The Historical Development of the Book of Church Order
Chapter 13 : The Presbytery
Paragraph 3 : On the Certification of Ruling Elders
13-3. Every ruling elder not known to the Presbytery shall produce a certificate of his regular appointment from the Session of the church which he represents. DIGEST: The current PCA text is unchanged from that of PCUS 1925 and differs from PCUS 1879 only by the capitalization of "Church". Stylistically the tendency of the later editions is to employ a lowercase usage of "church" to refer to the local congregation, capitalizing the word only when referring to either the denomination or to the Church universal. None of the various editions appears to be completely consistent, however, in using this convention. F.P. Ramsay, Exposition of the Book of Church Order (1898, p. 92), on V-4-2 : 73.--II. Every Ruling Elder not known to the Presbytery shall produce a certificate of his regular appointment from the Session of the Church which he represents. This implies that a Ruling Elder may not sit in Presbytery unless regularly appointed by his Session ; but there is no prescription for how long he may be appointed. |