Expository Apologetics #4
Expository Apologetocs • Sermon • Submitted
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· 6 viewsHow to use confessions and catechisms to answer questions and defend our views scripturally.
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How the confessions and catechisms can help us.
How the confessions and catechisms can help us.
Last time we ended by a brief glossing over of the confessions and catechism
We have thus far looked at 11 catechisms and we will review those this week.
Maybe you are wondering how in the world you are to use these?
Role play- Asking the questions and picking a verse to explain it.
You see? Piece of cake
However tonight I wanted to discuss a couple questions that could be asked to us about the Scriptures from a believer and from a non believer
We will pose them- identify the real problem- Look at confession/catechisms- discuss scriptural answer
Again, please understand- you will not have this type of time during a normal conversation
But our overall goal is to handle this in a conversation
So these tools only help if we have some familiarity with them
Which is why catechisms are so easy to store away the information an confessions dilute complex ideas into small chunks
Question 1- What do you think about Saddleback Church ordaining 3 women as pastor this past weekend? Al Mohler publically condemns them and said there is no biblical ground for it. What do you think?
So what really is the question---- Do you think a female pastor is biblical?
What areas of theology does this touch?
-Role of pastor
-Roles of men and women in the church
The confessions become real clear for us
BFM 2000- Article VI- The Church
“Its scriptural officers are pastors and deacons. While both men and women are gifted for service in the church, the office of pastor is limited to men as qualified by Scripture.”
1689- Chapter 26 #9
“Christ has appointed the way to call someone prepared and gifted by the Holy Spirit to the office of overseer or elder in a church. He must be chosen by the collective vote of the church itself.16 He must then be solemnly set apart by fasting and prayer. The body of elders of the church must lay hands on him if there are any already in place.17 A deacon must be chosen by the same kind of vote and set apart by prayer and laying on of hands as well.18”
By virtue of confessions- we have clear support from our SBC confession but also the 1689
But more so than that they give the scripture to examine afterwards
likewise also that women should adorn themselves in respectable apparel, with modesty and self-control, not with braided hair and gold or pearls or costly attire, but with what is proper for women who profess godliness—with good works. Let a woman learn quietly with all submissiveness. I do not permit a woman to teach or to exercise authority over a man; rather, she is to remain quiet. For Adam was formed first, then Eve; and Adam was not deceived, but the woman was deceived and became a transgressor.
The saying is trustworthy: If anyone aspires to the office of overseer, he desires a noble task. Therefore an overseer must be above reproach, the husband of one wife, sober-minded, self-controlled, respectable, hospitable, able to teach, not a drunkard, not violent but gentle, not quarrelsome, not a lover of money. He must manage his own household well, with all dignity keeping his children submissive, for if someone does not know how to manage his own household, how will he care for God’s church? He must not be a recent convert, or he may become puffed up with conceit and fall into the condemnation of the devil. Moreover, he must be well thought of by outsiders, so that he may not fall into disgrace, into a snare of the devil.
BFM- XVIII: The Family
“The husband and wife are of equal worth before God, since both are created in God’s image. The marriage relationship models the way God relates to His people. A husband is to love his wife as Christ loved the church. He has the God-given responsibility to provide for, to protect, and to lead his family. A wife is to submit herself graciously to the servant leadership of her husband even as the church willingly submits to the headship of Christ. She, being in the image of God as is her husband and thus equal to him, has the God-given responsibility to respect her husband and to serve as his helper in managing the household and nurturing the next generation.”
Just as Paul grounded his statements in the Creation Mandate- Adam made first, then Eve
The BFM also affirms the mandate and stresses equal in the image of God, different in God-given roles
Al Mohler- President of SBTS- Smartest SB on the planet opened his article like this:
"Behold, a little cloud like a man's hand is rising from the sea." That was the message the prophet Elijah heard from his servant. Then, "And in a little while the heavens grew black with clouds and wind, and there was a great rain."
That's the way issues often arise. At first, there is only a small cloud. Soon thereafter, here comes the downpour. Well, here it comes.
and he ends with
“But, this is no longer a cloud the size of a hand.”
So you see how the BFM can be very helpful in finding answers here and also giving us something to point others to
The answer is simply, man and women were given different roles by God. It doesn’t make them more or less important but God has given us specific commands in his word to follow. As SB we believe in the sufficiency of Scripture and 1 Tim 2-3 gives us clear instruction who is to be a pastor. That is a man and that is grounded in Gods creation plan.
Question 2: Im not a bad person, what do I need to be saved from?
What areas of theology does touch?
-Gods holiness
-mans depravity
BFM - II. God
“God is infinite in holiness and all other perfections”
BFM- III. Man
“In the beginning man was innocent of sin and was endowed by his Creator with freedom of choice. By his free choice man sinned against God and brought sin into the human race. Through the temptation of Satan man transgressed the command of God, and fell from his original innocence whereby his posterity inherit a nature and an environment inclined toward sin. Therefore, as soon as they are capable of moral action, they become transgressors and are under condemnation. Only the grace of God can bring man into His holy fellowship and enable man to fulfill the creative purpose of God.”
SLBC - Chapter 6- The fall of mankind, sin and its punishment
3. “By God’s appointment, they were the root and the representatives of the whole human race. Because of this, the guilt of their sin was accounted, and their corrupt nature passed on, to all their offspring who descended from them by ordinary procreation.6 Their descendants are now conceived in sin7 and are by nature children of wrath,8 the servants of sin, and partakers of death9 and all other miseries—spiritual, temporal, and eternal—unless the Lord Jesus sets them free.”
4.“By it we are thoroughly biased against, and disabled and antagonistic toward all that is good, and we are completely inclined toward all that is evil.”
Catechism
What happened to Adam and Eve after they sinned?
Instead of being holy and happy, they became sinful and miserable.
“Who is like you, O Lord, among the gods?
Who is like you, majestic in holiness,
awesome in glorious deeds, doing wonders?
no one understands;
no one seeks for God.
All have turned aside; together they have become worthless;
no one does good,
not even one.”
“Their throat is an open grave;
they use their tongues to deceive.”
“The venom of asps is under their lips.”
“Their mouth is full of curses and bitterness.”
“Their feet are swift to shed blood;
in their paths are ruin and misery,
and the way of peace they have not known.”
“There is no fear of God before their eyes.”
And you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience— among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind. But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved— and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.
Answer: Because God is eternally holy and all sin is against God, God must punish sin eternally. Man must be saved from the judgement of God. You and I are not perfect and we dont naturally seek God, but God sent Jesus to take our judgement on the cross so we can be forgiven.
You see how these documents can be tools. They are worth looking over. They give good scripture to reference
They are only as helpful if you know where they are.