Presbytery is Next Week—Is This Our Game Face?

Warts, Criticism, Chewing Tobacco and Jalapeño Pepper-Fellowship


This entry is from the book, With Calvin in the Theater of God, see Mark Talbot’s chapter, “Bad Actors on a Broken Stage,” p. 60. The book is a 2010 publication from Crossway Books. Good Stuff.

…Calvin’s letters show that he took his faults very seriously…In fact, it was part of the Genevan pastors’ practice to take each other’s faults seriously.

...T. H. L. Parker highlights this in a passage describing Geneva’s Venerable Company of Pastors, which held a regular quarterly meeting “for mutual frank and loving self-criticism”:

“In the church, as Calvin conceived it, every man helped every other man. If in Christ Jesus all believers are united, then a private believer is a contradiction in terms. Not only are the blessings and the virtues given for the common good, but the faults and the weaknesses concern the other members of the body. There was to be no hypocrisy of pretending to be other than a sinner, no dissembling or cloaking of sins; but, just as God is completely honest with men, and men must be honest with God, so also believer with believer must be courageously honest and open. The quarterly meeting was a little day of judgement when, flattery and convention laid aside, each man saw himself through the eyes of his fellows and, if he were wise, harboured no resentment but knew the uniquely joyful release of voluntary humiliation.”


Dr. Talbot quotes from T.H.L. Parker’s biography of John Calvin, p. 115, Westminster/John Knox Press

G. Mark Sumpter

Why Johnny Can’t Pray

For without Me, you can do nothing. John 15:5

In short, Johnny cannot pray because he’s happy with his narrow prayers; he also refuses Sabbath rest.

“Through prayer Jesus received the Holy Spirit, with wisdom for teaching and the power to do miracles. Through prayer Jesus made disciples, choosing the twelve. Through prayer Jesus did the work of evangelism, calling people to trust Him as the Christ. Through prayer Jesus glorified God, and was glorified by Him. Through prayer He carried forward the missionary work of the gospel. Therefore, if we want to see God work powerfully to change people’s lives through our own teaching, discipleship, and missionary evangelism, we need to spend time with Him in prayer. We will accomplish as much or more by praying than by all our doing.” Slightly adapted....from Phil Ryken in Luke, (commentary), p. 568.

One deep, deep root of our prayerlessness revolves around a refusal to sabbath. The Sabbath mandate reminds us that we cannot be busy 24/7. God said for us to cease, to rest, to stop from the work. Accordingly, the presupposition that gets challenged every week concerns a theology of re-creation, re-newal, re-fuel, re-charge and to re-orient. Have we repented of a theology of works? Salvation is by grace through faith, not of works; it is not by being busy. Sumpter, do you hear this? Refuse to guilt yourself into prayer; refuse to busy yourself into approval and fruitfulness in the eyes of men. Rather, waste time; stop to linger; shut it down for leisure in prayer.

Otherwise you’re dead meat, dry in the bones, and you limp along with half-baked ministry.

Go waste some good time in prayer.

G. Mark Sumpter

Grammar in Preaching

Preaching Inquiry

While inside the man cave yesterday with fellow OPC pastor Brian Nicholson, we took to verbal transactions over the use of grammar or terms in preaching.

I was very heavy on the utilitarian and pragmatic. I asked, “I want to be pragmatic...terribly pragmatic...is it permissible to help grow the church—to attract new visitors—by use of biblical and reformed jargon, terms, code-words or grammar paving the way for worship to be visitor-friendly?”

Yes, visitor friendly. Whether non-Christian or professing believer—I am wondering will grammar attract? Does grammar connect?

To illustrate—a Josephine County resident reads the local paper and ponders words like born again, Savior, evangelical, Bible, truth, vows, Adam, Eve, Jesus, church, and the like. My son is a neighborhood paper boy; these words appear fairly frequently in the letters to the editor and maybe in one or two other places. Such words might be considered foreign. But are they altogether foreign? Is there an acquaintance with such grammar of the faith that is sufficient to connect?

Also, as another illustration, other Josephine County residents listen to Renewing Your Mind or hear an mp3 of Phil Ryken, Michael Horton or R.C., Jr. and thinks, “is there a congregation in my area that is a part of the same stream of faith and life—I’ve grown acquainted with this reformed jargon?”

Interestingly, a professing believer, whom I had never met, telephoned the other day, “What does it mean to be reformed?”

If the preacher uses the grammar of the Westminster secondary standards more often, and his congregation increasingly recognizes that grammar, will it pave the way for that same grammar-speak out in everyday discourse of life, and thereby prove to be another way of attracting visitors?

Does Christian terminology—the grammar of the faith—help or hinder preaching? Help or hinder with the goal of reaching out?


—Mark Sumpter

Baptized Children—Named Christian—Nurtured as Such

Children reared in the things of Jesus Christ, perspective on dramatic conversions

From the Directory for the Publick Worship of God, (Edinburgh, 1645)




“That the promise is made to believers and their seed; and that the seed and posterity of the faithful, born within the church, have, by their birth, interest in the covenant, and right to the seal of it, and to the outward privileges of the church, under the gospel, no less than the children of Abraham in the time of the Old Testament; the covenant of grace, for substance, being the same; and the grace of God, and the consolation of believers, more plentiful than before: That the Son of God admitted little children into his presence, embracing and blessing them, saying, For of such is the kingdom of God: That children, by baptism, are solemnly received into the bosom of the visible church, distinguished from the world, and them that are without, and united with believers; and that all who are baptized in the name of Christ, do renounce, and by their baptism are bound to fight against the devil, the world, and the flesh: That they are Christians, and federally holy before baptism, and therefore are they baptized: That the inward grace and virtue of baptism is not tied to that very moment of time wherein it is administered; and that the fruit and power thereof reacheth to the whole course of our life; and that outward baptism is not so necessary, that, through the want thereof, the infant is in danger of damnation, or the parents guilty, if they do not contemn or neglect the ordinance of Christ, when and where it may be had.”

I came across this commentary that fits well with the nurture of baptized covenant children:


“The possibility of gradual reform in no way displaces the need for conversion. Dramatic conversions do occur and are necessary for many individuals. The New Testament emphasis on conversion was shaped by the missionary outreach to Gentile adults who had experienced the hardening effects of sin and had to be called to repentance. A hardened adult cannot be simply nurtured into the faith; a radical casting off of the old life through repentance is needed. William James and many psychologists today speak of the importance of making a clean, dramatic break with a lifestyle and belief system that have become unbearable. For persons mired deeply in a life far removed from God, gradual reform is highly unlikely.


There is no biblical warrant for trying to convert the children of Christian parents in the same way that we attempt to convert adults. Yet Christian education of children must not adopt an insipid “Jesus wants me for a sunbeam” orientation that denies the reality of sin in human life and the demands of the gospel. Church-education programs for children should stress the nurturing of their faith through age-appropriate discipleship. Although he was unorthodox in his theology, Horace Bushnell was quite insightful when he said, ‘The child is to grow up a Christian, and never know himself as being otherwise.’ Thus children need not experience a datable conversion, but they must come to understand the joy of living in fellowship with God as well as the agony and aimlessness that they would have outside of Christ.


Of course, we must be wary of the notion that one can evolve into a Christian. The image of the new birth depicts radical change, a complete metamorphosis, but it need not be sudden change. Conception, pregnancy, and birth are a process which takes place over a period of time and includes numerous small crises. The nurturing of children is not a process of spiritual evolution but of guiding them through their spiritual birth. When they look back, they will know that they were spiritually born, though they may not be able to name a specific date of birth.”


From a chapter, ‘Theology of Christian Education,” by Jim Wilhoit, a faculty member at Wheaton College since 1981; his book Christian Education: The Search for Meaning has been edifying. This quote is from pp. 64-65.


G. Mark Sumpter

Homeschooling Continues to Get House in Order

Sanctification in Homeschool's Living Room

We’ve been waiting for more and more of the corporate sanctification for homeschoolers. We made more progess on getting a start this past week. It’s hard, but it’s great.

We’re still 1) walking through the questions about classical education models and applications for homeschooling, 2) walking through the unity and diversity questions of the local church and the varied callings of families and their application-of-choice—traditional classroom, public or Christian, and one-day co-ops or one or two-day class involvement with public school, Christian school or home-school. No question, we, the local church, with her elders, pastors and parents, have made progress the past 5-6 years on these matters. This has been the kindness of our God and Father.

We’ll keep walking through the doctrinal distinctives—and recently Answers In Genesis experienced this. I trust that there’ll be more to come.

It’s about time for us, as Homeschoolers, to learn how to home-school our own home. We’ve been learning the rules for engagement on the nature and calling of the family and the same for the local church, now she needs to learn how to fight and be good on other areas of doctrine and practice. Ken Sande’s work will help us. Maybe the folks at Monument Publishing need to provide helps on taking up the positions between Mr. Inns and Mr. Ham. Get the high school students grounded in the positions and turn us loose on learning and grappling to help with progress in our sanctification. It’s a good time to debate; it’s a good time to help contribute to our own house’s order.

We can look ahead for more growth in sanctification regarding positions in things like: Christians and filmmaking, Christians and Entrepreneurial Home-based endeavors, and Christians, Homeschoolers and their Role in Worship-leading in the Local Church.

Homeschoolers are learning to wade through positions on socialization and courtship and dating; let’s continue to get grounded in these other positions too.

G. Mark Sumpter

Loss of Connectional Influence

A point about family and church nurture

Both institutions—the family and the church—have suffered from the loss of multi-generational connectional life and thus, they have seen the diminished influence within their respective spheres for covenantal nurture.

For the household, on one hand, there is the Christian man who gives up too easily as he swims upstream against a family-unfriendly way of life in North America. Work outside the home fragments the family. The current against this man is strong. In this giving up, he abdicates his charge to oversee and direct the nurture of his children. This man has the inclination to turn to the professional specialists of the church who stand in his place regarding household training. This man’s view of the family is weak. On the other hand, there are men who are self-conscious about the biblical mandate regarding household nurture. These men, in the name of a zealous mission to maintain control of their family, have the tendency toward their own kind of isolationism. In a spirit of watchfulness, they can overly isolate their children from both the younger and older generations of the church. This man’s view of the local church is weak.

G. Mark Sumpter

Putting Away Indifference in Preaching

Gladness in preaching

One reason an essential element of love is the enjoyment of our work [in preaching] is that you can't consistently give what you don't have. If you don't give gladness, you don't give the gospel; you give legalism. A pastor who guts out his work in gladless obedience transmits that life to his people and the name of it is hypocrisy and legalistic bondage, not the freedom of those whose yoke is easy and whose burden is light.

Another reason is that a pastor who is not manifestly glad in God does not glorify God. He cannot make God look glorious if knowing and serving this God gives no gladness to his soul. A bored and unenthusiastic tour guide in the Alps contradicts and dishonors the majesty of the mountains.

John Piper, The Supremacy of God in Preaching p. 53

G. Mark Sumpter

How Young is too Young?

Nurture little ones in God's truth and life

Mike is a father who wonders “I have a two-year-old boy and another about to turn three, but most materials seem to be written for older kids. When should I start?”

It’s never too early! All you need is a book with good pictures. You can begin talking about the pictures, even with a one-year-old. Over time, you can explain more and more. Your children will begin to love those books and want to learn more.

First impressions are often the image that last a lifetime, so make them count.


Many good books are available, even reprints of old books. The New England Primer, used by the early Puritans in America, allows parents to teach serious biblical truths along with their ABCs. Newer books, geared for young ages, include the alphabet books A is for Adam and D is for Dinosaur (by Ken Ham).


Check out catechisms for children. Ask your pastor or church librarian. Depending on your denomination, check out the background and history about catechetical nurture HERE. At bedtime, ask simple questions:


Who made you? God made me.


What else did God make? God made all things.


Why did God make you and all things? For His own glory.


Who is God? God is the maker of all things.


Who made God? No one.


Was God ever not there? No.


Has God always been? Yes.


Will God always be (alive)? Yes.


Did God have a birthday? No.


Will God have a funeral? No.


Can you say this another way? Yes, God is eternal.


With very young children, repetition is key. Although they aren’t ready for long discourses, they’ll repeat to you simple phrases and sentences. That’s how God made them to respond at this age. As they mature, you can add additional explanations and move on to more extended questions and answers.


Of course, teaching time doesn’t always need to be formal. Wanda, mother of three-year-old Susan, takes advantage of every teachable moment: ‘When we’re pulling weeds, I mentioned that we wouldn’t have to do this if Adam hadn’t sinned. When our cats leave dead animals at the house, I talk about the bad news (why things die) and the good news that we can live forever in heaven, the good gift from God that we receive by faith in Jesus.’


Whatever method you choose, do teach. It’s never too early to begin with the truths of the Bible with the little ones entrusted to you!


Read below what OPC pastor Edd Cathey conveys at this one particular time of baptizing an infant—he provides excellent points about God’s early start with little ones:


"Since before he was born and received his name, little Graham has been in a developing relationship with [his parents] Megan and Behn. He heard their voices every day. When he was born, that relationship was intensified with hugs and kisses and touch and sight along with more words of love. He is learning to trust them through all these things. He is a person and his family members are persons- expanded recently to aunts, uncles, grandparents, and others. He is a person receiving communications of love from persons.


In Holy Baptism he is about to be embraced in an intense way by Another who loves him and calls him by name. The one God in three persons is speaking to Graham.

Just as he did not at first comprehend those earlier voices and touches completely, he does not fully comprehend the gracious Triune God who embraces him with covenant love. Nevertheless, God is calling his name and saying “Graham, you are mine, follow me, I am your Savior, I put my name on you.”

My son, Toby, offers great quotes about using the question and answer method, something that can be used with little ones:

“The word 'catechism' derives from the Greek word katecheo which is found in several places in Scripture. The most familiar is Luke 1:4, where Luke explains why he wrote his Gospel: 'that you may know the certainty of those things in which you were instructed [catechichized].' Like many Greek words katecheo is put together from two words, in this case kata, meaning 'down toward,' and echeo, meaning 'to sound.' Katecheo is 'sound down.'"

From Donald Van Dyken, Rediscovering Catechism, 12-13


And again:


“We teach first the Bible and then the confessions, the Bible because it is God speaking to his people, and the confessions because they are the church speaking to God, answering his Word."


From Donald Van Dyken, Rediscovering Catechism, 56


Our Faith Presbyterian congregation has been using the children’s catechism and the Westminster Shorter Catechism in a memory program, see one HERE, and it’s been great for our young children, students and their families. The reinforcement, modeling and grounding in truth has been gold.

Ideas for this post are taken from Answers magazine, (April-May 2008), Great Commission Publications (the publishing arm of the OPC and PCA), the book, Rediscovering Catechism (from Presbyterian and Reformed Publishing Co.) and the Catechism for Little Persons (by Jim Dennison, an OPC minister and professor at Northwest Theological Seminary in Seattle).

G. Mark Sumpter

Notes on Physical Difficulties

His total work in our lives

Since Jesus has healing authority, we should pray in his name whenever we are sick [whenever we’re without hope, hurt, etc.]. But we need to recognize that God often chooses not to heal. Some day, “there will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain” (Rev. 21:4 NIV). But we are still living in a fallen world, where disability and disease are part of God’s curse against sin. Eventually all our prayers for healing will be answered, but this will not happen until Jesus comes again.

Furthermore, God often uses our physical difficulties to do his gracious work in our lives. The life of the Christian follows the pattern of the life of Christ, in which suffering is the road to glory. Among other things, this means that we can never make our health [marriage and our marriage issues, financial snares, general hardships] the test of God’s love. Often Jesus has a work of healing to do in us that goes much deeper than our bodies.

In his commentary on these verses, Michael Wilcock imagines what Jesus might say to us when he chooses not to answer our prayers for healing. Perhaps he would say something like this, “I could of course give you immediate relief; but I would rather take the opportunity, [lead you in My Lordship], to do something more far-reaching, which will be to your greater benefit in the long run. You will find it more protracted and perhaps more painful, and you may not understand what I am doing, because I may be treating disorders of which you yourself are unaware.” And what would Jesus do then? Wilcock says he would, “set to work to deal with the needs of the whole person, rather than with the obvious need only. He may aim at a calming of spirit, or a strengthening of courage, or a clarifying of vision, as more important objectives than what we call healing. Indeed the latter may not be experienced at all in this life, but only at the final ‘saving and raising’ of the sick, when their mortal nature puts on immortality.”

In his healing work as our Great Physician, Jesus is concerned for the whole person—body and soul. Often he uses the hurts of the body to bring healing to the soul—and hurts in the soul that would work to bring forth new outward habits for the body—much the way a doctor uses deadly chemotherapy to kill a cancer.

Sometimes we wish that God would just hurry up and heal us. If he doesn’t, it is not because he doesn’t love us, but because he is working a better plan. In the meantime, we need to trust him to do his total work in our lives [—in his body, the church].

From Phil Ryken’s commentary on Luke with slight comments and adaptations (the book is from Presbyterian and Reformed Publishing Co. pp. 195-196, pub in 2009), selections about Jesus’ healing miracles. Things I am thinking about from Luke chapters 4, 7-8, 9, etc.

G. Mark Sumpter

On Reading

Practice and training with learning

“God chose to send his living Word into the world for 30 years, and his written Word into the world for 2000+ years. Think of the assumption behind this divine decision. People in each generation would be dependent on those who read. Some people, if not all, would have to learn to read—and read well, in order to be faithful to God.” Pastor John Piper


On this blog, I have mentioned the pilgrimage that God has set before me. Having the hope of the Gospel brought to me in my eighteenth year, life became one gigantic appetite for God’s Word and His ways in the world. But a great deal of practice and training with learning needed attention. I am not ashamed to admit that this matter still needs attention.

Learning to read—not merely pronounce the words in a sentence—became the central task back around 1974-75-ish.

Month by month, year by year, my wife—bless her for patience—has been the most helpful to me. She guided me greatly in my 20’s helping me to practice reading sentences not only so words were correctly pronounced but to gain understanding. I remember mixing up immortality and immorality not in pronunciation but in meaning. That was embarrassing.

Another key practice was jumping in to read. C’mon on in—the water’s great! Early on faithful men in our local church put into my hands well-written, meaty, reliable books on the Christian faith. That was key. Reading begets reading. Authors inform. Authors inspire. Authors reinforce.

The first step of exposure—opening the book, looking over the Table of Contents, skimming around in some chapters, checking out footnotes, references and indices—provides initial focus.

But beyond that there’s the motivation to think, meditate and make connections—that’s the work of understanding. Language-based learning, which implements habits of reading, requires the exercise of the brain. Habits like: 1) noting the facts and images presented in the words, sentences and paragraphs, 2) giving consideration to the knowledge and organization of facts already stored in the brain, and 3) assessing and evaluating inferences and conclusions.

For the past 6 or 8 years, I am trying to implement another practice in reading—look for the relationship that one part of knowledge has with another. There’s always some form of interrelatedness. Subjects cannot be studied in isolation of others. What a task! I am trying to make gains on this perspective.

I have just read a book by Peter J. Leithart entitled, Defending Constantine. I am challenged by the height, breadth and width of Dr. Leithart’s knowledge of theology, politics, Roman Empire history and the ecclesiastical landscape of the 3rd and 4th centuries. It might be the first book for me to pick up and read right away a second time. I want to learn how to read.

In the beginning was the Word…

The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge, but fools despise wisdom and instruction.

G. Mark Sumpter

The Indicative and Imperative

Two steel marbles, continual motion

Does not the doctrine of the believer’s union with Christ, which expresses the indicative (what is declared), speak of the foundation out of which the imperative (God’s commands), flows?

John Calvin speaks of the foundation and flow this way (Institutes 3:11:1): “…unless you understand first of all what your position is before God, and what the judgment which he passes upon you, you have no foundation on which your salvation can be laid, or on which piety towards God can be reared.”

This foundation is union in our Savior. Piety and responsibility in godliness flow from it.

The indicative: statements in Scripture about who our God is and what He has done in Christ.

The imperative: statements in Scripture about the day to day will of God, His exhortations for obedience.

Relationship and Responsibility, the indicative and imperative, are the two steel marbles suspended on strings hanging from the coffee table wooden tri-pod, which, when one is pulled back and let go, swings down to smack the other one; they sway side to side in continual motion—now one, then the next. The biblical text is never stagnant, there’s the interplay of indicative instruction, then imperative exhortation; person, then work; relationship, then responsibility.

John 13 serves as an example.

John 13:1-13
Our union with Christ: He loved His own, He washed, He cleansed…
Our relationship in Him


John 13:14-17
Our communion with Christ: “you also ought to wash one another’s feet…”
Our responsibility in Him


INDICATIVE (relationship)                      IMPERATIVE (responsibility)


Genesis 1-2                                                       Genesis 2: 8-9, 15, 17-24

  
Genesis 3:1-5, 11                                             Genesis 3:6-10, 12-19


Genesis 3:20-4:2                                             Genesis 4:3-24

As we read the Bible, we give attention to the ebb and flow of these two interpretive points. They bounce off of one another. They are distinguishable, yet they have an inter-play.  


G. Mark Sumpter

Genesis-ville In John's Gospel--New, All is New

On Reading John

John opens his Gospel, “In the beginning….,” and expositors over the centuries rightly locate John’s prologue as a parallel of Genesis—the Book of Beginnings.


Remarks are made on things like: a) the themes of life, light, darkness, glory and truth in the introduction, b) the sequence of days mentioned later in chapter one—John 1:29; 1:35; 1:39; 1:43, and c) then there’s the opening scene of the wedding at Cana—early on the institution of marriage figures into Christ’s ministry. Can we spell G-e-n-e-s-i-s?

Additionally, very importantly, the Gospel presents the seven signs of John—our Lord’s miracles—with the seventh one of raising Lazarus; teachers note that we can see an eighth sign with Jesus’ own resurrection, which rounds out the glory manifested in our Lord’s life.

It merits consideration that the Gospel of Beginnings, the Gospel of John, presents:

1. The new creation with the coming of Jesus Christ. He is the I AM who is Lord of heaven and earth. The creation cannot remain unchanged with its Creator stepping into theater of His world. Trace His steps with healing, walking on water, multiplying food, turning water into wine and more.

2. With the miracle of raising Lazarus, John 11:1-45, roughly half-way through the Book, the signature of Christ’s renewal of the creation with His Almighty voice of authority gets featured, “Lazarus, [death] come forth!” [The Word speaks—“Come this far, and no more” (compare Job 38:10-20)]. Why half-way through the Book and this miracle? Jesus works into the creation newness right now, while He is on the earth. It’s the on-set of the reality that, “behold, all things are new” in Christ Jesus. Men, the earth—all is made new. In the coming of Christ Jesus, the Garden of the Earth begins to be restored.

The story of the world unfolds in the gospel stories of the Lord Jesus; John makes sure we get his message—Genesis-ville is plain and clear and now the new creation banners his revelation, “In the beginning…”

G. Mark Sumpter