May 21, 2015

 

Dear MLEPC Members and Friends:

 

"Going, going, gone" are words I grew up hearing during summer days when a baseball player hit a home run. The play-by-play announcer would raise his voice saying, "It's going . . . it's going . . . it's gone . . . a home run!" Now, that could be a good thing if the batter was a Pirate; however, if it was struck by a player from the opposing team, well, not so good.

 

We received word late last week about Pittsburgh Presbytery that prompted me to think of "going, going, gone"--and not in a good way. By a vote of 122-110, this governing body of the PCUSA affirmed the legitimacy of homosexual marriage ceremonies in local churches by PCUSA clergy. Last summer, the PCUSA agreed at its General Assembly meeting to embrace this view and then sent it on for ratification by a majority of its presbyteries. That majority was achieved some weeks ago, so the Pittsburgh Presbytery vote did not affect the final national outcome.

 

Yet I think that the Pittsburgh Presbytery vote is important to us, because until November 2012 we were a member church of Pittsburgh Presbytery. I sat on the Executive Council of Pittsburgh Presbytery until shortly before that time. When we began investigating the possibility of withdrawing, I regularly heard people comment, "Well, the national denomination may be rejecting biblical standards, but Pittsburgh Presbytery is not. We should stay because our presbytery is solid!"

 

Perhaps not so solid after all. Perhaps Pittsburgh Presbytery also may be going, going, gone as the vote last week indicates. In noting this, I am not saying that there are no Christians in Pittsburgh Presbytery; there are. I am not saying that there are no gospel-proclaiming churches; there are. With good will, let us continue to pray for these individuals and congregations. What I am saying is that the controlling majority now has decided to jettison a basic precept of Scripture and a legacy of two millennia in the Church that has cherished this basic precept.

 

This leaves me all the more grateful that we are out of the PCUSA and Pittsburgh Presbytery as we move forward with our Bible-based Evangelical Presbyterian Church and our gospel-centered Presbytery of the Alleghenies. Believe me when I say that I know how painful and awful it was for us to disaffiliate in 2012; I lived it every day for over two years. But on days like today, I realize that had we not paid that heavy price, we would be in a denomination and a presbytery that have overturned the biblical standard which states that marriage is a covenant between one man and one woman, so that the marriage bed is to be kept pure (Genesis 2:24; Hebrews 13:4). I am grateful that I did not wake up today as a member of a denomination and a presbytery that have acquiesced to the downward moral drift of culture. And I am glad for our church, for you in our MLEPC family, that we did the hard work of deciding that "as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord" on this issue (Joshua 24:15).

 

In closing, let me underline that the bottom line issue is one of authority. It is not homosexuality. Rather, who has the final word concerning faith and practice in the Church of Jesus Christ? Does the teaching of Holy Scripture, or does the currently celebrated opinion of popular culture? Which voice do we follow? At MLEPC, we have chosen sola Scriptura--the Bible alone is our final authority for our church and our personal lives. Sometimes what sola Scripture tells us will be acceptable in culture; at other times it will not as is the case with the homosexual issue. Either way, let us continue to live by the "Word of God inscripturated" which always leads us faithfully in the way of the "Word of God incarnate"--our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

 

Pastor Tim

 

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