Cost of Living Crisis

‘As for the rich in this present age, charge them not to be haughty, nor to set their hopes on the uncertainty of riches, but on God, who richly provides us with everything to enjoy’ (1 Timothy 6:17).

Living near Morrisons has many advantages, but it’s been depressing recently to watch fuel prices creep up on an almost daily basis. And that’s even before you go into the supermarket and see the price of food! As we head into the summer, people are cancelling or rearranging holidays, or else heading off as planned, but with the thought that this might be the last one for a while.

What makes it all feel like a sucker punch is that after two years of restrictions, we thought things were finally getting back to normal. We’ve gone from having money, but not freedom, to having freedom, but not money.

The Bible talks about ‘the uncertainty of riches’, and times like this really bring that phrase home to us. Maybe we think that talk of ‘the rich’ and ‘riches’ doesn’t apply to us, but on a global or historical scale, we have far more than most people who’ve ever lived.

Yet even if there wasn’t a cost-of-living crisis, money is a very insecure thing to set our hope on. Even if we had unlimited wealth, one day we’d have to let it go. The Bible reminds us that ‘we brought nothing into the world, and we can take nothing out of the world’ (1 Timothy 6:7). In the face of that, the Christian message is that we must put our hope in something that will outlast this world – God himself. A crisis like this, when there’s huge financial uncertainty, challenges us to ask what our happiness is rooted in. Doubtless we’ve all repeated the old adage that ‘money doesn’t bring happiness’, but do our lives show that we don’t really believe it?

Nor is materialism a recent problem, that we could be cured of if we could only go back to some mythical simpler time. I was recently asked to write an introduction to a Spanish translation of a seventeenth century tract which you could once have been killed for owning, entitled The Causes of the Lord’s Wrath against Scotland. This ‘seditious, treasonable and poisonous’ tract enraged Charles II, was burned by the public hangman at Edinburgh in 1660, and its author was executed the following year. In many ways, the tract and the circumstances in which it was written seem light years away from 2022, but much of it is startlingly up to date. For example, one of the sins that it highlights is that ‘the majority of the people spend their time in seeking after the things of a present world; and as they prosper, or are frustrated in these things, accordingly do they think themselves happy or miserable’. Truly, there is nothing new under the sun.

If a seventeenth century tract seems too obscure, take it from someone who’s achieved everything in the world’s eyes. The actor Jim Carrey has said ‘I think everybody should get rich and famous and do everything they ever dreamed of so they can see that it’s not the answer’. But if riches and fame aren’t the answer, what is? Not to set our hope in God’s gifts, but in the Giver.

Our big problem as human beings however is that by nature we’re alienated from our Creator. One of the evidences of that is that we ‘worship and serve created things’ (Romans 1:25). We might wonder how we’re going to be able to pay skyrocketing utility bills over the winter, but that’s nothing compared to the debt we owe to God. Christians pray in the Lord’s Prayer ‘forgive us our debts’ – and that is no small thing to ask, since ‘the wages of sin is death’ (Romans 6:23). Come winter, we will be a lot slower to put the heating on than before because we know that it will cost us – but have we ever considered what living in God’s world without acknowledging him will cost? If we’re now living in a financial day of reckoning, what will a spiritual day of reckoning look like?

And yet if only we will face up to our need, we can then hear the news that someone has come to solve our spiritual cost-of-living crisis – by offering to pay the price for us to live forever. The cost? ‘Not perishable things as silver and gold, but the precious blood of Christ’.

Published in the Stranraer & Wigtownshire Free Press, 30th June 2022

Why meet with elders before communion?

Update: A good article to read first is: ‘Why every church should practice “open” and “closed” communion’

Last week, Stephen & James had the opportunity to spend time with Drew Gordon. Drew is an elder in the North American RP Church, and edits their denominational magazine, the RP Witness. One of the regular features of the magazine is a Q&A section, where commonly asked questions are answered.

One recent question was as follows:

Noah Bailey (who spent time in Airdrie as part of the ‘Semester in Scotland’ programme before entering the pastorate) sought to answer the question, and here are some of the key points:

“Elders make an effort to hear a credible profession of faith in Jesus. This profession needs three “witnesses”: a verbal statement of belief, baptism into the church, and membership in a Bible-believing church. These three corroborate the session’s belief that this person is in fact united to Christ by faith and thus able to partake of the Father’s feast as beloved and adopted children.

In 1 Corinthians 11:28, the Apostle Paul commands each individual believer to examine himself or herself prior to partaking of the Lord’s supper. Why not just leave it at that? Let each person self-examine and decide. We do not leave individual believers to themselves in self-examination because their partaking of the supper is also communal and public. These two principles require examination by others and not just the individual.

Communion, not surprisingly, is communal. Believers do not partake privately but together, as a body…Because we partake together, publicly declaring our participation in Jesus’ death, someone needs to sort out who partakes, that is, who demonstrates a credible faith in Christ.

Thankfully, Jesus gave such unifying, community-building people to His church (Eph. 4:11–16). The leaders of the church watch over the souls in the church (Heb. 13:7). They check to see if a person’s claim to be united to Christ is being made visible in his or her union with others (John 13:35). They make sure that all who are added to the Lord (Acts 5:14, 11:24) are likewise added to the number (Acts 2:41, 47). 

In the end, elders examine professing believers before serving the Supper to them because this is not a feast for strangers. We do not partake anonymously. This is the Supper of God’s children, and only siblings of Jesus Christ have a seat at the table…Elders examine visitors to worship because it is their extraordinary honour to watch over the people of God and say to a guest, “Welcome home, brother/sister. Let us partake together.”

On the broader question of why someone needs to be a member of a church to take communion, Stephen said the following as part of a sermon on the subject a few years ago:

“1st Corinthians 11:28 is a verse that was often printed on communion tokens. ‘Let a man examine himself, and so eat of the bread and drink of the cup’. And someone could say: ‘It says let a man examine himself. So it’s up to the individual! It’s not for someone else to decide for them!’ Clearly, the verse teaches the duty of self-examination. But to say it’s totally up to the individual doesn’t fit in with the rest of the NT’s teaching, particularly in regards to church discipline.

If we turn back a few chapters earlier to 1 Corinthians 5, we have the example of a man being excommunicated. In the words of chapter 5sv12 and 13, of someone inside the church being removed from among the people. Now that doesn’t mean the excommunicated person can’t come to church. If one of the aims of excommunication is to restore someone, then the best place for them to be on a Sunday is in church hearing God’s word. But the clearest sign of someone being removed from the church is that they can’t take the Lord’s Supper. Someone who is excommunicated is no longer in communion, no longer in fellowship, with the rest of the body. And the visible sign of that is that they can no longer be allowed to take the Lord’s Supper.

Matthew 18 gives us a step by step guide to church discipline. And the final step is to regard someone as a Gentile or a tax collector. In other words, as someone who isn’t part of the church and so has no access to its sacraments. The person may protest that they’re a born again Christian. But whatever they say about themselves, they’re not to be treated as one. And so the person in 1 Corinthians 5 can’t appeal to 1 Corinthians 11 and say ‘well it says let a man examine himself, and I’ve examined myself, and I don’t see any problem’. His own personal self-examination isn’t the final authority. The Christ appointed leaders of the church are. 1st Corinthians 11 has to be read in light of 1st Corinthians 5.

…

The sacraments must be tied to church membership, because they’re tied to church discipline. No-one receives the Lord’s Supper in the NT unless they’re under the oversight of the church.

Iain Murray who’s a church historian, explains it like this, when commenting about a Presbyterian minister in New Zealand in the 1920s. He says: ‘It needs to be understood that in Presbyterian churches the Lord’s Supper was only open to communicant members.  Only as regard for church discipline declined or disappeared was admission to the Lord’s Table left to the discretion of the individual worshipper.  He concludes: ‘Historically the Presbyterian churches never practised ‘open’ communion’.”

RPs and Global Unity

Over the past year or so, the RP Global Alliance have contributed a series on Global Unity to the various RP Church magazines around the world - the Covenanter Witness, RP Witness and Good News. Stephen was asked to contribute two articles from a historical perspective. You can read the first one below:

Although Covenanters today make up a very small part of the church of Jesus Christ in each nation of which they are a part, the original Covenanter vision was for national unity with global cooperation. In these next two articles, after touching briefly on that original vision, we will look at how Reformed Presbyterians have sought to visibly express their unity with other Christians – both inside and outside the global RP family. 

The Scottish Reformation

Each branch of the worldwide RP family traces its roots back to sixteenth-century Scotland – but what is often forgotten is that the Scottish Reformation itself had an international flavour. The first Scottish martyr, Patrick Hamilton, encountered Luther’s teachings when studying at the University of Paris. He also studied in Louvain and at the University of Marburg, where he developed a friendship with the French Reformer Francis Lambert of Avignon – possibly meeting Erasmus and Luther along the way.

In the build-up to the Scottish Reformation, John Knox spent four years with Protestant communities in France, Germany and Switzerland where he ‘experienced the diversity of international Protestantism’. Indeed, ‘for the remainder of his life he remained in contact with his European friends and acquaintances and valued his membership of this broad religious brotherhood’. For Knox, John Calvin’s Geneva was ‘the most perfect school of Christ that ever was in the earth since the days of the Apostles’, and Knox himself ministered to a congregation there before returning to Scotland.

Solemn League and Covenant

The Scottish Reformation, brought about under God by Knox and others in 1560, began to unravel before the end of the century. However, a Second Reformation recovered and advanced what had been lost, reaching its high point in the two covenants at the heart of Reformed Presbyterian identity. The Solemn League and Covenant has been called ‘the climax of Scotland’s Calvinist reformation’, though it was signed by the English Parliament as well as the Scots’, along with many people of all classes in Scotland, England and Ireland. This covenant called for ‘the nearest conjunction and uniformity in religion’ in the three kingdoms, in the hope ‘that we, and our posterity after us, may, as brethren, live in faith and love, and the Lord may delight to dwell in the midst of us’.

Covenanters’ Global Vision

One of the immediate consequences of the Covenant was the sending of Scottish delegates to join their English counterparts at the Westminster Assembly, to draw up what became the central documents of worldwide Presbyterianism. The Ordinance calling for the assembly, passed by both the House of Commons and Lords, explicitly made it their agenda to bring about ‘nearer agreement with the Church of Scotland, and other Reformed Churches abroad’. Indeed, Covenanters envisaged future international cooperation, with the martyr James Guthrie (1612-1661) arguing not just for provincial Synods and national General Assemblies, but for representatives from each country being sent ‘to a more universal Assembly’.

RP Evangelical Cooperation

By the time of Guthrie’s execution in 1661, the three kingdoms had rejected their vows, and those who still held to the vision of a Covenanted Reformation were a persecuted remnant. Following the end of persecution and the establishment of Reformed Presbyterian Churches in Scotland, Ireland and North America, the question for future generations of Covenanters became how they would exist alongside other Christians who did not hold to their ideals. In fact, with the advent of evangelicalism, by the nineteenth-century the question was not simply one of existing alongside Christians of differing beliefs, but working with them.

In the 1800s, leading Reformed Presbyterians such as William Symington (1795-1862) in Scotland and Thomas Houston (1803-1882) in Ireland, proved that it was possible to do just that without abandoning their own convictions. Both men were involved in numerous missionary and philanthropic societies with Christians from other denominations, and often preached in congregations outside their own branch of the church. Shortly after the formation of the Free Church of Scotland in 1843, Symington was asked to preach the opening sermon at an interdenominational conference to mark the bicentenary of the Westminster Assembly. His sermon, entitled ‘Love one another’, included a call for unity, which helped lead to the first meeting of the Evangelical Alliance. His older brother Andrew, the denomination’s Professor of Theology, was one of a number of Scottish RPs who took part in that first meeting in Liverpool in 1845. A minister of another denomination remarked: ‘his language in the midst of Evangelical Episcopalians, Methodists, Independents, Baptists, Seceders, Relief, Free Church, and others, indicated no coldness on the subject of Christian union, but the reverse’.

Reformed Presbyterians felt they had something to contribute to the doctrinal basis of such organisations. In fact, William Symington managed to get the original doctrinal statement of the Evangelical Alliance amended to include a reference to the mediatorial kingship of Christ. The Alliance also took a strong position on the Lord’s Day, and according to Symington ‘the movement has no connexion with Voluntaryism and…there are hundreds who are sound to the backbone on the subject of National religion’.

Around the same time Andrew Symington contributed a chapter to a book entitled Essays on Christian Union. He urged Christians from different denominations to speak to one another ‘face to face, and in co-operation in good works’ rather than just reading what others said, or writing to or about one another. He did not advocate institutional unity but saw denominations as like the different tribes of Israel – with their own banners but ultimately rallying around one standard against a common foe.

A Basis of Unity

What role did the Solemn League and Covenant play in all this? For William Symington, it would only be when the Spirit gave ‘the ministers and members of the divided Churches of the Reformation one heart and one way’ that ‘the glorious conceptions of the Solemn League and of the Westminster Assembly’ would be fulfilled. In Ireland, Thomas Houston went further, seeing the Covenants not simply as a spur to unity, but as the basis for it. He wrote a book advocating covenant renewal ‘so that those who are desirous of union throughout the churches’ would have ‘an approved basis of scriptural fellowship, and co-operation for the advancement of the Redeemer’s kingdom’.

Yet while Houston, ‘in marked contrast with many contemporary schemes for union’ desired a union around the Covenants, he also exhibited a warm catholicity when it came to those of different convictions. He could speak of ‘the great and the good of various names, Episcopalians, Independents and Presbyterians’. When Houston sought to raise funds for a church plant, several endorsements of his character by respected ministers of different denominations were included to ‘show that the attempt is not regarded as sectarian’. The testimony of the Seceder R. J. Bryce is a glowing tribute to Houston’s broadmindedness:

‘I do not know, in any denomination, a man of more catholic spirit than Mr. Houston, nor one who unites more perfectly a firm adherence to his own conscientious convictions, with the kindest and most brotherly feelings towards all who love the Lord Jesus Christ in sincerity, even in the denominations of Evangelical Christians who differ most widely from his own’.

Practical International Cooperation

Late nineteenth and early twentieth-century Reformed Presbyterians participated in bodies such as the Alliance of the Reformed Churches Holding the Presbyterian System and the International Congress of Calvinists. The Alliance (also known as the Pan-Presbyterian Council) began in 1875 and met in the UK or North America every few years. It soon comprised around 300 delegates from an impressive representation of denominations which also included churches in Europe, Africa, Asia, Australia and New Zealand. At its meeting in Belfast in 1884, Irish RP Minister J. A. Chancellor (1824-95) gave a paper on ‘The qualifications and duties of elders’. Elders, he said, should have ‘Catholic qualifications’ – realising that the church in any one place or country ‘is but a branch’ of Christ’s church. No single church could bear the burden of the Great Commission itself, and in fact ‘the more conscientious an elder is in the discharge of his duties, the more humble and distressed will he feel at the shortcomings of his own denomination, and instead of restricting his sympathies within its narrow circle, he will expand himself in agonizing earnestness over the whole field’. The servants of Christ should ‘take note of the efforts made by Churches with whom they may have scant sympathy, that they may learn to emulate their sacrifices, while honouring their devotion’.

In our own day, RP involvement in the wider church can be seen by participation in the European Conference of Reformed Churches, the North American Presbyterian and Reformed Council and the International Conference of Reformed Churches, as well as other efforts on more local levels.

Such involvement is not without its challenges – as when Chancellor spoke unsuccessfully against the admission of the anti-Calvinist Cumberland Presbyterian Church to the Reformed Alliance in 1884, or when a couple of years later the RPCNA threatened to withdraw if hymns were introduced to its meetings. On the whole however RPs have concluded that it is worth the effort since, as Houston once put it, ‘while the points on which evangelical Christians differ are not immaterial, those on which they are agreed are numerous and fundamental’.

Churches closing - a sign of the times?

As our town faces the closure of another church building, someone remarked that it’s ‘a sign of the times’. It would certainly be easy to reach that conclusion. If you can remember all the churches in a particular area thriving, and then over a number of decades you have seen attendances dwindle and churches close, surely it is ‘just another sign of the times’ (to quote the Blood Brothers song). But is that the whole story? Is it the case that churches are closing right across the theological spectrum, regardless of what they believe? Or are certain types of churches more likely to close than others?

While it would be foolish to make assertions about why any one particular congregation might have closed, are there any general trends we can point to? In Canada, a five-year peer-reviewed study looked into exactly that question. Their findings were summarised by the Washington Post headline: ‘Liberal churches are dying as conservative churches thrive’. Or as the Guardian put it: ‘Literal interpretation of Bible “helps increase church attendance”’. In other words, churches that still believe in key doctrines such as creation, the virgin birth, miracles, the bodily resurrection and Jesus as the only way to heaven aren’t dying; quite the opposite – they’re thriving. But on the other hand, churches which have erased those doctrines in order to try and remain relevant to the modern world are the ones closing.

For example, the study found that 93 percent of ministers and 83 percent of worshippers from growing churches agreed with the statement ‘Jesus rose from the dead with a real flesh-and-blood body leaving behind an empty tomb.’ This compared with 67 percent of worshippers and 56 percent of ministers from declining churches.

Furthermore, all ministers of growing churches and 90 percent of worshippers agreed that ‘God performs miracles in answer to prayer’, compared with 80 percent of worshipers and a mere 44 percent of ministers from declining churches. Tellingly, 71 percent of ministers from growing churches read the Bible daily compared with 19 percent from declining churches.

If the study is right, then the big reason churches die isn’t because people no longer have time for their message – but because churches which have changed their message now have nothing to attract people. (With those who worship there only doing so because they always have). If the message you’re hearing from the pulpit is no different to what you’re hearing on TV, why go?  

Other studies, both nationally and internationally, have reached the same conclusions. Kevin DeYoung, who spent most of his life in a mainline US denomination before leaving, put it like this: ‘We have no guarantee that faithful churches will thrive. But after almost 60 years of constant mainline decline, we have a pretty good idea of how churches die’.

Dr John Hayward, a mathematician at the University of South Wales, has spent the last thirty years studying the growth and decline of UK denominations, and his work was featured in the Times last month. His summary of the current situation is that ‘All the evangelical [ie Bible-believing] denominations are growing, except for the Brethren. By contrast, all the mixed denominations are declining, with the liberal ones declining the most’. The Church of Scotland, he predicts, will be extinct in twenty years.

If these studies are correct then far from arresting its decline, the national kirk’s decision last month to allow same-sex marriage will only hasten its demise. Or in fact, if we believe Romans 1, it doesn’t actually change anything, but simply shows that the Rubicon was crossed long ago.

The studies are unanimous in their conclusions, but what are the reasons for liberal decline and evangelical growth? Hayward suggest that ‘evangelical beliefs on judgement, salvation and Jesus as the only way [to God] drive their members to seek converts’. Liberal Christians, however, ‘have insufficient theological reasons to want to spread their faith’.

That’s certainly a very practical explanation, but is there a supernatural one? The Bible itself tells us in Revelation 2:5 that the main reason churches close is because the risen Lord Jesus comes and removes their lampstand. That’s not to deny the realities of rural depopulation etc, but if he sets an open door before a congregation, no-one will be able to shut it (Revelation 2:8).

And that is our great hope. The Lord Jesus promised ‘I will build my church, and the gates of hell will not prevail against it’. Decline is only inevitable if the Bible is sidelined.

Published in the Stranraer & Wigtownshire Free Press, 9th June 2022

Jesus on Every Page

As we’ve been working our way through the book of Acts, we’re seeing that the message of evangelists like Philip and Apostles like Paul can be summed up by the words ‘Jesus Christ’. All they had from which to preach Christ was the Old Testament, but they had no problem doing so.

Given the fact that we can be a lot slower to see Jesus in the Old Testament, one recommended resource on the topic is Jesus on Every Page by David Murray. Here’s a review of the book written by Stephen in 2013 for the Messenger Magazine:

Every so often a book comes along that before even finishing it I start trying to think how I can persuade everyone I know to read it. Last year it was Rosaria Butterfield's The Secret Thoughts of an Unexpected Convert. A few years before that it was Michael LeFebvre's Singing the Songs of Jesus. This year it's David Murray's Jesus on Every Page. As RPCNA pastor Barry York writes in the midst of pages of glowing endorsements: 'If you heard that archaeologists had discovered a genuine book with pictures of Jesus’ life, a diary of his thoughts, and further explanation of his ministry, would you not yearn to have that book in your hands? If you have the Old Testament, you do!'.

The problem the book seeks to tackle is that 'Christians seem to have forgotten that the Old Testament has everything to do with Jesus Christ'. Surveys show that the ratio of Old Testament to New Testament sermons is 1 to 10. Yet even if we sit under a balanced mix of preaching and even if we diligently read as much or more of the Old Testament as we do of the New, we can often fail to see how it relates to Jesus. Occasionally we might come across prophecies or appearances which are pretty clear, but we're far from seeing Jesus on Every Page.

Murray himself took a long time to see the Old Testament in this way. It wasn't until he had gone through 3 years of theological training, been a pastor for a number of years and then been asked to teach Old Testament at the Free Church (Continuing) Seminary before the light even began to dawn. In the first section of the book he retraces the steps of his own journey, focusing especially on how key figures in the New Testament (Jesus, Peter, Paul and John) understood the Bible they preached from.
The ten steps to seek and find Jesus in the Old Testament begin with Creation. Murray recounts how he was asked to speak at a conference on 'Christ in creation'. Sounds like it would be a short talk? He felt the same. Up until then, he thought Genesis 1-2 was all about Creation versus Evolution. Yet being asked to speak at that conference was a turning point for him and in a few short pages he shows that Jesus is everywhere in the Bible's opening chapters; from creating sheep so he could teach sinners about how he is the good Shepherd to creating angels, not because he was lonely but to minister to his needy people - and to himself in Gethsemane.

The next nine steps are similarly short but profound. He covers seeing Jesus in Old Testament characters, appearances, law, history and prophets. His chapter on 'Jesus' Pictures' (Old Testament 'types' or 'visual theology') takes Patrick Fairbairn's 700 page pre-cut-and-paste classic on the topic and reduces it to 10. The chapter on 'Christ's Promises' is really a masterly introduction to what is in fact Covenant Theology, but with the usual jargon replaced by terms like 'The Covenant of the Defeated Serpent'. In fact, the book is really a Christ-centred Bible overview. It's God's Big Picture but simpler and more Jesus-focused.

He also challenges popular conceptions of God's people before 1AD. They didn't trust in works righteousness or an earthly king. Neither did they just have some vague hope of a Messiah to come. They had a lot clearer understanding of Jesus than we often give them credit for. As Mr and Mrs Israelite read the Old Testament, they were always peering over the horizon for the one who was to come.

The book finishes by looking at Christ's Proverbs and Christ's Poems. Proverbs, 'the Old Testament Twitter', and the 10 Commandments are both expositions of Jesus' life. The section on the psalms brings the book towards a fitting climax; the fact that many have thrown out their psalters and replaced them with gospel choruses is 'because of a fundamental misunderstanding of Old Testament theology'. And in light of everything that's gone before, guess what? He doesn't think the Song of Solomon is about marriage guidance!

Every Christian will benefit from this book. Anyone who teaches the Bible in any capacity (whether to your children, in Sunday School or to a congregation) will find help for that task. Murray started off writing this book for pastors but then scrapped that idea and aimed it at everyone. It even includes study questions, which actually look good! I couldn't recommend it more highly.