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<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Church bulletin<\/p>\n
Some time ago I was talking to a ministerial friend when he described the wife of another pastor as being \u201ca bit out there\u201d. It was in no sense a criticism; he was not implying that her behaviour was sinful. In fact he and his wife are close friends with this couple. He simply meant that she did not fit the usual perception we have of Reformed folk. I don\u2019t recall in exactly what ways she was outside the box; perhaps it was humour, or interests, or decorating tastes; most likely it was a combination of things.<\/p>\n
I must confess I like it and find people interesting when they are a bit to the side of centre. I think it is healthy to be your own person; God didn\u2019t make us from a single mould. Of course we are all to pursue holiness conforming ourselves to the will of God, nevertheless, there is plenty of room to move within the spectrum of holiness.<\/span><\/p>\n The Lord Jesus Christ didn\u2019t fit the mould created for Him by the Jews. It wasn\u2019t just the message of John the Baptist which raised the ire of the establishment, but also his exotic clothing and diet. Another John, John Owen, faced the scorn of his fellow Oxonians who did not appreciate him wearing knee-high suede boots and his hat tilted to one side. I\u2019m not sure that some of today\u2019s Reformed folk would be entirely comfortable at the dinner table of Martin Luther. Spurgeon presented a series of lectures devoted to eccentric preachers. It would seem that a good number of eminent men fell into this category. Spurgeon himself was full of life and good humour. G.K. Chesterton, at times, comes across like an ecclesiastical Mr Bean. This is not to say that all traits found among God\u2019s people are helpful, but neither is it helpful to impose an unbiblical stereotype.<\/span><\/p>\n Let us strive to be godly, but let us not suppose that godliness comprises of being dull, predictable, and uniform. Godliness involves right priorities, not straying from God\u2019s purposes, not wilfully causing offense, keeping one\u2019s heart in fellowship with Christ, and as we pursue these things we are free from the box some people think we should squeeze into. \u00a0 \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Church bulletin Some time ago I was talking to a ministerial friend when he described the wife of another pastor as being \u201ca bit out there\u201d. It was in no …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1172","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sdreformedbaptist.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1172","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sdreformedbaptist.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sdreformedbaptist.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sdreformedbaptist.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sdreformedbaptist.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1172"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/sdreformedbaptist.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1172\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5902,"href":"https:\/\/sdreformedbaptist.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1172\/revisions\/5902"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sdreformedbaptist.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1172"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sdreformedbaptist.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1172"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sdreformedbaptist.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1172"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}