Volume 1: Issue 3 | September 2018
Editorial: Why Has the Church Abandoned the King James Bible?
Until sixty years ago, conservative churches used the King James Bible, the Authorized Version sanctioned by the Church of England in 1611. I grew up with it, memorized it, happily recognized literary allusions from it in English and American literature, and smugly understood Shakespeare’s plays better than classmates who had not grown up with the KJV. It helped me master unfamiliar verb endings, and the “thee” and “thou” forms of address it uses to emphasize our closeness to God. In modern translations, I miss the straightforward and vivid KJV way of expressing things – Mary was “with child,” not “pregnant;” and David threatened to kill every one of Nabal’s household “that pisseth against the wall,” not “every male.” But since the 1960s, churches have set aside the KJV, and preachers no longer pray aloud in the King James language. Why?
When I was at the Reformed Presbyterian Seminary 1968-1970, preparing to go to Cyprus as a missionary, I found in its library a book by a late 19th Century Greek Orthodox scholar. In it he argued that the King James Version was translated under demonic influence. His proof was that the King James Bible blasphemes the name of God. It slanders the Holy Spirit by calling Him the Holy Ghost! How ridiculous, I thought, even as I grasped the reason for his misunderstanding. The word “Spirit” in 1600 meant what the word “Ghost” means today. Therefore, Hamlet saw a “spirit,” not a “ghost.” The words have reversed their meaning. It was not until I was a Seminary student, in fact, that I finally understood that when the KJV uses the term “prevent,” it means “to come before,” not “to hinder.” I had been misunderstanding some verses, such as I Thessalonians 4:15. Words change meaning over time, and many of them used in the King James Version have done so.
When Jerome began translating the Greek Gospels into elegant Latin, all Latin speakers in Britain, France, Spain, Italy, and North Africa could understand his translation. At the time of the Reformation, however, only those educated in Latin, by then a mostly literary language, could understand it. Church leaders liked it this way, because they could claim a monopoly on the truth of God’s revelation: they could read the Bible, while ordinary people could not. Civil authorities even executed people who translated the Bible into the common language and printed it for people to read themselves. The Westminster Confession of Faith summed up the Protestant conviction about the Scriptures, originally inspired by God in Hebrew and Greek, stating that they “are to be translated into the vulgar language of every nation into which they come (I.8).” (“Vulgar” is another English word that has changed meaning since the 17th Century; it meant “common” then, not “uncouth.”)
Is the language of the King James Bible too foreign for ordinary Americans to use? My wife and I use the King James Bible in our daily family worship and tried to continue using it with immigrants who lived with us for two years. They could read and speak English at about the sixth grade level, and they simply could not follow the King James Bible. Many native born Americans don’t read English any better than they did. It might as well have been the Latin Vulgate. So after a few weeks, we went to a modern translation.
This is why conservative Protestant churches abandoned the King James Bible: changes in the English language has made it an English equivalent of the Latin Vulgate! It is accessible to the well-educated, but not to the average person. The change to modern translations had to be made for the Presbyterian churches to be faithful to the Westminster standards. The Scriptures are to be translated into the common languages of every place where the Word of God comes, and King James English is no longer our common language in the English-speaking world.
-- Bill Edgar
Eric Liddel's Olympic Victory
Reprint from Christian Nation, July 23, 1924
Reprint of NY Times Editorial
The victory of Eric Liddell in the Olympic 400-meter race is one more reminder to a cynical world that it rarely pays to scoff at the praying man. It is another demonstration that when the man of prayer becomes a man of action his is about the most violent action there is.
On Sunday this Scotch divinity student refused to participate in certain trials because his Presbyterian conscience told him the Sabbath was a day of rest and pious meditation and not for sprinting along cinder paths in spiked shoes and cambric drawers. It was in vain that his fellow British athletes pleaded with him he was throwing away a chance for victory. Better a golden crown laid up for him hereafter than a laurel wreath for him now, he reasoned, and he stayed at home, with a Greek testament or “Fox’s Martyrs,” for all anybody knows to the contrary.
But on Friday. There is nothing in the Liddell theology, from the Solemn League and Covenant down to the latest tract, which says a man may not smite the Philistines on a Friday. So he went out and smote them hip and thigh.
Convictions of some kind, honestly held and scrupulously observed, are mighty useful things to have around in almost any emergency.
Prayer Request
"…the word of God sounded forth from you in Macedonia and Achaia..."
-- I Thessalonians 1:8
Ask the Lord for two nearby places for your church to reach with the Gospel of Christ. If your church has agreed on one or two places, join with your congregation in praying that the Lord would open doors there for His Word and Spirit to convert sinners and gather them into new congregations.
We urge you to continue to practice, and pray for a heart to practice, 1) Hospitality to friends and strangers, and 2) Thankfulness in all things with a contented spirit.
Get to Know Your Members
Luis Castro, Ridgefield Park RPC
Where are you from?
I am from Colombia, South America.
What did you believe about God growing up?
I was raised as a Catholic. I went to Catholic school and I learned to have reverence for the church, the Virgin Mary, the Trinity and the divine child. There was a rigorous discipline in some aspects, but at the same time triviality in matters of godly daily living.
What did your family teach you?
I never met my father growing up. My mother was busy working; she was strict and disciplinary. She never read the Bible, but she clearly expressed reverence for God in her own way. I think she thought the good things she did outweighed the sins committed. Unfortunately, these examples became my experiential religious teaching.
Did you go to church?
Not on a regular basis; in our country we have an expression, “the God of emergency.” We go only when we need it. However, because of school and my love for singing, I was very active in the choir and the Catholic Mass through the school year.
Where?
I went to church at school, but seldom to a local church, except during Holy week and at Christmas.
How did things change as you went through high school and beyond?
I had one more year before I graduated from high school. I was 16 when my mom told me she was leaving for the USA. I thought it was a reasonable choice since our finances were in extremely bad shape. I assured my mom that I understood the reason for not bringing me with her, and I promised to behave well and wait for her. Unfortunately, that reunion took ten years, which left me with no guidance, a distraught and confused young man. I kept myself working and enjoyed a good degree of success as a salesman with a big company; but I was lonely, scared, no family, and with no sense of purpose in life through my early adult years. Contact with my mom was not done as often as needed, and phone calls were very expensive.
What led you to God?
I was finally in the USA, at twenty-six years old, but my reunion with my mom did not bring the expected joy. I would say it was instead a frustration because we had grown apart so much that I did not recognize my mother. After three years, I began a relationship, got married and my daughter was born. This is the moment that I would say I started to look up, as I perceived for the very first time the blessing of my daughter. However, it took me over three years after my wife left me. When she was not compliant to the custody arrangements, in a moment of desperation, I was surfing the TV channels and came across Dr. Charles Stanley. He was saying, “ If there is anyone in need of help, get on your knees, confess your sin that the Lord Jesus is ready to help you.” That day I bent my knee, and I was so broken, so convicted of my evil actions and thoughts, that I begged for help. Also on that day, I learned that going forward I was supposed to repent of my old evil ways, read the Bible daily, obey it to the best of my understanding, and watch and pray.
What led you to visit Ridgefield Park Church?
I was reading through 1 Peter 5, 1 John 4, Titus, Acts, etc. I realized that I needed to be part of a community that takes Christianity seriously. That led me to visit churches and I ended up working for an independent evangelical kind of megachurch; after taking some Bible classes there, I was unsatisfied with the teaching. I asked more questions and found out this church was Arminian and dispensational. So I investigated different Theological Systems and I found Luther, Calvin, the Reformation, the Puritans, Church History, etc. After some reading, lectures, and videos, I recognized the great effort by the reformers to exalt, respect and maintain the purity and integrity of the teachings of the Holy Scriptures. Therefore, I reached the conclusion that the Reformed theology was accurate and faithful to the Scripture. So, I was in a search for a reformed church, and I was greatly blessed to find RPRPC, five minutes from home.
What led you to join Ridgefield Park Church?
I wanted to please my Savior, and I could not wait any more to be officially a member; furthermore, the adherence to Psalm singing and biblical preaching confirmed to my soul the leading of the Holy Spirit.
How has God helped you in the last few years?
He has been my companion, guidance, my source of strength, and my comforter. The Holy Spirit has shown me little by little those areas of my soul that require overtime attention (obedience, prayer, meditation and reading the scriptures). Above all, the fact that He is available and willing to hear my cry at all times has enabled me to walk with confidence, especially in the raising of my daughter alone for the last fourteen years. He has been with me, even though at times, I have grieved His Holy Spirit. Still, as one preacher said, “He is not going to leave me in the middle of the road.”
What are you most thankful for at this point in your life?
I am thankful for the Holy Spirit’s guidance to understand, appreciate, praise, bless and adore the marvelous works of my Savior Jesus Christ, the Father’s compassion in sending His Son, and for the Holy Spirit’s conviction of sin, righteousness, and judgment. I am thankful that Salvation does not depend on my efforts but Christ’s alone. I am thankful for my daughter and her love for the Lord Jesus, His word, and Church. I am thankful for the privilege to share the gospel in obedience to His last commandment. I am thankful for the pleasure of worshiping biblically through singing Psalms.
Proverbs Exposition
"By justice a king builds up the land,
but he who exacts gifts tears it down."
-- Proverbs 29:4
Some proverbs seem so blindingly obvious one wonders, “Why anyone would write them?” All governments, whether monarchies, aristocracies, or republics, build up their lands by ruling justly according to equitable, known law.
But how does a king who “exacts gifts” ruin his country, as the proverb’s second clause teaches? Some translations evade the question by translating “bribes,” giving an obvious meaning. When bribes control the courts, justice flees, and life deteriorates in a country. But the literal translation “gifts” is correct. When a king, or senator, or president “exacts gifts,” he (or she) will tear down a country. How does that work?
To understand the dynamics of gift giving to rulers, consider what is known as the “Emoluments Clause” of the American Constitution. Article I, section 9, clause 8 reads, “No Title of Nobility shall be granted by the United States: And no Person holding any Office of Profit or Trust under them, shall, without the Consent of the Congress, accept of any present, Emolument, Office, or Title, of any kind whatever, from any King, Prince, or foreign State.” The clause first of all blocked the formation of a titled American aristocracy, as England had. No dukes, lords, or earls here! More specifically, however, the clause aimed to keep foreign governments from corrupting American officials with presents of any sort, like jewelry, money, or land, because then they would be tempted to put the interests of the gift-giving foreign government above their own country’s interests.
Solomon’s proverb goes even further than the American Constitution. When rulers solicit and receive gifts from anyone, domestic or foreign, they stop treating everyone fairly. That is what happens. Suppose you are running for office. You can’t legally accept gifts outright. You can, however, seek a half million dollars for a twenty-minute speech. You can ask for campaign contributions, directing big ones to shadowy “non-profits” who will support you. You can request grants from a tax-exempt foundation you just happen to control, a place where you can employ loyal staff between elections. Givers will play along with these schemes, maybe even proposing further workarounds to the no gifts rule. They know the gift recipient will give them favored access, and will remember their interests when writing laws and regulations.
Is the American government a realm of gift giving? Of course! The pervasive and growing influence of “lobbyists” writing our laws and also influencing ever-expanding bureaucratic regulations at local, state, and federal levels, testifies to the extent and power of gift giving. After all, for whom do lobbyists work? They work for corporate and individual gift givers, all “persons” according to our Supreme Court, from whom our rulers seek campaign contributions, huge speech fees, election help, and foundation donations. Our rulers at all levels of government “exact” these gifts continuously, often spending hours a day working at it. In doing so, our ruling class tears down the land.
-- Bill Edgar
Book Review:
Sacred Rhetoric: A Course of Lectures on Preaching
by Robert L. Dabney, 1870
(recently re-published as Evangelical Eloquence)
It is surprising to find Dabney on the reading list for the Introduction to Homiletics course at the Reformed Presbyterian Theological Seminary. We Reformed Presbyterians stood firmly from 1802 onwards against both racism and slavery. Dabney was an ardent Scripture-twisting defender of Southern chattel slavery. He remained a detestable and unrepentant racist after the War ended (see his A Defense of Virginia and the South, 1867, where he writes among other things, “It is well known that as a general rule [Negroes] are a graceless, vagabondish set and contribute very little to the support of the State by which they are protected.” “The black race is an alien one on our soil.” “The offspring of an amalgamation must be a hybrid race incapable of the career of civilization and glory as an independent race. And this apparently is the destiny which our conquerors have in view. If indeed they can mix the blood of the heroes of Manassus with this vile stream from the fens of Africa, then they will never again have occasion to quail before the righteous resistance of Virginia freemen.”). But Dabney’s book on preaching is on our Seminary’s reading list for homiletics, so I got a copy and read it. It is a decent enough book on preaching -- if you can forget who Dabney was!
Drawing on Greek, Latin (not translated), and more recent sources, he defines preaching as “sacred rhetoric.” He gives sound advice on how to begin, with a short introduction (“exordium” is his classical term) that draws your audience to you and your topic; how to study and amplify the meaning of a text, with appropriate applications; and how to conclude (“peroration”). He strongly promotes extempore preaching, done with arduous preparation, of course; and condemns reading a manuscript in the pulpit, as did our 1806 Testimony, as having no warrant in the Scriptures.
Dabney knows what he does not approve of, besides reading sermons. One is long prayers with the same pious phrases repeated each week, or prayers that sound like the preacher in his prayer is addressing the congregation rather than God. Throughout his lectures, Dabney takes a number of potshots at Puritan preaching, for example, criticizing their use of the Medieval Scholastic Method: “To the dominion of this method many of the blemishes of the Puritan preaching were due (p. 91).” He constantly warns against “tediousness” and “prolixity,” and warns the extempore preacher against using complex sentences, or thirty words where twelve will do. It takes a lot of work and preparation to say what you have to say with few words rather than many.
Most emphatically, at the very beginning of his book, Dabney condemns what he truly hates: “political preaching.” “We solemnly protest to every minister who feels the impulse to introduce the secular into his pulpit, that he thereby betrays a decadent faith and spiritual life in his own breast (p. 14).” He has in mind, of course, northern abolition preaching, as both the historical and chapter context make clear. The American South before the Civil War, and many in the North as well, defined slavery as a political and secular matter, concluding that the preacher should therefore not address it. His stance is exactly the same as those who do not want preachers addressing abortion or same-sex marriage in our day on the grounds that these are political issues.
A reader will learn the art of “sacred rhetoric” from Dabney’s book, but the reader must be patient with his un-translated Latin quotations and the many complex sentences that run counter to his advice on preaching. Even when read slowly, modern readers will find some sentences hard going. “So this eyesight of the soul, the reason, sees the true and the right only by its own immediate looking; all its correct acts are intuitions; every valid judgment resumes virtually the force of a primary judgment, and hence only its real validity.”
All in all, Dabney’s book thoroughly expounds classical rhetoric as a basis for preaching, with many good suggestions for both the beginning and experienced preacher. However, it is very hard reading, and the good points Dabney makes can be found elsewhere. So why assign a book by a racist like Dabney?
-- Bill Edgar
Notable Reformed Presbyterian Ministers Serving in Atlantic Presbytery Churches
Nathan Robinson Johnston
1820-1903
Many early Covenanters who came to America purposely settled as farmers in out of the way places, a habit acquired in Scotland during and after the Killing Times of 1680-88. One such group settled near the upper Connecticut River in central Vermont near the New Hampshire border close to hamlets such as Barnet, Ryegate, St. Johnsbury, and Topsham. In time, they formed congregations that were part of New York Presbytery, then Vermont Presbytery, and finally part of New York Presbytery again. Their best-known pastor was N.R. Johnston.
Born in Ohio, educated in Cincinnati under J. R. Willson (see last issue), Johnston became pastor of the Topsham, Vermont congregation in 1850, resigned that charge in 1865, but returned there to die in his old age. Johnston was almost unique among Covenanter pastors in writing a partly devotional, partly historical, and occasionally score-settling history of his life, Looking Back from the Sunset Land, published in 1898 and widely read in the Reformed Presbyterian Church for many years.
Johnston arrived too late for the New York Presbytery meeting to ordain and install him as Topsham’s pastor, so he began his work as a supply preacher. The thirty-five communicants were poor people, mostly women, and mostly aged, but had held together for eighteen years without a pastor. The young pastor did not feel ready for the challenge, writing in his diary,
“I fear that this field, which has been so long without cultivation, it will require more labor than I can bestow to produce abundant crops. The fences are all tottering or prostrate, thorns and briars have grown all over the fields, the boar of the forest has entered, the adversary has sown tares, and so great are the obstacles in the way that unless the Husbandman himself will labor as well as direct and strengthen his feeble servant, my labor must be fruitless.”
He and his young wife set to work on a salary of $350/year (roughly $11,000/year in today’s dollars). The church met in a Union house, meaning that Methodists, Presbyterians (Covenanters), Baptists, and Universalists all used it. Because Johnston was the only pastor in town, everyone expected him to attend them in sickness and in death, giving him frequent opportunities to preach the gospel at funerals. There were also many unbelievers -- “infidels” was Johnston’s term -- in the area. Topsham was in fact a mission station.
Johnston’s preaching was expository, his sermons well researched; but he never used a manuscript, he noted, nor tried to memorize one. He began a Sabbath School, the first in the Topsham area, and soon it grew quite large. He also began a local high school.
Visiting each family of his little congregation in turn, he discovered among some a woeful lack of knowledge of the Bible, but his three elders were all excellent and pious men. After his first year, the church bought a parsonage for him and his young wife; and he later wrote, “I loved my little flock.” He praised New England Topsham for its high degree of neighborliness among all, regardless of religious faith. While the Topsham congregation lost both old and young to death, it added younger people from both within and without the church in these years. Sadly, Johnston’s wife Eliza was sickly and finally died in 1857. He married again in 1860, Rosamond Rogers from New York City, who became his unflagging helper the rest of his life.
Two “reform” causes got Johnston’s unwavering support: Temperance and Abolition. He was especially impatient with Southern writers who argued that the Bible supported slavery, so that, “…influenced by the teaching of the pro-slavery divines,” some Abolitionists “became infidels or unbelievers in the inspiration of the Bible.” He became friends with the noted Abolitionist, William Lloyd Garrison, and went on a tour of Vermont towns with him. Johnston made it his policy in general to be on the stage as often as possible with men like Garrison, in order to be a visible testimony that the most conservative and orthodox of Christian Churches opposed Southern chattel slavery. Like some other Abolitionists before Lincoln’s election in 1860, Johnston came to favor Northern secession from the Union to free itself from the seemingly unchangeable reality of slavery in the South. Of course, after Lincoln’s election, Southern states instead began seceding from the Union for the express purpose of safeguarding their right to own slaves. The Civil War began.
In December 1861, Synod’s Board of Domestic Missions elected Johnston to go to Port Royal, South Carolina, where Union soldiers oversaw a number of freed slaves. Johnston went almost immediately and reached Beaufort, South Carolina, in March of 1862. He immediately began Sabbath morning preaching services for soldiers, later in the day preached to a mixed congregation of soldiers and freed slaves, and ended the day with a service for freed slaves. He started a school for freed slaves, to teach them to read, and he asked for used clothing still in good shape to give to them. It was a pattern of ministry later followed by the mission to freedmen in Selma, Alabama. After a year, Johnston returned to his wife and the Topsham congregation, though not for long.
In 1865, Johnston resigned his charge in Topsham in order to move to Ohio and revive the Church’s college, Geneva, founded in 1848 by one of his brothers. He succeeded, but he could not solve the College’s money problems. Nevertheless, he got the College going again, with a plan that now included recruiting promising freedmen from the South to be educated and then sent back South as missionaries. Johnston lasted only two years as President and then moved on to Minnesota to do missionary work. A few years later, with his wife and daughters, he went to California to work among Chinese immigrants for the remainder of his working years, the work for which he is best remembered. He did journalistic work, established school classes, and preached the Gospel. At Synod, he joined for many years with Dr. David Metheny, missionary to Syria and Turkey, to urge the denomination to establish a mission in China.
His health and strength failing, Johnston moved back East in 1888. For a time, he edited one of the Church papers called Our Banner, then returned to California for a few years. Finally back east again, he died in 1904 and was buried in his beloved Topsham, Vermont.
N.R. Johnston was one of the more active and consequential ministers in the part of our country inhabited today by the Atlantic Presbytery of the RPCNA. He was always earnest, always ready to venture into new areas for the Lord’s sake, and his autobiography Looking Back from the Sunset Land still merits reading. It provides its readers with a window into the heart of a pastor, a reformer, and a missionary, as well as a street level view of American history and local church life in the second half of the 19th Century.
-- Bill Edgar
Charge to the Pastor
The Ordination Sermon preached by Noah Bailey
at the ordination of Gabriel Wingfield,
June 9, 2018, Providence RI.
"I now rejoice in my sufferings for you, and fill up in my flesh what is lacking in the afflictions of Christ, for the sake of His body, which is the church, of which I became a minister according to the stewardship from God which was given to me for you, to fulfill the word of God, the mystery which has been hidden from ages and from generations, but now has been revealed to His saints. To them God willed to make known what are the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles: which is Christ in you, the hope of glory. Him we preach, warning every man and teaching every man in all wisdom, that we may present every man perfect in Christ Jesus. To this end I also labor, striving according to His working which works in me mightily."
-- Colossians 1:24-29
Paul’s apostolic office is not the same as Gabe’s pastoral office and yet Paul’s explanation of his calling here in Colossians 1 has significant lessons for all pastors. Specifically, Paul defines his office as a stewardship from God to suffer as he serves the Scriptures of Jesus Christ to all who will listen. These three concepts, stewardship, service, and suffering, form a framework for understanding and entering pastoral ministry.
First, pastoral ministry is a stewardship from God (v.25). Paul was summoned to his office by a blinding vision of the Resurrected Jesus, but you, Gabe, have a more ordinary means - the Presbytery. You did not assume pastoral authority and responsibility on your own initiative nor did Presbytery unilaterally establish you as a minister of the Gospel. Rather, both you and Presbytery discerned the call of God upon you. This is important to pastoral ministry for two reasons: it shows us who the boss is and who the bride is. God is the Boss. He called you to this office and to this congregation. Pray, preach, and counsel like you answer to Him. Fearlessly conform your life and your message to God’s expectations and standards, knowing He will hold you accountable for how you steward His house.
Likewise, the Church is a Bride, but not yours. I walked the streets of a small rural town while still in seminary. A pastor was waxing eloquent about the ministry and made this brilliant point, “You have a bride and Jesus has a Bride and if you ever confuse them, you will find a jealous Husband in Heaven!” Gabe, you are married to Megan. You are not married to the Church. Keep those commitments clear and distinct in your schedule and in your heart. As you take up your pastoral office, Gabe, remember it is entrusted to you by God; He is your boss and the Church is His Son’s Bride.
Second, this stewardship from God consists in serving the Scriptures of Jesus Christ to others (v.25-28). Now, Paul was an organ of revelation, actually writing the Bible under the Spirit’s inspiration; but you, Gabe, are an agent of illumination, opening the Scriptures and making Jesus plain for all to see. As Paul says, “Him we preach.” Whether it is the fulfilled Word of God now manifest or the mystery hidden for ages and generations, whether it is the Gospel revealed or the Gospel concealed, preach Christ. Among the most memorable sermon criticisms I have ever heard was, “That was a good sermon. My only complaint is that the rabbi down the road would have no complaints. Remember to point to Jesus.” Recall Edmund Clowney and be Preaching Jesus in All of Scripture or consider David Murray and find Jesus on Every Page. When you thunder forth the wrath of God or when you exclaim the excellencies of God’s mercy, in all sermons, preach HIM. With warnings and teachings, present everyone perfect in Christ by presenting to everyone the perfections of Christ. Gabe, serve the Scripture of Jesus to others for that is your stewardship from God.
Third, suffering is part of this trust, an essential element of your service (v.24, 29). Paul says here that he strives and labors, filling up in his own flesh what is lacking in Christ’s suffering. Of course, Jesus’ passion lacked nothing necessary to accomplish salvation but now the pains of Jesus must be comprehended and appropriated by faith. Awakening and nourishing faith in Jesus’ sufferings is an expensive labor. The one who serves the Gospel to others must likewise be conformed to the Gospel. Gabe, if you would have sinners see the Cross of Christ, you must carry your own. For the Church’s sake, demonstrate the cruciformity of Christianity in your own life and exhibit the triumphant power of Jesus in your perpetual weakness.
Some months ago, as I began my ministry in Cambridge, I heard Mark Dever from Washington D.C. speak on pastoral ministry. He observed that young men serve from their strength but older ministers have learned to labor from their weakness. Gabe, let them see you suffer. Show your tears. Do not be afraid to be weak, wounded, or vulnerable. As Paul concludes, he offers you this unsurpassed consolation: He works in me mightily!
Gabe, suffer as you serve the Scriptures to others for that is your stewardship from God and in this pastoral ministry of yours, God will work in you mightily. May it be so. Amen.
Explanation of the Fifth Commandment
"Honor your father and your mother,
that your days may be long in the land
that the Lord your God is giving you."
-- Exodus 20:12
Here is a commandment more neglected than disputed today. Most people would agree that children should obey their parents, but we see many parents failing to expect it, many children failing to do it, and many TV shows and movies gleefully portraying the opposite. So the commandment is neglected, both in general teaching and practice.
One aspect of the command that might be disputed in certain circles is the explicit reference to both father and mother. The two are not blurred together by the term 'parents.' A male fathered you. Honor him. A female bore you. Honor her. We should imitate the Scripture's careful wording. Father and mother, while similar in many ways, are not interchangeable. Two of one cannot replace the lack of the other. Nor can our duty to each be neglected. Honor your father and your mother.
God addresses children directly. This means that God has a direct line to children. He does not need to go through father or mother to speak to a child. Nor does God speak in such an exalted way that only the high and mighty can understand Him. God speaks directly to every person, no matter how young or lowly. (Preachers should do the same.) And each person can respond, each person can appeal to God in prayer, can appeal to the church for protection, can speak and be heard, because God is near to the lowly and contrite in heart. Honor your father and your mother – God is talking directly to you because you understand Him, you can and should hear, think, and apply what He says, even when very young. He respects your natural capacities and doesn't belittle you, because He created you.
But how does one honor? The word means to respect. Respect your parents, and a little more than that: give them honor, show your respect to a watching world. Do not think you can behave worse towards them when your friends are around. You should then behave even better! Honor your mother means respect her in front of your friends. That honors her.
Here are three key ways to honor your parents: obey them, think well of them, and take care of them when they are old.
Obey them: when your father or mother speaks to you, turn your head, look at them, respond respectfully, and obey without pouting or arguing. This is the first thing honoring means.
Think well of them. You wish your parents were perfect. They aren't. The job is actually a tad harder than it looks, and they aren't nearly as much older than you as you might think. You're both learning and adjusting to each other on the fly. It is possible to think so much about their faults that you entirely ignore the many good things they are and do. When you brood about your father's faults, you are not honoring him. When you complain about your mother's nagging, you are not honoring her. Think well of them, and speak well of them.
Take care of them when they are old. My father is getting old. He now walks not just more slowly, but also less steadily. I don't like to see it. But it is a reminder that I am stronger, and the gap is likely to increase rapidly. I, my wife, my siblings, their spouses, and all the grandchildren will increasingly take care of my father and mother. Jesus showed the importance of caring for elderly parents by raising this issue with the Pharisees in Mark 7. Some of the older adults at Elkins Park RPC spend a great deal of time taking care of their parents.
What about the commandment's conclusion, 'that your days may be long upon the land the Lord your God is giving you?' You might be inclined to associate that solely with Israel living in the Promised Land, but it is reiterated in Ephesians 6:2-3 for the church. It is also expanded a bit in Deuteronomy 5 and Ephesians 6: that your days may be long, and that it may go well with you in the land the Lord your God is giving you.
Again we discern three thoughts. First, the wise son listens to his parents because they are more experienced, they know him, and they have his good at heart. The wise son tends to outlive the rebellious one because he follows his father and mother's good advice and dies young less often. Second, in line with the 'goes well with you' part, we notice that those with strong support systems are better able to weather the shocks of life. A strong family is the first and best support system, and those who honor father and mother help maintain family strength. Third, the expanded form 'the Lord your God' points beyond the good effects of wise counsel and solid families to God's blessing. The Lord here indicates, and indeed promises, his blessing on those who honor father and mother, a blessing that usually, but does not always result in long life. When it does not, we are to understand the Lord to have promoted the loyal child to a better station early for His own purposes.
Children, do not neglect the fifth commandment. God says it directly to you. Father and mother, do not neglect the fifth commandment by hesitating to expect obedience and honor. This commandment is the first training ground for learning to love our neighbor as ourselves. Love your father and mother, and your brother and sister, as your first and closest neighbors.
-- John Edgar
A Collection of Thoughts About Michael Dean Tabon, 1950-2018
Mike Tabon, My Father
by Tim Tabon
As many of you who knew my father can attest, my father was a man of many distinctive attributes. He was a man of great conviction, determination, devotion, ambition, diligence and consistency, to name just a few. There are of course many other ways to describe Mike Tabon and you wouldn’t be wrong. I will summarize what he symbolized to me and I’m assuming probably to many others: an absolute force of nature.
His life was a shining example of his conviction to honor God using the many gifts he was bestowed with. His force of will to never shy away from whatever challenge was facing him, and to seek out God’s counsel to help him (and mom) get through whatever issue was at hand. A prime example of this is about 15 years ago, he was scheduled to have a very risky surgery, and we all knew going into it that he might not live through the surgery. I vividly remember him putting his fate completely into God’s hands, and telling us “if it’s God’s will that I die, so be it. If it’s His will that I live, it will be.” In true Mike Tabon fashion, he almost died. The doctors were unable to figure out what was causing the problem so they could fix it. Then, miraculously, he came to a full recovery almost immediately. The doctors were never able to figure out what caused his near death experience, or what it was that pulled him from that fate. I believe God called him to do more work in His name, and told our father that he wasn’t finished doing His work yet.
His devotion to Christ and to serve others was made apparent in so many ways, I think it came to be expected after a certain point. When it came to work – be it teaching, church related tasks or the many camp related duties, he was an amazingly tireless worker, driven like few people I have ever known. He almost seemed to be bionic in his ability to mow through all things related to running the camp. (Of course having 5 children at his beck and call to assist with labor never hurts, either.) You can probably add diligence to ambition, because he was never able to say “I can’t finish this or I can’t finish that.” He always had to find a solution. And he always did. Not always by himself. He was always able to get assistance and input from someone to help get the end goal accomplished. He was never too proud to ask for help. The end goal was always the most important factor.
But I think my favorite and maybe the most appropriate word to describe Mike Tabon is consistency. You ALWAYS knew what to expect from him. As kids, we always knew we’d be spanked as soon as we got home if we misbehaved while we were out and about. We knew what was expected of us when we were asked to complete something. And not completing the task or not completing it well was not an option. I am amazed at how consistent he and my mother have been in raising the 5 of us. I truly thank God that He gave us my mother and father to be the amazing examples of God’s undying love for us and SO many others.
But beyond any of that was his expectation and hope that we (his children, but also his camp children, or spiritual children that were just coming to know Christ), would further their relationship with Christ and continually develop our spiritual bond with Him. That was always his driving force and I know that God gave my father the conviction, determination, devotion, ambition and diligence to consistently be the force of nature that so many of us needed and expected him to be.
A Tribute
by Bill Edgar
After health trials lasting years, the ravages of disease and age finally overcame Mike Tabon, and he went to be with his Lord. Surely, he entered the Lord’s presence with song because oh, how Mike could sing in his deep resonant baritone. He could perform on stage too, in high school as the king in The King and I at Jones Beach, Long Island; at Geneva College in the choir and talent shows; and in White Lake Camp skits as King Bobo, welcoming newcomers to the Camp with a memorable solemnity. He directed plays and musicals in the schools where he taught and wrote tunes for some of David’s Psalms that bring out their meaning with just the right amount of syncopation. How the mighty are fallen, their song on earth stilled.
Tall and strong, Mike would have been a fearsome warrior in an earlier age. As White Lake Camp Director for twenty-one years, he was the boss, plenty fearsome. He told his five children that they would spend their summers at the camp, and they did. He told campers when to be in their cabins, and they were. He challenged teenage counselors and campers alike to serve the Lord with all their heart, and they remember his words decades later. When a young Daniel Howe was not ready to be a counselor, Mike told him so. For two decades, Mike was Mr. White Lake. How the mighty have fallen, but his deeds live after him.
Mike served his Lord in every situation. He grew into manhood without a father in his home but became a devoted husband and father. He grew up at a time of great racial tension but dared to marry Beth Tabon, a white woman. God gave them a fruitful marriage and ministry to all kinds of people. How the mighty are fallen, waiting for Christ at His Coming.
Elected an elder of the White Lake Reformed Presbyterian Church, Mike teamed up with David Coon, pastor of White Lake RPC, his former college roommate, to initiate one activity after another to serve the community around the church. One result is that many people in great need have found help from the church, and a glance at the congregation on any Lord’s Day shows that it mirrors its town. Until his last moments, Mike talked about his concern for members of the congregation. Were they walking with the Lord as they should? Was there some need the Church could help them with? White Lake will miss Mike’s ideas, concern, and oversight. How the mighty are fallen while still shepherding Lord’s flock.
Mike was one of the best-known men across the Reformed Presbyterian Church. Many people came to his funeral on June 27, 2018 near the Coldenham, NY church building. The RP Synod honored him by singing tunes Mike wrote for use in the current Psalter. White Lake Camp on August 5 heard three speakers share their memories of Mike and then sing his tunes, and the Camp named the manager’s cabin for him, a memorial for a prince and a great man now fallen in death.
Mike was always working, planning, and thinking how he could do more. He was also a friendly guy, ready to make people laugh, and uninhibited in doing so. Long ago, he dressed in a sheet with a table in front of him for a skit at White Lake Camp. On the table were a glass, a pitcher of water, a loaf of bread, a jar of peanut butter, a jar of grape jelly, and a table knife. Bill Edgar was hidden behind him. As Bill pressed to stretch his arms around Mike, Mike began. “Tonight I am going to show you how to make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich.” Bill’s pale hands came out. Mike continued, “First, you have to wash your hands.” The place exploded in laughter.
In all Mike did, there was joy and happiness, a gift of the Spirit to all who are set free in Christ. How the mighty have fallen. His friends are distressed, and so is his family, but we do not mourn as those who have no hope. Even so, come Lord Jesus.
Portrait of the Head Counselor as a Young Camper
by Hartley Russell
I think it was my first year counseling. In my cabin was a boy about 8 named Mike Tabon, and I think it was his first year at camp also. I don't remember anything special about his week at camp so he must have been well behaved. What I do remember is an envelope I received in the mail about a week later. It contained one homemade cookie and a note from young Mike. I don't remember how the cookie tasted and I'm quite sure it was in multiple pieces by the time it reached me, but I have always remembered the kind gesture of a young boy. Considering Mike's love of cookies it was probably a sacrificial gift!
Be Like Mike
by Jenn Moberg
All of my summers until graduating college were spent at White Lake- from being a camper to being a counselor to working in the kitchen with Beth Tabon and Larry Gladfelter. This was what I looked forward to all year, the chance to get away from home, scrape the cabins, mow the lawns, paint the mess hall murals, shower in flip-flops, sleep in squeaky bunk beds, and wake up to the booming sound of Mike’s voice reverberating over the campus. Mike was more than just a head counselor: for those formative adolescent summers spent on the hilltop, he became everyone’s dad, principal, therapist, friend. Mike’s watchful eye observed all of our summer romances, making sure that everything was kosher and appropriate, and comforted us through the inevitable friendship dramas and end-of-summer heartbreaks. Mike raised us – how many teenagers came to know ourselves by following his moral compass? How many of us “Juniors” owe our adolescent development to Mike’s guiding presence, sometimes intimidating, sometimes gentle, always loving?
Mike put up with so much from us wilful, know-it-all teenagers. He tolerated us, he showed us which of our tragedies were significant, and which were simply little storms in teacups. I will never forget the summer of 1996, when we lost three family friends within the span of a few weeks, while one of my sisters and I were up at camp – one family friend died in a plane crash, another committed suicide, and another succumbed to injuries sustained in a mugging. Mike had a “Mike comment” for everything, but during this time, I remember he just hugged us and said nothing. It was the most comforting and supportive silence imaginable.
I only identify a handful of adults other than my parents that I would consider to be role models. Mike was the gold standard – I have been hoping to live up to his example my entire life, and I hope that I and the years of adolescents that he guided have done him justice. It has been years since I have made it back to camp, but for me, Mike will always be White Lake, and White Lake will always be Mike.
How Are Children Raised in Your Church Doing Spiritually As Adults?
Want to Know How Good a Church Is?
A visitor at Broomall said to me recently, “Want to know how good a church is? Look at its children when they are adults.” The comment stayed with me since many recent studies show a large percentage of children leaving Christian faith as they reach adulthood. Curious, I gathered statistics on Broomall RPC covering 1981-2015, the years I was pastor there.
From 1981-2015, twenty-five families with children were members of Broomall for a significant period of time. One family joined when their children were mostly grown, so it is not included in this study. Fourteen families left Broomall before their children were grown: eleven because of job relocations, two for a different local church, and one out of devotion to a radio preacher. Ten families, therefore, raised their children entirely, or nearly so, as part of the Broomall Church with a total of forty-four children now grown to adulthood. Where are these children spiritually today, as indicated by their church involvement?
Thirty-eight of the children raised in Broomall (86%) are active in a true Church, and twenty-seven of them (61%) are Reformed Presbyterians. Thirteen (30%) are adult members of Broomall in 2018. Of our children, one is now an RP pastor, two are Broomall elders, one is a deacon elsewhere, one is the wife of an RP pastor in Scotland, two are wives of elders in other RP congregations, and one is the wife of a deacon in another RP congregation.
Other studies concerning adult baptisms, or how many people from other denominations join a church, will also tell how God has blessed a church’s labor of love over the years. What follows in this article, however, is what we did at Broomall where our children were concerned.
What Is Your “Vision” for Broomall?
About 1985, someone asked me at Synod, “Bill, what is your vision for Broomall?” When I became Broomall’s pastor in 1981, I just wanted it to survive. But survival did not seem like much of a “vision,” so I answered, “My vision for Broomall is that all the children raised in it will be Christians when they are adults.” Having given that answer, I began to think how to pursue that goal. Here are sixteen things the Broomall church and I as its pastor did to further the goal of every child a future adult Christian.
1. I stressed to every family individually, and in sermons, the vital importance of daily family worship and sincere family piety in general. My method was not to preach a one-time message on family worship, but to bring it up over and over again in sermons. The family is God’s primary means of calling the next generation to serve Him. Indeed, one purpose of marriage is to produce “a holy seed (Malachi 2:15, Westminster Confession of Faith 24.2).” Church programs for youth, no matter how well designed and executed, cannot substitute for family religion as a means of teaching children about the Lord.
2. In a variety of ways, I encouraged parents to treat their children with respect, to love them passionately, to view them with deep suspicion, and to spank them when necessary. Every child is born bearing a damaged image of God and thus deserves love and respect, but also needs instruction and discipline leading to repentance and faith in Christ.
3. For many years in our afternoon worship service, I called children between four and twelve years old to the front pews. I told them a ten-minute straightforward Bible story in as lively a manner as I could, without questions or drawing moral or theological “lessons.” Just the story! Beginning with Genesis, I skipped nothing, not even the most gruesome events. It was my hypothesis that one source of disaffection from the faith among teenagers is the discovery that their Sabbath School teachers have been editing the Bible, a practice that implicitly denies the full inspiration of Scripture.
4. I never preached a “children’s sermon,” but I tried to make each sermon accessible, at least in parts, to children over age six. Sometimes I addressed children directly in a sermon, saying, “Children, what I have to say now is for you. Adults, you don’t have to listen unless you want to.” Other times, I would reverse the addressees, intending to inspire the children to listen all the more. Every week, I included a five to seven minute Commandment or Proverb explanation, often framing the explanation to apply to children. Keeping in mind that Jesus “taught them as they were able,” I used lots of stories as He did, and mostly avoided detailed theological reasoning of the sort Paul uses in Romans (Mark 4:33).
5. A major reason baptized children abandon Christian faith is that they come to believe that it is untrue or unjust. Therefore, I tried to include a consistent apologetic for the truth and justice of God in many sermons, addressing contemporary objections that enemies of Christ raise to Christian faith. But I rarely made my intent obvious. My method might be called an inoculation against certain ideas now circulating that undermine and destroy Christian faith.
6. Every time someone suggested we start a youth group, I opposed it, so we never had a youth group. Until about 1900, the Church managed without youth groups. (In fact, until two centuries ago, the Church got along fine without Sabbath Schools.) It was my opinion that churches can ask too much from their most loyal members in terms of activities and events, thereby unintentionally diverting them from their first mission field, their own children. Our society in general schedules too many events for children and youth, taking them away from their families far more than is healthy.
7. The primary responsibility for educating children belongs to their fathers and mothers. Therefore, no one in the church was allowed to proselytize in favor of public school, Christian school, or home school: it was a parental choice. One or more families in Broomall from 1981-2015 used each of these ways for their children to learn literacy and numeracy.
8. Our Lord’s Day worship services at 11:00 a.m. and 1:15 p.m. meant that we ate together every week. Children got to know each other during lunch, and we permitted them to play freely outside after eating, despite the dirt and hurts that accompanied the play. All adults had permission to reprimand any child. One thing they found by mixing together at church was that their parents, by and large, had similar household rules. That knowledge helped the home rules seem both right and normal.
9. We kept the starting times of 11:00 a.m. and 1:15 p.m. within a minute of the scheduled time. I ended the Adult Sunday School class at 10:45 to give time, especially to parents with young children, to get ready for church. My goal was to end the morning service at 12:00, but the average was closer to 12:10. The afternoon service usually finished by 2:20. The predictable and limited time schedule was meant not to ask too much of children and their parents in terms of sitting still and paying attention, a practical application of love, and again an imitation of Jesus who taught people as they were able to bear it.
10. Where we could, we gave jobs to the children; for example, helping fold and hand out bulletins, and getting things ready for communion. Children helped regularly with our twice yearly Work Days. Doing real and necessary work helped them know that they were an important part of the Church.
11. Never, never, never did we consider having a separate “children’s church,” and few parents used the available nursery. We wanted children to be part of the public worship of God from their earliest days, with no memory of a time when they were not present. The congregation tolerated children’s noise and frequent trips as parents took a child out to be spanked for misbehaving and then brought back in.
12. We promoted inter-family hospitality. Most Lord’s Day evenings, we had people over to our house for dinner, and so did others. Often the children at our house played sardines with our children – one hides and the others join the hider when they find him until only one child is still looking, a game that can take a long time. It gave the adults time for childfree conversation.
13. We promoted White Lake Camp, offering church scholarships in return for memorizing assigned Bible verses for each age group. We did not promote other youth retreats, mission trips, or leadership training programs, more by accident than by deliberate decision.
14. In our afternoon service for many years, we took time to memorize the Westminster Shorter Catechism, reciting one question each week from memory. After working at memorization, we also discussed the meaning and implications of each question and answer. If Christians are not to be blown about by every wind of doctrine, they need a firm grip on truths that the Church through the ages has carefully explained. Both Bible verses and the Shorter Catechism serve that purpose admirably.
15. We honored each child upon public profession of faith in Christ -- “joining the church” -- by announcing their new status and giving them a large framed copy of our Covenant of Church Membership, with both their signature and the Clerk of Session’s signature, to hang on a wall in their room. We also honored each child at a June church dinner upon graduation from high school or college and usually gave an expensive Bible.
16. To help us to remember to pray for all of the Church’s children, we distributed calendars each month with the children’s names filled in for each day’s prayers. We prayed often and earnestly for our children’s faith, fully aware that unless the Lord builds the house, our labor is in vain.
-- Bill Edgar