A few blogs that I stumbled upon today, and think I’ll keep visiting…

~ The Terrell Record ~ – Mike Terrell

Upriver – Todd Davis, pastor of Christ Church, Searcy Arkansas.

I’ve finally finished rereading all the Harry Potter books, and I can get back to my regularly scheduled reading…

I wonder why Sandlin is so black and white on the issue?

While I agree that an adult child turning from the faith is not an automatic disqualificaiton for leadership in the church, certainly it is something that should be considered. Sandlin emphasizes the reality of covenant apostasy, and says that it is the real decisions that the individual children make on their own. Well, yes, that’s true. But that isn’t the whole picture. Another (large) part of understanding the covenant is knowing that parents shape their children. How the kids are raised affects how they turn out. What we do with two or three year olds will be evident when they are 20 year olds. That is covenant truth.

When children make bad decisions, such that they reject the Christian faith, I think a wise session of elders will ask themselves how responsible the parents are, and namely the father. At some level he is responsible. I’m not willing to say that he should then be disqualified from leadership forever. But I’m also unwilling to say that an adult child’s apostasy has nothing to do with the father’s qualification to be an elder or deacon.