Good afternoon, and welcome to another edition of Confessing Our Hope, the podcast of Greenville Presbyterian Theological Seminary. As usual, I'm your host, William Hill, and it's good to have you on the program today to listen to another edition of Faith in Practice. This is the eleventh version of this particular segment of the podcast where Dr. Piper, the president of the seminary, sits down and takes the questions that the listeners have sent in over the last four weeks or so, depending on how far we got into the the batch of questions that we've received over the number of months that we've done this. So Dr. Piper, as usual, it's great to have you on the program again to talk about this. I know you enjoy doing this, as do I, and I know the listeners have really enjoyed listening to the different answers and the different questions, which have been very good over the months we've been doing this. But thank you for being on once again. Thank you, Bill. It's good to be back. It's good to do this. And you're right, we're getting a great response to the program really all over the world. We're trying to build up our live listening base as well, but this goes out live this afternoon, but then it will be put in the queue on the podcast, and others can listen to it as well. I just wanted to mention in the beginning, Bill, that maybe some of our listeners are not aware of how they can support Greenville Seminary. We do something very different here. 70% of our income comes from donations. Most schools, it comes from tuition and fees. We have reversed that. We don't want our students to have a financial burden. That keeps us very dependent on the Lord, accountable to the churches, but also looking for more individuals. We're looking for those that would agree with us, agree with the things that you hear here on the podcast and on faith and practice. And so if you're interested in how you can help Greenville Seminary financially, then you can respond to Bill, and he'll be sure that the information goes to the Director of Development. But anyway, it's good to be here today, and boy, do we have some absolutely tremendous questions. They're very good, and we have a number of them, so we are going to, in this hour, try to get through all of, as many as we can. No promises we're going to get through all of these, but we're going to do the best we can to get through as many as we can. And so we're just going to jump right in and start. First question comes from Josh in Escondido, California. He writes in on a subject that we've dealt with in the past a little bit, but here's the question. He writes, I was listening to the Faith and Practice number five segment about the republication of the Covenant of Works. And in that segment, Dr. Piper briefly mentioned the views opposing republication. And I was curious to hear more about the second view he mentioned, which was the view held by many Puritans. Can you describe in more detail how it differs from the republication of the covenant of works? Thank you, Josh. This question is not going to go away, is it? In fact, it's one of the reasons that we have devoted our Spring Theology Conference, March 10th through 12th, to the subject of the Law of God. We have some very timely lectures around this subject. Our next question today is on the Covenant of Works and the benefits of it. We've got a historical lecture on the Covenant of Works. We've got a view critiquing New Covenant theology and their view of the law. We've got a lecture on antinomianism. Dr. Dyer's doing Paul and the Law in Galatians 3. And I'm doing a critique of republication. There's also a number of very practical positive messages. Dr. Scipione, the principle of equity and counseling. Dr. Curto is going to be dealing with the use of law and evangelism. Dr. Hamilton, Romans 8.3, what the law could not do. And I'll be preaching on some aspect of the third use of the law, probably Psalm 119, verses 9 through 16. So we're very excited about this. We hope that in a very positive and pastoral way that we can further the conversation of the church with respect to the use of the law. In Faith and Practice number five, I mentioned in passing the view of some of the Puritans And I don't know that if I said a majority of Puritans or many, it was simply one of the views. Actually, in the Law is Not a Faith and some other places, you can find basically the four main ideas of the Mosaic Covenant that were believed at the time of the Westminster assembly and in the Puritan era. But there were those, kind of building on Calvin and Turretin, that there was a restatement of the works principle in the Mosaic covenant, not as a covenant, but as a way for the first use of the law to drive people to Christ. And there would be a varied opinion in there. I take Leviticus 18.5, he who keeps these can live by them, to be absolutely a true statement. When God gives that statement, He's not implying that anybody can do that, but it's true. That has not changed. And Christ, of course, fulfilled that obligation, and I believe that Christ fulfilled both that obligation and the curses of the Mosaic Covenant. And so I go a bit further and say the Mosaic Covenant actually was the structure under which Christ did fulfill the demand for perfect obedience and the demand for curse-bearing for those that disobeyed. And so, Turretin, though, is really good there to get how the law is there, but it's there in a sense in a substrata, and the Mosaic Covenant These writers point out never dealt with law divorced from Christ. So the idea of a mixed covenant was not in the great majority of the writers of the 16th and 17th century. I'm not saying that none had that view. but it was very clearly a minority position. And it is my opinion that the Westminster Assembly itself, although there have been some people at the Assembly that perhaps held a mixed covenant view, the Westminster standards, I believe, are very clear that the Mosaic economy or administration of the covenant of grace in its entirety is a gracious covenant. Very good. And of course, we've dealt with many of these different discussions in the past, so I think we've covered them on a number of segments as well, so if you listen to all of them, you can really get a good, well-rounded understanding. Right. And if you can't get to the conference, we will be putting the conference on the podcast. On the mobile app. On the mobile app. Fairly soon afterwards, I don't know exactly when. Yeah, a few months. Or you could actually order the whole conference and get a very nice CD as well. Very good. Virginia writes in from Brazil. She's a longtime listener, and I think she's even written in a few times, but she writes in a short question, which I really love the short questions, I'll be honest. She writes in, what are the benefits of the Covenant of Works doctrine and what are the consequences of denying it? Virginia, I assume by covenant of works doctrine you're talking about by holding to what we call bi-covenantalism, that there were two covenants, that before the fall there was this covenant, it's called the covenant of works, kind of like Dr. Robertson's covenant of creation, it's also called the covenant of life, and in that covenant, which God was not obligated to make, the confession of faith says it was an act of condescension on God's part, one of the things that we deny, I think the confession denies that Adam was in covenant by creation. Adam was under a moral responsibility to keep God's law by creation, and he would have lived under that, as would have every one of his descendants for himself, throughout the history of the human race, with no promise of anything but not death. There was no promise to Adam apart from the covenant of life or to us. So the covenant was made on the basis of all of God's moral law that Adam would have had on his heart, whatever laws reiterated. We know particularly the Sabbath law and the work law and the marriage law. All of that, Ablam was responsible to keep in the covenant, and then the special covenant probation not to eat of the tree, through the tree of knowledge of good and evil. That probation was for the effect of testing the will of Adam. Would he submit to God and God's revelation, or would he try to make himself autonomous? The covenant's important for a lot of reasons. One name would be that shows us that's how God has always dealt with the human race, always through a covenant head, just as we do that in our families and government and other areas. And it was a great privilege for the human race because Adam was perfect and in the perfect setting. And if anybody, any man could have done that for posterity, it would have been Adam. But he didn't. And that was, in the mystery of God, part of God's holy will. because that then provided for the second Adam, God incarnate, who would come in the fullness of time and meet the demand of perfect obedience, as well as satisfy, as I mentioned in the last question, the curse of the law. So the covenant of works establishes the covenantal principle, it establishes the necessity of perfection, to be right with God, and it establishes the second covenant head, as Paul compares and contrasts them in Romans chapter five, verses 12 to the end of the chapter. Now if you deny the covenant of works, and let me just say in passing, a lot of people like to say John Murray denied the covenant of works. No, John Murray denied the language. He preferred to talk about administration. But all the things that I've said took place in what we call the covenant of works John Murray agreed with. Most people that deny this covenant are positing that man has always related to God by faith and works. and that Adam related to God by faith and works, and you and I relate to God by faith and works. So Christ atones for our sinful works, but it's still by faith and works that we are accepted. Whereas in the covenant of grace we believe that Christ alone fulfilled the demands of God's covenant, and by faith and repentance we receive all the benefits of what Christ accomplished. And so our obedience does not bring us into the covenant, but covenant obedience is part of being in the covenant, of abiding in the covenant. So a lot of things really get messed up if people deny the covenant of works. As I said, I believe it's, and there's a great, Ian Murray did a book a few years ago on Puritan evangelism, and it's a great thing there. You tell a lost person you want to be saved, keep God's law perfectly. That continues to be the message of Scripture. Well, I can't, that's right. Only one has done that, and it's through him that you'll become a perfect law keeper. So it's got a great evangelistic emphasis as well. Great question. And thank you, Virginia, for writing in and for listening faithfully to the podcast itself. Our next question comes in from Michael. He writes in from Minnesota. I'd say the city, but I can't pronounce it. Lino, Lino Lakes, Minnesota. OK, there you go. Best I could. And his is the opposite in length as to the previous question. He writes in and he says, my name is Michael. I attend Mission OPC in St. Paul, Minnesota. I listened to Confessing Your Hope, The White Horse Inn, Christ the Center, and Renewing Your Mind on podcast. I would not be interested in a live broadcast. He goes on a few other things. But anyway, getting to his question, he says he recently listened to R.C. Sproul's series Defending Your Faith. I really enjoyed his discussion on the arguments for the existence of God, giving a rational, logical explanation for reality as we encounter it. I didn't realize the series is an overview of classical apologetics until later in the series. He briefly explains the shortcomings of presuppositionalism. One is using the fallacy of circular reasoning, and the other is the fallacy of equivocation, where a term changes its meaning in the middle of the argument. I find R.C.' 's arguments compelling. However, there was no debate, just R.C. teaching the classical approach. So a week after listening to a series while I was out of town, there was a discussion in our church about apologetics. It appears, while talking to my fellow church members, that the classical approach is not liked in Reformed circles. What are the differences between presuppositionalism and the classical approach to apologetics, and are they that far apart? It seems that there's a lot of overlap between the two. Also, what book or books do you recommend that a layman can read that will give an overview of both as well as another book that shows why one method is better than the other? Michael, thank you for the question, and I'm sure you know, for the sake of our listeners, Michael's pastor is Frank Lew, a graduate of Greenville Seminary. Well, let me clarify one thing. I don't know that there's a lot of the classical approach is not liked in Reform circles. In some Reform circles, such as Ligonier, the classical approach is greatly appreciated. And there have been people throughout the history of modern Reform thought, people in the various Reform denominations who've held to the position. But I think that the what will I say, I think the growing opinion is, particularly in the younger generation that's coming along, millennials and whatever, is that apologetics, presuppositional apologetics, is much more satisfying. And actually, if you've read the first few chapters of Calvin's Institutes in Book One, you get the foundation there is Calvin deals with natural theology, He talks about man having both a sense of deity and a conscience, and he talks about because of the sense of deity and conscience, there's also the revelation that is in creation. But Calvin points out that at best, as the confession of faith does, that leaves men without an excuse. And Paul says in Romans chapter one, that although all these things are clearly revealed in the creation, the natural man suppresses them. My wife is constantly marveling at the illogicality and stupidity of modern day liberals. And I say, you just have to remember the noetic effects of sin. That they willfully will not believe. I mean, when you look at a brilliant scientist who with a straight face can say that there is serious evidence for macroevolution. Well, you know he's lost his mind. Well, what you know is he never had it yet until he is regenerated. And so he presuppositionally, and here we begin to get, everybody begins on the basis of assumptions. all reasoning begins on the basis of assumptions. What presuppositionalism does is out front admit that. That's why it's not circular. All reasoning is basically, in the way they would describe it, circular because all reasoning begins with axioms and presuppositions that are unprovable, truths that a person begins with. Now what the presupposition is saying is that we know that man knows there's a God, and that he couldn't really operate in this world intellectually or physically if there were not a God. And so we begin with the presupposition that God is, and that the natural man knows God is. It doesn't matter what he says to you. And that's an advantage you have. You know we're depressed. You know how to get to the conscience. You know that ten brilliant arguments cannot get rid of what his conscience is shouting at him. You know there is a God. And so we begin there, and not admitting to man any autonomy. Recognize noetic effects of sin. We say that man is in rebellion against God, where classical apologetics tends to put man in a place of neutrality. Come let us reason together, not on the basis of my presuppositions, but let's start right here. in an area of neutrality. Now, there's a great deal of difference then within the realm of classical apologetics that I really don't fully understand and cannot go into today. But autonomy, epistemology, the doctrine of how one knows. Now, presuppositionists do not deny evidences. and do not say you cannot use the theistic evidences. In Dr. Smith's Systematic Theology, in the section on, I guess it's faith or the doctrine of God, he points out there how a Christian that holds to Vantillianism can use some of those theistic evidences, but should not grant an autonomy to someone, nor do we think that we can ever bring them by these arguments to believe in the true God. in the triune God, the creator of heaven and the earth and the sea. Another difference has to do with the approach of scripture. John Kirshner, I considered him a friend and I, in many respects, in terms of a teacher, would be a disciple of his. But in this area of apologetics, he's told me that you have to convince, argue with a person that the Bible is truly the word of God before you can use the Bible. Whereas John Owen says, I think it's at the end of Volume 16, that Scripture is, because it's self-attesting of the power of the Spirit, just use it. You don't argue with the person about power or about light. You simply use power and light. And because we know the Bible is the Word of God, blessed of the Spirit, we can use it with confidence. Now it's not wrong to try to answer people's questions, particularly if they're asking them in a genuine, humble, searching way. But we recognize that answering the questions won't make the difference. It must be the Spirit that makes the Bible self-attesting to them. As to some books, Michael, Greg Bonson's book, Classical Vantillian Apologetics, is a very good book and accessible. He's probably one of the better modern interpreters of Vantill. Alongside that, a newer work by Scott Oliphant, who teaches at Westminster in Philadelphia on Covenantal. apologetics, very good and very useful. A beginner, I've used it to teach high school students. It was written for high school students, but that means any of us can profit from it. Richard Pratt, every thought captive. And then at the seminary, and I've talked to Dr. Curto about this, you can buy, for example, his lectures on Introduction to Apologetics for the cost of an audit, which will be $60, and a $20 shipping fee. And so if you want to hear, and he will go in there and he compares and contrasts the views and develops this view of apologetics. So you're surely welcome to order that as well. I'll say that if you'd rather have that than a book, we'll take $10 off of the fee and let you buy the course and listen to it. Thank you, Michael. Yeah, Michael, and just as a note, to follow up with what Dr. Piper said, when I contact you, and you will get contacted through email, just make note of this, what he had said, so I remember. I don't remember everything that gets said in these programs. I wish I could. I don't remember everything that gets said in class. But anyway, he's laughing because he knows it's true. But just make a note of that, and then I will take care of the details on this end. But it's a really great question, and I'm in the advanced apologetics class here as a student as well, and so we're really getting into these intricate aspects of the methodology and the epistemology and everything. It's very intriguing. And I came out of a very classical position growing up, so I have found presuppositionism a matter by which much is answered. That classical apologetics... Yes, Michael, and Bill's writing a paper on this, and I said that you could also ask him for that. If you want to be bored, I'll send you my paper if you like it. But anyway, I hope to learn much from it. There's many questions I have as well in relationship to it. But great question, and thanks for listening and for writing in. Our next question comes from Robbie. He writes in from North Carolina. He says, first he wants to admit that I'm the guy that fellow believers call the legalist. And maybe Dr. Peiple can really explain what a legalist is. That word is thrown around so badly these days. But anyway. And I'm okay with that, he says. I truly believe in saved by grace through faith. However, I believe as a church we have taken the grace thing too far. That is, we can dictate the specifics of our faith, opposed to the Old Testament mandate, kind of like Burger King, have it your own way. This brings me to my question. I'm already seeing Christmas entrapment, and have wrestled with this for some time. Now, understand, this question came in in November of last year, so Hence the question he says Jeremiah 10 2 through 3 very well seems to be to point to the forerunner of our modern Christmas tree practice and the Lord says do not learn this way I do not think grace changed God's hearts on this matter Second we worship Christmas as all other pagans on the winter solace solstice December 25th now I know These are not heaven or hell issues, but they're against the character of God. Shouldn't that be enough reason for the shepherds to teach against Christmas celebration or at least majorly reform it being observed in a more accurate fall time frame without pagan decorations? All I ever hear in defense is we are under grace, yet with that logic I could commit all types of sins under the banner of grace. I believe we need more shepherds to proclaim holiness in turn from the world's system, even the church's norm. Great, Robbie, appreciate that, and appreciate your grasp of the grace principle. That's one of the things that we are seeking to bring a balance to here. It's one of the things that we will be addressing in our conference this March. Legalism, you're wrong to call it a legalist. Legalism is one of two things. Either you're seeking to earn God's favor by your works, obviously you're not doing that, or you're adding man-made laws to the law of God. Those are the only two things that qualify That's legalism. There's nothing wrong with being precise. God is precise. I preached, I'm starting a series in chapel this Wednesday, and by the way, you all can either listen to that live, no you can't listen to it live, but you can get it off Sermon Audio, Psalm 119. In the very first stanza, one of my applications is the precision of God. in His law, and that we must keep all of His commandments in order to enjoy His blessings. That's by faith, in Christ, and yet we are. So, your question's a good question. Any question where we seek to wrestle with God's will in our lives, individually or as a church, cannot be legitimate. Now we always, you know, you be patient and humble, winsome, learn, but don't be afraid to ask the questions. Now I will say that I think you take Jeremiah 10 too far. The customs of the people are delusions because it's a wood cut from the forest, the work of the hands of a craftsman with a cutting tool. They decorate it with silver and with gold. He's talking about idols. It's very clear in the context and other places in the Old Testament. And so he's not talking about a Christmas tree that is being decorated. Now, I agree with you that we ought not to bring into our Christian practice the Christmas traditions of tree and ornaments and things like that. And basically, I recommend one of three things. I think if a church, I don't recommend this, but I think a church is free, if it wants to annually observe the advent and the birth of Christ, even though the date is probably wrong, This is the time that's in everybody's mind, and so the church, well as Martin Lloyd-Jones said, for me not to preach an Adventist sermon on the Sunday right around Christmastime is really stupid, because it's the second time I hear people come to church thinking about what I'm going to preach about. And so even somebody as strict as he would do that. I often would break a series and preach even Old Testament prophecy. And so it's not wrong that the church would preach on the Advent, and if a church wants to have some special things, not in the worship service, don't change the worship service, but if you wanted to have a special presentation or something like that, some of the churches do carols and scripture, whatever it is, Now, some of them replace evening worship with that. I'm opposed to that. But others do it as an outreach thing on Christmas Eve or Saturday or Friday night or even a Sunday afternoon. I think that's okay. In fact, that's wise. That's a good way to try to reach our neighbors. Now, the other thing that some Reformed people now go to is simply to ignore it altogether. We have a faculty member here. He and his family don't observe Christmas in any way whatsoever, and that's surely their freedom of conscience as well. They don't impose it on anybody else. Although I would agree that I would never want to have a Christmas tree connected to any celebration that would be holy and divine. Now the third way, and it's the way that we've chosen as a family, is to have a holiday that would be akin to July 4th, our family birthday celebration, or some cultural celebration, like Independence Day or something like that. And so, because we like tradition, and we like the festivities, the decorations, we do those things with our children and our grandchildren, and we exchange presents, not because God gave us a gift, but because it's just a fun thing. to do. You'll not find a religious ornament in our house, and I often encourage people not to put angels on their trees, because I think it's an insult to angels. But I think you're right. These churches that are combining the two and then saying it's grace, I don't think we have any warrant. There's one church I know of that actually has two Christmas trees inside their auditorium the whole season. I just cannot find any biblical warrant for those types of things. So yes, if the church wants to highlight the birth of Christ, Even a church might have a special musical presentation. Christians get together and sing the hallelujah chorus. Just don't replace worship with those things and don't do something on the Lord's day that would be better suited to another day. Observe the time culturally. Keep out religious celebrations whatsoever or just ignore it. But you're right about grace. Grace does not change the precision of God's law. Yes, good question, and I wish we had been able to get to it before the holiday, but be that as it may, we did it way in advance for the holiday coming in 2015, and I'm willing to bet we'll get another question at that period as well. Our next question is of the shorter variety. Troy writes in, he didn't leave his state or city, so Troy writes in, he just asked Dr. Pipe if he could interact with the Lutheran versus Reformed perspectives regarding the Lord's Supper. Okay. I could. That's how he asked it. As Bill knows, I'm often teasing my students on the way they ask questions. I will, as well. Troy, thank you for the question. I think it's a very important question. I think there's a lot of ignorance today in our Reformed churches on the Lord's Supper as well. The major difference, two major differences between the Lutherans and the Reformed, the one is the Lutherans' view of the means of grace, the sacraments preaching. They believe that the means of grace have been designed by God so that they always accomplish that which God intends, so that grace is communicated. It's different from the Roman Catholic view. some ex-opera, the works working for themselves. No, God has designed it, God has said, I will work through any time the means of grace are faithfully administered. And we believe the Spirit must sovereignly make the sacraments and preaching effective. If He doesn't do so, they're not going to be The second and the most serious difference then has to do with what is referred to as the real presence. For Lutherans, the real presence is the physical person of the Lord Jesus Christ. Now they're not like the Roman Catholics. Roman Catholics practice transubstantiation. So they say that in the priest's prayer of dedication, the elements, although the accidents, what they look like, remain the same, in substance they're changed to the real flesh and the real blood of Jesus. And the Latin hocus es corpus mea, this is my body. It's from that that we get the idiom hocus pocus, because it's about as much magic as hocus pocus. The Lutherans didn't go that far, but they said that when the sacrament is delivered, that Christ physically is present in, around, and under the bread and the wine. Now to get there, they introduce a very serious error, and that is called the ubiquity of the Lord Jesus Christ. We've always recognized that Christ in his human nature did not have divine attributes. And so even in his human nature at times he confessed an ignorance. As the God-man, he then cannot change his human nature into a divine nature. Now, Christ, by His Spirit, is present everywhere, and it's by His Spirit that He indwells us. But Christ's human nature is in a location. He's very clear about that when he tells the apostles in John 14 and 15 and 16, it's to their benefit that he goes away, that the Spirit might come. So Christ's body is in heaven. But the Spirit makes Christ's body present. But the Lutherans say, because they have a doctrine called ubiquity, that Christ's body is also omnipresent, as is the divine nature. And so that's how they get this doctrine. So you're actually partaking of the body and blood of Christ, really. Now, the Reformed view, I think is summarized in the Westminster Confession of Faith, is that mystically, but really, Christ is present, and that He does give us Himself. There's a real presence of Christ by His Spirit, in the Lord's Supper, and that we do feed on Him for spiritual strength and help. And I think this is really spelled out quite clearly in the Confession of Faith, in the chapter on the Lord's Supper. worthy receivers, outwardly partaking of the visible elements in this sacrament, do then also inwardly, by faith, really and indeed, yet not carnally and corporeally, so no material way, but really and indeed, spiritually, receive and feed upon Christ crucified, and all benefits of his death, the body and blood of Christ being then not corporeally or carnally in, with, or under the bread, that's a reference to the Lutherans and wine, yet as really So it's really, as the Lutherans would say, we believe in a real presence as well, but spiritually present to the faith of believers in that ordinance. Now there again is a difference. We believe there must be an exercise of faith, as the elements themselves are to their outward senses. Now that's the historic Reformed position. Now unfortunately, in a lot of our churches today, Reformed churches, we don't go that far. We don't get much beyond the fact, do this in remembrance of me. We mumble through it. There's no appeal to the senses. I had a piece of cracker last night that absolutely was A piece of cracker. A piece of cracker. I said to the elders, a friend of mine said, that wasn't bread. On top of that, it tasted bad. I actually give my students a recipe for unleavened bread, got honey in it, it's about an inch thick, Boy, it's sweet, and that reminds you of how sweet Christ is. It's satisfying how satisfying Christ is. It's filling how fulfilling Christ is. We use real wine for the same reason. But we want to get from the element to Christ, and we want to focus on feeding on Christ. And there's a great question in the larger catechism that really helps you profit from the Lord's Supper, Troy, and that has to do with how to behave during the Lord's Supper. It's Larger Catechism 174. So look at the Confession of Faith, chapter 29, paragraph 7, Larger Catechism 174. Get back to me if you have more questions. Very good. Outstanding question. One, the church, as Dr. Pipe has even indicated, needs to think through this more. It's not a memorial. It is a memorial, but it's far more than a memorial, the Zwinglian view, and I think that's what we've turned into that for some reason, but it's far more than that. Our next question comes from Mel. He writes in from Colorado. Also on the Lord's Supper. Oh, go ahead. I said it's also on the Lord's Supper. Oh, right. Thank you. It is also on the Lord's Supper. Dr. Pipe is ahead of me, as usual. Here's the question. He writes, Dr. Pipe, I recently heard you state on a broadcast that a person needs to be able to examine himself in order to come to the Lord's table. My father, once an elder in the church, has Alzheimer's. What is to be done with him, in your opinion? He can no longer examine himself or do the kinds of preparations the longer catechism requires. It would seem to me that you would ban him from the table at a certain point in his illness. If so, would not you be, in effect, excommunicating him? Also, what about those baptized members that have disabilities, for instance, cerebral palsy, which hinder them from communicating and so are not able to profess their faith or demonstrate their faith? King David invited Mephibosheth to his table. Isn't that something of a picture of our Lord's table? I'm going to stop there, because there's actually two questions here. And actually, there's two different questions here. And I really, Mel, appreciate your question and also the sensitive nature and the personal experience out of which it arises. I think we fail to understand that the Lord's Supper is a secondary means of grace. It is a visible or sensual preaching of the Word of God. Now because it is subsumed, when I say secondary, it's always attached to preaching and assumed under preaching. We must approach it in the same way. I know you don't mean to do this, but your question assumes that there is some efficacy in the sacrament apart from faith. So let's just turn that around. Is there efficacy for preaching in a person who cannot in any way comprehend what is being said? Now, the big answer to that is no. Now, is there an efficacy in being in the presence of God where the Word is preached? Yes. Is there efficacy in being in the midst of assuming it takes communion? Yes. But to say that we're depriving him of a benefit because we're not giving him in a mindless kind of way, if the Alzheimer's reached that level, the Lord's Supper is saying that in some way it's efficacious apart from faith. That's my problem, one of my problems with patal communion. We're making the sacrament efficacious apart from faith. But in the section I just read in the previous, answer to the previous question, notice that last part of chapter 29, paragraph 7, yet is really but spiritually present to the faith of believers in that ordinance as the elements themselves are to their outward senses. And so, faith must be exercised to profit from preaching, faith must be exercised. Of course, you come back, well, what about infants? Well, we're not saying that that, in fact, the confession's clear. The efficacy of their baptism is not tied to the moment of ministration. It's tied to the moment when they begin able to reflect. If they have a new heart, it'll begin to function by the Spirit then in them by faith. Now it immediately functions to the parents that the child's in covenant with God, it functions in the congregation, a lot of things going on there, but not in the child until the child is separated, but not in the child until the child begins to able to exercise faith. Now I think the parallel to Mephibosheth is really not useful here because Mephibosheth was lame. It wasn't that he was in any way mentally disabled. And the same then with a person with cerebral palsy. or some other severe disability. I just worked with a pastor in Texas who had a family who wanted to join the church. They had a very severely disabled child. The parents were convinced the child understood the gospel and was trusting in Christ. And I gave the pastor some ideas, because the elders were about to say, well, no, we can't receive you into community membership. But I gave them some ideas, because the child could comprehend. and they receive the child into the church. So, again, it's not what somebody can articulate, it's what they can comprehend. And elders with a child like that needs to work more carefully. It might be with pictures or whatever, what that person can comprehend. So yes, I am saying that, now understand as well, a lot of Alzheimer's patients, they know their faith, they know their Christ. And so we don't sell them short either. They can quote hymns and scripture, and you ask them if God is their savior, they'll say yes. So it's not even all Alzheimer's patients or dementia. Archibald Alexander has a great section in his thoughts on religious experience. about how people's senile, that they were truly born again, they never forgot their faith and their Savior. So we'd have to be also, you know, I can't just abstractly say no Alzheimer person can come. But you still must be able to take hold of Christ by faith in that sacrament. Now, maybe it didn't answer the question about an examination, but again, if it's a childlike faith and they know they're feeding on Christ, that's the elder's decision, so it wouldn't just rule out anybody. But it's not excommunication to say, I mean, let's turn it around. What if the person is in the hospital, and our confession forbids us to take private sacraments. We can go have a worship service there with them, a truncated worship service and have the Lord's Supper, but many churches can't do that, and many people can't even do that. They're not excommunicated, it's just in God's providence at this particular time in one's life. That's a means of grace that they can't appreciate, but they're so close to glory, they're soon gonna have much more than we have here. In excommunication also, and correct me if I'm wrong, Dr. Piper, but that always implies, that's not even implicit, it's explicitly about discipline over a sin or rebellion. So it's not really the right way to express it, and I think we know what you mean. I'm just sympathetic. Absolutely, I mean just to follow up something with dr. Piper said I visited with our past my pastor in a nursing home a woman who had severe dementia The woman didn't even know who we were and she knew us, but she didn't know us We we visited her many years before years before that and she knew who we were But she had no clue at this point. She was so severely Demented in her mental faculties, but when we read scripture to her she started quoting the scriptures And she couldn't remember anything else, but she knew what the Bible said and I was more encouraged than anything that it just These people they retain these things when they know what they're hearing and they're able to Articulate it in some capacity. And so when you're examining somebody like that you're looking for those little things and those indications that they're getting what's being taught and communicated and But it's as much a pastoral issue as a theological one. But it's a good question, because I think we see more and more of this in our churches. Now the follow-up question is related, but different. He says he heard in a broadcast that only mature churches should have weekly communion. Would you comment further on what is a mature church? Yes. Thank you for following up on that. I think I expanded that point, but maybe not. What I mean by that is, a church that the people aren't anxious to get out of church in one hour. They love the Word, they love worship, they love the Lord's Supper. So, it's a church where you can have a full worship service, you can have a 40, 45-minute sermon, and a joyful time around the Lord's table without people trying to shorten either the worship and the sermon or both. And so, a lot of congregations with which I have dealt and do deal with are not ready for that. You go to 1 minute past 12, and you've got people just up in arms. That church is not ready for weekly communion. And so I'm measuring maturity of a church in terms of, in this particular context, is love for the Word and worship. Yep, it's pretty much that simple. Well thank you for the questions, and continue to write in, and thank you for listening as well. Ben writes in, Benjamin, excuse me, writes in from Mississippi, and he asks a question. This is actually interesting background, I won't get into it, but I'm glad he wrote in anyway, and he'll know what I mean. He writes in, is it permissible and or wise for a Presbyterian believer to drive past a sound Presbyterian church, and that's critical in this discussion, a sound Presbyterian church in their neighborhood or town to another sound Presbyterian church for personal preference? Why or why not? Okay, and it should be in his neighborhood. Anyway, all right. Thank you, Ben. That's a question that a lot of us... Well, I didn't write the question. I know you didn't. helping you? I'm gonna get unfunded on Facebook now. No, I am and you are. Both of us. I don't know if Ben's my friend or not, so... I think he is. You know who this is. I think you know who this is. Yeah, I think I know Ben. I know Ellisville, definitely. Anyway, it's a great question. It's one that we wrestle with. Now, I'm assuming, because of knowing a little bit of the context that this came out of, we're talking about a confessional church that would have the same views of subscription and worship. And I want to add, has edifying preaching. For me, a sound church must have edifying preaching. So, ideally, no. We should not drive by one that's close to us to go to another. And there are a couple of reasons for that. One is, something that we push here at the seminary, and the whole concept of trying to get back to parish churches. Churches that really do become the center of the gospel in their neighborhood. Now, for that to happen, the people that live by that church need to be involved in it. I still long for a day when every Reformed Christian can walk to a Reformed church. Now, in our culture, that's probably a bit idealistic, but at least, you know, no more than a five-minute drive in the car. You see, Dr. Smith told me one time we were driving through rural South Carolina, and I forget the exact mileage, but we were watching, and the Southern Presbyterians planted churches every, it was like 10 miles apart, so nobody had more than a five-mile carriage ride to get to church. And they did that deliberately so that there would be a church, and even in the rural areas, in the closest, a close vicinity. The second is, if you've got any concern for bringing your neighbors to Christ—so this is part of the parish, but it doesn't have to be even the parish concept—you know, it's hard to invite people to go to church with you that are not Christians when you're driving 25-30 minutes. So those are the whys. We do have to factor in, though, because this is a matter of Christian liberty. And I think the very tenor of your question, you recognize that. So it's preferable, but it is a matter of Christian liberty. And I think, it's not that I'm in a church and leave it, but there are some churches that, churches have personalities. And they're not friendly. You don't...you wouldn't want to take your non-Christian friends to that church. So, now if by sound you mean good preaching and good body life and all those things are part of a church, but, you know, there's a There's a church probably closer, but I don't drive by it. I go the opposite direction. But probably a church that's seven minutes closer to me. But my wife and I have never just felt comfortable there. Now, you know, we're blessed in Greenville, so any church we go to is close enough that we can take friends to, and so it might be that the church that's closest to one is not the church where one would go, because of doctrinal reasons, because of worship, for example, different views of worship or whatever. So, you know, it is, it's preferable, but I think it's a matter of Christian liberty, and on these pros and cons that I've given you, I think you have to work that out. It's a very good question, and it's one I've kicked around. I think my reformed pastor class here, we're being asked to write a philosophy of ministry. Don't really care for that language, but be that as it may. And these are kinds of things we think about and think through. And one of the things that you mentioned, Dr. Piper, is one that I've seriously thought about. How do I... My neighbors will drive three hours to go to a football game, but they're not going to drive 30 minutes to go to church. And if I can bring them to a church that I'm a part of in my community, in my neighborhood, within 10 minutes, 15, whatever it is, I mean, there's no magic number, it's not the number so much, but close enough where it's reasonable to think that they might go, I always find that to be more ideal. Now, there's also other extenuating circumstances. When Bill, for example, got involved in the church where he's involved, it was the closest church to him. He's now an elder in that church. In God's providence, he's moved across town from that church. I'm back across town, and I'm within, I'm eight minutes away. Well, that's good. I'm thankful for you. But in that case, he shouldn't change churches, because he's only here temporarily. But now, if he moved across town, and there was now another reason his church really needs him. He's an elder, and so, but let's just say the church was at a position that it wouldn't hurt it to lose a good family, and Bill lived here permanently and moved across town, then he probably would have joined a church near where he was living. But since he's only here for seminary, and now providentially, I didn't realize that that's where he had moved back to, that's good. Yeah, I was, that was the encouraging part of that whole process. Plus the roof over your head. Well, that, that too, but yeah, I guess I just assumed that was going to happen, but it is interesting thing to think through. I, you know, we're not suggesting, I don't think Dr. Piper is suggesting, I'm not suggesting that, you know, we have mass exodus now from all of our churches because, you know, we feel like we probably should be going to the one down the street instead of the one, you know, 14 churches away. I don't think that's what we're saying. Well, in fact, you can't do that now. If you're a member of a church, you sit down with your elders in your local church and say, I really feel burdened to help this church that is near me. What do you all think? Right. And you got to know, is this going to harm the church I'm leaving? So it's also different when, you know, if you're moving to town, you make a decision. There's one set of criteria. I'm glad you brought that up, Bill. There's one set of criteria. But if you're a member of a church, particularly knowing I don't know which church you go to, but I recognize the smallness of the churches over there where you are. The loss of you could really be devastating, both emotionally, but also in terms of resources. And so, yeah, you do that with consultation. But still the ideal is we want to be moving towards this parish model. We want to plant churches in neighborhoods. and get our neighborhood churches, and even actually got this from Jim Jordan, but it's a great idea, and I use this in Houston. In Houston, you didn't drive by Reformed churches to get to church, you just drove, and I think the average drive time by congregation was probably 30 minutes. And we worked well in our neighborhood, but what Jim recommended was, is that you don't live in the neighborhood of your church, where you get the church brochures and cards or whatever, and you make your neighborhood your parish. You go door-to-door and say, I'm a member of this church, I know it's a bit far from here, but if you don't have a church, I'd sure like you to go with me and here's some stuff you can read. If you've got questions, my phone number's there, call me. And so we can apply the parish model even in this more mobile culture where we live today. One of the objections to this that came up from this discussion that you and I had discussed before we went on air was what do you do if you're in a community that doesn't have a reformed church at all and you're forced to drive, you know, whatever? Obviously, in that situation, you have no options. But one of the solutions that I presented in the discussion was, and I really would like your feedback, so this is kind of me taking over now and asking my own questions, but is if our churches that are huge, and you define that however you want, I have a number in my head, but churches that are giant, you know, mega church types, would think about planting churches in those communities that don't have a strong Reformed Presbyterian presence, we wouldn't have that problem. Well, yes. Now, you need families there. Sure. So I'm an advocate of the average church membership being between 250 and 350 so that everybody can have good pastoral care. You don't lose any resources that way if you're real Presbyterians. If we've got four congregations of 250, we've got resources of a thousand-member church plus pastoral care. We function like Presbyterians. We go together, we hire somebody to do baptism on the high school campuses in town. We hire somebody to do discipleship in our churches. And so, years ago there was a piece in the old Guardian magazine, the Orthodox Presbyterian Church, the strawberry plant method of planting churches. And where a strawberry plant, you know, spreads and pops up a few inches from the last plant, This is the ideal way of doing church planting so that church takes families that live in that area and they start a Bible study, they move toward a church. We're seeing this happen. If any of our listeners are out in the Austin area, I've sent three different families to the OPC that's north of Austin. They all live down in the city. But now that first the church started a Bible study, now they have a church plant down there with a church planter. And so out of the mother church that they all love greatly is going to be another church that they hope can be just like the mother church in terms of its emphases. Very good. We're almost out of time. Just quickly to even connect that even further, it's another reason why, at least in my opinion, when you move Are you thinking about moving? We think about the job, we think about the schools our children are going to go to, the neighborhood we're going to live in. So often this subject is not really on the radar all that much. Is there a church close by that is of the Presbyterian Reformed persuasion, one that we can get behind and join with all of our heart and support the ministry and work, That should be a factor in deciding to move to a city, town, wherever it may be. And I think it just gets kind of ignored. Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe I'm the only one who's done that. So anyway, we're almost out of time, Dr. Piper. And so we're not going to get to any more of the questions. We did get through about half. And so those who are listening live, and perhaps you're one of those people that we didn't read your question, well, we'll do it next month. We'll just pick up where we left off and continue through. the list, but we did get through about half of the ones that we did have on tap for today. And you know, we've got a couple of really sensitive questions here about sexual abuse and stuff, and if this is something that is more time-sensitive and necessary, please send me an email. These came in in January, and so we don't want you to have to wait until March 2nd to hear the answer to these questions. So, Email me or call me, and we can talk about those if you can't wait. Outstanding. For those who are listening live, I do want to just do a little bit of a programming announcement. Those who listen on the podcast, this is not going to mean anything to you after the fact, unless you're a subscriber to the Janet Medford program. I think that you have to pay for the full thing. I don't know, maybe I'm wrong about that, but Dr. Piper will be on the Janet Medford program, I believe that's February 4th at 4.30 p.m. Eastern Time. Okay, so Janet Medford program live on the air, February 4th at 4.30 Eastern Standard Time. So if you do, listen to her and she's outstanding, frankly. Very well-researched, but it's nice to have a staff. But she's well-researched, she's fantastic, good interviewer. Dr. Pipe will be on to talk about, I believe, the conference and related Also, for those who are interested in podcasts and like to listen to these things, Kevin Bowling, he's a local gentleman here in the Greenville area. He has a radio program, Knowing the Truth, and he interviewed Richard Barcelos on his program, I believe it was, at the end of last week. And again, about our Spring Theology Conference, and Richard Barcellos is going to be a speaker. He was interviewed by Kevin Bolling. You can get that on Sermon Audio. Just search for Knowing the Truth Radio, and it will come right up. It's the first one on the list of the various ones that he's done. But again, Richard Barcellos was his guest, so if you're interested in more information, you can get that there as well. And then watch our website for the other speakers who will be on Knowing the Truth program, and you can plug into that. That's right. Well, I guess that wraps up things for today. It's been very good. The questions are outstanding. Keep writing in the information there on the website, confessingourhope.com. The form is simple. Just fill it out, send it, I will get it, and we will add it to the list of questions that we have waiting to be answered on the program. And of course, if we do, we'll send you a book to you post-paid. So until next time, we do thank you for listening to this particular edition of Confessing Our Hope, the podcast of Greenville Presbyterian Theological Seminary. And God bless.