Guest Guide

Advent is the season, in the life of the church, that leads up to the celebration of Christ’s birth at Christmas. Advent means waiting, or coming, as we wait and prepare for Christ’s birth. Advent is always four weeks long and serves as an annual refresher course on the nature of Christian hope.

The Ascension of Jesus Christ marked the end of Christ’s earthly existence and the beginning of a new period of time, one in which Christ’s relationship with the Church is not restricted by the boundaries of time and space. Christ is now available to all people all of the time through the work of the Holy Spirit.

The church confesses the Scriptures to be the Word of God written, witnessing to God’s self-revelation. Where that Word is read and proclaimed, Jesus Christ the Living Word is present by the inward witness of the Holy Spirit. For this reason the reading, hearing, preaching, and confessing of the Word are central to Christian worship.

Presbyterians take the Bible seriously; it is the defining document of our faith. However, the diverse forms and content found within many passages of Scripture have generated a broad range of interpretations. (1) First, in order to understand the meanings of Scripture, we need to be reading Scripture. (2) Second, we need to read in context. Each of the Bible’s books was written in a particular genre by a particular person at a particular time for particular readers to provide particular information that addressed particular concerns. The first challenge is to try to identify as accurately as possible what those particulars were. (3) Third, and finally we also need to read within the broader biblical context. Having considered the intended meaning of a particular text, we need to compare that text with other biblical texts that address related subjects.

The office of deacon as set forth in Scripture is one of sympathy, witness, and service after the example of Jesus Christ. Persons of spiritual character, honest repute, of exemplary lives, brotherly and sisterly love, warm sympathies and sound judgment should be chosen for this office.

Presbyterians take the Bible seriously; it is the defining document of our faith. However, the diverse forms and content found within many passages of Scripture have generated a broad range of interpretations. (1) First, in order to understand the meanings of Scripture, we need to be reading Scripture. (2) Second, we need to read in context. Each of the Bible’s books was written in a particular genre by a particular person at a particular time for particular readers to provide particular information that addressed particular concerns. The first challenge is to try to identify as accurately as possible what those particulars were. (3) Third, and finally we also need to read within the broader biblical context. Having considered the intended meaning of a particular text, we need to compare that text with other biblical texts that address related subjects.

To those obsessed with trying to work out a timetable for Christ’s return, Presbyterians say, “Only God knows, but God has given us important work to do in the meantime.” To those who make too much of obscure or infrequent references in the Bible, Presbyterians say, “Let the clear and plain meaning of the Bible direct our way.” To criticism of church leaders and sometimes ineffectual church programs, Presbyterians say, “Yes, even church leaders sin. And, yes, the church isn’t perfect. But the church is here by God’s design to proclaim the good news of God’s love by word and deed until God’s loving reign is made real throughout God’s world.” Presbyterians believe in being ready for the end times while not being fearfully anxious about them. Presbyterians believe that God’s purpose for the world is that loneliness, pain, poverty, sickness, injustice, even death, no longer mar creation. Presbyterians believe God is as concerned with the redemption of society as of individuals and therefore actively seek to demonstrate God’s purpose here and now until it is fully realized in God’s good time.

 Forgiveness is about being able to accept our human situation, with all the ambiguity and messiness it entails — and accepting the fact that inevitably people do disappoint one another. Because we are limited in time, in talent, and in ability to truly understand everything about one another, we often miss the mark. We forget birthdays or an old friend’s name. We get so caught up in a project that we overlook the misery or happiness on another’s face. We have to make choices how to spend our time and resources, which means choosing not to do, as well as what to do.

Forgiveness means accepting others — and ourselves — as human and not divine. Forgiveness means resisting a defensive response when we are hurt or paradoxically when we hurt others — a response that would mean cutting another off, or cutting ourselves off from community with others so that we would not be further hurt or be able to inflict hurt again. Forgiveness means risking the pain of living and holding to a hope that disappointments and hurt do not have to be the final word.

Forgiveness is a process, a journey. As much as we might like forgiveness to be a “forgive and forget” moment, lives do not work that way. Old hurts have a way of resurfacing as we are led to examine a new facet of a wound we had hoped had healed. Forgiveness is a commitment to face life with a posture that risks rather than protects, while also struggling with the fact that there are times when protection is the wise choice.

Forgiveness is not passivity. It is an active response to brokenness. While refusing to return evil for evil, forgiveness can also be an act of resistance, refusing to let evil continue. Martin Luther King Jr.’s tactic of non-violent resistance is an example of forgiveness that refuses to let evil continue. By resisting segregation, civil rights workers were saying no to racism, but by being non-violent they were inviting the enemy to join the community. Forgiveness loves the sinner while clearly saying that the sin is unacceptable.

Does infant baptism make the baby a Christian?

Technically, no. God’s grace is the saving action. Infant baptism is a witness to that grace, but does not hold magical powers to save. Thus, we do not believe that unbaptized infants are either doomed or saved. Salvation is the work of God.

Why is baptism done as part of a worship service?

The child’s parents and the congregation make promises to nurture the baptized child in the Christian faith.

Is anything expected of the child?

In promising to share with the child the good news of God’s grace in Jesus Christ, the parents and congregation hope that the child eventually will come to trust those claims and promises, and publicly profess Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior.

If there is a Presbyterian narrative about life after death, this is it: When you die, your soul goes to be with God, where it enjoys God’s glory and waits for the final judgment. At the final judgment bodies are reunited with souls, and eternal rewards and punishments are handed out. As the Scots Confession notes, final judgment is also “the time of refreshing and restitution of all things.” And it is clearly the case that both the Scots Confession and the Westminster Confession of Faith want to orient the present-day life of believers around this future.

Christian love is an active response to the needs of others without compromising the integrity of one’s relationship with God. Jesus showed us how love can break the barriers of stereotypes. Jesus was known for loving others without any preconditions. Encounters with Jesus always led to the transformation of one’s heart and mind. What Jesus taught holds us accountable when we neglect to lay aside our various privileges to assist others.

The idea that Mary is “God-bearer” (theotokos, in Greek) was affirmed by the church in 451, at the Council of Chalcedon. This is the Council that formulated the Christology we still confess today: that Jesus Christ is “fully human and fully divine.” To confess that the young woman named Mary is the bearer of God is consistent with this affirmation. Born to a human woman, Jesus Christ is as fully human as every baby ever born. His birth to a human woman who is uniquely God-bearer reminds us that this human son is also fully divine.

As the story of Mary shows us, to recognize the sovereign activity of God does not mean we need to minimize or deny our own participation in the divine work. To say that God is in control does not mean that God contributes 100 percent and we contribute nothing. On the contrary, the story of Mary shows us that God’s work includes us—not as worker bees who are brought on the scene to bring to fruition the druthers of the master, but as God’s creative partners in the ministry of reconciliation. The work associated with the coming of the Kingdom is all God’s, and also ours.

 “God raised this Jesus from the dead … breaking the power of sin and evil” (Brief Statement of Faith). In the cross God speaks a final, sovereign “No!” against all the sin and hatefulness of this fallen world.

The world’s rebellion will not be accepted by the Creator. God pronounces a death sentence against it in the person of Jesus. If Jesus’ death were the end of the story we would be forced to say God’s holiness is set over against the world’s sin, and the end product of this collision is Death. Nothingness. The final destruction of the world’s rebellion. But because Christ has been raised, we have the assurance that God has something planned for us sinners on the far side of our collision with his holiness.

Christ was put to death for our sins and raised for our justification (Romans 4:25). In the risen Christ, God provides the possibility of new life, a fresh start — a new creation. Because Christ was raised from the dead we have been delivered from the terrible power of our own sinfulness to make an end of us. God’s “Yes!” of resurrection life stands on the far side of the “No!” we encounter in the cross.

Presbyterians believe the Bible when it says that “all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23). Unlike crime, which involves the breaking of human law, sin is a condition of the heart or an expression of that condition where we are estranged from God and fail to trust in God. Sin expresses itself in particular acts.

Presbyterians believe God has offered us salvation because of God’s loving nature. It is not a right or a privilege to be earned by being “good enough.” No one of us is good enough on our own — we are all dependent upon God’s goodness and mercy. From the kindest, most devoted churchgoer to the most blatant sinner, we are all saved solely by the grace of God. We believe it is through the action of God working in us that we become aware of our sinfulness and our need for God’s mercy and forgiveness. Just as a parent is quick to welcome a wayward child who has repented of rebellion, God is willing to forgive our sins if we but confess them and ask for forgiveness in the name of Christ.

The belief that God is one person, but that there are three separate “personhoods” of God: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. They are all of one substance, and one in the same. Think of it as three individuals dancing around a fire, performing different movements and different actions, but all coinciding with the same music. This understanding of God has led to some arguments over the years, but we assuredly worship one, and only one God. In fact, others have wanted to make this distinction by adding a “u” to the word

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The Reformed theologian John Calvin believed that responsibility comes with wealth. He clearly accepted the private ownership of property and an individual’s freedom to make money in business. Our tradition accepts and honors the role of businesspeople and others who profit from the economy. Such a role is an honorable vocation, a calling. Making money is not a sin, but the use of money often is.

As Christians, we are to use our money and our wealth to the glory of God. Calvin’s reminder that “our” stuff isn’t really “ours” is helpful to us today. We have such things in a trust to use for our good, for the good of our families and for the good of the poor. To live out this idea of vocation, we need to do something we are loath to do: discuss money in church.

As Christians, we are to use our money and our wealth to the glory of God. Calvin’s reminder that “our” stuff isn’t really “ours” is helpful to us today. We have such things in a trust to use for our good, for the good of our families and for the good of the poor. To live out this idea of vocation, we need to do something we are loath to do: discuss money in church.