Hi, this is Jonathan Lehman.

And this is Mark Devere.

And welcome to this fairly sober, august occasion of Pasture's Talk.

Because we're thinking about covenants.

That's right. It's a bit embarrassing, Mark. We felt like 250 250 these conversations and yet never talked about church covenants. I'm pretty sure

church covenants has come up before. I'm sure it's come up. We've never actually concentrated on

that topic. And that's like one of your things. Like, you're like church covenant guy, right?

I think church covenants are arising in the 16th century as congregations as something other than birth inside

parochial boundaries that define them.

And those...

Parochial meaning geographic where I live.

That's right.

And so the covenant becomes a way that these people say, we are together for these purposes.

What is a church covenant? It's an agenda. people say, we are together for these purposes.

What is a church covenant?

It's an agenda.

So if the credenda is what we believe, the agenda is what we are trying to do.

So the summary of statements of what we understand the duties of the Christian life is.

It's kind of like the sin commandments.

Is there a biblical basis for it? I mean, it's not in the Bible, is it? You know, you have imperative verbs in the New Testament.

Lots of them. And there are sometimes sort of summary lists of duties. There are household duties.

There are duties at the end of Paul's letters. So I don't know if I think of, no, there's not, you know, with the confession you have

...