An excerpt from this week's sermon on Luke 24:1-12, a propos of James Cameron and the "The Lost Tomb of Christ."How could the women know that this was true? As far as they were concerned, Jesus was still missing. How could they believe in the resurrection of his body unless they could see Jesus with their own eyes? And perhaps more importantly for us, how can we believe this? Somewhere Harvard Professor Ernest Wright has said, “In biblical faith everything depends upon whether the central events actually occurred or not.” If that is true, then how can we know for sure that Jesus really did rise from the dead?
This question was raised in a fresh way this week by the announcement that the caskets of Jesus and other members of his family had been discovered in a burial cave from a Jerusalem suburb.
According to James Cameron, who produced a documentary film on the subject, DNA evidence would prove that this was, in fact, the family of Jesus of Nazareth. Finally, someone was coming up with the remains of Jesus (which of course the Jewish Sanhedrin would have done anything to produce two thousand years ago, thereby disproving the resurrection and discrediting the apostles!)
What is the best way to respond to such a direct attack on the veracity of the gospel? Some Christians answer by giving evidence for the resurrection. There is a place for this approach in the practice of apologetics, both as a way of confirming the faith and casting doubt on unbelief, if not actually convincing people of the truth of the gospel. The very fact of the empty tomb is evidence that demands a verdict. The body of Jesus was dead, having been crucified. Then it disappeared from the very tomb where it was buried. The body that disappeared was the very body that was crucified. This historical fact—the absence of his body from the empty tomb—joins the crucifixion to the resurrection and helps to confirm that Jesus rose from the dead.
However, this is not how the angels tried to convince the women at the empty tomb. They did not try to reason on the basis of the physical evidence. Nor did they make a case for Christ by refuting alternative explanations for what happened to the missing body. Instead, the angels simply told these women—and us—to remember what Jesus said: “Remember how he told you, while he was still in Galilee, that the Son of Man must be delivered into the hands of sinful men and be crucified and on the third day rise” (Luke 24:6-7). We are to believe in the resurrection on the basis of what Jesus said. The empty tomb is not self-explanatory. There is a word that explains the deed, and this word is the Gospel message that Jesus not only died, but also rose again with a glorious and everlasting body that would never die again.
What the angels told the women to remember were the prophecies Jesus made of his death, burial, and resurrection. Back in chapter 9, after Peter confessed that he was the Christ of God, Jesus said, “The Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and on the third day be raised” (Luke 9:22; cf. 9:44). We find the same thing in chapter 18: “For he will be delivered over to the Gentiles and . . . after flogging him, they will kill him, and on the third day he will rise” (Luke 18:32-33; cf. 17:25). Everything happened just the way that Jesus said. The words of his prophecies all came true. He was crucified, dead, and buried.
Now it was the third day—the day Jesus promised to rise from the grave. Indeed, this was the day when he must rise from the grave, for the earlier promises of the gospel expressed a divine compulsion. Therefore, when the women saw the empty tomb, they should have known that he was alive from the dead. The reason they are perplexed is because they have not yet believed what Jesus said.
Wednesday, February 28, 2007
Tuesday, February 27, 2007
By Carl Trueman
Professor of Historical Theology and Church History, Westminster Theological Seminary
On the issue of creeds, the evangelical world often seems absolutely divided into two broad camps: There are those who are so passionately committed to a particularly narrow view of scripture’s sufficiency that they not only deny the need for creeds and confessions but regard them as actually wrong, an illegitimate attempt to supplement scripture or to narrow the Christian faith in doctrinal or cultural ways beyond the limits set by scripture itself. Then there are those whose view of creeds and confessions is so high that any other theological statement, and sometimes even the Bible itself, seems to be of secondary importance. Neither group, I believe, really does the creeds justice.
I am very suspicious of both approaches. While I share the concern of the first group to safeguard the uniqueness of scripture and to avoid imposing my own cultural preferences and tastes on someone else under the guise of gospel truth, I have a sneaking suspicion that the cry of `No creed but the Bible!’ has often meant rather `I have my creed, but I’m not going to tell you what it is so that you can’t know what it is and thus cannot criticize it or me for holding it.’ Such is often the case with those evangelicals who reject creeds but have very definite views on the legitimacy of the consumption of alcohol and the nature of the end-times, for example. In practice, they effectively allow for no hypothetical distinction between what the Bible says and their own, or their church’s, interpretation of the same. Thus, they render themselves immune to any criticism. Further, as soon as they use words such as `Trinity’ or even consult a commentary, they reveal that what they say about their relationship to tradition and what they actually do in practice with tradition are in conflict.
I also share the underlying concerns of the second group for a high view of the church and of her public statements, and also for an honest acknowledgment of the indebtedness of Protestantism to tradition, albeit not in the same sense as Rome would understand. Yet the second group too is susceptible to criticism. In a strange way, their problem is similar to that of the first group: a radical identification of what the church says with what scripture says in a way that makes criticism of church teaching in light of scripture well-nigh impossible.
For what it is worth, I occupy something of a middle ground between the two groups (isn’t it strange how most of us always think we represent a happy, biblical medium between two extremes??? Ho hum. Humour me just this once). I certainly regard scripture as uniquely authoritative and divinely inspired; but I also appreciate the help which the insights of others over the centuries gives me into scripture’s meaning and application; I also delight to identify myself with Christians through the ages who have worshipped the same God; and in this context I place a special premium on creeds and confessions for two very important reasons. First, the church is more than just a collection of individuals; it is the community of those united to Christ and the community of the Word and sacraments, and as such has a special place in God’s redemptive plan. Thus, I take much more seriously the consensus declarations of the church (problematic as that now is, given the diversity of denominations) than the individual statements of particular theologians.
Second, the consensus nature of creeds and confessions is particularly attractive and important. The fact that most creeds and confessions were formulated partly in response to political pressure is often seen as bad thing, but I am not so sure that such is inevitably the case. Each year as I teach in the councils of Nicea, Constantinople and Chalcedon, students express concern at the sleazy political chicanery that lies in the background to these events; yet the fact that a creed is formulated in such situations does not make its teaching of necessity less biblically coherent, any more than my total depravity inevitably undermines my occasional attempts to preach God’s word; and, on the positive side, it does mean that such creeds are no more exclusive than they have to be. Yes, they clearly rule out of bounds particular positions; but they are designed to keep as many on board as possible, and this ecumenicity of theological and ecclesiastical intention was arguably reinforced on many occasions by political expediency.
Given this, that creeds and confessions have, historically, almost always been documents aimed at consensus, two further points must be made. First, I am persuaded that such documents, particularly the early church creeds, should be understood in a broadly negative fashion. Scholars do disagree on this point, but it seems to me to make sense of, say, the Nicene Creed if we understand it as essentially setting up boundaries which exclude certain positions. In effect, it tells you what you cannot say about God without you consequently failing to make sense of scripture’s teaching. Thus, it leaves open a space for theological reflection, exploration, and even disagreement. The difference between this and understanding the creed as a positive statement of what you must believe is subtle but very significant. This way underscores consensus and inclusion; the latter focuses on precise agreement and exclusion. The same people may be included and excluded under both understandings, but I would still argue that the former is more appropriately modest and charitable and a lot less likely to lead to the usurpation of biblical authority.
The second point arising from the consensus nature of creeds and confessions is that they generally focus on the very core elements of the faith which command general agreement on both content and importance within the given constituency. Of course, they do vary in depth and complexity: the Nicene Creed covers less ground than the Westminster Confession or the Book of Concord, and I have argued on an earlier occasion in this very column for the fact that Christian theology requires a certain complexity of doctrinal elaboration and structure in order for any individual doctrine to enjoy long-term stability. But even if one takes the Westminster Confession as an example of an elaborate doctrinal statement, it is hard to imagine many Christians with any doctrinal bent querying the topics that are covered: God, scripture, Christology, salvation, ethics, ecclesiology, sacraments, relation of church to society etc. Almost all Christians – Arminian and Calvinist, Protestant and Catholic, Western and Eastern -- would agree that these subjects are important and that all churches need to identify their position with respect to them.
In short, I regard creeds as important because they are documents approved by the church, or at least by particular churches, and thus have more status than the writings of any individual Christian; they generally represent in intention a desire to reflect consensus among Christians; their negative, boundary-setting thrust means that they leave room for discussion, disagreement and thoughtful theologizing, albeit within churchly limits; and they essentially focus on the real core doctrines. In sum, I might say that they give those of us who adhere to them a place to stand both doctrinally and historically, and thus to lay our views open for appropriate public scrutiny and challenge.
This leads me to my final observation: some of the second group I mentioned in my opening paragraphs, the high church party, hold so vigorously to the ecclesiastical nature of creeds that they find the whole idea of other statements of faith, of the kind that are now so common in our transdenominational age, to be at best irrelevant, at worst a phenomenon which undermines the importance of the church. This latter criticism is significant: ecclesiology is at such a premium today, we certainly do not want to add to the forces which undermine it. Indeed, it would be ironically self-defeating, for example, if the Cambridge Declaration of ACE served not to strengthen confessional evangelicalism but rather to wound it and then to help in its demise.
I see the point of such arguments. Such statements are not ecclesiastically sanctioned documents, and by their very transdenominational nature they marginalize through silence or agreeing to differ many matters of vital ecclesiological significance – baptism and the Lord’s Supper, for example. But it seems to me that two things need to be borne in mind. First, there are precedents for this even within the strongly confessional tradition of Reformed Orthodoxy. The Helvetic Consensus Formula of 1675 was drawn up by the Reformed specifically to address issues raised by teachers at the Academy of Saumur, specifically a reconstruction of the divine decrees and atonement theory commonly known as Amyraldianism, after the French theologian, Moyse Amyraut, and also the denial of the antiquity of the Masoretic vowel points of the Hebrew Bible. It was not a church creed, but it served the purpose of allowing various churches and schools to identify themselves as protesting specific issues in their day and age. Thus, even the high ecclesiology of the Reformed faith is not averse to short-term tactical declarations of this kind.
Second, ecclesiastical creeds and confessions are built to last. As a result, they touch as little as possible on the local particulars of any given time or place. Of course, they bear the stamp of their age as do all documents; but the fact that Nicea still resonates over 1600 years on, and Westminster over 350 years on, would seem good enough evidence that they are not so marked by the era in which they were produced as to have lost all of their relevance as the original framers passed into glory. But the church always lives in a particular time and place, and must always respond to the issues of the age. As a result, occasional documents, creed-like in form but much more modest and local in terms of their purpose, are extremely useful. On the one hand, such documents are ecclesiastical safety valves which prevent the need for constantly adding to the existing creeds and, almost by definition, making those creeds less catholic and more exclusive; on the other hand, they allow the church to speak directly on the issues of the day which are most pressing, be they matters of justification, public morality or whatever. Yes, it is true that their often interdenominational nature could weaken ecclesiology; but that is only going to happen if churches make the category mistake of confusing such with proper creeds and confessions. The problem lies not in the statements themselves but in the fact that so many who use them have had no solid teaching on the nature of the church and thus cannot make the basic distinction necessary to avoid the problem.
Creeds and confessions will, I suspect, continue to suffer at the hands of friend and foe alike. The latter will always dismiss them as encroaching on scripture’s authority; the former will continue to make them narrower and functionally more important than they were ever intended. But on this issue I believe there is a middle way, which gives peculiar but subordinate status to such documents, and which also sees a place for occasional, transdenominational statements as well. The church must never compromise the unique authority of the Bible, must always focus on the basic essentials which cross time and space, but must also speak thoughtfully, to the here and now. Historic creeds and contemporary declarations thus both have their part to play in making the church’s voice a relevant voice. Until we realize that, I fear that a good creed will seldom go unpunished.
Monday, February 26, 2007
WHERE'S Dr Ryken
Philadelphia Orchestra concert that our Japanese visitors from Christ Bible Seminary attended. Can you find Phil? That's David Kim in the middle with the violin.
COME CELEBRATE THE LIFE OF PEG GREEN
Here is the service and viewing information for Peg Green.
The viewing including worship Service will be held at
GUCKIN FUNERAL HOME
1419 HUNTING PARK AVENUE
PHILADELPHIA PA. 19124
215- 743-7256
DATE...FRIDAY MARCH 2ND
TIME... 6:30PM UNTIL 9:00PM
IF YOU ARE SENDING FLOWERS HAVE THEM DELIVERED BETWEEN 1- 3PM ON FRIDAY MARCH 2ND
The viewing including worship Service will be held at
GUCKIN FUNERAL HOME
1419 HUNTING PARK AVENUE
PHILADELPHIA PA. 19124
215- 743-7256
DATE...FRIDAY MARCH 2ND
TIME... 6:30PM UNTIL 9:00PM
IF YOU ARE SENDING FLOWERS HAVE THEM DELIVERED BETWEEN 1- 3PM ON FRIDAY MARCH 2ND
Sunday, February 25, 2007
PEG GREEN HAS GONE HOME TO BE WITH THE LORD.
Thank you all for your prayers for Peg Green, I was with Peg and her family tonight at the hospital as our sister Peg went home to be with the Lord at 8:30pm.I want you to know that it was a great time at her bedside as we sang Amazing Grace. I read from John 11:25 and the group at her bedside joined me as we praised the Lord, it was at that moment Peg went to be with her King.
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The following is an article written by Dr Ryken that Peg read and loved two months ago.
DYING WELLShortly after the death of my father-in-law, I had the opportunity to thank his pastor for the spiritual care he received from the church in his last days of life on this earth. I will always remember the words of encouragement the pastor gave me. “Jim Maxwell died well,” he said, before adding, “Not everyone does, you know.”
No, not everyone dies well, but only those who are strong in faith, bold in courage, and well prepared to meet their God. The Puritan Edmund Barker said, “Every Christian hath two great works to do in the world, to live well, and to die well.” This is one of my own spiritual ambitions: to be ready to die when the time comes, and to die well. It is never too early to start preparing for something as important as dying well. So what are some practical ways to get better prepared for the last moments we have on earth before our first moments in eternity?
We can prepare to die well by thinking often about death and the life to come. This is what Moses was doing when he prayed, “Teach us to number our days that we may get a heart of wisdom” (Ps. 90:12). This is always the way to prepare for things we know we have to face in the future. By thinking clearly and soberly about what lies ahead, we are better prepared to handle it with dignity and grace when the time comes. We should think about the moment of death itself, when we will have to say farewell to everything we have in this life, and also about what comes after death, when every believer will be “at home with the Lord” (2 Cor. 5:8). And we should think about these things often. Charles Spurgeon said: “We are flying, as on some mighty eagle’s wing, swiftly on towards eternity. Let us, then, talk about preparing to die. It is the greatest thing we have to do, and we have soon to do it, so let us talk and think something about it.”
If it is good for us to talk and think about death, we will do well to learn what the Bible says on the subject. “We must all die,” the Scripture says; “we are like water spilled on the ground, which cannot be gathered up again” (2 Sam. 14:14). The Bible also gives us many examples of people who died well—people like Jacob, who blessed his children (see Gen. 49), or like Joshua, who in his dying days spoke words of spiritual wisdom for the people of God (see Josh. 24). But the best example of all is our Lord Jesus himself, who in his dying hours was setting an example for us by meditating on Scripture (see Matt. 27:46; cf. Ps. 22:1), by forgiving his enemies (see Luke 23:34), by sharing the gospel (see Luke 23:39-43), by caring for his family (see John 19:26-27), and by entrusting his body and his soul to his Father in heaven (see Luke 23:46).
We can prepare to die well by paying close attention to the spiritual experience of others in death and grief. As we watch our loved ones suffer, we should consider whether they are dying well. If they are not, we should consider why not, but if they are, we should consider what we can learn from the example of their faith. We can learn similar lessons when we attend funerals or go to graveside burial services. The brothers and sisters who go before us—including the ones we read about in good Christian biographies—are teaching us how to die.
Then we can prepare to die well by singing great hymns and meditating on their meaning. Many of the best hymns touch in one way or another on the believer’s faith for the hour of death. As a preacher, one of my favorites is “There Is a Fountain Filled With Blood,” which partly goes like this:
Ee’r since by faith I saw the stream
Your flowing wounds supply,
Redeeming love has been my theme,
And shall be till I die.
Then in a nobler, sweeter song
I’ll sing your pow’r to save,
When this poor lisping, stamm’ring tongue
Lies silent in the grave.
But there are many good hymns for getting ready to die, like “Abide with Me,” “Rock of Ages,” “The Lord’s My Shepherd,” “Amazing Grace.” Or consider the closing stanza of “My Faith Looks Up to Thee”:
When ends life’s transient dream,
When death’s cold, sullen stream
Shall o’er me roll,
Blest Savior, then, in love,
Fear and distrust remove;
O bear me safe above,
A ransomed soul.
The words of that hymn are really a prayer, which is yet another way we can prepare well for death: by praying for the grace we need even before the time comes for us to die. Like any other future difficulty, we should take our coming death to the Lord in prayer. We should pray like this: “In my dying hour, Lord, help me to hold on to you by faith, and let the people I love see your grace in me.”
There are many other things we can do to get ready for our dying day. We can exercise good stewardship of our earthly possessions, preparing to leave a legacy that provides for our families and advances the kingdom of God. We can reconcile broken relationships so as not to leave any unfinished interpersonal business behind. We can also practice daily self-denial—sacrificing our selves for the sake of others, like Jesus did. If we are putting ourselves to death every day (see Col. 3:5), then the day of death itself will turn out to be the day we have been preparing for all our lives.
But of course the most important thing we can do to prepare to die well is to put our faith in Jesus Christ, who died for our sins on the cross, and who passed from death to everlasting life in his resurrection. If you trust in Jesus, your salvation is secure. Death has lost its sting for you (1 Cor. 15:55), and your Savior will be with you in your dying hour. After that, he will take you to his Father’s house—the place you have been longing to go all your life. Then when it is time for you to die, the only thing you will have to do is to die, and to die as well as you can. Everything else is already arranged.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The following is an article written by Dr Ryken that Peg read and loved two months ago.
DYING WELLShortly after the death of my father-in-law, I had the opportunity to thank his pastor for the spiritual care he received from the church in his last days of life on this earth. I will always remember the words of encouragement the pastor gave me. “Jim Maxwell died well,” he said, before adding, “Not everyone does, you know.”
No, not everyone dies well, but only those who are strong in faith, bold in courage, and well prepared to meet their God. The Puritan Edmund Barker said, “Every Christian hath two great works to do in the world, to live well, and to die well.” This is one of my own spiritual ambitions: to be ready to die when the time comes, and to die well. It is never too early to start preparing for something as important as dying well. So what are some practical ways to get better prepared for the last moments we have on earth before our first moments in eternity?
We can prepare to die well by thinking often about death and the life to come. This is what Moses was doing when he prayed, “Teach us to number our days that we may get a heart of wisdom” (Ps. 90:12). This is always the way to prepare for things we know we have to face in the future. By thinking clearly and soberly about what lies ahead, we are better prepared to handle it with dignity and grace when the time comes. We should think about the moment of death itself, when we will have to say farewell to everything we have in this life, and also about what comes after death, when every believer will be “at home with the Lord” (2 Cor. 5:8). And we should think about these things often. Charles Spurgeon said: “We are flying, as on some mighty eagle’s wing, swiftly on towards eternity. Let us, then, talk about preparing to die. It is the greatest thing we have to do, and we have soon to do it, so let us talk and think something about it.”
If it is good for us to talk and think about death, we will do well to learn what the Bible says on the subject. “We must all die,” the Scripture says; “we are like water spilled on the ground, which cannot be gathered up again” (2 Sam. 14:14). The Bible also gives us many examples of people who died well—people like Jacob, who blessed his children (see Gen. 49), or like Joshua, who in his dying days spoke words of spiritual wisdom for the people of God (see Josh. 24). But the best example of all is our Lord Jesus himself, who in his dying hours was setting an example for us by meditating on Scripture (see Matt. 27:46; cf. Ps. 22:1), by forgiving his enemies (see Luke 23:34), by sharing the gospel (see Luke 23:39-43), by caring for his family (see John 19:26-27), and by entrusting his body and his soul to his Father in heaven (see Luke 23:46).
We can prepare to die well by paying close attention to the spiritual experience of others in death and grief. As we watch our loved ones suffer, we should consider whether they are dying well. If they are not, we should consider why not, but if they are, we should consider what we can learn from the example of their faith. We can learn similar lessons when we attend funerals or go to graveside burial services. The brothers and sisters who go before us—including the ones we read about in good Christian biographies—are teaching us how to die.
Then we can prepare to die well by singing great hymns and meditating on their meaning. Many of the best hymns touch in one way or another on the believer’s faith for the hour of death. As a preacher, one of my favorites is “There Is a Fountain Filled With Blood,” which partly goes like this:
Ee’r since by faith I saw the stream
Your flowing wounds supply,
Redeeming love has been my theme,
And shall be till I die.
Then in a nobler, sweeter song
I’ll sing your pow’r to save,
When this poor lisping, stamm’ring tongue
Lies silent in the grave.
But there are many good hymns for getting ready to die, like “Abide with Me,” “Rock of Ages,” “The Lord’s My Shepherd,” “Amazing Grace.” Or consider the closing stanza of “My Faith Looks Up to Thee”:
When ends life’s transient dream,
When death’s cold, sullen stream
Shall o’er me roll,
Blest Savior, then, in love,
Fear and distrust remove;
O bear me safe above,
A ransomed soul.
The words of that hymn are really a prayer, which is yet another way we can prepare well for death: by praying for the grace we need even before the time comes for us to die. Like any other future difficulty, we should take our coming death to the Lord in prayer. We should pray like this: “In my dying hour, Lord, help me to hold on to you by faith, and let the people I love see your grace in me.”
There are many other things we can do to get ready for our dying day. We can exercise good stewardship of our earthly possessions, preparing to leave a legacy that provides for our families and advances the kingdom of God. We can reconcile broken relationships so as not to leave any unfinished interpersonal business behind. We can also practice daily self-denial—sacrificing our selves for the sake of others, like Jesus did. If we are putting ourselves to death every day (see Col. 3:5), then the day of death itself will turn out to be the day we have been preparing for all our lives.
But of course the most important thing we can do to prepare to die well is to put our faith in Jesus Christ, who died for our sins on the cross, and who passed from death to everlasting life in his resurrection. If you trust in Jesus, your salvation is secure. Death has lost its sting for you (1 Cor. 15:55), and your Savior will be with you in your dying hour. After that, he will take you to his Father’s house—the place you have been longing to go all your life. Then when it is time for you to die, the only thing you will have to do is to die, and to die as well as you can. Everything else is already arranged.
SO HOW WAS THE WOMENS CONFERENCE AT TENTH CHURCH????
The women’s conference at Tenth Presbyterian Church was a wonderful example of learning how to resolve conflicts in a truly biblical way.
Too often in many churches today worldly influences seems to dominate how we respond to conflicts and this conference was an exceptional presentation of the correct and biblical way we are to resolve them.
Tara Barthel did an excellent job and I came away with more knowledge and a better understanding of what God’s word says regarding our relationships with those around us.
I look forward to using the biblical guidelines she taught to help me develop and maintain a Godly attitude towards any conflicts in my life and to show others that God’s way is always the best way.
MANDY
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The women's conference this past weekend at Tenth Presbyterian was amazing! I have never seen my sin as clearly as it was shown to me in the 4th session of the conference. Seeing our own sin is a huge part of resolving conflicts in our lives. What an eye(and heart)opener!
Thankfully in the first session Tara had powerfully shared with us God's amazing grace. "When we are at our worst, God's love is unwavering."
Unwavering...can you even imagine being loved so unconditionally? It took this conference for it to really hit home for me.
Using Tara's own words from this weekend "She blessed my socks off and I am now standing here sockless because of her!" What a heart for the Lord and for sharing His grace with other people! I am truly grateful to God for the privilege of attending this conference. He used Tara to speak His truth in my life and to challenge me to grow more like Jesus.
AMY
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'Living The Gospel In Relationships' Conference at Tenth Presbyterian Church was beyond awesome! Tara Barthel, the speaker, was excellent!! She portayed challenging insight on what the word says about being a peacemaker. Her eye opening break down of the scriptures really humbled me. I was in tears before the first session ended.
Discovering the steps that we are to glorify God, get the log out of our own eye, gently restore, and go and be reconclied showed me the correct way to take the necessary steps that are proper in conflict/resolution. Every word spoken hit home and was just what I needed to hear. I have much to glean from the conference. It was better than expected and a superb awakening for all of us women! SHANNON.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Too often in many churches today worldly influences seems to dominate how we respond to conflicts and this conference was an exceptional presentation of the correct and biblical way we are to resolve them.
Tara Barthel did an excellent job and I came away with more knowledge and a better understanding of what God’s word says regarding our relationships with those around us.
I look forward to using the biblical guidelines she taught to help me develop and maintain a Godly attitude towards any conflicts in my life and to show others that God’s way is always the best way.
MANDY
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The women's conference this past weekend at Tenth Presbyterian was amazing! I have never seen my sin as clearly as it was shown to me in the 4th session of the conference. Seeing our own sin is a huge part of resolving conflicts in our lives. What an eye(and heart)opener!
Thankfully in the first session Tara had powerfully shared with us God's amazing grace. "When we are at our worst, God's love is unwavering."
Unwavering...can you even imagine being loved so unconditionally? It took this conference for it to really hit home for me.
Using Tara's own words from this weekend "She blessed my socks off and I am now standing here sockless because of her!" What a heart for the Lord and for sharing His grace with other people! I am truly grateful to God for the privilege of attending this conference. He used Tara to speak His truth in my life and to challenge me to grow more like Jesus.
AMY
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
'Living The Gospel In Relationships' Conference at Tenth Presbyterian Church was beyond awesome! Tara Barthel, the speaker, was excellent!! She portayed challenging insight on what the word says about being a peacemaker. Her eye opening break down of the scriptures really humbled me. I was in tears before the first session ended.
Discovering the steps that we are to glorify God, get the log out of our own eye, gently restore, and go and be reconclied showed me the correct way to take the necessary steps that are proper in conflict/resolution. Every word spoken hit home and was just what I needed to hear. I have much to glean from the conference. It was better than expected and a superb awakening for all of us women! SHANNON.
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Saturday, February 24, 2007
THE PELAGIAN CAPTIVITY OF THE CHURCH...... By Dr RC Sproul
How do you view the church today, as being free or being held captive if you are a believer this post by RC Sproul will open your eyes. Charles J Paul
Shortly after the Reformation began, in the first few years after Martin Luther posted the Ninety-Five Theses on the church door at Wittenberg, he issued some short booklets on a variety of subjects. One of the most provocative was titled The Babylonian Captivity of the Church. In this book Luther was looking back to that period of Old Testament history when Jerusalem was destroyed by the invading armies of Babylon and the elite of the people were carried off into captivity. Luther in the sixteenth century took the image of the historic Babylonian captivity and reapplied it to his era and talked about the new Babylonian captivity of the Church. He was speaking of Rome as the modern Babylon that held the Gospel hostage with its rejection of the biblical understanding of justification. You can understand how fierce the controversy was, how polemical this title would be in that period by saying that the Church had not simply erred or strayed, but had fallen — that it’s actually now Babylonian; it is now in pagan captivity.
I’ve often wondered if Luther were alive today and came to our culture and looked, not at the liberal church community, but at evangelical churches, what would he have to say? Of course I can’t answer that question with any kind of definitive authority, but my guess is this: If Martin Luther lived today and picked up his pen to write, the book he would write in our time would be entitled The Pelagian Captivity of the Evangelical Church. Luther saw the doctrine of justification as fueled by a deeper theological problem. He writes about this extensively in The Bondage of the Will. When we look at the Reformation and we see the solas of the Reformation — sola Scriptura, sola fide, solus Christus, soli Deo gloria, sola gratia — Luther was convinced that the real issue of the Reformation was the issue of grace; and that underlying the doctrine of solo fide, justification by faith alone, was the prior commitment to sola gratia, the concept of justification by grace alone.
In the Fleming Revell edition of The Bondage of the Will, the translators, J. I. Packer and O. R. Johnston, included a somewhat provocative historical and theological introduction to the book itself. This is from the end of that introduction:
These things need to be pondered by Protestants today. With what right may we call ourselves children of the Reformation? Much modern Protestantism would be neither owned nor even recognised by the pioneer Reformers. The Bondage of the Will fairly sets before us what they believed about the salvation of lost mankind. In the light of it, we are forced to ask whether Protestant Christendom has not tragically sold its birthright between Luther’s day and our own. Has not Protestantism today become more Erasmian than Lutheran? Do we not too often try to minimise and gloss over doctrinal differences for the sake of inter-party peace? Are we innocent of the doctrinal indifferentism with which Luther charged Erasmus? Do we still believe that doctrine matters?1
Historically, it’s a simple matter of fact that Luther, Calvin, Zwingli, and all the leading Protestant theologians of the first epoch of the Reformation stood on precisely the same ground here. On other points they had their differences. In asserting the helplessness of man in sin and the sovereignty of God in grace, they were entirely at one. To all of them these doctrines were the very lifeblood of the Christian faith. A modern editor of Luther’s works says this:
Whoever puts this book down without having realized that Evangelical theology stands or falls with the doctrine of the bondage of the will has read it in vain. The doctrine of free justification by faith alone, which became the storm center of so much controversy during the Reformation period, is often regarded as the heart of the Reformers’ theology, but this is not accurate. The truth is that their thinking was really centered upon the contention of Paul, echoed by Augustine and others, that the sinner’s entire salvation is by free and sovereign grace only, and that the doctrine of justification by faith was important to them because it safeguarded the principle of sovereign grace. The sovereignty of grace found expression in their thinking at a more profound level still in the doctrine of monergistic regeneration.2
That is to say, that the faith that receives Christ for justification is itself the free gift of a sovereign God. The principle of sola fide is not rightly understood until it is seen as anchored in the broader principle of sola gratia. What is the source of faith? Is it the God-given means whereby the God-given justification is received, or is it a condition of justification which is left to man to fulfill? Do you hear the difference? Let me put it in simple terms. I heard an evangelist recently say, “If God takes a thousand steps to reach out to you for your redemption, still in the final analysis, you must take the decisive step to be saved.” Consider the statement that has been made by America’s most beloved and leading evangelical of the twentieth century, Billy Graham, who says with great passion, “God does ninety-nine percent of it but you still must do that last one percent.”
What Is Pelagianism?
Now, let’s return briefly to my title, “The Pelagian Captivity of the Church.” What are we talking about? Pelagius was a monk who lived in Britain in the fifth century. He was a contemporary of the greatest theologian of the first millennium of Church history if not of all time, Aurelius Augustine, Bishop of Hippo in North Africa. We have heard of St. Augustine, of his great works in theology, of his City of God, of his Confessions, and so on, which remain Christian classics.
Augustine, in addition to being a titanic theologian and a prodigious intellect, was also a man of deep spirituality and prayer. In one of his famous prayers, Augustine made a seemingly harmless and innocuous statement in the prayer to God in which he says: “O God, command what you wouldst, and grant what thou dost command.” Now, would that give you apoplexy — to hear a prayer like that? Well it certainly set Pelagius, this British monk, into orbit. When he heard that, he protested vociferously, even appealing to Rome to have this ghastly prayer censured from the pen of Augustine. Here’s why. He said, “Are you saying, Augustine, that God has the inherent right to command anything that he so desires from his creatures? Nobody is going to dispute that. God inherently, as the creator of heaven and earth, has the right to impose obligations on his creatures and say, ‘Thou shalt do this, and thou shalt not do that.’ ‘Command whatever thou would’ — it’s a perfectly legitimate prayer.”
It’s the second part of the prayer that Pelagius abhorred when Augustine said, “and grant what thou dost command.” He said, “What are you talking about? If God is just, if God is righteous and God is holy, and God commands of the creature to do something, certainly that creature must have the power within himself, the moral ability within himself, to perform it or God would never require it in the first place.” Now that makes sense, doesn’t it? What Pelagius was saying is that moral responsibility always and everywhere implies moral capability or, simply, moral ability. So why would we have to pray, “God grant me, give me the gift of being able to do what you command me to do”? Pelagius saw in this statement a shadow being cast over the integrity of God himself, who would hold people responsible for doing something they cannot do.
So in the ensuing debate, Augustine made it clear that in creation, God commanded nothing from Adam or Eve that they were incapable of performing. But once transgression entered and mankind became fallen, God’s law was not repealed nor did God adjust his holy requirements downward to accommodate the weakened, fallen condition of his creation. God did punish his creation by visiting upon them the judgment of original sin, so that everyone after Adam and Eve who was born into this world was born already dead in sin. Original sin is not the first sin. It’s the result of the first sin; it refers to our inherent corruption, by which we are born in sin, and in sin did our mothers conceive us. We are not born in a neutral state of innocence, but we are born in a sinful, fallen condition. Virtually every church in the historic World Council of Churches at some point in their history and in their creedal development articulates some doctrine of original sin. So clear is that to the biblical revelation that it would take a repudiation of the biblical view of mankind to deny original sin altogether.
This is precisely what was at issue in the battle between Augustine and Pelagius in the fifth century. Pelagius said there is no such thing as original sin. Adam’s sin affected Adam and only Adam. There is no transmission or transfer of guilt or fallenness or corruption to the progeny of Adam and Eve. Everyone is born in the same state of innocence in which Adam was created. And, he said, for a person to live a life of obedience to God, a life of moral perfection, is possible without any help from Jesus or without any help from the grace of God. Pelagius said that grace — and here’s the key distinction — facilitates righteousness. What does “facilitate” mean?
It helps, it makes it more facile, it makes it easier, but you don’t have to have it. You can be perfect without it. Pelagius further stated that it is not only theoretically possible for some folks to live a perfect life without any assistance from divine grace, but there are in fact people who do it. Augustine said, “No, no, no, no . . . we are infected by sin by nature, to the very depths and core of our being — so much so that no human being has the moral power to incline himself to cooperate with the grace of God. The human will, as a result of original sin, still has the power to choose, but it is in bondage to its evil desires and inclinations. The condition of fallen humanity is one that Augustine would describe as the inability to not sin. In simple English, what Augustine was saying is that in the Fall, man loses his moral ability to do the things of God and he is held captive by his own evil inclinations.
In the fifth century the Church condemned Pelagius as a heretic. Pelagianism was condemned at the Council of Orange, and it was condemned again at the Council of Florence, the Council of Carthage, and also, ironically, at the Council of Trent in the sixteenth century in the first three anathemas of the Canons of the Sixth Session. So, consistently throughout Church history, the Church has roundly and soundly condemned Pelagianism — because Pelagianism denies the fallenness of our nature; it denies the doctrine of original sin.
Now what is called semi-Pelagianism, as the prefix “semi” suggests, was a somewhat middle ground between full-orbed Augustinianism and full-orbed Pelagianism. Semi-Pelagianism said this: yes, there was a fall; yes, there is such a thing as original sin; yes, the constituent nature of humanity has been changed by this state of corruption and all parts of our humanity have been significantly weakened by the fall, so much so that without the assistance of divine grace nobody can possibly be redeemed, so that grace is not only helpful but it’s absolutely necessary for salvation. While we are so fallen that we can’t be saved without grace, we are not so fallen that we don’t have the ability to accept or reject the grace when it’s offered to us. The will is weakened but is not enslaved. There remains in the core of our being an island of righteousness that remains untouched by the fall. It’s out of that little island of righteousness, that little parcel of goodness that is still intact in the soul or in the will that is the determinative difference between heaven and hell. It’s that little island that must be exercised when God does his thousand steps of reaching out to us, but in the final analysis it’s that one step that we take that determines whether we go to heaven or hell — whether we exercise that little righteousness that is in the core of our being or whether we don’t. That little island Augustine wouldn’t even recognize as an atoll in the South Pacific. He said it’s a mythical island, that the will is enslaved, and that man is dead in his sin and trespasses.
Ironically, the Church condemned semi-Pelagianism as vehemently as it had condemned original Pelagianism. Yet by the time you get to the sixteenth century and you read the Catholic understanding of what happens in salvation the Church basically repudiated what Augustine taught and Aquinas taught as well. The Church concluded that there still remains this freedom that is intact in the human will and that man must cooperate with — and assent to — the prevenient grace that is offered to them by God. If we exercise that will, if we exercise a cooperation with whatever powers we have left, we will be saved. And so in the sixteenth century the Church reembraced semi-Pelagianism.
At the time of the Reformation, all the reformers agreed on one point: the moral inability of fallen human beings to incline themselves to the things of God; that all people, in order to be saved, are totally dependent, not ninety-nine percent, but one hundred percent dependent upon the monergistic work of regeneration in order to come to faith, and that faith itself is a gift of God. It’s not that we are offered salvation and that we will be born again if we choose to believe. But we can’t even believe until God in his grace and in his mercy first changes the disposition of our souls through his sovereign work of regeneration. In other words, what the reformers all agreed with was, unless a man is born again, he can’t even see the kingdom of God, let alone enter it. Like Jesus says in the sixth chapter of John, “No man can come to me unless it is given to him of the Father” — that the necessary condition for anybody’s faith and anybody’s salvation is regeneration.
Evangelicals and Faith
Modern Evangelicalism almost uniformly and universally teaches that in order for a person to be born again, he must first exercise faith. You have to choose to be born again. Isn’t that what you hear? In a George Barna poll, more than seventy percent of “professing evangelical Christians” in America expressed the belief that man is basically good. And more than eighty percent articulated the view that God helps those who help themselves. These positions — or let me say it negatively — neither of these positions is semi-Pelagian. They’re both Pelagian. To say that we’re basically good is the Pelagian view. I would be willing to assume that in at least thirty percent of the people who are reading this issue, and probably more, if we really examine their thinking in depth, we would find hearts that are beating Pelagianism. We’re overwhelmed with it. We’re surrounded by it. We’re immersed in it. We hear it every day. We hear it every day in the secular culture. And not only do we hear it every day in the secular culture, we hear it every day on Christian television and on Christian radio.
In the nineteenth century, there was a preacher who became very popular in America, who wrote a book on theology, coming out of his own training in law, in which he made no bones about his Pelagianism. He rejected not only Augustinianism, but he also rejected semi-Pelagianism and stood clearly on the subject of unvarnished Pelagianism, saying in no uncertain terms, without any ambiguity, that there was no Fall and that there is no such thing as original sin. This man went on to attack viciously the doctrine of the substitutionary atonement of Christ, and in addition to that, to repudiate as clearly and as loudly as he could the doctrine of justification by faith alone by the imputation of the righteousness of Christ. This man’s basic thesis was, we don’t need the imputation of the righteousness of Christ because we have the capacity in and of ourselves to become righteous. His name: Charles Finney, one of America’s most revered evangelists. Now, if Luther was correct in saying that sola fide is the article upon which the Church stands or falls, if what the reformers were saying is that justification by faith alone is an essential truth of Christianity, who also argued that the substitutionary atonement is an essential truth of Christianity; if they’re correct in their assessment that those doctrines are essential truths of Christianity, the only conclusion we can come to is that Charles Finney was not a Christian. I read his writings and I say, “I don’t see how any Christian person could write this.” And yet, he is in the Hall of Fame of Evangelical Christianity in America. He is the patron saint of twentieth-century Evangelicalism. And he is not semi-Pelagian; he is unvarnished in his Pelagianism.
The Island of Righteousness
One thing is clear: that you can be purely Pelagian and be completely welcome in the evangelical movement today. It’s not simply that the camel sticks his nose into the tent; he doesn’t just come in the tent — he kicks the owner of the tent out. Modern Evangelicalism today looks with suspicion at Reformed theology, which has become sort of the third-class citizen of Evangelicalism. Now you say, “Wait a minute, R. C. Let’s not tar everybody with the extreme brush of Pelagianism, because, after all, Billy Graham and the rest of these people are saying there was a Fall; you’ve got to have grace; there is such a thing as original sin; and semi-Pelagians do not agree with Pelagius’ facile and sanguine view of unfallen human nature.” And that’s true. No question about it. But it’s that little island of righteousness where man still has the ability, in and of himself, to turn, to change, to incline, to dispose, to embrace the offer of grace that reveals why historically semi-Pelagianism is not called semi-Augustinianism, but semi-Pelagianism.
I heard an evangelist use two analogies to describe what happens in our redemption. He said sin has such a strong hold on us, a stranglehold, that it’s like a person who can’t swim, who falls overboard in a raging sea, and he’s going under for the third time and only the tops of his fingers are still above the water; and unless someone intervenes to rescue him, he has no hope of survival, his death is certain. And unless God throws him a life preserver, he can’t possibly be rescued. And not only must God throw him a life preserver in the general vicinity of where he is, but that life preserver has to hit him right where his fingers are still extended out of the water, and hit him so that he can grasp hold of it. It has to be perfectly pitched. But still that man will drown unless he takes his fingers and curls them around the life preserver and God will rescue him. But unless that tiny little human action is done, he will surely perish.
The other analogy is this: A man is desperately ill, sick unto death, lying in his hospital bed with a disease that is fatal. There is no way he can be cured unless somebody from outside comes up with a cure, a medicine that will take care of this fatal disease. And God has the cure and walks into the room with the medicine. But the man is so weak he can’t even help himself to the medicine; God has to pour it on the spoon. The man is so sick he’s almost comatose. He can’t even open his mouth, and God has to lean over and open up his mouth for him. God has to bring the spoon to the man’s lips, but the man still has to swallow it.
Now, if we’re going to use analogies, let’s be accurate. The man isn’t going under for the third time; he is stone cold dead at the bottom of the ocean. That’s where you once were when you were dead in sin and trespasses and walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air. And while you were dead hath God quickened you together with Christ. God dove to the bottom of the sea and took that drowned corpse and breathed into it the breath of his life and raised you from the dead. And it’s not that you were dying in a hospital bed of a certain illness, but rather, when you were born you were born D.O.A. That’s what the Bible says: that we are morally stillborn.
Do we have a will? Yes, of course we have a will. Calvin said, if you mean by a free will a faculty of choosing by which you have the power within yourself to choose what you desire, then we all have free will. If you mean by free will the ability for fallen human beings to incline themselves and exercise that will to choose the things of God without the prior monergistic work of regeneration then, said Calvin, free will is far too grandiose a term to apply to a human being.
The semi-Pelagian doctrine of free will prevalent in the evangelical world today is a pagan view that denies the captivity of the human heart to sin. It underestimates the stranglehold that sin has upon us.
None of us wants to see things as bad as they really are. The biblical doctrine of human corruption is grim. We don’t hear the Apostle Paul say, “You know, it’s sad that we have such a thing as sin in the world; nobody’s perfect. But be of good cheer. We’re basically good.” Do you see that even a cursory reading of Scripture denies this?
Now back to Luther. What is the source and status of faith? Is it the God-given means whereby the God-given justification is received? Or is it a condition of justification which is left to us to fulfill? Is your faith a work? Is it the one work that God leaves for you to do? I had a discussion with some folks in Grand Rapids, Michigan, recently. I was speaking on sola gratia, and one fellow was upset.
He said, “Are you trying to tell me that in the final analysis it’s God who either does or doesn’t sovereignly regenerate a heart?”
And I said, “Yes;” and he was very upset about that. I said, “Let me ask you this: are you a Christian?”
He said, “Yes.”
I said, “Do you have friends who aren’t Christians?”
He said, “Well, of course.”
I said, “Why are you a Christian and your friends aren’t? Is it because you’re more righteous than they are?” He wasn’t stupid. He wasn’t going to say, “Of course it’s because I’m more righteous. I did the right thing and my friend didn’t.” He knew where I was going with that question.
And he said, “Oh, no, no, no.”
I said, “Tell me why. Is it because you are smarter than your friend?”
And he said, “No.”
But he would not agree that the final, decisive issue was the grace of God. He wouldn’t come to that. And after we discussed this for fifteen minutes, he said, “OK! I’ll say it. I’m a Christian because I did the right thing, I made the right response, and my friend didn’t.”
What was this person trusting in for his salvation? Not in his works in general, but in the one work that he performed. And he was a Protestant, an evangelical. But his view of salvation was no different from the Roman view.
God’s Sovereignty in Salvation
This is the issue: Is it a part of God’s gift of salvation, or is it in our own contribution to salvation? Is our salvation wholly of God or does it ultimately depend on something that we do for ourselves? Those who say the latter, that it ultimately depends on something we do for ourselves, thereby deny humanity’s utter helplessness in sin and affirm that a form of semi-Pelagianism is true after all. It is no wonder then that later Reformed theology condemned Arminianism as being, in principle, both a return to Rome because, in effect, it turned faith into a meritorious work, and a betrayal of the Reformation because it denied the sovereignty of God in saving sinners, which was the deepest religious and theological principle of the reformers’ thought. Arminianism was indeed, in Reformed eyes, a renunciation of New Testament Christianity in favor of New Testament Judaism. For to rely on oneself for faith is no different in principle than to rely on oneself for works, and the one is as un-Christian and anti-Christian as the other. In the light of what Luther says to Erasmus there is no doubt that he would have endorsed this judgment.
And yet this view is the overwhelming majority report today in professing evangelical circles. And as long as semi-Pelagianism, which is simply a thinly veiled version of real Pelagianism at its core — as long as it prevails in the Church, I don’t know what’s going to happen. But I know, however, what will not happen: there will not be a new Reformation. Until we humble ourselves and understand that no man is an island and that no man has an island of righteousness, that we are utterly dependent upon the unmixed grace of God for our salvation, we will not begin to rest upon grace and rejoice in the greatness of God’s sovereignty, and we will not be rid of the pagan influence of humanism that exalts and puts man at the center of religion. Until that happens there will not be a new Reformation, because at the heart of Reformation teaching is the central place of the worship and gratitude given to God and God alone. Soli Deo gloria, to God alone be the glory.
Shortly after the Reformation began, in the first few years after Martin Luther posted the Ninety-Five Theses on the church door at Wittenberg, he issued some short booklets on a variety of subjects. One of the most provocative was titled The Babylonian Captivity of the Church. In this book Luther was looking back to that period of Old Testament history when Jerusalem was destroyed by the invading armies of Babylon and the elite of the people were carried off into captivity. Luther in the sixteenth century took the image of the historic Babylonian captivity and reapplied it to his era and talked about the new Babylonian captivity of the Church. He was speaking of Rome as the modern Babylon that held the Gospel hostage with its rejection of the biblical understanding of justification. You can understand how fierce the controversy was, how polemical this title would be in that period by saying that the Church had not simply erred or strayed, but had fallen — that it’s actually now Babylonian; it is now in pagan captivity.
I’ve often wondered if Luther were alive today and came to our culture and looked, not at the liberal church community, but at evangelical churches, what would he have to say? Of course I can’t answer that question with any kind of definitive authority, but my guess is this: If Martin Luther lived today and picked up his pen to write, the book he would write in our time would be entitled The Pelagian Captivity of the Evangelical Church. Luther saw the doctrine of justification as fueled by a deeper theological problem. He writes about this extensively in The Bondage of the Will. When we look at the Reformation and we see the solas of the Reformation — sola Scriptura, sola fide, solus Christus, soli Deo gloria, sola gratia — Luther was convinced that the real issue of the Reformation was the issue of grace; and that underlying the doctrine of solo fide, justification by faith alone, was the prior commitment to sola gratia, the concept of justification by grace alone.
In the Fleming Revell edition of The Bondage of the Will, the translators, J. I. Packer and O. R. Johnston, included a somewhat provocative historical and theological introduction to the book itself. This is from the end of that introduction:
These things need to be pondered by Protestants today. With what right may we call ourselves children of the Reformation? Much modern Protestantism would be neither owned nor even recognised by the pioneer Reformers. The Bondage of the Will fairly sets before us what they believed about the salvation of lost mankind. In the light of it, we are forced to ask whether Protestant Christendom has not tragically sold its birthright between Luther’s day and our own. Has not Protestantism today become more Erasmian than Lutheran? Do we not too often try to minimise and gloss over doctrinal differences for the sake of inter-party peace? Are we innocent of the doctrinal indifferentism with which Luther charged Erasmus? Do we still believe that doctrine matters?1
Historically, it’s a simple matter of fact that Luther, Calvin, Zwingli, and all the leading Protestant theologians of the first epoch of the Reformation stood on precisely the same ground here. On other points they had their differences. In asserting the helplessness of man in sin and the sovereignty of God in grace, they were entirely at one. To all of them these doctrines were the very lifeblood of the Christian faith. A modern editor of Luther’s works says this:
Whoever puts this book down without having realized that Evangelical theology stands or falls with the doctrine of the bondage of the will has read it in vain. The doctrine of free justification by faith alone, which became the storm center of so much controversy during the Reformation period, is often regarded as the heart of the Reformers’ theology, but this is not accurate. The truth is that their thinking was really centered upon the contention of Paul, echoed by Augustine and others, that the sinner’s entire salvation is by free and sovereign grace only, and that the doctrine of justification by faith was important to them because it safeguarded the principle of sovereign grace. The sovereignty of grace found expression in their thinking at a more profound level still in the doctrine of monergistic regeneration.2
That is to say, that the faith that receives Christ for justification is itself the free gift of a sovereign God. The principle of sola fide is not rightly understood until it is seen as anchored in the broader principle of sola gratia. What is the source of faith? Is it the God-given means whereby the God-given justification is received, or is it a condition of justification which is left to man to fulfill? Do you hear the difference? Let me put it in simple terms. I heard an evangelist recently say, “If God takes a thousand steps to reach out to you for your redemption, still in the final analysis, you must take the decisive step to be saved.” Consider the statement that has been made by America’s most beloved and leading evangelical of the twentieth century, Billy Graham, who says with great passion, “God does ninety-nine percent of it but you still must do that last one percent.”
What Is Pelagianism?
Now, let’s return briefly to my title, “The Pelagian Captivity of the Church.” What are we talking about? Pelagius was a monk who lived in Britain in the fifth century. He was a contemporary of the greatest theologian of the first millennium of Church history if not of all time, Aurelius Augustine, Bishop of Hippo in North Africa. We have heard of St. Augustine, of his great works in theology, of his City of God, of his Confessions, and so on, which remain Christian classics.
Augustine, in addition to being a titanic theologian and a prodigious intellect, was also a man of deep spirituality and prayer. In one of his famous prayers, Augustine made a seemingly harmless and innocuous statement in the prayer to God in which he says: “O God, command what you wouldst, and grant what thou dost command.” Now, would that give you apoplexy — to hear a prayer like that? Well it certainly set Pelagius, this British monk, into orbit. When he heard that, he protested vociferously, even appealing to Rome to have this ghastly prayer censured from the pen of Augustine. Here’s why. He said, “Are you saying, Augustine, that God has the inherent right to command anything that he so desires from his creatures? Nobody is going to dispute that. God inherently, as the creator of heaven and earth, has the right to impose obligations on his creatures and say, ‘Thou shalt do this, and thou shalt not do that.’ ‘Command whatever thou would’ — it’s a perfectly legitimate prayer.”
It’s the second part of the prayer that Pelagius abhorred when Augustine said, “and grant what thou dost command.” He said, “What are you talking about? If God is just, if God is righteous and God is holy, and God commands of the creature to do something, certainly that creature must have the power within himself, the moral ability within himself, to perform it or God would never require it in the first place.” Now that makes sense, doesn’t it? What Pelagius was saying is that moral responsibility always and everywhere implies moral capability or, simply, moral ability. So why would we have to pray, “God grant me, give me the gift of being able to do what you command me to do”? Pelagius saw in this statement a shadow being cast over the integrity of God himself, who would hold people responsible for doing something they cannot do.
So in the ensuing debate, Augustine made it clear that in creation, God commanded nothing from Adam or Eve that they were incapable of performing. But once transgression entered and mankind became fallen, God’s law was not repealed nor did God adjust his holy requirements downward to accommodate the weakened, fallen condition of his creation. God did punish his creation by visiting upon them the judgment of original sin, so that everyone after Adam and Eve who was born into this world was born already dead in sin. Original sin is not the first sin. It’s the result of the first sin; it refers to our inherent corruption, by which we are born in sin, and in sin did our mothers conceive us. We are not born in a neutral state of innocence, but we are born in a sinful, fallen condition. Virtually every church in the historic World Council of Churches at some point in their history and in their creedal development articulates some doctrine of original sin. So clear is that to the biblical revelation that it would take a repudiation of the biblical view of mankind to deny original sin altogether.
This is precisely what was at issue in the battle between Augustine and Pelagius in the fifth century. Pelagius said there is no such thing as original sin. Adam’s sin affected Adam and only Adam. There is no transmission or transfer of guilt or fallenness or corruption to the progeny of Adam and Eve. Everyone is born in the same state of innocence in which Adam was created. And, he said, for a person to live a life of obedience to God, a life of moral perfection, is possible without any help from Jesus or without any help from the grace of God. Pelagius said that grace — and here’s the key distinction — facilitates righteousness. What does “facilitate” mean?
It helps, it makes it more facile, it makes it easier, but you don’t have to have it. You can be perfect without it. Pelagius further stated that it is not only theoretically possible for some folks to live a perfect life without any assistance from divine grace, but there are in fact people who do it. Augustine said, “No, no, no, no . . . we are infected by sin by nature, to the very depths and core of our being — so much so that no human being has the moral power to incline himself to cooperate with the grace of God. The human will, as a result of original sin, still has the power to choose, but it is in bondage to its evil desires and inclinations. The condition of fallen humanity is one that Augustine would describe as the inability to not sin. In simple English, what Augustine was saying is that in the Fall, man loses his moral ability to do the things of God and he is held captive by his own evil inclinations.
In the fifth century the Church condemned Pelagius as a heretic. Pelagianism was condemned at the Council of Orange, and it was condemned again at the Council of Florence, the Council of Carthage, and also, ironically, at the Council of Trent in the sixteenth century in the first three anathemas of the Canons of the Sixth Session. So, consistently throughout Church history, the Church has roundly and soundly condemned Pelagianism — because Pelagianism denies the fallenness of our nature; it denies the doctrine of original sin.
Now what is called semi-Pelagianism, as the prefix “semi” suggests, was a somewhat middle ground between full-orbed Augustinianism and full-orbed Pelagianism. Semi-Pelagianism said this: yes, there was a fall; yes, there is such a thing as original sin; yes, the constituent nature of humanity has been changed by this state of corruption and all parts of our humanity have been significantly weakened by the fall, so much so that without the assistance of divine grace nobody can possibly be redeemed, so that grace is not only helpful but it’s absolutely necessary for salvation. While we are so fallen that we can’t be saved without grace, we are not so fallen that we don’t have the ability to accept or reject the grace when it’s offered to us. The will is weakened but is not enslaved. There remains in the core of our being an island of righteousness that remains untouched by the fall. It’s out of that little island of righteousness, that little parcel of goodness that is still intact in the soul or in the will that is the determinative difference between heaven and hell. It’s that little island that must be exercised when God does his thousand steps of reaching out to us, but in the final analysis it’s that one step that we take that determines whether we go to heaven or hell — whether we exercise that little righteousness that is in the core of our being or whether we don’t. That little island Augustine wouldn’t even recognize as an atoll in the South Pacific. He said it’s a mythical island, that the will is enslaved, and that man is dead in his sin and trespasses.
Ironically, the Church condemned semi-Pelagianism as vehemently as it had condemned original Pelagianism. Yet by the time you get to the sixteenth century and you read the Catholic understanding of what happens in salvation the Church basically repudiated what Augustine taught and Aquinas taught as well. The Church concluded that there still remains this freedom that is intact in the human will and that man must cooperate with — and assent to — the prevenient grace that is offered to them by God. If we exercise that will, if we exercise a cooperation with whatever powers we have left, we will be saved. And so in the sixteenth century the Church reembraced semi-Pelagianism.
At the time of the Reformation, all the reformers agreed on one point: the moral inability of fallen human beings to incline themselves to the things of God; that all people, in order to be saved, are totally dependent, not ninety-nine percent, but one hundred percent dependent upon the monergistic work of regeneration in order to come to faith, and that faith itself is a gift of God. It’s not that we are offered salvation and that we will be born again if we choose to believe. But we can’t even believe until God in his grace and in his mercy first changes the disposition of our souls through his sovereign work of regeneration. In other words, what the reformers all agreed with was, unless a man is born again, he can’t even see the kingdom of God, let alone enter it. Like Jesus says in the sixth chapter of John, “No man can come to me unless it is given to him of the Father” — that the necessary condition for anybody’s faith and anybody’s salvation is regeneration.
Evangelicals and Faith
Modern Evangelicalism almost uniformly and universally teaches that in order for a person to be born again, he must first exercise faith. You have to choose to be born again. Isn’t that what you hear? In a George Barna poll, more than seventy percent of “professing evangelical Christians” in America expressed the belief that man is basically good. And more than eighty percent articulated the view that God helps those who help themselves. These positions — or let me say it negatively — neither of these positions is semi-Pelagian. They’re both Pelagian. To say that we’re basically good is the Pelagian view. I would be willing to assume that in at least thirty percent of the people who are reading this issue, and probably more, if we really examine their thinking in depth, we would find hearts that are beating Pelagianism. We’re overwhelmed with it. We’re surrounded by it. We’re immersed in it. We hear it every day. We hear it every day in the secular culture. And not only do we hear it every day in the secular culture, we hear it every day on Christian television and on Christian radio.
In the nineteenth century, there was a preacher who became very popular in America, who wrote a book on theology, coming out of his own training in law, in which he made no bones about his Pelagianism. He rejected not only Augustinianism, but he also rejected semi-Pelagianism and stood clearly on the subject of unvarnished Pelagianism, saying in no uncertain terms, without any ambiguity, that there was no Fall and that there is no such thing as original sin. This man went on to attack viciously the doctrine of the substitutionary atonement of Christ, and in addition to that, to repudiate as clearly and as loudly as he could the doctrine of justification by faith alone by the imputation of the righteousness of Christ. This man’s basic thesis was, we don’t need the imputation of the righteousness of Christ because we have the capacity in and of ourselves to become righteous. His name: Charles Finney, one of America’s most revered evangelists. Now, if Luther was correct in saying that sola fide is the article upon which the Church stands or falls, if what the reformers were saying is that justification by faith alone is an essential truth of Christianity, who also argued that the substitutionary atonement is an essential truth of Christianity; if they’re correct in their assessment that those doctrines are essential truths of Christianity, the only conclusion we can come to is that Charles Finney was not a Christian. I read his writings and I say, “I don’t see how any Christian person could write this.” And yet, he is in the Hall of Fame of Evangelical Christianity in America. He is the patron saint of twentieth-century Evangelicalism. And he is not semi-Pelagian; he is unvarnished in his Pelagianism.
The Island of Righteousness
One thing is clear: that you can be purely Pelagian and be completely welcome in the evangelical movement today. It’s not simply that the camel sticks his nose into the tent; he doesn’t just come in the tent — he kicks the owner of the tent out. Modern Evangelicalism today looks with suspicion at Reformed theology, which has become sort of the third-class citizen of Evangelicalism. Now you say, “Wait a minute, R. C. Let’s not tar everybody with the extreme brush of Pelagianism, because, after all, Billy Graham and the rest of these people are saying there was a Fall; you’ve got to have grace; there is such a thing as original sin; and semi-Pelagians do not agree with Pelagius’ facile and sanguine view of unfallen human nature.” And that’s true. No question about it. But it’s that little island of righteousness where man still has the ability, in and of himself, to turn, to change, to incline, to dispose, to embrace the offer of grace that reveals why historically semi-Pelagianism is not called semi-Augustinianism, but semi-Pelagianism.
I heard an evangelist use two analogies to describe what happens in our redemption. He said sin has such a strong hold on us, a stranglehold, that it’s like a person who can’t swim, who falls overboard in a raging sea, and he’s going under for the third time and only the tops of his fingers are still above the water; and unless someone intervenes to rescue him, he has no hope of survival, his death is certain. And unless God throws him a life preserver, he can’t possibly be rescued. And not only must God throw him a life preserver in the general vicinity of where he is, but that life preserver has to hit him right where his fingers are still extended out of the water, and hit him so that he can grasp hold of it. It has to be perfectly pitched. But still that man will drown unless he takes his fingers and curls them around the life preserver and God will rescue him. But unless that tiny little human action is done, he will surely perish.
The other analogy is this: A man is desperately ill, sick unto death, lying in his hospital bed with a disease that is fatal. There is no way he can be cured unless somebody from outside comes up with a cure, a medicine that will take care of this fatal disease. And God has the cure and walks into the room with the medicine. But the man is so weak he can’t even help himself to the medicine; God has to pour it on the spoon. The man is so sick he’s almost comatose. He can’t even open his mouth, and God has to lean over and open up his mouth for him. God has to bring the spoon to the man’s lips, but the man still has to swallow it.
Now, if we’re going to use analogies, let’s be accurate. The man isn’t going under for the third time; he is stone cold dead at the bottom of the ocean. That’s where you once were when you were dead in sin and trespasses and walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air. And while you were dead hath God quickened you together with Christ. God dove to the bottom of the sea and took that drowned corpse and breathed into it the breath of his life and raised you from the dead. And it’s not that you were dying in a hospital bed of a certain illness, but rather, when you were born you were born D.O.A. That’s what the Bible says: that we are morally stillborn.
Do we have a will? Yes, of course we have a will. Calvin said, if you mean by a free will a faculty of choosing by which you have the power within yourself to choose what you desire, then we all have free will. If you mean by free will the ability for fallen human beings to incline themselves and exercise that will to choose the things of God without the prior monergistic work of regeneration then, said Calvin, free will is far too grandiose a term to apply to a human being.
The semi-Pelagian doctrine of free will prevalent in the evangelical world today is a pagan view that denies the captivity of the human heart to sin. It underestimates the stranglehold that sin has upon us.
None of us wants to see things as bad as they really are. The biblical doctrine of human corruption is grim. We don’t hear the Apostle Paul say, “You know, it’s sad that we have such a thing as sin in the world; nobody’s perfect. But be of good cheer. We’re basically good.” Do you see that even a cursory reading of Scripture denies this?
Now back to Luther. What is the source and status of faith? Is it the God-given means whereby the God-given justification is received? Or is it a condition of justification which is left to us to fulfill? Is your faith a work? Is it the one work that God leaves for you to do? I had a discussion with some folks in Grand Rapids, Michigan, recently. I was speaking on sola gratia, and one fellow was upset.
He said, “Are you trying to tell me that in the final analysis it’s God who either does or doesn’t sovereignly regenerate a heart?”
And I said, “Yes;” and he was very upset about that. I said, “Let me ask you this: are you a Christian?”
He said, “Yes.”
I said, “Do you have friends who aren’t Christians?”
He said, “Well, of course.”
I said, “Why are you a Christian and your friends aren’t? Is it because you’re more righteous than they are?” He wasn’t stupid. He wasn’t going to say, “Of course it’s because I’m more righteous. I did the right thing and my friend didn’t.” He knew where I was going with that question.
And he said, “Oh, no, no, no.”
I said, “Tell me why. Is it because you are smarter than your friend?”
And he said, “No.”
But he would not agree that the final, decisive issue was the grace of God. He wouldn’t come to that. And after we discussed this for fifteen minutes, he said, “OK! I’ll say it. I’m a Christian because I did the right thing, I made the right response, and my friend didn’t.”
What was this person trusting in for his salvation? Not in his works in general, but in the one work that he performed. And he was a Protestant, an evangelical. But his view of salvation was no different from the Roman view.
God’s Sovereignty in Salvation
This is the issue: Is it a part of God’s gift of salvation, or is it in our own contribution to salvation? Is our salvation wholly of God or does it ultimately depend on something that we do for ourselves? Those who say the latter, that it ultimately depends on something we do for ourselves, thereby deny humanity’s utter helplessness in sin and affirm that a form of semi-Pelagianism is true after all. It is no wonder then that later Reformed theology condemned Arminianism as being, in principle, both a return to Rome because, in effect, it turned faith into a meritorious work, and a betrayal of the Reformation because it denied the sovereignty of God in saving sinners, which was the deepest religious and theological principle of the reformers’ thought. Arminianism was indeed, in Reformed eyes, a renunciation of New Testament Christianity in favor of New Testament Judaism. For to rely on oneself for faith is no different in principle than to rely on oneself for works, and the one is as un-Christian and anti-Christian as the other. In the light of what Luther says to Erasmus there is no doubt that he would have endorsed this judgment.
And yet this view is the overwhelming majority report today in professing evangelical circles. And as long as semi-Pelagianism, which is simply a thinly veiled version of real Pelagianism at its core — as long as it prevails in the Church, I don’t know what’s going to happen. But I know, however, what will not happen: there will not be a new Reformation. Until we humble ourselves and understand that no man is an island and that no man has an island of righteousness, that we are utterly dependent upon the unmixed grace of God for our salvation, we will not begin to rest upon grace and rejoice in the greatness of God’s sovereignty, and we will not be rid of the pagan influence of humanism that exalts and puts man at the center of religion. Until that happens there will not be a new Reformation, because at the heart of Reformation teaching is the central place of the worship and gratitude given to God and God alone. Soli Deo gloria, to God alone be the glory.
UP-DATE ON WOMENS CONFERENCE @ TENTH CHURCH
I have been hearing nothing but great reports from the women of PCC who attended the women's conference at Tenth church. I will be asking each of them to write a little review of the conference so that we can get a inside feel for what took place in their lives.
I am looking forward to see the women of PCC who attended the conference bring what they have learned to the rest of the women of our church, and into their walk a deeper understanding of Christ.
I am looking forward to see the women of PCC who attended the conference bring what they have learned to the rest of the women of our church, and into their walk a deeper understanding of Christ.
UNSUSPECTING PATH TO THEOLOGICAL LIBERALISM.......PART 3
This is the final part of this 3 part post,I hope it has been a blessing to you and your growth in Christ. Charles J Paul
CW: I’ve heard the argument put that, “Oh, come on, you know that the Bible – and Paul in particular – talks about relationships between slaves and their masters. And obviously, socially, that dynamic has changed. So why can’t it have changed in regards to the role we have for women in the Church?” How would you respond?
Grudem: Well, people have to realize that what some Bible translations call “slavery” is very different from what we think of slavery when we have in our minds a picture of the terrible abuses of human dignity and justice that were found in 18th- and 19th-century United States and in the slave trade. I think a good translation of that Greek word doulos is “bond-servant.” The New American Standard translates it that way, and the ESV footnote. Those bond-servants in the first century had immense responsibilities. In many cases they were doctors, or teachers, or shopkeepers, or foremen of farms or factories, or had other significant responsibilities. It was the most common employment situation in the first century. Bond-servants were far better off than the day laborers who had to go into the market each day and hope that someone would give them a job.
And in the parable of the talents, for instance, Jesus talks about a master who entrusted his bond-servants with one talent, or two or five. Well, five talents would be the modern equivalent of $2 million. Then the master went into a far country and left these bond-servants to manage and conduct business. These bond-servants in the Roman Empire of the first century could own their own property, there were special laws that protected them, and they could normally expect to purchase their freedom by about age 30 or so.
So it’s a mistake to think that the Bible approves slavery as we think of slavery. And the abolitionists who opposed – and eventually succeeded in outlawing – slavery in the 19th century in the United States, many of them used the Bible as their moral standard. The Bible says “You shall not steal.” Well, if it’s wrong to steal even one cent from a person, then how much greater an evil is it to steal a person’s entire life, and claim that you own him and can do whatever you want with him? That’s a monstrous evil. And of course, those people who said that the Bible opposes slavery won the argument. There’s no church or denomination today that argues that the Bible supports slavery, and I think that’s rightly understood – the Bible prohibits the horrible abuses of what we think when we hear the word “slavery.” But the situation of a bond-servant in the first century it doesn’t prohibit outright because it was far different from what we think of as slavery.
In fact, being a bond-servant was somewhat similar to military service today, where you’re in the military for a certain period of time and you can’t get out, and there are different kinds of laws that apply to you, but there is great protection as well – a legal system that protects you.
When it’s translated rightly, 1 Timothy 1:10 puts “enslavers” in the same context as murderers and sexually immoral people, and liars, showing that people who capture someone to sell them into slavery, or deal in slaves, or support forcible slavery are, again, seen to be morally wrong according to Scripture. That verse was, I think, not translated the best way in the King James version. I think it said, “men-stealers,” and therefore didn’t apply clearly to slavery, but the Greek word in that verse (andrapodistes) does have to do with forcible enslaving of people, and that is clearly wrong, and that is what was happening in the 18th and 19th centuries in the United States. I think people thought “men-stealers” had more to do with kidnapping, perhaps, or something like that, but it really does apply much more to people who capture or sell people into slavery.
To summarize: the Bible certainly does not encourage or support slavery, as we understand the word “slavery” today. We don’t have to change the Bible teachings to something different for today, for the Bible itself shows the evil of what we call “slavery.”
CW: At Crosswalk, we see a lot of articles and studies come across our desks about how men are bored with church, find themselves feeling it’s been too feminized, without enough roles for men – that men aren’t attending in the same percentages women are. Is this one result of having traveled down this path of evangelical feminism?
Grudem: It may be; it depends on the church. There are maybe other reasons, but one sure-fire way of driving men away from church is to establish women in leadership positions. Over time, if more and more women have leadership positions, fewer and fewer men will attend. And you see that in the liberal denominations, which have disproportionate numbers of women as opposed to men. By contrast, churches that have clear male leadership, and that honor women as equally valuable in God’s sight and give many ministry opportunities to women as well as men -- those churches are often growing and very strong.
CW: In the book, you carry evangelical feminism through to conclusions including the denial of masculinity, the concept of God as “Mother,” and approval of homosexuality. If the Church does not change its present course, are these conclusions inevitable?
Grudem: Well, I don’t know if they’re inevitable in every church, because sometimes people see they’re going in the wrong direction, and they stop, but they don’t correct the mistake. I hope that trend toward liberalism is stopped and turned around more and more. That’s why I wrote this book.
On the other hand, many churches will just continue their slide to liberalism through this issue. The egalitarian group Christians for Biblical Equality now promotes the idea that we should pray to God as Mother. That’s another one of the steps in the slippery slope toward complete liberalism that I outline in the book. I also think we’re going to see more evangelical feminist churches toying with – and giving more and more attention to – the idea that perhaps homosexual conduct should be acceptable in certain situations where people are committed to each other over a long period of time, and they supposedly have these homosexual tendencies that they can’t rid themselves of. I document some examples like that in this book, where some evangelical groups or authors are arguing that way. And I’m very worried about it. I hope that some of these evangelical feminist groups will turn back from this direction and return to faithfulness to Scripture.
I am thankful that Christians for Biblical Equality has stopped short of endorsing homosexuality as morally valid, and they say they will not change on that issue. Even though I disagree with them on the roles of men and women, I’m thankful for their stand on homosexuality.
CW: Dr. Grudem, is there any question you haven’t been asked about Evangelical Feminism that you’re hoping to answer?
Grudem: Just that I hope that churches who have begun to endorse evangelical feminist views will seriously consider this book and re-consider their decisions and come back to a position that is faithful to the Bible. And that they will do that with a confidence that when we are obedient to God’s Word then He does bring a blessing to our lives and our churches.
CW: I’ve heard the argument put that, “Oh, come on, you know that the Bible – and Paul in particular – talks about relationships between slaves and their masters. And obviously, socially, that dynamic has changed. So why can’t it have changed in regards to the role we have for women in the Church?” How would you respond?
Grudem: Well, people have to realize that what some Bible translations call “slavery” is very different from what we think of slavery when we have in our minds a picture of the terrible abuses of human dignity and justice that were found in 18th- and 19th-century United States and in the slave trade. I think a good translation of that Greek word doulos is “bond-servant.” The New American Standard translates it that way, and the ESV footnote. Those bond-servants in the first century had immense responsibilities. In many cases they were doctors, or teachers, or shopkeepers, or foremen of farms or factories, or had other significant responsibilities. It was the most common employment situation in the first century. Bond-servants were far better off than the day laborers who had to go into the market each day and hope that someone would give them a job.
And in the parable of the talents, for instance, Jesus talks about a master who entrusted his bond-servants with one talent, or two or five. Well, five talents would be the modern equivalent of $2 million. Then the master went into a far country and left these bond-servants to manage and conduct business. These bond-servants in the Roman Empire of the first century could own their own property, there were special laws that protected them, and they could normally expect to purchase their freedom by about age 30 or so.
So it’s a mistake to think that the Bible approves slavery as we think of slavery. And the abolitionists who opposed – and eventually succeeded in outlawing – slavery in the 19th century in the United States, many of them used the Bible as their moral standard. The Bible says “You shall not steal.” Well, if it’s wrong to steal even one cent from a person, then how much greater an evil is it to steal a person’s entire life, and claim that you own him and can do whatever you want with him? That’s a monstrous evil. And of course, those people who said that the Bible opposes slavery won the argument. There’s no church or denomination today that argues that the Bible supports slavery, and I think that’s rightly understood – the Bible prohibits the horrible abuses of what we think when we hear the word “slavery.” But the situation of a bond-servant in the first century it doesn’t prohibit outright because it was far different from what we think of as slavery.
In fact, being a bond-servant was somewhat similar to military service today, where you’re in the military for a certain period of time and you can’t get out, and there are different kinds of laws that apply to you, but there is great protection as well – a legal system that protects you.
When it’s translated rightly, 1 Timothy 1:10 puts “enslavers” in the same context as murderers and sexually immoral people, and liars, showing that people who capture someone to sell them into slavery, or deal in slaves, or support forcible slavery are, again, seen to be morally wrong according to Scripture. That verse was, I think, not translated the best way in the King James version. I think it said, “men-stealers,” and therefore didn’t apply clearly to slavery, but the Greek word in that verse (andrapodistes) does have to do with forcible enslaving of people, and that is clearly wrong, and that is what was happening in the 18th and 19th centuries in the United States. I think people thought “men-stealers” had more to do with kidnapping, perhaps, or something like that, but it really does apply much more to people who capture or sell people into slavery.
To summarize: the Bible certainly does not encourage or support slavery, as we understand the word “slavery” today. We don’t have to change the Bible teachings to something different for today, for the Bible itself shows the evil of what we call “slavery.”
CW: At Crosswalk, we see a lot of articles and studies come across our desks about how men are bored with church, find themselves feeling it’s been too feminized, without enough roles for men – that men aren’t attending in the same percentages women are. Is this one result of having traveled down this path of evangelical feminism?
Grudem: It may be; it depends on the church. There are maybe other reasons, but one sure-fire way of driving men away from church is to establish women in leadership positions. Over time, if more and more women have leadership positions, fewer and fewer men will attend. And you see that in the liberal denominations, which have disproportionate numbers of women as opposed to men. By contrast, churches that have clear male leadership, and that honor women as equally valuable in God’s sight and give many ministry opportunities to women as well as men -- those churches are often growing and very strong.
CW: In the book, you carry evangelical feminism through to conclusions including the denial of masculinity, the concept of God as “Mother,” and approval of homosexuality. If the Church does not change its present course, are these conclusions inevitable?
Grudem: Well, I don’t know if they’re inevitable in every church, because sometimes people see they’re going in the wrong direction, and they stop, but they don’t correct the mistake. I hope that trend toward liberalism is stopped and turned around more and more. That’s why I wrote this book.
On the other hand, many churches will just continue their slide to liberalism through this issue. The egalitarian group Christians for Biblical Equality now promotes the idea that we should pray to God as Mother. That’s another one of the steps in the slippery slope toward complete liberalism that I outline in the book. I also think we’re going to see more evangelical feminist churches toying with – and giving more and more attention to – the idea that perhaps homosexual conduct should be acceptable in certain situations where people are committed to each other over a long period of time, and they supposedly have these homosexual tendencies that they can’t rid themselves of. I document some examples like that in this book, where some evangelical groups or authors are arguing that way. And I’m very worried about it. I hope that some of these evangelical feminist groups will turn back from this direction and return to faithfulness to Scripture.
I am thankful that Christians for Biblical Equality has stopped short of endorsing homosexuality as morally valid, and they say they will not change on that issue. Even though I disagree with them on the roles of men and women, I’m thankful for their stand on homosexuality.
CW: Dr. Grudem, is there any question you haven’t been asked about Evangelical Feminism that you’re hoping to answer?
Grudem: Just that I hope that churches who have begun to endorse evangelical feminist views will seriously consider this book and re-consider their decisions and come back to a position that is faithful to the Bible. And that they will do that with a confidence that when we are obedient to God’s Word then He does bring a blessing to our lives and our churches.
FOR ALL YOU NEW BRAYDEN FANS HERE IS HIS WEIGHT AND TIME OF BIRTH
Brayden Daniel Bivens was born on Feb 23 at 7:16 pm. He was 7 pounds
4 ounces and was 19.25 inches long.
HERE IS SOMETHING FROM JOE MORRISON TO BRIGHTEN.....UP.....OUR DAY
Lovers of the English language might enjoy this ...______________________________________________________________
There is a two-letter word that perhaps has more meanings than any other two-letter word, and that word is "UP."
It's easy to understand UP, meaning toward the sky or at the top of the list, but when we awaken in the morning, why do we wake UP?
At a meeting, why does a topic come UP? Why do we speak UP? Why are the officers UP for election, and why is it UP to the secretary to write UP a report?
We call UP our friends. And we use it to brighten UP a room, polish UP the silver, we warm UP the leftovers and clean UP the kitchen. We lock UP the house and some guys fix UP the old car.
At other times the little word has real special meaning. People stir UP trouble, line UP for tickets, work UP an appetite, and think UP excuses.
To be dressed is one thing but to be dressed UP is special.
And this UP is confusing: A drain must be opened UP because it is stopped UP.
We open UP a store in the morning but we close it UP at night. We seem to be pretty mixed UP about UP!
To be knowledgeable about the proper uses of UP, look the word UP in the dictionary. In a desk-sized dictionary, it takes UP almost 1/4 of the page and can add UP to about thirty definitions.
If you are UP to it, you might try building UP a list of the many ways UP is used. It will take UP a lot of your time, but if you don't give UP, you may wind UP with a hundred or more.
When it threatens to rain, we say it is clouding UP. When the sun comes out we say it is clearing UP. When it rains, it wets UP the earth. When it doesn't rain for awhile, things dry UP.
One could go on and on, but I'll wrap it UP, for now my time is UP, so ... time to shut UP!
There is a two-letter word that perhaps has more meanings than any other two-letter word, and that word is "UP."
It's easy to understand UP, meaning toward the sky or at the top of the list, but when we awaken in the morning, why do we wake UP?
At a meeting, why does a topic come UP? Why do we speak UP? Why are the officers UP for election, and why is it UP to the secretary to write UP a report?
We call UP our friends. And we use it to brighten UP a room, polish UP the silver, we warm UP the leftovers and clean UP the kitchen. We lock UP the house and some guys fix UP the old car.
At other times the little word has real special meaning. People stir UP trouble, line UP for tickets, work UP an appetite, and think UP excuses.
To be dressed is one thing but to be dressed UP is special.
And this UP is confusing: A drain must be opened UP because it is stopped UP.
We open UP a store in the morning but we close it UP at night. We seem to be pretty mixed UP about UP!
To be knowledgeable about the proper uses of UP, look the word UP in the dictionary. In a desk-sized dictionary, it takes UP almost 1/4 of the page and can add UP to about thirty definitions.
If you are UP to it, you might try building UP a list of the many ways UP is used. It will take UP a lot of your time, but if you don't give UP, you may wind UP with a hundred or more.
When it threatens to rain, we say it is clouding UP. When the sun comes out we say it is clearing UP. When it rains, it wets UP the earth. When it doesn't rain for awhile, things dry UP.
One could go on and on, but I'll wrap it UP, for now my time is UP, so ... time to shut UP!
JUST IN CASE YOU MISSED THE NEWS ON THE FRONT PAGE OF THE SITE.....................
Congratulations to
Brian & Stephanie Bivens on the birth of
their new baby boy
Brayden Daniel Bivens born at 7:16 pm on February 23, 2007!
Friday, February 23, 2007
HE WAS HUMBLE, TOO By Phil Ryken
In doing a little research on William Wilberforce this week (in anticipation of this week's release of the film Amazing Grace, which marks the 200th anniversary of the slave trade in the British Empire), I stumbled across a quotation that confirms the truth of Carl's recent post on humility.
Arthur Wellesley, First Duke of Wellington, wrote the following after meeting with Wilberforce: "You have made me so entirely forget you are a great man by seeming to forget it yourself in all our intercourse."
Arthur Wellesley, First Duke of Wellington, wrote the following after meeting with Wilberforce: "You have made me so entirely forget you are a great man by seeming to forget it yourself in all our intercourse."
TOMORROW'S WOMEN'S CONFERENCE........
Tara Barthel, the speaker for the TW Conference tomorrow, has arrived and is speaking at Westminster's chapel today followed by an open forum with students.
195 persons have registered for the conference. Last year 25% of the total registered at the door; so a good turnout is expected.
The conference will run from 9:30-4:00 pm. You can register at the door starting at 9:00 AM. It will make things go more smoothly if you have already filled out a registration form before arriving. You can get one at http://www.tenth.org/index.php?id=127
195 persons have registered for the conference. Last year 25% of the total registered at the door; so a good turnout is expected.
The conference will run from 9:30-4:00 pm. You can register at the door starting at 9:00 AM. It will make things go more smoothly if you have already filled out a registration form before arriving. You can get one at http://www.tenth.org/index.php?id=127
MOVIE REVIEW.... OF AMAZING GRACE......BY Mike Lasalle of the SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE
Amazing Grace: Drama. Starring Ioan Gruffudd, Albert Finney, Benedict Cumberbatch and Romola Garai. Directed by Michael Apted. (PG. 110 minutes. At Bay Area theaters. For complete movie listings and show times, and to buy tickets for select theaters, go to sfgate.com/movies.)
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The great gospel hymn "Amazing Grace" was written by a British slave trader in repentance for his sins. The film of the same name touches on that story and how it intersects with the career of William Wilberforce, the passionate British crusader whose efforts led to the abolition of the slave trade in the 19th century. It's a detailed, affecting biography of one of the great souls who moved humanity forward.
When a movie resurrects a moment from history, with the confident hope, as always, that audiences will respond, the question that comes to mind is "Why?" That is, what is it about this story in particular that's supposed to connect with modern viewers? In this case, it may not be anything obvious or specific. Yet there's something about Wilberforce's frustration at the organized indifference he faces (the conjoining of the slave trade and government) and something about the physical and emotional toll taken on Wilberforce's health and spirit that make the story ring true and feel significant. Anyone who has ever felt morally right and completely in the minority will have a point of entry into this movie.
It begins in the middle and is told in two directions, moving forward and flashing back, a strategy that produces dramatic dividends in that it finds Wilberforce (Ioan Gruffudd) at his lowest ebb. Once a young dynamo, he has lost his energy and confidence. He's feeling middle-aged and suffering from bouts of colitis. Yet, thankfully, he's still in good enough shape for friends to introduce him to a young, pretty admirer, Barbara (Romola Garai). When the two finally get a chance to talk, it's as though they've just met through one of those modern-day liberal dating services. They agree about everything -- about the slave trade, abolition and animal rights.
Wilberforce led a life of drama and commitment, and "Amazing Grace" sticks close to the historical record: The film shows him experiencing, in his late 20s, a sudden religious revelation, and for a time he considers leaving politics. But he's encouraged by a number of people -- including John Newton (Albert Finney), the author of "Amazing Grace" -- that if he wants to do God's work, politics is exactly what he should be pursuing.
This decision, to put his faith to work in the public sphere, forms the practical basis for his life. (Wilberforce went on to write a book, still in print, called "A Practical Guide to Christianity.") It gives him the drive and conviction that his more cynical colleagues lack, but it also makes it easier for them to write him off as a crank. Gruffudd conveys well the nature of Wilberforce's frustration. He is 50 years ahead of his time, seeing what is obviously wrong and arguing for what's right, while others are stuck in the dark.
His friendship with William Pitt the Younger -- the youngest prime minister in British history -- is his most important alliance, and to a degree that's both unexpected and welcome, this story of a relentless idealist is grounded in the nitty-gritty of hard-nosed politics. As Pitt, Benedict Cumberbatch strikes a nice note with regard to Wilberforce, sometimes envying his conviction, sometimes scorning his naivete. He's a proud man who nonetheless can't help but recognize that Wilberforce -- though his inferior in every other way -- is his moral superior.
All the bases are covered, practical and spiritual. Wilberforce's great rapport with the woman who becomes his wife suggests a rich private life, and the movie never lets the audience forget the nature of the evil that Wilberforce wants to eradicate. The scenes with Finney, as the former slave trader, give details about the slave trade, and the horrors that took place on the slave ships are beyond description. Even those who think they know all about it will be moved, and not just moved -- angered. How could a nation that aspired to civilization, that by 1800 had given the world the Magna Carta and the Glorious Revolution, and Shakespeare, Milton and Wordsworth, descend into such heartless barbarity? Wilberforce was wondering that, too, and in "Amazing Grace" we're right there with him
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The great gospel hymn "Amazing Grace" was written by a British slave trader in repentance for his sins. The film of the same name touches on that story and how it intersects with the career of William Wilberforce, the passionate British crusader whose efforts led to the abolition of the slave trade in the 19th century. It's a detailed, affecting biography of one of the great souls who moved humanity forward.
When a movie resurrects a moment from history, with the confident hope, as always, that audiences will respond, the question that comes to mind is "Why?" That is, what is it about this story in particular that's supposed to connect with modern viewers? In this case, it may not be anything obvious or specific. Yet there's something about Wilberforce's frustration at the organized indifference he faces (the conjoining of the slave trade and government) and something about the physical and emotional toll taken on Wilberforce's health and spirit that make the story ring true and feel significant. Anyone who has ever felt morally right and completely in the minority will have a point of entry into this movie.
It begins in the middle and is told in two directions, moving forward and flashing back, a strategy that produces dramatic dividends in that it finds Wilberforce (Ioan Gruffudd) at his lowest ebb. Once a young dynamo, he has lost his energy and confidence. He's feeling middle-aged and suffering from bouts of colitis. Yet, thankfully, he's still in good enough shape for friends to introduce him to a young, pretty admirer, Barbara (Romola Garai). When the two finally get a chance to talk, it's as though they've just met through one of those modern-day liberal dating services. They agree about everything -- about the slave trade, abolition and animal rights.
Wilberforce led a life of drama and commitment, and "Amazing Grace" sticks close to the historical record: The film shows him experiencing, in his late 20s, a sudden religious revelation, and for a time he considers leaving politics. But he's encouraged by a number of people -- including John Newton (Albert Finney), the author of "Amazing Grace" -- that if he wants to do God's work, politics is exactly what he should be pursuing.
This decision, to put his faith to work in the public sphere, forms the practical basis for his life. (Wilberforce went on to write a book, still in print, called "A Practical Guide to Christianity.") It gives him the drive and conviction that his more cynical colleagues lack, but it also makes it easier for them to write him off as a crank. Gruffudd conveys well the nature of Wilberforce's frustration. He is 50 years ahead of his time, seeing what is obviously wrong and arguing for what's right, while others are stuck in the dark.
His friendship with William Pitt the Younger -- the youngest prime minister in British history -- is his most important alliance, and to a degree that's both unexpected and welcome, this story of a relentless idealist is grounded in the nitty-gritty of hard-nosed politics. As Pitt, Benedict Cumberbatch strikes a nice note with regard to Wilberforce, sometimes envying his conviction, sometimes scorning his naivete. He's a proud man who nonetheless can't help but recognize that Wilberforce -- though his inferior in every other way -- is his moral superior.
All the bases are covered, practical and spiritual. Wilberforce's great rapport with the woman who becomes his wife suggests a rich private life, and the movie never lets the audience forget the nature of the evil that Wilberforce wants to eradicate. The scenes with Finney, as the former slave trader, give details about the slave trade, and the horrors that took place on the slave ships are beyond description. Even those who think they know all about it will be moved, and not just moved -- angered. How could a nation that aspired to civilization, that by 1800 had given the world the Magna Carta and the Glorious Revolution, and Shakespeare, Milton and Wordsworth, descend into such heartless barbarity? Wilberforce was wondering that, too, and in "Amazing Grace" we're right there with him
UNSUSPECTING PATH TO THEOLOGICAL LIBERALISM.......PART 2
CW: Can you make an attempt to summarize the steps that believers and denominations take to get from even a well-intentioned egalitarianism to where they end up denying the authority of the Word of God? Can you complete the steps in that ladder for us?
Grudem: Yes. I trace that on page 28 of my book, where I point out that the liberal denominations in the United States – the ones that abandoned the complete authority of Scripture – started to ordain women in the 1950s, particularly the United Methodist Church in 1956, and the Presbyterian Church USA in 1956, and then others followed.
Well, what is surprising now is that evangelical churches are using the same kinds of arguments that were used by liberal churches to adopt a feminist viewpoint back in the 1950s and 1960s. And what happens is – we can see what happened to those liberal churches that adopted that viewpoint. I trace seven steps in the book that show this pattern in denomination after denomination:
Number one, they abandon biblical inerrancy, and say the Bible has some mistakes in it and can’t always be trusted.
Number two, they endorse the ordination of women as the pastor or the priests or as elders in churches.
Number three, they abandon the Bible’s teachings on male headship in marriage, and say, “Oh well, leadership just is determined on gifts and agreements and preferences, not on who’s the husband and who’s the wife.”
Number four, they exclude clergy who are opposed to women’s ordination. We’ve seen that in the Presbyterian Church USA, for instance, and in other denominations, where if someone says, “No, the Bible doesn’t want you to ordain women,” they’ll say, “Oh, let’s allow both views”… until they get into power. And then they say, “Oh, your view is harmful to women, and it’s making them feel hurt, and offended, and you can’t hold that view anymore.” So pretty soon they exclude people who are opposed to women’s ordination. We see that at Willow Creek Community Church, for instance. Their policies don’t allow anyone to hold the view that I am arguing for in this book, the historic view of the Church. Even to be a member of Willow Creek you have to agree to submit – joyfully submit – to the teaching of both men and women elders.
Number five is approving homosexual conduct as morally valid in some cases (such as in committed homosexual relationship). And in the book I trace that some evangelical authors and groups now tending in that direction. Jack & Judith Balswick, authors at Fuller Seminary, in a book published by InterVarsity Press, come right up to the edge of approving that. The Christian Reformed Churches have some tendencies in that direction. For example, Calvin College now has Ribbon Week to give support to gay, lesbian, and bi-sexual students on campus, and the president said it’s just like, you know, as if we were to have Cerebral Palsy Week for some people who have that disease, implying that it’s not the moral responsibility of people who have homosexual tendencies or “orientation.”
Number six is approving homosexual ordination. And then…
Number seven is ordaining homosexuals to high leadership positions in the denomination. And of course, the Episcopal Church has done this, where Bishop Eugene Robinson has been elected in New Hampshire, and caused great turmoil in the Episcopal Church.
That’s the direction in which groups move, and the United Methodist Church, for instance, has an ordained lesbian, and when the national leadership of the church had to deal with this, they said, “We still defend our standards that this shouldn’t happen, but we’re not going to do anything about this for churches or regions that allow this.” So the resolution has no force.
That’s a slippery slope; churches go in the direction that the dominant opinions of the culture are pushing them, and it all starts with an abandonment of the complete authority of the Bible. And the arguments used for endorsing women to high leadership positions in the Church then become the same kind of arguments that are used for endorsing homosexuals to high leadership positions in the Church. It’s a dangerous process.
CW: Standing on a literal interpretation of Scripture seems like a position of strength, but it doesn’t always make one very popular. What resistance or criticism have you encountered thus far, since Evangelical Feminism: A New Path to Liberalism came out?
Grudem: Well actually, many people have written me, and said essentially, “Wow. I didn’t realize that there were that many wrong arguments used to support women’s ordination or to support an egalitarian position.” In any case my goal wasn’t to be popular but to teach the Word of God faithfully, and warn the church. It seems to me many churches are slipping away from their commitment to the authority of Scripture through this path of endorsing evangelical feminism. And they’re not aware that these arguments they’re adopting are so dangerous, so disruptive in other areas of thought as well.
CW: In your book, you mention how before Francis Schaeffer passed away, he had begun – in The Great Evangelical Disaster – to talk about this trend. But over 20 years down the road now, how difficult is it going to be for the Church to reverse gears, now that we’ve come so far down the path?
Grudem: Well, there will be resistance, because people ordain women as elders or as pastors and then they say, “Oh, I like this person. She’s my friend, she loves the Lord, aren’t people blessed by her sermons?” So it all becomes based on experience and relationships at that point. And the question is: are we going to be faithful to the Word of God, even if it means taking actions that some friends disagree with, maybe actions that will cost us some friendships? Then will we believe that God is faithful and that He will bless faithfulness to His Word?
Paul encouraged Timothy, when he wrote to him, about difficulties in the church at Ephesus. In 1 Timothy 5:21: “In the presence of God and of Christ Jesus and of the elect angels I charge you to keep these rules without pre-judging, doing nothing from partiality.” In other words, the leaders who were doing wrong in the church were no doubt many of Timothy’s good friends. But when they were doing wrong, Paul told Timothy he had to rebuke them, and exercise discipline against them. Of course, that wasn’t going to make Timothy popular, but Paul is saying God is watching, and Jesus is watching, and the angels are watching, and you have to do this without partiality, without showing favoritism to the people who are your friends. You have to be faithful to God and His Word.
Grudem: Yes. I trace that on page 28 of my book, where I point out that the liberal denominations in the United States – the ones that abandoned the complete authority of Scripture – started to ordain women in the 1950s, particularly the United Methodist Church in 1956, and the Presbyterian Church USA in 1956, and then others followed.
Well, what is surprising now is that evangelical churches are using the same kinds of arguments that were used by liberal churches to adopt a feminist viewpoint back in the 1950s and 1960s. And what happens is – we can see what happened to those liberal churches that adopted that viewpoint. I trace seven steps in the book that show this pattern in denomination after denomination:
Number one, they abandon biblical inerrancy, and say the Bible has some mistakes in it and can’t always be trusted.
Number two, they endorse the ordination of women as the pastor or the priests or as elders in churches.
Number three, they abandon the Bible’s teachings on male headship in marriage, and say, “Oh well, leadership just is determined on gifts and agreements and preferences, not on who’s the husband and who’s the wife.”
Number four, they exclude clergy who are opposed to women’s ordination. We’ve seen that in the Presbyterian Church USA, for instance, and in other denominations, where if someone says, “No, the Bible doesn’t want you to ordain women,” they’ll say, “Oh, let’s allow both views”… until they get into power. And then they say, “Oh, your view is harmful to women, and it’s making them feel hurt, and offended, and you can’t hold that view anymore.” So pretty soon they exclude people who are opposed to women’s ordination. We see that at Willow Creek Community Church, for instance. Their policies don’t allow anyone to hold the view that I am arguing for in this book, the historic view of the Church. Even to be a member of Willow Creek you have to agree to submit – joyfully submit – to the teaching of both men and women elders.
Number five is approving homosexual conduct as morally valid in some cases (such as in committed homosexual relationship). And in the book I trace that some evangelical authors and groups now tending in that direction. Jack & Judith Balswick, authors at Fuller Seminary, in a book published by InterVarsity Press, come right up to the edge of approving that. The Christian Reformed Churches have some tendencies in that direction. For example, Calvin College now has Ribbon Week to give support to gay, lesbian, and bi-sexual students on campus, and the president said it’s just like, you know, as if we were to have Cerebral Palsy Week for some people who have that disease, implying that it’s not the moral responsibility of people who have homosexual tendencies or “orientation.”
Number six is approving homosexual ordination. And then…
Number seven is ordaining homosexuals to high leadership positions in the denomination. And of course, the Episcopal Church has done this, where Bishop Eugene Robinson has been elected in New Hampshire, and caused great turmoil in the Episcopal Church.
That’s the direction in which groups move, and the United Methodist Church, for instance, has an ordained lesbian, and when the national leadership of the church had to deal with this, they said, “We still defend our standards that this shouldn’t happen, but we’re not going to do anything about this for churches or regions that allow this.” So the resolution has no force.
That’s a slippery slope; churches go in the direction that the dominant opinions of the culture are pushing them, and it all starts with an abandonment of the complete authority of the Bible. And the arguments used for endorsing women to high leadership positions in the Church then become the same kind of arguments that are used for endorsing homosexuals to high leadership positions in the Church. It’s a dangerous process.
CW: Standing on a literal interpretation of Scripture seems like a position of strength, but it doesn’t always make one very popular. What resistance or criticism have you encountered thus far, since Evangelical Feminism: A New Path to Liberalism came out?
Grudem: Well actually, many people have written me, and said essentially, “Wow. I didn’t realize that there were that many wrong arguments used to support women’s ordination or to support an egalitarian position.” In any case my goal wasn’t to be popular but to teach the Word of God faithfully, and warn the church. It seems to me many churches are slipping away from their commitment to the authority of Scripture through this path of endorsing evangelical feminism. And they’re not aware that these arguments they’re adopting are so dangerous, so disruptive in other areas of thought as well.
CW: In your book, you mention how before Francis Schaeffer passed away, he had begun – in The Great Evangelical Disaster – to talk about this trend. But over 20 years down the road now, how difficult is it going to be for the Church to reverse gears, now that we’ve come so far down the path?
Grudem: Well, there will be resistance, because people ordain women as elders or as pastors and then they say, “Oh, I like this person. She’s my friend, she loves the Lord, aren’t people blessed by her sermons?” So it all becomes based on experience and relationships at that point. And the question is: are we going to be faithful to the Word of God, even if it means taking actions that some friends disagree with, maybe actions that will cost us some friendships? Then will we believe that God is faithful and that He will bless faithfulness to His Word?
Paul encouraged Timothy, when he wrote to him, about difficulties in the church at Ephesus. In 1 Timothy 5:21: “In the presence of God and of Christ Jesus and of the elect angels I charge you to keep these rules without pre-judging, doing nothing from partiality.” In other words, the leaders who were doing wrong in the church were no doubt many of Timothy’s good friends. But when they were doing wrong, Paul told Timothy he had to rebuke them, and exercise discipline against them. Of course, that wasn’t going to make Timothy popular, but Paul is saying God is watching, and Jesus is watching, and the angels are watching, and you have to do this without partiality, without showing favoritism to the people who are your friends. You have to be faithful to God and His Word.
Q&A WITH DR. RC. SPROUL
How were the books of the Bible selected and compiled, and how were the decisions made as to what would be distributed as the Word of God?
Even though we think of the Bible as being one book, it’s actually a collection of sixty-six books, and we realize that there was a historical process by which those particular books were gathered together and placed in one volume that we now know as the Bible. In fact, we call the Bible the canon of sacred Scripture. Canon is taken from the Greek word canon, which means “measuring rod.” That means it is the standard of truth by which all other truth is to be judged in the Christian life.
There have been many different theories set forth over the history of the church as to exactly how God’s hand was involved in this selection process. Skeptics have pointed out that over three thousand books were candidates for inclusion in the New Testament canon alone, and only a handful (twenty-some books) were selected. Doesn’t that raise some serious questions? Isn’t it possible that certain books that are in the Bible should not be there and others that were excluded by human evaluation and human judgment should have been included? We need to keep in mind, however, that of those not included in the last analysis, there were at the most three or four that were given serious consideration. So to speak in terms of two or three thousand being boiled down to twenty-seven or something like that is a distortion of historical reality.
Some people take the position that the church is a higher authority than the Bible because the only reason the Bible has any authority is that the church declared what books the Bible would contain. Most Protestants, however, take a different view of the matter and point out that when the decision was made as to what books were canonical, they used the Latin term recipemus, which means “we receive.” What the church said is that we receive these particular books as being canonical, as being apostolic in authority and in origin, and therefore we submit to their authority. It’s one thing to make something authoritative, and it’s another thing to recognize something that already is authoritative. Those human decisions did not make something that was not authoritative suddenly authoritative, but rather the church was bowing, acquiescing to that which they recognized to be sacred Scripture. We cannot avoid the reality that though God’s invisible hand of providence was certainly at work in the process, there was a historical sifting process and human judgments were made that could have been mistaken. But I don’t think this was the case.
Even though we think of the Bible as being one book, it’s actually a collection of sixty-six books, and we realize that there was a historical process by which those particular books were gathered together and placed in one volume that we now know as the Bible. In fact, we call the Bible the canon of sacred Scripture. Canon is taken from the Greek word canon, which means “measuring rod.” That means it is the standard of truth by which all other truth is to be judged in the Christian life.
There have been many different theories set forth over the history of the church as to exactly how God’s hand was involved in this selection process. Skeptics have pointed out that over three thousand books were candidates for inclusion in the New Testament canon alone, and only a handful (twenty-some books) were selected. Doesn’t that raise some serious questions? Isn’t it possible that certain books that are in the Bible should not be there and others that were excluded by human evaluation and human judgment should have been included? We need to keep in mind, however, that of those not included in the last analysis, there were at the most three or four that were given serious consideration. So to speak in terms of two or three thousand being boiled down to twenty-seven or something like that is a distortion of historical reality.
Some people take the position that the church is a higher authority than the Bible because the only reason the Bible has any authority is that the church declared what books the Bible would contain. Most Protestants, however, take a different view of the matter and point out that when the decision was made as to what books were canonical, they used the Latin term recipemus, which means “we receive.” What the church said is that we receive these particular books as being canonical, as being apostolic in authority and in origin, and therefore we submit to their authority. It’s one thing to make something authoritative, and it’s another thing to recognize something that already is authoritative. Those human decisions did not make something that was not authoritative suddenly authoritative, but rather the church was bowing, acquiescing to that which they recognized to be sacred Scripture. We cannot avoid the reality that though God’s invisible hand of providence was certainly at work in the process, there was a historical sifting process and human judgments were made that could have been mistaken. But I don’t think this was the case.
Thursday, February 22, 2007
HERE WE GO STEPHANIE AND BRIAN........
Lets keep Brian and Stephanie in our prayers, they will be going into the hospital tomorrow, to have their second child.
More info and photos to come. I also would like to thank Stephanie and Brian for your help in the growth of PCC, Now this is what I call dedication.
More info and photos to come. I also would like to thank Stephanie and Brian for your help in the growth of PCC, Now this is what I call dedication.
UPDATE ON PEG GREEN
My wife and I went see Peg today, she is still on the ventilator, and needs our prayers. I will have more of an update soon. But for now lets keep her in our prayers, as we pray most of all for God's will to done.
UNSUSPECTING PATH TO THEOLOGICAL LIBERALISM.......PART 1
Crosswalk: Dr. Grudem, why this book, and why now?
Wayne Grudem: This book is really an alarm to the church. It’s saying to evangelical Christians, “You may think that the controversy over men’s and women’s roles doesn’t make much difference to other things in your church life, but in fact, it makes a huge difference.” In this book Evangelical Feminism: A New Path to Liberalism?, I examine and document 25 different kinds of arguments that are used by evangelical feminists to claim that there is no unique leadership role for men in the home or in the church. And in every case I argue that these arguments used by the evangelical feminists undermine or deny the authority of Scripture. So really what is at stake is whether we’ll be subject to and obedient to God’s Word or not.
Some of those arguments are: (1) saying that some parts of Genesis 1-2 are wrong, (2) saying that Paul was wrong in what he wrote about women in the church, (3) saying that some verses on women should not be part of the Bible, (4) saying that our standard for conduct today should not be what the Bible says but our idea of the direction in which we think the Bible was “developing” or changing, (5) saying that a pastor can give women preachers permission to disobey the Bible, (6) saying that personal experience of blessing from women preachers trumps the teaching of Scripture, and (7) making up some special situation that you say a Bible passage was talking about (such as uneducated or noisy women in the ancient world) and then saying the passage doesn’t apply today because we aren’t in that “special situation.” There are 25 such arguments from evangelical feminists that I document in my book. And they all undermine or deny the authority of the Bible.
CW: When you define evangelical feminism, you describe “a movement that claims there are no unique leadership roles for men in marriage or the church.” That’s interesting, in that this definition is obviously not something anti-female, but instead, questions more what we’ve done to male headship as God established it. Can you elaborate more on that idea – God establishing man as the head and woman as a sub-ordinate?
Grudem: That’s an interesting way of summarizing the book, and I think you’ve made a good point. The idea is that with regard to marriage, the Bible teaches that we – men and women – are equal in value in God’s sight. He created us both in His image, as it says in Genesis 1:26-27. But God also gave a leadership role to the husband in the marriage. So Paul can say in Ephesians 5 that wives are to be subject to their husbands as to the Lord, and husbands are to love their wives as Christ loved the Church. So there is a leadership role for men in marriage. And the whole Church throughout history has believed that except for the last 40 years or so.
In the church, the Bible values and encourages the use of spiritual gifts by men and women alike, and sees us both as equal in value in the church, but the governing and teaching roles that belong to a pastor or elder in a church are restricted to men, according to 1 Timothy 2, and 1 Timothy 3, and Titus 1 and other passages.
CW: Then, if subordination does not imply inferiority, why do we tend to think it does?
Grudem: Oh, it’s the culture. Our culture – at least since the 1960s – has had a strong bias against authority, whether it’s the authority of the government or the teacher in a school or the authority of parents, or the authority of God. And that, I think, has an influence on the discussions of authority within marriage (which belongs to a husband), and authority within the church (which belongs to the pastor and elders for the whole church). So that anti-authority trend in the culture is one thing. Another thing probably is the loss of a biblical view that God is the supreme authority over all of life, and all of us are subject – or should be subject – to His authority. That is not dehumanizing. It doesn’t degrade us; it just causes us to fill the role that God made us for.
We see that even in the relationship between the Father and the Son in the Trinity, where the Son is subject to the authority of the Father, but they’re both equally God! So, we really shouldn’t dislike being under authority – when it’s rightly used; I’m not talking about abuse of authority. Something in our culture has taught us a lie that if you have power over others that’s good, and if you’re under other people’s authority that’s bad. And actually, both are found in the Bible, and when they’re not distorted by sinful patterns of behavior then both things are good, and we should find fulfillment wherever God has placed us.
CW: You are a co-founder of the Council on Biblical Manhood and Womanhood. From that perspective, what have you observed to be evangelicalism’s most common treatment (or mis-treatment), or interpretation (or mis-interpretation) of verses regarding the role of women in the home or the church, such as those found in 1 Corinthians 14, 1 Timothy 2, and elsewhere?
Grudem: I think still that the most common interpretation is the correct one, and that is that 1 Timothy 2 restricts the role of Bible teaching or governing authority over the assembled church to men, while still – in that very passage – honoring women, and saying it’s right that women learn, as well as men, from the teaching of God’s Word.
And then, in 1 Corinthians 14, I think the growing consensus among many interpreters is that, when Paul says, “As in all the churches of the saints the women should keep silent in the churches (1 Cor. 14:34),” that we have to understand what he is talking about in the context, in the church at Corinth. People with the gift of prophecy were standing up and giving prophecies, and then others were evaluating them (1 Cor. 14:29), and in that context Paul says that women should not stand up and give spoken judgments against a prophecy that was given, because that’s a governing and protecting role over the entire congregation that is reserved for men. That’s very consistent with 1 Timothy 2. But certainly Paul does not mean that women should be totally silent in that context, because just a bit earlier in 1 Corinthians 11:5, Paul allows women to speak out loud in church to pray, or to give prophecies. Those are not teaching or governing over the whole congregation, but those are other kinds of speech activities, and they are certainly encouraged by Paul.
Wayne Grudem: This book is really an alarm to the church. It’s saying to evangelical Christians, “You may think that the controversy over men’s and women’s roles doesn’t make much difference to other things in your church life, but in fact, it makes a huge difference.” In this book Evangelical Feminism: A New Path to Liberalism?, I examine and document 25 different kinds of arguments that are used by evangelical feminists to claim that there is no unique leadership role for men in the home or in the church. And in every case I argue that these arguments used by the evangelical feminists undermine or deny the authority of Scripture. So really what is at stake is whether we’ll be subject to and obedient to God’s Word or not.
Some of those arguments are: (1) saying that some parts of Genesis 1-2 are wrong, (2) saying that Paul was wrong in what he wrote about women in the church, (3) saying that some verses on women should not be part of the Bible, (4) saying that our standard for conduct today should not be what the Bible says but our idea of the direction in which we think the Bible was “developing” or changing, (5) saying that a pastor can give women preachers permission to disobey the Bible, (6) saying that personal experience of blessing from women preachers trumps the teaching of Scripture, and (7) making up some special situation that you say a Bible passage was talking about (such as uneducated or noisy women in the ancient world) and then saying the passage doesn’t apply today because we aren’t in that “special situation.” There are 25 such arguments from evangelical feminists that I document in my book. And they all undermine or deny the authority of the Bible.
CW: When you define evangelical feminism, you describe “a movement that claims there are no unique leadership roles for men in marriage or the church.” That’s interesting, in that this definition is obviously not something anti-female, but instead, questions more what we’ve done to male headship as God established it. Can you elaborate more on that idea – God establishing man as the head and woman as a sub-ordinate?
Grudem: That’s an interesting way of summarizing the book, and I think you’ve made a good point. The idea is that with regard to marriage, the Bible teaches that we – men and women – are equal in value in God’s sight. He created us both in His image, as it says in Genesis 1:26-27. But God also gave a leadership role to the husband in the marriage. So Paul can say in Ephesians 5 that wives are to be subject to their husbands as to the Lord, and husbands are to love their wives as Christ loved the Church. So there is a leadership role for men in marriage. And the whole Church throughout history has believed that except for the last 40 years or so.
In the church, the Bible values and encourages the use of spiritual gifts by men and women alike, and sees us both as equal in value in the church, but the governing and teaching roles that belong to a pastor or elder in a church are restricted to men, according to 1 Timothy 2, and 1 Timothy 3, and Titus 1 and other passages.
CW: Then, if subordination does not imply inferiority, why do we tend to think it does?
Grudem: Oh, it’s the culture. Our culture – at least since the 1960s – has had a strong bias against authority, whether it’s the authority of the government or the teacher in a school or the authority of parents, or the authority of God. And that, I think, has an influence on the discussions of authority within marriage (which belongs to a husband), and authority within the church (which belongs to the pastor and elders for the whole church). So that anti-authority trend in the culture is one thing. Another thing probably is the loss of a biblical view that God is the supreme authority over all of life, and all of us are subject – or should be subject – to His authority. That is not dehumanizing. It doesn’t degrade us; it just causes us to fill the role that God made us for.
We see that even in the relationship between the Father and the Son in the Trinity, where the Son is subject to the authority of the Father, but they’re both equally God! So, we really shouldn’t dislike being under authority – when it’s rightly used; I’m not talking about abuse of authority. Something in our culture has taught us a lie that if you have power over others that’s good, and if you’re under other people’s authority that’s bad. And actually, both are found in the Bible, and when they’re not distorted by sinful patterns of behavior then both things are good, and we should find fulfillment wherever God has placed us.
CW: You are a co-founder of the Council on Biblical Manhood and Womanhood. From that perspective, what have you observed to be evangelicalism’s most common treatment (or mis-treatment), or interpretation (or mis-interpretation) of verses regarding the role of women in the home or the church, such as those found in 1 Corinthians 14, 1 Timothy 2, and elsewhere?
Grudem: I think still that the most common interpretation is the correct one, and that is that 1 Timothy 2 restricts the role of Bible teaching or governing authority over the assembled church to men, while still – in that very passage – honoring women, and saying it’s right that women learn, as well as men, from the teaching of God’s Word.
And then, in 1 Corinthians 14, I think the growing consensus among many interpreters is that, when Paul says, “As in all the churches of the saints the women should keep silent in the churches (1 Cor. 14:34),” that we have to understand what he is talking about in the context, in the church at Corinth. People with the gift of prophecy were standing up and giving prophecies, and then others were evaluating them (1 Cor. 14:29), and in that context Paul says that women should not stand up and give spoken judgments against a prophecy that was given, because that’s a governing and protecting role over the entire congregation that is reserved for men. That’s very consistent with 1 Timothy 2. But certainly Paul does not mean that women should be totally silent in that context, because just a bit earlier in 1 Corinthians 11:5, Paul allows women to speak out loud in church to pray, or to give prophecies. Those are not teaching or governing over the whole congregation, but those are other kinds of speech activities, and they are certainly encouraged by Paul.
UNSUSPECTING PATH TO THEOLOGICAL LIBERALISM.......
Here is some good food for thought sent into us bu our music director Brian Bivans, thank you Brian for sharring this info with us from crosswalk. I will be posting this artical in sections but it will also be on our web site in full length very shortly.
Biblical Scholar Warns of Unsuspecting Path to Theological Liberalism
Shawn McEvoy
Crosswalk Faith & Religion Editor
It's one thing when a scripture-quoting theologian/author gets your attention. It's quite another when he opens your eyes, revealing a failed step not only you but entire churches may have taken long ago -- one that is leading you, perhaps quite unwittingly or intentionally, down a road that ends in the denial of biblical authority and gender identity.
That's what Wayne Grudem has done with his latest work, Evangelical Feminism: A New Path to Liberalism? In it, Grudem, Research Professor of Bible & Theology at Phoenix Seminary, and author/editor of works regarding men's and women's roles in the home and church, as well as how churches might teach those roles, states his position plainly on page one:
document.write('');
I am concerned that evangelical feminism (also called "egalitarianism") has become a new path by which evangelicals are being drawn into theological liberalism [defined as: "a system of thinking that denies the complete truthfulness of the Bible as the Word of God and denies the unique and absolute authority of the Bible in our lives"].
That's a lot at stake from a topic many of us may have thought we'd successfully swept under the rug, explained away socially, navigated around, or, perhaps worse, were completely ignorant of. Dr. Grudem recently sat down with Crosswalk Faith Editor Shawn McEvoy to discuss his book and the ramifications of his argument.
Biblical Scholar Warns of Unsuspecting Path to Theological Liberalism
Shawn McEvoy
Crosswalk Faith & Religion Editor
It's one thing when a scripture-quoting theologian/author gets your attention. It's quite another when he opens your eyes, revealing a failed step not only you but entire churches may have taken long ago -- one that is leading you, perhaps quite unwittingly or intentionally, down a road that ends in the denial of biblical authority and gender identity.
That's what Wayne Grudem has done with his latest work, Evangelical Feminism: A New Path to Liberalism? In it, Grudem, Research Professor of Bible & Theology at Phoenix Seminary, and author/editor of works regarding men's and women's roles in the home and church, as well as how churches might teach those roles, states his position plainly on page one:
document.write('');
I am concerned that evangelical feminism (also called "egalitarianism") has become a new path by which evangelicals are being drawn into theological liberalism [defined as: "a system of thinking that denies the complete truthfulness of the Bible as the Word of God and denies the unique and absolute authority of the Bible in our lives"].
That's a lot at stake from a topic many of us may have thought we'd successfully swept under the rug, explained away socially, navigated around, or, perhaps worse, were completely ignorant of. Dr. Grudem recently sat down with Crosswalk Faith Editor Shawn McEvoy to discuss his book and the ramifications of his argument.
Wednesday, February 21, 2007
SHUTTING PEOPLE UP.....BY Phil Ryken
A ref21 reader has written to remind me of another good use for apologetics. According to Calvin, we need apologetics not so much "to convert the hearts of the ungodly but to stop their obstreperous mouths." One wonders what Richard Dawkins would have to say about that! I am reminded of something Martyn Lloyd-Jones said, possibly with reference to Romans 3:19: "A Christian is someone whose mouth is shut." In other words, a Christian is someone who has stopped talking (and especially stopped talking back to God) long enough to listen to his saving gospel.
WOMENS CONFERENCE THIS SATURDAY THE 24TH
What are you doing Saturday?How about coming to the TenthWomen Conference, "Living the Gospel in Relationships"?Why?1. Learn about biblical ways to respond to unavoidable conflict in life2. Be reminded about the magnificant grace we receive in Christ3. Enjoy singing with over 200 women! (It sounds heavenly!)4. Fellowship with old and new friends5. Meet sisters in Christ from all over (We have women coming from Staten Island, Harrisburg, Grove City PA, Newark DE, northern NJ)6. Just have fun!Still not convinced? Then take a listen to a 15 minute interview with our speaker Tara Barthel at http://www.tenth.org/index.php?id=127 One woman registering on Sunday told me that she wasn't planning on coming, but after she listened to Tara, she said she absolutely had to be there. This woman had her mother and a friend listen to Tara, and they changed their plans to come too.You can register at the door starting at 9:00 AM. It will make things go more smoothly if you have already filled out a registration form before arriving. You can get one at http://www.tenth.org/index.php?id=127This event is getting so popular, I had to turn down a request from a man who wanted to come! But all ladies are welcome (high school and up).Jessie Bible
ON THE COMMUNION OF THE SAINTS IN GLORY...By Phil Ryken
Previous posts have mourned the passing of Al Groves, who taught Old Testament at Westminster Seminary in Philadelphia. I was blessed by a letter Al wrote to his friends, to be shared at the time of his funeral. The letter included these encouraging words:
"For most of my Christian life I have wanted to see Jesus face-to-face, to join in with the heavenly chorus in his presence around his royal throne and declare his praise in new ways. Something else has grown through the years: an abiding sense that this is not for me alone. Being with Jesus by myself is not what he wants nor is it what I want. To be there with you all, those he loves and those I have come to love, that is true joy. I have often thought of coming to heaven as Jesus standing at the finish line of a race awaiting those looking for him, trusting in him, pursuing him. But it isn't a race for me to finish first or alone. It has always been a race for us to finish together, arm in arm, having encouraged one another in faith."
"For most of my Christian life I have wanted to see Jesus face-to-face, to join in with the heavenly chorus in his presence around his royal throne and declare his praise in new ways. Something else has grown through the years: an abiding sense that this is not for me alone. Being with Jesus by myself is not what he wants nor is it what I want. To be there with you all, those he loves and those I have come to love, that is true joy. I have often thought of coming to heaven as Jesus standing at the finish line of a race awaiting those looking for him, trusting in him, pursuing him. But it isn't a race for me to finish first or alone. It has always been a race for us to finish together, arm in arm, having encouraged one another in faith."
Tuesday, February 20, 2007
CALLED BY GOD OR JUST SEEKING A TITLE.....
It is very sad today that there are men not living out a call placed on their lives by God to lead the church, but they are simply seeking after titles, such as elder, deacon, and yes most of all pastor.
These men do not care about the flock they pretend to lead. They only care about hearing people call them by their unearned title. Ask yourself what training they have, how have they prepared and how do they continue to prepare for their calling. Has their ministry and their lives been recognized by their peers? And most of all do their lives live up to their title? This post by John MacArthur will give us the base for our look at this problem.
Remember just because someone calls themself a PASTOR does not mean they have been called by God to that office, and if they have not been called by God to that office then quite frankly the title of pastor does not belong to them.
Pastor Charles J. Paul
If we are to be faithful to the New Testament, we must acknowledge that the Lord has established leaders in His church—pastors and elders. They are the examples of spiritual leadership for all the people, and if they are not exemplary leaders, something is seriously wrong.
The qualifications for elders and church leaders are not just for them. These qualities are especially mandated for them because they set the pattern for all. "Like people, like priest" (Hosea 4:9) What the pastor and elders are to be is the model for all Christians. And the principles that are true of leaders in the church are also good principles for every Christian in any position of leadership to apply.
So we have to look at what God requires of these model leaders in order to know what is ultimately required of every leader.
The reality is that modern society is suffering from a severe shortage of true leaders. The problem is closely related to the dramatic moral decline that has been systematically eating away at the foundations of our culture since (at least) the 1960s. Western society no longer values character—integrity, decency, honor, loyalty, truthfulness, purity, and other virtues. A look at the typical programming on prime-time television instantly shows what the world thinks of such qualities. They have been deposed. In their place, modern society has ensconced new and different values: selfishness, rebellion, rudeness, pro-fane speech, irreverence, licentiousness, intemperance, and almost every kind of decadence. No wonder integrity is so hard to find.
Sadly, in this instance, what is true in the world is also true in the church. This is no secret. I was recently looking at a catalog from a Christian book retailer and noticed how many titles have been published over the past decade dealing with the integrity crisis in Christian leadership. The front cover of the catalog featured a half page of books on the subject. It is clear that there’s a general feeling among Christians that failure is epidemic among their leaders.
Some segments of the visible church seem to have given up trying to find men of integrity to lead them. I recently read an article in the secular newspaper about a well-known pastor who resigned under pressure when his moral and financial improprieties became front-page news in his community. Four hundred people from his church left and started a new congregation so they could call him to be their pastor again. They said they loved the fact that he was so "human." One woman said she felt the scandal had equipped him to be a better pastor.
That is not a unique situation. A few years ago, another prominent pastor who left his church after a sordid sex scandal was immediately hired by one of the largest churches in the country to be part of their teaching staff. Within two weeks after the scandal made national news, he was back to preaching in the pulpit of a megachurch.
Worldly standards are gradually creeping into the church. The prevailing mood in the Christian community today is that no one is ever really disqualified from Christian leadership, but the disgraced leader who is willing to make a public show of remorse ought to be restored to a position of prominence as soon as possible. This means that in some circles, sexual immorality and marital infidelity are no longer deemed disqualifying sins for a pastor. I know of men who have dragged their churches through the grossest kinds of public scandal without missing a single week in the pulpit. Others take a little time off for "rehab" and "counseling," but then resume the leadership role. Sadly, this has become quite commonplace, because many in the church have responded to the leadership crisis by lowering expectations of their leaders.
How far we have come from the New Testament standard! Notice that in every list of qualifications the apostle Paul gave for church leaders, the first and most indispensable qualification for men in leadership was that they be "blameless" (1 Timothy 3:2, 10; Titus 1:6–7). Paul employed a Greek word that means "above reproach"—inculpable, unblemished, irreprehensible. Literally, it means "not subject to accusation." The term does not speak of sinlessness, of course, or no one would qualify (1 John 1:8). It does not disqualify people from leadership on the basis of sins they committed before conversion, or Paul himself would have been disqualified (1 Timothy 1:12–16). But it describes a person whose Christian testimony is free from the taint of scandal—someone who is upright, sound in character, and without any serious moral blemish. Simply put, it means leaders must have a reputation for unimpeachable integrity.
The early church held leaders to the highest moral and ethical standards. Nowhere is that more clear in Scripture than Acts 6, where Luke recorded how the first leaders were marked out and chosen by their fellow believers to assist the work of the apostles.
Of course, Christ Himself had already chosen and appointed the apostles (John 15:16). But remember that at Pentecost alone, three thousand people were added to the church (Acts 2:41). Another five thousand men (and presumably many more from their families) were added in Acts 4:4. Since we know that many were being added to the church daily, it appears the church in Jerusalem quickly grew to include at least ten thousand believers (and very likely more than twice that). Obviously, the time soon came when the responsibilities of leadership in the church were more than twelve apostles could handle.
Someone once said that Christians become very unchristian when they get organized. Sometimes that seems true. But Acts 6 reveals how things ought to be in the church.
Obviously, the early church was having a major impact on the Jewish community in Jerusalem. Multitudes were coming to faith in Jesus Christ. An amazing spirit of love and harmony existed among the Christians. Because so many in first-century Jerusalem were dispossessed and transient people, the community of believers "had all things in common, and sold their possessions and goods, and divided them among all, as anyone had need. So continuing daily with one accord in the temple, and breaking bread from house to house, they ate their food with gladness and simplicity of heart" (Acts 2:44–46).
The first hint of any controversy in the church comes in Acts 6:1, where Luke wrote, "Now in those days, when the number of the disciples was multiplying, there arose a complaint against the Hebrews by the Hellenists, because their widows were neglected in the daily distribution."
There were two groups of people in the early church. Since the church began in Jerusalem, practically all the early believers were Jewish. But some were Hebrews, and some were Hellenists. The Hebrews spoke Aramaic, a derivative of Hebrew. Most of them were native-born Judeans. The Hellenists were Jews who had adopted the Greek language and Greek lifestyle. Most of them were from Asia Minor, North Africa, and diverse places throughout the Roman Empire. But they remained loyal to the Jewish religion and returned en masse to Jerusalem every year for Passover season and Pentecost.
Many who were converted under Peter’s preaching at Pentecost were therefore Hellenists. Many of them apparently remained in Jerusalem to become part of the Christian community. One of the main practical reasons the early church became such a caring and sharing body was the necessity of meeting the collective needs of this massive immigrant community.
Obviously, with so many believers from two major strains of culture, people would tend to associate with their own language group. Moreover, the Hebrews had been brought up to regard Hellenistic Jews with a degree of suspicion, because they felt they had been polluted by alien culture. The apostle Paul said that in his pre-conversion life, one of the things he took pride in was that he was "a Hebrew of the Hebrews"(Philippians 3:5)—not a Hellenistic Jew. Although he had been born in Tarsus, in Cilicia (a Gentile nation), he had been brought up in Jerusalem, at the feet of Gamaliel, a strict Pharisee and Hebrew rabbi. The Hebrews tended to think the Hellenists were not true Jews, because they had not remained loyal to the land and the traditions of Israel. So in that cultural friction lay the makings of a potentially serious conflict.
"The daily distribution" refers to the apostles’ practice of dispensing food, money, and other resources to those in need (Acts 4:35), especially widows. The Grecian Jews were no doubt in the minority, and Luke said some of them began to feel the needs of the widows in their group were being neglected.
Obviously, a complaint like that can easily become a wedge that splits the church. As any church leader will testify, no matter how petty such murmuring may appear, it always has the potential for great mischief. In this case, it may have been true that some of the Grecian widows were being overlooked. Obviously, it wasn’t intentional, but the situation needed to be corrected.
So the apostles responded quickly. Luke described what happened:
The twelve summoned the multitude of the disciples and said, "It is not desirable that we should leave the word of God and serve tables. Therefore, brethren, seek out from among you seven men of good reputation, full of the Holy Spirit and wisdom, whom we may appoint over this business; but we will give ourselves continually to prayer and to the ministry of the word." And the saying pleased the whole multitude. And they chose Stephen, a man full of faith and the Holy Spirit, and Philip, Prochorus, Nicanor, Timon, Parmenas, and Nicolas, a proselyte from Antioch, whom they set before the apostles; and when they had prayed, they laid hands on them. Then the word of God spread, and the number of the disciples multiplied greatly in Jerusalem, and a great many of the priests were obedient to the faith. (Acts 6:2–7)
The church had become too big for twelve leaders. Such a large community desperately needed more oversight and more organization. So the apostles proposed a plan for the people themselves to appoint godly men with outstanding reputations to come alongside and "serve tables," meaning that these men would now oversee the distribution of food and funds to those in need.
Seven men were to be singled out to serve in a subordinate leadership role. They were appointed to serve, which is normally the role of a deacon, and for that reason, commentators sometimes refer to them as the first deacons. But notice that the text does not call them deacons. At least two of them, Stephen and Philip, were also preachers, which is a role more associated with elders than with deacons (1 Timothy 3:2; Titus 1:9). Of course, they’re not called elders, either. This was so early in the formulation of the church that those offices did not even exist yet. When the apostle Paul listed the qualifications for deacons and elders in 1 Timothy 3, the only significant difference between the two offices was that elders must be gifted to teach. Elders are given the teaching authority in the church, and deacons serve under them in a support role, much the way these seven men in Acts 6 were appointed to do under the apostles.
In many churches, the deaconate is somewhat of a training ground for elders. It is not uncommon in the church I pastor for deacons to become elders as they develop their skill in teaching and their ability to handle the Word. That process began here in Acts 6. As these seven men proved themselves faithful in serving, at least some of them, like Philip and Stephen, also developed skill as teachers. No doubt some of them later stepped into even greater roles of leadership as the apostles were martyred or moved on to take the gospel message to the remotest parts of the earth. As they proved their faithfulness and assumed greater leadership roles, new servant leaders would have been appointed to serve alongside them. Eventually, the teaching role was designated as the office of an elder, and the servant role was assigned to officers called deacons.
So what we see in Acts 6 are the rudimentary beginnings of church organization. The separate offices of elders and deacons are foreshadowed in this event, but they were not yet clearly defined.
From this passage, however, we learn much about how the church is to be organized and what kind of leaders ought to have oversight. At least three principles emerge that continue to set the standard for all leaders in the church. Notice the plurality of leadership that was prescribed; the priority that was recognized as leadership’s first duty; and the standard of purity that was demanded of those who were appointed. We will examine each of these closely, because they establish principles that apply to spiritual leaders of all kinds.
Plurality
The clear New Testament pattern for church government is a plurality of God-ordained men who lead the people of God together. The church is not to be led by dictators, autocrats, or solitary rulers. From the beginning, oversight was shared by twelve apostles, and we see here that when they appointed subordinate leaders, those men also functioned as a team.
When Paul and Barnabas founded churches in Asia Minor, Luke said they "appointed elders in every church" (Acts 14:23). Paul likewise instructed Titus to "appoint elders in every city as I commanded you"(Titus 1:5). At the end of Paul’s third missionary journey, "he sent to Ephesus and called for the elders of the church" (Acts 20:17). In Jerusalem, Paul met with "James, and all the elders" (Acts 21:18). Virtually every time elders are spoken of in Scripture in connection with a church, the noun is plural, clearly indicating that the standard practice in the New Testament was for multiple elders to oversee each church.
Every ministry described in the New Testament was a team effort. Jesus called twelve disciples. After Judas’s betrayal and suicide, Matthias was chosen to take his place (Acts 1:16–26). Those twelve as apostles obviously shared oversight in the founding and early ministry of the Jerusalem church. When they began to take the gospel to "all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth" (Acts 1:8), they did so in teams (Acts 15:22–27; Galatians 2:9).
Peter and John together dominate the first twelve chapters of Acts. The focus shifts to Paul and Barnabas in Acts 13. Then Barnabas went with Mark, and Paul went with Silas at the end of Acts 15. Timothy joined Paul and Silas in Acts 16. When Paul returned to Antioch in Acts 18, he took Aquila and Priscilla along. As we have seen, Paul even took Luke and Aristarchus with him on his journey to Rome, although he was a prisoner of the Roman government at the time. A comprehensive list of all Paul’s various companions and fellow ministers would fill a page or more.
In other words, ministry as depicted in the New Testament was never a one-man show. That does not preclude the role of a dominant leader on each team. Within the framework of plurality, there will invariably be those who have more influence. The diversity of our gifts (1 Corinthians 12:4) means all people are differently equipped. Therefore a plurality of leaders does not necessitate an absolute equality in every function. In even the most godly group of leaders, some will naturally be more influential than others. Some will have teaching gifts that outshine the rest. Others will be more gifted as administrators. Each can fulfill a different role, and there is no need to try to enforce absolute equality of function.
The Twelve, for example, are always listed in similar order in Scripture (Matthew 10:2–4; Mark 3:16–19; Luke 6:14–16; Acts 1:13). They seem to divide naturally into four groups. The first four names listed are always Peter, James, John, and Andrew. Peter’s name always heads the list, and the other three are listed in varying order. Those four dominate the gospel narratives, and three of them are often seen with Christ apart from the other nine (Matthew 17:1; Mark 5:37; 13:3; 14:33).
The second group includes Philip, Bartholomew, Thomas, and Matthew. Philip’s name always heads that list, but the other three are ordered differently in different places. The third group consists of James, Thaddaeus (or Lebbaeus, also known as Judas, son of James), Simon, and Judas Iscariot. James’s name always heads that list.
So each group seems to have had its unofficial leader. Peter was usually the leader and spokesman for all twelve. Their office and their privileges were equal, but their influence and importance varied according to their gifts and personalities.
Nothing suggests that Peter had a higher office than the others. He certainly is never portrayed as a pope in the Bible. In Acts 15:19, for example, it was James ("the Lord’s brother," according to Galatians 1:19, not one of the Twelve) who announced the Jerusalem Council’s decision, even though Peter was present and testified. And in Antioch, the apostle Paul withstood Peter "to his face, because he was to be blamed" when he compromised with the Judaizers (Galatians 2:11). Peter clearly wielded no more authority and held no higher office than the other twelve, although he plainly was the strongest leader in the group. As noted, Peter and John together dominate the early chapters of Acts. But Peter was always the spokesman and preacher. John, of course, had equal authority, and (partly because he lived longer) he wrote more of the New Testament than Peter, including the gospel that bears his name, three epistles, and Revelation. But when John and Peter were together, Peter always did the speaking. Likewise, although Barnabas obviously had remarkable teaching gifts, Paul was always the dominant member of that duo.
It should be apparent, then, that the biblical concept of team leadership does not demand an artificial or absolute equality. There’s nothing wrong, in other words, with a church’s appointing a senior pastor, or a pastor-teacher. Those who claim otherwise have misunderstood the biblical approach to plural leadership.
Still, the undeniable biblical pattern is for multiple elders, team leadership, and shared responsibility—never one-man rule. And leadership by a plurality of godly men has several strong advantages. Proverbs 11:14 says, "Where there is no counsel, the people fall; but in the multitude of counselors there is safety." The sharing of the leadership burden also increases accountability and helps ensure that the decisions of leadership are not self-willed or self-serving.
One-man leadership and autocratic rule are the hallmarks of cults and false religions. Although well-suited for men like Diotrephes, who loved to have the preeminence (3 John 9), it is not the proper model for a biblical church.
It is fitting, therefore, that when the apostles first appointed subordinate leaders in the Jerusalem church, they appointed a team of seven.
Priority
The burden of personal need in the Jerusalem church had grown to such proportions that the Twelve, in order to serve everyone, had to "leave the word of God" (Acts 6:2). In other words, they had out of sheer pragmatic necessity been forced to curtail the time they spent studying and proclaiming the Scriptures. Even so, they still weren’t able to manage the distribution process well enough to keep everyone happy. They knew they needed to delegate the task to others who could oversee that task and better organize the process. They understood something with which every wise leader has to come to grips, sooner rather than later: You simply cannot do everything yourself. A leader knows how to delegate.
It is simply not wise leadership to try to manage everything with hands-on oversight. Leaders who take that approach invariably frustrate their people by micromanaging, and they sabotage their own effectiveness by getting bogged down in details. A few things demand your hands-on attention, but good leadership demands that you delegate the rest. There is no other way to get all the work done and keep your attention on your priorities.
Moses learned the art of delegation from his father-in-law. Exodus 18:14 says, "When Moses’ father-in-law saw all that he did for the people, he said, ‘What is this thing that you are doing for the people? Why do you alone sit, and all the people stand before you from morning until evening?’"
Moses explained that people came to him to settle all their disputes. "When they have a difficulty, they come to me, and I judge between one and another; and I make known the statutes of God and His laws" (v. 16). So Moses’ father-in-law said to him, "The thing that you do is not good. Both you and these people who are with you will surely wear yourselves out. For this thing is too much for you; you are not able to perform it by yourself. Listen now to my voice; I will give you counsel, and God will be with you: Stand before God for the people, so that you may bring the difficulties to God. And you shall teach them the statutes and the laws, and show them the way in which they must walk and the work they must do. Moreover you shall select from all the people able men, such as fear God, men of truth, hating covetousness; and place such over them to be rulers of thousands, rulers of hundreds, rulers of fifties, and rulers of tens. And let them judge the people at all times. Then it will be that every great matter they shall bring to you, but every small matter they themselves shall judge. So it will be easier for you, for they will bear the burden with you. If you do this thing, and God so commands you, then you will be able to endure, and all this people will also go to their place in peace."
So Moses heeded the voice of his father-in-law and did all that he had said. And Moses chose able men out of all Israel, and made them heads over the people: rulers of thousands, rulers of hundreds, rulers of fifties, and rulers of tens. So they judged the people at all times; the hard cases they brought to Moses, but they judged every small case themselves. (vv. 17–26)
It was a wise strategy, and God blessed it.
When I first came to Grace Community Church, I gathered a group of men who would meet with me on Saturday mornings. We studied principles of church leadership together, and I began delegating tasks to them. As they proved themselves faithful and able, several of them became lay elders in our church. Others saw their ministries develop to the point that we brought them on staff full-time. In that way, for the first decade or more of my ministry here, we developed virtually the entire staff and leadership of our church from within the church itself. That is how ministry is supposed to work: Pastors "[equip] the saints for the work of ministry"(Ephesians 4:12). Paul encouraged Timothy to raise up leaders that way: "The things that you have heard from me among many witnesses, commit these to faithful men who will be able to teach others also" (2 Timothy 2:2). This is one of the chief values of delegation: It helps equip others to lead. The leader who follows that plan will reproduce more leaders.
When you delegate duties to others, remember to delegate only what you are willing to let go of. And then give the people you delegate the freedom to fail. Don’t take back what you have delegated. But teach them when they fail that they need to be quick to learn to make a good second decision. As they learn to do things with excellence, you can delegate more, and do it with confidence.
How do you decide what you are willing to delegate to others? You need to have a clear understanding of your priorities. Your own priorities, not someone else’s emergencies, should determine what you do and what you delegate to others. That is what happened in the Jerusalem church.
Luke wonderfully outlined the hierarchy of priorities embraced by the leaders of the early church. The Twelve said, "It is not desirable that we should leave the word of God and serve tables...but we will give ourselves continually to prayer and to the ministry of the word" (Acts 6:2–4). Notice the three main activities that dominated their energies—prayer, the ministry of the Word of God, and servant ministry—in that order.
Those three activities consumed the apostles’ time and efforts, and they are a pattern for church leaders even today. They perfectly outline the main business of the church, and therefore set the agenda for all church leaders. The order is clear. Servant ministry, while crucial, is not to eclipse prayer and the ministry of the Word.
That simple fact seems lost on many these days. Ask the typical pulpit committee what they are looking for in a pastor, and you can practically guarantee that prayer will not be at the top of the list. Even preaching isn’t always given a very high priority. Submit a list of candidates to the typical church, and they will probably choose the candidate who is the most affable, gregarious, and sociable—someone who is willing to do lots of visitation and host lots of church socials, rather than a man who devotes himself to prayer and study. Others will look for a man with administrative or entrepreneurial talents, because they think of the church like a secular enterprise. The apostolic priorities have thus been eclipsed by other business in too many churches.
Look at these priorities individually:
Prayer
We’re not inclined to think of prayer as work. We tend to think of prayer as inactivity. But it is not. Good praying is hard work, and prayer is the first and most important work of all ministry. All other activities of ministry are utterly futile if not bathed in prayer.
Prayer itself is, after all, an implicit recognition of the sovereignty of God. We know that we cannot change people’s hearts, so we pray for God to do it. We know that it is the Lord who adds to His church, so we pray to Him as Lord of the harvest. We know that "unless the LORD builds the house, they labor in vain who build it; unless the LORD guards the city, the watchman stays awake in vain" (Psalm 127:1).
We can plant, and we can water, but no aspect of ministry can ultimately be fruitful unless God Himself gives the increase (cf. 1 Corinthians3:6–7). Our efforts can never bear fruit unless they are blessed by God. Jesus said, "Without Me you can do nothing" (John 15:5). Since that is true, isn’t it obvious that everything we do ought to be bathed in prayer?
That is why our first and most essential priority is prayer. Paul wrote, "Therefore I exhort first of all that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and giving of thanks be made" (1 Timothy 2:1, emphasis added). We are to "pray without ceasing" (1 Thessalonians 5:17). We’re taught by Scripture to pray earnestly, persistently, frequently, and soberly. Peter said, "The end of all things is at hand; therefore be serious and watchful in your prayers" (1 Peter 4:7). This is the first priority in all our work.
Good praying is hard labor—make no mistake about it. It is hard to stay focused. It is no easy task to intercede for others. But the wise leader will not neglect this first order of business. Nothing, no matter how vital it may seem, is more urgent. And therefore we must not let anything else crowd prayer off our already-busy agendas.
My advice is to start each day with a specific time of prayer. Don’t let interruptions or appointments distract you from your first business. Go to the Lord when your mind is fresh. Prayer is hard enough work without putting it off until your mind is fatigued. Don’t squander your brightest hours doing less important things.
But don’t limit your praying to mornings. "[Pray] always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit, being watchful to this end with all perseverance and supplication for all the saints" (Ephesians 6:18).
The Ministry of the Word
Paul told Timothy, "Preach the word! Be ready in season and out of season. Convince, rebuke, exhort, with all longsuffering and teaching" (2 Timothy4:2). This duty, like prayer, is hard work. Devoting oneself to the ministry of the Word means spending time in study. It is a total commitment. "We will give ourselves continually to prayer and to the ministry of the word" (Acts 6:4, emphasis added).
That may occasionally require the faithful pastor to neglect what seems urgent in order to do what is really essential. That can be difficult, because the demands of ministry and leadership are so great. But we must keep this priority straight.
That is precisely why the apostles saw the need to appoint leaders in a support role. The apostles’ time was being consumed by legitimate, urgent needs in the church. They were spending so much time serving tables that they were neglecting the more essential, higher priorities of prayer and the ministry of the word. Something had to change.
Servant Ministry
Notice that the apostles did not regard the task of serving tables as something that was dispensable. They were not willing to leave the distribution of charity undone. And they were not suggesting that waiting tables was beneath them because they had achieved the rank of apostle. But there was too much work for them to do it all without neglecting their more important duties. And so they appointed men in a support role—men who could serve alongside them to meet all these needs.
This is the whole point of servant leadership. We are servants, leading and training other servants, and the ministry thus becomes a self-perpetuating school for servants. Jesus modeled that kind of discipleship during His earthly life, and He always maintained the perfect balance, never neglecting prayer or the ministry of the Word for the sake of meeting mundane needs, but never letting people’s needs go unmet.
Following their Lord’s own example, the apostles therefore delegated the oversight of the servant ministries to "seven men of good reputation, full of the Holy Spirit and wisdom" (Act 6:3).
Purity
Notice that the men chosen to oversee that vital third priority were chosen for their character and reputation, not because of their social stature, their experience in the business world, their raw abilities, or any of the other criteria churches today often employ in selecting leaders. A lowly slave of unimpeachable character is more suitable for spiritual leadership than a business magnate whose integrity is questionable. A man is qualified for this role because of what he is, not merely because of what he does. The stress is always on character more than ability. Purity, not personality, is the key issue.
Why this high standard? Because whatever the leaders are, the people become. Spiritual leaders set the example for others to follow. As Hosea said, "Like people, like priest" (Hosea 4:9). Jesus said, "Everyone who is perfectly trained will be like his teacher" (Luke 6:40). People will not rise above the spiritual level of their leadership.
The new leaders therefore were to be men of "good reputation" (Acts6:3). Paul said leaders in the church must have a good reputation both inside the church and among unbelievers as well (1 Timothy 3:7).
The men chosen to assist the apostles in leadership also had to be "full of the Holy Spirit and wisdom" (Acts 6:3). That means they had to be controlled by the Holy Spirit (cf. Ephesians 5:18) and men of sober, righteous judgment.
The men who were chosen all had Greek names, suggesting that they were predominantly if not exclusively from the Hellenist community. Nicolas was "a proselyte from Antioch" (Acts 6:5)—a Gentile who had converted to Judaism before becoming a Christian. This was a loving expression of the early church’s unity. In all likelihood, most in the Jerusalem church were Hebrews, and yet they acknowledged the godly leadership of their Hellenistic brethren. Thus a potential rift was healed, and the church got back to business with its priorities in order.
The seven men were set before the apostles, formally ordained, and put to work (v. 6). The apostles devoted themselves anew to prayer and the ministry of the Word. "Then the word of God spread, and the number of the disciples multiplied greatly in Jerusalem, and a great many of the priests were obedient to the faith" (v. 7).
The church’s zeal seems to have been invigorated and its influence expanded by the efficiency of the new organization. After all, it gave the apostles new freedom to do what they were called to do. It unleashed the Word of God. No wonder growth increased exponentially. And the impact of the church’s evangelistic ministry reached right into the temple. A revival broke out among the priests. As a result, many of the very men who had been the most bitter opponents of Christ during His earthly ministry were converted to the Christian faith.
All of this underscores the supreme importance of having the right kind of leaders. Mere talent could never have such a powerful influence. This wasn’t about style or strategy or flowcharts. It was about choosing men of character to lead the people of God, so that the work of the ministry would get done in the right way, by the right people, devoted to the right priorities.
We have come back to our starting point. Leadership is all about character—honor, decency, integrity, faithfulness, holiness, moral purity, and other qualities like these.
All these virtues may be combined and summed up in one final statement. This rounds out and perfectly summarizes every fundamental requirement of a true leader: A leader is Christlike.
The perfect model of true leadership, of course, is the Great Shepherd, Christ Himself. If that does not make you feel the least bit unworthy, you have missed the whole point. With Paul, we ought to say, "Who is sufficient for these things?" (2 Corinthians 2:16).
We already know the answer: "Our sufficiency is from God" (3:5).
These men do not care about the flock they pretend to lead. They only care about hearing people call them by their unearned title. Ask yourself what training they have, how have they prepared and how do they continue to prepare for their calling. Has their ministry and their lives been recognized by their peers? And most of all do their lives live up to their title? This post by John MacArthur will give us the base for our look at this problem.
Remember just because someone calls themself a PASTOR does not mean they have been called by God to that office, and if they have not been called by God to that office then quite frankly the title of pastor does not belong to them.
Pastor Charles J. Paul
If we are to be faithful to the New Testament, we must acknowledge that the Lord has established leaders in His church—pastors and elders. They are the examples of spiritual leadership for all the people, and if they are not exemplary leaders, something is seriously wrong.
The qualifications for elders and church leaders are not just for them. These qualities are especially mandated for them because they set the pattern for all. "Like people, like priest" (Hosea 4:9) What the pastor and elders are to be is the model for all Christians. And the principles that are true of leaders in the church are also good principles for every Christian in any position of leadership to apply.
So we have to look at what God requires of these model leaders in order to know what is ultimately required of every leader.
The reality is that modern society is suffering from a severe shortage of true leaders. The problem is closely related to the dramatic moral decline that has been systematically eating away at the foundations of our culture since (at least) the 1960s. Western society no longer values character—integrity, decency, honor, loyalty, truthfulness, purity, and other virtues. A look at the typical programming on prime-time television instantly shows what the world thinks of such qualities. They have been deposed. In their place, modern society has ensconced new and different values: selfishness, rebellion, rudeness, pro-fane speech, irreverence, licentiousness, intemperance, and almost every kind of decadence. No wonder integrity is so hard to find.
Sadly, in this instance, what is true in the world is also true in the church. This is no secret. I was recently looking at a catalog from a Christian book retailer and noticed how many titles have been published over the past decade dealing with the integrity crisis in Christian leadership. The front cover of the catalog featured a half page of books on the subject. It is clear that there’s a general feeling among Christians that failure is epidemic among their leaders.
Some segments of the visible church seem to have given up trying to find men of integrity to lead them. I recently read an article in the secular newspaper about a well-known pastor who resigned under pressure when his moral and financial improprieties became front-page news in his community. Four hundred people from his church left and started a new congregation so they could call him to be their pastor again. They said they loved the fact that he was so "human." One woman said she felt the scandal had equipped him to be a better pastor.
That is not a unique situation. A few years ago, another prominent pastor who left his church after a sordid sex scandal was immediately hired by one of the largest churches in the country to be part of their teaching staff. Within two weeks after the scandal made national news, he was back to preaching in the pulpit of a megachurch.
Worldly standards are gradually creeping into the church. The prevailing mood in the Christian community today is that no one is ever really disqualified from Christian leadership, but the disgraced leader who is willing to make a public show of remorse ought to be restored to a position of prominence as soon as possible. This means that in some circles, sexual immorality and marital infidelity are no longer deemed disqualifying sins for a pastor. I know of men who have dragged their churches through the grossest kinds of public scandal without missing a single week in the pulpit. Others take a little time off for "rehab" and "counseling," but then resume the leadership role. Sadly, this has become quite commonplace, because many in the church have responded to the leadership crisis by lowering expectations of their leaders.
How far we have come from the New Testament standard! Notice that in every list of qualifications the apostle Paul gave for church leaders, the first and most indispensable qualification for men in leadership was that they be "blameless" (1 Timothy 3:2, 10; Titus 1:6–7). Paul employed a Greek word that means "above reproach"—inculpable, unblemished, irreprehensible. Literally, it means "not subject to accusation." The term does not speak of sinlessness, of course, or no one would qualify (1 John 1:8). It does not disqualify people from leadership on the basis of sins they committed before conversion, or Paul himself would have been disqualified (1 Timothy 1:12–16). But it describes a person whose Christian testimony is free from the taint of scandal—someone who is upright, sound in character, and without any serious moral blemish. Simply put, it means leaders must have a reputation for unimpeachable integrity.
The early church held leaders to the highest moral and ethical standards. Nowhere is that more clear in Scripture than Acts 6, where Luke recorded how the first leaders were marked out and chosen by their fellow believers to assist the work of the apostles.
Of course, Christ Himself had already chosen and appointed the apostles (John 15:16). But remember that at Pentecost alone, three thousand people were added to the church (Acts 2:41). Another five thousand men (and presumably many more from their families) were added in Acts 4:4. Since we know that many were being added to the church daily, it appears the church in Jerusalem quickly grew to include at least ten thousand believers (and very likely more than twice that). Obviously, the time soon came when the responsibilities of leadership in the church were more than twelve apostles could handle.
Someone once said that Christians become very unchristian when they get organized. Sometimes that seems true. But Acts 6 reveals how things ought to be in the church.
Obviously, the early church was having a major impact on the Jewish community in Jerusalem. Multitudes were coming to faith in Jesus Christ. An amazing spirit of love and harmony existed among the Christians. Because so many in first-century Jerusalem were dispossessed and transient people, the community of believers "had all things in common, and sold their possessions and goods, and divided them among all, as anyone had need. So continuing daily with one accord in the temple, and breaking bread from house to house, they ate their food with gladness and simplicity of heart" (Acts 2:44–46).
The first hint of any controversy in the church comes in Acts 6:1, where Luke wrote, "Now in those days, when the number of the disciples was multiplying, there arose a complaint against the Hebrews by the Hellenists, because their widows were neglected in the daily distribution."
There were two groups of people in the early church. Since the church began in Jerusalem, practically all the early believers were Jewish. But some were Hebrews, and some were Hellenists. The Hebrews spoke Aramaic, a derivative of Hebrew. Most of them were native-born Judeans. The Hellenists were Jews who had adopted the Greek language and Greek lifestyle. Most of them were from Asia Minor, North Africa, and diverse places throughout the Roman Empire. But they remained loyal to the Jewish religion and returned en masse to Jerusalem every year for Passover season and Pentecost.
Many who were converted under Peter’s preaching at Pentecost were therefore Hellenists. Many of them apparently remained in Jerusalem to become part of the Christian community. One of the main practical reasons the early church became such a caring and sharing body was the necessity of meeting the collective needs of this massive immigrant community.
Obviously, with so many believers from two major strains of culture, people would tend to associate with their own language group. Moreover, the Hebrews had been brought up to regard Hellenistic Jews with a degree of suspicion, because they felt they had been polluted by alien culture. The apostle Paul said that in his pre-conversion life, one of the things he took pride in was that he was "a Hebrew of the Hebrews"(Philippians 3:5)—not a Hellenistic Jew. Although he had been born in Tarsus, in Cilicia (a Gentile nation), he had been brought up in Jerusalem, at the feet of Gamaliel, a strict Pharisee and Hebrew rabbi. The Hebrews tended to think the Hellenists were not true Jews, because they had not remained loyal to the land and the traditions of Israel. So in that cultural friction lay the makings of a potentially serious conflict.
"The daily distribution" refers to the apostles’ practice of dispensing food, money, and other resources to those in need (Acts 4:35), especially widows. The Grecian Jews were no doubt in the minority, and Luke said some of them began to feel the needs of the widows in their group were being neglected.
Obviously, a complaint like that can easily become a wedge that splits the church. As any church leader will testify, no matter how petty such murmuring may appear, it always has the potential for great mischief. In this case, it may have been true that some of the Grecian widows were being overlooked. Obviously, it wasn’t intentional, but the situation needed to be corrected.
So the apostles responded quickly. Luke described what happened:
The twelve summoned the multitude of the disciples and said, "It is not desirable that we should leave the word of God and serve tables. Therefore, brethren, seek out from among you seven men of good reputation, full of the Holy Spirit and wisdom, whom we may appoint over this business; but we will give ourselves continually to prayer and to the ministry of the word." And the saying pleased the whole multitude. And they chose Stephen, a man full of faith and the Holy Spirit, and Philip, Prochorus, Nicanor, Timon, Parmenas, and Nicolas, a proselyte from Antioch, whom they set before the apostles; and when they had prayed, they laid hands on them. Then the word of God spread, and the number of the disciples multiplied greatly in Jerusalem, and a great many of the priests were obedient to the faith. (Acts 6:2–7)
The church had become too big for twelve leaders. Such a large community desperately needed more oversight and more organization. So the apostles proposed a plan for the people themselves to appoint godly men with outstanding reputations to come alongside and "serve tables," meaning that these men would now oversee the distribution of food and funds to those in need.
Seven men were to be singled out to serve in a subordinate leadership role. They were appointed to serve, which is normally the role of a deacon, and for that reason, commentators sometimes refer to them as the first deacons. But notice that the text does not call them deacons. At least two of them, Stephen and Philip, were also preachers, which is a role more associated with elders than with deacons (1 Timothy 3:2; Titus 1:9). Of course, they’re not called elders, either. This was so early in the formulation of the church that those offices did not even exist yet. When the apostle Paul listed the qualifications for deacons and elders in 1 Timothy 3, the only significant difference between the two offices was that elders must be gifted to teach. Elders are given the teaching authority in the church, and deacons serve under them in a support role, much the way these seven men in Acts 6 were appointed to do under the apostles.
In many churches, the deaconate is somewhat of a training ground for elders. It is not uncommon in the church I pastor for deacons to become elders as they develop their skill in teaching and their ability to handle the Word. That process began here in Acts 6. As these seven men proved themselves faithful in serving, at least some of them, like Philip and Stephen, also developed skill as teachers. No doubt some of them later stepped into even greater roles of leadership as the apostles were martyred or moved on to take the gospel message to the remotest parts of the earth. As they proved their faithfulness and assumed greater leadership roles, new servant leaders would have been appointed to serve alongside them. Eventually, the teaching role was designated as the office of an elder, and the servant role was assigned to officers called deacons.
So what we see in Acts 6 are the rudimentary beginnings of church organization. The separate offices of elders and deacons are foreshadowed in this event, but they were not yet clearly defined.
From this passage, however, we learn much about how the church is to be organized and what kind of leaders ought to have oversight. At least three principles emerge that continue to set the standard for all leaders in the church. Notice the plurality of leadership that was prescribed; the priority that was recognized as leadership’s first duty; and the standard of purity that was demanded of those who were appointed. We will examine each of these closely, because they establish principles that apply to spiritual leaders of all kinds.
Plurality
The clear New Testament pattern for church government is a plurality of God-ordained men who lead the people of God together. The church is not to be led by dictators, autocrats, or solitary rulers. From the beginning, oversight was shared by twelve apostles, and we see here that when they appointed subordinate leaders, those men also functioned as a team.
When Paul and Barnabas founded churches in Asia Minor, Luke said they "appointed elders in every church" (Acts 14:23). Paul likewise instructed Titus to "appoint elders in every city as I commanded you"(Titus 1:5). At the end of Paul’s third missionary journey, "he sent to Ephesus and called for the elders of the church" (Acts 20:17). In Jerusalem, Paul met with "James, and all the elders" (Acts 21:18). Virtually every time elders are spoken of in Scripture in connection with a church, the noun is plural, clearly indicating that the standard practice in the New Testament was for multiple elders to oversee each church.
Every ministry described in the New Testament was a team effort. Jesus called twelve disciples. After Judas’s betrayal and suicide, Matthias was chosen to take his place (Acts 1:16–26). Those twelve as apostles obviously shared oversight in the founding and early ministry of the Jerusalem church. When they began to take the gospel to "all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth" (Acts 1:8), they did so in teams (Acts 15:22–27; Galatians 2:9).
Peter and John together dominate the first twelve chapters of Acts. The focus shifts to Paul and Barnabas in Acts 13. Then Barnabas went with Mark, and Paul went with Silas at the end of Acts 15. Timothy joined Paul and Silas in Acts 16. When Paul returned to Antioch in Acts 18, he took Aquila and Priscilla along. As we have seen, Paul even took Luke and Aristarchus with him on his journey to Rome, although he was a prisoner of the Roman government at the time. A comprehensive list of all Paul’s various companions and fellow ministers would fill a page or more.
In other words, ministry as depicted in the New Testament was never a one-man show. That does not preclude the role of a dominant leader on each team. Within the framework of plurality, there will invariably be those who have more influence. The diversity of our gifts (1 Corinthians 12:4) means all people are differently equipped. Therefore a plurality of leaders does not necessitate an absolute equality in every function. In even the most godly group of leaders, some will naturally be more influential than others. Some will have teaching gifts that outshine the rest. Others will be more gifted as administrators. Each can fulfill a different role, and there is no need to try to enforce absolute equality of function.
The Twelve, for example, are always listed in similar order in Scripture (Matthew 10:2–4; Mark 3:16–19; Luke 6:14–16; Acts 1:13). They seem to divide naturally into four groups. The first four names listed are always Peter, James, John, and Andrew. Peter’s name always heads the list, and the other three are listed in varying order. Those four dominate the gospel narratives, and three of them are often seen with Christ apart from the other nine (Matthew 17:1; Mark 5:37; 13:3; 14:33).
The second group includes Philip, Bartholomew, Thomas, and Matthew. Philip’s name always heads that list, but the other three are ordered differently in different places. The third group consists of James, Thaddaeus (or Lebbaeus, also known as Judas, son of James), Simon, and Judas Iscariot. James’s name always heads that list.
So each group seems to have had its unofficial leader. Peter was usually the leader and spokesman for all twelve. Their office and their privileges were equal, but their influence and importance varied according to their gifts and personalities.
Nothing suggests that Peter had a higher office than the others. He certainly is never portrayed as a pope in the Bible. In Acts 15:19, for example, it was James ("the Lord’s brother," according to Galatians 1:19, not one of the Twelve) who announced the Jerusalem Council’s decision, even though Peter was present and testified. And in Antioch, the apostle Paul withstood Peter "to his face, because he was to be blamed" when he compromised with the Judaizers (Galatians 2:11). Peter clearly wielded no more authority and held no higher office than the other twelve, although he plainly was the strongest leader in the group. As noted, Peter and John together dominate the early chapters of Acts. But Peter was always the spokesman and preacher. John, of course, had equal authority, and (partly because he lived longer) he wrote more of the New Testament than Peter, including the gospel that bears his name, three epistles, and Revelation. But when John and Peter were together, Peter always did the speaking. Likewise, although Barnabas obviously had remarkable teaching gifts, Paul was always the dominant member of that duo.
It should be apparent, then, that the biblical concept of team leadership does not demand an artificial or absolute equality. There’s nothing wrong, in other words, with a church’s appointing a senior pastor, or a pastor-teacher. Those who claim otherwise have misunderstood the biblical approach to plural leadership.
Still, the undeniable biblical pattern is for multiple elders, team leadership, and shared responsibility—never one-man rule. And leadership by a plurality of godly men has several strong advantages. Proverbs 11:14 says, "Where there is no counsel, the people fall; but in the multitude of counselors there is safety." The sharing of the leadership burden also increases accountability and helps ensure that the decisions of leadership are not self-willed or self-serving.
One-man leadership and autocratic rule are the hallmarks of cults and false religions. Although well-suited for men like Diotrephes, who loved to have the preeminence (3 John 9), it is not the proper model for a biblical church.
It is fitting, therefore, that when the apostles first appointed subordinate leaders in the Jerusalem church, they appointed a team of seven.
Priority
The burden of personal need in the Jerusalem church had grown to such proportions that the Twelve, in order to serve everyone, had to "leave the word of God" (Acts 6:2). In other words, they had out of sheer pragmatic necessity been forced to curtail the time they spent studying and proclaiming the Scriptures. Even so, they still weren’t able to manage the distribution process well enough to keep everyone happy. They knew they needed to delegate the task to others who could oversee that task and better organize the process. They understood something with which every wise leader has to come to grips, sooner rather than later: You simply cannot do everything yourself. A leader knows how to delegate.
It is simply not wise leadership to try to manage everything with hands-on oversight. Leaders who take that approach invariably frustrate their people by micromanaging, and they sabotage their own effectiveness by getting bogged down in details. A few things demand your hands-on attention, but good leadership demands that you delegate the rest. There is no other way to get all the work done and keep your attention on your priorities.
Moses learned the art of delegation from his father-in-law. Exodus 18:14 says, "When Moses’ father-in-law saw all that he did for the people, he said, ‘What is this thing that you are doing for the people? Why do you alone sit, and all the people stand before you from morning until evening?’"
Moses explained that people came to him to settle all their disputes. "When they have a difficulty, they come to me, and I judge between one and another; and I make known the statutes of God and His laws" (v. 16). So Moses’ father-in-law said to him, "The thing that you do is not good. Both you and these people who are with you will surely wear yourselves out. For this thing is too much for you; you are not able to perform it by yourself. Listen now to my voice; I will give you counsel, and God will be with you: Stand before God for the people, so that you may bring the difficulties to God. And you shall teach them the statutes and the laws, and show them the way in which they must walk and the work they must do. Moreover you shall select from all the people able men, such as fear God, men of truth, hating covetousness; and place such over them to be rulers of thousands, rulers of hundreds, rulers of fifties, and rulers of tens. And let them judge the people at all times. Then it will be that every great matter they shall bring to you, but every small matter they themselves shall judge. So it will be easier for you, for they will bear the burden with you. If you do this thing, and God so commands you, then you will be able to endure, and all this people will also go to their place in peace."
So Moses heeded the voice of his father-in-law and did all that he had said. And Moses chose able men out of all Israel, and made them heads over the people: rulers of thousands, rulers of hundreds, rulers of fifties, and rulers of tens. So they judged the people at all times; the hard cases they brought to Moses, but they judged every small case themselves. (vv. 17–26)
It was a wise strategy, and God blessed it.
When I first came to Grace Community Church, I gathered a group of men who would meet with me on Saturday mornings. We studied principles of church leadership together, and I began delegating tasks to them. As they proved themselves faithful and able, several of them became lay elders in our church. Others saw their ministries develop to the point that we brought them on staff full-time. In that way, for the first decade or more of my ministry here, we developed virtually the entire staff and leadership of our church from within the church itself. That is how ministry is supposed to work: Pastors "[equip] the saints for the work of ministry"(Ephesians 4:12). Paul encouraged Timothy to raise up leaders that way: "The things that you have heard from me among many witnesses, commit these to faithful men who will be able to teach others also" (2 Timothy 2:2). This is one of the chief values of delegation: It helps equip others to lead. The leader who follows that plan will reproduce more leaders.
When you delegate duties to others, remember to delegate only what you are willing to let go of. And then give the people you delegate the freedom to fail. Don’t take back what you have delegated. But teach them when they fail that they need to be quick to learn to make a good second decision. As they learn to do things with excellence, you can delegate more, and do it with confidence.
How do you decide what you are willing to delegate to others? You need to have a clear understanding of your priorities. Your own priorities, not someone else’s emergencies, should determine what you do and what you delegate to others. That is what happened in the Jerusalem church.
Luke wonderfully outlined the hierarchy of priorities embraced by the leaders of the early church. The Twelve said, "It is not desirable that we should leave the word of God and serve tables...but we will give ourselves continually to prayer and to the ministry of the word" (Acts 6:2–4). Notice the three main activities that dominated their energies—prayer, the ministry of the Word of God, and servant ministry—in that order.
Those three activities consumed the apostles’ time and efforts, and they are a pattern for church leaders even today. They perfectly outline the main business of the church, and therefore set the agenda for all church leaders. The order is clear. Servant ministry, while crucial, is not to eclipse prayer and the ministry of the Word.
That simple fact seems lost on many these days. Ask the typical pulpit committee what they are looking for in a pastor, and you can practically guarantee that prayer will not be at the top of the list. Even preaching isn’t always given a very high priority. Submit a list of candidates to the typical church, and they will probably choose the candidate who is the most affable, gregarious, and sociable—someone who is willing to do lots of visitation and host lots of church socials, rather than a man who devotes himself to prayer and study. Others will look for a man with administrative or entrepreneurial talents, because they think of the church like a secular enterprise. The apostolic priorities have thus been eclipsed by other business in too many churches.
Look at these priorities individually:
Prayer
We’re not inclined to think of prayer as work. We tend to think of prayer as inactivity. But it is not. Good praying is hard work, and prayer is the first and most important work of all ministry. All other activities of ministry are utterly futile if not bathed in prayer.
Prayer itself is, after all, an implicit recognition of the sovereignty of God. We know that we cannot change people’s hearts, so we pray for God to do it. We know that it is the Lord who adds to His church, so we pray to Him as Lord of the harvest. We know that "unless the LORD builds the house, they labor in vain who build it; unless the LORD guards the city, the watchman stays awake in vain" (Psalm 127:1).
We can plant, and we can water, but no aspect of ministry can ultimately be fruitful unless God Himself gives the increase (cf. 1 Corinthians3:6–7). Our efforts can never bear fruit unless they are blessed by God. Jesus said, "Without Me you can do nothing" (John 15:5). Since that is true, isn’t it obvious that everything we do ought to be bathed in prayer?
That is why our first and most essential priority is prayer. Paul wrote, "Therefore I exhort first of all that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and giving of thanks be made" (1 Timothy 2:1, emphasis added). We are to "pray without ceasing" (1 Thessalonians 5:17). We’re taught by Scripture to pray earnestly, persistently, frequently, and soberly. Peter said, "The end of all things is at hand; therefore be serious and watchful in your prayers" (1 Peter 4:7). This is the first priority in all our work.
Good praying is hard labor—make no mistake about it. It is hard to stay focused. It is no easy task to intercede for others. But the wise leader will not neglect this first order of business. Nothing, no matter how vital it may seem, is more urgent. And therefore we must not let anything else crowd prayer off our already-busy agendas.
My advice is to start each day with a specific time of prayer. Don’t let interruptions or appointments distract you from your first business. Go to the Lord when your mind is fresh. Prayer is hard enough work without putting it off until your mind is fatigued. Don’t squander your brightest hours doing less important things.
But don’t limit your praying to mornings. "[Pray] always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit, being watchful to this end with all perseverance and supplication for all the saints" (Ephesians 6:18).
The Ministry of the Word
Paul told Timothy, "Preach the word! Be ready in season and out of season. Convince, rebuke, exhort, with all longsuffering and teaching" (2 Timothy4:2). This duty, like prayer, is hard work. Devoting oneself to the ministry of the Word means spending time in study. It is a total commitment. "We will give ourselves continually to prayer and to the ministry of the word" (Acts 6:4, emphasis added).
That may occasionally require the faithful pastor to neglect what seems urgent in order to do what is really essential. That can be difficult, because the demands of ministry and leadership are so great. But we must keep this priority straight.
That is precisely why the apostles saw the need to appoint leaders in a support role. The apostles’ time was being consumed by legitimate, urgent needs in the church. They were spending so much time serving tables that they were neglecting the more essential, higher priorities of prayer and the ministry of the word. Something had to change.
Servant Ministry
Notice that the apostles did not regard the task of serving tables as something that was dispensable. They were not willing to leave the distribution of charity undone. And they were not suggesting that waiting tables was beneath them because they had achieved the rank of apostle. But there was too much work for them to do it all without neglecting their more important duties. And so they appointed men in a support role—men who could serve alongside them to meet all these needs.
This is the whole point of servant leadership. We are servants, leading and training other servants, and the ministry thus becomes a self-perpetuating school for servants. Jesus modeled that kind of discipleship during His earthly life, and He always maintained the perfect balance, never neglecting prayer or the ministry of the Word for the sake of meeting mundane needs, but never letting people’s needs go unmet.
Following their Lord’s own example, the apostles therefore delegated the oversight of the servant ministries to "seven men of good reputation, full of the Holy Spirit and wisdom" (Act 6:3).
Purity
Notice that the men chosen to oversee that vital third priority were chosen for their character and reputation, not because of their social stature, their experience in the business world, their raw abilities, or any of the other criteria churches today often employ in selecting leaders. A lowly slave of unimpeachable character is more suitable for spiritual leadership than a business magnate whose integrity is questionable. A man is qualified for this role because of what he is, not merely because of what he does. The stress is always on character more than ability. Purity, not personality, is the key issue.
Why this high standard? Because whatever the leaders are, the people become. Spiritual leaders set the example for others to follow. As Hosea said, "Like people, like priest" (Hosea 4:9). Jesus said, "Everyone who is perfectly trained will be like his teacher" (Luke 6:40). People will not rise above the spiritual level of their leadership.
The new leaders therefore were to be men of "good reputation" (Acts6:3). Paul said leaders in the church must have a good reputation both inside the church and among unbelievers as well (1 Timothy 3:7).
The men chosen to assist the apostles in leadership also had to be "full of the Holy Spirit and wisdom" (Acts 6:3). That means they had to be controlled by the Holy Spirit (cf. Ephesians 5:18) and men of sober, righteous judgment.
The men who were chosen all had Greek names, suggesting that they were predominantly if not exclusively from the Hellenist community. Nicolas was "a proselyte from Antioch" (Acts 6:5)—a Gentile who had converted to Judaism before becoming a Christian. This was a loving expression of the early church’s unity. In all likelihood, most in the Jerusalem church were Hebrews, and yet they acknowledged the godly leadership of their Hellenistic brethren. Thus a potential rift was healed, and the church got back to business with its priorities in order.
The seven men were set before the apostles, formally ordained, and put to work (v. 6). The apostles devoted themselves anew to prayer and the ministry of the Word. "Then the word of God spread, and the number of the disciples multiplied greatly in Jerusalem, and a great many of the priests were obedient to the faith" (v. 7).
The church’s zeal seems to have been invigorated and its influence expanded by the efficiency of the new organization. After all, it gave the apostles new freedom to do what they were called to do. It unleashed the Word of God. No wonder growth increased exponentially. And the impact of the church’s evangelistic ministry reached right into the temple. A revival broke out among the priests. As a result, many of the very men who had been the most bitter opponents of Christ during His earthly ministry were converted to the Christian faith.
All of this underscores the supreme importance of having the right kind of leaders. Mere talent could never have such a powerful influence. This wasn’t about style or strategy or flowcharts. It was about choosing men of character to lead the people of God, so that the work of the ministry would get done in the right way, by the right people, devoted to the right priorities.
We have come back to our starting point. Leadership is all about character—honor, decency, integrity, faithfulness, holiness, moral purity, and other qualities like these.
All these virtues may be combined and summed up in one final statement. This rounds out and perfectly summarizes every fundamental requirement of a true leader: A leader is Christlike.
The perfect model of true leadership, of course, is the Great Shepherd, Christ Himself. If that does not make you feel the least bit unworthy, you have missed the whole point. With Paul, we ought to say, "Who is sufficient for these things?" (2 Corinthians 2:16).
We already know the answer: "Our sufficiency is from God" (3:5).
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