Your main point – that we allow diversity of theological views within the Confessional limits – is quite true … but readers not well versed in our polity may misunderstand your statement and conclude that we require more of members that we actually do.

True enough, ministers (and other officers) are required to subscribe to a specific system of doctrine (BCO 21-5) and formally state any exceptions they have to the secondary standards, so that the appropriate body (presbytery for ministers and session for local church officers) can determine whether a particular exception is within the bounds of the “system of doctrine”.

However, the situation is quite different for members who are not officers. The five questions asked of a prospective church member (BCO 57-5) are basically a profession of faith with an agreement to support the church, submit to its government, and study its peace and purity. Nowhere is the prospective member asked to subscribe to our secondary standards.

For the member, the secondary standards serve a very different function. Many churches (including some apostate ones!) say they believe in the Bible. But what do they believe the Bible says? This is the important question! That question can be easily answered in a confessional church like ours. If you attend a PCA church, what sort of doctrine should you expect to hear preached? Read through our secondary standards – the Westminster Confession of Faith, Westminster Shorter Catechism and Westminster Larger Catechism – and you will find the general parameters. Hence, for the member, the secondary standards serve more as ‘truth in advertising’.

I hate to be the kill-joy but in the end the stalemate in inevitable. What evolves is Christians bringing forth their own logic and biblical propositions to stand in opposition against atheistic philosophy.

No atheist will ever come to Christ unless God does a regenerating work in him. So while I as a Christian offer academic answers to hopefully honest questions, I realize that even if I am perfectly believed, I am openly accepted and I walk out of the debate with a conquering victory over every argument that has arisen; I am still waiting upon God himself to regenerate and bring faith and repentance to God’s enemies.

All I’m saying is, the atheist is not going to disprove the scriptures, he’s not going to rock any true believers world, he’s only going to satisfy himself in maintaining his ‘nature’. All is safe and all is neat and boxed up nicely for another day of Christ-rejection. The realities of God and eternal judgment can be debated, but they are not up for a vote. God has made his eternal decrees and atheists with books, sciences and quotes from doctors will not remedy the imposition God has put upon all men. God will not stop requiring obedience and submission to his word.

Its a laugh when I read “well is it literal”? or “thats just a metaphor”.
God’s word expressly teaches that atheists cannot receive the things of God. 1Co 2:14 The natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned.
1Co 2:15 The spiritual person judges all things, but is himself to be judged by no one.

So, yea I do have to admit the atheist while he is fully exerting every effort to discredit the things of God only fulfills the word of God in doing so. I cant get away from the truth, the empirical evidence in front of me that demands I come to the same conclusion as Paul the Apostle…
Rom 3:11 no one understands; no one seeks for God.
Rom 3:12 All have turned aside; together they have become worthless; no one does good, not even one.”

An atheist coming to Christ to be saved is as common as dirt on the road, but an apostate is irrecoverable, impossible to bring back to repentance.

Playing the agnostic-college-intellectual game is fun if your only in it for a few laughs. But if its held to as a world-view there is nothing to look forward to but doom. WE do not live in a ‘God may or may not be here neutral corner’. We live in God’s world and are subject to God’s decrees believe them or not.

John

To say one or two things about the text as such:
the story of Jonah teaches us a number of important lessons:
— God always achieves his purposes, no matter how weak the persons are that he must use to reach his ends and no matter how unfavourable the circumstances he has to overcome
— no man can flee away from God, if God wants to find you he will find you, whereever you are
— there seems to be more humour in the Bible than most Christians (including myself) realize. It is often said that the Bible has no humour and that, for instance, there are no Bible verses that say that Jesus ever laughed. The article convinced me that there is real humour in the story about Jonah, though I must admit that someone else had to point it out to me: I did not find it myself.
Perhaps this is because most people these days are used to the (often rather coarse) humour of TV programmes and humorous movies. Perhaps these have ruined people’s natural sense of humour. If this is true, it is a pity.

Seventh Day Adventists are a denomination of Protestantism that are best know for their stand that the Sabbath Day (7th Day of the week) is God’s true day of worship, and that “Christendom” as a whole has corrupted this, making Sunday the day that Christians should set aside to worship on. The subject of this post is whether their position aligns with Scripture, in which Catholics and most Protestants believe no.

Most Adventists are aware of Colossians 2:16-17,

16Therefore do not let anyone judge you by what you eat or drink, or with regard to a religious festival, a New Moon celebration or a Sabbath day. 17These are a shadow of the things that were to come; the reality, however, is found in Christ.

Here, non-Adventists argue that according to the plain teaching of Scripture, the Sabbath Day regulations have been abolished, thus refuting an essential tenet of Seventh Day Adventism. Most Adventists are aware of this passage and argue that it isn’t talking about the ‘Seventh-Day-Sabbath’ because the Greek term for Sabbath in this passage is in the plural (i.e. Sabbaths), and thus it must refer to the annual ‘feasts days’ of the Old Testament sometimes referred to as “Sabbaths” (e.g. the Day of Atonement, Lev 16:31).

But is that response valid? Here are two considerations which indicate a negative response to that question:

1) The Greek term for Sabbath - “sabbaton” (sabbatwv) - is in plural form in Col 2:16. However, this same plural form is used in Mat 28:1, Luke 4:16, and Acts 16:13, yet they all are in reference to the 7th-Day Sabbath. The plural form even appears in the Greek Old Testament in Exodus 20:8, which is discussing the 7th-Day Sabbath of the 4th Commandment! Thus the plural form can easily mean 7th Day Sabbath, and there is no indication it is used in the New Testament in the form of Day of Atonement type sabbath.

2) The format of Col 2:16 is that of: Yearly-Monthly-Weekly. This three-term format appears in various Old Testament passages, referring to yearly feasts, new moons, sabbaths. Given this, it wouldn’t make sense for Paul to say the Sabbath in Col 2:16 is the Day of Atonement Sabbath, because that would fall under the yearly feasts category he just mentioned.

The more important point to consider here is that those were all foreshadowing Christ in some way, and thus were pointing to something bigger than themselves. So the Sabbath being the day of rest in the OT was actually the day Jesus was in the tomb, preparing the way for New Life, Sunday. Further, Hebrews 4 speaks of the Sabbath in it’s fulfilled sense as being reconciled and thus at peace with God, not a day of the week, but a state of being.

While SDA reasoning can at first seem valid, it really doesn’t do justice to the Biblical testimony.

Peace in Christ!

Catholicos2000

In response to your question about your ordination and authority, I would answer that since you did not recieve this ordination through the proper authorities, then yes, according to what I believe, it is false. But, does that mean you’re going to hell? Who am I to judge? I think that right there is the crux. Who am I to judge whether you will be saved or be sent to hell? Who are you to judge that Mormons are going to hell? That’s Christ’s job. I can make decisions about what I believe to be true. I can say I don’t agree with what you believe to be true. But, I will never ever say that because of what you believe you are a sinner or are going to hell, because I do not have that right to make that decision.