This summer the Pacific Ocean is experiencing a warming period that occurs every several years. It is called El Nino (Spanish for “little boy”), and researchers say that this particular El Nino, which is larger than most, will cause more significant disruption to world weather patterns than some of the recent ones we have experienced. El Ninos have been occurring for centuries, although we have been monitoring them only for the past century or so, and as we do, we are learning more about them. Warming waters in the Pacific Ocean, occurring this summer, will have an impact on our weather this coming fall and winter here in Southern Alberta. Enough data has been collected to say that we can expect a warmer, drier winter with a smaller snowpack followed by a warm and dry spring and summer. We will see how accurate the computer models that have been used to shape this forecast will be.

While El Ninos have been happening for centuries, what has changed is our monitoring of them. And, with that monitoring, some countries have begun to take action to prevent the challenges that are almost certain to come. Peru, for example, has lowered limits on anchovy fishing because the supply of those fish declines during an El Nino summer. India is making preparations for longer dry spells and harsher rain events by lowering its predictions for food production. Here in southern Alberta, we should be considering how we can manage our water supplies over the next year so that we are not caught insufficient water in our systems for cropping next summer. By knowing what is coming, we can make adjustments in order to lessen any negative impact we might experience.

There is a theological word that can be used in this regard: providence. “Providence” literally means “to see before.” With more data derived from past years, through computer modelling, scientists, governments, farmers, home owners and many more can see ahead to the next year and have an idea of what is coming. But providence is more than just seeing ahead; providence is also making provision to meet the needs of what is coming. Foreseeing, if one is wise, also includes action.

We often speak of the providence of God. In Lord’s Day 10 of the Heidelberg Catechism, we learn that providence is “the almighty and ever presence of God by which he upholds [all of creation so that] all things come to us not by chance but from his fatherly hand.” God, who is not bound by time, can look ahead to see what will be happening, and he acts ahead of time to provide for the situations as they arise.

Providence is different from determinism. Determinism, in its “Christian” form says that God pre-determines everything that is going to happen. Extreme determinism says that God actually fore-ordains everything that is going to happen, and this is a dangerous position because, if we hold to it, we are in danger of making God the author of sin, and that cannot be. Determinism is very mechanical and wooden whereas providence is much more fluid and organic. Providence understands God to foresee events before they happen and, as a result, he steps in to act in such a way as to provide through them. God’s providence is not dependent on human forecast (as in the case of the weather) but, rather, it is possible because he is already in our futures before we get there. When we arrive at a particular time, God has already been there because God is not limited by time. (This is a concept which is impossible for me to understand, but I do believe it.)

This past week, I was reading an article written by a Roman Catholic scholar, and he reminded me that God’s providence has a corollary. God sees beforehand what is best for us, but, equally important, we must accept what he sends. The Catechism, also in Lord’s Day 10, uses different words to describe the same: we can be patient when things don’t go well, thankful when they do, and confident that no matter what we will always know the love of God the Father. To put it another way, we can accept the theological truth of God’s providence, namely that he knows what is coming and is already present in the future to deal with what is coming, but we also need to respond in faith. If God is truly God and if he is also our Father, and if he is already in the future, preparing for us what we need, then we should be able to trust him explicitly.

It seems to me that the rather simple thing is to accept that God sees the future and is already in the future to act and to provide for us as the future arrives. What is more challenging is to have faith that all will be well in the end. This doesn’t mean that things will be easy or that the road will be smooth. But, as Proverbs 3:4,5 states, when we trust in the Lord with all our hearts, he will make our paths straight. In Israel, a place where there is rarely a straight path, the wish for a straight path for the traveler is that he arrive at his destination safely no matter what the road is like. Because we have a providential God who is able to see the future and take care of us before we get there, we are asked to respond in faith, trusting that God will bring us safely through whatever it is that lies ahead.

Our forecasting abilities, based on analyzing the data tell us that El Nino will cause some problems for millions, perhaps billions of people, and while we can make adjustments to our lives, all our efforts don’t guarantee a safe passage. We might be able to glimpse the future, but we are not able to interact with the future until it arrives. We can merely prepare for what might be coming. But because God is not bound by time, he not only sees the future but he is already in it, shaping it in such a way that all things will ultimately work for our good and for his glory. We can be confident of this, for as the Catechism also says with regard to God’s providence, he is not only almighty (omnipotent, totally powerful), he is also our Father through Jesus Christ, we can have confidence that he will keep us secure.

When I was 18, I bought my first car. It was a dirty brownish yellow 1969 Dodge Polara 500. Dodge stopped making that colour (a good thing), and the only vehicles on the road that match the weight and size of that car today would be large pickup trucks. It had low miles (it was manufactured long before Canada switched to metric), and it had an engine that could propel that car well over 100 miles/hour. It could seat six people comfortably, and it was quite possible to put an extra person in the back seat. Seat belt capacity was not a problem because only the driver and front-seat passenger had lap belts. All others rode at their own risk. I could stretch out full length in the trunk with only my feet sticking out the back of the car. If I needed to work on the engine (and I didn’t because it was so reliable), I could easily sit on the fender with my feet comfortably placed on the frame underneath it. I didn’t own it long because it rusted out from underneath me, floor first. I sold it to a friend, cheap, and he scrapped it because it wasn’t worth making it roadworthy.

It was my first car, but my parents had instilled in me the principle that we don’t really own things, but rather we must be good stewards of what has been entrusted to us, using them for God’s glory and his kingdom. I recall looking out of the kitchen window at my car, marveling that I owned it, and asking myself how I could use it to glorify God. The answer came over time, and I was often the one who was called upon to drive to youth events, taking with me five or six other people. We had many good conversations as we drove the hour or so to the nearest city where most of the youth events were held. I believe that God was glorified because of that car even though it was an ugly monstrosity.

The principle that while we may claim ownership of all kinds of possessions (land, cars, tractors, baseball gloves – whatever it is that is in our name), we are not really the owners; we are only stewards of what has been entrusted to us. In other words, all that we have is to be used for God’s glory and for his purposes.

This has not always been practiced well among Christians. We sometimes talk about tithing which is giving ten percent of our income (before taxes and expenses) to the work of the Lord. That belongs to the Lord, people say. When I was growing up, or so the story goes, the elders of my church, on their home visits, would often broach the subject of giving with the family, focusing on the amount they gave. Sometimes, to help the conversation, an elder would slip into the milkhouse and have a look at the receipts that the milk truck driver left so that he could know how much milk the farmer was shipping. The smart elder could do the math in his head, determine the income of the farm and then compare it the how much the family was giving. This was a conversation starter, although not always a positive one.

The problem with our focus on tithing is that we tend to believe that after we give our ten percent everything else belongs to us to do with as we please. We can be inclined to believe that once we have met our obligations, the rest is ours. Nothing can be further from the truth.

Tithing, in the Old Testament, was a way for God to ensure that his people received spiritual care. The people of the tribe of Levi were not given farmland but, instead, were given cities which were scattered throughout the entire land. The Levites were given the task of teaching and leading the people to know and love and follow the Lord. To do this work without encumbrance, the rest of the tribes gave ten percent to support the Levites in their task. This was God’s method of ensuring that his people could grow in their commitment and faithfulness to him. But at no time was it ever to be assumed by anyone that the rest of their possessions were theirs to use at their own discretion. The other ninety percent was to be used for God’s glory and for his kingdom.

Perhaps in the past, when the elders came to visit, they should have avoided conversation about how much people gave. Instead, they could have led a productive conversation about how we can use what God has given to us for his kingdom and his glory. It is good for us to be reminded that we are stewards (not owners) of all that we have, and that God has entrusted to us what we have for a purpose. What is not always obvious is that purpose, and I needed to discover what that purpose would be for my big ugly car. Good conversations about what has been entrusted to us and how we can use it for God’s purposes would be relevant for all of us.

As I reflect on this, there is one thing that God has given to us that must be used for his glory. It is our time. Time is a rare commodity nowadays, and people often complain (or boast) that they are very busy. The question is this: because we have all been given time, how can we use our time for God’s glory? We should not fall into the trap of thinking that because we give one day out of seven (Sunday) to the Lord that we are giving enough. Time is a gift from God, and it would seem that as good stewards we learn to weigh how we use that precious commodity and so glorify God with it.

A few years ago, I dropped by the church of a colleague for a coffee. We talked for about an hour, but for nearly the whole time, he talked about himself, his church, his family, his life. Right at the very end, when it was obvious I was getting ready to leave, he asked me, “How are things with you?” I responded with a few brief sentences, and then I went on my way.

I found that visit to be very unfulfilling, and although I passed by the church often, and although I saw my colleague’s vehicle parked there, I didn’t often stop by. When I did, it was more of the same. This happened some years ago, and although I sensed something was wrong, I couldn’t identify what it was. It wasn’t until several years later that someone helped me understand: my colleague was a narcissist.

The word, narcissist, comes from Greek mythology. Sometimes we find ancient stories that show remarkable perception about the human condition. In Greek mythology, there is a story of a baby who was named Narcissus. His mother was told at his birth that he would live a long life as long as he didn’t start to think about himself. Narcissus grew up to be a very handsome man, and it happened one day that he looked into a pool of water and saw his reflection, and he fell in love with himself, so much so, that he could not look away. He longed to have a relationship with the person he saw in the water, but it is as impossible to have a relationship with a reflection as it is to have a relationship with oneself. Because he could not bear to stop looking at himself, all relationships with others were cut off, and, depending on the account, he either pined away or he died of starvation. The point of the Greek myth is this: Narcissism results in self-isolation, and although it may not shorten life, it makes life less rewarding and meaningful.

There is a certain segment of the population that suffers from an identifiable narcissistic disorder, and while most of us do not have that disorder, it is also true that we might have narcissistic tendencies. In other words, we are prone to thinking about ourselves more than others, and if we become too self-focused, our relationships decline, and we are left alone.

My colleague, it turned out, had other problems that led to narcissism. He had been abused as a child and when he became an adult, he turned to alcohol to deaden the pain. Through life events, he had become incapable of looking beyond himself to others, and, thus, his conversations were one-sided. His narcissistic tendencies caused isolation, and it wasn’t until he dealt with some of his problems that he was able to look beyond himself again.

Narcissism is a sin, and it is a sin of which we are all guilty, to one extent or another. When we become so self-focused that we cannot see others, we are sinning. Sadly, it’s one of those sins that is not easily detected by the sinner. It’s not like murder or theft which are very easy to identify, especially by the sinner. Rather, when we act on our narcissistic impulses, we rarely notice it. I am quite certain that my colleague had no idea that he spent nearly our entire time together talking about himself. For him, it would have been a rather satisfying hour. I, however, noticed it, and my time with him was disappointing.

God created us to live in community with each other. When God declared in Genesis 2 that it was not good for man to be alone, thus creating a wife for him, God was not only creating marriage; he was also creating community. We are not meant to be alone, isolated from each other. We are meant to enjoy each other’s company, and the only way for that to happen is if we have reciprocal relationships with each other. Like Narcissus who looked only at himself, our own narcissism isolates us from others. This is not the way that God created us to be. Extreme narcissism results in self-imposed solitary confinement; it sucks the life out of us.

How do we solve the problem of our narcissistic tendencies? We simply follow Jesus’ second great commandment to love each other. To love another person entails that we first know what they need, for love is not merely an emotion; love is experienced in action. Another person cannot know that we love them if we don’t show that love in action, but we won’t think of what to do unless we first hear what they need. Narcissism, thus, not only results in the isolation of the narcissist; it results in the failure to love others, a violation of Jesus’ very clear command.

Since my experience with my colleague, I have met a few people who are very high on the narcissistic scale. For whatever reason, they can only think of themselves, refusing to look away from their own reflection to see others. They are dying, but so is the community around them. Perhaps narcissism is a little like carbon monoxide, the silent killer that is nearly undetectable. But the upside is this: unless we are certifiably narcissistic (and most of us are not), we can fight against this sin by making a point to listen to others, ask questions about their lives, and then find ways to love them. If we are busy caring for others, we minimize the time we have to think about ourselves.

Greek mythology is sometimes perceptive about human nature and in the case of Narcissus, it certainly is. But Greek mythology does not offer a solution, for there was no hope for Narcissus. For the believer who seeks to do God’s will, however, there is hope. Not only does the Holy Spirit turn our attention to God (and away from ourselves), as we submit ourselves to him, he turns us away from ourselves to others so that we can love them and so recreate the community that narcissism is destroying.

In 1978 my parents purchased the World Book Encyclopedia for the family. My siblings and I were entering the latter half of our grade school education, and my parents, rightly so, believed that we should have access to information. For several years following they purchased the Yearbook, an update or revision of the information in the encyclopedia. For years that set sat in its specially designed bookshelf, and we used the information in it for school projects and the like. I don’t recall when the 30 or so volumes disappeared from my parents’ home, but I suspect that they were given to a thrift store and then recycled and the paper has made its way into egg cartons or newsprint.

The printing press was invented in about 1440 AD, about the same time that scholars were beginning to translate ancient texts into the common language. These translations, along with contemporary writings, for the first time in history, became widely available. People like Leonard da Vinci and many others, built on the information they could not access freely, and they became inventors, thinkers, and artists. In the 20^th century, these learned scholars were labelled as “Renaissance Men,” meaning that they were influential in the rebirth of learning and knowledge in the west. Universities were being established, offering a broad education in all the disciplines for people who, a century or so earlier, would have had no opportunity to learn. The world began to change rapidly, and we are recipients of those changes, now having access to medical care, transportation, travel, home appliances and so much more. The World Book Encyclopedia owes its existence, in part, to printing press and the Renaissance Men.

While people like Leonardo da Vinci could become adept in many fields of study (he studied, among others, art, anatomy, astronomy, botany, and was known as an inventor of mechanical devices), the range of information rapidly became too great for one person to know everything about everything. Very rapidly people began to specialize in particular areas of study, focusing on one aspect of life so that today we have mechanics who are proficient in their ability to fix one kind of vehicle (heavy construction machinery, for example) but who have little expertise with the modern computerized automobile. It is said that it takes about 5 years for someone to become adept in a particular area, and life is simply too short to become adept in more than 3 or 4 specialties. There is simply too much to know.

When the printing press enabled us to print books relatively cheaply and store knowledge in libraries, some of which hold hundreds of thousands of books, the amount of information is so great that we need other methods to store it. Thankfully, a computer thumb drive can often hold thousands of books, and data centres such as the ones being constructed around the world can hold the information found on millions of thumb drives. So vast is the quantity of information that Artificial Intelligence is becoming essential for research, and programmers teach computers to search millions of documents for the information we need.

And God knows all of it already. In Psalm 139 we read that the thoughts of God outnumber the grains of sand. That is to say, God’s knowledge is infinite, and nothing we discover surprises him. As we discover more things, we are realizing that there is more left undiscovered than what we already know. Data centres are power hungry, and it is a reality that at some time, as we discover more about God’s world, even all the data centres in the world won’t be able to hold the information. But God knows more.

In Psalm 139, the context of verse 18 speaks of God knowing the psalmist and caring about him. In spite of God having vast stores of information, the psalmist is amazed that God knew him even before he was born, that God saw his unformed body. The psalmist takes great comfort in this, for he knows that God not only knows him but he also will provide for him, and in the context of the psalm, he is assured that God will deal with his enemies so that he (the psalmist) will once again be secure.

Not only does God know all things, he also uses his knowledge for good, for the good of his people, and for the good of his kingdom. God uses what he knows to accomplish what he has long planned, the salvation of those who he has called to be his children and enjoy life forever in eternity. God sifts through the grains of sand to find exactly what he needs.

God is different from us, for we do not always use the information we have for good. Very often, we take good inventions and use them for purposes of destruction. A rifle, for example, enables us to procure meat for ourselves without great effort and without causing undue suffering to the animal, but that same rifle can take the life of a father, husband and brother. Nuclear reactions can enable us to produce huge amounts of energy, but that same energy can be used to destroy entire cities. We have a tendency to use what we know not only for good purposes but for exceedingly harmful ones. We might not be all that far off when we say that everything good that has been produced has also been used for harm. We are not like God, for God uses his knowledge only for good, not for destruction.

As human beings, we have the privilege of increasing our understanding of the world. As Christians we have the responsibility to use what we learn for God’s purposes and not for ourselves or, even worse, for destruction. Is there a limit to how much we can learn? Probably not. As we continue to gather knowledge throughout our years, let us be sure to use what we have learned for the glory of God and the purposes for which he meant it used.

As I have been preparing the messages for our evening services, working through the creation narrative in Genesis, I learned something I had not known before. The word, “created,” in Genesis 1:1 (In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth) is used only of God in the Bible. Not once does any biblical author apply the Hebrew word which is translated as “create” to human beings or any other living thing. Only God creates. There are other words that are ascribed to both God and people (words that can also be translated as “made,” for example), but the act of creating is ascribed to God alone.

Scholars who have studied this word have come to the conclusion that the Hebrew word is as much a theological word as it is a description of an action. Yes, creating is an act of God, but the word also says something about the nature and mind of God. The act of creating shows us God’s intentionality as he brings about something entirely new, something that has not existed before. The universe did not exist, but God began to create, intentionally providing an environment of space and time and filling that space and time with an inhabitable world which he then filled with all sorts of living things, including humanity. By searching on the Hebrew word in the Old Testament, every time God creates, a new situation is brought into being, one that had not been in existence before.

We, as human beings, do not do that. Our creative acts are not original, for we only have the ability to take what already is and form it into something else. An artist, with great skill, can make a painting of a river, but all she is doing is rearranging some coloured chemicals on a canvas. A builder can construct a house, and it can be entirely original in design, but that house is made of things that have already existed. He is simply rearranging part of creation to make them into something else. We do not create, at least not in the sense that God creates. When God creates, something new is made, something that did not exist before.

In the second part of Isaiah’s prophecy (beginning at chapter 40), God’s creative act moves beyond the mere physical world to the creation of a new nation from among the nations. In Isaiah 43:1, we read that God created the nation of Israel, and although Israel appeared to be one nation among many, she was, in fact, a new creation by God as God called Abraham from among the nations and made his descendants, the sons of Jacob, into a nation. God chose Abraham, and biblical scholars see a strong parallel between this creative act of God in forming Israel into a nation and the teaching on election. As we know from passages like Deuteronomy 26:5ff. and others, that as God chose Abraham from among all the peoples of the world, he entered into covenant with him and made him into a nation, beginning with the first miraculous act of giving Abraham and Sarah a son in their old age. God elected Abraham to eventually become a nation, and God’s election is akin to his act of creation.

Election refers to God’s intentional decision to create a people belonging to himself out of all the people of this world. While there are many communities of people in our world, communities created because of commonalities (family, classmates, work buddies, soccer moms, neighbourhoods, etc.), the community that have in common faith in Jesus Christ is unique because it is created by God. Election, thus, is God’s creative act in which he makes something entirely new, not reconfiguring or reshaping something that already exists.

When Paul says, “If anyone is in Christ, new creation!” (2 Corinthians 5:17), he uses this language specifically to show that a Christian is not merely a reshaped person but an entirely new person, created by God through Jesus Christ. We become new persons, not merely reworked old persons, indicating that the salvation we have in Jesus is more far-reaching and deeper than might appear on the outside. In fact, we can say that we become entirely different persons when, by God’s grace and the powerful working of the Holy Spirit, we come to faith. It would be wrong, therefore, to assume that those who believe in Jesus and those who do not are somewhat the same kind of people with just a bit different perspective on life. We become new people, created by God as he chooses us to become his children. The radical nature of our salvation should never be understated, for the act of salvation is as significant as the act of creation. God does something new when he creates a people for himself out of all the peoples of the world.

We look forward to the goal and purpose of our salvation, the new creation which will be fully established when Jesus returns. In order for that new creation to be designated as “very good,” like the first creation was before sin twisted and marred it, everything in the new creation must also be of “new creation” quality, so in order to participate in that new creation, all that enters into it must have been created by God first. Thankfully, his work of salvation does exactly that, and we can be assured that when we are in Christ, we will fit well into that new creation.

God’s act of creation, then, is not merely an activity of God by which he makes the world. It is God doing something entirely new, something that was not done before, and something that cannot be done by human hands. This is also true of our salvation, and, by God’s grace in Jesus Christ and by the working of the Holy Spirit in us, we are made into something new, something that we cannot accomplish by ourselves.

The church is Christ’s gift to us. I have heard those words many times, but I heard them again at synod, which I attended last week. I had not really thought about what that meant, and I suspect I am not alone. In fact, it seems increasingly that Christians do not see the church as God’s gift; more and more Christians are perceiving that the church is part of the problem.

How do we understand the word, “church”? There are at least three definitions. The first refers to the building, but we all know that the building is not the church. The second refers to the people: those who believe in Jesus and seek to follow him are the church. This is the best definition of the word, “church.” There is a third definition that perceives the church to be an institution or an organization. This third definition might lead us to say something like this: the church decided that it would no longer hold evening services. In this last understanding, we perceive that the church is rather like a business. A parallel statement might be: the business decided that it would sell lumber only to contractors who had an account with them. In this third definition, the church is somewhat equated with its leadership, the decision makers.

It is the third definition, understanding the church as an organization or institution that has caused many to rethink their relationship to the church. “I do not want to be part of the church,” they say, indicating that they don’t want to belong to an organized church. Similarly, they might say, “I can be a Christian without the church.” Again, what they mean is that they do not want to participate in the organized church and it’s not that they don’t want to associate with other Christians.

When we hear the phrase, “The church is Christ’s gift to us,” we might question the truth of that statement if we think of the church mostly in terms of it being an organization or an institution. If we look at history, it doesn’t take us long to determine that there are many times when the church, as an institution, did not serve the people very well. Often times the decisions of the church (made by the leadership) served to harm the people more than they did to help them. It has been said by some that they would be happy to be a Christian if it weren’t for the church.

It is sometimes hard to disagree with those who feel disenfranchised by the church, especially as they think about the church as an institution. It does not feel like Christ’s gift to them, and the more institutional it becomes, the less like a gift it seems to be.

Of course, no church can exist without some kind of organization. In fact, no three people can spend time doing anything together without some kind of organization. When people gather, there needs to be someone to take a leadership role and guide the group. That often takes the form of setting an agenda, facilitating discussion, and clarifying direction. A church is no different in that regard, but the leadership of the church must carefully consider how it does its work. The leadership of the church, we believe in the CRC, has been set in place by God to guide the members of the church (the real church) to grow in faith and to serve Christ. They may be called upon to set agenda, guide discussions, and give direction, but everything that they do is so that the followers of Jesus Christ grow in their faith and become more faithful in their service and witness to their Lord. While the leadership is called to have the best interests of the church in mind, the church they are thinking of is not the organization but the people. It is easy, however, for the leadership to begin to develop the mindset that they are there to serve the organization first, perhaps to the neglect of the people.

When we think of the church, we should always think of it in terms of it being the people of God and never in terms of it being an organization. While the institutional elements are inevitable, they are there only to ensure that the people of God can be the church effectively and faithfully. The organization serves the body, is another way of looking at it. When we think of the church as being the people, we recognize that it is Christ’s gift to us. We work alongside other believers, contending for the gospel, we hold each other accountable, we encourage each other, and we seek to be a witness to the world together. We cannot do that alone, and if we want to be faithful, we need each other. It is Christ’s gift to us, that we have each other. Consider what it would be like to live in a place with almost no followers of Jesus Christ and to have to maintain our faith all by ourselves. With the Holy Spirit in us, that is possible of course, but it makes all the difference to do this together with others.

We can celebrate the fact that the church is Christ’s gift to us. We benefit greatly from belonging to a church, and we rejoice that we do not practice our faith alone. We can also celebrate that Jesus Christ raises us leaders to help us become all that Christ meant us to be, rejoicing even when the church begins to take on institutional tones. As long as the organized part of the church serves to enable followers of Jesus Christ in their service and worship, we can see it as a gift. Only when the leaders begin to serve the institution should we be concerned. We always need to be reminded of what the church is, and as we are reminded, we can also celebrate that the church is Christ’s gift to his people.

Normally, when a pastor, elder or deacon is ordained to their office in the Christian Reformed Church, they must sign the Covenant for Officebearers before they can begin their work. The Covenant for Officebearers states that those who sign it believe that the Bible is the infallible and authoritative Word of God and that the confessions of the CRC (The Belgic Confession, the Heidelberg Catechism, and the Canons of Dort) accurately reflect the teachings of Scripture. By having all officebearers in the denomination sign this document, we can be assured that we all have a similar theology thus enabling churches to work together.

But what happens when someone believes that the confessions do not reflect the teachings of Scripture? Can they challenge something that the Belgic Confession or Heidelberg Catechism says? Our confessions are human documents, of course, and they do not have the same status or authority or infallibility as the Bible. Is it possible to disagree with them, but what happens if someone does?

To deal with this eventuality, the CRC decided to implement a procedure by which someone can challenge the teachings of the confessions. Instead of naming the procedure with a common English word, the powers that be decided to use a Latin word, “gravamen.” We get our word, “grievance,” from the same source, but a gravamen is not really a grievance. Rather, it’s a concern that the confessions are not correct in their interpretation of Scripture. Once an officebearer has “filed a gravamen,” there are two possible courses that can be followed.

First, the officebearer might simply be struggling with a particular teaching (e.g. infant baptism is a common one), and he might want to have some discussions about how infant baptism is supported by Scripture. This is known as a confessional difficulty gravamen, meaning that he has some difficulty with the teaching of the confession. His council responds to this difficulty by providing teaching that is designed to help him understand how the church arrived at the teaching about infant baptism. It is hoped that the individual will learn and the difficulties he has been having will subside.

If an elder, let’s say, is struggling with a particular teaching, he can remain in office until he has finished his term, but he cannot be ordained again until the difficulty is resolved. If he cannot be persuaded that the teaching of the confessions is biblical, he cannot become an elder, deacon, or pastor again, although he can remain a faithful member of the church. It is always the hope that through good teaching and counsel, the church can help people resolve their difficulties with our understanding of Scripture.

There is a second possible response: perhaps the elder or deacon or pastor is absolutely convinced that the particular teaching of the confessions is in error, and they believe it so strongly that they feel it should be changed. In that case, the officebearer files a confessional revision gravamen in which he asks that the particular wording of the Belgic Confession, Heidelberg Catechism, or Canons of Dort be changed so that it conforms to the teaching of Scripture.

Can this happen? Most assuredly, yes, although it does not happen easily. In both 1958 and 1985, paragraphs of the Belgic Confession, Article 36 (pertaining to the relationship of the government to the church), were put into the footnotes because, biblically speaking, they were incorrect. They remain in the footnotes only so that the historical document is preserved.

Why is this all important? There are several reasons it is. First, we want to be assured that what our church teaches is biblical, and we want our confessions to accurately reflect the teachings of Scripture. If they don’t, we should feel free to change them. Changes, however, don’t happen quickly because the confessions have been around for almost 500 years and they have withstood the test of time and the scrutiny of millions of believers. Second, the Bible is often misinterpreted, and when it is, people are led astray. The confessions help us remain faithful to the teachings of Scripture, and if we find ourselves disagreeing with the confessions, we must first determine if our understanding of Scripture is correct. Perhaps we have misread Scripture. Third, the confessions help us remain united. They are often called the Three Forms of Unity, meaning that all who hold to them are can feel united as we read and obey Scripture together. Fourth, and importantly, when our elders, deacons, and pastor sign the Covenant for Officebearers, they are saying that the teachings of Scripture are important and authoritative and that they are going to do their best to be instructed by them.

This year at Synod, we will be dealing with two confessional revision gravamina (plural of gravamen), one of which is asking for a revision to the Heidelberg Catechism and one which is asking for a revision to the Belgic Confession. What synod will decide, I do not know, but I am thankful for this: there are many in our denomination who take the Word of God very seriously and who want the teachings of the church to accurately reflect what God has revealed to us. Even if they are not accepted and if our confessions are not changed, they will give rise to some good discussion, and, by God’s grace, the church will be strengthened in its understanding of God’s Word.