A Healthy Church Member Is A Biblical Theologian

One of the greatest lies in modern religious scholarship is the idea that “even if the Bible is historically inaccurate, it still can teach us truth about God.” Fundamentally, this attitude is postmodern to its core; it’s simply a consumeristic “shopping” around the Bible where the reader takes what may be “fashionable” (i.e. the morality of the Sermon on the Mount – well, most of it, anyway) while leaving aside the “unfashionable” stuff (all that creation by word stuff, Jesus’ strange teachings on Hell and stuff, etc.). But I’d like you to think of this claim in two different ways – the two ways that Thabiti tells us to think of biblical theology.

The first problem with the idea that the Bible can teach us truth about God when its history is inaccurate is that the Bible claims differently. Biblical writers such as Paul make the point that “ALL Scripture... is profitable” (2 Timothy 3:16) – not just the ethical and moral content, but all of the Bible’s teaching. By rejecting part or all of the Bible’s history, one is forced to reconstruct the Bible, filling in the resulting “holes” with patches from secular science, or pagan philosophy or other sources. For example: rejecting the Creation account is a double-edged sword – it not only denies that God created the world by his Word the way Genesis describes, but we are by necessity also forced to affirm (explicitly or by implication) that he rather created by means of evolution, or Big Bangs, or some other construct. Another example: rejecting the Bible’s teachings on hell not only positively declares that Jesus did not say that the lost would suffer punishment forever, but it also (either by default or intentionally) results in the affirmation that Jesus must have taught that human beings will all be saved, or that some will cease to exist, or some other alternative.

My point is that rejecting the Bible’s history is not merely cutting a hole in our theology – it results in an attempt to patch it with something else. Or in other words, our theology is no longer biblical, because its source material is not the Bible alone; rather, it becomes a hodgepodge of some “acceptable” biblical content bashed together with unbelieving presuppositions and secular or pagan assumptions. This cannot be avoided, brothers and sisters.

The second problem with the idea is that it destroys any continuity, any consistency, in the biblical account as it unfolds over time. The Bible makes the astounding claim that the God of the universe has revealed himself to real, living, flesh-and-blood human beings in history, in real time and space. Nowhere is this more plain than in God’s ultimate revelation, his Incarnation as Jesus of Nazareth. The Bible makes historical claims not just for trivia, but as part of an unfolding story. It is a great narrative of God’s acts in history, and these acts are for the purpose of revealing God’s character and glory. Denying even parts of this history is tantamount to rejecting God himself, for those historical acts and events reveal God himself and his plan for redemption. The doctrine of the New Creation – something we look toward and long for – is fatally compromised if God did not, in fact, perform his original creation by fiat. If God can’t create by diving Word but only by evolution, we are then left to hope that heaven can somehow “evolve” over time (utopian optimism); or, if God was not really involved in creation at all but rather dwells distantly in the midst of eternal chaos, perhaps heaven is fundamentally and foolishly unattainable and a worthless fairy tale (pessimistic fatalism). God created the way he did for a reason, just as he acted at every other point in history for a reason. And we will never understand him or his purposes if we do not take the Bible alone, and take all of the Bible, as the source material for our theology and how we think about all of life.

So a biblical theology is vital for the Christian life, and an essential part of being a healthy church member. It’s so practical. From age to age, from biblical book to biblical book, God put up with the failings and imperfections of his people and the frustrations of their hypocritical community life; how much more, then, should we forgive and bear with one another? Again and again, from law to the prophets, God made clear that his people are to shelter and provide for the widow and the fatherless and the sojourner; how can we do less than to care for our brothers and sisters in need and welcome the visitor into our midst? This is what Thabiti is talking about as his Mark 2 of a Healthy Church Member.

Things to Watch For As You Read

1. Thabiti’s two meanings of “biblical theology.” Can you put these into your own words?

2. Thabiti’s five benefits of biblical theology. Think of a practical situation or example that would illustrate each!

3. Thabiti’s strategies for becoming a biblical theologian. What are you doing? What might you be neglecting?

Challenge Questions

1. What level of knowledge of the Old Testament might be necessary to become a biblical theologian? What is your familiarity with the Old Testament?

2. Thabiti points out, “Jesus and the apostles did not need the New Testament to proclaim the gospel.” (p. 31). Paul, writing in a time when the Old Testament was virtually the only Scriptures in the church, can say that “all Scripture” is “profitable” to make a believer “equipped for EVERY good work” of ministry. Here’s a question: could you explain the Gospel using NOTHING but Old Testament texts? Have you ever tried? Why not write out an explanation of the Gospel, and an overview of the whole Bible’s story, using nothing but Old Testament texts, prophecies, illustrations?

3. Have you ever chased a theme through the Scriptures? Try this. What theme is revealed and developed and unfolded as you follow the following texts: Genesis 3:21; Genesis 22; Exodus 12; Leviticus 5; Leviticus 16 (look at verse 21!); Isaiah 53; John 1:29-31; Revelation 5. What is added to the idea at each stage? What small details develop great significance later?

4. What resources are available to you in the church library to develop your understanding of biblical theology? On the Internet? Here are a couple Internet links to get you started:

www.biblicaltheology.org

http://www.biblestudytools.com/dictionaries/bakers-evangelical-dictionary/ (pick an article and read it!)

Listening Expositionally

Perhaps one of the most chilling passages in all of Scripture is found in Isaiah 6. Having been brought into the very throne room of God, having been convicted of his sin and cleansed of his guilt, Isaiah has volunteered to go, on behalf of the awesome God who has confronted him, back to his people. And the content of his preaching? The very first words entrusted to Isaiah are:

“‘Keep on hearing, but do not understand;
keep on seeing, but do not perceive.’
Make the heart of this people dull,
and their ears heavy,
and blind their eyes;
lest they see with their eyes,
and hear with their ears,
and understand with their hearts,
and turn and be healed.”

How terrifying – to be granted the privilege of hearing the very words of God, yet at the same time being denied the heart necessary to understand. It is a mark of judgment and spiritual sclerosis to hear without understanding, as Jesus makes abundantly clear in Matthew 13 when explaining why he spoke in parables. This should fill us with holy fear.

Yet we can look at this another way. If it is a sign of judgment and hardness to hear without understanding, what is it to hear those same words with insight and profit? Is it not a blessing, a treasure? Indeed, Jesus makes clear in the same context that the one who listens with comprehension is “good soil” – in that he is not merely blessed for his own sake, but is productive and fruitful for the benefit of his Master:

“As for what was sown on good soil, this is the one who hears the word and understands it. He indeed bears fruit and yields, in one case a hundredfold, in another sixty, and in another thirty.” (Matthew 13:23)

In our reading this week, Thabiti lays out what an expositional listener is, what the benefits of such listening are, and how to cultivate such listening. One of the benefits he lists is that it “benefits the gathered congregation.” The particular benefit he has in mind is the blessing of church unity. And what a blessing that is!

Yet as you read this week, I would like to challenge you all to consider what other benefits such a posture would provide – and not just to the gathered congregation, but to the advancing kingdom as a whole. Besides unity, what “fruit” might listening with understanding produce in your life and ministry among us? What fruit do you see from others around you who you know listen in this manner?

Things to Watch For As You Read

A hint to help you remember and understand these things as you find them: try to rephrase each of these in your own words!

1. Definitions of both expositional preaching and listening

2. The benefits of expositional listening: what are they?

3. Practical ways to cultivate expositional listening

4. Pitfalls or dangers that Thabiti warns against in striving to listen better

Challenge Questions

1. The “big challenge” from above: besides church unity, what other benefits might expositional listening produce, and for whom?

2. Have you ever considered how your listening and interaction with a sermon, Bible study, or lesson might (not?) encourage your elders? In what practical ways do you think you could encourage and edify preachers and teachers?

3. Thabiti mentions several practical steps to help cultivate expositional listening. Can you think of anything available to you at Calvary Grace Church that could help in this?

4. Have you ever “outlined” a Bible passage? And if you don’t know how or where to start, have you ever approached someone for help? How about trying an outline this week?

5. It’s easy to be distracted while listening. What steps can you take to minimize distractions while you sit under the teaching of the Word?

The current constitution and bylaws are now available for download from the website. The document may be found at http://calvarygrace.ca/Section/What-We-Believe/Constitution-and-Bylaws.aspx.

If you have any questions, please speak to an elder or use the contact page to send an email. Thanks!

Reading the Book Together

This past week, we gave out packages to all attendees who are interested in formal church membership, and we will again this week. Those of you who signed out a Ministry Partnership package received with it a book, by Thabiti Anyabwile, called “What Is A Healthy Church Member?” We are providing a copy of this book to every one of our inaugural applicants because we see it as an investment. We pray that God will use the insights and wisdom contained in that little volume to build a strong foundation for the church as it grows in the future.

In order to take the fullest advantage of this book, and especially in the context of our focus on gospel partnership, we invite you all to join us in reading this book together, as a fellowship. Some of you probably read it the day you brought it home; others may have read it before. That’s okay! If so, we still invite you to read again, alongside the rest of the fellowship. It’s a short book, so it should not be overly burdensome. And to make it easier, we’ll be doing it over eleven weeks – just a few short pages per day. Not only will that make it an easier read, but the small pieces should make it that much easier to “chew on” the contents of the book.

Here’s the way it will work. Each week, we’ll read a section together. At the beginning of each week (God willing, Monday or Tuesday) I will post a brief reflection, some things to watch for as you read, and a couple challenge questions. These will be posted both in the Pastoral Email, and also on the Pastoral Notepad blog at the church website. We’re going to start this week by reading the introduction and the “Final Word” at the end (I’ll explain why in a minute). Weeks 2-11 we will be covering one of the ten “Marks” in the order that they appear, so you will know what we’re reading the next week.

And I invite your responses, reflections, and commentary by email! I’d like to incorporate interaction with your comments into the reflections as we go along.

This week, I’d like us all to start by reading the Introduction, followed by the “Final Word” at the end. The Introduction is valuable, because it explains why the book was written and who it was written for. (Try to note those two things as you read!) It also provides a very brief summary of the chapters that follow – which will help you retain and better understand what you will read as we go. So make sure you read the Introduction carefully. The “Final Word” is also very valuable, as Thabiti intends by it to guard against some key errors and gives a very important challenge at the end. Although Thabiti wrote it as a postscript, I think it would actually be most valuable read up front.

Things to Watch For

1. The summary of the following chapters in the Introduction

Challenge Questions

1. Have you ever felt like Jenny? What did you do? What was the result?

2. How did Thabiti handle Mrs. Burns? Have you ever felt like, or acted, like Mrs. Burns? How would you respond to what Thabiti said, if he said that to you?

3. What are the two errors Thabiti warns about in his Final Word? Are you prone to either, or both? In what ways? How can you guard against these?

4. What is the crucial “switch” Thabiti discusses at the end? In what practical ways could you implement that “switch” in your own life and ministry among us?

And finally - let us all pray the prayer with which Thabiti introduces the book, on page 17. Include this prayer in your family or individual worship this week!

Scripture, Lists, and Partnership with a Local Body of Believers

This fall, Calvary Grace Church is for the first time inviting its attendees to partner formally with the church for ministry in a process of formal church membership. Now, the idea of having such a formal church membership process and a list of members to delineate those “within” from those “without” has fallen on hard times. Many consider it an outdated relic of the past in today’s more fluid, consumeristic, mobile, and choice-driven culture. Others see it as unbiblical, finding no explicit direction to keep such a list or process in the Bible. An increasingly popular alternative is to see the church as a community of people with a centre but no boundaries, and that members of the community can be as near or far from the centre as they like and still be considered part of the community. So in that light, I thought it fruitful to lay some groundwork for the idea of counting the people of God.

Our conviction is that formal partnership with a body of fellow believers, also called formal membership, is still a vital element of church health and a key part of church organization and administration. In this article, I hope to lay a biblical foundation for that kind of partnership, discuss practical benefits for this option particularly from the perspective of church administration, and deal with common objections to the practice.

The idea of counting the people of God is hardly new. In fact, it is not foreign to Scripture at all. God himself ordered Moses to take at least two separate censuses of the Israelite nation (Num. 1:2, 26:1-4). Here the purpose was administrative: it was limited to men able to serve in the army (1:3, 26:2), and detailed the different tribal clans, with the aim of organizing Israel for national defence in the wilderness. God elsewhere gave further regulations for the conduct of a census, specifying “atonement money” be paid for those counted (Ex. 30:12) – perhaps an ancient form of taxation, but demonstrating that God approved of counting and listing His people if done properly. In these two censuses Levi was excluded, but God directed Moses to conduct an individual census of each Levite clan (Num. 4:2, 22, 29, 34, 49). The purpose here is again administrative: it helped Moses and Aaron follow God’s direction to organize the Levites for service to the tabernacle during the wilderness wanderings.

Moving to the New Testament, it is surely significant that God keeps a “book of life” in which the names of all His own, the righteous, are listed (Phil. 4:3; Rev. 3:5, 13:8, 17:8, 20:15, 21:27, 22:19). This divine “membership list” is actually also noted in the Old Testament, in Psalm 69:28. In fact, God not only keeps a list of His own people in the Book of Life, but he keeps other books in which others and their deeds are recorded (Rev. 20:12). It should be noted that these books are used in judgment, and thus have an administrative purpose: to delineate God’s people from the rest of the world.

Moving to the New Testament church itself, in 1 Corinthians 5 the example is given of a disciplinary case in the Corinthian congregation. A man is living in flagrant sexual sin, and Paul commands the congregation to “deliver him over to Satan” (v. 5) by purging the evil one from among them (v. 12, 13). As Mark Dever and Paul Alexander put it, “Expelling makes sense only in the case of visible belonging.” In his next canonical letter to that church, perhaps speaking of the same man, Paul exhorts the Corinthians to forgive, love, and embrace a man who had formerly hurt them (2 Cor. 2:5). Why? Because “this punishment by the majority is enough” (v. 6) – given the context, this is speaking of a person who had been disfellowshipped and was now repenting of his sin. Of key interest in this passage is the word “majority,” and the Greek word means precisely that – the larger part of the whole. “Majority” would make no sense outside of the context of a recognized and limited whole.

In fact, these two biblical examples point to another scriptural practice that logically implies formal church partnership: the ultimate negative sanction of corrective church discipline, excommunication. As seen above, the church is to purge or expel the evil one from its midst (1 Cor. 5:13). The task to deal with sin in the church and protect its witness before the world is so important that theologians like Wayne Grudem have identified church discipline as a sign of a pure church, and even as a “means of grace” alongside worship, fellowship, and the ordinances. For this to work, however, a person so excluded needs to be aware of the difference between being in the church and out of it, lest this command lose all meaning. It is also important for others to know if he is a member or not, because the way that they relate to him will be affected by what status he holds (1 Cor. 5:9-12; 2 Thes. 3:14-15).

So the apostolic church distinguished between themselves and the world in faith and in practice. A person was recognizably “in” the congregation or “outside.” There was no fuzzy or blurry zone where the church met the world. Now, these passages do not themselves prove that the church kept formal “lists” of those in membership; however, the early church did in fact keep lists of some of its members. In his first letter to Timothy, Paul gives a list of qualifications to be met before a widow was “enrolled” – that is, placed on a list. The context of the statement is instructions about how to “honour” widows in practical and financial ways, and so the list under discussion is obviously a register of those widows under the financial support of the church. The qualifications suggest a person highly involved in the activities of the congregation, and so outsiders are almost certainly not in view here; this list is made up of church members. Is it then too much of a leap to postulate that some kind of register might have been kept of other active members of the church – or that such a list would be fitting and appropriate?

There are some compelling practical reasons to practice formal partnership with a church, all flowing directly out of the biblical foundation that’s just been laid. As the examples of the censuses in Numbers and of the list of widows in First Timothy show, one practical reason to have a “list” of members is to facilitate administration, organization, and service. Military organizations keep detailed records of all their members so as to employ them most effectively. Airlines keep passenger manifests so as to know who to contact in case of emergency or to quickly identify a missing passenger. So, too, should the church of God maintain a clear distinction between its members and everyone else, so that each believer may be mobilized for service to one another and the world.

A second practical purpose arises from the frequent calls to New Testament believers to love one another and build one another up in the faith (1 Thes. 5:11). Believers are to be accountable to one another, and accountability logically implies recognition of responsibility. How is this to be done if believers cannot clearly distinguish between a brother who needs edification and an unbeliever who needs evangelism? Even more to the point, elders are accountable to God for those under their care (Hebrews 13:17). If elders do not have a practical method to know the shape and composition of their flock, let alone its members, how can this responsibility be fulfilled?

Church discipline has already been mentioned above. Yet church discipline itself serves a deeper practical purpose. In Dever and Alexander’s words, it “is a good and necessary implication of God’s desire to keep a clear distinction between His own chosen people and the worldly system of rebellion that surrounds them.” Christ came and died “to purify for himself a people for his own possession” (Titus 2:14, emphasis added). The church is to be visibly different from the world, because it reflects a perfect and holy God. Formal church membership is one practical tool that is used to guard the purity of the church.

Now, to some objections! Some object to the idea of formal church membership, saying there are no explicit commands or examples given in Scripture. A quick response is that there are many doctrines of the faith, such as the Trinity, that are taught by implication from Biblical passages. This is a legitimate hermeneutical approach. The evidence may “not be abundant. But it is clear, and it is consistent.” (Dever and Alexander)

It may also be objected that formal church membership places an undue burden on the new believer. Is not salvation by grace alone, through faith alone? The answer of Christ is appropriate here: “If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.” (Matt. 16:24) Christ demands much of the believer; he may even demand his physical life. Submitting to a process of examination leading to formal church membership with its responsibilities and expectations is no undue burden – it is the cost of Christian discipleship, and compared to other costs (heresy in the church, loss or forgetting of believers in need, etc.) it is light.

Others might object that formal church membership demands an administrative burden. Would it not be better to place these resources elsewhere? A good response is to point to Acts 6, where the distribution of support to the widows posed a threat to the apostles’ ministry. This ministry was an administrative burden. Rather than abandoning it, the apostles sought men equipped of God to step up and administer the program – which probably led to the institution of the widows’ lists mentioned above. There will always be administrative burdens, but the response is organization, not abandonment. God provides people to manage the business of the church.

Formal partnership with a body of local believers is not an option. It is a necessity driven by the real needs of the church and her ministry. The church is to be holy, after all – a concept that includes the ideas of distinction and separation. There must be a dividing line between the church and the world, and formal partnership or “membership” is an administrative reflection of that line.