The Tulip Driven Life

  Is it schismatic to leave a NAPARC church or denomination to form a church outside of NAPARC? No, it is not, certainly not inherently so.   Jeremiah Burroughs is helpful here. You do not have to agree with every point he makes or every detail to see that his framework is correct and beneficial. Many men remain in compromised Reformed and Presbyterian churches or denominations because their Elders heap false guilt upon them, groundlessly charging them with being schismatics, claiming that leaving a Reformed and Presbyterian Church that belongs to NAPARC (North American Presbyterian and Reformed Council, which includes many Reformed and Presbyterian denominations such as the PCA, OPC, ARP, RPCNA, URC, etc.) to join or find a new church or denomination that is not associated with NAPARC is tantamount to sinful division, fracturing the body of Christ, disturbing the peace and purity of the church, ipso facto declaring any and all in NAPARC to be a false or apostate church, ...

  Some comments on the distinct glories and callings of man and woman (male and female). I hope it is helpful for you all when we consider the calling of men and women and God's good design for each: Women in exceptional circumstances, such as filling in for men lost in mass casualties due to war, may be pressed into duty out of sheer desperation and to fill the void as best they can. But that is the point -- female rule and leadership is extraordinary. While God may gift some women to rule, that is not typical of most women but rare and extraordinary. It is one thing to say that a female ruler is a legitimate ruler (I would affirm that), but it is another thing to say that female rulers are desirable or the typical pattern and proper order that God has established (I would deny that, as I believe Scripture plainly does as well, along with our Reformed forefathers). Even Daneau, from what I have seen, would likewise grant the former but deny the latter, as he too saw it as extraor...

Calvin is helpful on 1 Cor. 11:3, and he makes a key distinction between the Spiritual realm and the civil/natural realm when it comes to man and woman and equality and inequality (a distinction we desperately need to be able to make again today in our churches and society) -- "Let us, for the present, take notice of those four gradations which he points out. God, then, occupies the first place: Christ holds the second place. How so? Inasmuch as he has in our flesh made himself subject to the Father, for, apart from this, being of one essence with the Father, he is his equal. Let us, therefore, bear it in mind, that this is spoken of Christ as mediator. He is, I say, inferior to the Father, inasmuch as he assumed our nature, that he might be the first-born among many brethren. There is somewhat more of difficulty in what follows. Here the man is placed in an intermediate position between Christ and the woman, so that Christ is not the head of the woman. Yet the same Apostle teache...

  This simple distinction that Matthew Henry makes here is the very one our nation and most of our churches are incapable of making today. This is because we are more catechized by a feminized Egalitarianism than God's word on this point, or even our own Reformed catechisms and commentators: "And as being heirs together: another reason why husbands should give honour to their wives, viz. because though by nature they are weak and unequal to their husbands, yet they are equal to them in respect of their being called to the same grace and glory, there being neither male nor female in Christ, Galatians 3:28." Today, if you say that women or the female sex are "weak and unequal" in any sense, especially by nature, you will be accused of claiming that women are unequal in the latter sense that Henry lists here, namely, you will be accused of saying women are not equal to men in terms of being called to grace and glory. They will use the very same passage, Galatians 3...

From Calvin's commentary on Genesis 2: “But although God pronounced, concerning Adam, that it would not be profitable for him to be alone, yet I do not restrict the declaration to his person alone, but rather regard it as a common law of man's vocation, so that every one ought to receive it as said to himself, that solitude is not good, excepting only him whom God exempts as by a special privilege. Many think that celibacy conduces to their advantage, [138] and therefore, abstain from marriage, lest they should be miserable. Not only have heathen writers defined that to be a happy life which is passed without a wife, but the first book of Jerome, against Jovinian, is stuffed with petulant reproaches, by which he attempts to render hallowed wedlock both hateful and infamous. To these wicked suggestions of Satan let the faithful learn to oppose this declaration of God, by which he ordains the conjugal life for man, not to his destruction, but to his salvation.” ...."Certainl...

UPDATE 8/18/26   It is incredible that the very thing so many faithful pastors get in trouble for today regarding race was evidently taught by Rev. Appleton's own pastor, Rev. Heiple, who had a large hand as I understand it in getting Rev. Appleton deposed in the PCA. Because we are all catechized by the Egalitarian impulse today, we recoil at noticing any real differences between the sexes, races or peoples, nations, cultures, etc. We are hardly allowed to notice meaningful differences between families or even individuals. But it is a sin to bear false witness, and so we must tell the truth, especially when it is socially unacceptable to do so. If you do this, especially related to noticing real differences in these particular matters, you will quickly be suspected of things that are not logically entailed, such as absurd charges of denying the full humanity of some, or that some people are not fully made in the image of God. This is an incredibly wicked charge to level against so...

365 Days of Male and Female Piety                 What is male and female piety? What is true, godly masculinity and femininity? How is virtue cultivated in men and women? Even pagans and unbelievers have had a sense of piety, or pietas in Latin. For the Romans, this focused on loyalty and duty toward the gods, country, and family, especially toward the household and parents. In 1 Timothy 5:4 we are commanded to “show piety at home” by honoring the widows in our family and meeting their needs rather than burdening the church with alleviating the needs of widows. The Apostle Paul’s writings in the Bible often refer to distinct duties in the home and family for male and female, for the husband and father as well as the wife and mother (Ephesians 5:22-6:9 is just one of many places where Paul addresses these matters). This piety must go beyond the immediate household to more extended family, and Paul even indicates...