Episode Details

Chapter 30: Of Church Censures (Part 4)

Speaker: Reverend Joseph Poon

Website: http://www.bpcwa.org.au/

DOWNLOAD WCF Chapter 30: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1XmSssHG97bdBPRhCQ7aA-NIBn3529ZJl/view

Introduction - (00:00)

QUESTIONS

WCF 30.2

Q10. Can the church leaders refuse admission or decide who enters God’s kingdom? Explain.

Q11. What do these powers mean? How are they implemented?

Q12. Why must the church officers be very careful in receiving worshippers into church membership?

Q13. What must the church officers do to ensure they exercise their duties in admitting people into God’s kingdom? Is it fool proof? Then why do it?

Q14. How do we admit members of other churches into BPCWA? Why is this important?

Q15. What about church leaders from other churches joining BPCWA? Why?

Q16. In using the keys, how else do the church officers determine whether to treat someone as a brother, an erring brother, or to treat practically as an unbeliever?

Q17. How is the exercise of these powers different from the Roman Catholic Church?

Q18. Why does the membership vows bind the member to regarding all church decisions and directions as long as they are not unbiblical? What if they are unbiblical?

Q19. Does it mean that theologically trained people and ordained church authorities are always right in their interpretation of doctrines, exercising judgments and rule? Why? Since they are not perfect, why should we accept their authority and discipline?

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CHAPTER XXX OF CHURCH CENSURES

1. THE Lord Jesus, as king and head of his church, hath therein appointed a government in the hand of church-officers, distinct from the civil magistrate.1

1. Isa. 9:6-7; I Tim. 5:17; I Thess. 5:12; Acts 20:17-18; Heb. 13:7,17,24; I Cor. 12:28; Matt. 28:18-20

2. To these officers the keys of the kingdom of heaven are committed, by virtue whereof they have power respectively to retain and remit sins, to shut that kingdom against the impenitent, both by the word and censures; and to open it unto penitent sinners, by the ministry of the gospel, and by absolution from censures, as occasion shall require.2

2. Matt. 16:19; Matt. 18:17-18; John 20:21-23; II Cor. 2:6-8

3. Church censures are necessary for the reclaiming and gaining of offending brethren; for deterring of others from the like offenses; for purging out of that leaven which might infect the whole lump; for vindicating the honor of Christ, and the holy profession of the gospel; and for preventing the wrath of God, which might justly fall upon the church, if they should suffer his covenant, and the seals thereof, to be profaned by notorious and obstinate offenders.3

3. I Cor. 5:1-13; I Tim. 5:20; Matt. 7:6; I Tim. 1:20; I Cor. 11:27-34; with Jude 23

4. For the better attaining of these ends, the officers of the church are to proceed by admonition, suspension from the sacrament of the Lord’s Supper for a season, and by excommunication from the church, according to the nature of the crime, and demerit of the person.4

4. I Thess. 5:12; II Thess. 3:6,14-15; I Cor. 5:4-5,13; Matt. 18:17; Tit. 3:10

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Westminster Confession of Faith Series

Bible Presbyterian Church of WA

Friday 29th November 2019

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