A Quick Question for 9Marks

Gentlemen --

Even your tweets make me happy.

"Stop calling yourself a Christian if you're making a habit of living independently from the local church." JonathanLeeman @9Marks Portland.
— Mark Dever (@MarkDever) July 24, 2012

Look: that said, you have published an archive of books and pamphlets that frankly instruct anyone who wants to know how to do it regarding how to have a healthy and Christ-centered church.  I own them all.  I recommend them to anyone who has a question even remotely related.  There is nothing about them, as far as I'm concerned, not right.

Here's the problem we have today in English-speaking Christendom, as highlighted by this tweet from Dr. Dever from the much-esteemed Jonathan Leeman: people say they can't find a decent local church.  That is: they can't find one, if we stick to the confessional lingo, where the admixture of error isn't in fact the predominant feature of the congregation.  If there are 9Marks for s healthy church, they would say that all the churches they have visited locally are scoring below 4 good marks, and probably below 3.

As a person who thinks these claims are over-rated, but also as a person who has to drive 40 minutes one way to get to the church where I think the elders (because they have elders and not a CEO) have a real spiritual concern for my family and all the families in the church, how does the maxim blurbed via twitter, above, speak to the reality of the sick state of English-speaking evangelicalism and the near-absence of decent local churches?

Thanks much for the consideration!

so-called marriage (HT:JT)

This short post is making the rounds, where Ray Ortlund is making a pretty challenging exortation to people who allegedly love "the Kingdom" but not so much the church.

I'm with Pastor Ray, and you should be, too. Prove it by being with the Lord's people on the Lord's day in the Lord's house this week. You know: the real Lord who really does save.

Not done lightly (5)

This topic sort of slipped away from me here, but I have a few minutes today to make some hay about where we left off.

The GTY statement then goes on to say this:

This is not to suggest that these are the only circumstances under which people are permitted to leave a church. This is not to suggest that these are the only circumstances under which people are permitted to leave a church. There is certainly nothing wrong with moving one's membership just because another church offers better teaching or more opportunities for growth and service. But those who transfer their membership for such reasons ought to take extreme care not to sow discord or division in the church they are leaving. And such moves ought to be made sparingly. Membership in a church is a commitment that ought to be taken seriously.But those who transfer their membership for such reasons ought to take extreme care not to sow discord or division in the church they are leaving. And such moves ought to be made sparingly. Membership in a church is a commitment that ought to be taken seriously.

And before I say another word, let me say this in favor of this part of the statement: it is a pastorally-motivated statement which points people to treating the local church with a certain degree of dignity in spite of its flaws, and which seeks to give people good advice about how to manage their own growth in the faith. You simply cannot fault GTY for seeking to do this for people – especially given the nature of its ministry and because they are serving the larger Christian community in a way many local churches will not.

You know: many local church will not make an exposition of Scripture a key matter for Sunday worship. They will not make the task of rightly handling Scripture a matter of basic discipleship. They will not. That is: they choose not to do it on purpose.

That’s spiritually criminal in many ways. But it’s not actually heretical: it’s merely pragmatic. It is not very edifying, but it’s also not the worst a church can do. But think about this: the approach suggested by this part of this statement is not really any more pragmatic by saying that you should do what seems, in a practical sense, "better".

I read the GTY statement, and I have sympathy for what motivates it, but I wonder whether or not it’s giving advice which takes into consideration the gravity expressed in the first half of the statement. What does it mean that leaving a church is “not done lightly” if “there is certainly nothing wrong with moving one's membership just because another church offers better teaching or more opportunities for growth and service”?

I’m not sure those things mix together well. I’ll get back to that later.

from the meta ...

OK, so this got said:

Frank and I have very different views on the place of ecclesiology. I have a very low ecclesiology, almost consumed by my Christology. Frank seems to have a much higher view of the church, its role and especially its leaders than I do. This really is a quite influential difference.

And the reason it needs to be addressed is not because of who said it, but because I'll bet a lot of people think this way about what I believe.

So in the spirit of a proper merciless beating, let's go at it one part at a time. Ignore the cartoons as they are merely ornaments and not commentary. I have a quote to keep up.

I have a very low ecclesiology, almost consumed by my Christology.

I have no idea what that means, but it seems to me that an actually-high Christology will put the affections of Christ in the right places. Mind you: I didn't say "affections for Christ but the affections belonging to Christ.

My opinion is that an adequate Christology amplifies all the christological consequences -- and in this case, that would be the church. What we think of it, how we relate to it, whether we believe in it, how we stand trial with it and toward it, whether we endure it or nurture it or abandon it.

So while Michael says his Christology overshadows the church, I would say my Christology causes me to reconsider the church from Christ's perspective. I think that's a difference of opinion based on a difference in perception about the incarnation, and to say more than that would be to say something easily misinterpreted as unkind. The "low view" of church is a classic anabaptist consequence, which many baptists share. I can't fault Michael for being in that gaggle as that is my gaggle, too.

Frank seems to have a much higher view of the church, its role and especially its leaders than I do.

"Yes" before the comma, not so much after the comma. I have a high view of what the leaders are called to do. I have a high view of what a man must be -- by command of Scripture -- to lead the church, spiritually and personally.

But here's the thing: I have also spent the last 20 years leading people. There is nothing worse than leading people who, frankly, will not be lead. In a secular environment, you can just fire those people when they are sufficiently insubordinate -- something I have only had to do twice. You can't fire someone from the church -- even though bad pastors do it all the time.

In that, I think that the commands of Scripture to us are really very clear: be in submission to your leaders. They are men, and they will always make plenty of mistakes. You should love them for trying to serve Christ with their whole lives rather than with just their sunday mornings and wednesday nights. When I talk about how the layman should relate to the elders of his church, it's from the perspective that these men are called to do what it says in Titus and Timothy to do, and they can't do that if they people around them have their own ideas of how to accomplish that and fight them at every turn.

The back side of that, of course, is that they are actually called and required to be good leaders who are humble before God, and humble to men, and do not lord it over people, and take the commands to Titus and Timothy seriously. It's a one-way street, with Christ directing traffic, and we all need to follow Him or else it's just a wreck.

So again, I think a high Christology, which sees Christ's incarnation as a real thing that causes the church and requires the church as a necessary consequence of Emmanuel, causes a radical view of membership and leadership which, frankly, is a wrecking ball to the CEO pastor.

My wife and I joke all the time that a pastor is more like a kindergarten teacher than a CEO. He's more like a shepherd than he is like a king. Or at least he ought to be -- and the sheep need to follow him for their own good.

This really is a quite influential difference.

I do agree with that. I'd welcome a discussion about that.

Flaws

Just to keep thinking about the question of leaving your church in a way which is, frankly, more substantive than throwing rocks at people who probably don't like you and whom you probably don't like, let's think about this for the weekend:

Are there any important flaws in your theology? If you say "no" to that question I have two suggestions for you which I think you have never considered:

[1] You have probably not considered your theology very significantly if you can't see any inconsistencies in it. That doesn't mean you're a heretic or an idiot: it just means that maybe you should think harder about the things you think are important -- especially when you say they are important enough to split from your local church over.

[2] Someone else of the same stripe could, without some deeper consideration, use those flaws you yourself cannot see in your theology to name you as a reason to leave your church. Someone might fault you for your inexplicable inability to connect the Abrahamic covenant to the New Covenant; someone else might find your view of the history of the world a little too-simply diagrammed, or perhaps not robustly diagramed, and thereby expell you from orthodoxy for adding to or subtracting from Scripture.

And I say this to point something out to you: while there is no question that you shouldn't join or stay joined to a Mormon church or a rank Pelagian cult like Unitarianism, you yourself are not actually a prize catch in the theological sea. You're a smelly little sinner who is getting fished out of your stinky little pond by a fisherman who has chosen to save you out of His love and kindness and not because your are some kind of Rainbow Fish or a prize-winning theological Sea Bass.

It shouldn't be a surprize that you're in a fishbowl now with other smelly little fish. But it should cause you to rejoice -- and love the ones the fisherman has saved with you. Together.

Be in the Fisherman's fishbowl with his school of fish on His day this week, and thank Him that you're His smelly little fish. And so are they.

Not done lightly (4)

Alert Reader "Tom" has become a non-lurkering reader, and has offered some insightful commentary via the meta. This is some of it:

Where does it say in Scripture that one cannot leave a local assembly and go to another local assembly who are actually committed to worshiping the Lord in spirit and truth? Or are you applying loose principles?

I think my principles are pretty tight.

Here's my reasoning:

Jesus Christ came to establish his kingdom among men in creation. That is: he came to do a real thing -- something you can see, feel, touch. The advent of that kingdom is the church. (and while I think doing this breeds a lazy habit in the readers, cf. Mat 16; Acts 2; 1 Cor 1; 1 Cor 12; 2 Cor 8)

When we say "the church" and mean "no such gathering in particular but any such gathering in general", we abuse the word "church" (really: ekklesia) into something which it does not mean. In almost every case in the NT, the word "church" refers to a particular gathering of the believers (see all the references above; also Gal 1; Eph 1; Eph 5; Phl 3). When "church" does not refer to the local assembly, it refers to all such bodies in order to draw from the idea of what is given to all believers to the specific matter of some local church (see 1 Cor 1; Col 1).

In this, one thing is certain: Christ loves the church -- not just in general, but specifically all local churches. That includes, for example, the church in Galatia who was believing and practicing something Paul said made the work of Christ into nothing; that includes the local church in Corinth which was divided, permissive toward sin, abusive toward the sacraments, unsure about idolatry, chaotic in worship, and forgetful of the Gospel. That is: it is unquestionable that Paul called both of these badly-corrupt bodies "churches" who still had the blessing of Christ and the cornerstone of the Gospel upon which to build or rebuild its faith life.

Now, here's where we either must follow scripture or just admit we don't intend to at all: in both these cases where the local church has pretty much done its worst, Paul does not instruct anyone to flee. That's an important "not said" -- but only because it is in direct opposition to what Paul actually said. In Galatia he did not say, "so the few of you who are right with the Gospel should abandon those who are not," but he did say, "I am afraid I may have labored over you in vain. Brothers, I entreat you, become as I am, for I also have become as you are... Have I then become your enemy by telling you the truth? [the Judaizers] make much of you, but for no good purpose. They want to shut you out, that you may make much of them. It is always good to be made much of for a good purpose, and not only when I am present with you, my little children, for whom I am again in the anguish of childbirth until Christ is formed in you! I wish I could be present with you now and change my tone, for I am perplexed about you." [Gal 4] That is, he said, "because you are in dire faith trouble, I want to come back to you." And then a moment later he says, "Now you, brothers, like Isaac, are children of promise. But just as at that time he who was born according to the flesh persecuted him who was born according to the Spirit, so also it is now." That is: "You, my brothers, are being put to a terrible test -- like Isaac being persecuted by his brothers."

Not one hint of fleeing, but a broad and clear message of staying together in the course of faith, staying the course in a time of trouble, and a longing to be with them through the hard time.

Is your church like the Galatian churches? Then do what Paul did and exhorted them to do because they were a church, and your assembly is also a church. This does not apply to Mormons, or JWs, or Hindus, or what have you: it applies to churches in the heritage of faith which have not openly dismissed the Gospel from their midst.

But a church is a church, not a commodity. It is a place where we have brothers and sisters, not merely acquaintances and buddies. The calling there is greater than marriage and greater than family -- and to treat it as lesser or inconsequential is to wholly negate what Paul here appeals to in order to win the Galatians away from their corrupted ways.

It is exactly what Dr. MacArthur says in his opening sentence: something which cannot be done lightly. It is a grave matter to leave a church -- and not a matter which we should see as merely preferential or opportunitistic.

The local church is called a body in which all the members need each other. In 1 Cor 12, Paul makes the case for many gifts and many kinds of members to dispel the Corinthian enthuisiasm for the ecstatic gifts -- but his argument there digs deeper. Think about this: The eye cannot say to the hand, "I have no need of you," nor again the head to the feet, "I have no need of you." On the contrary, the parts of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable, and on those parts of the body that we think less honorable we bestow the greater honor, and our unpresentable parts are treated with greater modesty, which our more presentable parts do not require. [1 Cor 12] What kind of plea is that, except to say that the church is not only made up of the strong, or of the great, but also of the weak, and in fact the weak are indispensible.

This is such a brilliant analogy -- especially when we consider what Paul has already said in 1 Cor 11: I hear that there are divisions among you. And I believe it in part, for there must be factions among you in order that those who are genuine among you may be recognized. You know: this is again an admonition that somehow the right ones must stay for the sake of the broken ones.

So in this, I ask you: is Paul really silent on whether or not we can or should leave a church? Or has he spoken to this problem already, requiring us not to abandon the church when it is weak and fallible, but to stay joined to it for Christ's sake, and the sake of those who are in error?

And I say all that to say two things to conclude the week:

[1] Keep this in mind as we go back to the GTY statement and consider what it says after its list of reasons a church may be corrupt.

[2] Be with the Lord's people on the Lord's day in the Lord's house this weekend because it is where you belong. This is where you are called out to, and while you need it, it most certainly needs you.

Not done lightly (3-a)

It came up in a few e-mails and a note in the meta that we haven't talked about the problem of "abuse". And we haven't, I admit it -- because I think the category is too broad. All manner of things get tossed in there -- from the worse sorts of things like physical assault or sexual stuff to someone (a human being, you see) losing his temper (as opposed to being prone to violent outbursts) or someone simply rebuking someone who needs a rebuke but isn't emotionally equipped to handle it.

So if we have to talk about it (and we should), I'd say we need better categories to use to talk about it. And here's the thing: the Bible gives us those categories. We don't need the secular law or the materialistic psyhologist to define these categories.

Here are the things an overseer/pastor/elder should not be:

• He must not be arrogant
• He must not be quick-tempered
• He must not be a drunkard
• He must not be prone to violence
• He must not be greedy for gain
• He should be a one woman man, with all that entails

Now, that's a starter list -- it doesn't go to the criteria in the letters to Timothy, and it doesn't speak to all the other disqualifications in the rest of the NT like he shouldn't be someone who demands harsh rules, or whomeone who thrives on conflict and divisions. But as a starter list, what do you do about it?

Listen: if your pastor or an elder in your church hits you, and it wasn't a bar fight* or a situation where you baited him into violence through taunting and hateful behavior, he has disqualified himself. If you persue that with your church, either they are going to tell him to leave, or they are going to tell you to leave. You either have a church which recognizes what's right and what's wrong, or you don't. If you don't, as enablers they're going to make you the problem, and you should be glad to see they are like that -- because they'll show you the door.

I'm not saying it will feel really good and you'll get all vindicated and immediately sanctified: it's going to hurt deeply, and leave you angry and bitter, but when they tell you to leave, just leave. And I have a suspicion that this will work in all the cases above -- for the angry man, the violent man, the drunk, the guy who's greeedy for money or power or "respect" (whatever that means), the womanizer. use Mat 18 as a model, bring it up, and move on.

Nobody -- not me, and certainly not Paul or Jesus -- wants the church to be a place where people are abused. It's supposed to be a place where our infirmities are healed by His stripes.

---

*If it is a bar fight, you have to admit that you were both someplace you shouldn't have been doing things you shouldn;t have been doing, and repent.

Not done lightly (3)

So the statement at GTY goes like this:

However, there are times when it becomes necessary to leave a church for the sake of one's own conscience, or out of a duty to obey God rather than men. Such circumstances would include:

• If heresy on some fundamental truth is being taught from the pulpit (Gal. 1:7-9).
• If the leaders of the church tolerate seriously errant doctrine from any who are given teaching authority in the fellowship (Rom. 16:17).
• If the church is characterized by a wanton disregard for Scripture, such as a refusal to discipline members who are sinning blatantly (1 Cor. 5:1-7).
• If unholy living is tolerated in the church (1 Cor. 5:9-11).
• If the church is seriously out of step with the biblical pattern for the church (2 Thess. 3:6, 14).
• If the church is marked by gross hypocrisy, giving lip service to biblical Christianity but refusing to acknowledge its true power (2 Tim. 3:5).

Now, who is really going to argue that these things, each on its own, are not serious and significant problems? These start to come under the umbrella of “not done lightly” if and only if we take the solution as seriously as we take the problem.

Before we step one word further here, I think this is a place where Phil and I have a pretty serious disagreement in theory, but it’s important to note that this difference in theory doesn’t blow up into a war of attrition where our friendship or fellowship is in danger. And I say that first to make the point that what I’m about to write here I know factually is not the position of GTY, Phil Johnson or Dr. John MacArthur – and I respect their difference in this matter.

But I say that also to make the point that this is exactly the way we ought to handle all of these problems in a church. If you want to wag your finger at a problem, go find a child to wag your finger at, or maybe a dog which will feel appropriately chastised by your umbrage. And if you want to go and shake the dust from your feet at somebody, go find a strip club or the local branch of “Unity” to dust off with – someplace that has never been a church, and has never welcomed the Gospel in its midst.

But this urge to separate over error is, frankly, a bad application of a good biblical principle.

Let me qualify something before the “yeah buts” start: what we’re not talking about is the process of finding a church home in the first place. You know: you can’t just walk in the door at the first place with a cross on the sign and hope to go as deep as I am really pleading with you here to do. If you’re a Presbyterian, you’re going to never come to terms with a non-denom church; if you’re a Lutheran, well, just find the right Lutherans; and in truth and sympathy, if you’re a Reformed baptist, the odds of you finding a merely-non-calvinist (rather than anti-calvinist) SBC or Independent Baptist church is probably below 1 in 500. We are not talking about the process of finding a church here: we’re talking about the place which you, in your wisdom which now condemns the place where you are part of the body, chose in the first place by whatever means you used to get there.

For those who aren’t goo with nuance, let me say it this way: “You made your own bed by the means you made it in your wisdom at the time. Now using your new-found wisdom, sleep in it.”

See: the good and godly Biblical principle is “Let him who has done this be removed from among you,” right? Some version of the idea that you shouldn’t abide sin and you shouldn’t be yoked up to unbelievers.

But the problem, ultimately, is you – that is, you’re not the heretic from which we ought to be separated, but you’re the one who, yesterday, or last week, was one of these people in this church who didn’t know any better – and now apparently something which is not in this church is now in you, and you think that means you have to leave - because of the wisdom found in Gal 1, 1 Cor 5, 2 Thes 3 and so on.

But this interpretation of this principle neglects the greater matters of the New Testament. Yes, unquestionably: anyone who bears the name of brother if he is guilty of sexual immorality or greed, or is an idolater, reviler, drunkard, or swindler—not even to eat with such a one. But there is also the problem of James 5, and 1 Cor 6, and Mat 5-6-7, and the question of whether or not we are supposed to live together as an assembly before God as a people meant to be saints together.

So the Exit sign is not as clearly indicated as we tend to think in our post-fundamentalist culture of Christian conservativism. In fact, it may in fact be the exact opposite – that what the text actually indicates is that those who are in error must either repent or be shown the door after they have been rightly and lovingly disciplined.

Now here’s where I sign off for the day: don’t respond to this post if you haven’t read the others that go with it. Don’t raise objections to this post which are clearly answered in another one in this series posted this week. You’re a grown-up, I hope. You’re a big enough person to decide for yourself that your church stinketh, so be a big enough person to paste together this argument for something better and more Gospel-like than running away from men because they are sinful.

More to come.

Not done lightly (2-B)

Alert Reader "Kyle" axed this in the comments:

Sounds fine. But can you give me an example of any circumstances under which it might be acceptable to leave a church before they ask you to? For instance, the leadership opts for infant baptism, or tongue talking, or inviting Bill Clinton to preach...

Our beloved reader Rachael Starke has already pointed us not only in the right direction but in the actually biblical direction. I will be more explicit for all of you.

Imagine you are sitting in a restaurant (because of course, you would never be seen in a bar) with a friend, and you start talking about marriage. And that friend says to you, "Kyle, when can I walk out on my marriage?"

Now, I am sure you're a right-minded person, and you say something like this: "well, never. Jesus was clear about that -- what God has joined together, let no man tear apart. It's your marriage, not some arrangement for convenience sake. No offense, of course -- why do you ask?"

And your friend looks at you a little put out. "So you're saying that if my wife is a prostitute, I can't leave?"

And you're a little shocked by that statement, so you ask: "Is she a prostitute?"

"I'm just sayin'," he responds, "what if she starts turning tricks in our house. Can I leave if she does that?"

"Why would she do that?" you ask. "Has she made a move in that direction? Is she placing ads on CraigsList or something?"

"How should I know," your friend says, "I hardly talk to her. I have other things to do -- like ministry. Like work. I have to provide for my family."

And you rightly supress a laugh there, because what he's talking about is wrecking his family -- when can he finally give up on his family. But you stick with him because you love him -- it's good to give a personal example in a time like this, so in the same way you think he should stick with his marriage and his wife, you stick with him.

"So you're saying that, since you don't have time to be in a fully-informed relationship with your wife, and that seems to leave the door open for all manner of things to creep in, you want to know when you're cleared to leave -- from a Christian perspective?"

"Well, when you put it that way ..." he says, a little angry with you.

"I'm not the one who put it that way, my friend," you respond pointedly.

And you would have done well to respond pointedly. Look: every time someone want to manage the normal Christian life from the perspective of the far extremes (wherever you chart those extremes), you get legalism -- because God knows we do not want to ever find ourselves near people who are doing things which are evil, like that publican over there with his head tilted down like he's asleep or something. So managing your relationship with your church by charting out points of no return after which you must leave is, frankly, anti-Biblical and anti-Gospel.

What if you instead were charting out the path to being closer to your church -- not the building, but the actual people in the household of God -- with points of no return after which there is no going back to being a lone ranger. If there's anything true about Paul's letter to Titus, it is that Paul sent Titus to Crete to "set things in order". But the way by which Titus is instructed to set things in order is to find the guys who are formed by the Gospel, make them the leaders, and then build a community in which guys like these are thereby replicated. Somebody, someplace, has to lead by example -- and luckily for us, Christ did.

LOVE SOMEBODY, for crying out loud. You know: LOVE. This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers, in case you don't have your Bibles open. God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. We have a great savior, but he is also our exemplar, if we are really going to be like him.

He didn't leave when people turned out to be sinners. He wasn't surprised and taken aback and thereby hurt and therefore now jaded. Now you poersonally -- go and do the same.

Not Done Lightly (2-A)

Alert Reader "jmv7000" asked this:

I agree that a good portion of people leave churches for wrong reasons. Much of it stems from a "I'm not getting what I want" mentality. Your self-pastor analysis is spot on and a reflection of our culture.

But what do you do when your church hires a Sr. pastor who is not dedicated to Scripture, more interested in numbers than spiritual growth, and begins "market driven" projects to bring more people in? The Bible is no longer central to the message, but rather a retelling of books on the Christian best-seller list. And your elders believe this is the direction the church needs to head?

Factually, I am sure my friend Phil Johnson, and the folks at GTY, would say that at some point you leave. I respect why they say that, and I respectfully disagree.

My primary answer looks like this, and my larger answer includes the massive question: is the church where you go, or where you live?

You know: I get a lot of flack for telling people, "Be with the Lord's people in the Lord's house on the Lord's day." And I get that flack from people who are very "on" about the church not being a building.

Well, duh. But that complaint is both not sufficient to make the complaint they are making but also actually a devastating critique of the philosophical apparatus we us to decide to "leave" a "church".

Let's say that, in fact, your previously-beloved church has now selected Steven Furtick (google him) as your new pastor of vision and teaching (po-lease). How does something like that happen in a church which was previously healthy, do you think?

Here's my answer: it doesn't. Which means you have to come to grips with the fact that your church picked a pastor who reflects who they really are -- which is who they were before they picked him. It means you can walk into the place now disabused of the idea (which, I am sure you would say in a nicer way) that somehow God protected your church from being a church full of Corinthians, Galatians, Laodacians and publicans like that guy over there who looks like he's asleep with his head down like that.

Your church is what it is. In fact, it is what it was, and now you can see that clearly. It's covered in dirty fingerprints, and some of them are yours. See: it's not just a building you attend or somehow underwrite -- it's a community of people with whom you should have more than a passing acquaintance.

With that bit of self-assessment out of the way: so what? I mean: whadddaya do? The natural tendancy of the bloggerreadus apologeticus is to hit somebody -- theologically, of course, but with great zeal. Who can I hit for the most effective apologetic tackle before this thing gets too far down the field?

That's the wrong impulse -- because the church is not a building.

The right impulse looks like 1 Cor 1-2; it looks like John 13-14-15; it looks like the end of Acts 2; it looks like Titus 2 and 1 Tim 1:5.

That is: you gotta love somebody like Jesus loved somebody (you) in order to set them straight. The church is not a building, and thus Grace begets grace. In doing that, you can (and will) earn a place at the table so that when there comes a time for offering advice, somebody might want yours -- because you look like what they really want.

And here's the kicker: if they don't want your advice after that, they will unquestionably tell you. They will, in fact, ask you to leave.

And in that eventuality, leave. Shake the dust off your feet. Know that they are not rejecting you but rejecting Him to whom you belong.

Some people say, "Know what you believe and why you believe it," right? But then you have to know what to do with what you believe -- for it to cross over from knowledge or data into wisdom, it has to have a life-action value. The aim of Paul's charge is love from a pure heart, a clean conscience, and a sincere faith.

Try that for a couple-5 years before you say it's not a good strategy, and remember to leave if they ask you to leave.

It's worth it.

Not Done Lightly (2)

"However," he says ...

However, there are times when it becomes necessary to leave a church for the sake of one's own conscience, or out of a duty to obey God rather than men.

Now, Dr. MacArthur and our friends at GTY are saying that in spite of the real spiritual sobriety we're talking about when we talk about the local church, somebody has to clarify that there comes a time when it's necessary to leave "a church".

Someone in the comments of the last post tried to muscle that up into a distinction between "a church" and "the church", and you can go over there and see what I thought of that investigation into nuance. My concern with saying what they're about to say in their essay with this particular preface is this: God never gives explicit instructions to leave a church.

You know: Jesus instructed his disciples to leave towns which do not receive them and shake the dust off their feet. Israel was instructed to leave Egypt, and Lot was instructed to leave Sodom. When God wants somebody to leave a place, He knows how to say, "Hey: get outta there." I mean, he's God: he invented words. Scripture is His word. He could say it if he meant to say it.

But God doesn't say -- through Paul or any writer of Scripture -- "leave this church or that church if it gets too bad." Think of it -- Paul tells the Galatians that they have voided the Gospel, and they have changed it as from day to night by the teaching on circumcision which they have accepted. But what's missing? The plea to those who have not accepted such a thing to flee from this worthless joint and these worthless pastors and, well, do something else. If any church should have been fled, it was that one, yes? But Paul doesn;t say it -- or even hint at it.

Or what about Corinth? You think that Paul was proud of those people? They allowed incest and cliquishness, made chaos out of worship and made the eucharist into debauchery -- AND they seem to have forgotten the Gospel to boot. So Paul's advice there was, "and the few of you who aren't all screwed up -- you leave these losers and start something new, and I'll be along in a few months to start you over WITHOUT those heretics, thank God."

Yeah, no: Paul doesn't seem to see leaving the church as an option. But I think that's because Paul doesn't see the church the way (not to be too pointed here) you do. You see the church as a place where the word is preached, the sacraments are rightly administered, and discipline is rightly upheld. But let me suggest to you that Paul thought the church was more than that. And by "more", I don't mean "more of the same".

Here: look at this -- it's from Titus:

But as for you, teach what accords with sound doctrine. Older men are to be sober-minded, dignified, self-controlled, sound in faith, in love, and in steadfastness. Older women likewise are to be reverent in behavior, not slanderers or slaves to much wine. They are to teach what is good, and so train the young women to love their husbands and children, to be self-controlled, pure, working at home, kind, and submissive to their own husbands, that the word of God may not be reviled. Likewise, urge the younger men to be self-controlled. Show yourself in all respects to be a model of good works, and in your teaching show integrity, dignity, and sound speech that cannot be condemned, so that an opponent may be put to shame, having nothing evil to say about us. Slaves are to be submissive to their own masters in everything; they are to be well-pleasing, not argumentative, not pilfering, but showing all good faith, so that in everything they may adorn the doctrine of God our Savior.

Somehow Paul is telling Titus that the way you really run off the false teachers (See Titus 1) is by teaching what accords with sound doctrine -- so that the people will act in such a way that they adorn the sound doctrine.

You know: they aren't all seminary students. They are not actually bookish -- and I know this because it is rare to find someone who is both "bookish" and "dignified and self-controlled". The "bookish" are usually easily-addled and somewhat socially inept. They have what they think is a tidy interior life and they don't want people coming around messing it up for them.

To be blunt, Paul thinks the church is a larger thing and a couple-three hours on a Sunday morning -- and I don't mean Sunday night and Wednesday, too: Paul thinks the church is somehow larger than weekly events.

Someplace else he calls it the "household of God". And for many of us, that's a neat metaphor -- it's a big, big house with lots and lots of pews. But in fact Paul is saying that somehow the people of God have to be like a household -- so that if the metaphor is true, the reality is greater than the image and not somehow less. It's not easier: it's harder.

And in that, I want you to read the GTY statement with that substitution made:

However, there are times when it becomes necessary to leave the household of God for the sake of one's own conscience, or out of a duty to obey God rather than men.

Does that make any sense to you? It doesn't make any sense to me -- in fact, it sounds almost (not to be flip or excessive here) almost Shack-like. And while I understand what the GTY statement is about to try to clarify, I think it forgets a lot of things, some of which we will cover in greater detail next time.

Not done lightly (1)

Now, anyone who reads this blog should know that I would wholly own this opening paragraph from GTY and Dr. MacArthur:

Leaving a church is not something that should be done lightly. Too many people abandon churches for petty reasons. Disagreements over simple matters of preference are never a good reason to withdraw from a sound, Bible-believing church. Christians are commanded to respect, honor, and obey those whom God has placed in positions of leadership in the church (Heb. 13:7,17).

The underscore is added by me, btw. And the major texts the statement in question explicitly lists to explain its position are these:

Heb 13:7 – to honor leaders
Gal 1:7-9 – that those who turn the Gospel on its head be accursed
Rom 16:17 – to avoid those who cause division and teach false doctrine
1 Cor 5:1-7, 9-11 – that the church should expel those who are unrepentant in sin
2 Thes 3:6 – again, to avoid those who are idle and teach false doctrine
2 Tim 3:5 – again, to avoid those who are idle and teach false doctrine

Which, again, I would own entirely. I would own all of these explicit statements of Scripture. But with the exception of the 2 Tim 3 citation, all of these are addressed to the church and not to a you-personally person. In the case of 2 Tim 3, it’s addressed to a pastor, not just some guy. So when we look at these warnings or commands, we have a problem: we have to see that what Scripture does not once command is that anyone leave the church except those who are explicitly in sin or unrepentant error.

In fact, when we think about how 1 Cor 5 works together with 2 Thes 6, we have to ask ourselves: can we have any basis for a merely-personal and private decision that some teacher is a false teach? What we actually will fall back on in these cases is our belief as Baptists in soul competency – the ability of one person to obey conscience and stand before God for his own spiritual condition.

And that’s fine – it’s just not the highest, most systematically-brilliant point of Baptist theology upon which to make decisions. Yes: you personally have to stand before God and make an account – and if you’re a believer, you don’t get condemned to hell, but you can be saved as through hay, stubble and straw set on fire. That doesn’t sound like any revivalist hymn theme to me.

So here’s the thing to open with here: there is no question that the primary emphasis of the NT on this topic is that we are talking about an utterly-grave matter here, and that the traditional texts we would use to talk about this subject except for one is speaking to the church and not to one believer except for the place where the NT speaks to pastors.

We will get to Dr. MacArthur’s “However ...” next time.

In which we start hot water boiling

From time to time, this link is sent to me by someone who has read my thoughts at TeamPyro about the local church, and it's John MacArthur and our friends at GTY, so checkmate, right? Can't argue with that.

Who's arguing? You can't argue with a piece of paper or the internet. But you can respond, and that's what I plan to do over the next few weeks.

This is a Football

They tell a story about Vince Lombardi who, during the half-time of a blow-out against his team, walked into the locker room and declared, in words to this effect, "Gentlemen, it is time to return to basics." Then he pulled out the pigskin and presented it to the team instructionally: "This: is a Football."

Over at the Resurgence Blog, Jonathan Dodson presents the football to those who read him.

Now, before you people (you know who you are) take this apart for lacking any scripture verses or direct references to the Gospel: you're right. No Gospel explications in that essay/list. But here's my problem with that objection: Sometimes you have to assume the Gospel when talking about mission. White Horse Inn and all that duly noted, but listen: at some point your extraordinary knowledge of the names and accomplishments of all the magisterial reformers and all the puritans and all the ECFs has to matter in the world God created -- the one outside the confines of your skull and your note books and your blog(s).

And it has to matter to people. You have to live someplace other than a bunker, and you have to talk to people other than your pastor and your sunday school teacher. The Son of Man came to seek and save the lost -- it might prove useful to you to do the same.

Read this more than once

Let me say this: there is no greater human motivation than the need for other relationships. The question is only if we will make the right choices.

And that's not only for those who are lonely: it is for those who read James 2 and want to be doers of the word and not hearers only. Wishing others not to be lonely is not the same thing as standing in their loneliness with them and fighting for hope. If a brother or sister is poorly clothed and lacking in fellowship, and one of you says to them, "Go in peace, be content as you are," without giving them the things needed for the body, what good is that?

Indeed: what good is that?

I have a better idea

What if people really cared about people? Let me suggest that if Christians, without giving up one iota or one inflection mark of doctrine, actually loved other people besides their own families, the Japanese would be a lot more interested in replicating faith in Christ rather than building machines which can, well, you read that story.

It would be harder than what we do now. It would hurt us more. It would be worth it.

research for a future post

I'm looking for someone who knows something about the history of law in the west, particularly law in the United States.

QUESTION: when, if ever, was adultery illegal in the US? If you have an answer, link me to relevant supporting data.

It's for a follow-up on the Gay marriage post I did at TeamPyro, and I could use some research help with that question. If you don't have links but do have appropriately-cited PDFs, e-mail me.

A book you should love

I panned a book from Crossway over in the meta of TeamPyro yesterday, and I have a small stack of books from them on my shelf which I have been trying to get reviewed for about 4 months now. So to offset the panning they got at the other blog, I'm going to gush a little about a book about house churches.

Tim Chester and Steve Timmis have written what I think is a fabulous book about the life of the local church called Total Church: A Radical Reshaping Around Gospel and Community. It's in the RE:LIT series co-branded with Mars Hill Church in Seattle, and I love it.

Before I get all gushy over this book -- which I think is ridiculously-easy to do -- let me point out some of its limitations. For example, in the chapter on "Theology", it takes a swipe at Protestant models of Scriptural authority and salutes the "Anabaptist" model of "Gospel in community" over that. Eh. I though the point needed more work to convince me than they gave it in the 4 paragraphs on pp 158-159, but at least their point of view is transparent.

Another shortcoming of this book is its radical focus on a church without walls. The idea that a church is a community and not a building is a great maxim, an excellent and transformative point when you really "get it", a great theological point. But I think that, truth be told, in Western Civilization, every significant local community with a particular common interest in the last 500 years at least has raised up a place where it can assemble and demonstrate whatever it is they have in common -- be it a love of a sport or a love of fine art or a love of beer. Our God does not live in a temple, as Paul would say, but I would add: His people need someplace to call home, at least for now.

But that said, there isn't anyone reading my blog who can't learn something significant, church-improving, and of Gospel-centered seriousness from Total Church. Chester & Timmis have really made a labor of love to advance for the church a practical theology of the church which advances beyond the core of the Gospel without for one second taking the Gospel for granted.

The first chapter, in fact, underscores their focus -- it is called "Why Gospel?" Their conclusion is that the Gospel is a word, therefore the church must be word-centered. But it is not to be word-encased -- the word is not a tomb or a bunker in which the church resides, but a place which calls people out of the world, and into community.

How that community ought to -- and can -- work is the case made in the rest of Total Church, and as is my habit I'm not going to poison it for you by trying to distill it for you. Go out and buy this book, read it, and apply directly to your church.

JT already linked it

Carl Truman at his best.

BTW, if you want me to exposit on that essay, here's my take in 150 words or less:

The cultural and sociological issues at stake in both sides of the coin Truman examines here is exactly the reason Paul tells Timothy what the criteria for Elders and Overseers ought to be, and why those issues are the criteria he lists.

And if you need me to be a little more specific, this is why a 22-yr-old seminary graduate is not suited to be an elder or pastor. Pardon me for saying so, but we have an immature church because we let it be run by immature males who have been trapped into their roles as mostly-immature and faddishly young. If instead we looked to men who were first spiritually mature who are also successful fathers and husbands -- which it would be hard to do in our society before the age of 30 -- I think we'd find ourselves a church and not a fraternal order of, well, whatever.

Your Next Church

It might be the one you're in right now. There's a book in my stack "to be reviewed" for which I am ridiculously exicted, Total Church: A Radical Reshaping Around Gospel and Community.

Some of you have been ruined by this blog into having an attention span of about 37 seconds, and you'll be unable to read a 200-page book. Sorry 'bout that. So you might want to instead listen to the audio from the "Total Church" conference from ChurchBootCamp. The definition of the Gospel in this first session, btw, is worth your time all by itself.