[Below is a recent exhortation I gave to Knox Presbytery of the CREC].

I should start this exhortation with a bit of honesty about my own ministerial foibles. As some of you know, I was a Reformed Baptist minister. And while I have no intention of dunking on Baptists, there is an important point to be made about how I personally fumbled the ministerial football and how I believe we might fumble it in the season to come.

I was a Reformed Baptist, and a good one. Perhaps too good. I was quite convinced that my 17th century English Baptist heritage meant we were sons of the Separatist Puritans, and in that I was right. The English Puritans wanted to clean up the Church of England and the Separatist Puritans wanted to clean it up so bad they decided to leave it altogether. The Particular Baptists grew out of those Separatist Puritans, realizing that if they continued to baptize the little ones, who showed no signs of being regenerate, then they might grow up to pollute the church. So, they had to separate from the separatists.

At the heart of my error was a lack of faith. And I filled up whatever was lacking with well-intentioned precision and order. I didn’t think that was what I was doing at the time. And my heart was full of faith, but I was in need of an enlarged heart so that I could sprint in the way of God’s commandments rather than just make sure I was mindful of them. I wanted to grow the church, but not too fast. I wanted revival. But I didn’t want James Davenport stripping down in public and throwing his pants in the fire, or Russell Brand baptizing new converts as a new convert, and in his skivvies. But, while the dead of winter might be clean and crisp, the growth of Spring is untoward and messy.

So what does this have to do with us, Knox Presbytery and the CREC, today? Well, we have quite a communion of churches now. We have a history to preserve. We have distinctives, particulars, a culture, and sacraments to maintain. And we have to honor the ways of our fathers in a time when statues are falling on the right hand and on the left. We have a little tiny foothold in the grand scheme of things and the last thing we want to do is lose that distinctive foothold in a sea of Reformed Evangelicalism gone mad. I suspect our own denomination will face the same challenges present in the broader conservative movement in our nation, with the new right coming up with some ideas that would wind up some trickle-down conservatives. So, which way forward?

The key text is Hebrews 11:1-2, “Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. For by it the elders obtained a good report.” What made the patriarchs remarkable was not circumcision. It was not the golden cherubim over the ark or Aaron’s robes. It was their faith. By it they obtained a good report. By faith, they built arks. And by faith they refused to be called sons of Pharaoh. And the best way to honor them is to live by that same faith and to minister in that same faith.

Faith is the condition through which the promises are realized. And in this vein, faith is called the substance of things hoped for and the evidence of things not seen. If anything marks the ministry of the CREC, it is a faith large enough to actuate the unseen things. It is a heart so enlarged with faith that the things hoped for are nearly materialized. In this faith, we have embodied what Chesterton called that orthodoxy with “the equilibrium of a man behind madly rushing horses.” He continues, “The orthodox Church never took the tame course or accepted the conventions; the orthodox Church was never respectable… It is always easy to be a modernist; as it is easy to be a snob. [Orthodoxy, however,] has been one whirling adventure; [in which] the heavenly chariot flies thundering through the ages, the dull heresies sprawling and prostrate, the wild truth reeling but erect.”

So the exhortation is to minister by faith while resisting the temptation to manufacture the works which flow from that faith. The truth is that the good works we want to preserve quite simply cannot be preserved. They are like manna and will grow sour if you try to store up more than a day’s worth. However, that fruit is promised to us afresh out there in the future if we humble ourselves and walk in the faith of our fathers. That faith has loved orthodoxy without being persnickety. And it has routinely attracted some interesting characters who may not know how many spokes are on the chariot, but sure do want to ride it. That faith has regularly laid hold of God’s covenant promises to see saints strengthened who were very much in need of strengthening. 

It appears to me that we are in a season like that of Elisha when he was surrounded by the forces of Syria. And there are many like Elisha’s servants who are more than a little bit shaken by the sight. We should strive to be like Elisha with our eyes opened to the unseen things, assuring our people and the many lost sheep strung about that there are more with us than are with them, and praying, “Lord, open their eyes.”