The Sweet Dropper

Thanks, Joe! Sunday is Joe’s final Sunday on our staff. The Hollands will still be here for a while, as they are awaiting the sale of their house. Joe will be something of a “church planter in residence” here, tending full-time to the development of the church plant in Culpeper. They will be here on Wednesdays and Sundays when they are not traveling or visiting other churches in our Presbytery. We rejoice at the news that his support is at 94% now. We are sad to see them go, however. Joe has been a good laborer and has served us well. You can follow the development of the Culpeper, Virginia church plant at http://culpepermission.org/.

He dumped water on me in the picture on the right because I was supposed to be wet in that uniform for a VBS skit back in 2006. I still think his face shows a bit too much delight in the task.

WEDNESDAY NIGHT CONNECTION: The original plan for Wednesday Night Connection was for us to continue the Ladies’ Bible Study and Men’s Forum on the first Wednesday of the month. However, Maureen Boswell, our Ladies’ Bible Study leader, has to stay on in Fredricksburg, Texas, after Johnny’s injury and surgery. So we are giving Ladies’ Bible Study and Men’s Forum a vacation in the month of June. The Truth Project and Framework of Faith will continue through the entire month of June. Wednesday Night Connection is designed to connect us with one another in fellowship and reaching and to dig deeply into God’s Word through Bible-centered studies for children, youth, and adults. There’s always room for more–and just because you missed the first and/or second session, don’t think you can’t join in now.

Remember the schedule for the summer:
6:00   Children’s ministry; adult and youth electives will gather in their respective meeting rooms

Electives
•    Framework of Faith: a study of fundamental Christian teaching that aims to be rigorous and refreshing, systematic and stimulating (led by Phillip Palmertree). A number of people have been asking for a survey of systematic theology, and here it is. Join us for a study of the skeletal system of Christian living. Meeting in the Mary Thornton Room.

REPENT

The General Assembly of the Church of Scotland voted last week to sustain a call to a minister who is in an openly same-sex partnership. This is sad and grievous news. My friend David Robertson, minister of St. Peter’s, Dundee (a Free Church of Scotland congregation) spoke to his flock about the situation this past Lord’s Day and posted his remarks on his blog. Below is an excerpt.

1) We reject all forms of homophobia. There is no need for Christians to be afraid of homosexuals. If you are a homosexual you are as welcome in St Peters as you are if you are a heterosexual. And just as we would expect heterosexuals to live according to biblical standards as Christians, so we would expect homosexuals to live according to biblical standards as Christians.

2) We accept the teaching of the Bible about human sexuality. In other words sex is between one man and one woman in the context of marriage. Anything else is sinful.

3) The Church of Scotland last night voted to endorse and accept a minister who openly goes against the Bible’s teaching.

4) The Church of Scotland based this decision on a teaching that destroys the Church. They stated, “The ‘Word of God’ is not synonymous with the Scriptures, but it can, in part, be discerned from the Scriptures through prayer and through the inspiration of the Holy Spirit”. The difficulty here is that whilst this sounds spiritual it means that the General Assembly of the Church becomes the Magisterium – a court which may use the Bible but which in reality tells the rest of us what God says. This is a recipe for an authoritarian church that limits the freedom of the believer to follow the Word of God, which IS synonymous with the Bible.

5) The implications of this decision are enormous. The Church of Scotland decision will hasten the day when the State persecutes those who uphold the Bible’s teaching and when people like myself will be prosecuted for teaching the Bible. This week for example I received an e-mail asking if a talk I gave could be put on a website but suggesting that it would have to be password protected in case I was prosecuted for homophobia – what did I say? Only that marriage was between one man and one woman. People are being prosecuted and losing their jobs, not because they are homophobic, but rather just because they dare to believe that what the Bible says is true.

I’ll keep you posted on what happens next with our brethren back in the homeland of Presbyterianism.

REMEMBER

Pentecost Sunday is fifty days after Easter, the occasion of the outpouring of the Holy Spirit in fulfillment of the promise of Joel 2:28-32 (“I will pour out my Spirit on all flesh…”). In the Old Testament Pentecost was a feast that celebrated the first fruits of the year’s harvest (Exodus 23:16; Numbers 28:26). In the New Testament, the fulfillment appears, and the long-expected Day of the Lord has arrived: the powers of the age to come are released; the harvest of the world begins to come in. Christ—crucified, risen and ascended—pours out the Spirit in unrestrained measure and without geographical or ethnic limitation. The gospel promise “is for you and for your children and for all who are far off, everyone whom the Lord our God calls to himself” (Acts 2:39). Giving special attention to the person and work of the Holy Spirit in our worship helps us recognize our utter dependence on his presence and work in our lives as disciples of Christ.

Last year I heard about an Episcopal church in Jackson which noted Pentecost in a memorable way in their liturgy. A reader began reading Acts 2, and when he came to the part about the disciples of Jesus speaking in various languages, he was joined by readers reading the same passage in Spanish, German, Chinese, and an African language–all of them reading the passage simultaneously!

Evening Worship: I rushed through Revelation 11 last week. We’ll be marching at a fast pace as we look over Revelation 12-14. The passage is a procession of visions of a beast. First, John sees warfare between a dragon (Satan) and a woman who bears a child. The dragon cannot kill the child and is eventually thrown down as a voice declares that the kingdom of God and his Messiah have come. Secondly, John sees a beast rising from the sea. This beast appears to prevail over the saints and gain the allegiance of the rebellious world. Another beast appears to aid him. Then John sees teh lamb on Mount Zion at the head of his army of 144,000 marked with the Father’s name (rather than marked by the beast). Then John sees a vision of the son of man glorious in triumph and ready to carry out his judgment.