You Don't Love God If You Don't Love Your Neighbor
Who is your neighbor?
My Response To A Letter From A Chesapeake Presbytery (CP) Pastor, Who Didn't Want Me to Ask For Help From Members of His Church.
Pastor {REDACTED}:
Greetings. Thank you for replying to my email. I've read your email several times, prayed about it and consulted with others. And have formulated the following response:
Who is your neighbor?
In your email, you made mention several times that because I am not a member of {REDACTED}, that I do no have the right cry out to {REDACTED}members through emails informing them of my plight.
Some how I find your argument extremely flawed, for did not Christ teach us “to love our neighbors as ourselves.” And when it was asked of Christ, who is my neighbor? Christ told the parable of the good Samaritan, demonstrating that every person that we come across is our neighbor and that we are obligated to love them.
However, when I read your email, it seems to me that you are stating that members of{REDACTED}are to consider one another as each others neighbors. Additionally, when I read your request that I should not even call out to the members of the {REDACTED} community for aid and assistance, it seems that your are doing far worse that the Priest or the Levite in Christ's parable. For you have instructed me not to call out so that other might see my distress and come to my aid. Therefore, if I were to put you in the story, you would have found the hurt man in his condition, drug him behind a bush, and then put a gag in his mouth so that no one could come to his aid.
I pray that you will reconsider your words. And know that I have considered mine. I say these things not to anger you, but so that you may see your duty as a believer in Christ.
As to your vows and mine?
You state very clearly that you have vows to your particular church, and that I have not convenient with your particular church. Some how I do see the lack of vows between us eliminates our duty to one another.
Do you censor all request for help?
Your asking me not send letters to various member in the congregation that you overseas puzzles me. So much so that I must ask you, it is common practice to censor all request from people made to {REDACTED}members for aid and assistance? Or is it mine that you find terribly offensive, that it can not be shared with the members of {REDACTED}. Also, are you of the habit of polling the members {REDACTED} to see if someone else might be calling out for help, and then contacting that person telling them that it is inappropriate for them to be doing so. Do members of {REDACTED} expect this from their pastor? Please explain. I'm not aware that a pastor should be providing such a service.
Do you filter all your members email and or mail, and prevent others from giving them information?
If this is a server you provided I am puzzled. Can you explain more on your point of view on this matter.
You speak of lines of authority.
I gather from your letter that disclosing these matter before the whole church and asking for prayer is some how going around the lines of authority. I didn't realize that there were lines of authority when it comes to asking for prayer and informing others who have a interest of wrongs that have been committed against myself, my family, my church, and my God. Does God create lines of authority to surprises the truth? God forbid. The lines I believe are there so that things are done in an orderly manner.
Am I a stranger?
In your letter, you speak to me as if I am a stranger. It is true that we have never met as far as I know. But to call me a stranger is to call me biblically an alien. Am I an alien to you, or are we brothers? For if we are both believers in the Lord Jesus Christ, and are part of the elect, how can I be considered an alien to you? Are we not in the same family, with Christ as our head? Also, are we not in the same presbytery? And are we not in the same denomination. Therefore, how can you label me as a stranger or an alien? And even if I am considered to you to be an alien, am I not still your neighbor? And if I am your neighbor does not your church and you have a certain duty to me if I am found to be suffering from unrighteous acts of others?
As to me calling the trial a Kangaroo trial.
Calling a dog a dog is not a demonstration of anger. Yes, I am not happy with the outcome. I don't see how any member of the PCA can be possibly happy with the outcome, who has an understanding of what church's confession teaches on marriage and divorce. SPEP made a ruling that it was permissible for Sarah McNeil to live apart from her me even though there was no finding or charge of willful desertion or adultery. In order to even come up with this ruling, they had to violate many aspects of our church's constitution to assure such an unjust ruling. This act of SPEP is a denial of our church's confession of faith and of the clear teachings of Christ among many other acts are heinous sins.
In closing.
Again, thank you for writing me back. I am sorry we are not able to agree with each other on these issues. I believe the information that I have to disseminate is critical for the welfare of Christ's church.
Too many denominations have turned away from His word and denied their confessions of faith in order to be more acceptable to the world. As you know, in our own denomination, we are dealing with egalitarian doctrines creeping in from every seem. However, I believe that egalitarianism is a small aspect of a larger problem.
For as you know, divorce in ramped in our church, and it is becoming a rule now that if you married you will most likely divorce. Marriage as an institution ordained by God, where a couple marries and stays married unto death is becoming are rarer occurrence in the church.
Also, the man's authority in the marriage relationship is being undermined by society in general and by churches that have long since departed from God's word. The PCA historically has supported the biblical patriarchal model for marriage, but even it is steadily leaning to the left which is evident by my own particular church.
The importance of this crisis is that the wife/husband relationship is to reflect that of the church/husband relationship. Why is this important? God has create various types of relationships so that we might know and understand Him better and our duties towards Him and others.
Note, when God describes himself, he uses terms as Father, Husband, King, Lord, Master and so many others. Along with these descriptions he sets our roles as son, wife, servant, , slave, and so forth. By these terms we know what our God is like, and we also know what we are to be like.
As you know, God instructs that wives are to submit to their husbands as the Church submits to Christ. For anyone to state that a husbands role is not of one of authority, that person is denying Christ's authority. First, they are declaring that Christ does not have the authority to instruct wives to obey their husbands. Second, they are destroying the picture of how the Church is to submit to Christ, making it seems that church does not need to submit to Christ. Therefore, to deny a man's authority over his wife and instruct her not to submit, that person is in reality denying Christ's authority over His church. The problem I have with Glenn Parkinson's teaching is clear. Why debate further? Who can challenge me on this? I stand ready to refute them.
Again, as you know, and I will state over and over. SPEP elders informed my wife that she can leave me, and that this was not sin on her part, even though they didn't even charge me with adultery or desertion. This is in clear violation against clear scripture teachings and our church's constitution. Do you challenge me on this?
So, rather than telling me that I am wrong in telling the church of these facts, why not assist me in these matters and add your voice to mine.
Or do you plan on opposing my voice stating that a wife is able to divorce her husband for reasons other than adultery or willful desertion on his part?
Also do you plan on opposing on whether or not a wife should submit to her husband, and on whether or not he has authority over her? Please make your position known.
May the King Reign In All Your Ways!!!!
-Michael A. McNeil
| < Prev | Next > |
|---|
