It happened less than a month

ago, even as I write. On the

evening of Apri120, 1990, our
thirty two year old knelt before a
chair placed at the front of the
room, while fifteen right hands
pressed down on his head.
As I prayed the eternally
significant words, I was
conscious of the presence of the
Holy Spirit: "We do hereby set
you apart to the office of elder,
and ordain and install you as a
ruling elder in the Westminster
Reformed Presbyterian Church,
in the name and by the authority
of Jesus Christ, King and Head
of the Church and the State." It
was an eventful evening: a
congregation was organized, one
other man beasides our son was
elected, ordained and installed, a
third elected and installed, and a
pastor elected and installed. Our
son is the precentor for
congregational acappella Psalm-
singing.
As I was praying, with my right
hand on his head covered by
fourteen others, and my left hand
on the back of the chair where he
was kneeling, I felt a strong hand
reach up to grasp my own, and
afterwards we gripped one
another in a tight father-son
embrace. Heady stuff
- emotional fare - and
outstandingly noteworthy: the
living essence of which a lifetime
is woven. Both my wife and I
inwardly bowed in devout
thanksgiving that evening in
Vernon Hills that we could
together witness this moment.
Our son has been with mM for
RAISING ONE OF
GOD'S FAMILIES
BY: RAYMOND P. JOSEPH
ten years, now a systems
engineering manager. They have
three children, refuse to have a
television in the house, and are
considering home schooling.
But, not to pick on him, his older
brother is a Marine, and they
have two children in Christian
school. Only yesterday through a
phone call we learned that he has
received his promotion to Major;
he will not allow any four letter
words in his growing family
video library. The brother's
twin sister has five children in
Pittsburgh, two of them old
enough to attend Christian
school, (our son-in-law is a
nuclear power engineer with
Westinghouse). A fourth
daughter serves the Lord as an
artist in Pittsburgh.
LIFE IS MADE UP OF
DETAILS
I do apologize for these details,
for it is through such life-loaded
particulars that the stuff of living
is made. "How did you raise
your children?" has been asked
us by more than one young
couple, as they began to realize
what is involved in growing a
family up through an increasingly
humanistic culture which
definitely manifests hostility to
Christian values.
"By the grace of God" has been
our answer, and we mean every
word of it! The unmerited grace
of God is always the beginning,
the mid, and the end-point of any
truthful answer to the "How did
you do it?" question. Rearing a
godly family comes right next to
Christian couple's 'to-do-list'.
In the context of God's grace,
and doubtless because of it, my
wife and I made some early--on
decisions: We would ''Train Our
Children to Critique the Culture."
Meaning, that from their earliest
years during our first pastorate in
San Diego, where our oldest four
were born, we did our best to
maintain daily family worship
(Psalm singing, Bible reading
and praying). We also made our
very best efforts to communicate
and reinforce family worship
concepts in our conversations at
horne, and in monitoring what
television they watched, and with
whom they played.
What stands out in my memory?
Nineteen years ago, one of our
sons in his thirteen-year-old
wisdom, suddenly confronted me
with 'A Weighty Question', one
that parents sometimes get asked
when they're not prepared for it,
the kind which can bowl you
over if you aren't careful,
prodding you into responding
with an unconscious "Huh?" or
some other thoughtless knee-jerk
rejoinder, causing you later to
wonder if you said the right
thing. I had difficulty concealing
my near-shock.
By that time I had pastored four
and a half years in Greeley,
Colorado, and had moved our
family to a new ministry in West
Lafayette, Indiana. Here it came,
quite out of the blue, "Dad -
--- am I programmed to be a
Christian?"
the worship of Jehovah on our Inwardly amazed, but at the same
h ~ Counsel of Chalcedon June 1990 Page 19
time elated that a thirteen year-old
would ask such a theologically
loaded question, I paused a
moment, then served up what I
felt at the time was mostly 'knee-
jerk' reposte: "You had better
believe you are!" Thought I, not
very profound, but then, all
things considered, better than
nothing. It launched us into
some of the more profound
implications of Romans 9:13,
"As it is written, 'Jacob have I
loved, but EsaU: have I hated."'
My son had been listening to my
Calvinistic sermons!
IT IS ALL OF GOD'S GRACE
But not to favorites: All of
our five children have shown
evidence that God; in His
ineffable mercy and grace, has
chosen them as His elect ones,
(along with our ten
grandchildren). Yes, there have
been struggles, and yes, God has
given us much comfort and
reassurances through them, times
of rejoicing, even through the
tears. Our thirty four years of
rearing our own family has given
us an acute sensitivity to those
couples who seem to be
struggling, sometimes with guilt,
in this great task.
Giving birth and staying with the
menial tasks of parenting up
through graduations from high
school and college,
commissioning in the armed
service, alortg with awards of
excellence irt professions ... these
and other times are noteworthy as
emotional mountaintops. God in
His mercy has been good to us.
We've had our share of struggles:
Traveling with fou.r young ones
(ages one to four years) in a '55
Rambler' across the Nevada
desert from San Diego to an Iowa
disappointed ones at home while
we made a Chicago visit;
struggling with the rebellious
streaks when the outcome was
very much in doubt. Every
family has had its down tinies, .
and ours was no exception. But
through daily committing in
prayer and claiming the covenant
promises for our family as we
sarig Psalms in family worship,
we have rejoiced.
Sinners just like the restof you,
we're no better than anybody, but
God bas called us, even as He
called Abraham, to "Get out of '
your country, from your kindred,
and from your father's house."
Through Abraham, God was
saying to us, "Go build a godly
culture, through the covenant
families which I will give you.''
In 1967 before we arrived in
West Lafayette, Indiana from
Colorado to start a new
ministry, we gathered our (then
four) childrert together, put a
Bible map of the Middle East up
on the wall, and traced
Abraham's route from Ur of the
Chaldees, west across the "Fertile
Crescent" to Haran, and then on
down south into Canaan. As a
family we prayed together,
"Lord, we are called out by You
to be one of Your covenant
families. And; as a covenant
family, called by You, we will
continue to do OUr very best to go
out where yoi.I lead us, including
teaching our family to critique the
culture."
What does that mean, 'Critique
the Culture'? As parents, we
tried to be faithful in several
specific ventures, tracing back to
our beginnings when we were the
pastor's family in the new San
Diego, California, congregation
where our four oldest were born.
farm, with the outside air To begin:' we had family worship
temperature hitting 110 degrees; daily, singing from the Psalter,
havmg suddenly to cancel Friday and from Ken
evening family night, leaving five Thompsons "Bible Pictures For
Page 20 June 1990 The Counsel of Chalcedon
Little Eyes," moving from that as
. the children grew older into
Catherine Vos's" Children's
Story Bible," supplemented by
the Jay Green "Children's King
James Bible," then praying. In
addition, behavior at honie and in
the house of God was monitored
carefully. At that time, Christian
schools had not yet developed in
olir area, certainly not home
schooling. It would not be until
West Lafayette that we entered
them into a Christian school.
WHAT ABOUTROCKMUSIC
AND AIL TIIAT?
Our family grew up through the
beginning era of rock music.
While in the Greeley pastorate, I
built a 'Heathkit' stereo amplifier,
(the old vacuum tube kind), then
subscribed for a couple of years
to the monthly Readers Digest
and Columbia and RCA classical
records series. Our household
rang with the sounds of
Beethoven's Nine Symphonies,
compositions by Bach, Handel
and Haydn, and works by
Berlioz,
Offenbacl,J., and Suppe. Rock
music was heavily critiqued . .Of
course,. all of this musical fare .
was undergirded with daily
Psalm singing in family worship.
Later, out-of-home influences
would introduce rock music, but .
our children never really bought
into its underlying cultural
philosophy . ..
It was during the sixteen years in
Westl.at'ayette, Indiana, where ,
our oldeJ; four traversed the upper
grades (Christian School), high
school (public) and college
(Christian), and where our
number five was born. At every
point we critiqued the culture
heavily, both at home and from
the pulpit "Where did our
cultural standards come from 7'
we asked. "From a Christian
base," was the answer. They
learned it at home.
Any regrets in all of this?
Certainly. I wish I had done
better in getting father-and-two-
sons time together, for example,
though while in Greeley our
family did camp in th e Rockies
and as a private pilot I took the
children on. some noteworthy
trips. In the Purdue University
related student ministry during
those sixteen years in West
Lafayette, over forty students
(two at a time) lived with our
family. On a number of these
occasions we struggled to get
"just us' time, and we
occasionally failed. It was a daily
battle, but, not to wony, there
was victory down the road. Daily
family worship, training our
children to critique the culture,
keeping them committed into the
hands of the loving God of all
grace, experiencing forgiveness
of sins, loving each other and
telling them so ... these are the
ingredients of conquest. God's
Covenant with Abraham is truly a
spiritual foundation on which to
build for the long-range future.
(Reverend Raymond P. Joseph is
pastor of Southfield Reformed
Presbyterian Church in
Southfield, Michigan.)
FORBIDDEN, con't from p. 12
The fact that forbidden alliances
are too seldom discussed today,
and, all too often I believe, much
neglected, increases the need for
a wide distribution and prayerful
study of this booklet. In so
dojng, perhaps God would be
pleased to bring revival to our
land as we take seriously the fact
that the unsaved are enemies of
God and of Christians and are
hell-bound. Perhaps the reader's
evangelistic passion and practice
will be increased. Let us pray that
God might be pleased in His time
to make our nation again a
Christian nation. Then this
discussion of forbidden alliances
can be broadened to national
relationships with other nations.
Yet, first, it must begin with you
and me as Christians. This
booklet will show us that
improper friendships are as
foolish as trying to plow with an
ox and a mule. Befriending this
book and studying it in light of
Scripture will defmitely help the
pastor and layman alike in
knowing which friendships to
cultivate and which to root out.
TRUE AND FALSE WORSHIP;
Jolm Knox . Presbyterian
Heritage Publications, P. 0. Box
180822, Dallas, TX 75218,
$2.50.
Proper worship should be a
continuing concern for God's
people. Its importance is noted in
the second commandment, the
third commandment and the
fourth commandment. Of course,
reference could also be made to
the first commandment as well.It
cannot go without notice that
great problems are evidenced in
Scripture as a result of false
worship. Think of Cain, N adab
and Abiram, the golden calf made
by Aaron, as well as problems in
the Corinthian church and several
churches that are addressed in
Revelation Two and 1bree.
Proper worship honors God. We
have Abel's example, Abraham's ..
testimony as he entered Canaan
the first time, the book of
Psalms, numerous teachings by
Christ as well as other passages
throughout Scripture.
(p.l) In this booklet, Knox is
primarily concerned with
examining the Mass from a
Biblical perspective but Knox in
his life also spoke out against
false aspects of Anglican
worship,
Knoxs' work is elaborated under
two basic points.
1. "All worshipping, honoring,
or service invented by the brain
of man in the religion of God,
without His own express
commandment, is idolatry." (p.
2)
2. "All honoring or service of
God, whereunto is added a
wicked opinion, is abonirnation.".
(p. 17)
In explaining his reasoning,
Knox draws on a wealth of
Scripture passages from
throughout the Bible. With
Knox's incorporation of so much
Scripture, we must realize that
these verses apply to all ... types
of false worship, not just to the
Mass.Knox's desire is that God's
Word is sufficient to regulate our
worship services. This should be
our desire as well.
The usefullness of this booklet is
found in its introductory essay,
footnotes, marginal Scripture
references providing chapter and
verse for passages quoted in the
text, as well as updated language
that makes the entire text more
readable to today's reader. Also,
Knox ably answers objections
raised,by those who supported
the mass.
Reading this book helps the
reader in several ways. First, the
reader is reminded that problems
in the worship of God have
existed throughout history., We
are not facing problems in this
Thus, this re-publication of John area for the first time. Secondly,
Knox's writings on worship God's inspired word is sufficient
should not go unnoticed. Kevin to direct us in proper worship as
Reed has written a helpful well as how to answer the
introductory essay in which he improper. Knox provides the
explains a basic fact that "the "how to" in this booklet.
struggle between true and false Finally, we must always examine
worship was the central conflict our own worship practices in
of the Scottish Reformation." Con't on page 24
The Counsel of Chalcedon June 1990 Page 21