Category: Gospel

A Product of American Thinking

American culture has too much of a hold upon our thinking and is the lens through which we understand Scripture, and more specifically, how we understand Church Membership. This is one reason you will hear objections to Church Membership like:

In the New Testament there was no such thing as church membership.
There is no explicit command for Church Membership.

When Christians live in hostile areas (hostile towards Christianity), mere identification with a local body of believers essentially places a death warrant upon those people.

Baptism is a public affair. It is a public identification with Christ and His people. When a person trusts Christ in faith, Baptism becomes the first real step of obedience to God and is the expression of faith in Christ, publicly.

Due to the public nature of baptism, baptism itself becomes Church Membership in many parts of the world. Due to persecution, you know with whom you are covenanting together to disciple, exhort unto love and good works, and even die with.

America is not a country that is hostile toward Christianity, at least, not in the life-threatening variety. There needs to be a level of accountability and covenantal commitment that American Christians do not typically pursue.

Widows Indeed

“Let a widow be enrolled if she is not less than sixty years of age, having been the wife of one husband, and having a reputation for good works: if she has brought up children, has shown hospitality, has washed the feet of the saints, has cared for the afflicted, and has devoted herself to every good work. But refuse to enroll younger widows, for when their passions draw them away from Christ, they desire to marry and so incur condemnation for having abandoned their former faith. Besides that, they learn to be idlers, going about from house to house, and not only idlers, but also gossips and busybodies, saying what they should not. So I would have younger widows marry, bear children, manage their households, and give the adversary no occasion for slander. For some have already strayed after Satan. If any believing woman has relatives who are widows, let her care for them. Let the church not be burdened, so that it may care for those who are truly widows” (1 Timothy 5:9-16 ESV).

Why am I bringing up widows in a discussion of Church Membership?

Notice the phrase, “But refuse to enroll younger widows.” What does “enroll” mean? It means, they have some kind of formal list of women who are widows. It means they formally keep track of who the widows are within the local body of believers, in the local church. And if someone does not meet the specific requirements, as laid out by Paul, they must be refused from being enrolled in this ministry.

If a formal list was created for a specific ministry within the local church in the first century, how much more would they have a formal list of members?

Church Cohabitation

The New York Times published an article called The Downside of Cohabiting Before Marriage.

The articles explains people,

believed that moving in together before marriage was a good way to avoid divorce. But that belief is contradicted by experience. Couples who cohabit before marriage (and especially before an engagement or an otherwise clear commitment) tend to be less satisfied with their marriages — and more likely to divorce — than couples who do not. These negative outcomes are called the cohabitation effect.”

Likewise, American Christians don’t like formal commitment before long term attendance at a church. I am not denouncing checking out a church a few times to see if it lines up with biblical expressions of a church, if indeed, you are blessed to live in an area where you have a choice of many churches.

I am speaking to long term commitment to a church. If you have found a church with whom you will meet long term, formal commitment should be required. Otherwise, I’m afraid, we’re promoting Church Cohabitation. How many people leave a church because certain things are not done “their way”? I’m not talking about biblical issues and clear sin issues, but personal preference issues? More times than not, they were not members in the first place.

Leaders Giving Account

Hebrews 13:17 makes an interesting statement: “Obey your leaders and submit to them, for they are keeping watch over your souls, as those who will have to give an account. Let them do this with joy and not with groaning, for that would be of no advantage to you.”

Question: Without formal church membership, for whom will your Pastors give account? Everyone who darkens the doorway of your church?

Church Discipline

Without formal church membership, how can you avail yourself to the hard grace of Church Discipline? How can a local church take action against an offending brother or sister from a local church with whom s/he has not covenantally committed him/herself?

“The discipline of the church is first patterned after the fact that the Lord Himself disciplines His children (Hebrews 12:6) and, as a father delegates part of the discipline of the children to the mother, so the Lord has delegated the discipline of the church family to the church itself (1 Corinthians 5:12-13; 2 Corinthians 2:6).” See this study on Church Discipline for more reading.

As God the Father knows the names of His children, so likewise, the local church should know the names of those who have covenantally committed themselves to it.

This concludes our study on Church Membership. To be honest, I cannot see how the conclusion of this study cannot be formal church membership.

For previous articles on Why Church Membership? see below:
Why Church Membership? Living the Gospel in Practice
Why Church Membership? Humility
Why Church Membership? Accountability
Why Church Membership? The Gospel
Why Church Membership? Our Leaders
Why Church Membership? Fellowship
Why Church Membership? Being Set Apart
Why Church Membership? Church Discipline

This new series highlights organizations that, in my estimation, are on the frontlines of mercy ministries, but not just any mercy ministries. They are ministries focusing on orphan care. They’ve taken James 1:27 to heart.

What is Sixty Feet?

Sixty Feet is an action-based organization created
to bring hope and restoration to the imprisoned children of Africa in Jesus’ name. We are not referring to a figurative prison of poverty or circumstance, but real places, with real bars.

At the turn of the 20th century, Winston Churchill described Uganda as “the Pearl of Africa”. He was illustrating the beauty of the land. Indeed, in this lush African country, there is no shortage of water. Yet much of the water in Uganda is polluted. Experts tell us, often less than 60 feet down, they find crystal clear, clean water that changes these peoples’ lives forever.

Less than sixty feet below the dusty little feet of these orphans is the purest water they could ever drink…waiting for the children… just out of their reach.
For us this is not even close to being just about water. We have big dreams for these children that if we told you, you might think we are crazy. We know God loves these orphan children at “M”. Everything does seem just out of their reach, but we are doing something about it.

It doesn’t take much to go sixty feet.

Sixty Feet is about changing lives forever.

Meeting Needs from Sixty Feet on Vimeo.

This first article on the subject of Israel is Dispensationalism’s critique of “the Israel of God” as a simple term descibing the believing church of the present age.

“In spite of overwhelming evidence to the contrary, there remains persistent support for the contention that the term Israel may refer properly to Gentile believers in the present age . . . .the primary support is found in Galatians 6:16 . . .

I cannot help but think that dogmatic considerations loom large in the interpretation of Galatians 6:16. The tenacity with which this application of ‘the Israel of God’ to the church is held in spite of a mass of evidence to the contrary leads one to think that the supporters of the view believe their eschatological system, usually an amillennial scheme, hangs on the reference of the term to the people of God, composed of both believing Jews and Gentiles. Amillennialism does not hang on this interpretation, but the view does appear to have a treasured place in amillennial exegesis.

In speaking of the view that the term refers to ethnic Israel, a sense that the term Israel has in every other of its more than sixty-five uses in the New Testament and in its fifteen uses in Paul, in tones almost emotional William Hendriksen, the respected Reformed commentator, writes, ‘I refuse to accept that explanation.’

What I am leading up to is expressed neatly by D. W. B. Robinson in an article written about twenty years ago: ‘The glib citing of Galatains 6:16 to support the view that ‘the church is the new Israel’ should be vigorously challenged. There is weighty support for a limited interpretation.’ We can say more than this, in my opinion. There is more than weighty support for a more limited interpretation. There is overwhelming support for such. In fact, the least likely view among several alternatives is the view that ‘the Israel of God’ is the church.” [Toussaint and Dyer, Pentecost Essays, “Paul and ‘The Israel of God’: An Exegetical and Eschatological Case-Study” by S.Lewis Johnson, pp. 181-182. Quoted in William Hendriksen, Exposition of Galatians, New Testament Commentary (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1868), p. 247, and D. W. B. Robinson, “The Distinction Between Jewish and Gentile Believers in Galatians,” Australian Biblical Review 13 (1965): 29-48.]

Johnson rejects the claim that “‘the Israel of God’ is simply a term descriptive of the believing church of the present age . . . . The Israel of God is the body who shall walk by the rule of the new creation, and they include believing people from the two ethnic bodies of Jews and Gentiles [Ibid., p. 183].

the claim that the kai . . . before the term ‘the Israel of God’ is an explicative or appositional kai; . . .and the claim that if one sees the term ‘the Israel of God’ a believing ethnic Israel, they would be included in the preceding clause, ‘And those who will walk by this rule, peace and mercy be upon them'” [Ibid., p. 184].

Rejection on Three Grounds: Grammatical and Syntactical

The first is for grammatical and syntactical reasons for which there are two [Ibid., pp. 187-188]. The first is that this view must resort to a secondary or lesser meaning of kai:

“It is necessary to begin this part of the discussion with a reminder of a basic, but often neglected, hermeneutical principle. It is this: “in the absence of compelling exegetical and theological considerations, we should avoid the rarer grammatical usages when the common ones make good sense” [Ibid., p. 187].

“Because the latter usage serves well the view that the term ‘the Israel of God’ is the church, the dogmatic concern overcame grammatical usage. An extremely rare usage has been made to replace the common usage, even in spite of the fact that the common and frequent usage of ‘and’ (kai) makes perfectly good sense in Galatians 6:16″ [Ibid., p. 188].

Second, Johnson points out that if Paul’s intention was to identify the ‘them’ as being the ‘Israel of God,’ then the best way of showing this was to eliminate the kai altogether. As shown earlier, this was exactly what Hendriksen wanted to do by leaving kai untranslated. The very presence of the kai argues against the ‘them’ being ‘the Israel of God.’ As Johnson notes, “Paul, however, did not eliminate the kai” [Ibid., p. 188].

Rejection on Three Grounds: Exegetical

Concerning usage, Johnson states:

“From the standpoint of biblical usage this view stands condemned. There is no instance in biblical literature of the term Israel being used in the sense of the church, or the people of God as composed of both believing ethnic Jews and Gentiles. Nor, on the other hand, as one might expect if there were such usage, does the phrase to ethne (KJV, “the Gentiles”) ever mean the non-Christian world specifically, but only the non-Jewish peoples, although such are generally non-Christians. Thus, the usage of the term Israel stands overwhelmingly opposed to the first view.

The usage of the terms Israel and the church in the early chapters of the book of Acts is in complete harmony, for Israel exists there alongside the newly formed church, and the two entities are kept separate in terminology” [Ibid., p. 189].

For those who would cite Romans 9:6 as evidence, Johnson shows that this verse is no support for such a view for the distinction is between Jews who believe and Jews who do not:

“Paul is here speaking only of a division within ethnic Israel. Some of them are believers and thus truly Israel, whereas others, though ethnically Israelites, are not truly Israel, since they are not elect and believing . . . No Gentiles are found in the statement at all” [Ibid., p. 189].

Even many Covenant Theologians have agreed with this view of Romans 9:6 and do not use it to support their view of Galatians 6:16. As for context, Johnson observes:

“On the contrary, the apostle is concerned with correcting the gospel preached to the Galatians by the Judaizers, particularly their false contention that it was necessary to be circumcised to be saved and to observe as Christians certain requirements of the law of Moses in order to remain in divine favor . . . The apostle makes no attempt whatsoever to deny that there is a legitimate distinction of race between Gentile and Jewish believers in the church . . . . There is a remnant of Jewish believers in the church according to the election of grace . . . . This approach fails to see that Paul does not say there is neither Jew nor Greek within the church. He speaks of those who are ‘in Christ.’ . . . But Paul also says there is neither male nor female, nor slave nor free man in Christ. Would he then deny sexual differences within the church? Or the social differences in Paul’s day? Is it not plain that Paul is not speaking of national or ethnic differences in Christ, but of spiritual status? In that sense there is no difference in Christ” [Ibid., p. 190].

Rejection on Three Grounds: Theological

“…[T]here is no historical evidence that the term Israel was identified with the church before A.D. 160. Further, at that date there was no characterization of the church as ‘the Israel of God.’ In other words, for more than a century after Paul there was no evidence of the identification” [Ibid., p. 191].

Johnson’s summary concerning the rejection of this view is:

“To conclude the discussion of the first interpretation, it seems clear that there is little evidence—grammatical, exegetical, or theological—that supports it. On the other hand, there is sound historical evidence against the identification of Israel with believing or unbelieving Gentiles. The grammatical usage of kai is not favorable to the view, nor is the Pauline or New Testament usage of Israel. Finally, . . .the Pauline teaching in Galatians contains a recognition of national distinctions in the one people of God” [Ibid., p. 191].

Why do I believe and promote a Christocentric interpretation of Scripture (both OT & NT) as the primary interpretation?

I will list off a few reasons and only touch on a couple.

1. Christ is the Mediator between God and Man
2. God is Three-in-One (Trinitarian)
3. We can not directly know the Father except through the Son
4. The Father can not be seen except in the Son
5. Jesus is the face of God
6. We can not know how good the Father is without knowing how good the Son is
7. God’s glory demands it

With all of this said (there are other reasons, too), if we see an issue or “fault” with the Christocentric view, it is not an issue with this view but with those whom have not represented it fully enough.

We can not understand the Father without understanding the Son. We can not truly understand passages like Psalm 103 without understanding God from a Trinitarian view with a Christocentric focus. Yes, we understand God is the Good Father, but God is the Good Son and the One can not be Who He is without the Other.

How do we know God is the Good Father? He gave us His Son. How do we know Jesus is the Good Son? Because He obediently submitted Himself as a Servant even unto death, even the death of the cross.

I do not want to cut this short, so I will point you to an earlier article I wrote about some of these issues with relation to Isaiah 6.