November 10, 2023
Thank you for your prayers for me while on my study week! This week serves several purposes, and the primary one is to prepare the preaching calendar for 2024. Having gathered information from the staff about important ministry dates and their personal vacation dates, I plan out who will be preaching when, and what they will be preaching. When I was a solo pastor in my previous calls, I was the only one preaching, so I didn't have to prepare a formal calendar. But with multiple preachers, it's important that we know when and what we'll be preaching so that we can study ahead and coordinate other ministry activities around our preaching responsibilities. It's also important for Margaret Sprow and Madison Taylor as they plan and select songs for us to sing in corporate worship. So while it's not the easiest task, it's vital for efficient and smooth ministry in the coming year.
So here's a sneak peak of what we'll be preaching in morning and evening worship:
A brief series on our stewardship of the time, relationships, financial resources, and gifts that God has given us.
Finishing the book of Romans
Finishing the book of James
Some great passages from Isaiah
Selected Psalms
A brief series on what it means to pursue transformation by truth and grace TOGETHER
Continuing our study of Luke's gospel
Beginning a study through I John
"Seed theology" - Seeing Jesus in the Old Testament as the seed of the woman, the seed of Abraham, the prophet greater than Moses, the priest according to the order of Melchizedek, and the seed of David
I can't wait to dig into all the riches that God's word holds for us in 2024!
The other part of my study week is spending time studying! Some years it's studying for upcoming sermon series, and other years it's reading a variety of books on various topics for personal spiritual growth and theological/pastoral development. This year was more of the latter. In addition to reading Romans, I read several books on pastoral ministry and leadership:
The Pastor and the Modern World by William Edgar, Kent Hughes, and Alfred Poirier (three lectures about secularization, preaching, and the pastoral theology of Gregory of Naziansus, a 4th century church father);
the pastoral theology work by Gregory of Naziansus that was the basis of Poirier's lecture;
Open Secrets by Richard Lischer (the reflections of a Lutheran pastor in rural Missouri in the 70s);
The Great Dechurching by Jim Davis and Michael Graham (about why people are leaving the church and how we can encourage them to come back);
and my favorite of the week and most impactful of all, The Heart of a Servant Leader by Jack Miller (a collection of his letters to pastors, missionaries, and other Christian leaders).
The Lord blessed my study, not only to my own soul, but I pray also to your growth in grace as the roots that grew from my time with Him bear fruit in my ministry here. It is an unspeakable privilege to be a pastor at Pear Orchard Presbyterian Church. I'm thankful to the Session for encouraging me, as they encouraged Carl before me, to spend time alone with the Lord, strengthening my soul in Him and His truth and grace. Please keep praying for me, and for all who step into our pulpit to proclaim the inerrant word of God! Pray that the Lord would grant us increasing humility, faith, wisdom, and courage, and that we would make clear the gospel of grace as we ought.
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This coming Lord's Day we will celebrate the sacrament of baptism. The sacraments of baptism and the Lord's supper have been appointed by Christ Jesus to be a visible word, a tangible representation of invisible grace, of Christ and His benefits; a sign and seal (a picture and confirmation) of God's gospel promises to all who believe; a means of grace to believers, strengthening weak faith; and an expression of our allegiance to God.
One question that frequently comes up is why Presbyterians don't immerse those they baptize - particularly since Romans 6:3 says that we were "buried with Christ by baptism into His death." Baptists say that this passage teaches that in order to be baptized, one must go under the water and come up out of the water. Presbyterians disagree, for several reasons.
1st, because Paul is not talking about the mode of baptism in Romans 6, but the meaning of baptism.
2nd, because it’s arbitrary to choose “buried with” as the verb that gets to determine the mode of baptism, when you have several other verbs that are used here and elsewhere. Why would we not find a reference to the mode in verse 5, “united with,” which can also be translated, “grown together with Christ”? Or in verse 6, “crucified with Christ”? Or in Colossians 2, “circumcised with Christ”? Or in Galatians 3, “clothed with Christ”?
3rd, even if burial did determine mode, burial in Biblical times was not typically by putting a body under the ground and covering it with dirt like we do it today, but by hewing out a tomb from a rock, and putting the body in the tomb, and covering the opening with a rock – sideways, rather than straight down. So the idea of burial = immersion is imposing a modern view of burial on the text; even if we were to find a mode in the reference to burial, it wouldn’t be immersion.
4th, baptism in the Bible is far more often connected to the pouring out of the Holy Spirit or the sprinkling with the blood of Christ (for example, Acts 2:33; Titus 3:5; Hebrews 10:22; 12:24; I Peter 1:2), and pouring/sprinkling best fits the historical circumstances of baptisms in the early church, the Bible’s usage of the word "baptize," and even the connection that Paul is making in Romans 6 about the meaning of baptism – through the cleansing waters of baptism being placed upon the repentant sinner and his household, God beautifully signifies and seals His promise to every believer in Jesus that they are incorporated into and identified with Christ and His work, being cleansed not only from the guilt of sin, but also the power of sin, by Jesus’ blood and the Holy Spirit’s regenerating and renewing power. Just as Jesus’ death was confirmed decisively by His burial, so Paul says in Romans 6 that believers were buried with Him by baptism into death – the old has gone and the new has come – our old man/self was crucified with Jesus, and we have died to sin and been set free from sin’s enslaving power through our union with Jesus in His death and resurrection. For just as Christ was raised from the dead by the Father’s power, so we too have been raised up with Christ to walk in newness of life.
Of course, whether by immersion, or pouring/sprinkling, baptism is not some magic ritual, in which every infant or every adult who gets wet is necessarily saved. Salvation comes only through faith – but every baptism is a sign of that reality, even if the person being baptized (whether a professing believer or a covenant child of a professing believer) only receives the sign and never receives the reality, or even if the person receives the reality at some point after he or she receives the sign (as is often the case in both professing believers and covenant children!). So let us be praying that the covenant children baptized this coming Lord's Day will be brought by grace to saving faith and repentance!