What I’m Thinking, What I’m Reading

I like to write, but writing requires time to think and discipline to write even when you don’t have time to make your ideas as polished as you want. So today is a “conquering writer’s block by stringing together some half-baked thoughts” day.

Tell all of your bullet-point-loving friends. Here’s what I’m thinking; here’s what I’m reading:

-          I’m re-reading a book I just finished that I want to unpack more, Alan Strange’s recently released Empowered Witness: Politics, Culture, and the Spiritual Mission of the Church. The spirituality of the church is a doctrine often associated with Presbyterians in the 1800s, and that time period is covered well by Strange. He also covers and commentates on the doctrine’s flaws and its differing expressions from Charles Hodge and James Henley Thornwell in the Northern and Southern churches. Kevin DeYoung tries to succinctly state the doctrine in the foreword by quoting from one of the PCA’s founding documents in 1973: “The Church in its visible aspect is still essentially a spiritual organism. … The task of the church [is] primarily declarative and ministerial, not legislative and magisterial.” In the final chapter, Strange poses a helpful question, “Does this advance the true spiritual task/calling/mission of the church?” (112) He does answer one possible objection, clarifying that religion is not a private affair, saying “the whole of our Chrisitan lives” are “to be lived in faithful obedience to all that God has commanded, all to his glory.” (115) Bonus points to Strange for saying it all in 130 pages.

-          I’m going to read, Lord willing, a new volume by Dr. Miles Smith IV. (I’ve quoted “my friend Miles” from the pulpit before: “Everyone says the world is going to hell in a handbasket. No, the world ALREADY WENT to hell in a handbasket. It’s called Genesis 3!”) I was Miles’ pastor briefly when he was getting his Ph.D. in history, and when I plugged his new book on Twitter, that post received more “likes” than I’ve ever received for a single post before. Maybe that’s because he has nearly 11,000 followers, which is about 10,700 more than me. That said, more political theology from someone who’s way smarter than me on the topic and who grew up Presbyterian? Sounds good to me. Not yet released, but coming soon; also featuring a foreword from Kevin DeYoung.

-          I’m thinking that this is about as much political “commentary” as you’re going to get from me. Senator Katie Britt from Alabama gave the opposing party rebuttal (or whatever they call it) to the President’s State of the Union last night. I found that out shortly after a church member sent me a link about her. I don’t think I ever meet her, but it’s possible that I interviewed her husband, a former University of Alabama football player, when I was a student sports reporter there. She’s the same age as me, and we’re both from LA – Lower Alabama. Her hometown is Enterprise, which is 36 minutes from my childhood home (in Dothan, a booming metropolis with more than double the population of Enterprise).

-          I’m reading a series of popular children’ s books with my daughter, which I originally read at least 15 years ago. My daughter is 10, and she blew me away. She finished the seven-book series a week ago, and I’m still stuck half-way through book five.

-          I’m thinking that’s a sad commentary on how slowly I read (party because of how many books I try to read at once).

-          But I’m also thinking that I’m very proud of my daughter.

-          I’m thinking my wife, who has read 50 books a year for two straight years and is on pace to read even more this year, puts us both to shame when it comes to prolific reading.

-          I’m thinking that I’d like to write a bit more on church membership vows. Vows help us to do the things we know we should do but are hard to do. As previously mentioned, if Costco takes membership seriously, then so should Christians.

-          I’m thinking that the Alan Strange book is worth more words, perhaps a top 20 quotes post, perhaps more.

-          I’m thinking that 700+ words is gonna have to be enough for this Friday.

‘OUT-LOVE, OUT-PREACH, OUT-DIE’ – A Path to Gospel Faithfulness for Pastors Prone to Pessimism (and Addicted to Alliteration)

I think it’s easier to be a pessimist, but I don’t think it’s better.

Pessimism is a protective posture that makes it easier to view the outside world. Pessimism can give you a sense of control: “I know what’s going to happen, and it’s going to be bad.” Playing the odds of fallen human nature means that eventually you’ll be right, that you’ll able to assure yourself that you saw it coming all along, and that you were only right to be so pessimistic about life. Pessimism can be a simple, protective bubble to guard me from the dangers of hope and the inevitable, horrible feeling known as disappointment.

Dangers of hope? Did I really write that? Did you recoil a bit when you read it? I hope so. We know we should be hopeful, and I suspect this is true for non-Christians, too. Yet we know the all-too-familiar darkness of disappointment. We wanted something, and it didn’t come, so now we try to guard our hearts, hold things loosely, and try desperately to trick our own emotions and desires into not really wanting the thing that we desperately want.

But the tricks we play on our own emotions don’t really work. As Emily Dickinson wrote, “The heart wants what it wants – or else it does not care.” That doesn’t mean the heart always wants the right thing (Jeremiah 17:9). The heart often needs to be redirected to its proper object (Psalm 37:4). If not, Augustine famously said our hearts will be “restless, until they find their rest in Thee.” Years later, the Puritan Thomas Chalmers memorably wrote that we will not be cured of idolatry (excessive love for God’s good creation, or love for improper things) until we find, “The expulsive power of a new affection.” Trick your emotions all you want, but in the end, what we need is a rightly-ordered love.

Am I starting to sound like a spiritual Pollyanna? Possibly. But maybe your pessimism is just rising up to protect you from potential disappointment again. Maybe you’ve become “institutionalized” by the prison of pessimism, just like Red. Even if you don’t know Red or the movie that features him, you probably know his philosophy. In a certain movie[1], Red’s friend Andy sits down at lunch after a week in the hole, solitary confinement, claiming that the beauty of Mozart’s music kept him sane. All of Andy’s friends think he’s crazy, and Red asks him what he’s talking about? Andy hesitates, wondering why no one understands, before simply saying, “Hope.” Red, a veteran of 20+ years at Shawshank Prison who knows how to survive within its unjust confines, has heard enough. He responds gravely, “Let me tell you something, my friend. Hope is a dangerous thing. Hope can drive a man insane.”

We’ve all been where Red lives, not to Shawshank but to the island of despair, that place of pessimistic protection where it’s just easier not to hope, not to dream big, not to dare or risk or dance with danger or invite insanity and disappointment into our lives.

You may be wondering by now, “What kind of person is writing this? Is he one of those annoyingly relentless optimists who dismisses all hardship in the lives of others?” Fair question. Time to show my cards. I’m a pessimist by nature who desperately wants to be an optimist. I’m also a pastor, who realizes that my pessimistic bent needs to be killed, mortified, and vivified into something better.

So when I see a realistic optimism in someone, I grab hold and don’t let go, like I did with a random quote I tracked down on the internet almost a year ago. As a Reformed Presbyterian pastor who prizes “the truth that accords with godliness,” (Titus 1:1) my pessimism gets triggered during theological controversy. “Oh, no. Here we go again. What did they say? How bad will this get?” But into that sea of pessimism, this quote appeared and kept me afloat: “We must stand fast. And we must out-live, out-rejoice, out-love, out-preach, out-serve, and out-die the false teachers and errorists.”[2]

We must stand fast – We don’t have to be the loudest voice on social media, but we do have to speak and stand up for our beliefs.

We must out-live the false teachers – Jesus outlived Herod (Matthew 2). We may not outlive every false teacher, but we can be sure that the faith once-for-all-delivered-to-the-saints (Jude 4) will outlive them.

We must out-rejoice the false teachers – Negativity may gain a following in a cynical world, but only joy can sustain us and our people. Eventually, even the pessimists begin to wonder if that dangerous thing called hope isn’t worth another try.

We must out-love the false teachers – Recently, I asked the officer candidates in our church, currently in training (a weekly interactive Bible study with some extensive preparation and feedback), why they ended up at a Presbyterian church. Almost to a man, the answer was “people” more than Presbyterianism. They were loved well, and it happened to be by Presbyterians. Praise the Lord for that pleasant surprise.

We must out-preach the false teachers – One thing I know Alistair Begg got right was this simple philosophy on preaching: “Think yourself empty, write yourself clear, pray yourself hot, and preach yourself empty.” Amen. Now, give me the strength to do it again, Lord.

We must out-serve the false teachers – I know at least one widow who landed at our church because of the love and sisterhood of another widow who helped her through the toughest stages of grief.

We must out-die the false teachers – The Puritans used to say that one of the goals of the Christian life was to prepare to die well. My gut says that is another long article (or maybe a book I’m not yet qualified to write) for another day. But at the very least, it means living with hope until we die. Because when we die, that is when “our faith [that in which we hoped] shall be sight.”

That’s how I want to live, with hope in the face of hopeless circumstances. I want to learn what Red learned but not as late as he did. At the end of the movie, Red has finally been paroled, and Andy (who was wrongly convicted and is now living on a Mexican beach after a multi-year plan to escape prison) has left a letter for Red. Andy writes, “Remember, Red, hope is a good thing, maybe the best of things, and no good thing ever dies.”

Pessimism may seem easier, but hope is better, says this pessimist who wants desperately to be an optimist, by God’s grace.

-Pastor Matt

[1] All illustrations from movies, now and in the future, are not endorsements. I learned as a youth pastor to say, “Not that I’m recommending that movie, because I would never do that.”

[2]Ligon Duncan, in Risking the Truth, edited by Martin Downes, 202. The book is 15 years old, and the theological controversy it’s discussing is largely past. The encouragement seems evergreen.

'We have an enemy'

“We have an enemy”

(Foreword - I wrote this in March 2019, almost five years ago. After I finished this weeks’ sermon on the Armor of God – Eph 6:11-24 – I decided this might be a nice way to whet our appetite for Sunday. I don’t believe I’ve updated anything except this brief note. -Pastor Matt, 2-16-24)

“We have an enemy, and he would like nothing more than for us to be discouraged.” One of our elders said that to me as I was driving home from the hospitable two years ago. It was about this time of year, when everyone seemed to have be recovering a cold, when several members (including one whom I had just visited) were dealing with conditions that would ultimately claim their lives. I was trying to make sense of why the world seemed to be falling apart. Some of it was my overreaction. Some of it was my missing the obvious.

We have an enemy. It’s a simple truth that is so easy to forget. I’ll confess that I don’t particularly like talking about Satan. There are reasons, and some of them are selfish. For starters, whenever I preach about Satan (and I’ve done it two out of the last three Sundays), I have the weirdest, strangest, most difficult weeks you can imagine. Sometimes, I’m discouraged. Sometimes, I’m angry. Sometimes, I get sick. Sometimes, it’s just weird.

Paul talks about how he and the Corinthians are not unaware of the Devil’s schemes at one point (2 Cor. 2:11), and it’s one of those passages that reminds me that Paul was much smarter than me. I often feel very unaware of the Devil’s schemes, at least when it comes to the particulars. But more and more, I am finding freedom in simply acknowledging the fact that Satan is real and that he might be behind some of the struggles I’m facing. Is he still under God’s control? Yes. But he is powerful, and he has a vested interest in thwarting all the efforts of the church and individual Christians. There are times when I simply ask myself, “How would Satan want me to respond to this news?” just so I can do the opposite.

We have an enemy. And we need to pray regularly for God to deliver us from all his evil schemes. As I said, I don’t like talking about this stuff. It simply invites more attacks from Satan, I’m convinced. I also fear that it makes me sound like a hyper-spiritual preacher who might be off his rocker. Oh well, I guess that’s a risk I’m going to have to embrace. The alternative (just not talking about Satan) would imply either that 1) Satan is not currently active in this world, or 2) that I don’t need any protection from him. I think both are false. Peter reminds us: “Be sober-minded; be watchful. Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour.” (1 Peter 5:8) Peter knew this first hand. Before Simon Peter (he went by both names, it seems) denied Jesus three times, Jesus told him: “Simon, Simon, behold, Satan demanded to have you, that he might sift you like wheat, but I have prayed for you that your faith may not fail. And when you have turned again, strengthen your brothers.” (Luke 22:31-32)

I haven’t done an in-depth study on Satan before. I’m kind of scared to do one, in some ways. But I know a few things. I know that he exists. I know that we have an enemy. I know that he wants to thwart God’s purposes. I know that he has many different tricks. Some of that is because he’s smart and strategic, and some of that might because he’s fighting a losing battle and he’s simply flailing around trying to inflict as much damage as he can. (It reminds me of a quote from The Dark Knight where Alfred the Butler tries to help Bruce Wayne make sense of the Joker’s scatter-shot plans. “Some men aren't looking for anything logical, like money,” Alfred says. “They can't be bought, bullied, reasoned, or negotiated with. Some men just want to watch the world burn.”) But in the end, it’s ultimately Satan who will burn (Rev 20:10).

We would be foolish to forget that we have an enemy. But we need not overreact, either. When Peter writes about that roaring lion, he has some comfort in store, as well. In the following verses he writes, “Resist him, firm in your faith, knowing that the same kinds of suffering are being experienced by your brotherhood throughout the world. And after you have suffered a little while, the God of all grace, who has called you to his eternal glory in Christ, will himself restore, confirm, strengthen, and establish you. To him be the dominion forever and ever. Amen.” (1 Peter 5:9-11)

Our enemy also has an enemy. And in this case, the enemy of my enemy is definitely my friend, a friend who sticks closer than a brother, during every attack from our enemy, until our enemy can no longer attack us ever again.

A 'Humble Petition'

This past year at the PCA’s General Assembly, we decided to send a letter to the President and other government officials asking them to stop the practice of sex-change operations for minors. Since we debated the wording so much, we did a very Presbyterian thing and let a committee appointed by our moderator write it.

What follows is that letter and a cover letter from our Stated Clerk.

The letter itself:

(It’s addressed to the President and other “leaders of the United States Government.”)

We, the Presbyterian Church in America, the largest body of confessional Presbyterian and Reformed churches in North America, consisting of more than 1,500 congregations and 374,000 members across the United States and Canada, humbly petition you to protect the lives and welfare of minor children from the physical, mental, and emotional harms associated with medical and surgical interventions for the purpose of gender reassignment. Furthermore, we call upon you to use your positions to promote the health, bodily integrity, and wellbeing of minors who are suffering from gender dysphoria and related conditions.

We recognize the growing nationwide distress and concern over interventionist practices targeting children. While we acknowledge complexities around these issues, we share those concerns and urgently appeal to you to protect the Nation’s children. The basis for our appeal is that all people—young and old, male and female—are created in the image of God (Genesis

1:26–27; James 3:9). This unique status accords all human beings with inherent dignity, a dignity that extends to both soul and body. For over two thousand years, the Christian Church in all her branches has stood on the teaching that the value of the human body arises from its source, which is from God, and its purpose, which is to bear God’s image. We believe current gender reassignment interventions for children are not in keeping with the high value of human bodies—a value determined not by circumstance, ability, or human judgment, but by the determination of our wise Creator who constituted each person a body-soul unity (Genesis 2:7; Psalm 139:13–16).

We also ground our humble petition in God’s love for children. He expressed his love when the Son of God said, “Let the children come to me; do not hinder them, for to such belongs the kingdom of God” (Mark 10:14 ESV). Indeed, his deep love for children is revealed in comparing them to those who are greatest in the kingdom of heaven. Because of this love, it is a grave sin to harm children (Matthew 18:1-6). In his kindness, God has provided parents and the civil magistrate for the protection of children (Ephesians 6:1–4; Romans 13:1–4).

Until recently, an obligation to protect children has been widely acknowledged in Western society. The duty to protect children from harm is to be met by authorities in familial and civic contexts who recognize the vulnerabilities unique to childhood. While these vulnerabilities can be preyed upon by powerful external forces, they are also susceptible to the internal confusions and instabilities often accompanying childhood.

As Christians, we recognize that we live in a fallen world in which some children and adults experience a perceived incongruence between their biological sex and their internal sense of gender. These feelings of gender incongruence cause severe psychological distress often associated with debilitating anxiety and depression. We genuinely sympathize with the parents and loved ones of those who experience this kind of suffering—many of them in our churches.

However, experts disagree on the nature and causes of gender dysphoria. Persons who try to change their biological sex through the process of transitioning—including psychotherapy, lifelong hormonal treatments, and extensive nongenital and genital surgeries—are attempting the impossible. This reality merely reflects the divine design, as God created human beings distinctly male and female (Genesis 1:27; Matthew 19:4; Luke 10:6). Since the sexual binary is rooted in creation and determined by God, it cannot be changed; therefore, it is not surprising that transition attempts carry many long-term risks. Among these risks, which are often irreversible, include conditions such as sterility, infertility, cancer, cardiovascular disease, strokes, blood clots, pituitary apoplexy, pseudotumor cerebri, and diminished bone density.

For children, the stakes are even higher. Since the brain has not yet fully developed during puberty and adolescence, minor children are not mentally and emotionally ready to give informed consent to life-altering and non-reversible medical procedures. And with the increase in depression, anxiety, isolation, and alienation of children and adolescents in the United States and Canada—exacerbated by the use of social media and, more recently, COVID-19 policies—young people often experience fluctuating emotions and internal confusion. Teenage girls especially have been susceptible to rapid onset gender dysphoria, a recent phenomenon involving large numbers of teen girls claiming to have gender dysphoria. The increased diagnosis of gender dysphoria in girls has been driven by social contagion from current social, educational, and cultural influences. Children whose minds and personalities are still developing do not yet possess the perspective or maturity to make these irreversible decisions; they should be given time to accept their biological sex, which occurs in the majority of teens allowed to progress through natural puberty.

Although we respect the expertise of medical professionals, it is striking that traditionally, medical students had to affirm the Hippocratic Oath, which includes the commitment: “I will abstain from all intentional wrong-doing and harm, especially from abusing the bodies of man or woman.” This priority of not harming others is ultimately grounded in the triune God who is love (1 John 4:8), from whence he calls us to love each other. Reflecting this nature of God, one of the greatest commandments is that we love our neighbors as ourselves (Matthew 22:39). As Scripture states, “Love does no harm to a neighbor” (Romans 13:10 NIV; cf. Exodus 20:13). Providing medical intervention for the purposes of transitioning does irreversible harm and injustice to all people, but especially minor children.

For these reasons, we condemn the practice of surgical and medical gender reassignment, especially of minors, and we humbly petition you to protect the lives and welfare of minor children.

Sincerely,

The Presbyterian Church in America

I’m listing the Cover Letter after the main letter because the theological content was mostly contained above. This letter is intended to be used by individual presbyteries to contact their government officials. Our stated clerk of Rocky Mountain Presbytery will be sending something like this, with the above letter, to government officials in Colorado, Wyoming, and Montana. Here’s the Cover Letter:

Dear [name and title of government official],

The attached letter has been prepared by a commission of the Presbyterian Church in America (PCA), the largest body of confessional Presbyterian and Reformed Churches in North America, consisting of more than 1500 congregations. In the letter we humbly petition our government officials to protect the lives and welfare of minor children from the irreversible damage associated with the medical and surgical interventions of gender reassignment.

We ground this humble petition in God’s love for children and in your and our government’s commitment to their welfare. We deeply respect the weightiness of the obligations of your office in the light of our culture’s difficulties in determining what voices to heed on so tender and difficult an issue, but our petition asks that you consider the decisions that children are capable of making about permanent physical changes that will affect the rest of their childhood and adult lives. We ask that you read this petition with an understanding of the humility and respect that we desire to express, even as we speak unreservedly in behalf of those who are not yet ready to make adult decisions.

Sincerely,

Love Came Down at Christmas

It’s December 1, and I’m delighted that the calendar allowed us a few extra days of post-Thanksgiving time to get ready for Christmas this year. Tonight, our church will host an Advent Kickoff/Chili Cookoff event, and I’m ready.

At the risk of sounding like a sentimental sap, I love Christmas. About three years ago, I was limping through the year, and December felt like a breath of fresh air that reminded me that I might actually finish the year in one piece. I wrote about it.

One book you’ll see mentioned in that old article is Sinclair Ferguson’s Love Came Down at Christmas. I received it as Christmas gift in 2019, probably at the Christmas Eve service, based on the sweet note from a deacon’s wife that’s now become my bookmark. Who reads an Advent Devotional in January, even a good one? Not me, but it was my loss. In 2020, I opened it up, and it simply hit the spot, and it’s not because of Sinclair’s wonderful Scottish accent, though I’ll admit that I sometimes imagine him reading the words out loud in that wonderful brogue.

To entice you into reading it, let me give a brief teaser. The 24 daily devotionals are built around 1 Corinthians 13, the love chapter. Why? In his introduction, he imagines what would happen if an interviewer asked a celebrity, as they often do, what Christmas means to them. He imagines that, maybe, just maybe, someone will someday elaborate beyond the usual platitudes like, “Love.” What if they interviewed a Christian who said something like:

“Christmas is about love because Love came down at Christmas.”

Before you know it, he’s quoting John 3:16 and roping you into a familiar passage, showing you new depths in the simple words of John and the simple words of I Cor 13. Then you’re into Day 1, talking about angels and gifts and the Nicene Creed: “For us and for our salvation he came down.” He concludes:

“Whatever gifts you may have, love always means that you come down. It means that you use those gifts for the good of others, not to make yourself feel good. It means that you are willing to do things that are uncomfortable or inconvenient for you, or that you go unnoticed. … Real love always comes down. We know that because Love came down at Christmas.”

If you want the other 23 days, use the Amazon link above, or visit CBD.com for a cheaper price and more complicated shipping.

P.s. If you’ve already read this, because I’ve been recommending it for a few years, try this instead: R.C. Sproul’s new advent devotional, posthumously published by his wife and some close friends.

 -Pastor Matt

Ministry in this Strange New World: 20 Quotes to whet your appetite

 I spent the weekend of Nov. 3-4 at The Lifetime of Ministry Conference at Covenant Theological Seminary in St Louis, Mo.

The conference was structured around Carl Trueman’s 2020 book The Rise and Triumph of the Modern Self[1]. Trueman and CTS Systematic Theology Professor Robbie Griggs were the keynote speakers. Griggs added insights into how technology affects our understanding of the self.

I read Trueman’s book, slowly, in 2020-2021, appreciating its timeliness in explaining the rise of LGBT ideology, with a particular emphasis on transgenderism.[2] As Trueman says, his goal is not to lament or even primarily to offer solutions to this noticeable difference in worldview from a previous generation. His goal is explaining why we are where we are, and then to briefly, humbly suggest how we as Christians might respond.

For the remainder of this article, I want to offer 20 thought-provoking quotes from the conference, some from Trueman (CT), some from Griggs (RG), with a few disclaimers:

-      I wrote my notes on my iPad with a bit less precision than I did during my journalism days when I would check my written notes against a recording.

-      I assume my notes and context are accurate, but if anyone stumbles across this who attended the conference and thinks I have a quote or its context wrong, I would welcome feedback in the comments section or private correspondence.

With, 20 Quotes from The Lifetime of Ministry Conference about how to minister to the Modern Self:

1.   What does it say about culture if that comment (“I am a woman trapped in a man’s body.”) is widely accepted? It says biology and body have lost authority, and feelings have gained authority. – CT

2.   It’s important to realize there is not one cause to this problem. And therefore there’s no one solution. … The circumstances of today are a long time in the making. Bruce Jenner didn’t transform anything. He was a culmination.[3] – CT

3.   This isn’t a result of arguments. (Mentions Charles Taylor and his phrase ‘social imaginary’ – widely-accepted arguments in culture.) … Intuition forms morality more than we think. Intuition forms worldview, too. Many people who hold views on gay marriage do so because of the TV show Will and Grace. – CT

4.   The greatest American theologian (Jonathan Edwards) was actually British. – CT

a.    MG: This was Trueman, a Brit who’s resided in the USA for a long time, just having some fun. Our largely American audience laughed. After all, Edwards died in 1758, before the Declaration of Independence.

5.   (Explaining Expressive Individualism) The real me is my inner feelings, and authenticity is acting out on those inner feelings. … I was trained (as a British man) to be inauthentic, reserved, part of the team. That’s very inexpressive. – CT  

6.   Freud made his arguments in scientific idioms at a time when scientific idiom carried a lot of weight. By making every stage of human existence about sexual desire, he made sexual desire the essence of what it is to be human. Sex is what we are, not what we do. – CT[4]

7.   Technologies aren’t neutral. They carry ideology. – RG

8.   Computers tell us that learning is about information capture, not meaning making. The digital default is to consume info quickly, but it makes us feel adrift, because information can’t replace relationships. – RG

9.   Relationships are inefficient. If you don’t want your congregation to view your ministry as merely information, then our digital means of ministry needs to be secondary to all the other ministry that we do. – RG[5]  

10. Real relationships are slow, messy, inefficient, and they are irreplaceable. – RG

11. We’re sense-making creatures. We ask, ‘Why?’ – RG 

12. We need to help others limit the information they take in, and we need to first love our neighbors locally, not globally. – RG

13. We need to recover what it means to be human. – CT

14. What we need to do (in response to the sexual revolution) goes beyond arguments. – CT

15. The rise in the psychological self[6] has led to a downgrade in the importance of the body. … The gospel (as expressed in the Apostles’ Creed) ends with the resurrection of the body, not just forgiveness of sins.  – CT

16. The body is embodied. Sex is important. The sexed body is important. – CT

17. Transhumanism is the belief that technology will allow us to transcend the human form. Transgenderism is a subset of Transhumanism. – CT[7]

18. In a mobile society, we should cover the big bases of theology in 12 months, like the Heidelberg Catechism does. … We should preach regularly on the body, anthropology, the image of God, and embodied issues. – CT 

19. Digital environments extend personal presence, but they don’t replace personal presence. – RG

20. It’s a common experience to feel out of place in your body as a young person, to feel out of place with your peers. Digital mediation doesn’t help this. – RG  

Do those quotes (that small bit of information) accurately convey the fullness of the conference? Of course they don’t. See quote 8 for a short explanation of why. But I hope that at least whets your appetite and maybe encourages you to read one of the books mentioned already. I’d recommend starting with Strange New World, and if I come across a book from this topic by Dr. Griggs, I’ll pass that on, too. I purchased, but haven’t read yet, a copy of The Tech-Wise Family by Andy Crouch in light of several things that Dr. Griggs said.

In all this, I hope it helps us minister to modern selves, the selves around us and our-self, as well.

-Pastor Matt, 11-22-23

[1] Full subtitle: Cultural Amensia, Expressive Individualism, and the Road to the Sexual Revolution. It’s not an easy read (400+ pages and lots of primary-source footnotes), but it’s a good, rewarding read.

[2] My wife and I recently read his shorter version (approximately 180 pages) of the same book - Strange New World: How Thinkers and Activists Redefined Identity and Sparked the Sexual Revolution.

[3] Olympic gold medalist Bruce Jenner now identifies as Caetlyn Jenner. I think Trueman called him “Bruce,” and while that usage might be controversial, controversy is not my goal, and I don’t think it was Trueman’s, either.

[4] This may be obvious, but I’ll repeat it to avoid confusion – Trueman is not stating agreement with Freud. He’s merely explaining his logic and its effects and how contemporary people (even those who reject most of what Freud taught) agree and live accordingly.

[5] This is definitely a paraphrase, and I hope I’ve represented it well.

[6] What’s the psychological self? See quotes 1 and 5 above for a better idea, but the short version might be that the psychological self is one that defines itself less by biology, observable realities, and external authorities and more by inner feelings.

[7] This is part of a larger discussion in Trueman’s books that intersects with thoughts like the following: How technology has enabled advances in personhood that dehumanize us, how Transgender ideology is actually unraveling the LGBTQ political alliance from within.

Get Angry…

(Preface: I published the following article in December 2020. I decided it was worth a repost this week since I’ll be preaching an entire sermon on anger, more specifically on Ephesians 4:26-27, one of the passage mentioned in this article below. -MG, 11-16-23)

Since March, I noticed an increase in angry people. Aren’t you glad you and I don’t have that same problem? Well, actually, that was sarcasm. This post is about how you and I need to be on the lookout for the same kind of attitude that we find so objectionable in others.

This may not seem like a Christmas post, but very little about 2020 has been normal, so why start now? (I have written a version of this post before, most recently in November 2016. But I thought it was worth an update.) Here goes:

Plenty of passages show why anger can lead us to sin, but there are also pesky passages that command us, “Be angry, and do not sin.” (Ps 4:4; Eph. 4:26) That’s because there is such a thing as righteous anger. Sin and injustice should make you angry. First and foremost, you should be angry, because sin is a violation of God’s holy Law. He’s the King, and His decree has been violated, and this wrong must be righted!

And the problem with so much of our anger is not that we are angry about the wrong sinful actions but that we’re angry on the wrong person’s behalf and angry at the wrong person’s sin.

On the wrong person’s behalf – In Ps 51:4 (a hard-to-translate verse), David acknowledges that his sin with Bathsheba (and against her husband/his soldier Uriah) is first and foremost a sin against Yahweh, the creator of life and the creator of marriage. Yes, he has wronged Uriah and Bathsheba. But the primary offense is against God. Uriah and Bathsheba are His creations; David cannot sin against them without first rebelling against God, the Only God, who demands absolute allegiance to Him before He demands one to love our neighbors, His fellow image-bearers.

At the wrong person’s sin – My primary calling as a Christian is not to repent of your sin. It’s to repent of and crucify my sin. For example, David’s army commander Joab is a pretty shady character. In 2 Sam 11 Joab complies with David’s heinous command to murder Uriah through dastardly military strategy. But David’s confessions in 2 Sam 12 and Ps 51 never mention, “Joab’s guilty, too!” It’s not that David is unaware of Joab’s complicity; it’s just that it doesn’t matter.

So often, I’m mad at sin, but I’m mad at sin committed against me, committed by others. In the process God’s holiness becomes an afterthought. So often, I’m mad at sin, but it’s the sins of others. I want mercy for my sin, but I want justice and judgment for the sins of others. The Bible turns the tables on all of that: Love God and His Law, and be offended when He doesn’t receive glory. Love God, and be grieved when you don’t.

Yet Nathan the Prophet (2 Samuel 11-12) shows us this:               There is a time to be angry over sin, even the sin of someone else, even if we have to repent of our unrighteous elements of anger, too. The answer is not to wait until our anger is pure and wholly righteous, because on this side of heaven, we will never be wholly righteous or wholly holy. The answer is still to be angry and not sin. And if you do sin in your anger, be angry at that sin, too, and bring it before a Holy God who has poured out His wrath upon Another who alone could stand the Heat of His anger and live to tell about it. The answer is not less anger when sin is committed. It’s more anger and, most importantly, the right kind of anger. Anger that’s offended on behalf of God and His tarnished majesty. Anger that isn’t afraid to turn against self before it turns to the Savior.

[Afterword: I began to use the following phrase to describe life in 2020 and early 2021:

Almost everyone is overreacting to something right now.

Almost no one thinks it’s their fault.

Everyone (no exception) could do a better job reacting to the overreactions around them.

The craziness of 2020 is mostly past, but the encouragement to do a better job reacting to the overreactions around me is still a word that I need to hear occasionally. -MG, 11-16-23]

A Reformation Day post, on the 506th Anniversary

By Matt Giesman

Read the biographies of the Reformers. That’s the advice someone gave me when I was in my 20s, wrestling with my calling (to ministry and everything else), trying to figure out if I was a Baptist or a Presbyterian. (The latter prevailed. I credit RC Sproul, whom my dad loved, and Ligon Duncan, whose Covenant Theology class swayed me during my first year of seminary. Plus a few dozens others along the way.)

But thanks to a pastor’s daughter who worked at the same summer camp as me, I decided I needed to read about the Reformers. I borrowed Dad’s weathered copy of Here I Stand: A Life of Martin Luther by Roland Bainton. I added my own underlines and marginal notes, and nearly 20 years and a few bookshelf purges by my Dad later, I think this book officially belongs to me now, even though Dad’s name is still written in pen on the inside cover page.

While I don’t claim to be a Lutheran historian or a church historian, I thought my nearly 20-year-old conclusions (written in pen on the back cover page) were worth sharing on Reformation Day 2023:

“He never wanted to be a leader.

“He never wanted to be a married man.

“He never wanted to be famous.”

(Sometime later I scribbled in – “He also never wanted to start a revolution.”)

“He was all three because he realized that none of them made him a man. His deep, abiding relationship with Christ showed him who he was as a man: a redeemed product of divine grace. Every other action and role of his stemmed from that one foundational fact.”

I’m happy to leave those thoughts unedited and let them remain what they were and are: impressions from a giant in history upon a man in his 20s wrestling with his own calling to ministry. But perhaps it would be better to finish with Luther’s own, words, recorded by Bainton, from pages 49-50 at the end of chapter 3, reflecting upon Romans 1:16-17- “For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith for faith, as it is written, ‘The righteous shall live by faith.’” (ESV)]  

I did not love a just and angry God but rather hated and murmured against him. … Night and day I pondered until I saw the connection between the justice of God and the statement that ‘the just shall live by his faith.’ Then I grasped that the justice of God is that righteousness by which through grace and sheer mercy God justifies us through faith. Thereupon I felt myself to be reborn and to have gone through open doors into paradise. The whole of Scripture took on a new meaning, and whereas before the ‘justice of God’ had filled me with hate, now it became to me inexpressibly sweet in greater love. This passage of Paul became to me a gate to heaven.

 A paragraph later, he writes, “He who sees God as angry does not see him rightly but looks only on a curtain, as if a dark cloud had been drawn across his face.”

From consuming fire (Hebrews 12:29) to loving heavenly Father (Matthew 6:9). This is but one of Luther’s many contributions to theology and the doctrine of God. Soli Deo Gloria.

GRT - The Gospel, Race, and Theology

I recently finished teaching an Adult Sunday School class on GRT: The Gospel, Race, and Theology. I didn’t claim to be an expert, but I thought it was a topic worth discussing. I didn’t record the class, because I wanted to encourage discussion more than I wanted to make headlines. My goal was to get us started thinking about this topic and to get us thinking more Biblically. My main resource came from Kevin DeYoung, and it’s listed below. In addition, this is the final page of the handout I used during the final week of our class. I hope you enjoy it.

For Further reading:

(This is not an exhaustive Bibliography by any means. These are resources I’ve personally read on the topic that I believe to be helpful and theologically sound. - Matt)

1.   My main resource: https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/blogs/kevin-deyoung/thinking-theologically-about-racial-tensions-ebook/

2.   Blog Post – Neil Shenvi – How to Preach against Critical Race Theory - https://shenviapologetics.com/how-to-preach-against-critical-race-theory/

3.   Podcast episode – Al Mohler’s The Briefing: June 30, 2023 – discussing the SCOTUS decision on Affirmative Action. His home page: https://albertmohler.com/the-briefing.

4.   Book – How to Confront Injustice without Compromising Truth by Thaddeus Williams – a BIOLA professor who interacts with recent social justice theories and offers helpful, Biblical alternatives and also examines the motivations behind some theories that Christians might not agree with.

5.   Children’s Book – God’s Very Good Idea by Trillia Newbell. I’m not familiar with the authors’ other books, but I’ve read this one with my children, and I think it’s a good age-appropriate examination of how the gospel message is good news for everyone from every tribe, tongue, and nation.

6.   Overture 43 from the 2016 PCA General Assembly – https://theaquilareport.com/pca-ga-overture-43-on-racial-reconciliation-approved-861-123/ -        a recognition and repentance of the PCA’s “corporate and historical sins” stemming largely from the Civil Rights era. It mentions a pastoral letter contained in the following link, as well…

7.   Overture 55 from the 2016 PCA General Assembly – https://www.pcahistory.org/topical/race/2016-55.pdf -           Originating from my former presbytery, this overture included a pastoral letter commending reading materials and suggesting actions for those who sought to make progress in Biblical, gospel-centered racial reconciliation.

8.   PCA Report from 2018 on Racial Reconciliation –https://www.pcahistory.org/topical/race/2018_report_ethnic_and_racial_reconciliation.pdf -         This report flowed out of the actions of 2016. It includes a definition of racism and some helpful affirmations and denials in the opening pages.

9.   Book – For a Continuing Church by Sean Lucas – Lucas is a PCA Pastor whom I’ve gotten to know. A church historian by training, Lucas wrote this book as a “warts and all” history of the PCA’s founding. It often commends the theological orthodoxy of the PCA founders in the face of growing liberalism in the mainline church that the PCA left, but neither does it gloss over some unfortunate racial sins.

 P.s. Regarding the last book - At least one church member has recently let me know that he started reading it and that he found it profitable and interesting.

Why I Didn't Preach Genesis 5

By Matt Giesman

First off, my fingers apparently still work. I haven't blogged frequently in the past three years or more. Time has been a huge factor in that if not the main one. That may change going forward, but I'll avoid any promises for the moment.

Is it some scandalous reason? Do I have a shocking reveal or a novel interpretation about Genesis 5? No, not at all. But something I learned indirectly as a journalism major and sportswriter was that shocking headlines get more clicks. So, ha! Gotcha![1]

My main goal is to mention to our church what I’ll be preaching soon, which will be Paul’s letter to the Ephesians with an emphasis on chapter four. More on that later. But another way to frame this, complete with a cliffhanger of a headline, is to mention why I didn’t preach Genesis 5. There’s nothing wrong with Genesis or Genesis 5. I love Genesis. It was the first time I remember that I’d preached even a short series on the first book of the Bible. I preached six sermons on Genesis 1-4, and I loved every one of them. The reason why I didn’t preach chapter 5 has more to do with my overall approach to preaching lately.

I believe in expository preaching, expositing, or exposing the truths contained in the text of Scripture.

I believe in consecutive, expository preaching. This often looks like starting in Genesis 1:1 and not stopping until you reach the end of Genesis 50. While I didn’t do this with Genesis, it’s what I usually do. As a partial list, since 2015, I’ve preached through the entire books of Exodus, Revelation, Esther, Ruth, Luke, 1 Thessalonians, Titus, and more. Oh, and I just finished preaching all 66 chapters of Isaiah; that took approximately two years because of frequent breaks and a sabbatical that my church graciously granted me. By the way, I do preach some topical sermons. I quite enjoy a quip from one my favorite seminary professors (Derek Thomas): “You should preach one topical sermon a year, and then repent immediately.”

I also believe in proclaiming the whole counsel of God (Acts 20:27). But what form should this take? Start in Genesis 1:1 and don’t stop until Revelation 22? Most folks who agree on the first two points likely have divergent opinions on this point, and I think that’s ok. As I was nearing the end of Isaiah (and all of its 66 chapters emphasizing the holiness of God and the remnant whom He preserves by grace), I began to think that I wanted our people to be exposed to more sections of scripture. I had two primary reasons for that:

1.       Our church is unusually transient. I don’t mean that we’re full of drifters. But we do have quite a few military families – we’re located a mile from the Air Force Academy – who may only stay in town for three years and may not have much choice about it. In addition, I think some of the high-tech jobs common to our area may also lead to more transience, shorter stays, and frequent moves.

2.       Our culture is increasingly Biblically illiterate. Here’s the first google result for "trends in Biblical literacy." That’s not what I’d call encouraging if you think that the Bible is our only rule for faith and practice, or if you think it’s profitable for teaching and forming mature disciples (2 Timothy 3:16-17).

So, if some of our church members may only stay for three years, and if some of them are (hopefully to a lesser extent than that survey) less engaged with their Bibles than previous generations, how can I serve them best? I could preach a series of sermons walking through the Bible one book at a time, but I have a friend and colleague who just did that and said it was harder than expected. So I adopted a modified version of that. I surveyed the books I’ve preached in the past eight years at Forestgate, with an eye towards which genres and sections of Scripture I had and had not preached, and I set out after Isaiah to hit some underemphasized books and sections. First up, the book of Acts, chapters 1-5. I finished by talking Ananias and Sapphira. Next up, Genesis 1-4, with one sermon devoted to “male and female, he created them.” (Gen 1:27)[2] Then, for our next series (the one that begins on Sunday, September 3), I wanted to spend time slowing down in Ephesians 4, to reemphasize the kind of Biblical community that has been harder since 2020, for many reasons.

But even though I knew I was headed for Ephesians 4, I thought it would be wrong not to say anything about the first three or the final two chapters of Ephesians. So, I’m also planning some “drink from a firehose” sermons on Ephesians 1-3, 5-6. Right now, I’m planning five sermons for those five chapters, though I may get talked into an extra sermon on chapter 5. 

Also, if you think it’s a crime that I’m only spending one week on Ephesians 1, then I understand. But we also have a Friday men’s Bible study that is taking the nice and slow approach to Ephesians; they’re about half-way through the book right now.

And if you really like nice, long series through books of the Bible, well, my plans for early 2024 include a series on the book of Judges. So stay tuned.

In the meantime, get ready to feast upon the truths of Ephesians: the God who chose us before the foundation of the world, the Holy Spirit who is the guarantee of our inheritance, the Christ who made dead-in-our-sins people like us alive.

[1] Media types aren’t the only ones who use attention-getting techniques, either, and this isn’t all bad. Bryan Chapell’s best-selling preaching book, Christ-Centered Preaching, says that if you don’t get the audience’s attention in the first 30 seconds, then you may not get their attention. Kevin DeYoung once gave some preaching lectures at Reformed Theological Seminary titled, ‘How to Make Your Sermons a Little Less Boring.’ In fairness to both men, their works were packed with substance … and a little bit of style.

[2] I apologize for not ending this post here with a dramatic flourish like the following: “So THAT, my friends, is why I didn’t preach Genesis 5!”

2021 General Assembly Report- Rev. Matt Giesman

2021 General Assembly Report

The 2021 PCA General Assembly (GA) took place in St. Louis, MO, from June 29-July 1. Pastor Matt, Pastor Curt, and Ruling Elder Bruce Harrington all attended as official commissioners. What follows is the best summary of a thousand pages of reports and a few dozen “Overtures” (a request from a presbytery for the General Assembly to act).

Several significant decisions were made regarding the denomination’s position on same-sex attraction (SSA), in response to the 2018 Revoice conference and subsequent conversations.

The seven-member study committee on human sexuality produced an excellent report (https://pcaga.org/aicreport/). Tim Keller and Kevin DeYoung presented the report and noted how pleased they were to find even greater agreement on these issues than expected. Since the report has been out for a year, the Forestgate Session has reviewed it on 2 occasions, including a profitable discussion in the spring of 2021. We have been praying about how to best make use of its teaching. The Assembly voted to commend this report by more than 90%.

Two other matters related to human sexuality were considered, as well. The first was Overture 23, which sought to amend our Book of Church Order (BCO) by further defining “above reproach” (1 Tim 3) as it pertains to ordained officers. The Assembly then approved Overture 23 by approximately 78%, but the earliest it can officially take effect is after next year’s General Assembly, pending further steps of approval. If the change receives final approval, here’s what BCO 16-4 would say: “Officers in the Presbyterian Church in America must be above reproach in their walk and Christlike in their character. Those who profess an identity (such as, but not limited to, ‘gay Christian,’ ‘same sex attracted Christian,’ ‘homosexual Christian,’ or like terms) that undermines or contradicts their identity as new creations in Christ, either by denying the sinfulness of fallen desires (such as, but not limited to, same sex attraction), or by denying the reality and hope of progressive sanctification, or by failing to pursue Spirit-empowered victory over their sinful temptation, inclinations, and action are not qualified for ordained office.”

The second matter related to human sexuality (Overture 37) was another proposed BCO change that passed so far (see above about the final approval for BCO changes). It would amend BCO 21-4 and 24-1 regarding the examinations of those officers, Teaching Elders, Ruling Elders, and Deacons, using similar but more detailed language.

In addition, a pastor in Missouri was examined and exonerated by his presbytery about his teaching related to SSA.[1] Three presbyteries asked the Standing Judicial Commission (aka, the SJC, something similar to a Supreme Court for of the PCA) to look into that situation further. The SJC is currently considering whether to do that; no news was given or expected regarding that situation at this year’s Assembly.

After all of those decisions and many more, I left General Assembly very encouraged. I think we are trying to stay committed to the Bible and our confessional standards (the Westminster Confession and Catechisms, and our BCO) as we engage an increasingly post-Christian culture.

On a personal note, General Assembly is a great time to see old friends and worship with 2500 people together in the same room. Amidst the busyness and the hard, nuanced discussions, I always have a great time. May God bless our denomination as we try to grow together.

If you have any further questions, please talk to one of our elders.

-Pastor Matt, on behalf of the Session of Forestgate

[1] The Missouri Presbytery 125 page report is linked.