Book Review: David Dickson. The Elder and His Work.

Each year our session (board of elders) chooses one book to study for our annual elders' retreat. On these yearly outings, we pray for our church, and discuss the spiritual task before us. This year we selected The Elder and His Work by David Dickson.

Although this brief work is written by a Scottish Presbyterian Elder from the 1800's, the subject matter of these 130 pages is timeless. Updated by Philip Graham Ryken and George Kennedy McFarland, the scope of this book covers all of the basic fields of ministry responsibility related to the office of Ruling Elder.

Dickson covers such topics as the character of the elder, his primary duties, ministering to the sick, church discipline, family worship, and more. Each of the updated chapters come with study questions provided by the modern editors. Here, I believe is the advance of this latest edition. These questions will provide your elders and mine great fodder for thought as we discuss and analyze the spiritual health of our own congregations today.

Yes, this book has some dated concepts. Particularly dated is the parish (proximate geography) visitation concept used in old Scotland. But I am sure that this work has challenged our elders to consider again our great, Scriptural calling and charge to lead our congregation with humility and wisdom.

Matthew Everhard is the Senior Pastor of Faith Evangelical Presbyterian Church in Brooksville, Florida.

An Open Letter to Stay-at-Home Christians

Note: The following fictional open letter is addressed to the growing demographic of self-professing Christians who prefer to worship at home than publicly in a fellowship of other Christian believers at church.

Dear Eugene,

I want to thank you for the kind email that you wrote me recently after we met by God's providence at the Holy Grounds cafe last Thursday. I believe you are right that it was "a divine appointment" that we ran into one another, as it afforded us an opportunity to renew a conversation that we begun months ago.

Although you have chosen to no longer worship with us at First Avenue Reformed Church, I was greatly encouraged to hear that your confidence in the grace of our Lord still remains strong. You described yourself as experiencing a new joy and freedom that you had not known in a long time. For this, I am grateful.

I have to admit that part of me was deeply jealous when you described the relief that you have felt since you walked away from the frictions of the Deacon board! Our work in serving the hurting persons of our congregation is no doubt messy. Sometimes hurting people can be the cruelest of all! Since you left, those tensions have not been fully resolved, and I admit that some of the other men you mentioned are as difficult to get along with as ever. We are such an imperfect lot! In this sense, the church will always be "full of hypocrites" as you alleged.

But are not these very tensions also part of our sanctification? It is true that you were wronged by our brother Carl. I have had to apologize for our many failures as a board and as a church much more often than I would like. It is my experience, however, that those same conflicts are really the necessary and silent hand of our Master Carpenter applying His rasp and sandpaper to our lives in order to refine us.

This prompts me to ask an important question: if you continue to worship alone in your home to avoid these kinds of conflict, would you not also be missing out on the joys of their resolution? In other words, how do you intend to practice forgiveness if you seek to avoid all those whom you may actually have to one day forgive? Is not our own Christian walk made more perfect by those whose walk is not?

Eugene, I too covet those times of personal prayer and devotional worship that you described taking place in the "prayer closet." Jesus commanded as much. You are right to cite Matthew 6:6 in cultivating a "personal relationship" with Jesus. But I don't think we must choose between "personal" and "corporate" as though they were mutually exclusive.

True, those times alone with Christ in the secret place are invaluable. But I have to confess to you that I am doubtful that our Lord meant those should be our only times of worship! Are we not commanded to worship alongside others in Scripture (Hebrews 10:25)? How then shall you fulfill the dozens of "one another" texts in Paul's epistles if not in the context of a local church like those to whom Paul originally wrote? Is not the first word of the Lord's Prayer the plural possessive, "Our"?

You mentioned that the Greek word "church" does not mean a building, nor does worship require any certain number of people in order to be authentic. You even quoted Matthew 18:19 when the Lord exhorted us that "where two or three are gathered in my name, there I am among them." But come now Eugene, surely you don't think that your reluctance to submit to church membership or the body of elders is justified by this text, do you? In context, my brother, this passage is in regard to church discipline; a "severe grace" of God that I am afraid is quite difficult to impose upon oneself!

While we are speaking of the means of grace, how do you intend to practice the Lord's Supper while alone, if at all? Or baptism? Unless you have jettisoned these practices too as "formal," "religious," and "institutional!" Are these not the very signs and seals of God's grace that Christ has given--even commanded--us to perform in his name? Are they not impossible when alone?

Yes, I am sure that the online sermons of Piper and Driscoll that you have grown so fond of are a means of grace as well, so to speak. You were correct when you said they are a blessing to millions. But that's just the problem right there. No matter how wonderful these gifted men of God are (and we thank God for their ministries) they will never know you, nor can you ever be known to them. As gifted as they are, they won't be able to correct you when you go astray or exercise discipline in your life if your doctrine should go amiss.

Perhaps that's what's so alluring.

Your brother in Christ,

George


Matthew Everhard is the Senior Pastor of Faith Evangelical Presbyterian Church in Brooksville, Florida. Please consider following me on Twitter @matt_everhard

Biblically Responding to Those in Sin...

First of all, we must begin with our own propensities toward sin. God’s Word tells us that “all have sinned” (Romans 3:23) and that includes you and me. That knowledge of ourselves should create a sense of humility in how we respond to others. You see, if I realize my own struggles with sin and am broken by that fact, I will tend to be much more compassionate in how I respond to others in sin. I will find it easier to “speak the truth in love” (Ephesians 4:15) because I am all too aware that I am also flawed.

However, should a knowledge of our own sinfulness cause us to remain indifferent to sin and sinners? Since we are flawed, should we sit back and allow sin to run amok? Of course not. If so, what did Jesus mean when He told us to be salt and light (Matthew 5:13-16)? To be salt and light means that we are to hold back sinful decay and expose it wherever it may be. There is no room for indifference.

So, as we are salt and light, do we treat saved people who are engaged in open, known sin the same as we do lost people who are engaging in the same exact sins? No.

Look at 1 Corinthians 5:9-13:

“I wrote to you in my letter not to associate with sexually immoral people – not at all meaning the sexually immoral of this world, or the greedy and swindlers, or idolaters, since then you would need to go out of the world. But now I am writing to you not to associate with anyone who bears the name of brother if he is guilty of sexual immorality or greed, or is an idolater, reviler, drunkard, or swindler – not even to eat with such a one. For what have I to do with judging outsiders? Is it not those inside the church whom you are to judge? God judges those outside. ‘Purge the evil person from among you.’”

If someone who claims to be a believer is engaged in sexual immorality, is greedy, has a lifestyle that shows he worships anything other than God, slanders others, is an alcoholic, isn’t honest in his financial dealings, or any number of other known, open sins, I’m not supposed to even eat with him. However, if someone who is unsaved does those same things, I can absolutely spend time with him as I seek to tell him the message of the Gospel.

Quite simply, unsaved people are going to act like unsaved people. How else should we expect them to act? They need the Gospel. So spend time with them!

But someone who claims to be a follower of Christ? Now, that’s a different story. He should know better. He claims to already have the Gospel. There’s nothing else besides what he already claims to have. So, measures are to be taken. Out of love for him and a concern for his eternal destination, we are to remove him from the protective blessings of the church (1 Corinthians 5:2) and avoid any interaction that would show acceptance of his behavior (1 Corinthians 5:11).

Why is this loving? Because in being removed from the protection and blessings of a church fellowship, he may come to the end of himself and come back to Jesus! “You are to deliver this man to Satan for the destruction of the flesh, so that his spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord.” (1 Corinthians 5:5). The desired end result is not negative. It’s restoration!

Can it truly be said that we are compassionate Christians if we don’t lovingly confront our brothers and sisters-in-Christ, when they are in sin, in the biblically appropriate way? Can it truly be said that we are compassionate Christians if we ostracize unbelievers who so desperately need the Gospel that we can share with them?

Matt Ellis is the Senior Pastor of the First Baptist Church in Brooksville, Florida.