#presbyterian — Public Fediverse posts

Ellinwood extols medical missionaries who brought vaccines, drainage, sanitation, and anesthetics to the developing world—heritage of all nations. Was this distraction from the gospel or its fruit? Certain Christians today pursue a rather different conquest, whose benefits appear less universally distributed.

#presbyterian #missions #missionaries #evangelism #development

Robinson—English Presbyterian minister—observes that wealth confers a particular capacity poverty does not: to relieve prisoners, feed the hungry, ransom captives. He frames this as mercy from God, an opportunity rather than mere possession. One notes that considerable contemporary wealth appears directed at the opposite project: persuading the rest of us to feel less compassion for those being imprisoned or starved. Same resource. Rather different application.

#presbyterian #puritan #blessing

Hildersham—Puritan, expounding Psalm 51—identifies reluctance to give to the poor as a faith problem. If you genuinely believed God’s promises, giving would present no difficulty. Preachers regularly deploy “if you truly believed, you would” for tithing and attendance. Curiously rarely for the poor. Hildersham would have found that selective.

#puritan #values #faith #presbyterian #giving

Sibbes—Puritan, encouraging the backslider—offers a self-check for election. Colossians 3:12: put on bowels of mercy toward the fatherless and needy. That’s how you demonstrate you’re one of the elect. Modern conservative Christianity has developed different assurance criteria. Mercy toward the needy as evidence of election has been quietly retired. Sibbes didn’t get that memo.

#puritan #grace #presbyterian #empathy #compassion #salvation

I saw a post recently asking if #Reformed pastors should start wearing clergy collars again. I did when doing campus ministry where most of the students (and faculty) were lapsed from backgrounds where the collar positively communicated “this is someone I can talk to about my struggles.” Recently, I put it on when a mostly #LCMS family requested it as a comfort for a funeral service.

I've avoided it in my more "native" #Presbyterian / #Reformed church settings, including my own. In the #PCA it carried the implication one was tied into far-right #FederalVision (#DougWilson and friends) and, ironically, when I would do pulpit supply in the #PCUSA — at least in St. Louis — it implied alignment with the farthest left segment.

In all contexts, I've hoped to apply 1 Cor. 9:19-22.

#Christianity