The book of Revelation concerns not just the present and future of Christians, but of the entire human race. So, “Blessed is the one who reads aloud the words of this prophecy, and blessed are those who hear, and who keep what is written in it, for the time is near” (Rev. 1:3). If churches rise or fall according to their convictions about Scripture, so does the well-being of every Christian.

Survey history and you will soon see that the health of the church rises and falls with its convictions about the Bible. When the church knows and believes that the Bible is God’s Word, it grows as strong as Hercules. It becomes a light on the hill, a sheltering tree with wide-spreading branches.
When the church is confused about the Bible, its light grows dim, its branches wither. It becomes more of a danger than a help.
In Revelation 8-9 the first six trumpets sounded. The seventh trumpet will not sound until chapter 11. In Revelation 10 we stop and reflect on something vital: the character of God’s spoken and written revelation.
Revelation 10 reveals to us six facts about God’s word that when known and believed will strengthen and enliven the church:
1. Jesus Christ is the author of God’s Word.

Then I saw another mighty angel coming down from heaven, wrapped in a cloud, with a rainbow over his head, and his face was like the sun, and his legs like pillars of fire. He had a little scroll open in his hand. And he set his right foot on the sea, and his left foot on the land, and called out with a loud voice, like a lion roaring. When he called out, the seven thunders sounded.Revelation 10:1-3

Basically, angelos means “messenger.” Many debate whether or not this particular messenger is Jesus. I argue that he is, but even if you don’t agree we must all see that he manifests undeniably Christ-like attributes.
First, he is wrapped and robed in a cloud, just like the LORD in the Old Testament. Jesus said that he would return like that for final judgment, in fulfillment of Daniel 7:13:

“But I tell you, from now on you will see the Son of Man seated at the right hand of Power and coming on the clouds of heaven.”Matthew 26:64

Second, his head is crowned with a rainbow, the sign of the Noahic Covenant of mercy when the LORD pledged never again to destroy the world by flood (Gen. 9:14-16). Revelation has already shown us Jesus—the Lamb who was Slain—on the throne and encircled by the rainbow (4:3).
Third, his face shines like the sun. Revelation 1:16 showed Jesus like this, and on the Mount of Transfiguration Peter, James, and John saw the same: “And he was transfigured before them, and his face shone like the sun, and his clothes became white as light” (Matt. 17:2).
Fourth, his feet (podes can refer either to feet or legs) are like fire. Revelation 1:15 showed Jesus with feet “like burnished bronze, refined in a furnace.” His feet are the solid opposite of the feet of clay of Nebuchadnezzar’s statue, which represented ephemeral world empires (Dan. 2:33).
Fifth, he holds a biblaridion, a little scroll or book. (“Bible” comes from biblion, which was in turn derived from the Phoenician city Byblos, well known as the port through which Egyptian papyrus was imported into Palestine.) For now, we note that in Revelation a scroll usually represents God’s decree for history. We will return to this little scroll in a moment.
Sixth, he plants his right foot on the oceans, and his left foot on the land. This is the Creator of heaven and earth, who stands over and transcends his creation. It recalls Jesus striding over the raging waters of the Sea of Galilee like he owned it. Indeed, he created and owns and rules the universe.
Seventh, he gave “a loud voice, like a lion roaring.” This is the invincible voice of the Lion of Judah, Jesus Christ, who spoke creation into being (Rev. 5:5).
The author of the little scroll, and all of God’s revelation, whether spoken through his prophets of the Old Testament, or his apostles of the New, is Jesus Christ.
“All Scripture is theopneustos”, said Paul (2 Tim. 3:16); theopneustos means “breathed out by God.” Every word and syllable and letter of the Bible comes out of the mouth of Jesus Christ. 
2. God’s Word is Jesus’ powerful voice.

[He] called out with a loud voice, like a lion roaring. When he called out, the seven thunders sounded. And when the seven thunders had sounded, I was about to write…Revelation 10:3-4

Here we expand on verses 3-4. Last year the mighty cruise ship MS Queen Elizabeth, 300 metres long and weighing 92,000 tons, docked in Hobart. I happened to be on the wharf at its departure, when it gave a triple blast on its horn. It was like the deep bass rumble of a very large cathedral pipe organ, but quantumly louder, easily the loudest man-made sound I’ve heard, and felt. The blast bounced off Mount Wellington and echoed and resounded around the city for a remarkably long time.
Jesus’ Word is echoed by “seven thunders.”
Again and again the Gospels let us hear the mighty power of Jesus’ voice:
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Care for our parents and grandparents is a fundamental life responsibility. Part of our worship of God is also to sacrificially care for widows in our close family. It should be a well-known fact around the globe that Christian families care for their own. This pleases Christ.

1 Timothy 5:3-16 is packed with implications for local churches and especially older saints but is rarely discussed. Economic prosperity often buries this rich and very practical passage. It may be that many churches that have not taken this passage seriously because of prosperity will soon do so.
I encourage you to take the time to read these verses carefully before continuing: 1 Timothy 5:3-16.[1]
As we take the time to understand this text and consider its implications, we find that it is relevant for every cultural context. We might also might find ourselves surprised that we have overlooked such valuable instruction.
Paul taught Timothy about how local churches are supposed to function. In doing this, he included a lengthy passage on the support of widows. In it Paul teaches us about the role of widows, how to support them, and also gives us principles that are applicable to all of God’s senior saints. We will spend the next several articles meditating on this passage together.  You might want to read the intro article to this series as well: https://rootedthinking.com/2022/12/20/still-fruitful-the-value-of-senior-saints/.
A continual need through the centuries.
Financial support for needy widows is something followers of God have taken seriously since the beginning. The Bible teaches us that those who are genuinely righteous protect and help care for the poor, particularly widows and orphans.[2] Local churches are responsible to financially assist impoverished widows and orphans within its membership.[3] Just after Pentecost, the church in Jerusalem was zealous in this regard.[4] There were political and cultural reasons why Jerusalem had so many widows at that time, so the Jerusalem church needed immediate guidelines about it (Acts 6).
Churches throughout history have supported widows, often as a part of their church budget. Though deacons were originally elected to oversee this kind of ministry in Jerusalem, churches have generally given this responsibility to certain women in the church.
In 1 Timothy 5, Paul answers this question in detail: How and when are local churches to financially support widows?
What it means to be a widow in much of the world.
Paul’s instructions to Timothy begin with the definition of a “true widow,” the kind of widow that local churches are responsible to help. Paul then shows us how to prioritize funds for this purpose.
Becoming a widow was a tragic event in New Testament times, a reality that is just as tragic for women in much of our world today. For many, to be widowed meant at least relative poverty, maybe even abject poverty. To survive, provide for their children, and avoid shame, women usually remarried as soon as possible. Jobs providing enough income to avoid poverty were unknown. Some cultures have not even allowed women to earn wages. Imagine being in this situation! But it is often worse than this.
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The debate at GA last year over Overtures 16 and 23 hinged partially on whether men can legitimately use these English expressions as descriptions and not as identifications. That was an interesting, if truncated, debate. But Overture 15 leaves that debate behind and explicitly forbids a man from describing these properties of himself.

Dear Editor:
Joe Gibbons’ July 11 article “Exploring Overture 15 from the PCA General Assembly” is a paradigm of the problem with Overture 15 from the recent General Assembly. Gibbons uses the concepts of description and identity interchangeably, making it a sin to say the truth about one’s remaining sin. This is a disastrous conceptual error that is also present in Overture 15.
If we misunderstand and misuse human language, then when God uses human language to communicate with us, we will misunderstand and misuse His words. Again: if we misunderstand and misuse human concepts, then when God uses human concepts to communicate with us, we will misunderstand and misuse His communication.
Where Overture 15 says that “Men who describe themselves as homosexual…are disqualified from holding office” in the PCA, Gibbons comments that “‘identity’ language…[here stands] as a synonym with the ‘describes’ language in Overture 15.” But identification is not a synonym of description. This is a substantive misunderstanding and misuse of human language and concepts. The result is that Overture 15 does not forbid any of the things that Gibbons eloquently inveighs against but does forbid things that God commands His people to do.
Gibbons and others in our denomination argue that an officer of the church should not “cherish a homosexual or gay self-conception,” but since cherishing is internal one can do that while refraining from describing oneself as homosexual. They worry that church officers might “envelop themselves in worldly desires and appetites of the flesh,” but a man can do that with his homosexual desires even while refraining from calling himself homosexual. They claim that Christians should not say that homosexual desires are “uniquely descriptive of their lives and are an intrinsic part of their humanity,” but a man could say all of that without calling himself homosexual. As an example, recall the language popular in the previous generation that ‘I am an ex-gay man who still experiences some same-sex attraction.’ A man who uses only this sort of language could easily satisfy Overture 15 while constantly committing all of the sins and non-sins that Gibbons is worried about.
On the other hand, the only thing that Overture 15 actually forbids is describing oneself as homosexual. To describe some entity is simply to say the truth about one or more properties of that entity. As Scripture, the Westminster Divines, and Mr. Gibbons have noted, all Christians are beset with remaining sin. So some remaining sin or other will be contained in an accurate self-description uttered by any and every church officer of the PCA. In the English language, descriptive terms can sometimes appear superficially similar to identity terms.
I recently heard a pastor during his sermon comment that “I am a people-pleaser.” From the context it was clear that he meant this in the common Christian-lingo usage: he has a psychological disposition to seek and value the approval of people more highly than he should. He was describing an aspect of his remaining sin. The English locution of this description sounds on the surface like an identity claim: “I am a people-pleaser.” And it could at times be used in that way.
Similarly, the English locutions “I am homosexual” or “I am a homosexual” are descriptive phrases that signify the presence of a psychological disposition toward primary sexual attraction to the same sex. They sound on the surface like identity claims, and they sometimes might be used that way. Gibbons worries that a church officer may “feel such a strong desire to commit these particular sins daily that he chooses to describe himself by those sinful desires.”
True, that could happen. But a church officer, like the pastor I heard, could also truly have a disposition to some remaining sin and yet have mortified it such that it is actually not a strong daily desire in the way that Gibbons worries. A psychological disposition is not constituted by daily near-uncontrollable desire. When Paul said “O wretched man that I am!” (Rom. 7: 15-24), he described a disposition toward remaining sin that he currently possessed. On the interpretation of human language that Overture 15 codifies, Paul was qualified to write 13 books of the New Testament but was not qualified for office in the PCA. This is wrong.
The debate at GA last year over Overtures 16 and 23 hinged partially on whether men can legitimately use these English expressions as descriptions and not as identifications. That was an interesting, if truncated, debate. But Overture 15 leaves that debate behind and explicitly forbids a man from describing these properties of himself.
Such description is a constitutive part of confession of sin, which God commands us to do and promises grace to live out His will when such confession is done in the community of His Body (Gal. 6:2; Eph. 4:16; Jas. 5:16). Since this grace comes through confession, we cannot receive this grace without describing our remaining sin.
A question becomes immediately relevant: what if a psychological disposition to primary sexual attraction to men is part of a man’s remaining sin? Is this a disqualification from holding church office? The obvious answer should be “no,” since one can of course possess such a disposition while mortifying it according to Westminster Larger Catechism 139 (which Gibbons cites approvingly). But should a man also be forbidden from saying the truth about this remaining sin? Should he be forbidden from confessing it and receiving the grace from Christ’s body to bear his burden and so fulfill the Law of Christ? I should think the obvious answer is ‘no,’ but at least we are owed an argument to the contrary. Because saying the truth about this particular remaining sin is precisely what Overture 15 forbids.
Surprisingly but accurately, Gibbons makes a point of noting positively that Overture 15 does not forbid a church officer from “experiencing” such a psychological disposition – that is, from being homosexual – but only from saying that he experiences it! The underlying remaining sin of a psychological disposition toward same-sex attraction apparently does not disqualify a man, but the grievous sin of confessing that remaining sin does (supposedly) disqualify him. This confusion results from supposing that description and identification can be synonyms.
Gibbons laments the disunity and division that “this issue” has caused in the PCA, but I would suggest that “issues” do not cause disunity: they are abstracta with no causal powers. I suggest that what has caused disunity and division about Overture 15 is people, specifically people misunderstanding and misusing English words and concepts. I think there are some weighty theological differences in the background that deserve to be debated, but the division over Overture 15 is purely linguistic and conceptual. It should be obvious and uncontroversial that Overture 15 contains a grievous linguistic mistake. I plead with Mr. Gibbons and other supporters of Overture 15 to engage in loving, private, and extended dialogue and relationship with those who are worried about Overture 15 and its predecessors. The lack of such dialogue and relationship well describes the actual cause of our disunity and division.
Luke Kallberg is a member of Memorial Presbyterian Church (PCA) in St. Louis, MO.
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