The Tulip Driven Life

By: Thomas F. Booher  There are conservative, confessional, parliament/BCO sticklers who know the "playbook" but not how the other side is thwarting their playbook with tricks. They fail to recognize that keeping the rules sometimes promote breaking the rules, that nefarious forces can twist upholding the letter of the law to destroy the spirit and actual intent of the law's letter.  I'd argue this is why it is actually good in the PCA that overture 37 is not going to pass. I have just now come to that position, but knowing how slippery the liberals are, they'll take "racism" to mean "being white unrepentantly". Many of the conservatives would have considered overture 37 passing to be a great victory, but then there jaw would hit the floor when they see the liberals twisting it to their advantage, excluding white men from candidacy for the ministry in the PCA unless they repented in sackcloth and ashes for being white. But that's what liber...

By: Thomas F. Booher    THE PASTOR'S FIRST FLOCK IS HIS WIFE AND CHILDREN: In many of our churches today, we have the exact opposite emphasis of what Christ Himself practiced. Pastors and churches today are hungry for numbers. I imagine the intent for many is mostly good -- they want to see souls saved. The problem is that, to be quite blunt, they don't understand salvation very well. Salvation broadly considered is a life-long process, it does not begin and end at that moment of being born again. Sanctification and growth as Christians will come only with faithful preaching and proclaiming of God's Holy Word, serious and diligent study, prayer, Christian fellowship, discipleship, counseling, etc. The Pastor is not merely an Evangelist, and he is not merely a preacher. He is a shepherd of the Lord's sheep. The emphasis and "flow" that we find in Scripture is only men, qualified men, are to enter pastoral ministry. Teaching is one qualification, but the bulk is...