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Church Matters Volume VIII: Pastoring and the Conscience - Law, Liberty, and Love

The conscience has gotten a lot of play throughout Christian history. And for the most part, talk of the conscience was so that Christians would understand their obligation to obey God and his Word. Does talk of the conscience still inspire feelings of obligation today? Sometimes, certainly. More often, however, conscience is thought to relate to liberty more than to law. It evokes thoughts of freedom more than it does duty. “The Bible doesn’t explicitly say I can’t; therefore I can!” “The Bible doesn’t speak to this issue directly; therefore, I am free!” With so many assuming liberty, how can pastors instruct their members in biblical morality? 

This issue of Church Matters will consider the nitty-gritty, nuts and bolts job that pastors have of binding and freeing consciences according to God’s Word. The goal? That church members may grow in holiness before God while seeking the good of one another.

Table of Contents

Introduction: Two Risks of Calibrating the Conscience and Why Pastors Must Do It Anyway by Taylor Hartley

Part 1: How the Conscience Works

Calibrating the Conscience by Matthew Bingham

Conversion and the Conscience: How God’s Grace Makes Us Clean by Colton Corter

How Do I Keep My Conscience Clean? by Allen Duty

The Forgotten Spiritual Discipline: Introspection by Mike McKinley

Considering Our Backgrounds When Shaping Our Consciences by David Wissel

The Conscience as Precursor to the Last Day by Rob Kane

Part 2: Pastoring and the Conscience

How the Strong and the Weak Get Along According to Romans 14 by Daniel Stevens

How Far Does an Elder’s Authority Go? by Jeremie Rinne

When Elders Disagree: A Biblical Framework by Phill Howell

Pastoring the Pestering Conscience by Trent Hunter

Pastoring the Scrupulous Conscience by Michael Lawrence

How an Elder’s Character Informs Members’ Consciences by Aaron Menikoff

How Church Discipline Informs Members’ Consciences by Juan Sanchez

Preaching to Calibrate the Conscience by Joel Kurz

Can I Bind the Conscience More in the Counseling Room Than in the Pulpit? by Deepak Reju

Church Member—Seek Counsel! by Brian Parks

Recovering a Biblical View of the Conscience in a Psychologized Age by Dustin Williams

Calibrated Resistance: A Biblical Blueprint for Obeying and Disobeying Authority by Paul Alexander

Part 3: History of the Conversation

Luther and a Conscience That Wrestles with God by Stephen O. Presley

An Echo of Coming Eternity: Richard Sibbes on the Conscience by Jon Pentecost

Second Only to Preaching: William Ames’s Call for Casuistry to Calibrate Consciences in Pastoral Ministry by Ben Robin

How the Reformed Tradition Helps Us Grow in Our Moral Reasoning by Mark McDowell

Reformed Scholastic Theologians on Conscience by Tyler Wittman

Part 4: Book Review

Might the Conscience Be the Key to Your Church’s Unity? by Paul Alexander