New Look for The Perspectivalist Podcast
New look, new music, new season!
The Church Calendar Pie by Lydia Slaughter
One of my parishioners has done a great job putting together a liturgical chart for 2024. As we enter into Lent, I hope you will print it and use it for your edification and calendar.
War of the Priesthood Interview on Kuyperian Commentary
The War of the Priesthood No. 1 in Pauline Studies
At least for now, this is what you see:
Translation of II John 9-13
Verse 9: Everyone who goes ahead and does not remain in the teaching of Christ does not have God. Whoever remains in the teaching has both the Father and the Son.
Verse 10: If anyone comes to you and does not bring this teaching, do not receive him into your house or give him any greetings (or: “rejoicing” chairen).
Verse 11: For whoever greets him (shares in; fellowships with; associates in mission) fellowships in his evil works.
Verse 12: Though I have much to write to you, I would rather not use paper and ink. Instead, I hope to come to you and talk face to face so that our joy may be complete.
Verse 13: The children of your elect sister greet you.
Notes: There is a liturgical exchange taking place in the church. They greet one another, which is a way of building orthodoxy among them. Those who do not greet do not understand the life of the Church and are to be chastised. Hospitality is greater than simply providing food.
Uniting Around a Common Time
It wasn’t Bob Dylan who first said the times they are a-changin’! It was a plentiful band of prophets ranging from Samuel to Solomon who saw times changing for God’s people. It was a group of time masters from the line of Issachar who saw the world changing and adapted to the changing world by the power of the unchanging God. When the gods are multiplying, we take more thoughts captive to the obedience of Jesus Christ.
The times are a-changin,’ but the problems don’t change; there are just methodological adjustments we must make to face the times. Humanity has been plagued by the same liturgical and sociological sins for the last 6,000 years. We are beset by scoundrels within and without who despise God’s laws. But the Church unites around a common time.
The times are changing for all of us. The wicked may have different strategies than in the 1950s; they appear more committed to overthrowing the kingdom of light. Our response is not idle repose but active time-reading exercises, which means the saints must see the design of the wicked and act appropriately to the challenges of our day.
Probably very few of us even contemplated 20 years ago the ethics of attending a gay wedding or how to deal with visitors considering sexual transitions. But the times they are a-changin’! Christians will need to see the times and apply the Word of God to the proliferation of evil in our society, which is much more explicit because of the sociology of evil constantly reinventing its transgressions.
Unsurprisingly, the answer to these changing methods and aggressive strategies of evildoers is worship—and within worship, intimate communities, more singing and food, and more faithfulness to our calling. Of course, this means we need men leading their homes and lives. It means our young men must come out to play more and leave the basement behind. It means children in worship. It means homilies of praise and songs of adoration all around. But any list will crumble if we are not gathering to do the first thing God calls us to do—to worship.
So, let’s not fear the changing times but apply the worship of all ages to the pervasive evil of our day gathering with our communities on the Lord’s Day to adore Father, Son, and Spirit. Come, let us worship the Triune God with whom there is no variableness, neither shadow of turning.
The Case for the Other Floridian
With DeSantis out of the race and Nikki Haley offering her candidacy as a gift to comedians, only one candidate is left. He is far from ideal, but he is the other Floridian the country needs.
In my latest substack, I make a case for the Donald as the synergist the Republican Party must have to defeat Kamala Harris or her clone, Joe Biden, in the coming elections.
I also offer some notes from David Bahnsen’s upcoming book soon to be published on Work and the Meaning of Life. This is already becoming one of my favorite books of the year. I wish I had read it before I wrote my chapter on labor and leisure in my dissertation.
Interview with Steve Jeffery on the Politics of the CREC
Friendship in the Twitter Age
The implication that I need to break off friendships and relationships with people of different Christian political and theological traditions is absurd. While I will have continual public and private disagreements with them, I will also remember that 99% of pugilism on social media NEVER translates to pugilism face-to-face.
A quick story to make the point.
In my doctoral study days, I sat in a class at RTS with several pastors, some of whom were well-published and recognized in the Reformed tradition. We had to post our names in front of our seats. While this was several years past the Federal Vision controversy, some people still talked as if it were 2002 perpetually. The pastors in that class knew who I was and were even privately sympathetic to the objectivity of the covenant.
As everyone was walking into class, a particular figure who had been renowned for his opposition to Federal Vision, even becoming a sort of itinerant traveler to Presbyterian courts across the country functioning as a prosecutor of all things FV– which he believed was polluting NAPARC congregations–sat down across from me.
Once he glanced at my name and I took a peek at his, it was apparent we had heard of each other. He had read some of my articles and was keenly aware of my affiliations and associations. I had read plenty of him to determine that certain human beings don’t deserve my attention, and he was a frontrunner for that title.
I watched his demeanor closely during class. The class was an overview of Puritan practices. At one time, a poem from a great Puritan was read, and he was emotionally moved. Despite his effort to condemn virtually all my friends, he was humanized in my eyes.
When the lunch break came, I immediately went towards him. I shook his hands, and my first words to him were: “How about lunch tomorrow after class?” It’s as if we both knew instantly it needed to happen.
I don’t need to go into details, but our lunch was extraordinary. We asked each other forgiveness for things that were said behind the scenes and even publicly in writing. He had already been going through some transitions in his thinking and realized that much of his disdain for the FV/CREC was eating him up inside and damaging his soul.
Ever since, we have exchanged thoughts and notes and read each other’s doctoral thesis, and have had meals together here in Pensacola when he visited.
The idea that relational lines are set on social media and that friendships must be ruined makes no sense. There is a clear reason the Apostle John writes that he prefers to see you face-to-face than write in ink. He knew that warnings are received more persuasively through fleshly interactions.
Remember these things.