Nate Walker

Pastor of Christ Church Bellingham (PCA)

[Nate Walker @PastorNateCCB]

Education belongs under the church, as the church has been given the duty to teach the word of God, apply it to all of life, and form humans according to the truth of the gospel.
What about science? Is that under the church's sphere of sovereignty?
Jesus says the church is to teach the nations to observe all that he has commanded.
Were not the laws of nature (i.e. the object of scientific knowledge) given at Christ's command? In him all things hold together. He upholds the universe by the word of his power. Observing nature is to observe Christ the law-giver. You could say that even science is implied in the Great Commission. All education is discipleship.
The same could be said of economic laws, political theory, medicine, math, history and archeology, etc.
All teaching belongs under the Lordship of Jesus Christ, and loses its way when it is divorced from the light of his word.

[Nate Walker @PastorNateCCB]

"For a strict dualist, the 'supernatural' doesn't touch natural life: The fact I'm a Christian doesn't have anything to do with my work, business, family, politics. I read my Bible and listen to sermons to commune with Jesus, not to be told how to vote or spend my money. At its worst, this dualism can imply that Christianity is an escape from the demands of the natural world." - Leithart, On Earth as in Heaven

[Nate Walker @PastorNateCCB]

An important pastoral paradox:
"don't go beyond what is written" (1 Cor. 4:6)
"take every thought captive to obey Christ" (2 cor. 10:5)
We are supposed to not go beyond the commands of the Bible, while at the same time applying the Bible to all of life which means going way beyond the specific words in the Scripture. The Bible doesn't talk about iphones, or AI, or birth control, or anti-depressant medication, or the American constitution, or a billion other things. To bring our thoughts captive on all these matters means going beyond the literal commands of the Word.
Westminster Confession of Faith 1.6 helps:
"The whole counsel of God concerning all things necessary for his own glory, man's salvation, faith and life, is either expressly set down in Scripture, or by good and necessary consequence may be deduced from Scripture: unto which nothing at any time is to be added, whether by new revelations of the spirit, or traditions of men."
Its not just the literal words, but what is deduced from the word (and hence applied to our real lives) that has authority. But we must always be on guard of not going beyond what the Word says.

[Peter Leithart @PLeithart]

We rightly have a lot of detailed questions about Paul’s teaching on marriage. We should.

But don't miss the big picture. Paul’s discussion of headship and submission occurs in Ephesians 5. He’s already been talking about Christ and the church for four chapters.

Jesus is exalted above all authority and power. He doesn’t trample the church, or keep His Bride far beneath Him.

He ascends to take His bride with Him, to enthrone her with Him in heavenly places. He’s Lord, but He exercises His sovereign authority to elevate, glorify, deify the Bride who is one body with Him.

Marriage is not the union of a man with a scullery maid, but a union of king and queen. A wife’s submission is a queenly, lordly submission.

-thanks to Gerald Hiestand

[Nate Walker @PastorNateCCB]

As the presence of Christian culture erodes in the west, we realize that "common grace" and "natural law" are far less influential than our forefathers thought. Whether it was Calvin or Kuyper, they were both writing in worlds far more steeped in Christian influence than ours is. What Kuyper labeled "common grace" was often the effects of special revelation on a society, which was so pervasive he hardly recognized the Christian influence. It came to be seen as almost natural. Similarly, what Calvin saw as natural law, perceived by everyone via human reason, was actually God's special revelation that had been taught to the European continent for centuries.
Special revelation had become the air they breathed, the waters they swam in.
As that Christian influence erodes, Christians are going to learn to rely far less on a shared "common grace" and must champion Christ revealed in the Bible as the only light by which the nations can learn to walk (Rev. 21:23-24).

[Nate Walker @PastorNateCCB]

When children in Christian families are not allowed to be regarded as full, baptized, Spirit-filled, justified Christians (because of their age), they are often treated as half-Christians.
The half they get is the Law. They are expected to obey all the commands of a Christian life (and are disciplined when they don't), yet not given the grace to enable them to do it.

[Nate Walker @PastorNateCCB]

Leithart has somewhere coined the great phrase "middle grace". It is not common grace or special grace. It is the remnant of Christian influence on a society still enjoyed by non-Christians. So it is not common to all mankind (it is only in post-Christian lands, and came only because of the influence of special revelation in the Bible), and it is not special to Christians only (it is enjoyed by unbelievers). So it is a kind of special grace for non-Christians. Hence, "middle grace".
The benefits of middle grace can only be sustained and renewed by the teaching of the Bible. It is not the fruit of human reason or natural law.

[Nate Walker @PastorNateCCB]

In the two clearest baptisms of the Old Testament, the children were baptized with their parents: the flood (1 Peter 3:20-21) and the Rea Sea (1 Cor. 10:2).
"Moses said. 'We will go with our young and our old...'" (Exodus 10:9)

[Nate Walker @PastorNateCCB]

I was asked recently for a good recommendation on Political Theology as a place to start. All these books are pretty short too:
Kuyper, Lectures on Calvinism (though I have some disagreements, still excellent)
Francis Schaefer's A Christian Manifesto. Great.
also Glenn Sunshine's book on Christian political resistance— Slaying Leviathan.
The recent King of Kings by Baird is great also.

[Nate Walker @PastorNateCCB]

Baptists say baptism is like a wedding ring, and weddings involve vows. How can infants take vows?
This is true. The wedding wing I wear was given by my wife and she made the vows as she placed it on my finger. I wear her vows, not mine.
So in baptism we wear God's promises not ours.
Hence an infant doesn't need to say vows to receive the covenant sign.
Also, we don't baptize God, or put a wedding ring on him.

[Nate Walker @PastorNateCCB]

Goal for pastors with church schools: be able to get up everyday, with little prep, and give a compelling homily on any passage of Scripture. Church schools are a perfect opportunity to introduce daily morning worship into the life of a community via chapel.
Church schools give pastors the opportunity to learn this skill like nothing else.

[Nate Walker @PastorNateCCB]

Books actually form us in ways subconscious to us. When years later, we read a book that had shaped us, we realize, "That's where I learned that" even though I didn't remember the book had said those things. Reading books is not about collecting information that is stored in our brains, the books are chisels used to sculpt us into a certain kind of thinker, doer, speaker, feeler.

[Nate Walker @PastorNateCCB]

Calvin's three uses of the law apply to all kinds of laws, whether they are good or not. Laws do three things:
Create guilt.
Use fear to cause people to act a certain way.
Teach people how to live and what is right and wrong.
Christians have to recognize that the laws of our land are doing these three things.
The legalization of gay marriage has (1) created a sense of guilt in people who think homosexuality is sinful by calling them homophobic, (2) used fear through the civil rights apparatus of the government to demand respect for the new morality, and (3) retaught a generation what marriage is. Go into a government elementary school, and often the most prominent poster is an LGBTQ sign. The law of the land is the teacher of the children.
While Christians say, "I don't want to impose my religion on people," the the deepest beliefs of others will be imposed instead.

[Matt Van Swol @mattvanswol]

🚨#BREAKING: Outrage is erupting in Washington State after the Attorney General was asked in court if CHURCHES could be labeled EXTREMIST ORGANIZATIONS because of their "traditional views" on gender...

...and he WOULDN’T say no!!!

Yes, if your church believes what the Bible says about men and women, Washington state wouldn’t rule out calling it extremist.

...this matters more than you think, because Washington passed a law called SB 5974.

It lets a board appointed by the governor TAKE AWAY a sheriff’s badge, the voters get NO say.

One reason they can do it?
Supporting an “extremist organization.”

According to the sheriffs’ lawyer, one of the definitions of extremist in the state’s rules includes the “public marginalization” of someone’s gender.

So the sheriffs sued.

Their lawyer asked a simple question: what about a sheriff whose church teaches there are two genders?

The state’s answer?

Well... if you are giving to your church? Volunteering? Supporting what it teaches?

The state NEVER said that was safe, and they COULD take away your sherrif's badge as the law is currently written.

The sheriffs’ lawyer told the judge the Attorney General had “said the quiet part out loud.”

His words: it’s a RELIGIOUS TEST for public office.

THIS IS CRAZY!!!!!!

[Nate Walker @PastorNateCCB]

Calvin and Kuyper when they talk about natural law are “the result of centuries of biblical weathering” - not a morality that would have been self evident to a Roman

[James R. Wood @jamesrwoodtheo]

modern moral instincts as "result of centuries worth of biblical reasoning"

or as Maritain put it, the "awakening" of natural reason by centuries of "gospel leaven fermenting", bringing awarness of natural law into fuller flowering

[Zachary Garris @ZacharyGarris]

If the Mosaic covenant is the covenant of grace in substance, then it has no “works principle.”

[Seth Gruber @sgruber91]

Hardest truth for “Christian feminists”:

The matriarchy has been far bloodier and dangerous to the lives of children than the patriarchy ever was or could have been.

[Rick Davis @TheRhetorRick]

We know that baptism only means immersion because the root of "baptizo" is "bapto" which means "to dip".

I was explaining this to my wife and she said, "That's nice dear," which I knew was an insult because the root of "nice" is the Latin "nescius" which means "ignorant".

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[Nate Walker @PastorNateCCB]

Postmillenialism is a spirit. It's hard to technically/scripturally distinguish it from optimistic amil. Postmil people just understand the phase "observe all that I have commanded" in the Great Commission in a maximalist way, as implying the building of a global civilization, where every aspect of that society has been brought in obedience to Christ (2 Cor. 10:5). This insight comes to define their life's work. They see the gospel as a seed whose fruit is more than individual piety, but as a whole culture marked by love to God and neighbor. It produces a creative and productive energy and zeal.