I don’t care if it has a “spiritual benefit.” I want a social catechesis where people know who Goliath and Moses are, and why they’re bad and good, and why the have a bearing for how Westerners understand law and order. Quit making everything church.
One reason WLC 139 links idleness, gluttony, and drunkenness with the seventh commandment:
The sins all involve a lack of self-control in gratifying desires.
If you give in to every urge for rest, food, or alcohol, you’re training yourself to give in to every sexual urge too.
My argument for full subscription to a statement of faith is simple:
Ministers should be open and honest about what they believe and teach.
This does not violate liberty of conscience or make confessions equal to Scripture (whatever that means).
Francis Turretin on EFS in the 17th century:
“Although the office of a priest and intercessor is to serve, it does not follow that the divine nature in Christ is inferior to the Father.
It follows only that Christ was made less than the Father not in nature, but in economy;
not absolutely and in himself,
but in respect to a voluntary dispensation through which he humbled himself of his own accord.”
- Turretin, Institutes, 2:383.
Discourse would be greatly improved if people regularly read the dictionary and defined terms.
As it is, many regularly discuss or argue matters without understanding what they’re talking about.
That’s not conducive to understanding and persuasion.