What is your opinion on using Eastern or Western iconography without venerating them? I grew up as an Eastern Orthodox and love the icons and find them as useful tools for prayer, although I do find any specific reverence or even prayer directed towards as them as violating the Second Commandment. Basically I disagree with Nicea II notion that reverence of image directs devotion to what depicted on it.

As far as I considered, I do see a very strong case to avoid any depiction of the Father, but I find the icons of Jesus to be acceptable since, as well as the symbolic icons of holy spirit.

The icons of the saints also seem okay to me, as they depict the living Church that transcends death. Although again, no prayers should be directed towards saints or their images.

As I am currently getting “reformed” as an Eastern Christian, I don’t want to throw out my heritage out of window but reconsider it to follow the commands of our Lord as best as I can. So I would like some feedback and potential corrections. Any opinion is welcome. God bless you all.

This time, I'm looking for reccomendations, resources and books on classical theism. There are a few main points I'd like to know in particular

1. A concise definition of Classical Theism and an exploration of this
2. The explicit Biblical case for classical theism. (I'm particularly thinking of instances where God is described as changing his mind).
3. The historic roots of it, in Judaism and early Christianity. How did it arrise?
4. How did it become a far more obscure idea, what are the chief challenges to it.

I'd appreciate any help I can get.

If you have requests that you would like your brothers and sisters to pray for, post them here.

Hi there, my wife and I are PCA and attend a vibrant and well capitalized church. We have attended for more than 5 years and now have our daughter in Sunday school.

My whole adult life I have been charitable with The Church: supporting missionaries, supporting campus outreach, supporting local charities, and giving to The Church in foreign countries (particularly ones in countries that I feel like are my enemies).

For the first time, I’ve started to feel ashamed that I do not give to the church I attend every Sunday. This is shame because I realized that the deacons and elders probably recognize we attend regularly but do not give and have not given despite using church services and Sunday school and even counseling once.

One day I will stand before The Lord, knowing full well that I could have given more and trusted in him more… but on this instance I wonder if I’m motivated wrong.

Any thoughts?

A weird question possibly: could a person be considered a hypocrite if said person would never place membership with a megachurch, but is still perfectly happy to listen to the podcast teachings of people such as MacArthur, Begg, and DeYoung?

I’m at a newly-planted non-denominational church. We had a men’s ministry event over the weekend and one of the guys I met threw me for a bit of a loop. Meeting the guy, you’d immediately think, oh, this guy’s gay. He’s got that stereotypical way of speaking and just generally gives off the vibe. Then you find out he’s married to a woman and has five kids. (And then you think, Really?!)
Now, I know that having a wife and kids doesn’t rule out the possibility that he is gay, but let’s just assume he really isn’t. Knowing that effeminacy is sinful (1 Cor 6:9, 1 Tim 1:10), how would/should such a person be handled in the Reformed world, either from the church’s standpoint or the individual’s? I don’t get the sense that there’s much in the form of guidance at my church, let alone governance. I have some thoughts (loving bluntness?), but curious if there are concrete approaches or opinions.