I thought this article was interesting.

Sorry I don't know how to link it with a hypertext word so I gotta put the whole mess on here:


http://www.timesanddemocrat.com/arti...0337234337.txt

__________________
Richard H. King
Providence PCA
Lubbock, Texas
"No matter how far a man goes, he eventually finds out God's already there." John Wayne - the last line in "Chisum"

Good on him. It's about time someone did something about it, I'm sick of seeing Jesus pictures everywhere.

To hyperlink text, highlight it, and press the link button up the top of the text box (the one with the world and the chain sign). Then a little box comes up for you to put the link in.

Or, use the following syntax (witout spaces before and after the [ ] 's)

[ URL="http://www.google.com/" ]Here is your link.[ /URL ]

will look like

Here is your link.

__________________
Vaughan
BTh Student, Sydney Missionary Bible College
Naremburn Cammeray Anglican Church
Sydney, Australia
The Ransomed

This guy's my new hero!

I loathe made-up images purported to be of Jesus. Had the LORD intended us to know what His Son looked like in the flesh, He would have left either an image or a word description. Instead, we've neither.

What really burns my bacon is how He is inevitably portrayed as handsome, even though Isaiah 53:2a says:

"He has no stately form or majesty
That we should look upon Him,
Nor appearance that we should be attracted to Him."

Really? His appearance is attractive in man-generated images, heaven knows.

Bah. Humbug!

__________________
Anne Ivy
Christ Chapel Bible Church
Fort Worth, Texas

Married to Don, mother of six, grandmother to an ever-increasing brood.

The Ivy Vine (my blog)

I left this in the comments section:
It says my comment was posted, but I don't see it.

__________________
Josh Hicks, Chloë's Daddy
Member of TRBC. My Blog
The Puritan Pub (Team Blog)
Board Rules -- Signature Requirements -- Suggestions?

I am glad this book is out. I would like to get it. I have had debates with the RC's on my husbands side about this issue. It would be nice to see the way he argues it.

Good comments Josh, but you are right I dont' see them showing up yet. Maybe there is an approval process.

__________________
Traci
Lynnwood OPC
Psalm 52:8-9
8 But I am like a green olive tree in the house of God: I trust in the mercy of God for ever and ever.
9 I will praise thee for ever, because thou hast done it: and I will wait on thy name; for it is good before thy saints.

__________________
Davidius
Husband of Emilia
Member: First Reformed Presbyterian Church of Durham (RPCNA) - Durham, NC
Student: University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, German Literature and Classics

This may explain the old adage about Baptists being Methodists with shoes, and Presbyterians being Baptists who can read. To round out the adage, Lutherans might qualify as Presbyterians who drink to excess, and Episcopalians as Lutherans who know when to say when. - D.G. Hart

This:

__________________
Richard
CofE
UK

The book is available for purchase here.

The study is available online here:

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Part 4

Part 5

__________________
Andrew Myers
Husband of Jessica, Father of Jackson, Katie and Samuel
Member, Presbyterian Reformed Church of Northern Virginia
Warrenton, VA USA
Editor, The Matthew Poole Project

"On land, at sea, at home, abroad, / I smoke my pipe and worship God." -- J.S. Bach

Looks like I got beat to the punch, as I have a book coming out from the Reformed Fellowship on this subject, entitled, "In Living Color: Pastoral Counsel on Images of Christ." From the contents of Mr. Griffin's book, it looks like a straight rejection of images, while mine does that, rejecting man's media of images while adding chapters on the Word and Sacraments as God's media...

I'll have to buy his book and interact with it...

__________________
Rev. Daniel R. Hyde
Pastor, Oceanside United Reformed Church
www.oceansideurc.org
Carlsbad/Oceanside, California

Danny,
Other than Mr. Griffin's and your forthcoming title, are you aware of any other recent books on this subject?

__________________
Chris Coldwell
Lakewood Presbyterian Church (PCA), Member
• Naphtali Press: Presbyterian & Reformed Books
• The Confessional Presbyterian, A Journal for Discussion of Presbyterian Doctrine & Practice
• The Blue Banner Archive

When heresy rises in an evangelical body, it is never frank and open. It always begins by skulking, and assuming a disguise. Its advocates, when together, boast of great improvements, and congratulate one another on having gone greatly beyond the ‘old dead orthodoxy,’ and on having left behind many of its antiquated errors: but when taxed with deviations from the received faith, they complain of the unreasonableness of their accusers, as they ‘differ from it only in words.’ This has been the standing course of errorists ever since the apostolic age. Samuel Miller, Introductory essay, The Articles of the Synod of Dort (1841).

Click to get: Board Rules -- Signature Requirements -- Suggestions?

Hi Chris,

No, I do not know of much out there. This is one of the reasons why Jeff Myers (PCA minister, FV advocate) says the Reformed have never rejected images of Jesus for art and education. In my book, I deal with Rev. Myers' paper on the limited use of images (found here) in the first chapter. Myers responds to the little Banner of Truth pamphlet by Peter Barnes, Pictures of Jesus.

Here is the table of contents for In Living Color: Pastoral Counsel on Images of Christ:

Introduction
1 Man’s Media: Images
2 God’s Media: Preaching
3 God’s Media: Sacraments
Conclusion

It's very brief (130 pages or so), but I do interact with Myers (as well as Chuck Baynard) in rejecting all images for any reason, while making the classic Reformed case for the Word and Sacraments as God dramatic media for the Church in this age, since we are pilgrims awaiting to see him (1 Peter 1:8).

Danny,
Thanks; and I'm glad you are taking Meyers on. Do you deal with the bugaboo over WLC 109 "mental images"?

Hi Chris,

Yes, I interact a little with Myers and Weilersbacher (RPCNA, 1974 essay), who both say it is beyond Scripture. I do so under the heading of the preaching of the Word, dealing with the use of imagination and vivd language in preaching.

Thanks; good. It's MEyers, though, isn't it?

I do not believe that we should make any sort of image of Christ or God (much to the dismay of my friends since I won't go and see Evan Almighty). One of the verses that I believe support this is the Second Commandment:
Exodus 20:
4"You shall not make for yourself a carved image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. 5You shall not bow down to them or serve them, for I the LORD your God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children to the third and the fourth generation of those who hate me, (ESV)

However, in looking at these verses, it seems to me that if we were to use this passage in support of the idea that we should not make any sort of image of God, that we would have to believe that any sort of art is not allowed. This is because it says that we should not make images out of anything in Heaven or on Earth.
Thoughts?

__________________
Brian Vandenburg
Attend Intown Presbyterian Church (PCA)
"The authority of the Holy Scripture, for which it ought to be believed, and obeyed, depends not upon the testimony of any man, or Church; but wholly upon God (who is truth itself) the author thereof: and therefore it is to be received, because it is the Word of God."-Westminster Confession of Faith
http://wittenberg1517.wordpress.com/

I think it is further illustrated here:

"Therefore watch yourselves very carefully. Since you saw no form on the day that the LORD spoke to you at Horeb out of the midst of the fire, beware lest you act corruptly by making a carved image for yourselves, in the form of any figure, the likeness of male or female, the likeness of any animal that is on the earth, the likeness of any winged bird that flies in the air, the likeness of anything that creeps on the ground, the likeness of any fish that is in the water under the earth. And beware lest you raise your eyes to heaven, and when you see the sun and the moon and the stars, all the host of heaven, you be drawn away and bow down to them and serve them, things that the LORD your God has allotted to all the peoples under the whole heaven.
(Deu 4:15-19)

I think it isn't pushing the text to say that since we haven't seen Jesus, we should be careful not to make an image of him for ourselves.

Hi, Mr. Vandenburg. Keep in mind that God never commands to do what He has also said is sinful. We know that God commanded His people to fashion certain things that appeared to be creatures, etc. Thus, we cannot say that the Second Commandment is forbidding the creation of any images; rather, we must say that, in light of the whole of Scripture, He is forbidding the creation of any images which are intended to portray, reprsent, etc. the Lord God. Why? Because those things cannot possibly, nor adequately, nor fully, nor completely, encompass the full attributes of God Almighty.

I just skimmed Meyers's essay and found it rather interesting. Does anyone deal with his presentation of the historical use of images of Christ in the Reformation and post-Reformation church?

__________________
Scott Roper
Member, Redeemer Presbyterian Church (PCA): "A bunch of hippie Calvinists"
Winston-Salem, NC