep. Maybe that sounds like something you would like to do. Maybe that sounds like an environment that you would enjoy. If so, maybe you can get in touch with us.
You may or may not know that our church is currently looking for a second full time worker. If you are interested, you can read the full advert here. It is fair to say, the advert somewhat divided opinion.
In part, that was because we are not particularly concerned about specific job titles. Nor, indeed, are we very concerned about narrowing down exactly what the person is going to do. We have always taken a principle of expecting people to look at what is currently going on – both in the church and more widely in the town – and ask themselves how they are going to quantitively and/or qualitatively add to the existing work. It has long been our belief that people will be far more engaged with what they are excited to be doing than what we have told them they must do.
Someone recently asked me, given this broad view, what actually prompted us to create a position? The answer to that is simple: the need. The need both in the town and in the church. We need people who will reach the lost and disciple the saved. We are quite open on the question of means of doing that, but there are 240,000 people in our borough and not a right lot of gospel ministry. Within our church, there are many people from unchurched backgrounds – and we have ongoing contact with many unbelievers – all of whom need someone to share the gospel with them and, if they know him, build them up in the Lord Jesus.
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How to Keep 390,319 Sheep in Green Pastures
The greatest guardrail entrusted to us is the “unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace” (Ephesians 4:3). We cannot allow the demands of growth to deter us from a proper use of our authority, from striving to maintain this bond of peace. The question thus becomes: how can we use our authority to shepherd our Permanent Committees and develop the mutual trust and support required for us to be more effective in our mission?
Is the Presbyterian Church in America (PCA) a “Big House,” or a “Big Tent?” How about a third option? The PCA a “Big Flock!” In its 50-year history the PCA has enjoyed numerical growth nearly every year, so much so that the 50th General Assembly reported 390,319[1] members in her care. The last year marked another year of growth in terms of ministers, members, and money. With growth comes an important question—how do we, as elders, effectively shepherd a large denomination?
Growing pains have forced us to ask this question, haven’t they? When I was a young licentiate, the repeated refrain was to “trust your committees.” However, the last three years have seen a marked shift from that reigning advice. In 2021, an outcry by a Committee of Concerned MTW Missionaries prompted Overture 14, asking the 48th General Assembly to deem a change that opened “leadership positions with authority over MTW church planting and church development ministry to unordained men and women” as out of order. This move limited the authority of that Permanent Committee.
Likewise, this year saw both the addition of Rules of Assembly Operation (RAO) 4-21.d and discussions of the new RUF Affiliation Agreement. The Agreement has prompted many questions from multiple presbyteries over everything from the originating source of calls to the place of appeals. The Agreement’s FAQ admitted that the document proposed “substantial change” to current arrangements; however, the RUF Permanent Committee did not bring this matter before the Committee of Commissioners. As at the 48th Assembly (over MTW’s proposed policy change), the 50th General Assembly’s action restrained the authority of a Permanent Committee.
What prompted these two occasions of Assembly intervention? The short answer is growth. Looking forward, we must begin to ask how our polity establishes guardrails for the Assembly and her Permanent Committees to properly manage growth in the PCA. What are those guardrails? I propose that our polity gives us three guardrails.
Our First Guardrail
First, authority properly resides within church courts. Authority is a key issue in how an organization operates. American Presbyterian theologian James Henley Thornwell (1812-1862) once quoted the great Princetonian Samuel Miller (1769-1850) to the effect: “Each individual church is under the watch and care of its appropriate judicatory; and the whole body, by a system of review and control, is bound together as one homogeneous community.”[2] Review and control requires authority, and authority has a limited supply. I tend to think of authority as pie. There is only so much pie to go around. We cannot simply make pieces appear out of thin air. Any authority given to a Permanent Committee is taken from the authority already entrusted to the church courts. The question then becomes: how much authority can a church court relinquish before she has too little left to adjudicate her own affairs?
If the General Assembly allows a Permanent Committee to make substantial changes without first presenting the proposal to the appropriate Committee of Commissioners, the General Assembly effectively relinquishes authority. Or, for instance, if presbyteries allow calls to come from those same Committees, their oversight effectively lacks any authority, any real bite. In this case, the presbytery’s authority over a minister has been relinquished. Authority given away is a challenge to get back. Economist Milton Friedman (1912-2006) once said, “There is nothing so permanent as a temporary government program.”[3] Or to return to our previous illustration, how much pie can a church court give away before she goes hungry?
Our Second Guardrail
This drives us to our second guardrail: Permanent Committees are committees, not commissions. As elders in the PCA committed to the authority of Scripture, we understand that words are important. How we define “commission” and “committee” has titanic implications for how effectively we conduct business. Book of Church Order (BCO) 15-1 states: “A commission differs from an ordinary committee in that while a committee is appointed to examine, consider and report, a commission is authorized to deliberate upon and conclude the business referred to it.” A committee has no authority to act, but only examines what is committed to them; a commission receives authority from the court to act upon the particular mission entrusted to it.[4] If we lack clarity on these definitions, the PCA’s administration of her affairs will be as clear as mud.
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