Should a Christian Be Worried about Riding a Bus Driven by a Non-Christian?

Published on by D. G. Hart

In roughly two weeks the missus and I will be returning to Turkey with students and faculty from the College. We spend a lot of time on a bus in order to go from Istanbul, down to Ephesus, out to Urfa, and back through the center of the country to Ankara and back to Istanbul — about 3,500 miles in all. I am packing lots of books.

Our driver in all likelihood will not be a Christian since Turkey’s Christian population is miniscule. But if he is the driver we had a year ago, he will be very good. From negotiating millenia old back streets in Istanbul or construction clogged avenues in Izmir, to remaining on the road while winding over and through the cliffs to Antalya or finding rest stops for his periodic smokes, this driver could drive a tour bus through the proverbial eye of a needle.

Justin Taylor’s recent post on Christian bus driving prompted these memories of Turkey. He asks a series of questions that generally adopt a 2k outlook. But Taylor can’t take the plunge and opts to play in the neo-Calvinist/pietist wading pool:

1) Does the Bible teach how to be a bus driver? No

2) Does the Bible teach how to be a Christian bus driver?

Of course. The Bible teaches that as Christians we should function within our God-ordained vocations (i.e., legitimate callings) (1) from biblical foundations, (2) with biblical motives, (3) according to biblical standards, and (4) aiming at biblical goals. These are the necessary and sufficient conditions for Christian virtue.

Faith working through love—before God and for our neighbor—is essential for virtuous action in our various vocations (1 Corinthians 13; Luke 10:27; Gal. 5:6, etc.). All things are to be done for God’s glory in accordance with his revealed will (1 Cor. 10:31). We are to work heartily unto God, not man, knowing that ultimately we are serving Christ before we serve our boss or our customer (Col. 3:23-24). We work in imitation of our creative, working God, and we work from a position of divine acceptance and not for a position of justification before him.

Well, if you rephrase the question, you could leave off “bus driver” and the answer would still apply (or you could insert YOUR VOCATION here). So the answer here is really a non-answer since it has nothing directly or overtly to do with driving a bus.

3) Is being a non-Christian bus driver inherently sinful?

[More pietism]

It depends on what we mean here.

The vocation itself is a legitimate calling, sanctioned by God.

But one’s spiritual condition is not irrelevant in God’s evaluation of the proper way to fulfill a vocation. The Bible teaches that “without faith it is impossible to please [God]” (Heb. 11:6) and that “whatever does not proceed from faith is sin” (Rom. 14:23); therefore, any vocational pursuit devoid of genuine Christian faith is ultimately marked by sin and is finally displeasing to God. (The Westminster Confession of Faith 16.7 is helpful on this.) Their work is used by God but not fully pleasing to God.

But God is not a passenger on the bus. I am. And I don’t care for the sake of transportation (as opposed to for the sake of eternity) whether the driver is Christian or Muslim. Is he able to deliver me and the rest of the passengers safely to our destination. Can he do so while conserving fuel (for the sake of the environment)? And can he drive in a way that protects the bus owner’s property (for the sake of the economy)? Can he drive in a way that is free from stress (for the sake of his family)?

4) Can a non-Christian be a good bus driver? Yes, by “common grace” (of course).

5) Is a Christian necessarily a better bus drive than a non-Christian?

No. Christians are justified (uncondemned because of being clothed in the righteousness of Christ) but indwelling, entangling sin still remains. That means that before glorification Christians will never have pure goals, motives, or standards. A non-Christian may achieve a higher degree of competency in his or her vocation than a Christian—though this should not be the case. Sometimes this is a result of the non-Christian’s idolatry (achieving skills and competency at the expense of God and family and friendship and service); at other times a non-Christian will simply have more natural gifting from God for a particular vocation (e.g., a bus driver with better eyesight, superior reflexes, driving skills, experience, etc.)

Again, the skills are different from the piety, so why try to make devotion correspond to ability?

6) Is there a distinctively Christian way to think about the particulars of each vocation?

Yes, I believe that there is. My sense is that the more intellectual and aesthetically oriented the vocation, the more work has already been done on a distinctively Christian approach. This is, in my part, because the contrast will be more wide-ranging and apparent and because the Bible seems to have more to say directly about these areas. I’m thinking, for example, of areas like philosophy, education, and politics. (For some examples, see Alvin Plantinga’s “Advice to Christian Philosophers,” or the books in the Reclaiming the Christian Intellectual Tradition series.) The same would be true for aesthetics, as in music, fine arts, and design. It can be more difficult to see in areas oriented toward manual labor. But there is still much work that can be done in these areas. One of the problems is that intellectuals and philosophers are more inclined to know and study areas they are more interested in, and therefore other vocations become neglected in terms of analysis.

Great, so we need bus drivers to theorize about bus driving and write books, complete with study guides. Wouldn’t it be better to have a country music singer write songs and croon about the challenges of bus driving?

If we simply break this down by three parties — God, the bus driver, and (all about) me, the passenger, we can say that being a Christian bus driver only matters to the driver (ultimately). Bus driving has nothing to do with the driver’s standing before God. God ordains bus driving, and it is part of his providential care for creation to provide good (and sometimes bad) bus drivers. But the eternal status of a saint has nothing to do with whether or not he drives a bus.

I as a passenger, as noted above, don’t care (for the sake of the trip) whether the bus driver is a Christian. And if he is self-consciously so, it could make the journey unnecessarily awkward.

But I can imagine these questions matter to a bus driver who is a Christian. Should he or she (sorry Tim and David) try to honor God and love neighbors through his or her vocation? Sure. But it’s no one else’s business. So why do we need to have everyone else talking about it?

It strikes me that this question is on the order of this: there a way of driving a bus that yields an electoral victory in 2016 for Hilary Clinton? I suppose there may be. But who wonders about such things? Bill?

54 thoughts on “Should a Christian Be Worried about Riding a Bus Driven by a Non-Christian?”

  1. The book of Ecclesiastes basically repudiates JT’s entire post.

    JT: “My sense is that the more intellectual and aesthetically oriented the vocation, the more work has already been done on a distinctively Christian approach. This is, in my part, because the contrast will be more wide-ranging and apparent and because the Bible seems to have more to say directly about these areas.”

    Ecclesiastes: “I made great works. I built houses and planted vineyards for myself. I made myself gardens and parks, and planted in them all kinds of fruit trees. I made myself pools from which to water the forest of growing trees……So I became great and surpassed all who were before me in Jerusalem. Also my wisdom remained with me…….Then I considered all that my hands had done and the toil I had expended in doing it, and behold, all was vanity and a striving after wind, and there was nothing to be gained under the sun.”

    I think I’ll take the Bible’s advice and “eat your bread with joy, and drink (sipping for us 2Kers) your wine with a merry heart, for God has already approved what you do” rather than try to invent distinctly Christian ways to drive a bus, swing a hammer, or sell insurance.

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  3. A bus ride in Turkey you say? Just make sure that if you hear him say “allahu akbar”, you tell him right away you’re 2K. But don’t be surprised if that doesn’t help much.

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  4. Thanks for the quotation marks around “common grace”. Methinks the word “common” used with “grace” is one way that what you call “pietism” has crept into the Reformed tent.

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  5. WCF 16:7 Works done by unregenerate men, although for the matter of them they may be things which God commands; and of good use both to themselves and others:y yet, because they proceed not from an heart purified by faith; nor are done in a right manner, according to the Word; nor to a right end, the glory of God, they are therefore sinful, and cannot please God, or make a man meet to receive grace from God: and yet, their neglect of them is more sinful and displeasing unto God.

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  6. http://www.prca.org/cd_text3.html#a11

    the Synod of Dordt rejects the errors of those:

    I. Who teach: That it cannot properly be said, that original sin in itself suffices to condemn the whole human race, or to deserve temporal and eternal punishment. For these contradict the Apostle, who declares: “Therefore as through one man sin entered into the world, and death through sin, and so death passed unto all men, for that all sinned,” Romans 5:12. And: “The judgment came of one unto condemnation,” Romans 5:16.

    II. Who teach: That the spiritual gifts, or the good qualities and virtues, such as: goodness, holiness, righteousness, could not belong to the will of man when he was first created. For such is contrary to the description of the image of God, which the Apostle gives in Ephesians 4:24, where he declares that it consists in righteousness and holiness, which undoubtedly belong to the will.

    III. Who teach: That in spiritual death the spiritual gifts are not separate from the will of man, since the will in itself has never been corrupted, but only hindered through the darkness of the understanding and the irregularity of the affections; and that, these hindrances having been removed, the will can then bring into operation its native powers, that is, that the will of itself is able to will and to choose, or not to will and not to choose, all manner of good which may be presented to it. This is an innovation and an error, and tends to elevate the powers of the free will, contrary to the declaration of the Prophet: “The heart is deceitful above all things, and it is exceedingly corrupt,” Jeremiah 17:9; and of the Apostle: “Among whom (sons of disobedience) we also all once lived in the lusts of the flesh, doing the desires of the flesh and of the mind,” Ephesians 2:3.

    IV. Who teach: That the unregenerate man is not really nor utterly dead in sin, nor destitute of all powers unto spiritual good, but that he can yet hunger and thirst after righteousness and life, and offer the sacrifice of a contrite and broken spirit, which is pleasing to God. For these are contrary to the express testimony of Scripture. “Ye were dead through trespasses and sins,” Ephesians 2:1,5; and: “Every imagination of the thought of his heart are only evil continually,” Genesis 6:5; 8:21.

    V. Who teach: That the corrupt and natural man can so well use the “common grace” (by which they understand the light of nature), or the gifts still left him after the fall, that he can gradually gain by their good use a greater, namely, the evangelical or saving grace and salvation itself. And that in this way God on his part shows himself ready to reveal Christ unto all men, since he applies to all sufficiently and efficiently the means necessary to conversion. For the experience of all ages and the Scriptures do both testify that this is untrue. “He showeth his Word unto Jacob, his statues and his ordinances unto Israel. He hath not dealt so with any nation: and as for his ordinances they have not known them,” Psalm 147:19, 20. “And they (Paul and his companions) having been forbidden of the Holy Spirit to speak the word in Asia, and when they were come over against Mysia, they assayed to go into Bithynia, and the Spirit suffered them not,” Acts 16:6, 7.

    VI. Who teach: That in the true conversion of man no new qualities, powers or gifts can be infused by God into the will, and that therefore faith through which we are first converted, and because of which we are called believers, is not a quality or gift infused by God, but only an act of man, and that it can not be said to be a gift, except in respect of the power to attain to this faith.

    VII. Who teach: that the grace whereby we are converted to God is only a gentle advising, in harmony with man’s nature…. But this is altogether Pelagian and contrary to the whole Scripture which, besides this, teaches another and far more powerful and divine manner of the Holy Spirit’s working in the conversion of man, as in Ezekiel: “A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you; and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you a heart of flesh,” Ezekiel 36:26.

    VIII. Who teach: That God in the regeneration of man does not use such powers of his omnipotence as potently and infallibly bend man’s will to faith and conversion; but that all the works of grace having been accomplished, which God employs to convert man, man may yet so resist God and the Holy Spirit, when God intends man’s regeneration and wills to regenerate him, and indeed that man often does so resist that he prevents entirely his regeneration, and that it therefore remains in man’s power to be regenerated or not. For this is nothing less than the denial of all the efficiency of God’s grace in our conversion, and the subjecting of the working of Almighty God to the will of man, which is contrary to the Apostles, who teach: “That we believe according to the working of the strength of his power,” Ephesians 1:19.. And: “That his divine power hath given unto us all things that pertain unto life and godliness,” 2 Peter 1:3.

    IX. Who teach: That grace and free will are partial causes, which together work the beginning of conversion, and that grace, in order of working, does not precede the working of the will; that is, that God does not efficiently help the will of man unto conversion until the will of man moves and determines to do this. For the ancient Church has long ago condemned this doctrine of the Pelagians according to the words of the Apostle: “So then it is not of him that willeth, nor of him that runneth, but of God that hath mercy,” Romans 9:16. Likewise: “For who maketh thee to differ? and what hast thou that thou didst not receive?” I Corinthians 4:7.

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  7. Pingback: should we be worried | ninetysix and ten

  9. Ai-yi-yi! When I first read DGH’s comments on this thread I thought, Man you can’t make this stuff up!
    Then I listened to this Caedmon’s Call tune and now I’m totally confused. Do these people really exist?? If so, what’s next?

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  12. I’m new to your website. I follow TGC fairly regularly and saw Justin Taylor’s post about bus driving. The question I found myself asking was whether there are, in his view, vocations (philosophy, education, politics) which are intrinsically more amenable to Christian integration than others (manual labor). And if so, aren’t we in danger of affirming some form of gnostic orientation toward vocation? How do you all read that?

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  13. Brad, I don’t regard this as gnostic (if I know what you mean). I regard it as privileging the verbal classes. If philosophers simply philosophized, and if plumbers simply plumbed, and if neither wrote about how they philosophize or plumb Christianly, we would all be better off.

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  14. Lewis: Ecclesiastes: “I made great works. I built houses and planted vineyards for myself. I made myself gardens and parks, and planted in them all kinds of fruit trees. I made myself pools from which to water the forest of growing trees……So I became great and surpassed all who were before me in Jerusalem. Also my wisdom remained with me…….Then I considered all that my hands had done and the toil I had expended in doing it, and behold, all was vanity and a striving after wind, and there was nothing to be gained under the sun.”

    I think I’ll take the Bible’s advice and “eat your bread with joy, and drink (sipping for us 2Kers) your wine with a merry heart, for God has already approved what you do” rather than try to invent distinctly Christian ways to drive a bus, swing a hammer, or sell insurance.

    RS: But did you really read the passage you quoted? “Then I considered all that my hands had done and the toil I had expended in doing it, and behold, all was vanity and a striving after wind, and there was nothing to be gained under the sun.” It says that all his efforts were nothing but vanity and a striving after the wind. It says that all of his efforts and labors are nothing because there is nothing to be gained under the sun. That is the conclusion that Solomon draws.

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  15. Andrew Duggan: A bus ride in Turkey you say? Just make sure that if you hear him say “allahu akbar”, you tell him right away you’re 2K. But don’t be surprised if that doesn’t help much.

    RS: Are you saying that the difference between a Christian bus driver and a muslim one just might be a bigger difference than some are giving credit for? I suppose one could say that one will give you a bigger bang for your buck than another.

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  16. D.G. Hart 1) Does the Bible teach how to be a bus driver? No

    RS: But the Ten Commandments, if followed out of love with the Westminster Larger Catechism as a guide,, will make one a better bus driver than others, and especially the jihadist. A true following of the Golden Rule and of I Corinthians 10:31 will make one a better bus driver. It means that the person would try to get an appropriate amount of sleep at night in order to be better focused on how to get his passengers to their location safely. It means that the person will not be as focused on a schedule as s/he is in getting the passengers to the destination safely and with respect.

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  17. I don’t see how hours of sleep are proscribed by the Bible, nor the autonomous view that one can ignore time deadlines at their job. Bringing the kids to school late every day of a week would end your bus driving career.

    But I understand how one can think they can read into it and tell others how they have to behave.

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  18. Kent,

    Dont you know that the 6 (days of creation) + 40 (days of rain) + 31 (Chapters in Proverbs some of which speak about laziness) + 33 (the verse number in Proverbs 24 disucssing sleep) – 60 (number of verses in Acts 7 until Stephen fell asleep) – 40 (just because its a big Bible number) = 10 hours per night that the Bible tells you you should ideally sleep?

    Daniel 7 also lays this out if you know how to read the chapter properly 🙂

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  19. Prophecy Revealed, I thank you for that much needed laugh, but it came close to me shooting congestion out of my nose in a volume that would have been most unpleasant to clean up…

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  20. RS, psshaw. A follower of the Larger Catechism like you will be up all night reading the Bible and hoping and waiting for holy affections. It’s the 2ker who is home for cocktails, a good meal, family worship, and a late night appertif who is going to be well rested the next morning. He still may stink at driving a bus.

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  21. kent: I don’t see how hours of sleep are proscribed by the Bible, nor the autonomous view that one can ignore time deadlines at their job. Bringing the kids to school late every day of a week would end your bus driving career.

    RS: Which, of course, is not the point. Have you not read of the bus crashes in the last few years where the drivers fell asleep and ran off of the road?

    Kent: But I understand how one can think they can read into it and tell others how they have to behave.

    RS: Certainly you are reading into what I said, so I guess you can understand of how people think they can read into things. I am simply saying that if a driver is concerned to keep the 6th commandment that driver will strive to get an appropriate amount of sleep for him or her.

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  22. D. G. Hart: RS, psshaw.

    RS: The intellectual response of a licensed historian?

    D.G. Hart: A follower of the Larger Catechism like you will be up all night reading the Bible and hoping and waiting for holy affections.

    RS: Another non-response in terms of dealing with issues while trying to take a shot. Not that reading the Bible is so bad for you, or at least I would hope not.

    D.G. Hart: It’s the 2ker who is home for cocktails, a good meal, family worship, and a late night appertif who is going to be well rested the next morning. He still may stink at driving a bus.

    RS: It is hard to argue with your position that a 2ker would stink at driving a bus. The 2ker would not care enough about government regulations to bother wanting good ones for drivers.

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  23. Richard, you should know by now that most of my posts are sent out without direct reference to whom they are intended.

    If you feel I am talking to you, you just might be correct.

    No, I don’t read white/blue/green government papers on bus driver crashes and correlation to hours of sleep.

    I had to escape from people writing their personal rules into the Bible, even when they make sense you can never be sure the person assigning them cares to lift a finger to live by them.

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  24. “Lord, is it I?” Before I go into my heartfelt reply to this question, I say that a complete discussion of Common Grace (no quotes!) is the way to our thankful accepting of non-Christians as bus drivers, brain surgeons, political leaders, college professors, on and on… (but not mates). God gives His undeserved favor, (short of salvation) to ALL his human creatures. (“The rain falls….”) Now for the related, “Lord, is it I?”: I sadly confess that I am convicted as I read I Corinthians 3:1-4. May I honestly, think of myself as being in Paul’s higher shoes here, or am I really in the class of the weaker people he is criticising? Many of us who post thoughts and/or comment @ OLT have strong Christian, even Reformed, educations. Now, do I and other OLT folks forget that Paul, (I Timothy 1:15) near the end of his earthly life, says he IS, not WAS the worst of sinners?
    As I read many of the 300+ LOL comments last week, I thought I saw much wrongful, lack of love (“You are lying!”) etc. between Christian Brothers. Now… “Lord is it I?” As I think of all the Scriptures urging self examination, I must hang my head in shame and reply for OBM, a sad “Yes, I was often ‘a Corinthian church member’, not “Paul”, in some of the comments I wrote in the past @ OLT!” I will try to change! Love, OBM

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  26. Hey Darryl

    No offense, but your blog comes across not so much like a cocktail party but rather more like a dive bar in the not so nicest of neighborhoods.

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  28. Andrew, have you been to a dive bar?

    My favorite is up near my College Alma Matter – called Duffy’s in La Habra, CA. They have a big wooden barrel for the door (you feel like you’re walking into Bilbo Baggins home) and an old woman smoking cigarettes serves pitchers of Coors Light (I know…) for $8. But the best part is they somehow got grandfathered in on the smoking ban in California, so it’s the only bar in the state that I know that one can smoke indoors.

    If that’s Old Life’s counterpart, then I raise my glass to that!

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  29. kent: Richard, you should know by now that most of my posts are sent out without direct reference to whom they are intended.

    If you feel I am talking to you, you just might be correct.

    No, I don’t read white/blue/green government papers on bus driver crashes and correlation to hours of sleep.

    I had to escape from people writing their personal rules into the Bible, even when they make sense you can never be sure the person assigning them cares to lift a finger to live by them.

    RS: Loving your neighbors and caring about their lives is not writing personal rules into the Bible.

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  30. D. G. Hart: RS, put not your trust in princes but in holy affections. Come on, man. Be consistent.

    RS: But I am consistent. We are not to trust in the princes or in holy affections. However, if there are no holy affections then is there fruit of the Holy Spirit?

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  33. RS: Loving your neighbors and caring about their lives is not writing personal rules into the Bible.

    You can drive 15,000 Panzer IVs through the openness in that one… have seen it too many times…

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  35. Nate, $8 Coors Lights? Sheesh, that’s worse than the $7 Heinekens at Arthur Ashe Stadium for the US Open. If there were just one thing I wish TKNYC could transform it’s that.

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  36. Andrew,

    That’s only true when Doug and I show up at the same time. We can drop the floor and lower the ceiling all at once.

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  37. Very true Sean. I hope you and everyone concerned knows, that when I fight you, I fight you like you’re my brother. While I tend to get carried away sometimes, I do consider you my brother in Christ.

    Keep pressing on!

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  38. Zrim,

    $8 Pitchers of Coors Light – just under 4 pints. They had Newcastle for $11 a pitcher as well. The only problem is I don’t think La Habra qualifies as a “city” for TKNY – not transforming the culture and all. South L.A. is a great example of what happens to post-transformational culture – it turns into the ghetto, and subsequently is not the place for a “strategic church plant”…

    I digress.

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  39. D. G. Hart: RS, you’re not going to find the fruit of the Spirit in princes.

    RS: None of them for all time? God is sovereign and saves those whom He pleases. Occasionally (very) He is even pleased to save historians.

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  40. Nate, oops, my eyeballs are more being sanctified than transformed today. Maybe Doug can yell some grace into me.

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  42. Shucks, I had hoped that my comment (eating crow) this AM on I Cor. 3:1-4 (Lord, is it I?) would be more interesting than the latest DGH post and all the talk of booze and butts! Love, OBM

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  47. D. G. Hart: RS, being prince is like bus-driving. Its skills have nothing to do with sanctification.

    RS: It appears that your view of Christianity has less value of the indwelling Christ than is warranted and that your view of sanctifiction has little to do with life as a whole.

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  48. RS, who said integralism (life as a whole) has anything to do with Christianity (before Hegel)? Do you see your toe nails whole? I know you don’t see your government whole. Do you see this blog whole? Or maybe seeing things whole is what God gets the big bucks for. Seeing whole is above my pay grade.

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  49. It’s good that some on here feel they have to play the nagging perfectionist conscience for all of humanity.

    If I believe for one second that they actually could live 1% of the standards they talk big about on the internet, then I would be concerned.

    Good thing for the OPC/URCNA and 2K.

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  50. kent: It’s good that some on here feel they have to play the nagging perfectionist conscience for all of humanity.

    If I believe for one second that they actually could live 1% of the standards they talk big about on the internet, then I would be concerned.

    RS: Remember what Jesus said, however. That may sound too high for you and all, but remember who said it. But of course no person who is even remotely close to being Reformed would say s/he could keep it, but then again this drives a person to Christ and His grace each moment. The standards are the same even though we cannot keep them, but if we don’t keep the standards where God has them and lower them down to where we can come close to them then we have just practiced what the Pharisees did.

    Mat 22:36 “Teacher, which is the great commandment in the Law?”
    37 And He said to him, “‘YOU SHALL LOVE THE LORD YOUR GOD WITH ALL YOUR HEART, AND WITH ALL YOUR SOUL, AND WITH ALL YOUR MIND.’
    38 “This is the great and foremost commandment.
    39 “The second is like it, ‘YOU SHALL LOVE YOUR NEIGHBOR AS YOURSELF.’
    40 “On these two commandments depend the whole Law and the Prophets.”

    Kent: Good thing for the OPC/URCNA and 2K.

    RS: Are you saying that they don’t believe in the Greatest Commandment any longer and have a lesser standard?

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  51. D. G. Hart: RS, who said integralism (life as a whole) has anything to do with Christianity (before Hegel)?

    RS: While I am not a licensed historian, it sure seems to me that Jesus taught the Great Commandment which teaches us that all we do is to be done our of love for God.

    D.G. Hart: Do you see your toe nails whole? I know you don’t see your government whole. Do you see this blog whole? Or maybe seeing things whole is what God gets the big bucks for. Seeing whole is above my pay grade.

    RS: I think there is a hole in your argument and the Westminster standards points it out. The chief end of man is to glorify God and to enjoy Him forever. That does not mean a chief end in teh abstract as such, but is what man is to aim at in all he does. In all that we do we have a goal, aim, intent, and motive. I either serve and aim for myself in that goal or I serve and aim for the glory of God in each thing I do. Remember, sin is defined as falling short of the glory of God (Rom 3:23).

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  52. Richard, I’m well aware of the Ten Commandments and hear them proclaimed and confess to breaking them each Sunday morn.

    Because I know I violate them practically every waking moment. And in my dreams I violated them as well. Even when I’m not aware that I am sinning I probably am.

    And I read the entire NT every month and on each page are imperatives and indicatives that point this out as well.

    So I’m not sure where you get the total gall to tell people on here about this, as if you are telling us anything new, during the 12 hours a week you spend on here, nor what jollies you get being a gossipy little busybody on here.

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  53. kent, you posted what is just below on May 2, 2013 at 10:17 am
    It’s good that some on here feel they have to play the nagging perfectionist conscience for all of humanity. If I believe for one second that they actually could live 1% of the standards they talk big about on the internet, then I would be concerned. Good thing for the OPC/URCNA and 2K.

    RS: I then posted what I did on the Greatest Commandment and the Ten Commandments

    Kent then you posted this: Richard, I’m well aware of the Ten Commandments and hear them proclaimed and confess to breaking them each Sunday morn. Because I know I violate them practically every waking moment. And in my dreams I violated them as well. Even when I’m not aware that I am sinning I probably am.

    And I read the entire NT every month and on each page are imperatives and indicatives that point this out as well. So I’m not sure where you get the total gall to tell people on here about this, as if you are telling us anything new, during the 12 hours a week you spend on here, nor what jollies you get being a gossipy little busybody on here.

    RS: By the way, a gossipy little busybody? Almost humorous, but you might also check the part in the NT that speaks about slander and things like that. 1. You accused some of playing a nagging perfectionist 2. You spoke of some as talking big about standards on the internet. I simply pointed out to you that the standard is perfection and you have no right to lower it for yourself or anyone else. But never mind, just go on with calling names and demonstrate to us all just how much the OPC and 2K have made a difference with you.

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  54. http://www.ipcsav.org/resources/architecture-conference/

    I think there will be a seminar on the importance of Christian plumbers agreeing with Gaffin and Tipton about “union” with the resurrected Christ being in priority over mere legal justification. Be sure to check when you call your next Christian professional.

    This does not apply to pizza delivery or lawn mowing. They don’t have time to listen to Os Guiness.

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