Walking Through Westminster, WCF 1.3

Westminster Confession of Faith 1.3

"The books commonly called Apocrypha, not being of divine inspiration, are no part of the canon of the Scripture, and therefore are of no authority in the Church of God, nor to be any otherwise approved, or made use of, than other human writings."

Summary

Because God has so clearly stamped His authority on the 66 books of the Old and New Testament, the books of the Apocrypha are not in any way to be considered a part of the authoritative canon of Scripture. One of the ways that the Roman pontiff and the papal system abused the people of God was to enforce apocryphal books as authoritative, thereby introducing the odious doctrines of purgatory, limbo, indulgences, prayers to angels and saints, etc. To make these books in any way binding on the consciences of Christian people is to reject the authority of God and His divine right to order and determine the canon. This is not to say that we ought to destroy them, or even ignore them, but we are to treat them as we treat any other writings produced with the authority of men. The apocryphal books have as much authority in the Church of Jesus Christ as Augustine, or C.S Lewis. They may be helpful, but they must never be set up to appear any way close to authoritative.

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Walking Through Westminster, WCF 1.2

Westminster Confession of Faith 1.2

"Under the name of Holy Scripture, or the Word of God written, are now contained all the books of the Old and New Testament, which are these: 

Of the Old Testament

Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy, Joshua, Judges, Ruth, I Samuel, II Samuel, I Kings, II Kings, I Chronicles, II Chronicles, Ezra, Nehemiah, Esther, Job, Psalms, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, The Song of Songs, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Lamentations, Ezekiel, Daniel, Hosea, Joel, Amos, Obadiah, Jonah, Micah, Nahum, Habakkuk, Zephaniah, Haggai, Zechariah, Malachi. 

Of the New Testament

The Gospels according to Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, The Acts of the Apostles, Paul's Epistles to the Romans, Corinthians I, Corinthians II, Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, Thessalonians I , Thessalonians II , To Timothy I , To Timothy II, To Titus, To Philemon, The Epistle to the Hebrews, The Epistle of James, The first and second Epistles of Peter, The first, second, and third Epistles of John, The Epistle of Jude, The Revelation of John. 

All which are given by inspiration of God to be the rule of faith and life."

Summary

This word of God, which He ordained to be written down as explained in section 1, is fully contained in the 66 books of the Old and New testaments. These books are given by God's divine inspiration and are the rule of faith and life. For these books to be the rule is the same as to say that they are the only rule. This means that, while other books are potentially edifying and good for the soul, they are in no way to be viewed as a rule of faith or life, (including this very confession!) The confessional standards are helpful summaries of what the Bible teaches, but they are not the Bible. Any appeal to the standards as an authority must be only an appeal to a derived authority. We must ultimately strive to be called "people of the Book" not "people of the standards". Having said that, if the standards are faithful and accurate summaries of what the Bible teaches, then a person must submit to their derived authority, because by so doing they ultimately are submitting to the Bible. This is similar to the call for people to submit to the civil authorities that God chooses to set up over people. Their authority is not absolute, but derived from God and His Law. However, we are still called to submit to them because of their derived authority. When we submit to them, we are ultimately submitting to God. In the same way, we submit to the derived authority of the confession, inasmuch as it is an accurate summary of what the Bible clearly teaches.

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Walking Through Westminster, WCF 1.1

Friends,

In recent weeks, I have taken up the devotional practice of working through the Westminster Confession of Faith, and attempting to briefly summarize its contents in my own words, section by section. As some of you have expressed an interest in this, I figured I would post them, putting up no more than one section per day. They will usually be brief summaries, with some application if I felt it necessary. If you've ever wanted to go through the Confession, but have been intimidated by the length and language, I hope this is helpful for you. I plan to post the original wording of the particular WCF section in italics, followed by my attempt at a summary. Feel free to interact with it if you feel I am mistaken on anything.

Without further ado, I give you "Walking Through Westminster"...

Westminster Confession of Faith 1.1
 

"Although the light of nature, and the works of creation and providence, do so far manifest the goodness, wisdom, and power of God, as to leave men inexcusable; yet they are not sufficient to give that knowledge of God, and of His will, which is necessary unto salvation; therefore it pleased the Lord, at many times, and in diverse manners, to reveal Himself, and to declare His will unto the church; and afterwards for the better preserving and propagating of the truth, and for the more sure establishment and comfort of the church against the corruption of the flesh, and the malice of Satan and of the world, to commit the same (His word) wholly unto writing; which maketh the holy Scripture to be most necessary; those former ways of God's revealing His will unto His people being now ceased."

 Summary

Nature bears witness to men's hearts that there must be a Creator. Creation and providence manifest the goodness, wisdom, and power of God to such an extent that all men are inexcusable for their sins. No one will stand before God on Judgment Day with an adequate defense of "Not enough evidence". But the witness of nature in creation and providence is only enough witness to leave us without excuse. It is only enough to leave us rightly condemned. If we are to escape condemnation, we need more witness than that of nature; we need the Word of God. This is one of many reasons why no one can be excused from presence in church on the Lord's Day on the basis of "going to nature". No one hears the voice of God more clearly in nature than they do in the preaching of the word of God, and to claim otherwise is sin. This is why the Lord inspired prophets and apostles to speak the infallible word of God. God supernaturally revealed Himself through His servants so that men might know the way of salvation. But since all men, even prophets and apostles die, the Lord in His wisdom and grace providentially worked to get His word in writing. He did this for two reasons: first, to better preserve and propagate His eternal gospel, since mere verbal transmission depends too much on the unreliable memory of men. Second, He did it to establish and give comfort to His church-bride against the flesh, the world, and Satan, just as Christ responded to the temptations of Satan by directly quoting the Scripture, "It is written..." (Matt 4:1-11) All of this "maketh the holy Scripture to be most necessary". We cannot have a right relationship with God outside of the Bible. We cannot know God's will for our lives outside of the Bible. We cannot demand anything more of God than what He gives us in the Bible, since He gives us everything we need therein. The method of direct, supernatural revelation to apostles and prophets is therefore no longer necessary and in fact done away with, since God has wholly committed (i.e. everything we need to know) His word and will to writing.Therefore, any who would claim a new word of revelation from God are wrong to do so, whether it contradicts the already-written word or not.

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To Tampa!

Friends,

Just a quick update for any who are curious. Olivia and I are planning to travel this weekend to Tampa, FL for a visit with Holy Trinity PCA. They are considering me for their pastoral intern position, which would be a two-year, salaried position encompassing mostly youth ministry and outreach. We have also been green-lighted for the Liv Apartments apartment ministry in Charlotte. We are torn between these two options. Our hearts are in Charlotte and we would be very happy staying put for a time and growing as a couple. However, the experience in Tampa would be significantly better preparation for pastoral ministry, as such. We are hoping that this weekend trip will help clarify God's will for us, and that we will come away with a better idea of where to go in the future. Regardless of which option we go with, we will be moving at the end of June and need to begin planning for that, as well!

If you would please pray for us, we are torn about the choice and need clarity. Please pray that God would not only make His will clear to us, but that He would strengthen our hearts to obey His will and to do so joyfully, not begrudgingly. Pray that our joy and hope would be in Christ and not our circumstances and that we would be confident in God's mercy and providential care. 

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When God says, "Not Yet"

Beloved,

There's good news and neither-good-nor-bad news: the neither-good-nor-bad news is that I have recently been personally convicted, and have shared with Olivia, that we may not be ready to enter full-time ministry yet. I had a morning several weeks ago in which I got home from FedEx about 7:30am, tried to get some more sleep as per the normal routine, but was unable to sleep at all, in spite of my exhaustion. I couldn't stop thinking about a list of goals we were given months ago at the church planter readiness seminar. The goals were designed for us to grow to a point of readiness. While they were given in the context of church planting, the goals were applicable to any ministry, and we have not made much progress on them. 

We have not made any decisions regarding this, but we have spoken, prayed, and together agreed that Charlotte may need to be our home for a while longer. We have a great local church in which to grow and develop in the areas that were recommended to us. We are both currently employed in jobs that are meeting our needs. There is also a potential opportunity for free housing very near where we live now in return for doing apartment missionary work; something that would be a huge financial relief, and allow us to pursue several of our ministry-readiness goals at the same time. 

In spite of this, we have not given up on the Badger State, nor on Tampa, FL. I am still in communication with both churches and we are still open to either one, if God opens the door and provides the means for us to work on these goals before going. But we do not want to jump into the deep end of full-time ministry before we learn to swim. Most of our ministry goals are marriage-focused and it occurred to us that, if we are struggling to work on these now, why would we think we could do it when in full-time ministry? We want to make sure we have a good foundation built for our future ministry, especially as we think about leaving a place that has become our home to go somewhere we would have to start over again.

All of this was very discouraging to me, personally. Since July 2012, the sole focus has been on finishing seminary and going into ministry ASAP. The idea of having to wait even longer to do that left me feeling confused and distraught about my future. But here's where the good news comes in. As many of you know, I was asked to preach my uncle Clint's funeral service this past week. It was a hard time, to be sure, as we had to say goodbye for now to a man we loved. But the response I received to my leading of the funeral service and preaching the sermon was very reassuring. I had a number of people comment on how it had blessed them, what a good job I had done, etc. I usually get uncomfortable hearing that kind of stuff, because I know how prone I am to getting a big head. But this time, I was comforted by it. It was as if God was reminding me that, yes, this is what I am called to do; just maybe not yet.

We love y'all and we'll keep you posted!

+ Blessings in Christ +