jameseb

I would certainly set the day apart and not do work or unnecessary housework. I try to focus on reading Christian books and spending time with church members in the afternoon as well. It helps to focus on God.

Certainly there are commands not to covet the idols of the nations, but the verses you quoted come from Deuteronomy 7:25-26, where the context is giving instructions for when the Israelites enter the land, rather than commentary on the 10th commandment. If anything, it is more an application of the 1st and 2nd commandments. The account of the 10 commandments in Deuteronomy appears earlier, in 5:6-21, where Moses is quoting the commandments given in Exodus 20:1-17 by way of reminder to the new generation that is about to enter the promised land without him. The command not to covet is generally understood as having broader application than just not coveting idols.

That interpretation of the commandment against coveting seems very unlikely. Exodus 20:17 says:

“You shall not covet your neighbor's house; you shall not covet your neighbor's wife, or his male servant, or his female servant, or his ox, or his donkey, or anything that is your neighbor's."

Nothing there mentions idols, and given the references to wives, servants and houses, it seems particularly unlikely that it is specifically referring to idols.

I agree that there is a need for oversight in churches and I think independent baptist churches are generally a bad idea due to that lack of oversight (and from what I have heard, there does seem to be a lot of them in America). However, this argument in favour of an episcopal system of church government assumes bishops are the only way to achieve this oversight.

I go to a presbyterian church, and I find the presbyterian system of church government to work well in terms of providing oversight (I also think it is closer to the system of church government we see in the New Testament). The idea is that the elders of churches oversee each other. Presbyterian churches usually have multiple elders at the local church level so they can make decisions together and keep each other accountable. At the next level up, all the elders in a region meet together in a presbytery to settle issues raised from local churches, decide if someone is suitable for ordination, and approve church plants. There are often one or two levels above this, depending on the size of a denomination, usually called "synod" or "general assembly", which includes elders from a wider area (and ultimately the whole denomination), which settles disputes between presbyteries and issues the presbytery can't handle. I think that works better because it doesn't rely on a single person having oversight over a group of people and answers the question of who oversees the bishop.

Ultimately, however, there isn't really a perfect solution to be found in a system of church government alone. It seems like problems develop in all kinds of denominations, and problems often develop slowly or secretly so that oversight doesn't come into effect until it's too late. It may be just because my denomination is relatively young that we haven't run into major problems yet. I think the most important thing is for the oversight and discipline infrastructure to be proactive in dealing with problems, rather than leaving them until they become a bigger issue. Having some system of oversight is necessary for that to happen, of course.

I assume because it is a relatively new city planned to replace Seoul as the capital city to reduce congestion. Its population would be mostly people from outside moving into the area, and elderly people tend to be more set in their ways and less willing to take risks like moving to a newly formed city.

To add to that, there were even cases where a push for religious reform led directly to political reform, like the English Civil War.

And in the evening service, a version of the Nun section of Psalm 119 to the tune of "Amazing Grace", and "The God of Abraham praise"

We did "Church of God, elect and glorious", a version of Psalm 29 to the tune of "Immortal, invisible", "How firm a foundation" and "Your glorious cause, O God" this morning.

Definite atonement is certainly the better term for it

For me it took a while to come to terms with Reformed Soteriology. Understanding God's sovereignty is particularly tricky at the best of times and it didn't particularly help that most discussions of it I came across were presenting it as a short 5 points description (where one of the points is "limited atonement", which sounds a bit discouraging). A fuller understanding of it woven into the rest of Reformed theology helped, and I found the description given in the Canons of Dort quite well thought out.

I would say the point of confessions is that the Bible is a large book, and a book that is structured as God's revelation to his people over time, rather than by theological topic. Confessions summarise our understanding of what the Bible as a whole has to say about the main points of the faith. Confessionalism recognises the need for creeds and confessions for the above reason and because people will usually have a theological framework they are applying to understand the Bible, but not declaring it upfront (as in a confession) makes it harder to discuss properly.

I've found The Creedal Imperative by Carl Trueman to be a helpful book on this topic.

Seeing baptisms is always encouraging!

I had a good Lord's day, we continued a sermon series in beatitudes, looking at "blessed are those who mourn", and particularly considering the importance of mourning over our sin, but mourning so that we turn from our sin and receive God's comfort in Christ. I had lunch at the house of one of our trainee ministers with some others from church, so it was good to share fellowship there. At our evening service, we continued going through the Heidelberg Catechism with Lord's Day 35, on the second commandment.