Maybe we should vote no? Reason #2

Reason #2 to vote no on Overtures 23 and 37:  The argument to remove officers who are honest about their temptations contradicts the New Testament. 

The New Testament is clear that the past and present experience of its most faithful leaders includes struggles that may embarrass many. The New Testament has made public the past and ongoing struggles of its most mature leaders.

The Apostle Paul:

Romans 7:

     ⁷ I would not have known sin. For I would not have known what it is to covet if the law had not said, "You shall not covet." ⁸ But sin, seizing an opportunity through the commandment, produced in me all kinds of covetousness.

     ⁹ I was once alive apart from the law, but when the commandment came, sin came alive and I died.

     ¹⁰ The very commandment that promised life proved to be death to me. ¹¹ For sin, seizing an opportunity through the commandment, deceived me and through it killed me.

     ¹⁴ For we know that the law is spiritual, but I am of the flesh, sold under sin. ¹⁵ For I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate.¹⁶ Now if I do what I do not want, I agree with the law, that it is good. ¹⁷ So now it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me. ¹⁸ For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh. For I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out. ¹⁹ For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing.

     ²⁰ Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me.

     ²¹ So I find it to be a law that when I want to do right, evil lies close at hand. ²² For I delight in the law of God, in my inner being, ²³ but I see in my members another law waging war against the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members. ²⁴ Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death?

     ²⁵ Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, I myself serve the law of God with my mind, but with my flesh I serve the law of sin.

 

1 Timothy 1

     ¹² I thank him who has given me strength, Christ Jesus our Lord, because he judged me faithful, appointing me to his service, ¹³ though formerly I was a blasphemer, persecutor, and insolent opponent. But I received mercy because I had acted ignorantly in unbelief, ¹⁴ and the grace of our Lord overflowed for me with the faith and love that are in Christ Jesus. ¹⁵ The saying is trustworthy and deserving of full acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am the foremost. ¹⁶ But I received mercy for this reason, that in me, as the foremost, Jesus Christ might display his perfect patience as an example to those who were to believe in him for eternal life.

 

The Apostle Peter:

Matthew 16

     ²² And Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him, saying, "Far be it from you, Lord! This shall never happen to you." ²³ But he turned and said to Peter, "Get behind me, Satan! You are a hindrance to me. For you are not setting your mind on the things of God, but on the things of man."

 

Matthew 26

     ⁴⁰ And he came to the disciples and found them sleeping. And he said to Peter, "So, could you not watch with me one hour? ⁴¹ Watch and pray that you may not enter into temptation. The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak."

 

     ⁶⁹ Now Peter was sitting outside in the courtyard. And a servant girl came up to him and said, "You also were with Jesus the Galilean." ⁷⁰ But he denied it before them all, saying, "I do not know what you mean." ⁷¹ And when he went out to the entrance, another servant girl saw him, and she said to the bystanders, "This man was with Jesus of Nazareth." ⁷² And again he denied it with an oath: "I do not know the man." ⁷³ After a little while the bystanders came up and said to Peter, "Certainly you too are one of them, for your accent betrays you." ⁷⁴ Then he began to invoke a curse on himself and to swear, "I do not know the man." And immediately the rooster crowed. ⁷⁵ And Peter remembered the saying of Jesus, "Before the rooster crows, you will deny me three times." And he went out and wept bitterly.

 

Galatians 2

     ¹¹ But when Cephas came to Antioch, I opposed him to his face, because he stood condemned. ¹² For before certain men came from James, he was eating with the Gentiles; but when they came he drew back and separated himself, fearing the circumcision party. ¹³ And the rest of the Jews acted hypocritically along with him, so that even Barnabas was led astray by their hypocrisy.

The BCO changes in overtures 23 and 37 should be voted down because they go against the New Testament standard of honesty about the struggles of its leaders. To disqualify Officers of the PCA for being honest about the nature of their temptations is to go beyond the New Testament’s teaching and example. 

These changes will have the effect of pushing pastors who experience many forms of temptation into isolation and away from accountability. It will result in more moral failures among pastors who desperately need the freedom to be honest about the temptation that they experience. 

God inspired the New Testament to be written with its leaders’ failures forever recorded. This highlighted the grace of God in the gospel as the foundation and entrance and source of strength for all who follow Jesus. Non straight pastors, elders, and deacons communicate that God's grace welcomes non-straight men and women. It calls them to repent and follow Jesus. And it offers them a hard path that is filled with good works for them to walk in. 

Here are my posts that go further into the reasons to vote no on the PCA Overtures:
A Vision
Reason #1
Reason #2
Reason #3
Reason #4
Reason #5
Reason #6
Reason #7