June 28, 2017 Show with Bill Shishko on “The Pastoral Theology Project”

Live from the historic parsonage of 19th century gospel minister George Norcross in downtown

Carlisle, Pennsylvania, it's Iron Sharpens Iron, a radio platform on which pastors,

Christian scholars, and theologians address the burning issues facing the church and the world today.

Proverbs 27 verse 17 tells us, Iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another.

Matthew Henry said that in this passage, quote, we are cautioned to take heed whom we converse with and directed to have in view in conversation to make one another wiser and better.

It is our hope that this goal will be accomplished over the next hour and we hope to hear from you, the listener, with your own questions.

Now here's our host, Chris Arnzen. Good afternoon Cumberland County, Pennsylvania, Lake City, Florida, and the rest of humanity living on the planet

Earth, listening via live streaming at ironsharpensironradio .com. This is

Chris Arnzen, your host of Iron Sharpens Iron, wishing you all a happy Wednesday on this 28th of June 2017.

And I'm so delighted to have back in the program, or on the program I should say, one of my favorite guests, one of my dearest friends, one of my most enthusiastic supporters of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio ever since it first launched in late 2005 -2006.

And it's my honor and privilege to welcome you back to Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, Bill Shishko, director of Reformation New York, Reformation Metro New York.

Hey, good to be with you, Chris. Hey, it's good to be with you too, brother. And our friendship goes all the way back to the late 1980s.

I can still remember when you were a guest speaker at Calvary Baptist Church in Amityville, Long Island, which no longer exists, as you know merged in to the

First Baptist Church of Merrick and became the Grace Reform Baptist Church of Long Island. But I can remember in the late 80s at the invitation of Mike Gadosh, my pastor, who had baptized me not too long or too many years previous to my meeting you.

It might have even been just a year or so. I can remember you being one of the first conference speakers that we had, or visiting speakers that we had at that church, and our friendship really took hold pretty quickly and it has lasted all these years, thank

God. Well, you're making me feel old, Chris, when you go back that far. Well, you were the pastor of the

Orthodox Presbyterian Church in Franklin Square, Long Island, New York for many years, and recently you've taken on a new ministry,

Reformation Metro New York, and you're also host of the weekly live one -hour call -and -talk show,

A Visit to the Pastor's Study on WLIE Radio out on Long Island, 540 a .m.

on the dial, which also reaches the tri -state area of New York during daylight hours, and also can be heard globally on the internet.

But first of all, before we go into our study, or should I say our, go into our study, go into our topic at hand, which is going to be the

Pastoral Theology Project, I want to have you explain in a little bit more detail to our listeners who are just now discovering you for the first time.

I want you to explain something more about Reformation Metro New York and A Visit to the Pastor's Study, because Pastor Bill, I am getting every week, and sometimes it seems nearly every day, new listeners contacting me for the very first time who have just discovered

Iron Trip and Zion Radio. The dam seems to have broken open and there are a flood of new listeners who are joining us every week listening live globally, so I'm very excited about that.

So there may be a lot of people who've never heard you on this program before and are being introduced to you for the first time.

Well, thanks, Chris, for having me on the program. I appreciate that. Let me answer, explain things a little more technically and Presbyterially of that.

I've got to work with you, Baptist, to make you just a little bit more Presbyterian. Well, Chris, I had the wonderful privilege of being pastor of the

Orthodox Presbyterian Church in Franklin Square for 35 -plus years, beginning in March of 1981 and was at the

June of 2016 that I stepped down from that role because I had been called by our regional group of Orthodox Presbyterian churches, what's called the

Presbytery of Connecticut and Southern New York, to serve as its regional home missionary for the

Presbytery, and that's my technical title. But I tell people when

I'm giving presentations on the work, how do you eat an elephant one bite at a time?

And that's what it's like to be a regional home missionary in an area that covers about 6 % of the population of the

United States of America. You're talking about well over 20 million people in the boundaries of metropolitan

New York and Connecticut. So I don't ever want to think out of the biblical box or the confessional box, but you do have to think in terms of maybe things we hadn't done before in reaching people.

And largely through your help with Cruciform Media, we were able to arrange what we wanted to do, a telephone talk program, which you mentioned, a visit to the pastor's study, that is, well, it's broadcast live on WLIE at 12 noon

Eastern Time each Saturday, but it's also simulcast through Redeemer Broadcasting Network, and of course, as you mentioned, there's the internet presence around the world.

And this enables us really to do two things. One, it is a means of outreach for our churches and for others in the metropolitan

New York area, a different kind of evangelistic outreach that's meant to be wed to other means, but also for Presbyterian and Reformed churches, and what are technically called

NAPARC, the North American Presbyterian and Reformed Council, there is no media presence for them at all.

It is local things done, but nothing that's done nationally or internationally. And a visit to the pastor's study, which is part of the work of Reformation Metro New York, which is the umbrella organization under which

I work within the Presbytery, the goal is to give a broader media presence for Presbyterian and Reformed churches, especially in the

United States of America. We've been working on this for less than a year, so we're really just getting this off the ground, but that's the big picture, and I just,

I want your audience to know, Chris, how appreciative I am of you for the work that you did with us at WLIE, and we are looking forward to working with you down the line towards seeing other stations in other locations not only air this program, but give more visibility to Presbyterian and Reformed churches.

Amen, well I really appreciate that, and it's my honor and privilege and joy, and those are not just placards

I'm throwing at you. I am really thrilled to work with you and to see these projects come to fruition, and by the way, many of our listeners may be unfamiliar with my advertising agency or my media agency,

Cruciform Media, but if anybody listening has a ministry that would like to reach the globe through radio or other means, you can contact me at the email address on my website, ironsharpensironradio .com,

but it's my pleasure to work with you, and just so our listeners know, A Visit to the

Pastor's Study airs every Saturday from 12 noon Eastern Time to 1 p .m.

Eastern Time on WLIE540AM .com globally via live streaming, or you can hear it live in the

New York metropolitan area, New York, Pennsylvania, Connecticut, New Jersey, and even parts of Massachusetts and Rhode Island.

You can hear that at 540 a .m. on the dial during daylight hours, and specifically 12 noon to 1 p .m.

when Pastor Bill is on with A Visit to the Pastor's Study. Now, immediately following, we want to give some kudos to your major sponsor.

Immediately following A Visit to the Pastor's Study, you have a health -related program sponsored by Cottage Pharmacies, and perhaps you could let our listeners know about that as well.

That, Chris, is just a lot of fun. Well, A Visit to the Pastor's Study is, too, our sponsor owns over a dozen pharmacies here on Long Island, and also he owns some others in other parts of the country.

A very committed, godly Christian man, and he very graciously provided the funds so that we can do the first hour as a commercial -free program.

Therefore, we can broadcast it, simulcast it on Redeemer Broadcasting. But the next program is called

HealthWise, and that's where we advertise, particularly, Cottage Pharmacy here on Long Island, and also 110

Pharmacy. That is just a lot of fun. I interview his nutritionists, and we try to give a biblical cast to the whole view of health and care for the body, and nutrition, and that kind of thing.

I'm not quite sure what to make of it, but through sermonaudio .com, where people can get podcasts and so on, we have almost as much of a listenership for HealthWise as we do for A Visit to the

Pastor's Study. So anyway, it's a lot of fun.

It's just kind of an easygoing, conversational way to encourage people about basics in care for their bodies.

And I love to build out of this high view of creation that we're fearfully and wonderfully made, and I have to admit, each program kind of unfolds an aspect of that in different ways.

Well, don't forget then to listen not only to Pastor Bill Shishko's A Visit to the Pastor's Study from 12 noon to 1 p .m.

Eastern Time, but also listen from 1 p .m. to 1 .30 p .m. to HealthWise, and that's

WLIE540AM .com, globally via live streaming, and also in the

New York tri -state area, New York, Connecticut, New Jersey, and also in parts of Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, and Rhode Island, you can hear it at 540 a .m.

on the dial, on the radio dial. Well, I'd like to announce to our listeners our email address.

It's ChrisArnzen at gmail .com, C -H -R -I -S -A -R -N -Z -E -N at gmail .com.

Please give us your first name, your city and state, and your country of residence if you live outside of the

USA, and if it makes you feel more comfortable to remain anonymous because you're asking about a personal and private matter, we will welcome you and honor your wishes and honor your privacy to allow you to remain anonymous.

But please only do that if it's about a personal and private matter. And again, our email address is ChrisArnzen at gmail .com.

Well, before we do anything else at the outset of this discussion, I'd like to know what is the

Pastoral Theology Project? Well, Chris, over the years

I have, of course, I love preaching. Every minister should love preaching, but I, amazingly, as I look back on God's providence in my life,

I really have grown to not only respect, admire, honor, but just deeply love the work of the pastor.

And one of my burdens early on in my ministry was that we might see, this would have been back again in the 80s, models on the local level of genuinely reformed pastoral ministry.

And not that we did everything perfectly, but over 35 years working with just a superb group of elders in Franklin Square, and a superb group of deacons, and a wonderful congregation, we were able to sort of work through a lot of the different issues regarding pastoral ministry in our day, and on the one hand have our roots deep in historic

Reformation pastoral theology, which we'll talk about in a bit, and in a real sense just historic pastoral theology, period.

And yet at the same time do it in a way that applied to the changes of late 20th century life and early 21st century life.

The Pastoral Theology Project, and we'll get to that maybe a little bit later, is a way of taking the fruit of all of that that was done in a class that I taught for both

Greenville Presbyterian Theological Seminary and the Ministerial Training Institute of the

OPC, a class that I had taught over about a 15 -year period, and distilling it into a series of vimeos that take the main headings of that material, which ended up being actually 52 hours of, in seminary credit, it's 13 class hours, and the class ended up being 52 hours, hard to believe.

I would tell the guys, I don't know if this is more of an endurance contest for you or for me, because that would do it over over three days in one week and then three days in another, but it's taking those 52 hours, distilling it into 26 hours of 8 to 10 minute vimeos that will enable men to, without taking a lot of time, delve into different aspects of pastoral theology, and as the project develops, the goal is actually to make this a class that men can take, if not for seminary credit, for some type of a certification, and it will be designed actually not only for ministers, but for those training for the ministry and internships, and also for elders or what we would call ruling elders in our circles.

Great, well we'll make sure that our listeners have all the information they need to learn more about that as the interview proceeds, but it'd probably be good now to start with an overview of pastoral theology from the

Apostles to the present. Yeah, yeah, great, fascinating topic, Chris. It really has become, again, not only my great love, but almost an obsession.

Just on the term pastoral theology for a minute, we often hear the term practical theology, or even applied theology, which is probably better, but practical theology is not a term that I am fond of.

It grew up in the 19th century under particularly certain German influences, nothing against Germany, because Luther was from there, but influences that turned theology more into just kind of practice, and even kind of, for its own day, kind of a form of science or technology.

And so practical theology can end up emphasizing the so called practical, but divorced from the theological, and I have absolutely no interest in that.

Applied theology is probably better. Applied theology tends to fit with ethics, which seminary courses teach, and pastoral theology, and even preaching, but I really much prefer the term pastoral theology, because it really is the apex of the interrelationship of systematic theology, biblical theology,

Greek and language studies, church history, even apologetics, and how all of that bears, actually is channeled through the work of the shepherd of the

So that's kind of a note on the big picture of why

I prefer the term pastoral theology. People really want a technical world. I don't think it's used very much anymore.

It's poimenics, and it comes from the Greek word for shepherd, and that begins to open up the topic for everybody.

The 23rd Psalm, the Lord Jesus is my shepherd, and the 23rd

Psalm, in a real sense, contains the basic matter of what all pastoral theology is, and when

Jesus says in John 10 that he is the good shepherd and he's the great shepherd, you see, that's the chosen title that he gave for his role as a minister, as the one who ministered to the souls of people.

Then that term is taken up in Acts 20 in what I call the

Constitution of the Christian Church. Paul calls, the Apostle Paul calls the elders to Miletus, which was an island off the coast of Ephesus, and it's interesting, it's the elders, plural, of the church in Ephesus.

There's a plurality of elders, and he lays out not only his own life as a model, because a good bit of pastoral theology is the modeling of pastoral work by a minister, and then the basic strands of responsibility those elders had, particularly when he says that they are to shepherd, literally shepherd, the among you flock of God, the church which he purchased with his own blood.

That's the heart and soul of pastoral theology, it's the way in which we shepherd the flock.

Peter takes up the same language in 1st Peter 5, almost the same type of term, when he says that the elder, and he calls himself interestingly as an apostle, a fellow elder, and he says, there's where he says shepherd, the among you flock of God over which you've been made an overseer.

Pastors in Ephesians 4 are called pastor, they're called actually shepherd teachers or pastor teachers.

That could go on and on, but that's the basic stuff of pastoral work as given in the

New Testament, building on the Old Testament. Now we have a listener in Mastic Beach, Long Island, New York who has a question that I think will help to add to how you have already set the stage here, but Tyler in Mastic Beach, Long Island, New York says, is pastoral theology as a whole best summed up in the shepherding character of the shepherd of our souls, the person and nature of God, found in the incarnate person of Jesus?

Wow, that's a great statement, that's when you want to frame, that's exactly it.

Sure, yeah, it's got all the elements in it. Thomas Oden, the late

Thomas Oden, who was a Methodist, who actually became much more conservative in his theological views toward the end of his life.

I actually had the honor of interviewing him before he went home to the Lord. Yeah, excellent, what a fascinating pilgrimage in that man, but Thomas Oden has been very influential for me.

He calls the shepherd title the pivotal analogy in Holy Scripture, and he's exactly right.

God speaks to us as a shepherd, Christ comes as God incarnate, the shepherd, and I find it fascinating that when the announcement of Christ came, it was the shepherds in the field, and that's nothing is coincidental, but that I think is designed in part to represent the fact that this is the great shepherd who's coming into the world, and he honors them with that announcement of his birth.

So yeah, that's exactly it, and if men can get, if ministers can get a hold of just that, that will transform their whole view of not only

Christianity, but of Christian ministry. Amen, and I'm also honored that before he went home to the

Lord, Thomas Oden wrote a very nice commendation for Iron Trip and Zion Radio, so very happy about that.

That's fascinating, Thomas, I mean we could go on, but see, Thomas Oden had earlier in his public ministry as a teacher, had bought into many of the more liberal and sociological views of Christian ministry, and I don't want to put words in his mouth, you'd know it better, but he virtually repented of that later in his life.

Oh yeah. I mean, he came to a much higher view of the final authority of Scripture, and his appreciation of the early, when

I say this, the first few centuries of the Christian Church and its pastoral tradition has made a profound contribution to the

Church today. Amen. In fact, my last pastor's luncheon, the publisher of his autobiography was generous enough to give enough copies for each and every pastor in attendance of that autobiography, that hardback autobiography of Thomas Oden.

I knew I shouldn't have missed that breakfast. I had to make it all the way out there from Long Island.

See what I missed? I'm sorry? I said, see what I missed? Yeah, I know, well that teaches you a lesson.

In fact, I actually want to speak to you about that off the air after the show's over, because I may be planning another one that I would love to have you participate in as a speaker.

Great. All right, good, we can do that. I got my calendar open. That'll be good. Great. Well, guess what,

Tyler, in Mastic Beach, Long Island, you have won the Westminster Confession, a commentary by A.

A. Hodge, and this is a beautiful hardback commentary, retailing for $26, and you're getting this for free, compliments of Banner of Truth, the

United States headquarters of the Banner of Truth Trust is right down the block from me,

I don't know, about a less than a 10 -minute walk from where I'm sitting, and Pat Daly and the kind folks at the

Banner of Truth wanted to bless our listeners today, because they know that you, Pastor Bill, are very thoroughly committed to the

Westminster Confession, which is a very beautiful summary of biblical teaching. In fact, if you could, for the benefit of our friends at the

Banner of Truth, if you could give our listeners, who are just totally unfamiliar with that term, because I do have listeners from all different religious stripes, even

Muslims on occasion listen, so if you could let our listeners know what exactly the Westminster Confession of Faith is.

Sure. The Westminster Confession of Faith was the most mature statement, dogmatic or confessional state doctrinal statement, of Protestant Christianity.

It was composed over several years by leading divines, as they call them, in what we would know of today as the

United Kingdom, and it was actually designed to be a doctrinal statement that would unite the

Protestants of Great Britain, of England. It never came to that, there were a lot of political reasons why it didn't, but it really drew together, as I put it, the most mature insights from Luther, from Calvin, from the

Reformers following them, John Knox, and so on. And you had the Confession of Faith, which has actually even been used, as you know

Chris, by Calvinistic Baptists, and even by others who don't agree with every part of the tradition, but they see some of the most sublime statements of historic

Protestantism there. The Westminster Confession had added to it the larger Catechism and the shorter

Catechism, and along with that a Directory for Public Worship, an excellent guide that is not known by many people, called the

Directory for Family Worship, but this is a great window on, basically,

Reformation Protestantism at its high point. So it's a great study, and I commend you as a

Calvinistic Baptist that you're giving out a thoroughgoing Presbyterian commentary on the

Westminster Confession of Faith. Well obviously, since the

Confession of Faith that I love, the 1689 London Baptist Confession, is nearly identical to the

Westminster Confession, I have no problem giving out the Westminster Confession. And you know

Chris, I appreciate you mentioning Banner of Truth, and I should say at this point those of us who are...

don't just study the Puritans in general, but particularly how the Reformation and the

Puritans contributed to what I'm calling Pastoral, to what's called Pastoral Theology, Banner of Truth has been of absolutely inestimable help in that regard.

They have published things like Charles Bridges, the Christian Ministry, Richard Baxter's The Reformed Pastor, John Angell James and Ernest Ministry, The Watt of the

Times, and most recently, for which I wanted to shout like a Pentecostal when it came out, after years of people talking about Martin Bucer's concerning the true care of souls, and lamenting that it had not been translated into English, Banner finally took a project, a man in Great Britain, I think he worked with a decade on this thing to translate it, and Banner some years ago published

Martin Bucer's concerning the true care of souls, we'll chat about a little bit later in the program, that book is absolutely pivotal, and it's a hinge between what

Thomas Oden would call Classical Pastoral Theology, and what we would know of as,

I hate to say Modern Pastoral Theology, but I'll call it Protestant and Reformational Pastoral Theology.

Great, and not to derail the topic here, but A. A. Hodge, just so our listeners know something about the one who wrote this commentary, he was a 19th century pastor, preacher, missionary, theologian, educator, churchman, the firstborn son of Charles and Sarah Hodge.

Charles was the very first president of Princeton, wasn't he? I'm sure he was president of, he was certainly the first of the teachers of Systematics.

Princeton didn't actually have a president for many years, there's an interesting story to that, but Hodge was the premier teacher of Systematic Theology at Princeton Seminary, which began in the, well, it began as Princeton Seminary in the early 1800s, but it grew out of basically a college that was in that area, but yeah, the

Hodges are, especially A. A. Hodge in that commentary on Westminster Confession, they will give you the marrow, he will give you the marrow of Reformed Theology, and he was a master teacher.

Amen, and by the way, this is purely a providential occurrence since I received the phone call, but about five minutes before you called,

I received a phone call from the great -great -grandson of Charles Hodge, Greg Hodge, who has a ministry, a musical ministry, a musical teaching ministry called

Princeton Revival, and I have had him on the program in the past, and he is going to be on tour, and we were having a conversation about that, so it's kind of a providential occurrence that we're discussing

A. A. Hodge here. Well, thank you, Tyler, and make sure we have your full mailing address so we can get you that book as soon as possible.

That will actually be shipped out to you by our friends at Cumberland Valley Bible Book Service, which is right down the road from Banner of Truth here in Carlisle, owned by Todd and Patty Jennings, owners of the

Cumberland Valley Bible Book Service, who are also members of the local PCA congregation here in Carlisle, and we thank

Todd and Patty Jennings for shipping out all of our winners. They're free books and Bibles here on Iron Sharpens Iron Radio.

Well, what could you tell us about the pastoral ministry?

Because there seems to be a lot of confusion and debate over what that entails, what are the duties of a pastor.

Sometimes it's always a tragedy and a sad thing when I see on one end of the spectrum churches that treat their pastors like janitors and take him away from the the actual vital roles that he is called to do and really diluting his time where it needs to be best spent.

But also you have on the other end of the spectrum you have pastors who are either celebrities who are wannabe celebrities and they act that way and you only see them behind a pulpit speaking on Sunday morning and perhaps

Sunday night and then they disappear. They're never to be heard from again until the following Sunday.

So if you could, what are the duties of a pastor? Well, your descriptions there,

Chris, I realize you're giving extremes on both sides, but that second one, the man who basically what he does is he preaches, he preaches and then he takes the sermon that he gave and has this thing edited or edits himself and puts out a book and then promotes the book, which is supposed to be a way to get people to come to hear you preach.

That has become a painfully common model in particularly,

I'm sorry to say, even in Reformed and Presbyterian circles and no doubt in others as well. That is about as far, frankly, your original janitor illustration is probably closer to reality than that.

This idea of a minister as a celebrity who is not really involved with the lives of the people,

I just go so far as to say I don't even see that as anything like historic Christian ministry.

And I say that for this, and it's not saying they're not Christians, they don't believe the Bible, that's not what I'm saying, but as a model for Christian ministry, it's not.

And here's the reason. And here's where studies in pastoral theology in the first few centuries, particularly after some reason got a flowered in the 300s under Gregory of Nazianzus and John Chrysostom and then later even by Gregory the

Great, who was a pope, and then Augustine, for all of the theological errors, these men had a high, high view that the minister, or he was often called the bishop back then, that the,

I would say the pastor, was to be among the people and working with them and knowing them.

And Augustine, when we tend to think of St. Augustine as, which he was, a profound theologian and author of the

Confessions, Augustine's Confessions, and City of God, and so on, he was really a pastor.

And they saw the among -you character of the minister.

Paul says, you knew what manner of men we were among you for your sakes, and he connects that with the power of the gospel.

They didn't see that as simply a kind of a toss -away prepositional phrase, that Jesus Christ, the

Great Shepherd, apropos of Tyler's question, was among us, the word dwelt among us, and so the concept of a

Christian minister who is with the people, with them particularly in their suffering, in their illnesses, in their trials, dealing with them with their falls into sin, in dealing with them as they're going through the valley of the shadow of death, that is absolutely indispensable to anything that is even going to vaguely resemble

Christian ministry. And the reason, Chris, I said this about the janitor thing, and I'm teasing, because he, you know, the minister has, he should be willing to do that work if he needs to, the challenge, the problem is it takes him away from the word and prayer.

But here's why that's closer to what we're talking about. A minister is a servant, and people miss the fact that when

Jesus is called a servant, the Apostle Paul calls himself, the Greek word's a doulos, a bondservant, that term was despised by Jews and Greeks.

You didn't, if you were in that station in life, you were nothing, and yet Jesus took to himself the role of a servant.

So a pastor has to show himself as a model servant, but I always say he's not a servant first of the people, but a servant to them.

Well, we've got to go to our first station right now, and we do have a number of people already waiting for your calls, or should

I say, waiting to have their questions asked and answered by you, and if you would like to join them with a question of your own, our email address is chrisarnsen at gmail .com,

chrisarnsen at gmail .com. Please make sure you give us your first name at least, your city and state of residence, and your country of residence if you live outside of the

USA, and you may remain anonymous if it makes you feel more comfortable. Don't go away, God willing, we'll be right back with Pastor Bill Shishko and more of our discussion on the

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That's liyfc .org. Hi, I'm Pastor Bill Shishko, inviting you to tune in to A Visit to the

Pastor's Study every Saturday from 12 noon to 1 p .m. Eastern Time on WLIE Radio, www .wlie540am

.com. We bring biblically faithful pastoral ministry to you, and we invite you to visit the pastor's study by calling in with your questions.

Our time will be lively, useful, and I assure you, never dull. Join us this Saturday at 12 noon

Eastern Time for a visit to the pastor's study, because everyone needs a pastor. Welcome back.

This is Chris Arnson. If you just tuned us in, our guest today for the full two hours, with about 90 minutes to go, is

Bill Shishko of Reformation Metro New York and host of the weekly live one -hour call and talk show,

A Visit to the Pastor's Study. We are discussing the Pastoral Theology Project.

If you'd like to join us on the air with a question for Pastor Bill, our email address is chrisarnson at gmail dot com, chrisarnson at gmail dot com.

And I usually don't give a full name for a listener, but because whenever I hear from a pastor who

I am confident I should plug the church where he serves as a shepherd or as an under -shepherd,

I like to give as much information as possible. This is also a very first -time questioner to Iron Sharpens Iron Radio.

I don't know if you know him, Pastor Bill. I do not know him, but he's a first -time questioner.

His name is Pastor Ned Suffern of Redeemer Reformed Presbyterian Church in Queensbury, New York.

And he has two questions for you. Would Pastor Bill please give advice about how a distinctively

Reformed Pado -Baptist local congregation can maintain its identity theologically while still connecting with believers in Christ who think differently about the sovereignty of God and salvation and who believe differently about baptism?

Well, here's a good example right now. Sure. He has a second question, but I'll let you address that one first.

No, that's fine. I happen to know this dear brother very well. That congregation is where my wife and I worship when we are up in the

Adirondacks on vacation in the summers, and I esteem him very highly as a brother, and I appreciate the question.

Go through it again, Chris. Let's deal with the second one second. Why don't you read it again so we get it all.

Sure. Would Pastor Bill please give advice about how a distinctively Reformed Pado -Baptist local congregation can maintain its identity theologically while still connecting with believers in Christ who think differently about the sovereignty of God and salvation, obviously

Arminians, and who believe differently about baptism, a .k .a. people like me? Okay, yeah, right, okay.

Well, first, this is just, I'll twit my dear brother about his language. I do not like the term, and I don't use the term,

Pado -Baptist. You like Oiko, right? Baptist. Oiko. You got it. You're learning your lesson well.

It's Oiko Baptist. It's household Baptist. But I get the point, yeah. I think,

I don't, I mean, thought about properly, it's really not a difficulty. You maintain your distinctively

Reformed, I'll simply use it that way, Reformed identity by guarding the pulpit and the teaching.

So the elders of a local congregation have a responsibility to see that in all of the public preaching and teaching on whatever level, that public preaching and teaching be faithful to the church's standards.

Now, and here I am going to use, I'm going to use an historical example that I cherish. John Owen and,

John Owen and John Bunyan were both profound theologians and very strong Calvinists in the 17th century, in the 1600s, they were contemporaries, they

Bunyan was a very committed Baptist. Owen was a very committed Oiko Baptist, household, believing in household baptism, and was a

Congregationalist. And yet, Bunyan actually got in trouble because he admitted

Owen to the Lord's Supper at the congregation where he was. There were some

Baptists that believed that only Baptists, some believed only the members of a local church should attend.

And Owen, at the same time, while he differed with Bunyan on his view of baptism, esteemed him.

He said that he would forsake all of the learning that he had, and that was profound for the ability to preach one sermon like that tinker, which

Bunyan was. And I go back to that for this reason. When it comes to, in Franklin Square, we had

Calvinistic Baptists preach in the pulpit. We had Al Martin, I believe, we did have

Mike Gaydosh at that point, James White, and others.

And because we were of one mind on the doctrines of grace, and that's really the big issue,

I'm not saying it's the gospel that is the first thing, and the biblical gospel is not

God votes for you, and the devil votes against you, and you cast the deciding vote.

That should have no place in a pulpit that wants to uphold the biblical gospel.

Now when these men preached, they didn't deal with baptism, they didn't deal with church government except on the local level.

There was that understanding, and a high view that you work hard to keep the unity of the

Spirit and the bond of peace, Ephesians 4 .3. If we wanted them to explain their views on baptism for a pedagogical purpose, they would have done it.

But that worked beautifully, and that showed a true Catholicity that we, while we are

Presbyterians, while we are Reformed to some extent in the continental tradition, when it comes to the gospel, we were one with all those who believe in the doctrines of grace.

So I think that's the first thing, is you're going to guard the pulpit. And then the second thing, and actually that's the main thing, there are other things that you can do that aren't necessarily particularly pulpit or preaching ministries.

When we had, although it's within the Reformed tradition, we would have the Genevans come to sing from Geneva College, and that school holds to exclusive psalmody, which we didn't as a church.

But it was another way of showing our Catholicity as a church. So I guess a simple answer would be guard your pulpit, guard your pulpit ministry, guard your teaching ministry when it comes to admission to the

Lord's Supper. There are some that have, within the Baptist circles, that would confine the

Lord's Supper admission only to those in a local church, and I can respect that view. I can even see how they get it from their understanding of a text in 1

Corinthians 11. That wasn't ours. We, our view was, so long as a person had a credible profession of faith, and was a member of a, we struggled with what term to use, evangelical, biblical church, whatever, but they had a credible profession of faith, they met with the elders first, before they'd be admitted to the

Lord's Supper. That was our way of making a statement to the world that while we are Reformed and Presbyterian, we are

Catholic, small c, in the way we regard other believers. So that might be just part of the answer

I would give. In fact, Grace Baptist Church of Carlisle, Pennsylvania, where I am a member, they open the fence door when

Presbyterians are visiting from other congregations, and the fact that we have a lot of Presbyterians preach at Grace Baptist Church, like Sinclair Ferguson and others, and we have typically had announcements made by the elders that the

Presbyterians in fellowship with us that day are welcome to the Lord's table if we happen to be having a celebration of the

Lord's table that day. Yeah, and I think in our day too, just to add a little P .S.,

this may be a topic for another day, when I have been in, when

I was in Egypt a number of years ago, which is obviously predominantly Muslim country, I was struck with how the

Protestants, how the Evangelical Protestants, whether they be Baptists or Presbyterians or Methodists or whatever, how they worked together in something that was called the

Synod of the Nile. None of them compromised their doctrinal distinctives, but they actually had a way of showing their unity as Evangelicals.

So I'll put it that way. That was really important as a stand against Islam that wanted to divide them.

And I guess I strongly, I strongly believe we may be coming, we may not have that kind of organizational unity, but we're coming to that place in the

United States of America where Christians of biblical convictions, regardless of denominational title, are going to have to show that while they may not be allies on every point, they're at least co -belligerents.

Amen. Well, Pastor Ned of Redeemer Reformed Presbyterian Church in Queensbury, New York, you have also won a free copy of the

Westminster Commentary that we are giving, giving away by A. A. Hodge, and you most likely,

I'd be shocked if you didn't already have this commentary in your library, but just promise to, if you already have this edition, this

A. A. Hodge commentary of the Westminster, give it to somebody else, somebody who's perhaps coming to you for counsel or considering joining the church there in Queensbury, New York.

And let me give a plug to them. Their website is rrpca .org,

rrpca .org, and I love their slogan, Where the

Redeemer Grows Faith and Builds His Family in the Foothills of the Adirondacks. You said you had another question,

Chris. Oh, yes, that's right. Thank you. You reminded me before I went on to another questioner.

Well, I'm getting old, Chris, but I have some gram out of it that works. Do you have advice on reaching unbelieving parents whose children attend youth groups and other children's programs?

That's interesting because we had a listener ask a very similar question recently to another guest.

Well, it's thrilling, and I think, yeah, the advice is, apropos of what

I said before about pastoral work, do what you can to get into people's homes to speak with them.

I realize that's getting more difficult. Pastors tell me today that for various reasons people just don't want to open up their homes to you.

I'm still frankly quite shocked by that, but try to graciously, humbly, gently say, you know,

I'm so glad you had your son or your daughter. I'd love to sit down and chat with you at your home about just a little bit about the church, maybe questions you're wrestling with about religion, about the

Christian faith, maybe issues you're dealing with with your children. Use those kinds of general issues.

Don't say, I'd love to come to your house and talk with you about the five points of Calvinism, and maybe if we had to do it without Nazareneism.

That's not the way to do it, okay? You know, meet the people where they live, and by all means, seize those opportunities.

Ah, you just killed my favorite hobby. Just kidding.

Well, that was his final question, and thanks again, Pastor Ned. And by the way,

I don't think I completed my sentence about what you've won. Not only have you won the

A. A. Hodge Commentary and the Westminster Confession, compliments of our friends at the

Banner of Truth, you've also won a free New American Standard Bible, since you are a first -time questioner, and we thank the publishers of the

NASB for supplying these Bibles for us. And please keep listening to Iron Sharpens Iron Radio there in Queensbury, New York, and keep spreading the word about the program.

We hope to hear from you again with another question, Pastor Ned. And we have another listener from Ben Salem, Pennsylvania.

Jenny, she asks, who is William Blakey, and how has his teachings impacted you in your own ministry?

Oh, that's an excellent question. William Blakey was a

Presbyterian minister in the Church of Scotland, I believe. He may have been in the

Free Church, I forget which, but in the 19th century. In fact,

I think he was in the Free Church. But anyway, William Blakey wrote a pastoral theology volume that I think has been reprinted by, oh my, who did it?

It was Solid Ground Christian Book or something. But anyway, William Blakey's pastoral theology was a standard of the late 19th century.

It's a very basic Presbyterian and Reformed pastoral theology that was seasoned with the kind of evangelicalism that marked, say, a

Charles Spurgeon at that time. For example, Blakey emphasized

Sunday schools at a time that this was not particularly popular in some circles, believe it or not.

Some people believed that the Sunday schools, which really were a means of educating children because so many were illiterate, that Sunday schools were not something the

Church should be involved with. Blakey was an ardent exponent of that. One of the things she asked about how it impacted me is that William Blakey, and I actually recommended his pastoral theology volume for my class, said that every healthily organized elder meeting, or what

Presbyterians call a session meeting, should have some consideration of prospective officers.

And that really impacted me. We had done that in Franklin Square, but we did it more assiduously after that, where we would talk about different men in the congregation who manifested, or had what we call the raw materials for either elder or deacon.

And we would either raise some concerns that mean that maybe we shouldn't be pushing this right now, or we would speak with the man and say, we want you to know that we've discussed the possibility of your serving as a deacon or an elder, and we would talk with him and always urge him to say, you know, if a man desires the office of a bishop or an elder, he desires a good work, and at least urge him to pray about that.

So Blakey is full of the standard material, the minister's life, the minister's devotional life, visiting, he has some healthy material on preaching, but it's an easy read.

Patrick Fairbairn is another one who has a pastoral theology, but it's kind of vanilla. It's not, it kind of puts you to sleep at points.

There's an electricity in Blakey that, along with it being a relatively easy read that makes it a very excellent introductory volume for pastors.

Well, thank you, Jenny, for your excellent question. And you have also won the A. A. Hodge Commentary on the

Westminster Confession of Faith, compliments of our dear friends at the Banner of Truth American Headquarters in Carlisle, Pennsylvania.

And we look forward to receiving other questions from you in the future. Please make sure we have your full mailing address.

And we have to go to a break right now again. And if you'd like to join us on the air, our email address is chrisarnson at gmail .com.

chrisarnson at gmail .com. If you have a question for Pastor Bill Shishko, don't go away. God willing, we'll be right back after these messages from our sponsors.

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That's Chefexclusive .com. Hi, I'm Pastor Bill Shishko, inviting you to tune in to A Visit to the

Pastor's Study every Saturday from 12 noon to 1 pm Eastern Time on WLIE Radio.

www .wlie540am .com.

We bring biblically faithful pastoral ministry to you, and we invite you to visit the Pastor's Study by calling in with your questions.

Our time will be lively, useful, and I assure you, never dull. Join us this Saturday at 12 noon

Eastern Time for a visit to the Pastor's Study, because everyone needs a pastor. Welcome back.

This is Chris Arnsen. If you just tuned in, our guest today for the full two hours with a little less than an hour to go is my dear friend of many years going back to the 1980s,

Bill Shishko with Reformation Metro New York and host of the weekly live one -hour call -and -talk show

A Visit to the Pastor's Study, heard globally via live streaming at wlie540am .com

and also in the New York Tri -State area, Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, and Rhode Island on 540am on the radio dial every

Saturday from 12 noon to 1 pm Eastern Time. And we are discussing the Pastoral Theology Project.

Our email address, if you'd like to join us, is chrisarnsen at gmail .com. chrisarnsen at gmail .com.

Just very quickly, I have to announce some of our sponsors' special events. This August 3rd through the 5th,

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And speakers include Pastor Don Curran, who is the Eastern European Coordinator with HeartCry Missionary Society, the organization founded by Paul Washer, my dear friend

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If you would like to join me at this conference, go to fellowshipconferencenewengland .com, fellowshipconferencenewengland .com,

and that's August 3rd through the 5th. Then following that, in November, from the 17th through the 18th, our friends at the

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That's November 17th through the 18th at the Grace Bible Fellowship Church in Quaker Town, Pennsylvania.

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click on Events, and then click on Quaker Town Conference on Reform Theology.

By the way, the theme is For Still Our Ancient Foe, which is obviously a line from the classic reformational hymn by Martin Luther, A Mighty Fortress.

And then we have, coming up in January from the 18th through the 20th, we have the

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If you would like to join me at the G3 Conference in January, go to g3conference .com,

g3conference .com. And by the way, they do have a Spanish edition of the conference on January 17th.

So if you know of any Spanish -speaking ministries, you'll want to inform them about that.

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And now we are back to our discussion on the Pastoral Theology Project with Bill Shishko of Reformation Metro New York and the host of the weekly live one -hour call -and -talk show,

A Visit to the Pastor Study. If you would like to join us yourself with a question of your own, our email address is chrisarnson at gmail .com.

chrisarnson at gmail .com. And Pastor Bill, would you like to have anything to say before I take any more listener questions?

Let me tell the folks a little bit about the Pastoral Theology Project. I love the questions.

Back in the early part of this millennium, I was about the year 2000, I guess,

I was asked to teach the Pastoral Theology class called the Reformed Pastor at Greenville Presbyterian Theological Seminary in Taylor, South Carolina.

And then along about that time I was also asked to do the same thing for the Ministerial Training Institute of the

Orthodox Presbyterian Church. And basically the course at Greenville in particular developed from a two -credit class to a four -credit class.

It was three days of one week and three days of the next, so 52 hours of teaching.

And that developed into essentially five different categories.

One in which I spent the whole day was the call to the ministry. And I was and remain very grateful to Pastor Albert N.

Martin. I took his most developed material on the subject, which really drew together what sages of the past have written on it.

And as I put it, I Presbyterianized it with his permission. And that's day one of the class, the call to the ministry.

And that has been used in itself just to help men who are wrestling with the issue of call to the ministry.

The second and third days were on the minister as a man.

And again, as the class developed, I incorporated material in there on the minister's

Sabbath or the minister's Lord's Day rest, dealing with a technologically driven world.

And so it addresses a lot of contemporary topics along with the more traditional material on the minister's devotional life and so on.

So two days, the minister as a man. The fourth day of the material is on the minister and his work of rule.

And that material develops the fact that all rule in the church, and the term for shepherding is often linked with ruling, is actually and ultimately

Christ's rule. Basically, it's a day's worth of material on the work of the

Holy Spirit as he works within the church and its government. What would be the fifth day of the class, or the fourth topic, is the minister and his work of shepherding, which takes some of the strands of what we've been talking about here today and develops them theologically, historically, and practically, and addresses some of the challenges we have.

And then the last day, this is kind of typical in pastoral theology classes. They talk about administration, and I develop that a little bit differently.

I talk about a pastor's administration of an outgrowth of his life daily, weekly, monthly, and yearly.

The class, the project itself is to be done in July and August.

I don't know if we'll complete it, but at least we'll be working on it. The goal is to take half of that material, 26 hours of it, put it into a series of 8 -10 minute vimeos that pastors and ministers in training and elders in training can access to help them with particular aspects of pastoral theology.

The goal is that if it's not actually accepted for seminary credit, at least that people can get a certificate for it.

The three things I would emphasize that make the class distinctive,

I really don't know of anything like it, even in the other existing

Reformed seminaries. One is it's clearly committed to the sufficiency of Holy Scripture, and that is a must for anything that's truly

Protestant and Reformed. Second is it is consistently

Presbyterian and Reformed in its character. And then the third thing is it grew out of actual church experience for my labors in Franklin Square and then working with others.

So it's not a heady, up -in -the -air kind of a class that's all theory.

It's theology, and it's pastoral theology, but it's developed in practice.

So that's the pastoral theology project. It's the second prong of the work of Reformation Metro New York, Inc.,

which, as you mentioned, the first part is the weekly visit to the pastor's study. Great.

And if anybody wants more information on that, you can go to ReformationMetroNewYork .org.

Right. ReformationMetroNewYork .org, and we'll be repeating that, God willing, before the conclusion of the program.

And I should add, Chris, with that, on that website, ReformationMetroNewYork .org,

we have archives of pastoral theology materials. They're basically materials that were used at Greenville Seminary.

Anyone can access that and make use of it in churches. It deals with, I mean, everything like officer training, steps in church discipline.

There's kind of a template for an announcement about an excommunication. There's material on minister's sabbaticals, but there's several dozen items there that pastors and churches will find helpful.

Great. Well, just before I take my next listener question, our previous listener,

Jenny in Ben Salem, Pennsylvania, when she learned she won the A .A. Hodge commentary on the

Westminster Confession of Faith, that the Banner of Truth United States headquarters in Carlisle was so generous to provide for us, she said,

God works providentially for sure. This coming Sunday, barring any complications, I plan to go to an

Orthodox Presbyterian church, since there aren't any Reformed Baptist churches in my area, so this book will serve me well to better understand those statements that the

London Baptist Confession of Faith either dropped or edited. That's good. Incidentally for Jenny, the book by William Blakey is called

For the Work of the Ministry. I should know, because I wrote the foreword to it. But the book is called

For the Work of the Ministry, and the last name is spelled B -L -A -I -K -I -E,

William Blakey, B -L -A -I -K -I -E. He has several other things, but another one that your listeners will appreciate, because there's a very warm evangelical spirit in Blakey's writings, is the book on the public ministry of Christ, which is really an outstanding kind of a companion to your reading of the

Gospels, for the public ministry of Christ. Great. Well, thanks again,

Jenny. And we have Scott in Bryan, Ohio, who says,

Dear Brother Chris, I like to listen to the pastor's study, and I particularly enjoyed the recent ones about the distractions of local—

I'm sorry, the distractions of social media. My question is, how would he suggest those in ministry balance involvement in social media in their lives?

That's a terrific question. We actually did two programs on that with my very good friend, and I think,

Chris, have you interviewed Dr. Gregory Reynolds? I believe you have. I've had him on probably four times, but not very recently.

I'd like to have him on again. Dr. Reynolds is an Orthodox Presbyterian minister up in New Hampshire.

He is probably the foremost authority from a reform perspective in the whole subject of media ecology, and his book,

The Word is Worth a Thousand Pictures, which was his doctoral dissertation, is an absolutely masterful introduction to this whole broader subject of media ecology.

The last hundred pages of that book, which I believe he's going to have published separately, deal just with preaching and orality and preaching the power, the power not only of the word spoken, but the word spoken in the presence of the people.

So that by Dr. Reynolds is— by Dr. Gregory Reynolds, The Word is Worth a Thousand Pictures.

Well, I'm sorry, what was the caller's name, Chris? Scott in Bryan, Ohio. Well, Scott, I've said to people,

I'm thankful that my ministry did not begin when we were inundated with all of these means of communication.

Emails were unknown, or at least only known by a very small group back in the 1980s. We didn't have cell phones.

We didn't have texts. We didn't have Facebook. We didn't have Twitter. We had none of that. It was regarded as something unusual that I actually even used a telephone answering machine at that point.

That could have taken you far back. And I'm glad that was the case because I could literally devote my mornings to study and to prayer and with the answering machine, which

I still call my electronic secretary, which is what it is, I could do that work without interruption.

Our elders had ways they could communicate with me if an emergency came up. But that time that is indispensable for a minister to be a man of God, that time in quiet,

I had that time. I feel with young ministers. Our son Jonathan, our second of five sons, is a minister in Queens, and I meet with him regularly.

And the challenges that he has between the website and the app, the very fine app, it's the

Reformation Presbyterian Church app. It's terrific. It's an aid to people's devotional life and so on.

But the time that goes into all of that is time that he will admit keeps him away from as much time reading the

Scriptures and praying as he would like. Thankfully, he does keep up, well, he keeps up his

Bible reading too, because he has to get up early in the morning, but he keeps up his pastoral work. But it's a huge challenge for men to deal with these interruptions or distractions, really, that come in the ministry.

So I appreciate Scott's question. I guess a few ways, kind of lines of answers that I would give.

Number one is there's no technology that can take away the intensely personal and non -technological aspect of the fact that a pastor, any minister, is to be given to prayer and to the ministry of the

Word. An app maybe can help you with your prayer list. It's not going to help you pray.

And you can use computer programs to help you know how to best open the Word of God and teach it, but it's not going to do your sermon preparation for you, and it's not meant to.

There's an intensely human and personal aspect that goes into pastoral ministry that no technology should erode.

I'll put it like that. So a minister's got to have that conviction, number one. Number two,

I think when Paul says, all things are lawful for me, but not all things are expedient.

All things are lawful, but I won't be mastered by any. I think that has to be kind of your banner text when it comes to anything, not least technology.

Is it expedient? Is it helpful? The usual line Dr. Reynolds uses as well.

I mean, I text things. We'll text things that are quick and so on. And I'm thankful for that.

It's a quick means. If you have to tell someone that they've lost a loved one, you don't text them.

That gets into communication theory and the relation of medium and message and so on.

But see, that's not expedient when it comes to that kind of ministry, and probably even more the point that there are men and they are mastered by their technology.

And it's not just pornography anymore. Men can just be addicted to just time on the

Internet, the latest blog, the latest news thing and so on. And there you have to practice pretty ruthless mortification of the sin of distraction and even the sin of giving into lesser priorities rather than greater priorities.

And then I guess the third thing, and there are so many ways you could say it, is that how do you use this technology in a way that really is edifying?

I don't think that question is asked enough. People get the idea if I just do it, if I just put something on Facebook, if I just send out a tweet that somehow

I've ministered. You have to ask, who's listening to this stuff? And is it really that important? And does the medium like Facebook actually trivialize the message you want to communicate?

So those would be just a few strands of a lot of thinking that needs to go into the use of media.

Bottom line is a minister needs to be far more attracted to the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit and the

Gospel than to be distracted by the allures of media, which is a media that is designed to be very alluring, incidentally.

Amen. And you know, I've noticed something over the past number of years that I'm sure you've heard of the term beer muscles.

Well, I think that there is a phenomenon called keypad muscles where people behave in a way, they let their anger boil over to an extreme that they most likely would never allow to happen in person, face -to -face with someone, and you have these disagreements turning into these ugly, slanderous, hateful arguments that have really polluted the

Internet and have destroyed the reputations of good men. And has wasted an awful lot of our most precious gift, which is time.

For men dealing with that, I remind them to go to the book of Proverbs, especially Proverbs 15, read what it says about speech, and then apply it to their emails, their texts, and their

Facebook notifications. When Jesus says, by your words you will be justified, now he's not talking about forensic justification, he's talking about the demonstration of our hearts here.

By your words you will be justified, and by your words you will be condemned. Just given that text, there's a lot of condemnation that has to go into the things that are proliferating on the

Internet today, and it is shameful in so many ways. Great. Well, Scott in Bryan, Ohio, you have won the last copy of the

Westminster Confession, a commentary by A. A. Hodge, compliments of our dear friends at the

Banner of Truth, and if you'd like to find out more about the Banner of Truth, you can go to their website, which is banneroftruth .org

banneroftruth .org and if you want to know more about the local United States headquarters here in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, just add a forward slash

U .S. So it's banneroftruth .org, and we thank the

Banner of Truth for providing these gifts for our listeners. Right now,

I am going to our final break, Pastor Bill. I'm going to email you, I'm going to forward you an email from our listener in Slovenia, Joe, because I'm not sure if you want to take the question because it's off -topic.

He is really challenging you on an area of Pado -Baptist belief, and I'm not sure

I want any more converts away from Reformed Baptist. I think Jenny already has become a

Orthodox Presbyterian convert. I'm only kidding. You can feel free to answer his question if you want to, but I will email it to you, forward it to you, so during the break, you can look it over, and I just sent it to your

Gmail account. I will do, Chris. All right, and if anybody else would like to join us, do it now because we're running out of time, and our email address is chrisarnson at gmail .com

chrisarnson at gmail .com Don't go away. We will be right back, God willing, right after these messages with more of Pastor Bill Shishko.

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Welcome back. This is Chris Arnsen. If you just tuned us in, our guest today for the full two hours with about 25 minutes to go is

Bill Shishko of Reformation Metro New York and host of the weekly live one hour call and talk show

A Visit to the Pastor's Study. We are talking about the Pastoral Theology Project and our email address if you have a question to ask is chrisarnsen at gmail .com.

chrisarnsen at gmail .com and do so now if you intend to ask a question because we're running out of time.

Pastor Bill, did you want to include our listeners' question from Slovenia? Well, I don't know.

You're the Calvinistic Baptist. We can deal with it or not. I'm completely fine with asking the question.

Joe in Slovenia says, Dear Brother Chris, thanks for having Brother Shishko back on the show. We are always sharpened by his pastoral visits.

He says, My question has to do with the Pado -Credo Baptist discussion among Reformed Brothers.

Presbyterians often cite the cases of Lydia and the Philippian jailer being baptized along with their whole households after the two aforementioned expressing personal faith in Acts 16.

If we can assume that in these family units there were mature adults such as a husband to Lydia and a wife of the jailer and possibly their parents on both sides and other adult siblings brothers, sisters, aunts, uncles, etc.,

are we to assume that all these unbelieving people without exception for no apparent reason submitted themselves to the rite of Christian baptism to join a socially marginalizing religion in which they had no belief and no connection or commitment to either its founder or teachings?

Wouldn't that require a very big stretch of a very active imagination in comparison to the understanding that the

Apostle and new converts subsequently shared the same gospel with the family members and they too repented and believed before being baptized?

Thanks so much for your dedicated service to our Lord Jesus Christ. Well, I appreciate,

I do very much appreciate Joe's question and this program is not about baptism although obviously our view of baptism is part of our pastoral theology.

I guess a general answer, general statement I would make and then let me respond specifically to Joe's point at the end.

The reason we believe in household baptism is because we want to have a New Testament church.

That's usually the thing that our Baptist friends will say and I like to say, well, our view of the

New Testament accommodates all of the biblical data. We certainly can account for individuals who professed faith in Christ and were baptized.

That's not a problem. But our dear Baptist friends, and I mean that, really cannot do justice to these texts that Joe mentioned and some others in Acts 16.

First of all, regardless of the family members, the text does say Lydia and her household, the jailer and his household were baptized.

And the reason for household baptism is that every covenant, the covenants of the skeletal structure of the

Bible, whether covenant with Noah, covenant with Abraham, or with Moses, or even with David, all of those covenants were with families or referred to families and heads of families.

And even the promises of the New Covenant, especially in Ezekiel and Jeremiah, always reiterate that household principle.

So that would kind of be the big picture. But in answer to Joe's specific question, and I appreciate it, although there's a lot of assumptions he makes in here that I won't deal with, he says, wouldn't that require a very big stretch of a very active imagination?

He's setting me up for a fall here in the States. In comparison to the understanding that the apostle and new convert subsequently shared the same gospel with the family members, and they too repented and believed before being baptized.

My answer to Joe would be this. It's a great question, Joe. The thing is, the text, specifically in Acts 16 and verse 34, does not say that each member believed.

And I am increasingly struck with this. Clearly it deals with the jailer and his house or his family.

But the text in Acts 16, 34, says in here, and I think the NASB has it translated the same way, but ESV has, and he rejoiced along with his entire household that he had believed in God.

And again, with all due respect to my very dear Baptist brothers, if the New Testament was really showing this radical break with the family or household concept of the

Old Testament, we should expect that every one of the texts about baptism would make clear that each person who was baptized repented and believed or repented or believed before he was baptized.

The New Testament, in this case and in others, explicitly does not say that. So that's what

I'd urge Joe to think about. And a suggestion for you, Chris, why don't you take, because you've got Iron Sharpens Iron, why don't you get a person that believes in Oikobaptism and a person that believes in Credo or Believer's Baptism, and get them not to yell at one another, but just talk about the issues on your program.

Well, now that I have discovered something incredible that I was unaware of before called Uber Conference Call, which is free,

I can have guests from different parts of the world on at the same time on the phone. I did not,

I had no access or awareness of that before until very recently. Well, this is why,

Chris, we love working with Cruciform Media, because the director of Cruciform Media keeps up on all of these profound psychological developments that we down here in the pastoral trenches can't keep up with.

I think that's great. And for those of you who don't know, but Pastor Bill is speaking about me.

And I also want to direct people to the YouTube to the YouTube to see the debate that you had with our mutual friend

Dr. James R. White of Alpha Omega Ministries on that very issue of Credo versus Oiko baptism.

And I would love for our listeners to get access to that, because I thought it was done with the utmost respect and friendship.

And it was an intercollegiate debate amongst brothers in Christ. So it was a really good time.

Amen. It was a joy to have Dr. White preach in the pulpit in Franklin Square about the time we did that.

It was a way of stating that while we differ on baptism, we, on the basics of the Gospel, we agree.

Amen. Well, we have another listener. We have Ronald in Suffolk County, Long Island, New York, who says,

Although I am fully aware that no sin would prevent a human being from returning to Christ in genuine humility and repentance should the

Holy Spirit be genuinely within that person, and all such individuals, no matter what sin they have ever committed, should be, after a credible evidence of repentance and faith, welcomed back into the fellowship of whatever church he may have belonged to.

But my question to you is, are there sins that would forever ban a man from the pulpit?

Well, the unforgivable sin would be the first one you'd think of, however you want to define the unforgivable sin.

But I think you're speaking about a minister that's had a lapse. That's a massive question, and it's a little bit difficult to answer it in the abstract, because you do have to look into different circumstances.

I'll give you an example. I'm not personally convinced, although I confess I haven't thought about it a whole lot, is if a minister, an increasing problem with ministers, and part of this deal is this technology thing, ministers who are tremendously stressed, they are looking for a kind of relief, and as a result, at the end of the day, their companionship is with Jack and Jim, Jack Daniels and Jim Beam, and they soon find themselves addicted to this, although really the word is enslavement to it, and so I'm not sure, and hopefully the man will be open, and of course there's ways he can deal with that.

I don't think that sin repented of and broken from necessarily excludes a man from the pulpit.

The big one that comes up is what if a man has committed adultery, and he has repented and he's come back, should he then be permitted to go back in the pulpit?

There, with all of my misgivings about some of the ways John Armstrong has moved in recent years, his book

The Stain That Stays on that topic is, I think, outstanding, and at least for me, if I were in that situation,

I believe that I should not again assume a place in the pulpit. And here's the text that comes to my mind in Proverbs 6, in verse 32.

He who commits adultery lacks sense. And I'll tell you, over the years of having to deal with that issue, that is so true.

He who commits adultery lacks sense. He who does it destroys himself. He will get wounds and dishonor and his disgrace will not be wiped away.

And at least for me, that would confirm the view that if a man has fallen into sin, the sin of adultery,

I really do believe that that precludes him from being back in the pulpit. There's other ways he may serve, but that's not something people ever forget.

I utterly reject out of hand this view that says we need a wounded helper or a wounded counselor or whatever language they use, that somehow if a person has fallen into sin and repented, he is better able to deal with someone else.

That's about as foolhardy as it comes. Two responses. Number one, the

Lord Jesus Christ understood every aspect of temptation precisely because he resisted temptation at every point.

He knew every nook and cranny of temptation, so he's able to be a sympathetic high priest to us.

That leads us to the second. It's only when we have resisted as pastors, we have resisted tooth and nail the kinds of temptations that come to us.

The temptation on faithfulness is a huge one. It's only when we have battled that, fought it, and by God's grace won on the battlefield of that, that we are able to help others.

I don't want a pastor who has fallen into the sin of adultery counseling my wife or my daughter or anybody else.

I think that's probably what the brother is getting at. In that case,

I don't personally believe that when a man has committed the sin of adultery, when he's repented, that he should be brought back in the pulpit.

Sadly, that happens with a painful frequency.

Yes, and it's also painful to see the speed with which many of these men return to the pulpit.

Obviously, I'm assuming that whatever the sin is that you would perhaps consider when one is being restored after repentance, you would consider having a man return to the pastoral office or to the pulpit reasonable span of time and proof being given, fruits being born out of a genuinely repentant heart.

Oh, exactly. And on that, let me once again commend the Banner of Truth. Well, it's actually on a reprint.

It's the print of the English edition of Martin Bootser's Concerning the True Care of Souls. For your listeners, pastors who are listening to the program, that is a must -read.

Now, it perplexes people because Bootser uses the language of penance when he speaks about what we would call the fruits in keeping with repentance.

So you've got to kind of contextualize that. But Bootser's treatment of the fruits in keeping with repentance that we should expect from those who have fallen into sin is masterful, and it deals with the kinds of questions that the brother from Suffolk County has raised.

Yeah. Wasn't Bootser's name spelled B -U -C -E -R, unlikely to pronounce?

Yeah, correct. Capital B -U -C -E -R, Martin Bootser, Concerning the True Care of Souls. Bootser, Martin Bootser, when

Calvin was, excuse the pun, when Calvin booted out of Geneva, before he was there first, he ended up going to Strasbourg, where he actually was under Bootser's pastorate in that period in the 1500s, and that was like three or four years or something.

That's where Calvin's views on the eldership, his views on home visitation, his views on church government began to incubate when he went back to Geneva, he developed those.

Bootser was really the Reformation father of pastoral theology, and I think

I dealt with this in one of your previous programs, Richard Baxter, who wrote the book, The Reformed Pastor, even though Baxter would never make it in an ordination example, whether you're

Calvinistic or not, because he was a

Neonomian, he believed that somehow faith and works combined with our justification, which is serious error, and I'm not going to mitigate that, but his treatment of Acts 20 -28, on going publicly and from house to house, was the basis for his

Reformed Pastor book. Well, later in Bootser's life, and actually the foreword or the introduction to one of his last treatises, he refers to Bootser's book, which then was in Latin, and he basically commended that volume to ministers, so Baxter and his

Reformed Pastor, which really means Revived Pastor, Baxter had some acquaintance with Bootser who emphasized home visitation, pastoral work, catechizing, all the stuff of the

Reformed Pastor is basically in Bootser's book, and then just one other little PS, because one of your callers mentioned the

Westminster Standards, and the Westminster in the Directory for Public Worship, which also grew out of the work of the

Westminster Divines in the 1600s, and the Directory for Public Worship, curiously, in the section on ministry to the sick, there's a little paragraph about the importance of ministers, and we would say elders today, to going to the homes of people.

I mean, it's a masterfully rich little paragraph tucked away in that section on visitation of the sick.

Baxter developed that. That really was part of the genesis of his thinking about the importance of home visits.

So that whole nexus of Baxter, Bootser, the Westminster Confession, Calvin, and so on, that's a fascinating area of study, and it's kind of the bedrock, whether we're

Calvinistic, Baptist, Presbyterians, or whatever, of at least our view of the local church, the work of the elders, and home visitation.

Great. Well, we thank you for your question, and if you want to learn more about Martin Booster's writings, you can go to the banneroftruth .org,

as we have been mentioning, and his last name, again, is spelled B -U -C -E -R, even though it's not pronounced that way.

And also, don't ever forget that our sponsors, Cumberland Valley Bible Books Service, they have a huge selection of Banner of Truth titles that you can purchase, and the

Banner of Truth is not going to mind if you order it through C -V -B -B -S, which is right around the corner from Banner of Truth's American headquarters.

So, go to C -V -B -B -S dot com,

C -V -B -B -S dot com, and we thank Todd and Patty Jennings again, of Cumberland Valley Bible Books Service, for being such faithful supporters of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio.

We have a Christian in Suffolk County, Long Island, New York.

He wants to know, when will pastors ever learn that they are signing their own death warrant in a spiritual sense when they continue counseling women privately?

Many have given the excuse, well, I leave the door open, or the secretary is in the building, but in my opinion, that is not enough to prevent not only adulterous affairs from being kindled, but also false accusations being made against godly pastors who were well -intended but naive in this area.

Well, I can't add to what Christian says. That is called the

Billy Graham rule. Billy Graham was assiduous in keeping his purity.