About Gray and ‘Why do we need a denomination?’
Posted Friday, September 29, 2006
Based on her comments, I think the moderator has discovered the New Wineskins. Maybe that’s where God is doing His new thing.
Steve Jones, elder Kokomo, Ind. ,
About More Light Presbyterians
Posted Friday, September 29, 2006
So, More Light says having one of their members as moderator would be “representational equality.” How does that square with 2 percent or so total homosexuals in the U.S. population?
Fred Edwards
Disputing the idea of a two-synod model
Posted Friday, September 29, 2006
In response to the idea within a couple of contributions of another Layman Online contributor, I feel compelled to dispute the idea of a two-synod system.
One of the most highly-held concepts in the debate over ordination issues and the issue of churches leaving or staying is that of unity. How is it that two synods, which have such diametrically opposed presuppositions and beliefs regarding the issues in question, can co-exist within one denomination? Those from the outside will surely see this as utterly absurd. “Does your denomination allow ordination of those living outside the bonds of marriage?” One person answers the question with a firm “yes.” Another person, just as truthfully, answers a firm “no.” Well, which is it? We’re not talking about benign choices such as whether we should eat vanilla or chocolate ice cream. The issues at stake are soul impacting.
Point one is that there is no unity in such a preposterous position, theologically or situationally. Point two is that this is precisely, but only in part, why churches and individuals are beginning to abandon ship. If acceptance of the PUP report is having the opposite effect as hoped for by the task force and most G.A. officials and entities, creating a two-synod system will further the disillusionment and numbers of those separating.
Rev. Steven L. Seng First Presbyterian Church ,
Survey results a surprise?
Posted Friday, September 29, 2006
Once again, some polite middle-level executive assumes that the national staff “doesn’t know” how much trouble their activism causes the troops in the pew.
Dude or Dudette! Pick up the Clue Phone: they know! They do not care!
Donald D. Denton, Jr. Richmond, Va.,
Moderator fiddles while others burn
Posted Friday, September 29, 2006
How interesting the juxtaposition of two articles on The Layman’s site – the moderator, to her credit, asks, “Do we need a denomination any more?” while the self-described “More Light” Presbyterians announce their plans for the denomination to endorse gay marriage and repeal the fidelity and chastity clause.
The sole reason that denominations like the PCUSA might reasonably justify their existence would be to protect the faith once delivered to the saints, administer godly discipline, and prophetically speak the Word of God to society. Seeing that it does none of these things at this point except in some few orthodox presbyteries and, instead, does the exact opposite by speaking for the world instead of for the Word, it might as well be replaced by a good Web site. At least Web sites don’t try to seize your church’s property, and the bad ones can be blocked by the proper software.
There is a reason, though, that the “More Light” Presbyterians “need” a denomination. They need to keep this dying denomination alive on life support long enough so that in its weakened, dying, comatose state it will appear to “endorse” them even if it is the institutional equivalent of having someone out of their mind and near the throes of death sign a new will leaving everything to a very contestable “heir.” In this case, that “heir,” if they have their way, will be the apostates who want to continue pretending themselves to be “Christians” and “Presbyterians” when they are neither.
Let’s dissolve the PCUSA right now and stop the pretense. Call it a denomination abortion and a “pro-choice” act. The left is comfortable with that thinking and won’t want to appear “pro-life” by stopping it. Let’s leave the “More Light Presbyterians” dressed up with nowhere to go.
Martin Thompson
One wonders’ if we need a denomination
Posted Friday, September 29, 2006
One wonders. I recently had an elder on session close to the same age as me who had been a Presbyterian elder longer than I had been a Christian. And he was received into membership by certificate of transfer from a Methodist church!
Less than 10 percent of the folks in my congregation come from a Presbyterian background. Speaking of 10 percent, we routinely lose about a tenth of our active roster every year as those families leave Utah. As we hear news about their new church affiliations and provide certificates of transfer, we also hear that very few of them have stuck with the PC(USA).
Denominational allegiance is pretty much zero these days. People are looking for healthy churches, not a church from a particular denomination.
We don’t even us the “P-word” when we answer the phone.
Rev. Neal Humphrey Westminster Church,
Stop smelling the roses
Posted Friday, September 29, 2006
This diatribe is mostly a “copy and paste job” from the article in The Layman Online describing the ongoing meeting of the General Assembly Council:
“There were no harsh words, no bickering over such turmoil as the General Assembly’s authoritative interpretation that allows the ordination of practicing homosexuals, and no pleas for legal advice or for explaining what the denomination’s lawyers counseled in their privileged and confidential documents that ordered presbyteries to crack down on congregations that want to leave the denomination with their property.”
How can this be when the walls are caving in around them?
Am I missing something or is there an 800-pound gorilla in the middle of the General Assembly Council room and nobody notices it? This denomination is on the brink of total collapse and these people don’t seem to be aware of it.
Also from that same article was the following” “During three sessions, the middle governing body leaders compared their “faith journeys,” interviewed each other, and envisioned a future focused on the positive”
Hey, positive is good, but how about some positive action to save the denomination?
“We’re excited about affirmative accountability,” declared another participant at the meeting. “But an occasional barb slipped through the genteel chat. Explaining what was discussed at her table, one presbytery executive said participants considered “what would happen if. …” Her favorite, she added, was, “What would happen if no one spent their energy reading The Layman.”
Thank you, Layman, for communicating the real facts.
People! Please start doing something positive to save this denomination before it is too late. Stop smelling the roses and start doing some serious praying for Gods guidance.
Phil Smith San Leandro, Calif. ,
Why do we need a denomination?’
Posted Friday, September 29, 2006
In her recent address before the General Assembly Council, Moderator Joan Gray asked, “Why do we need a denomination?”
Before I give my answer to that question, I must say that we most certainly do not need a denomination like the one we have – one that is radically conformed to the ways of this world, where obedience to Christ and to His holy, inerrant Word takes a backseat to obedience to the frivolous, fleeting, and fatal fancies of this doomed and passing world.
A denomination whose only concern about the character of God is that He is not male and that He will not judge us for how we behave sexually.
A denomination that believes that sin really isn’t all that bad, and that God really isn’t all that concerned with it.
A denomination that believes that belief in Christ’s resurrection is optional, but cannot have the meaning ascribed to it in Scripture that Jesus Christ alone is Lord and Savior for all humankind, since that would violate the belief that we must regard non-Christians’ faith as valid as our own.
A denomination whose idea of unity is limited to affiliation with (if not primary allegiance to) the bureaucracy in Louisville.
In His high priestly prayer in John 17.20-21, the Lord Jesus prayed, “I do not pray for (the disciples) alone, but also for those who will believe in Me through their word; that they may all be one, as You, Father, are in Me, and I in You, that they also may be one in Us.” Why? “That the world may believe that You sent Me.”
The unity of the Church needs to reflect to the world the unity of God. God is not divided, but His Church is, and for the most part is horribly complacent about this egregious disobedience. In I Cor. 1.10-13, the Apostle Paul wrote, “Now I plead with you, brethren, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that you all speak the same thing, and that there be no divisions among you, but that you be perfectly joined together in the same mind and in the same judgment. For it has been declared to me concerning you, my brethren, by those of Chloe’s household, that there are contentions among you. Now I say this, that each of you says, ‘I am of Paul,’ or ‘I am of Apollos,’ or ‘I am of Cephas,’ or ‘I am of Christ.’ Is Christ divided? Was Paul crucified for you? Or were you baptized in the name of Paul?” And in Eph. 4.1-6, he reiterated this theme in a more positive way: “I, therefore, the prisoner of the Lord, beseech you to walk worthy of the calling with which you were called, with all lowliness and gentleness, with long suffering, bearing with one another in love, endeavoring to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. There is one body and one Spirit, just as you were called in one hope of your calling; one Lord, one faith, one baptism; one God and Father of all, who is above all, and through all, and in you all.”
First, it must be said that we who are evangelical and Reformed think too little of organizational unity, that it is not worth pursuing reunion with brothers and sisters in other denominations. We claim a spiritual unity with all who call on the name of the Lord in faith (and I do not call that faith which passes for it in the anthropocentric worldview of theological liberalism), yet make little or no effort to work out our differences with those who have disagreements with us on less important doctrines (I will not call them non-essential, because they’re not), that the Church of Jesus Christ on earth may once again achieve visible unity before He returns.
And it is an absolute scandal that those who own the name Presbyterian, yet who separate themselves from the PCUSA because of its rampant apostasy, have not settled their differences to unite into one ecclesiastical body. If we cannot work out our differences with those who are of like mind on covenant theology and the doctrines of grace, how can we hope to persuade the Baptists, the Lutherans, the Methodists, et. al., to prayerfully sit down with us to seek the mind of Christ on the doctrines that divide, that we might, as Paul enjoined us, “be perfectly joined together in the same mind and in the same judgment?”
On the other hand, the religious anthropocentrists think too little of the importance of the propositional truth of Scripture and place a premium on unity at any cost. My friends, I cannot stress vigorously enough that unity purchased at the expense of the truth of Scripture is by no means worth the cost.
And it is just this sort of unity that our denomination made another payment for in the last General Assembly when they effectively rendered the PCUSA’s ordination requirements optional and when they defamed the name of the Lord God Almighty by equating the names of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost with the likes of “Mother, Child, and Womb.”
It is this sort of unity that our denomination made a payment for in 1967 when our forebears jettisoned our Confession of Faith, which is the system of doctrine contained in the Holy Scriptures, for a Book of Confessions, by which we are to be ambiguously instructed, led and guided.
And it is this sort of unity that our denomination made a payment for in the 1920s when our forebears rescinded the Deliverance of 1910, opening the ministry to those who doubted, if not outright denied, the inerrancy of Scripture, the virgin birth of Christ, the reality of miracles, the substitutionary character of Christ’s atonement, and the historicity of His resurrection.
So then, we need a denomination for unity, seeing that we who are called by Christ’s name are to cleave to one another, that we may have mutual accountability, assisting one another in love both for our brothers and sisters in Christ as well as for our Lord Jesus, who prayed for our unity. Nevertheless, these denominations are less than God’s ideal – even in this present sinful age. For as Christ is not divided, neither should be His Church. But by no means does this mean that we should work merely to bring down denominational barriers, seeing how organizational unity without major doctrinal agreement will only foster disunity within the outer unity of the Church, belying the false unity as even the ever-present conflicts in the so-called mainline denominations belies their outward show of unity.
And the solution is not to agree that a diversity of theological opinion is a good and healthy thing for the Church, as religious anthropocentrists often insist, saying, “The unity we seek cannot be reduced to either uniformity or unanimity.” To repeat the words of Paul, “Now I plead with you … that you all speak the same thing, and that there be no divisions among you, but that you be perfectly joined together in the same mind and in the same judgment.” Unity is not to be found in bringing any and all ideas that the world has to offer to the table and considering them all equally valid. It is to be found in a common confession (which our denomination had once upon a time, but decided to discard because it was believed not to be inclusive enough), a common commitment to the Lord (subject to the first condition, which means that we are agreed on who He is and what He wants), and a common mission, namely to “make disciples of every nation, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.”
And, furthermore, this does not mean that we should jettison all that has been accomplished by the Church of Jesus Christ since the Reformation and go back to Rome. Despite the reforms made in the Roman Catholic Church since Vatican II, Rome’s doctrines of penance and purgatory still deny the sole sufficiency of Christ’s sacrifice on the cross to atone for all the sins for all who come to faith in Him. And yet Rome’s gospel still more closely resembles Christ’s than does the gospel of religious anthropocentrism.
Why, then, do I advocate remaining in the Presbyterian Church (USA) when it has so radically strayed from “the faith which was once for all delivered to the saints” in accommodating an anthropocentric worldview clothed in the trappings of the Christian religion? Partly because it reminds me that as much as I deplore the way in which religious anthropocentrism twists and distorts the doctrines of Scripture while attempting to fit them into an anthropocentric worldview, its offense against me is paltry compared to my offense against God by my own sinfulness. If, then, I should not want God to abandon me for my faithlessness, why then should I abandon the Presbyterian Church (USA) for its faithlessness?
But, more importantly, it is not my place to abandon the church to which the Lord has called me. And think not that I can wriggle out of this situation by declaring, “I am not abandoning the Presbyterian Church (USA) – it has abandoned me in its apostasy.” But, then again, I am not now referring to a denomination gone apostate in its accommodation to the world, but rather to the faithful remnant within her pale. I am a current member of one PCUSA congregation, and a former member of another, that has remained steadfast in its faithful proclamation of the Gospel and in its making of disciples.
I agree with the Presbyterian Lay Committee’s assessment “that current renewal efforts within the Presbyterian Church (USA) are not capable of reversing the denomination’s plunge into apostasy,” that the Presbyterian Church (USA) “begs not for improvement, but for Reformation and transformation.” And let us not forget the words of our Lord Jesus, “With men this is impossible, but with God all things are possible” (Mt. 19.26). Or the words of Almighty God, “Is My hand shortened at all that it cannot redeem? Or have I no power to deliver?” (Is. 50.2).
If the Lord would have spared wicked Sodom for the sake of 10 righteous men, will He not spare the Presbyterian Church (USA) for the sake of thousands more? If the Lord preserved seven thousand in Israel who had not bowed the knee to Baal, should Elijah seek to desert his calling? If the Lord seeks for a man in the Presbyterian Church (USA) who would make a wall and stand in the gap before Him on behalf of the denomination, that He should not destroy it, should He find no one for lack of my presence?
The battlefield in the Presbyterian Church (USA) is not a political battlefield. The votes on the floor of the General Assembly avail nothing in this war. The battlefield in the Presbyterian Church (USA) is a spiritual battlefield. We battle not against political foes, but against the unseen spiritual forces of darkness that array themselves against the Lord and against His anointed, who have insinuated themselves into His Presbyterian Church (USA) to turn the hearts of its children away from their Lord. They have succeeded in large measure, but their success is by no means complete, nor is it by any means guaranteed.
This battle will not be won by those who wash their hands of the Presbyterian Church (USA), but by those who remain and who drop to their knees daily and cry out, “How long, O Lord? How long must your Presbyterian Church (USA) languish in darkness? We pray that you would raise up men with the heart of David and women with the wisdom of Abigail, who will submit themselves wholly and unreservedly unto you and who will stand in the gap and fight the battles of the Lord of Hosts in Your power and strength! That the Gospel of Jesus Christ alone should once again be proclaimed boldly and effectively from every pulpit in this denomination!”
Loren Golden Overland Park, Kan. ,
About the two-synod model
Posted Friday, September 29, 2006
In response to a call for a two-synod model, I call attention to the eLink amendments that went to G.A. this past summer. G.A. called them “flexible membership in presbyteries and synods.”
Those of us in Beaver-Butler Presbytery who wrote these amendments did so with the anticipation that our denomination would pass recommendation 5 of PUP. We had observed past assemblies and knew that PUP had enough votes to pass.
The problem that our amendment had was that the old guard could not get over the fact that geography really does matter as much in the 21st century. Unfortunately, we will have to learn this the hard way just as GM, Ford and Chrysler are now learning. The Japanese and Chinese certainly are not tied down by geography. I would suggest that the old guard read Thomas L. Friedman’s The World Is Flat: A Brief History of the Twenty-first Century.
Getting back to two synods, our amendment recognizes that there may be more than just two synods possible in our denomination. Our amendment or a variation of it would be much easier to pull off then simply a two-synod model. Our amendment garnered 100 + votes or about 20 percent. This is very good for a first try. There is an “eLink” blog for those who wish to read more.
Might I suggest that someone out there who is earnest about this concept reintroduce it for 2008.
Greg Wiest Glade Run UP Church,
The beginning of the end
Posted Friday, September 29, 2006
The beginning of the end has begun. PCUSA churches are seeking to disassociate with the PCUSA, and the fallout will be disastrous for everyone who calls themselves Presbyterians.
Is this necessary? This writer believes yes because of the PCUSA’s liberal, apostate stand on the fundamentals of the faith, and rejecting Biblical and ethical morality.
The stated clerk and the leadership of Louisville have turned a blind eye to the holy Bible, and the will of the people of the PCUSA.
Thus, leaving the PCUSA is the only recourse, and the consequences will affect generations of Presbyterians. The blame is three-fold: one, the leadership of Louisville; two, liberal seminaries; and third, the inaction of the majority of PCUSA members turning a blind eye to the liberal, apostate stand of the PCUSA over the decades and ignoring signs of decay and apostasy. It has been the vocal minority of Biblical PCUSA members calling the PCUSA back to the holy Bible and holy Living.
The PCUSA denomination is destroying itself, and it is time now to bail out of a sinking ship.
Lou. S. Nowasielski Wilmington, Del. ,
Two heads better than one?
Posted Friday, September 29, 2006
I respectfully disagree with the opinion of Mr. John Almquist in The Layman Online’s Letters (Sept. 28). I have steadily maintained that we are called to be the body of Christ, but accommodating divergent positions by establishing two official “camps” is not the answer. I posit that in so doing, we, the Body of Christ who are told to have the mind of Christ, would turn Jesus into a schizophrenic!
Accommodating the masses in spite of their unwillingness to be conformed to the commands and image of Christ (who actually did preach on sexual impurity and immorality) and pursuing a fashionable and falsely mandated “inclusiveness” that challenges the reality of Jesus’ teaching in Matthew 7:13-14: “Enter by the narrow gate, for the gate is wide and the way is easy that leads to destruction, and those who enter by it are many. For the gate is narrow and the way is hard, that leads to life, and those who find it are few.”
These are hard words to accept, but accept them we must – even as I must, who was once “chief of sinners!” Tough love is never easy.
The mind of Christ is contained in the Word of God. And while many may challenge God’s Word – or reinterpret or reconceptualize or re-imagine or re-gender or denominationalize or neutralize or sanitize it – no one can void God’s Word (according to Isaiah 40:8, 55:11 for example). Thanks be to Almighty God for His sovereignty!
The church has only one head, Jesus Christ our Lord. Shouldn’t we also have only His mind?
Rev. Randy Hardy Washington, Ga. ,
The leadership of the UPUSA is mad
Posted Friday, September 29, 2006
These quotations come to mind in regard to the property issue:
“Whom the gods destroy, they first make mad.” (Euripides, Greek tragedy, 484 BC – 406 BC).
“Circle the wagons and fire on each other.”
“Order of firing: Fire, Ready, Aim.”
These quotations summarize my impression of the national PCUSA leadership. Their proposed legal actions and the action against the marvelous Korean church in California suggest that the “lamp stand” described in Revelation 2-3, and includes letters to the seven churches, is already pronounced on our beloved denomination.
The game is over for the PCUSA and other mainline denominations. Once I thought the larger congregations might prevail, but I no longer believe that. Rather, if the PCUSA continues this legal madness, the aging congregation will die naturally over time, and no one wants to unite with a congregation that has forgotten its historic Christian witness.
If, however, the national leadership would instruct presbyteries to conduct votes in congregations to determine “in” or “out” of the denomination, that would be encouraging and less combative.
If a congregation voted withdrawal to any denomination, the presbytery then ought to decommission the congregation as a functioning congregation of the PCUSA, and hold a service of thanksgiving and reconciliation and bid the congregation God’s speed with the presbytery’s blessing.
As matters stand, the theological claims of the PCUSA about reconciliation are hollow and evil. Failure to recognize the empty and evil nature of the proposed legal action against congregations is madness, as Euripides reminds us.
James A. Glasscock Fallsington, Pa. ,
Response to letter by John Almquist
Posted Thursday, September 28, 2006
John Almquist has identified at least part of the problem, and I salute him for thinking about possible remedies to the turmoil in the PCUSA, but his proposed solution, another version of the “two-synod” model” is not the answer. It is too late. The PCUSA is no longer a place that evangelicals can call home, even if the “progressives” (as he calls them) re-model the house to convert it to a duplex.
The current “leadership” in Louisville has too much at stake – keeping the PCUSA Bank & Trust Co. afloat, staying in the good graces of their friends in the NCC and WCC, and receiving glowing praise from the worldly liberals they love so much. For them, it is all about power and property and keeping the restive peasants sitting passively in the pews. Just read the “Louisville Papers.”
All that we hear from them is polity and per capita and property. “Make more of those per-capita bricks and the straw allowance be damned!” Nary a word about Scripture and the Great Commandment and the Great Commission.
Mr. Almquist is wrong when he says “. . . they [the bureaucrats in Louisville] have creat[ed] a ‘zero sum’ situation where the progressives have to win and the evangelicals have to be pushed out.” It is not about pushing the evangelicals out – it is about keeping them in captivity, powerless, and then getting the “progressives” to enact more unconstitutional remedies to finance the bureaucracy’s goals. Can anyone spell “mandatory per capita?”
We are in a situation now where many evangelicals are calling for striking the word “Presbyterian” from the names of their churches. Not abandoning the time-honored and proven Presbyterian form of governance, mind you, just the word – because we are no longer a true Presbyterian denomination. G.A. 217 put a bullet into the neck of that victim. We are, at best, a Presbyterian dictatorship, one in which a hand-picked group of presbyters execute the will of the bureaucracy.
The idea that a two-synod denomination is still a viable remedy is simply wrong. The “progressives” do not want parity, they want domination. All they expect from the evangelicals is silence and continued payment of per capita. The infeasibility of Mr. Almquist’s suggestion is best demonstrated by his suggestion that “overlapping presbyteries” from the two synods “could use the same office, and should have numerous overlapping committees to maintain the unity of the Auburn and Westminster synod churches at the presbytery level.” If the divide is so great that we need separate synods to house the evangelical and worldly branches of the PCUSA, then why would we expect these diverse bodies to be unified enough to share so many functions?
Let’s get to the real aim of the suggestion: “Ten percent of mission giving should stay in the overlapping presbyteries to be used by one of their joint committees for outreach and church growth. . ..” The worldly branch wants the money and control over the money. How many of those new churches will be evangelical, Scripturally-sound and Biblically-based churches if the worldly branch has any control over the funding?
As for common dinners and common gatherings, there is no need for contractual connections for that to happen. My home church has frequent blood drives with our neighboring Roman Catholic parish and our community occasionally has a rotating service with churches of various Protestant denominations without the benefit of a contractual alliance. We are, after all, part of the one Church, albeit one made up of many differing man-made denominations.
There are, indeed, two theological groups in our denomination. While there may be some commonality between us, what really matters, our understanding of theology and Christology and the authority of Scripture, is miles apart. The frayed connections are nearing the breaking point.
Mr. Almquist closes by observing: “The clouds are gathering and it sure is getting dark.” It most definitely is; it always gets darkest just before dawn. But there is a new day coming. Day breaks over Orlando in February. The forecast is for a day full of sunshine, perhaps by as early as Pentecost Sunday. When that day comes, let us rejoice and be glad in it.
Michael R. McCarty
Two synods? Do it!
Posted Thursday, September 28, 2006
For some time, I’ve been reading advocacy about a two-synod scheme within the PCUSA.
I really wish you guys would try it. Common wisdom among the evangelicals has it that evangelicalism will always grow because of the strength of evangelical theology, while liberalism will always shrink because of the weakness of liberal theology. Going to a two-synod configuration – one liberal, one evangelical – would certainly test that hypothesis.
My guess is both synods would decline at about the same rate and for the same reason: failure to do outreach. I’ve seen conservative Presbyterian churches decline because, while they were good at laying hands on one another and healing each other, the mere mention of doing evangelism in the neighborhood would send them into a panic attack. Then they organize a mission trip to the Republic of Bulemia.
If I were a stateside pastor, I would tell my people, “No overseas mission trips until you start doing something at home!”
Rev. Dr. Larry Brown African Bible College,
About the acceptance of the PUP report
Posted Thursday, September 28, 2006
From the moment I first learned it was in the Book of Order, I was grateful for the “fidelity/chastity” clause. Here, I thought, there is no room for confusion.
I have since found, of course, that confusion can be created very easily.
More than once, when someone has tried to explain the General Assembly’s acceptance of recommendation 5 in the PUP report, I have heard this phrase: “We have entered a foggier era, but the key word here is trust.”
I have no idea how other people feel about this, but I have trouble trusting people in foggy situations. I have trouble even trusting myself in foggy situations. The thing about fog is that it has that awful ability to mask our mistakes. At least when there are defined standards, a person can see how far he or she has fallen short.
We are now beginning to see the effects of the G.A. having accepted controversial recommendation 5 of the PUP report. I love our Church, but I am getting the uncomfortable feeling that this is truly like watching a dense fog roll in. The “fidelity/chastity” clause is still in the Book of Order, but how long will it be before that, too, becomes obscured?
I long for clarity. The world around us seems intent upon undermining one moral value after another. I long for our church to say that we will remain true to what the Bible says about faithfulness and purity in relationships. God, I believe, is calling us to learn this. He wouldn’t be so passionate and jealous in His love for us if He didn’t want us to learn how that love played out in human relationships.
Phyllis Woods, elder Winter Park Presbyterian Church,