Pastor’s Blog

Someone recently brought to my attention a news article describing a pastor injured in an accident on a motorcycle. Now, people are injured in motorcycle accidents everyday. But not in church. Not in front of the congregation.

Jeff Harlow, pastor of Crossroads Community Church in Kokomo, Indiana, walked his motorcycle onto the front platform during a service to illustrate—of all things—the concept of unity. According to his wife, Becky,

He had this idea that he would bring this bike out on stage and show people how the rider would become one with the bike. He was going to just sit on it and drive it out. He was just walking the dirt bike out on stage and somehow it got away from him. It was not intended.

What was not intended was that the bike went off the edge of the 5-foot platform and into the front row of seats. (Thankfully, the seats were vacant. You always knew there was a good reason not to sit in the front row!) Pastor Harlow broke his wrist and had surgery on the the next day. “Jeff has already laughed a lot today, so he’s OK. I think his pride was bruised,” said his wife.

I’m glad he’s going to be OK. And I appreciate his desire to illustrate an important point in a memorable way. But was this spectacle really necessary?

Or to put it another way, does the proclamation of God’s Word (or Christian worship generally) need such theatrics to make it effective? Does not such a stunt distract from (or overpower) the point to be made?

This incident reminds me of comments made by John MacArthur, pastor of Grace Community Church in Sun Valley, California. He was describing a pastor’s conference in which the speaker, talking about baby Christians, came out with a doll under one arm, a pacifier around his neck, and a baby bottle in his hand. MacArthur’s thoughts on such props:

In my judgment I would have to say that such a performance appears to be a crutch, and it seems that only a weak preacher would need such a crutch. You have to believe that the power of God’s Word will be more effective than any human drama or communication gimmick. Nothing is as dramatic as the explosion of truth on the mind of a believer through powerful preaching.

Setting aside questions of taste or appropriateness, and in complete ignorance of Pastor Harlow’s abilities as a preacher, I think he would do better simply to follow Paul’s advice to Timothy, “Preach the word” (2 Timothy 4:2). As preachers, we know our weakness and rely, not on our own cleverness, but on the Holy Spirit to change people’s lives through “the foolishness of preaching” (1 Corinthians 1:21).

A simple gimmick-free exposition of the text, while not as immediately attention-grabbing, in the long run would prove more fruitful. And, at least in one way, less dangerous.

I recently completed Richard Dawkins’ book, The God Delusion. Dawkins is the Charles Simonyi Professor of the Public Understanding of Science at Oxford University and perhaps the leading proponent of atheism in the world today. I found his book difficult, but not for the reasons you might think. I will admit some trepidation as I began the book—would it undermine my faith in Christ and the existence of God? Would it raise objections and questions I couldn’t answer? But those kinds of challenges were not the source of my difficulty. (In the event, the answer to both questions was no.)

What made the book hard to read was that nearly every page was another opportunity for Dawkins to vent his spleen against religion in general and Christianity in particular. Each page brought another barrage of straw men raised and triumphantly knocked down, weak arguments, circular reasoning, and uses of the worst examples of behavior among Christians (or other religions) to represent the whole. Even many atheists were dismayed by the book’s poor quality and distance themselves from it.

Several authors have written in response to Dawkins, a couple of which I’ve read. Alister and Joanna McGrath have written The Dawkins Delusion? Atheist Fundamentalism and the Denial of the Divine. McGrath (Alister) is a colleague of Dawkins’ at Oxford, a professor of historical theology. Other qualifications he brings to the table in answering Dawkins include a doctorate in molecular biophyics and once being an atheist himself. His wife Joanna’s field of specialization is psychology, with training in theology as well.

Another response to Dawkins I read was David Robertson’s The Dawkins Letters: Challenging Atheist Myths. Robertson is pastor of St. Peter’s Free Church of Scotland in Dundee. His response is on a more pastoral level, though he also does a good job of exposing Dawkins’ fallacies and inconsistencies. The first of the letters was actually published on Dawkins’ own website. (Because of the furor it caused, the others were not.) The last letter is addressed to the reader (not Dawkins) and gives a wealth of resources for further reading.

A couple other books I’ve recently become aware of (but haven’t read) are Al Mohler’s Atheism Remix: a Christian Confronts the New Atheists and Ravi Zacharias’ The End of Reason: A Response to the New Atheists Again, I haven’t read these books, but being familiar with their authors, I am confident they would also be worth your time.

But is Dawkin’s book worth your time? I’ll let David Robertson answer that:

Obviously, The God Delusion is the book I am interacting with. If you already have the book then you will know what I am referring to. If you don’t, I cannot honestly recommend that you should get it. It really is as bad as I have tried to demonstrate and I would be reluctant to put any more money into it! If you are interested in science then Dawkins’ other books are much more palatable. (Letters, p. 111)

You can always do what I did—check it out from the public library.

In July, the Johnsons and Peeds gathered in Orlando for a Disney vacation reunion. The Johnsons were the four of us, my brother and his family, and my parents. The Peeds were my sister and her family. Together we totaled 16, including my three-month-old niece. More on her later.

We stayed in a some condos not far from Disney that my brother had secured for us through a time share arrangement. They were very nice, convenient to Disney, and we all had a little room to spread out in.

We had a lot of fun visiting the Disney parks and Sea World, and a lot of fun being together. And a lot of tired feet! I’ll spare you the daily details, but instead share an observation about Disney.

When it comes to theme parks, there’s Disney and then everyone else. We could learn something from Disney about excellence. What they do, they do well, from customer service to landscaping to moving immense numbers of people through rides all day long. The parks are remarkably clean, and the “cast members” (Disney lingo for employees) are (almost) invariably cheerful and helpful.

Quote of the week, from my five-year old nephew Henry (as were were taking too long to go from one ride to another): “Henry is wasting his time!”

On the way home we spent Saturday night in Macon, Georgia, with my sister and her family. Sunday, we worshiped at the First Presbyterian Church of Macon, where I had the privilege of baptizing my niece, Caroline.

It’s rare these days that my brother, my sister, my parents and I are all able to be together at the same time. To be together at a place like Walt Disney World, and with our own families, was a special treat, for which I thank the Lord.

The recent overture from Philadelphia Presbytery to the 36th General Assembly of the PCA  pertaining to a study committee on deaconesses was the issue in Dallas. The overture was first discussed (for hours) by the Overtures Committee, made up of about 75 teaching and ruling elders from the various presbyteries. This committee recommended that the overture be answered in the negative (i.e., no study committee) by about a 60-40 margin. After considerable discussion and debate, the assembly as a whole voted against forming a study committee by about the same margin.

I voted with the majority of the Overtures Committee and the Assembly to answer the overture in the negative. As I explain why I voted the way I did, it might be helpful to divide the matter into two questions: (1) Does the Bible allow for female deacons? And (2) Is the study committee a good idea? It helps to divide it this way because there were many commissioners at GA who would answer “no” to the first question why answering “yes” to the second. I answered “no” to both. Here’s why:

Reason 1: The Scriptures do not allow us to ordain women as deacons.

It seems to me there are three key passages that come into play when discussing this subject.

Acts 6:1-7. Here the first deacons are appointed. Though the title of deacon is not used, the function is that of diaconal ministry. The Hellenists (Greek-speaking Jewish believers) were complaining that their widows were being overlooked in favor of the Hebrew widows. The apostles rightly refused to neglect their calling of preaching to give more time to food distribution. So they instructed the church to choose from among themselves seven men of good reputation, full of the Spirit and of wisdom. It is significant that the term men is not the term for people generally (anthropos), but the specific term for males (aner). Even though the need was ministry to widows, the apostles called for the selection of seven men.

Romans 16:1. The question here is this—was Phoebe a servant of the church at Cenchrea (the eastern port of Corinth), or was she a deaconess of the church at Cenchrea? The word in question is diaconos, from which our word deacon comes and can be translated servant (see, for example, 1 Cor. 3:5). Either rendering is lexically permissible, so only context can determine which Paul had in mind. It may be impossible to determine the meaning with absolute certainty (note the variation in the translations). It seems to me that the burden of proof lies with those who would make Phoebe an office-bearer, given the lack of other definite guidance toward deaconesses in the rest of Scripture. The word diaconos, when used of others in the NT, is usually rendered servant (cf. Col 1:7; 4:7). That Phoebe is noted to be a diaconos of a particular congregation doesn’t necessitate that she be considered an office-bearing deacon, especially in light of the lack of other Scripture to support female deacons. In fact, that lack of support pushes me to adopt the rendering servant.

1 Timothy 3:11-12. In this passage Paul is outlining qualifications for those who would hold the office of deacon. In the middle of the list, Paul says in v 11, “Their wives [literally, women] must be dignified,” etc. The question is this—who are the women (gunaikais) to which Paul refers? Are they wives of deacons or female deacons? It seems to me they should be considered wives of the deacons (and elders, cf. vv. 1-7), for the following reasons: Paul has already said that deacons should be “dignified” (ESV) in verse 8. Why would he need to repeat that qualification if he was addressing female deacons in verse 11? They would be covered under v. 8. The only reason to repeat the need to be dignified would be if he was now addressing a different class of people. Obviously, it is important that the wives of deacons (and elders) have a certain level of maturity and godly character. They, too, should be dignified.

Paul says in v. 12 that deacons should be the husband of one wife (literally, “a man of one woman”), a phrase I understand to mean that he must have a track record of faithfulness to his wife (cf. 3:2; 5:9). Paul states this qualification immediately after addressing “women” in verse 11. Two thoughts come to mind here.

First, we can imagine his train of thought running from what a deacon’s wife should be like (11) to the fact a deacon should be faithful to his wife (12). It’s harder to imagine Paul’s thoughts running from deaconesses (if we take 11 in that way) back to the idea that a (male) deacon should be a faithful husband to his wife (12).

Second, the “bias” in Paul’s mind is obviously toward a male deacon. While he calls on deacons to be (literally) “a man of one woman” (v 12), and on widows to be “a woman of one man” (5:9), he never calls on a (supposed) deaconess to be “a one-man woman.”

So for these reasons, I do not believe the Bible supports women serving in the office of deacon. I would be quick to add that I do support women serving in diaconal ministries in the church, under the leadership of the deacons. Women and their service figured prominently in Jesus’ own ministry and in the letters of Paul (Phoebe being a case in point). In PCA churches, the Women in the Church organization (WIC) allows women to serve in organized diaconal ministry alongside the Deacons.

Reason 2: A study committee is not a good idea.

Those who would like to see women ordained as deacons would, I assume, be in favor of a study committee. Many, maybe even the majority, of those who were in favor of a study committee are not in favor of women deacons. I voted against formation of a study committee, however, for the following reasons.

Clarity. Our Standards are clear. In the past, study committees of the General Assembly have done outstanding work in the past addressing matters that are complex or not clear, whether in doctrine or practice, such as marriage, divorce, and remarriage, or women in the military. In the case of ordaining woman as deacons, however, our Book of Church Order is unambiguous: “These offices [i.e., elder and deacon] are open to men only” (BCO 7-2). And its application is unambiguous.

Conformity. One of the reasons suggested for a study committee is the diversity of practice in the PCA regarding “commissioning” women as non-ordained deacons, etc. The answer is not a study committee, but rather for those churches to abide by our BCO and not introduce confusion by engaging in extra-constitutional practices or using terminology in such a way that only muddies the waters.

Process. If some would like to see a change in our standards on this point to allow women to be ordained as deacons (or to clarify they may not be “commissioned” as deaconesses), then they need to send up an overture to the assembly with specific proposed changes to the BCO to that effect. Then we know exactly what we’re about. A study committee would not bring about any changes, nor would its conclusions or recommendations be constitutionally binding. It would only produce information, information that is readily available elsewhere.

Identity. It is possible a study committee would encourage the PCA toward ordaining women to the office of deacon. If the GA changed the BCO to allow female deacons, it would radically change the identity of the PCA as a denomination; a change, I suspect, that would result in the considerable loss of members, churches, and ministers over a point that is, at best, debatable. Other denominations ordain women to the office (and elder); the PCA needs to remain faithful to its (Biblical) stand on male leadership.

Reputation. When word gets out that the PCA has set up a committee to study the matter of women deacons, it will send the wrong message to other churches and the world. The implication will be that we’re much closer to such a thing that I believe we really are. Such a committee will only stoke fears among our sister conservative reformed denominations that the PCA is “going wobbly.”

Redundancy. We don’t need to reinvent the wheel. Those who founded the PCA in 1973 came out of a denomination that ordained women to the office of deacon (and elder). When they formed the PCA, they clearly stated (BCO 7-2; cf. 9-7) that the offices of the church are open to men only. Obviously our founding fathers were not infallible. But they had wrestled with these matters in the old denomination. Their conviction from Scripture was that women should not be ordained as deacons. For most of its history the PCA was fine with that conviction. I’m afraid the current debate is more a result of cultural pressure than new light from Scripture.

Conviction. Frankly, my mind’s made up. I think the Scriptures are clear, our Book of Church Order is clear, and the PCA’s historic stance on this matter is clear. A study committee would cost good men time they don’t have and the Administrative Committee money it doesn’t have, to discuss a matter I don’t think we need to discuss.

These were my reasons for voting against a study committee. Others stated some good reasons for a study committee (the need to hear different points of view, to teach a new generation why we hold the position we do, etc). I understand their reasoning. If the assembly had appointed a committee I would not have been distraught. I would have awaited the committee’s report, along with everyone else. In the event, the reasons for not setting up a committee carried the day.

Other than this matter, there was very little discussion or debate at GA over the other reports. In fact, even with the discussion of this overture (conducted in an excellent tone overall), we finished our docket early. I was gratified to see the level of unity we enjoyed as an Assembly and the level of grace with one another where we disagreed.