Volume 2: Issue 2 | April 2019
Explanation of the Ninth Commandment
"You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor."
-- Exodus 20:16
We often condense the ninth commandment, You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor, to You shall not lie. This is entirely defensible. You shall not lie is shorter and easier to understand. Children more readily grasp it. So do adults. You shall not bear false witness – to lie in court, under oath, is the worst version of lying, given the heightened responsibility of legal consequences and the oath before God. But God plainly hates all lies, not just the worst lie, and so we wisely abbreviate: you shall not lie.
Members of the Reformed Presbyterian Church of North America are frequently given blue books or binders containing the church Constitution. I would imagine these books usually collect dust. Most books collect dust. But the second section of the book, the Westminster Larger Catechism, contains tremendously detailed instruction on the ten commandments in questions 98-148. I have heard this section called the hidden gem of all the Westminster Standards. If you want to know how to live before God, you would do well to spend time slowly considering one commandment after another, reading the Bible together with the catechism's answers, always remembering the cautions and comforts that follow in questions 149-153.
When the catechism addresses the ninth commandment, it begins by telling us that we must preserve and promote the truth and the good name of our neighbor. The first part is obvious, but on what basis does it tell us to protect our neighbor's good name? Concern for neighbor is part of the commandment's wording: against your neighbor. To phrase the commandment positively, it tells us to speak the truth in love. But often our speech lacks love, or truth, or both, and we tear down reputations with slander, gossip, and tale-bearing. The internet only magnifies the possible power of these evils. So how do you know when you are sinning against your neighbor's name? Imagine, as your neighbor is being discussed, how you would feel if he suddenly appeared and asked what had been said. Or if he appeared and had heard it all. If you would not want him to appear, you are likely saying what you should not.
In this situation, you should aim to shut down the conversation. This is most likely to succeed when you have some other topic to propose. In some cases you will not have the social standing to divert the group from its preferred topic of gossip. If this is the case, you ought to leave the conversation. But do not leave without trying to stop the slander first. Others may respect your desire to protect your neighbor's good name. They may consider that you might do the same for them, and will be more likely to if they support you in this case. They may even have been feeling guilty already. The ninth commandment requires 'appearing and standing for the truth' and forbids 'undue silence in a just cause, and holding our peace when iniquity calleth for either a reproof from ourselves, or a complaint to others.' So when you are convicted of participating in gossip or slander, make the effort to shut it down.
The ninth commandment also forbids 'concealing the truth' and 'hiding, excusing, and extenuating our sins, when called to a free confession.' Children in particular have a duty to tell their parents what occurred honestly and fully. They are keenly tempted not to, know- ing that punishment often follows honesty. They are even more tempted if they discover that most parents are not as motivated to cross-examine evasive witnesses as the child is motivated to evade. Yet the deceitful child does not deceive God. God calls us to a full accounting of the truth, when called to a free confession.
Both children and adults are prone to 'misconstruct intentions, words, and actions,' and particularly when we are already at odds with a person. Given a few disappointing interactions, we very readily assume the worst of various words or actions. This is the very opposite of loving our neighbor as ourselves, and while we may feel that a negative interpretation is the truth, we do not know that it is. Therefore we should hold ourselves back, and interpret with a charitable reserve.
Finally, we should not make false humility an occasion for breaking this commandment. If we truly have been blessed by God with certain gifts, we should not deny their existence. That is false humility. True humility is to use them for the good of the body of Christ. As the catechism puts it, we should not 'speak too highly or too meanly of ourselves or others,' nor 'deny the gifts and graces of God.'
You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor means both you shall not lie and speak the truth in love. Human speech is so varied and so powerful that there are a multitude of ways to both keep and break this commandment. So pray about your words, and keep a watch on your mouth, aiming to encourage your neighbor and glorify God.
-- John Edgar
Proverbs Exposition
"When words are many, transgression is not lacking,
but whoever restrains his lips is prudent."
-- Proverbs 10:19
Do you impulsively blurt out thoughts? When your words cause trouble, do you nevertheless congratulate yourself on being “genuine,” or “real?” Solomon simply calls you “imprudent.”
Words have power, so, like a gun, they should be used with care. “Do you see a man who is hasty in his words? There is more hope for a fool than for him (Proverbs 29:20).” Many words, whether talking about others, or justifying oneself, or quarreling, or just constant talking, inevitably involve transgression.
The prudent person keeps many of his thoughts to himself. Doing so may protect his life. “Whoever guards his mouth preserves his life; he who opens wide his lips comes to ruin (Proverbs 13:3).” When a prudent person does not know something, he never pretends. “Whoever restrains his words has knowledge, and he who has a cool spirit is a man of understanding. Even a fool who keeps silent is considered wise (Proverbs 17:27-28).” Words well chosen will make you happy. “To make an apt answer is a joy to a man; and a word in season, how good it is (Proverbs 15:23)!” However, it is better to walk away from a conversation and think later, “I wish I had said such and so,” than to walk away and know, “I should have kept my mouth shut!”
An uncle of mine once told me how he exercised restraint. When he got angry, he would write a letter, put it in the drawer, read it a day later -- and usually threw it away. People don’t do that with Twitter, and rarely do it with Facebook. The lure of flattering “likes” yanks your finger to “post” your latest witty or angry thought before thought intervenes. Email, Twitter, Facebook, text messages, and all their cousins, are more dangerous than speech. Spew out thoughts on a keyboard, with no one present, hit “Send,” and guess what? You are a published author! You might suddenly have a million readers, with your words saved somewhere on a server to be dug up years later by an enemy. Twitter and its cousins endanger their users. They have not improved our world. In many tweets, transgression is not lacking, but whoever restrains his fingers is wise.
-- Bill Edgar
Report on the Meeting of the Atlantic Presbytery
The elders of the Atlantic Presbytery met in Ridgefield Park NJ on March 30 and 31, 2019, with change in the air. The outgoing moderator Daniel Howe encouraged the elders to learn from history and then look forwards. The church must work in its own generation, not indulge in nostalgia. Retiring Pastor Bruce Martin, a generation older, preached the next day from Psalm 45:16-17: "In place of your fathers shall be your sons; You will make them princes in all the earth. I will cause your name to be remembered in all generations, therefore nations will praise you forever and ever."
The Psalmist in these verses speaks to the bride. Who is the groom? Jesus Christ (See Hebrews 1:8-9). So who is the bride? The church. God will replace the fathers with the sons of the church, which Jesus will build and is expanding to all nations. When Bruce came to the Presbytery in 1997, the Presbytery’s pastors were born in 1946, 1947, 1948, 1950, and 1951. With his retirement, the active pastors were born in 1951, 1973, 1977, 1978, 1983, 1984, and 1989.
Younger still are the two students under care, Zach Dotson and Hunter Jackson. Mr. Jackson of Broomall was too ill to attend, but Mr. Dotson came and passed his English Bible exam to rousing applause. He then passed his history paper by teaching the Presbytery about Peter Melius, a leader in the 16th Century Hungarian Reformation. Mr. Dotson is now licensed to preach the Gospel of Christ, which brings his situation into more proper Presbyterian order. (He has been preaching at Coldenham-Newburgh for twentyone months. His situation has been irregular, but not unique.)
The Presbytery elected Noah Bailey of Cambridge as Moderator, and he handled the meeting well. Unable to dispense with the services of our long-time clerk, even though he has retired from the pastorate, we elected Bruce Martin as our clerk for another year. He agreed. The Cambridge Session will serve until our next Presbytery meeting as the ad interim commission (to handle Presbytery business between meetings).
With one student out sick, the Presbytery spent more time than usual on congregational reports. After an elder presented a report on his congregation, another elder led the Presbytery in prayer for that church. As someone reminded us, “Unless the Lord builds the house, the builders labor in vain (Psalm 127:1).” The news was largely encouraging. The Cambridge elders succeeded in visiting the entire congregation within a year. Christ Church in Providence has four areas under consideration for a possible church plant. Coldenham-Newburgh has regular visitors for the first time in years and feels that the tide is at last turning in a positive direction. New members encourage Elkins Park, and so does the generosity of many people as the congregation there faces urgent capital improvements to their church building and parsonage. Walton is an older congregation actively involved in developing a new center of work in Oneonta with the help of interim moderator Bill Chellis. White Lake is grieving the death of Mike Tabon, but thanks Scott Sanford and Katrina Chellis for picking up his long-held position of precentor. They anticipate retiring their debt on Faith Hall in 2020. The Harrisburg work sponsored by the Hazleton church has encountered various challenges, and so worship has been reduced to once a month, with plans for a new midweek meeting in the offing. Broomall has added about a dozen new members this past year. On everyone’s minds were the needs of the Walton and Ridgefield Park congregations, now without pastors, and Coldenham-Newburgh where Zach Dotson preaches but is not an installed pastor.
The Presbytery also heard from three ministers not currently in the ministry. Mauro Silva-Krug works in the Washington D.C. area as an interpreter and translator, and provides supply preaching as needed. He is available for a call. Bill Chellis has a law business in Jeffersonville NY and is putting considerable energy into serving the Walton congregation as interim moderator. Bill Edgar, retired, is writing a two-volume history of the Reformed Presbyterian Church, with the first volume planned for publication by June.
Two recently visited congregations, Ridgefield Park and Coldenham-Newburgh, reported that they have taken up the recommendations of the visitation teams and are implementing changes. We will visit White Lake next. Treasurer Joe Comanda reported that the presbytery finished 2018 with a balance of $25,930. The auditor confirmed the accuracy of the books. A grant of $4000 from the Vital Churches Committee of Synod will cover the cost of this summer's pastors' retreat.
The Presbytery has these events scheduled for the future:
• May 31-June 2, the young people (grades 7-12) have a retreat in Elkins Park
• July 9-11, a second annual retreat for pastors and their families
• July 27-August 2, White Lake Kids and Teen Camp will be teaching our children
• August 2-9, WL Family Camp will hear Dr. Rick Gamble. His topic is “The Christian Walk, United with
Christ,” based on Romans 6:3-14.
• September 27-28, the fall meeting of Presbytery, to be held at Walton, New York
• March 27-28, 2020, the next spring meeting of Presbytery, to be held at Broomall, Pennsylvania
After the Presbytery meeting finished, the Ridgefield Park congregation held a luncheon to honor Bruce and Joanne Martin upon his retirement after forty-five years in the ministry, half of them given to the Ridgefield Park Church. The Martins plan to move soon from Ridgefield Park, New Jersey, to Elkins Park, Pennsylvania.
-- John Edgar
How to Raise Children the Ten Commandments Way: an Introduction
What command does God give first in the Bible? No, it is not the famous command about the tree that comes in Genesis 2. It is the command in Genesis 1 to have children. “And God blessed them. And God said to them, ‘Be fruitful and multiply….’ (Genesis 1:28).” In Genesis 2, God declares it not good for the human to be alone. The man needed a suitable companion, and animals were not fit helpers.
When the LORD brought the first woman to the first human, he greeted her as his body mate, “This at last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man (Genesis 2:23).” Millennia later, Paul referred to the biology that everyone understands: “Nevertheless, in the Lord woman is not independent of man nor man of woman;for as woman was made from man, so man is now born of woman. And all things are from God (I Corinthians 11:11-12).”
God calls children a blessing, but many doubt God at this point because in our sin-cursed world children bring sorrow as well as gladness. Childbirth always hurts. Mothers sometimes die giving birth. A child may die young. Every child brings another mouth to feed, so work increases. Our plans get disrupted. Finally, children can break their father and mother’s hearts in countless ways, as when the very first son, Cain, got angry with the second, Abel, and killed him.
Children are born foolish. Why? Consider an easily overlooked verse, “When Adam had lived 130 years, he fathered a son in his own likeness, after his image, and named him Seth (Genesis 5:3).” Every child is born in the image and likeness of his father and mother, sinners themselves. Father and mother pass Original Sin on to each new generation, so every child is born twisted. Americans call their children “kids,” - - baby goats. In Cyprus, a Greek term for children is “weeds.” Neither term is far from the mark. Children hurt, they die young, they cost a lot, they come infected by sin -- and they are a blessing. We know they are a blessing because God says so! What are you going to believe, your own eyes and ears and fears, or God’s Word? Part of living by faith is having children, accepting them from God’s hands as blessings, no matter how tired they make us or how many available fun things they deny us.
Except for those to whom God has given the gift of being single for the Church’s sake, people should aim at marriage (I Corinthians 7). Married people should aim to have children. They should not ask themselves, “Do we want children?” as though that is their choice. Why? Because having children is the Bible’s first commandment, and children are a blessing.
Here is the central reason children are a blessing. God chose to save the world through the woman’s offspring. “The seed of the woman will crush your head,” God told Satan, who had deceived the First Woman (Genesis 3:15). When God decided to liberate Israel, he gave two Israelite slaves a gorgeous baby boy. When they could not keep him hidden from Pharaoh’s population control goons, they made a basket for him, put it in the Nile, and left his older sister, Miriam, to see what happened. Pharaoh’s daughter heard the baby crying, took him from the water, and named him Moses. Centuries later, God began to save Israel from the Philistines by giving childless Hannah a son, Samuel. He became Israel’s greatest Judge and led them in their first national victory over Philistia.
Finally, when the time was right, God sent Gabriel to a young Jewish virgin, Mary, with this message: your son will be God’s Savior. Nine months later, Jesus was born in David’s city, Bethlehem, the eternal Word made flesh to defeat Satan, sin, and death. To this day, every child born reminds Satan that the seed of the woman has defeated him and that his time is short. Satan loves abortions. He rejoices at married Christians who think life is too much fun to spoil by having children, or who are too fearful of the economic consequences of a child. He delights when young believers shrink back from the adventure of marriage. Every child is a gift from God, a blessing that reminds Satan and us that a child, born of a woman, has defeated him. Children are a blessing.
Since children are God’s blessing, we raise them for him. When God called our father Abraham, he said, “I have chosen him, that he may command his children and his household after him to keep the way of the Lord by doing righteousness and justice (Genesis 18:19).” Raising children is so important, that if a man does not succeed as a father, he is unqualified to be a church elder (Titus 1:6, I Timothy 3:4-5). Churches, Presbyteries, and Synods should remember that fact.
Surprisingly, the New Testament contains only two direct instructions about raising children: fathers, “do not provoke your children to anger,” and “raise them in the fear of the Lord (Ephesians 6:4, Colossians 3:21).” Not provoking them to anger means not tempting them to break the Sixth Commandment against murder (see Matthew 5:21-23). Raising children in the fear of the Lord means teaching them to keep the First Commandment.
By pointing us to the First and the Sixth Commandments, God’s Word directs us to each of the Ten Commandments as to how to raise our children, so that they grow up to keep the way of the Lord and do justice and righteousness. So let’s look at each of the other Ten Commandments for what it teaches about how to raise your child. Every time you look at him, you can see in him a reminder that God has crushed Satan’s head under the heel of Jesus Christ, the woman’s offspring.
-- Bill Edgar, Broomall 2018
College Application Essay: Psalms
Prompt: Culture is what presents us with the kinds of valuable things that can fill a life. Write about something from your culture that has given your life meaning.
My culture sings. All my life, I have sung too. But I didn’t understand what I was singing or why we were singing it until my pastor handed me the pitch pipe. “You’re leading the singing today; don’t worry, I’ll cue you.” My heart thumped wildly as the weight of responsibility settled on me; although I knew how to lead, I had never done it during a church service before. After a few frantic minutes of preparation, I fumbled through the first selection, then the next, finally finishing with Psalm 148: “Let all the people praise…by girl and boy His name with joy should be extolled!” Since then, I have been precenting, coaxing some fifty people to begin, sing, finish a verse, restart, and keep singing together. Precenting has taught me that the Psalms have more meaning, significance, and historical connection than I knew.
My role as precentor is something like a cantor: I stand in front of the congregation, which becomes the choir that I direct and sing with. Song leaders have been part of the Jewish and Christian world for some three thousand years; my church’s specific tradition stems from the “lining out” worship singing style of the Scots-Irish on the American frontier. I am now a part of this rich history. Once I realized that my pastor expected me to lead the singing regularly, what I was singing became alive to me.
Written by ancient Israelite kings and musicians, the Psalms have been sung ever since by Jewish priests and Levites, Pharisees, and Jesus and his followers. These words have been preserved and translated through the millennia to the present day. Psalm 100, “All people that on earth do dwell, sing to the LORD with cheerful voice…” was first sung 3,000 years ago by a small, struggling nation surrounded by enemies. Today, I sing the same words while I lead my small congregation in the worship of God. We sing this Psalm with millions of others around the world. I haven’t traveled much, but where I have been, I have found Psalms, in both Catholic Bavaria and Orthodox Cyprus. I am one small voice singing in harmony with a long, large history.
Out of all the poetry I have read, the Psalms contain the clearest and deepest meaning. The prayers and hopes of the Psalms can be applied to many situations. Psalm 23 speaks of peace in a pastoral land. Psalm 22 speaks of despair and then joy at rescue, Psalm 51 is penitential. Psalm 94 calls for justice against the oppressor, and Psalm 128 celebrates the blessing of families. Unlike much Romantic poetry, the Psalms are grounded in recognizable human experience. Unlike a great deal of modern poetry, the Psalms carry piety and hope.
Singing adds still another layer to the Psalms, making the words intensely personal and leading the singing of the Psalms invites even greater appreciation of their history and depth. My culture sings Psalms because their value is timeless. I sing the Psalms because their universal meaning has become mine also.
-- Emma Perkins
Abington Senior High School, PA
Letter from WWII Chaplain Bergen Birdsall: South Pacific Psalmody
Reprint from the Covenanter Witness, May 24, 1944, p. 414.
Dear Dr. Taggart, Here is an extract from a letter I received recently from Chaplain Bergen Birdsall. I think your readers would enjoy it. – SAM EDGAR
“Last night I visited another unit on the Island where thirty natives were advertised to sing. A large congregation was present. After a hymn and prayer the native men took over. They sang a number of hymns. Then one of them gave his testimony, saying, ‘We are glad that Jesus is the Saviour of the British and Americans as well as the native people.’ They were wonderful trophies of missionary labor. Tears came to my eyes as I realized that a generation ago these men were headhunters. After the sermon they began to sing again. I doubt if anyone could understand the surprise that was mine as they began to sing the Ninety-fifth Psalm, exactly as we have always sung it. Then the 148th and the 1st and the 139th. For those ten minutes I was no longer away on a remote Island in the South Pacific, but was a little boy sitting before W. R. Marvin in Sabbath School at 23rd and Stanford, Los Angeles, California. Do you wonder my eyes were wet? Somehow it brought Helen close to me again. Those Psalms made me remember the wonderful contribution the Covenanter Church made to my entire life and to my ministry in particular. These Psalm singers were brought up in the Scotch Presbyterian Mission. Four soldiers accepted Christ last Sabbath, and this makes forty in the last five weeks.
Sincerely yours,
BERGEN BIRDSALL
Notes:
1) Dr. Taggart was the editor of the Covenanter Witness.
2) Sam Edgar was the pastor of the Los Angeles RPC in 1944.
3) Helen was Bergen’s sister.
4) The Island had to have been one of the New Hebrides, where the most famous of all Reformed Presbyterian missionaries, John G. Paton, spent his life. Writers still quote from his three-volume autobiography, especially its first volume. Today the New Hebrides, so named by Captain Cook in the 18th Century, is called Vanuatu, an independent nation of about 100,000.
The Reward of a Deacon
Part 3 of 3 in a Series on Deacons
Guess who made it back to the World Series? Exactly one hundred years after the so-called “Curse of the Bambino” descended on Boston, the Red Sox entered their fourth World Series in just fourteen years. Months, even years, of acquiring, training, and trading players finally comes to fruition in chilly October air. The wooden bats crack and the leather gloves snap. Talk of America’s pastime fills Boston’s television, radio, and T. Will the Sox do it again? Yes, they did. Hurray! A championship! A trophy and a tickertape parade! Then what? A few stories, a few beers, a few months off, and then what? Humans rightly and always ask, and then what? In a month or so, Lord willing, we will elect some qualified people to the office of deacon, and then what? Well, no interviews, no parade, no cheering fans, sorry. No, a deacon’s reward lies in something more enduring than another date on the Wikipedia page of World Series Winners. Deacons are blessed with Jesus’ joy. Become someone’s deacon.
When Spirit-filled, Gospel-governed servants apply God’s mercy to people’s needs, beautiful things happen. The Gospel spreads, and Jesus’ Church grows. The deacon grows. And then what? The King is pleased. Being a deacon means increasing Gospel ministry by removing barriers to the means of grace, which in turn increases the Church’s membership and sanctifies the deacon. This process of pursuing a free flow of mercy is good for the lost, the church, and those who so serve. Jesus celebrates it.
In Acts 2:42, the fellowship of the saints, that is, having everything in common, results in there being no needs. No one is hindered in their devotion to the Apostles’ teaching, the Prayers, and the breaking of bread. No one is left behind. Likewise, in Acts 6:7, once the Seven shoulder the responsibility of making sure the hungry widows can eat, the word of God spreads. As deacons meet needs, they are rewarded: people previously deafened by their sufferings hear the Gospel. This is the deacons’ first reward and their second is like it. Deacons get to see their congregation grow. Since needs are met and ears are opened, the Word advances and does not return empty-handed. Again, in Acts 6:7, more people are added to the Church, especially priests who had once been so vehemently opposed to Jesus. Deacons disarm the enemies of the Gospel. A robust ministry of mercy is essential to winning the needy and hushing the critics.
The work of a deacon is good for the deacon as well as the broader church and the people around it. Paul writes in 1 Timothy 3:13 that a faithful deacon obtains “good standing” and “great confidence” in the faith. Those who repeatedly advance into the direst situations have repeated proof of the power and wisdom of the Gospel. They become supremely certain that the grace of God in Jesus Christ can and does meet every need. This courageous faith is a good place to stand; it is an unshakeable platform from which the deacon can meet every new obstacle. Good deacons take on those needs that impede Gospel ministry, and help spread the Word, build the church, and strengthen their own faith.
To these satisfying results, Jesus adds two more rich rewards in Matthew 25:31-40. First, the King and His Father approve of such generosity toward the poor. The King addresses the sheep as “blessed of my Father” and tells them that their service to the needy was done for Him. The King identifies with the oppressed and reveals the family business: giving to those who have nothing. The Father is happy with those who, like Him, share generously. The Royal Son sees an open hand toward those in need as a hand extended in service to Him. As believers become deacons, whether they hold the office or not, they show their similarity to their older Brother and Father who delight in giving to the poor. This divine approval of a deacon’s work is not only in word but also in deed.
Second, the King invites His deacons to “come” and “inherit the Kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world.” A world without need or poverty awaits those who live for the fearless administration of this life’s fading riches. But notice that the Kingdom is not earned or achieved, but inherited. Those who feed the hungry, give drink to the thirsty, clothe the naked, welcome the stranger, and visit the sick and imprisoned not only demonstrate their family resemblance with divine approval, they also distribute the family’s riches which they already possess. A deacon’s reward is the same as the believer’s reward: all the riches of heaven already given by Christ Jesus. The deacon is the believer who has been entrusted with the distribution of those riches to those who are in need.
The call to be a deacon, a servant, rests on every believer. Although a few are put into an office of giving, all share the joyful privilege of spreading the love of God into every needy heart. Like the King in Jesus’ parable with a magnificent feast prepared, so Jesus tells his servants to hurry to the hedgerows and hills to bring those in the grip of poverty to the table. The Church has a boundless love to lavish on everyone. The Church needs deacons not so much to manage the exhausting demands of the poor, but to ensure the equitable distribution of the inexhaustible love of God in Christ Jesus.
This is the reward of the deacon: the joy of sharing the liberating love of God with those oppressed; the joy of giving away the satisfying salvation of Christ to those dying in sin; indeed, the joy of entering into the family business of giving away the earthly goods of an eternal grace. It turns out for a believer that, having received, it is more blessed to give than to receive.
-- Noah Bailey
Notable Servants of the King in Atlantic Presbytery Churches
John W. Pritchard
Owner and Editor of The Christian Nation
From Brooklyn, New York
The Christian Nation was our Church’s weekly periodical from 1884-1928. John W. Pritchard owned, edited, and published the paper himself in Brooklyn, NY. John did not have the advantage of a great education, but he loved to read, he never gave up, and he did the Church a great service over four decades of work.
In 1881, Pritchard was the owner of The McKeesport Paragon, an afternoon local daily. His pastor, W. J. Coleman in the Allegheny RP Church, suggested to him that he turn his skills to publishing a church paper. The thought percolated in Pritchard’s mind for a year and a half. Then he sold his paper and moved to Philadelphia to become half owner and managing editor of the main organ of the National Reform Association, the Christian Statesman, edited by the pastor of First Philadelphia RPC, Thomas P. Stevenson. After a year, Pritchard sold back his share of the Statesman (but got very little for it) and moved to Brooklyn, NY. There he began The Christian Nation. It was the fourth paper at that time in the Covenanter Church, alongside the Pittsburgh based The Reformed Presbyterian and Covenanter, the New York based Our Banner, and Olive Trees, also from New York.
How could Pritchard manage a fourth paper in a Church of only about 10,000 members? The answer is, “Not easily.” The Christian Statesman allowed him to use their mailing list to solicit subscriptions, which helped him to get started. He scrounged for advertisements, many of which make hilarious reading 150 years later. Each of his six children in due time learned the skills of publishing a paper, beginning with setting type by hand and ending with operating the press, a stage reached only by the eldest son. It was a family business.
Because Pritchard lacked a theological education, he occasionally blundered, such as when he accepted an advertisement for the 1909 Scofield Reference Bible and printed a laudatory account of Cyrus Scofield. A few issues later, he published a scathing critique of Scofield’s Bible and the Dispensational Theology it taught. A leading preacher in the Church wrote the critique. There were no more ads for the Scofield Bible. Those who knew Pritchard testified that he took correction cheerfully and held no grudges. He knew his limitations, and had the gift of turning potential enemies into friends.
Pritchard’s biggest continuing challenge, not surprisingly, was money. The Christian Nation supported the family, and its profits were meager. But of financial hardship the children were hardly aware. One of his daughters, writing years later, testified that the children knew they were poor, but it did not bother them. “Father’s sunny smile and the song in his heart kept the troupe of lively youngsters happy. And Mother stepped right along beside him.” She made his clothes, packed lunches every day, and shopped for food with astonishingly good results for how little money she had to spend. The parents shared their precarious financial state only with the oldest son, John H. Pritchard, who helped them carry the burden of care. Since he believed that “the greatest need of the American nation is the home where Christ is honored and where God is loved, and where the Bible is studied,” as he once wrote, Pritchard gathered the family each Sabbath evening and often during the week to read the Bible, sing the Psalms, and pray. Then he would read them stories and teach them the Westminster Shorter Catechism. It was a hard working happy family.
Pritchard published his paper long after Our Banner and the Reformed Presbyterian and Covenanter ceased. In the intervening years, other papers appeared for a short time, such as the Jewish Messenger, out of Philadelphia, the Political Dissenter, and the Reformed Presbyterian Standard. After he died in 1924, his wife, son John H. Pritchard, and daughter Mrs. Anna Pritchard George continued the paper for a few years. Then in 1928, the RP Synod merged Olive Trees and the Christian Nation into the new Covenanter Witness, and appointed John H. Pritchard, pastor of White Lake RPC, as its editor. When he died in 1932, Synod chose new editors and the paper moved to Kansas. The RP Church now had one paper only, the descendant of The Christian Nation, which had been edited, printed, and distributed for decades from New York City. (Information for this portrait of John W. Pritchard comes from the Covenanter Witness, 9/3/1944, which headed its account of Pritchard and his paper under the title “Our Sixtieth Anniversary.”)
How did Pritchard keep his paper going so long on such an uncertain and meager financial footing? His daughter Harriet wrote in the 1944 Witness, “Over his desk for so many years that it seemed to be part of the desk itself, appeared the motto in Father’s own writing: ‘Genius is infinite patience.’ That, coupled with his Christian faith, his big heart, his facile pen, his sense of humor, his genial personality, his ingenuity, his fertile brain, and his stick-to-it-iveness that never knew defeat, accounts for whatever success he may have made with the publication of The Christian Nation.”
-- Bill Edgar
Princess at the Window
By Evangeline Metheny
Reprint from the Covenanter Witness, 1/30/1935, p. 70
Princess clung to my window bars, gripping the sill with her bare toes, and coaxed, “Come to my house, come to my house, come to my house.” A tall, slim thing she is, sallow, but with eyes that for all she is barely twelve years old, exercise the knowing and practiced lure of a Delilah twice her age. Those eyes frightened me, for Princess had them even last summer, when she was so evidently only a little girl. This year when she is of an age to be engaged and even married according to Turcoman standards, they frightened me even more. For her mother, unwarned by her own youthful folly that is still the talk of the country-side, allowed the girl to wander about the village with eyes made still more Jezebel-like by kohl smeared on lids and lashes, her hair stuck full of marigolds and zinnias, her thin wrists loaded with glass bracelets, and a walk to be described only by the French expression, “une allure dehanchee.” I know no English equivalent.
“Come to my house, come to my house. You don’t love me a bit.”
“Now, Princess, I am very busy, I can’t go to your house now. And I wish you would not talk, for I am trying to write.”
“Next summer I shan’t be here. That is the reason I want to be with you all the time now. Next summer I’ll be married and gone away.”
“Nonsense, you’re not even engaged yet.”
“My cousin is, and my mother says she is not going to be disgraced by having her get married before me. So they are trying to arrange a match for me in my mother’s village. Grandmother and my uncle are trying to find someone suitable. But I don’t want to go to that village.”
“Why not? Don’t you want to get married?”
“It isn’t that I mind getting married, of course. But if I go to that village I’ll have to work very hard. The women there all have to work hard, carrying firewood and water, and working in the gardens and fields. But I am not accustomed to work. My father never let me lift a finger. I just sat and they brought me whatever I wanted.”
As a matter of fact, those who know tell me that Princess was less than six months old when her father died. Well, that is an age at which most of us are rather pampered, so she is telling no lie. Not that a thousand lies bother her.
“You should have seen my father,” she continued. “He was like a picture. And what eyes! You would have said they were smeared round with kohl, and each eye was so long” – she measured off something over two inches on her forefinger – even more beautiful than my eyes. You think I’m ugly, though, don’t you? Because my skin is so dark. That’s because I see so much sun. My father never let me be out in the sun, and my skin was as white!”
“My liver, my two eyes, do go away and let me write. And who do you think will want to marry you who sees you here on a public road climbing up my window bars like a monkey? Go away, my nestling.” Again I addressed myself to my letter-writing.
“You love my cousin better than me, of course. She is beautiful and I am ugly, and she is clever, not stupid like me. You would rather have her bring you flowers than me. I come to visit you two and three times a day, and when I see you my heart beats so fast that everything quivers before my eyes and I go almost blind; but you don’t come to see me when I ask you. To whom are all those letters? You have written enough.”
“Princess! If you don’t keep quiet and give me some peace, I shall have to send word to your stepfather. Now, I’m not saying you have to go away from the window, but do get down and stand on the ground. You keep all the light and air from me, and besides, I told you, you look just like a monkey there.” But Princess wouldn’t keep quiet. I stopped writing and took to sewing. When my wrath would have flamed out at her, I was stopped by the thought that this was very probably the last summer that I should be seeing her. She stayed for four hours that time. I tried my veranda the next day, but she tracked me there and came and sat beside me. The next day after that I went to my room again, shutting the door so she could not come in and shutting the wooden shutters so she couldn’t climb my window bars. Then she banged and banged on the shutter. That kept up until kind-hearted neighbors took it upon themselves to go and tell her people how she was bothering me, and she was called away. It was a blessed relief at first; but after a week of it, so strange is human nature, I missed my poor Princess. Ever since then our relations have been rather formal. I think about the child and hope some decent man will marry her. But she is the sort of girl who would be running away to Hollywood if she lived in America, and I remember those too-knowing eyes and that walk, and betake me to my prayers.
Thoughtful Questions I’ve Been Asked During the Past Month
1. Gnostic Question (from a Jewish friend): “One thing has never made sense to me. I know that both Judaism and Christianity teach a bodily resurrection. But isn’t the soul the pure part of a person?
a. The partially Hellenized Sadducees of Jesus’ day denied the resurrection and made fun of it. The Pharisees taught the doctrine of bodily resurrection, as did Jesus (see Mark 12:18-27). After the disappearance of the Sadducees, Rabbinic Judaism continued the Pharisees’ teaching about the bodily resurrection. Yes, both Judaism and Christianity teach a bodily resurrection.
b. No, the soul is not the pure part of a person. The soul is corrupted by sin as much as the body is. No part of a person is untouched by sin. (That is the meaning of the doctrine of “total depravity” – not that everyone is as evil as he could possibly be, but that his total being is infected with sin.) The Bible ascribes wickedness to the entire person. “There is none that does good, no not one (Romans 3:12).” Evil, beginning with our thoughts, comes out of our inmost being, our hearts (Mark 7:21).
c. God made everything good in the beginning, including the dust of the ground from which we are made. He has cursed the ground because of sin, and the entire creation groans, waiting for the full and final redemption of all things (Genesis 3:17, Romans 8:22).
d. God made man, body and soul, in His image. Death separates soul from body, an unnatural state, which will be finally ended at the resurrection. With Jesus the resurrection of the dead began. He rose bodily from the grave, ate food, and invited his disciples to touch his glorified body. Jesus is the first fruits of the resurrection, which means that his resurrection will not remain unique (I Corinthians 15:23).
e. Because God saves his people body and soul, when we die our bodies are still united to Christ and rest in their graves until the resurrection (Westminster Shorter Catechism Q.37). Both Jews and Christians bury dead human bodies with respect and take care of graveyards. Cremation is both an ancient and very recent modern practice, in ancient times done by pagans to free the pure spirit of a man from his body, and in modern times to be financially efficient. It is an inherently anti-Christian practice that disrespects the human body that God will one day raise to glorified life.
f. The bodily resurrection makes sense once it is understood that God made our bodies good in the beginning and will redeem them at Christ’s Coming. Belief in a coming bodily resurrection is so central to Christian faith that it is part of the Apostles’ Creed: “I believe…in the resurrection of the body and the life everlasting.”
2. Dispensational Question: “Hasn’t the Fourth Commandment about the Sabbath been repealed now that Christ has come?”
a. Yes, in the sense that the Sabbath now comes on the First Day of the week rather than the Seventh Day. No, in that God’s commandment to dedicate one day in seven to him stands. It stands so we can rest from our usual work and worship him in the Assembly of the Saints, the Church.
b. Jesus seemed to the Pharisees to denigrate the Sabbath by disregarding the host of rules they had concocted to make the Sabbath a burden rather than a blessing (Mark 2:27). He pointed out how inconsistent they were: they would certainly rescue their ox if it fell into a pit on the Sabbath (Luke 14:5). But Jesus himself kept the Fourth Commandment, just not according to all of the man-made rules of the Pharisees.
c. The earliest Christians gathered in their assemblies on the first day of the week, just as the Jews had gathered on the seventh day in their synagogues (Acts 20:7, I Corinthians 16:1-2, Luke 4:16).
d. Christians early called the first day “the Lord’s Day,” because he made it holy by rising from the dead on that day. It belongs to him. (Acts 20:7, Revelation 1:10)
e. More than once the New Testament lists some of the Ten Commandments and reiterates their ongoing validity. By this synecdoche (part for the whole), it indicates that the whole summary of the Law remains God’s law (Matthew 5:17 and following, Romans 13:8-10). There is no hint in the New Testament that any of God’s Ten Commandments do not still tell how Christians should live.
-- Bill Edgar
What is Apologetics?
In 2017, I was asked to join an Assembly panel at The Christian Academy in Delaware County PA. Our job was to answer questions the high school students had written about evangelism and apologetics. Below are the notes I prepared for the panel discussion.
1. Evangelism is proclaiming the Good News about Jesus. Apologetics is defending it. First, Jesus; second, defense.
2. You will only have a chance to defend your faith in Jesus Christ if people first know that you are Christian.
3. Your defense always depends on what the accusation is. For example, a charge made in ancient Rome and today in China: Christians are a danger to the government. Defense: No, we pray for our rulers and obey the law. We are good citizens, not bad ones.
How do you know that your religion is right and other religions are wrong?
1. Every religion teaches some true things; for example, that husbands and wives should be faithful to each other.
2. Only Jesus rose from the dead, proving his claim to be God’s chosen Judge of the world. Only Jesus forgives sin because only he died for the sins of his People. Only Jesus promises Resurrection and eternal life to everyone who believes in him. Only he said, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” Jesus is truthful.
3. The only religion worth considering, therefore, is Christianity because only it gives hope in the face of sin and death.
Sharing My Faith
1. Is there a wrong way to share my faith?
Yes. Paul was always respectful of his audience: disrespect is wrong. Paul’s life matched his words: a scandalous life ruins words of truth. Paul always directed people away from himself to Jesus.
2. How do you share your faith at work without being seen as pushy and close-minded?
a. Listen; ask questions; be respectful; and when people make it clear that they do not want to hear, shut up: no pearls before swine (but don’t say that!).
b. Remember your main job at work is your work.
3. What would you do if someone were to retaliate aggressively against you because you said their faith was wrong?
a. Keep quiet for a time in order to remember, “A soft answer turns away wrath, but grievous words stir up anger,” and then speak accordingly.
b. Depending on the retaliation, report it to the boss.
c. Pray for the one spitefully treating you.
4. How do you build genuine friendships with unbelievers while still trying to share your faith?
a. Attend to the friendship first.
b. Pray for your friend.
c. Be open about your faith in Jesus; talk naturally about your part in a church, for instance, or a time when you prayed and saw God’s answer.
d. Ask a question, such as, “Would you like to know what I believe about Jesus?” If the answer is “No,” shut up. Continue to be a friend.
5. What do you say to people who believe in God or call themselves a Christian but do not follow Him?
a. “You believe in one God? Good. So does the devil, and he trembles.”
b. “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, lord,’ will enter the Kingdom of Heaven, but only those who do the will of my Father in heaven.”
c. Jesus commands everyone the same as he commanded Peter, “Follow me.” Anyone who does not in fact follow Jesus does not belong to him, regardless of what they might say of themselves.
6. When sharing your faith, what are some things to say to avoid offending someone?
a. Jesus remains the most controversial man who ever lived. For those who are lost, he brings an awful stench. If someone is offended by what you say about Jesus, it may mean that you said it just right.
b. Proud, arrogant, insulting language will always offend. It has no place in our talk about Jesus.
God
1. Why would a good God allow evil to exist?
a. The question tries to put God on trial. That can’t be done. Read Job.
b. Each of us will be on trial for the evil that we have done. Read Job.
c. The question assumes we know what good and evil are. We do know to a considerable degree, but only because God has revealed good and evil within us and in his Word.
d. God made the world good, and he made the first people free. They chose to do evil when Satan tempted them. That’s where the world’s evil came from.
e. In order to set the world right again, God himself became a man in the person of Jesus. He took the punishment for evil on himself to make us free again.
f. Foolish people think that the main thing to ask about evil is where it came from. Wise people know that the main thing to ask about evil is how to get rid of it.
2. What are key arguments against Christianity and how can we combat them?
The only key argument you need to worry about is the one someone is saying to you. If you don’t know how to answer it, say, “I don’t know. I will think and pray about it and ask for help. Then I will talk to you again.” That answer lets your questioner know that you both honest and humble, and also that you will be talking to them again. Then you have to think, pray, ask, and care enough about the person to get back to him when you are ready. Otherwise, you make yourself a liar.
3. What are key verses that prove God’s existence?
a. Romans 1:19-20 – People and entire cultures begin with a knowledge of God, but then forget the truth they know when they refuse to glorify him as God or give him thanks. (See Psalm 19)
b. Acts 17:31 – Jesus rose from the dead. Only God has the power to give life to the dead.
The Bible
1. How can we know that the Bible we have is reliable and without error?
a. The Bible we have is in English, a translation from ancient Hebrew and Greek. No translation is perfect, but even so the translated Bible is the Word of God (as was the imperfect Septuagint translation of the Hebrew Bible into Greek).
b. There are many old Greek manuscripts of the New Testament, which with only three or four exceptions differ from one another in minor ways only.
c. When God’s Spirit works in a person, he reads God’s Word and knows that it comes from God. Where the Spirit does not work, people simply don’t “get it” that God’s Word is God’s Word.
2. Are there any historical accounts of the same stories in the Bible?
a. Yes, the Bible itself is an ancient history. There is no reason to disbelieve its history, while accepting Thucydides’ account of Greek wars, or other ancient historians.
b. Assyrian annals record contacts with nine Hebrew kings: Omri, Ahab, Jehu, and six more. There are many other examples from ancient extra-Biblical records and archaeology that could be mentioned.
3. How do we respond if someone claims that some of the rules in the Bible don’t apply to us today, and just had to do with the cultural norms of the time?
a. We agree that some Old Testament ceremonial rules and civil laws were given only to the Jews only until Jesus came, such as rules about food and sacrifices and the Year of Jubilee.
b. We say that God does not change, human nature does not change, and therefore God’s moral rules do not change. God’s moral law, summed up in the Ten Commandments, do not change.
c. We ask, “What Bible rule are you thinking of that only had to do with a cultural norm of the time? How much do you actually know about ancient cultural norms?”
Extra Questions
1. Why does it matter or not if Jesus was resurrected?
a. If Jesus is still dead, we have no Savior praying for us.
b. If Jesus is still dead, we have no King defending us.
c. If Jesus is still dead, we have no hope of the Resurrection.
d. If Jesus is still dead, his disciples were all liars and there is no reason to listen to anything they said.
2. How do you bring up the topic of your faith in a conversation without forcing it?
a. Talk naturally about what you did last weekend: You went to church.
b. Tell about a book you are reading, such as the Narnia tales.
c. When telling about a scary experience, mention how you prayed about it.
3. What if someone doesn’t get the chance to hear the Gospel? Isn’t that unfair?
a. God has not left himself without a witness everywhere and to everyone (see Acts 14:15-17).
b. Each person is responsible for the truth that he knows (see Luke 12:46-48).
c. The question tries to put God on trial. It won’t work. Read Job.
4. How do you share your faith with younger kids without making it seem it is all sunshine and rainbows?
a. If you are their parent, or Bible teacher, or Sunday school teacher, or preacher, teach the whole Bible without editing out parts you think are unsuitable for children. It is precisely those parts that will give them a realistic understanding of evil in the world and of what it costs to follow Jesus.
b. Share your own painful experiences in life while living as a Christian. We all have them. The point is not that believers escape the misery that sin has introduced into the but that God upholds us in our trials.
-- Bill Edgar
Why Does Predestination Tick People Off So Much?
A grandfather was driving three grandchildren to the zoo in Philadelphia. When he took a different turn than usual, an alarmed grandchild blurted, “Grandpa, is this the right way?” A firm, “Yes,” calmed the grandchild, who was still too young to know how often Grandpa makes wrong turns. Like all people, Grandpa tries to “foreordain” what will come to pass, but he lacks the wisdom to plan perfectly or the strength to accomplish every plan.
Westminster Shorter Catechism: “Q. 7 What are the decrees of God?” “A. The decrees of God are, his eternal purpose, according to the counsel of his will, whereby, for his own glory, he hath foreordained whatsoever comes to pass.” Most people, even Christians, rebel against that answer. Their hostile reaction is ridiculous. The answer teaches that God accomplishes what everyone who ever lived wanted to do: plan the future so that things turn out as we want them to. Why get angry that God does what people wish they could do, but can’t?
People get angry, first of all, because our inborn sin makes each of us want to be God. It was Satan’s promise: “Go your own way, think for yourself, taste that fruit God won’t let you have, and you will be like him. Your eyes will be open, and you will decide for yourself what is good and evil.” The serpent’s promise was a lie, however. No one, not even the devil, can successfully take God’s place because each thing in the cosmos is only one of his creatures, as the first chapter in the Bible teaches.
People get angry for a second reason at God’s foreordaining whatever comes to pass. “Well then, my decisions make no difference. I am just a robot.” Anger at God’s supremacy stems from an underestimation of God’s greatness. The Westminster Confession of Faith teaches, “Although, in relation to the foreknowledge and decree of God, the first Cause, all things come to pass immutably, and infallibly: yet, by the same providence, He ordereth them to fall out according to the nature of second causes, either necessarily, freely, or contingently (5.2).” “God, in His ordinary providence, maketh use of means, yet is free to work without, above, and against them at His pleasure (5.3).” In other words, God has created the world in such a way that we can and do make plans, which have real effects, and 15 A Little Strength which are in no sense a mirage. Therefore, God truly and fairly praises us for our good works and blames us for our sins, and we do the same with others. “Second causes,” whether in nature or in human choices are real and true causes. Therefore, both natural science and moral judgment are possible. We are not robots in God’s hands.
Christians who have repented of being their own gods, and have accepted their status as creatures, rejoice in God’s foreordination. Why? It means that when our lives seem to take wrong turns – and whose life does not? – God will still get us to the zoo safely. He makes all things work together for good to those who love him and are called according to his purpose.
Would it not be terrible if God’s loving will did not govern the cosmos? Then we would be subject to our own mistakes, to the mistakes of others, and to the vagaries of nature, with the certainty that in the end, things would not turn out well.
Happily, our plans fit inside God’s Plan, even when it appears, as it often does, that our lives have suddenly gone wrong, like Job’s. How silly it is, then, when Christians deny God’s predestinating of events: that denial means that we think we have no good reason to trust God. He is not in charge. But God plans with gracious certainty. He knows what he is doing. The car he drives does not get lost. At the last day, if not before, all God’s people will join the Armenian priest, speaking at the end of the Franz Werfel’s great novel The Forty Days of Musa Dagh, “The evil only happened…to enable God to show us his goodness.”
-- Bill Edgar
Thank You!
The saints at Elkins Park are full of gratitude for the gracious generosity of our brothers and sisters in the Atlantic Presbytery. As you have helped us in our need, we pray that you will experience the truth of Jesus’ words, “It is more blessed to give than to receive (Acts 20:35).” Thus far, Broomall, Cambridge, Christ Church Providence, Coldenham-Newburgh, Hazleton, White Lake, and a number of individuals have given or pledged their support as we replace our worn-out parsonage roof. “May God supply and multiply the seed that you have sown and increase the fruits of your righteousness, while you are enriched in everything for all liberality, which causes thanksgiving through us to God (II Corinthians 9:10-11).”