The Doctrine of the Church

By Larry Dixon

Larry Dixon is a graduate of Emmaus Bible College and is Professor of Church History and Theology at Columbia Biblical Seminary and School of Missions in Columbia, South Carolina. He attends Woodland Hills Community Church in Columbia. This is chapter ten in a series of articles entitled Back to the Basics: A. Fairly Serious Survey of the Fundamentals of the Faith. A. complete survey of ten areas of Christian faith is found in Dixon’s book DocTALK: A. Fairly Serious Survey of All That Theological Stuff (Christian Focus Publications, 2002).

Section One: The Relevance of the Church

Introduction

“God underwent three great humiliations in His efforts to rescue the human race. The first was the Incarnation, when He took on the confines of a physical body. The second was the Cross, when He suffered the ignominy of public execution. The third humiliation is the church.” (Dorothy Sayers) 

“Alone I cannot serve the Lord effectively, and he will spare no pains to teach me this. He will bring things to an end, allowing doors to close and leaving me ineffectively knocking my head against a wall until I realize that I need the help of the Body as well as of the Lord.” (Watchman Nee) 

“The problem with the church today is not corruption. It is not institutionalism. No, the problem is far more serious than something like the minister running away with the organist. The problem is pettiness. Blatant pettiness.” (Mike Yaconelli, The Wittenburg Door) 

“I will build my church and the gates of Hades will not overcome it.” (Matthew 16:18)

The story is told of an actual event which took place in an Ontario, Canada, Sunday morning service. It started at the end of the service. The choir began the recessional singing as the members marched in perfect step up the center aisle to the back of the church. The last young lady in the women’s section was wearing a new pair of shoes with needle heels. She stepped on the grating that covered the hot air register in the church and her heel stuck. Knowing that she couldn’t hold up the recessional, she simply slipped her foot out of the shoe and kept on marching. There wasn’t a break in the recessional, everything moved like clockwork. The first young man following the woman noticed the situation and reached down and picked up her shoe. The entire grate came up with it. Startled but still singing, the man continued up the aisle, bearing in his hand the one grate attached to the one shoe. Never a break in the recessional, everything moving like clockwork until the next man, still singing, stepped into the open register and disappeared.

Doesn’t that story illustrate much of the contemporary church’s absurdity? The rituals must continue—even if people are disappearing in the process.

A Promise…and Some Pessimistic Thoughts

Jesus proclaimed, “I will build my church and the gates of Hades will not overcome it” (Matt. 16:18). Some would argue that the danger to the church is not from without, but from within, for a case can be made that the church seems determined to do itself in! Ministers are burning out at an alarming rate (if they are not unfairly dismissed in their first eighteen months); church fights get far more publicity than church ministries; and it is virtually a universal truth that 90% of the work in the church is done by 10% of the members. And those active members sometimes look as if a serious illness has made its rounds through their families!

For many who claim to be “born again,” the level of commitment to a local church seems at an all-time low. The only spiritual exercise some believers get comes from church-hopping. If in one church they should be challenged to confess sin, make amends for wrongs done, or submit to the discipline of the church, they leave in a huff and begin attending the next church down the block. The local church appears to be viewed as the great evangelical “option;” if they have the time and the inclination, they might consider joining the membership rolls and maybe donate an hour or so a week. One should not be surprised that a noted Christian writer like Philip Yancey would write a book with the discouraging title, Church—Why Bother? [1]

The church is taking it on the chin for a variety of reasons. One primary factor is a consumer mentality which has a death-grip on many believers. This is the attitude which proclaims, “If this church does not have the youth group that my teens need, or the Sunday School class that my Aunt Matilda is looking for, or the day-care my busy schedule demands, I’m out of here! And if the pastor does not deliver scintillating sermons which answer all my questions within his first five minutes, I will seek out someone who can produce!”

Another factor which screams the question “why the church?” is the lack of contemporary relevance. From the hymns written two hundred years ago to praise choruses that were composed during the Jesus Movement (the 1960s), the music—and sometimes the lingo—seem designed to reach people…in our grandfather’s generation! Apart from a few precious exceptions, today’s church seems stuck in a kind of time-warp, not quite a “blast from the past”!

A third factor which makes many question the value of the church concerns its social impact. Picture two street corners. On one corner there is a Catholic church. On the opposite corner stands an evangelical church. Someone has said that if the Catholic church disappeared overnight, it would be missed terribly by the community. Its day-care center, weekly bingo games, rummage sales, unwed mothers’ ministry, AA meetings, and other services would be missed immediately if those programs ceased. The evangelical church? People would wonder what building used to occupy the empty lot!

The evangelist Billy Sunday said, “There wouldn’t be so many non-church goers if there were not so many non-going churches.” Has the idea of the church become outmoded, archaic? Despite all the problems of the local church, we must remind ourselves of God Incarnate’s statement: “I will build my church and the gates of Hades will not prevail against it.”

The Relevance of the Church

What is desperately needed today is a return to the biblical description of what the church ought to be. Working with redeemed, but imperfect, people, God desires to create a community through which he can touch the world. And that community is the church. In order to impact our world, the church must get back to its biblical mandate.

A family of forgiven sinners who offer forgiveness to each other and welcome new births with excitement and joy, a supportive environment which trains Christians to share their faith with a lost world, a caring community which loves one another too much to let sin ruin lives—these are some of the descriptions of what the church is called to be before God.

As Malcolm Muggeridge once said in Christianity Today, “I think the church is relevant, because if Christianity is true, and if the church is in some degree a custodian of Christianity, then it must be the custodian of the truth, and truth can never be irrelevant.”2 If the church is proclaiming and manifesting the truth, she can be the most powerful force for God—and therefore, for good—in the world.

A writer by the name of Willard Black discovered that 90% of the new members of a church will stay in their congregation IF:

• They can articulate their faith.
• They belong to subgroups (such as choir, home Bible studies, or Sunday school classes).
• They have four to eight close friendships in their congregation.

The church must be the church. It must get its identity from its Savior. A number of descriptive titles are used for the church. It is called God’s building (1 Cor. 3:9), for he is adding living stones to the foundation, which is Christ. As the temple of God (1 Cor. 3:16), it is to be filled with those who worship God in the beauty of holiness. Paul uses the image of the church as the body or bride of Christ (Eph. 1:22–23; 5:22–30), the vehicle by which Christ expresses himself. The church is also called the pillar and foundation of the truth (1 Tim. 3:15), the means God has chosen to proclaim, support, and defend his truth.

The Founding of the Church

Although sincere Christians differ on the question of when the church began, I would suggest that the biblical evidence indicates the Day of Pentecost (Acts 2) as the birth of the church. The logic I would use is as follows:

1. It seems clear from Matthew 16:18 that the church was at that time a future creation of Christ: “I will build my church.”
2. The body of Christ is formed by the baptism of the Spirit (1 Cor. 12:13): “For we were all baptized by one Spirit into one body.”
3. Jesus promised the future baptism of the Holy Spirit to his disciples in Acts 1:5: “In a few days you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit.
4. The Holy Spirit was poured out on the Day of Pentecost, for we read, “They were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit enabled them” (Acts 2:4).
5. By the time we reach Acts 5:11, the church has definitely come into being: “Great fear seized the whole church and all who heard about these events.”

An additional proof that the baptism of the Holy Spirit occurred on the Day of Pentecost in Acts 2 can also be set forth:

• God used Peter to share the gospel with a Gentile family (Cornelius) in Acts 10. There we read that the Holy Spirit “came on all who heard the message” (10:44) and that the Holy Spirit “had been poured out even on the Gentiles” (10:45).
• As Peter (in Acts 11) defended his sharing the gospel with the Gentiles, he said: “As I began to speak, the Holy Spirit came on them as he had come on us at the beginning. Then I remembered what the Lord had said: ‘John baptized with water, but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit.’ So if God gave them the same gift as he gave us, who believed in the Lord Jesus Christ, who was I to think that I could oppose God?” (verses 15–17).
• The pouring out of the Holy Spirit on the household of Cornelius is identified as the same thing as the coming of the Holy Spirit on the Day of Pentecost. This in turn is identified with the prediction of the Lord Jesus that “you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit.” The coming of the Holy Spirit on the Day of Pentecost is that baptism of the Spirit and is therefore the birthday of the church.

Although God had his chosen people Israel in the Old Testament, I believe the preceding verses prove that the church is his new work, brought into being by the baptism of the Holy Spirit, and intended to comprise of both Jewish and Gentile believers.

Section Two: The Mission or Priorities of the Church

“Before the church can make an impact on the culture, it must break with the idolatries and misconceptions that dominate the culture.… Where secularism so often dons the guise of religiosity, the primary danger is not persecution by the culture but seduction.” (Donald Bloesch) 

“This is no age to advocate restraint—The church today does not need to be restrained, but to be aroused, to be awakened, to be filled with the Spirit of glory for she is failing in the modern world.” (D. Martin Lloyd-Jones) 

A kindergarten teacher gave her class a “show and tell” assignment of bringing something to represent their religion. The first child got in front of the class and said, “My name is Benjamin and I am Jewish and this is the Star of David.” The second child got in front of the class and said, “My name is Mary. I’m a Catholic and this is the Crucifix.” The third child got in front of the class and said,” My name is Tommy and I am Baptist, and this is a casserole.” 

“It was he who gave some to be apostles, some to be prophets, some to be evangelists, and some to be pastors and teachers, to prepare God’s people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ.” (Ephesians 4:11–13)

Back in the early 1930s, C. D. “Bigboy” Blalock of Louisiana State University—a six-foot-six-inch giant of a boxer—was taking on a stocky fellow from Mississippi State. In the second round Bigboy let loose a roundhouse. The Mississippi man stepped in, and his head caught Bigboy’s arm inside the elbow. With the opponent’s head acting as a lever, Bigboy’s arm whipped around in almost full circle, connecting with haymaker force on his own chin. He staggered, grabbed the rope, walked almost all the way around the ring, and then fell flat for the count—the only prizefighter who ever knocked himself out with a right to his own jaw!

That sounds like the church sometimes, doesn’t it? We may not be knocking ourselves out of the fight, but we seem to deliver some fairly serious “body blows” to ourselves as we flail at the “world,” “the flesh,” and “the devil.” We often don’t know who the enemy is, what our mission is, or how we should go about representing Christ in this world.

The Mission of the Church

Apart from the issue of worship, the mission or purposes of the church may be considered to be evangelism (Rom. 10:14–15), discipleship (Matt. 28:19–20), and social concern (James 1:27). Let’s consider each of these aspects of the church’s mission.

Evangelism

In Romans 10:14–15 we read:

How, then, can they call on the one they have not believed in? And how can they believe in the one of whom they have not heard? And how can they hear without someone preaching to them? And how can they preach unless they are sent? As it is written, “How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news!”

These four questions are posed by Paul not only to emphasize the spurned witness of creation to God’s existence, but also to spur believers to communicate the good news to those who yet need to hear. The writer Sylvester Madison says, “When I was 12, my best friend and I broke a window playing baseball. We looked around to see if anyone had seen us. No one was in sight except my younger brother. We went over and offered him a piece of candy not to tell. He refused it. ‘I’ll give you my baseball,’ I said. ‘No.’ ‘Then what about my baseball and my new glove?’ my friend added. ‘No!’ ‘Well, what do you want?’ ‘I wanna tell.’“ The church is TO TELL!

Discipleship

The church is also to disciple. The so-called Great Commission in Matthew 28 was given by Jesus as he prepared his eleven disciples for his ascension back to the Father:

Go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age. (verses 19–20)

The Greek term for disciple comes from a word meaning “to learn.” To make disciples is to make learners. And those who would learn must be taught! Someone by the name of Enrique Solari once exclaimed, “Oh, that one could learn to learn in time!” The great Jewish writer Elie Wiesel once declared:

There is divine beauty in learning. To learn means to accept the postulate that life did not begin at my birth. Others have been here before me, and I walk in their footsteps. The books I have read were composed by generations of fathers and sons, mothers and daughters, teachers and disciples. I am the sum total of their experiences, and so are you.

We make a major mistake when we cause new Christians to think that they know all that they need to know when they first get saved, or join the church, or make it through a new believers’ class. We must communicate the fact over and over again that when a person gets saved, he or she becomes A STUDENT!

Social Concern

The third general purpose or mission of the church is that of expressing a social concern for the broken world around us. I have a cartoon in my files of two men talking with each other. One says, “I’m torn between the immediate needs of the poor and homeless and the future needs of my family.” The other man says, “How do you respond when your church preaches on your responsibility to the poor?” The first man replies, “I change churches.”

Note the language of Scripture on the issue of caring for the physical needs of others. “Be rich in good deeds,” says 1 Timothy 6:18. The Psalmist declares, “Defend the cause of the weak and fatherless; maintain the rights of the poor and oppressed. Rescue the weak and needy; deliver them from the hand of the wicked” (82:3–4). The “weeping prophet” Jeremiah writes, “This is what the Lord says: ‘Do what is just and right. Rescue from the hand of his oppressor the one who has been robbed. Do no wrong or violence to the alien, the fatherless or the widow, and do not shed innocent blood’” (22:3). In fact, Jeremiah 22 says of a particular king, “‘He did what was right and just, so all went well with him. He defended the cause of the poor and needy, and so all went well. Is that not what it means to know me?’ declares the Lord” (verses 15b–16). Philip Yancey writes:

Amos, Hosea, Isaiah, and Jeremiah have scathing words about the need to care for widows and orphans and aliens, and to clean up corrupt courts and religious systems. The people of God are not merely to mark time, waiting for God to step in and set right all that is wrong. Rather, they are to model the new heaven and new earth, and by so doing awaken longings for what God will someday bring to pass. [3]

The Christian is called to be salt and light in a needy world. We are not to take over society, [4] but to stand strong (with wisdom) for the truth of God for the good of this world. Sometimes standing strong brings not admiration but antagonism. The theologian Donald Bloesch put it well, “We are called to be not the honey of the world but the salt of the earth. Salt stings on an open wound, but it also saves from gangrene.” [5]

The Priorities of the Local Church

If we ask what the priorities of the local church were in the book of Acts, there is no better listing than Acts 2:42. “They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer.”

Doctrine

Note the commitment of the early church to doctrine—the apostles’ teaching. Alister McGrath has well said:

The attractiveness of a belief is all too often inversely proportional to its truth…. To allow relevance to be given greater weight than truth is a mark of intellectual shallowness and moral irresponsibility. The first and most fundamental of all questions must be this: Is it true? Is it worthy of belief and trust? Truth is certainly no guarantee of relevance, but no one can build his personal life around a lie. Christian doctrine is concerned to declare that Christian morality rests upon a secure foundation…. To care about doctrine is to care about the reliability of the foundations of the Christian life. It is to be passionately concerned that our actions and attitudes, our hopes and fears, are a response to God and not to something or someone making claims to deity, which collapse upon closer inspection. [6]

We must care about communicating the doctrines of the Christian faith, for we will be expressing a concern about truth.

Fellowship

Note that the early believers also committed themselves to “the fellowship.” This term does not refer to what believers have in common with each other, but what they have in common in Christ. What unites us as believers is not primarily our conservative (or “liberal”) views, our cultural preferences, or our denominational affiliation. What unites us in Christ is Christ! The commitment of the early church to fellowship shows that we need each other.

I understand that a guide leading people on a tour of California’s giant sequoia trees pointed out that the sequoia tree has roots that are just barely below the surface. “That’s impossible!” said one tourist. “I’m a country boy, and I know that if the roots don’t grow deep into the earth, strong winds will blow the trees over.” “Not sequoia trees,” said the guide. “They grow only in groves and their roots intertwine under the surface of the earth. So, when the strong winds come, they hold each other up.” We Christians really do need one another.

Worship

Notice also that the early church devoted itself to “the breaking of bread.” Many understand this expression to indicate the worship of the first-century believers. Although the term “the breaking of bread” could refer simply to the eating of meals together, it seems more reasonable here to understand it as a reference to the Lord’s Supper.

Prayer

The fourth commitment of the church in Acts was to prayer. A quick survey of the book of Acts reveals the absolute confidence of the first-century Christians in the power of prayer. It was the means by which they received boldness to witness (4:24–31), courage to die for the sake of the gospel (7:59–60), guidance in extending the gospel to the Gentiles (10:9ff), wisdom in sending out missionaries (13:1ff), etc. The preacher Samuel Chadwick reminds us of the cruciality of prayer when he writes, “The one concern of the devil is to keep God’s people from praying…. He laughs at your toil and he mocks at your wisdom. But he trembles when you pray!”

Did you notice a critical priority of the church missing from that list in Acts 2:42? It is the issue of evangelism! What? The early church did not care about evangelism? Let me suggest that evangelism was a by-product of believers giving themselves to those four priorities (doctrine, fellowship, worship, and prayer).

A man once said to Mark Twain, “Do you realize that every time I breathe, another lost soul goes into eternity?” Twain reportedly responded, “Have you tried cloves?” If we care about those who are lost, we will give ourselves to the priorities which strengthen us and qualify us to be sent out.

The evangelist Leighton Ford warns against the kind of Christian cocooning which keeps us to ourselves. He says:

I sometimes think the Church resembles nothing more than a holy huddle…. Those who are on the field seem to spend most of their time in the huddle. Some seem to have forgotten the plays and the aim of the game. Some like the coziness and safety—did you ever hear of anybody getting hurt in a huddle? Some have been knocked down so often that the spirit seems to have been knocked out of them. So we spend all our time planning strategy, analyzing the enemy, and sometimes criticizing our own team members. [7]

If Ford’s description rings true of you or me or our local church, the Bible provides a remedy. It’s an old-fashioned term. It’s called repentance.

Section Three: A Dose of History, the Church’s Government and Ordinances, plus Some Additional Matters

“The trouble with being a leader today is that you can’t be sure whether people are following you or chasing you.” (Bits & Pieces) 

A pastor’s wife, recognizing her husband’s inability to turn down additional responsibilities in an overworked pastorate, commented to a friend: “My husband has got more on his plate than he can say grace over.” 

“A pastor must have the mind of a scholar, the heart of a child, and the hide of a rhinoceros.” (Stuart Briscoe) 

“And the things you have heard me say in the presence of many witnesses entrust to reliable men who will also be qualified to teach others.” (2 Timothy 2:2)

You may have heard the following story. Three pastors from different congregations were having lunch and sharing experiences and ideas to help each other out with their different fellowships. After several minutes of animated conversation, the first one remarked, “We’ve got a serious problem at our church that I want to discuss with you guys.” The other two pastors nodded and he went on, “It’s bats. We can’t seem to get these bats out of our attic. The singing and organ playing wake them up, and they start flapping around. Then when I start to preach, we can still hear them moving around up there, and it’s really hard for anyone to pay any attention. The kids start to cry, and these bats are getting in the way of a good church service.” The second pastor says, “Well that’s interesting, because we’ve had the same problem. They won’t stay out of our belfry. We’ve tried ringing the bells at all hours, spraying chemicals, and we’ve even had a couple of exterminator companies come out. Nothing has worked yet.” He threw up his hands in exasperation and shook his head. The third pastor smiled and nodded his head knowingly. “Well, gentlemen. We also had that problem a few years ago, and we found a quick solution.” The other two looked up with hope on their faces, and he went on, “It was easy. We got up there, got to know ‘em a little bit. Pretty soon we had them come on down, got ‘em baptized and made ‘em part of the congregation. Haven’t seen ‘em since.”

In this last section on the doctrine of the church we will be discussing not only the ordinances of the church, but also what form of government the local church should have. Some of our attention will be directed to additional issues, such as the controversial issue of the role of women in ministry, the thorny subject of church discipline, the scandal of denominationalism, and a few minor questions which need brief comment.

A Brief Dose of History

In a Peanuts cartoon, Lucy tells Charlie Brown, “I have to write a paper on the history of the Christian Church.” “Really?”, says Charlie Brown, “What are you going to write?” “Well,” Lucy responds, “My paper begins ‘My pastor was born in 1935….’”

Church history chronicles for us the rapid development of a hierarchy of church offices which dominated the post-apostolic church and which continues to influence the question of leadership today. In the early centuries entrance into this new community was by baptism, and Christians were considered a kind of third race (over against Jews and Gentiles). [8] The rise of certain heresies as early as the second century was countered by the development of a system of bishops who were seen as the successors of the apostles (“apostolic succession”). This development moved the church away from its spiritual purity, causing it to become more of an external institution. Montanism (second century), Novatianism (third century), and Donatism (fourth century) each sought to call the church back to its moral and spiritual uniqueness. The efforts of these movements were resisted.

Cyprian (mid-third century) wrote that to withdraw from the visible church was to forfeit salvation. It was not long before Augustine came on the scene and, although he emphasized the biblical truth that the church is the invisible company of the elect, he also unfortunately insisted that the true church lies within the Catholic Church, and it alone possesses apostolic authority through its historical episcopal succession. It is only within its pale, argued Augustine, that one can receive the Holy Spirit through its sacraments.

The church divided into East and West sections during the early centuries, partially because of debates on the person of Christ and the Holy Spirit. The Eastern churches became what we identify today as the Eastern Orthodox.

The pope was acclaimed as the “universal bishop” in the seventh century. This development of the papacy was resisted in the East and led to further division between the church of the East and the church of the West. A misunderstanding of Augustine led to the belief that the visible Catholic Church was to be identified as the Kingdom of God.

During the period known as the Reformation, Martin Luther led a revolt against medieval Catholicism, especially because of the abuse of the indulgence system. Reformed congregations sprang up, eventually leading to the development of Protestant churches. Luther rejected papal infallibility as well as other concepts, emphasizing the priesthood of all believers. The three-fold concept of sola fide (“only faith”), sola gratia (“only grace”), and sola scriptura (“only the Scriptures”) were the hallmarks of the Reformation movement.

The Anabaptists insisted that only believers should be baptized. Although there was a lunatic fringe of the Anabaptist movement, the overall emphasis was on piety and a more radical (i.e., biblical) reformation.

In the modern period the major branches of historic Protestantism have developed. Certain factors characterize this period, such as the rejection of the identity of the State and the church, the development of the worldwide missionary movement, the creation of the international ecumenical movement (shown especially by the founding of the World Council of Churches in 1948), and a number of changes within the Roman Catholic Church. Although many other issues could be looked at, this brief historical sketch highlights some of the questions which continue to need discussion.

The Government of the Church

How is the local church to be governed? It seems clear from Scripture that God has provided guidelines for the overall welfare of Christ’s body, the church. Texts such as 1 Timothy 3:1–7 and Titus 1:5–9 indicate that there is an office of “overseer” or “elder” (=“bishop”) for the spiritual leadership of a congregation. The office of “deacon” is seen in 1 Timothy 3:8–10 and 3:12–13 as well as perhaps Acts 6:1–7. The office of “deaconess” is a debated one, but 1 Timothy 3:11 may be an indication of such an office for women. The study of the above passages is a rich one and will show that the qualifications are high for those who would shepherd and serve the people of God.

Different Kinds of Church Government

There are three different kinds of church government (church “polity”) that have been predominant in the history of the church.

The episcopalian form of government comes from the Greek term for “bishop” (episkopos) and marks the Anglican, Lutheran, and some Methodist churches. A three-fold heirarchy of bishops, priests, and deacons/deaconesses fulfill the ministries of the church. The bishops alone can ordain others, and they trace their succession back through the centuries. This system is not demanded by the Bible, and, in fact, it seems to be clear in the New Testament that “bishop” and “elder” were terms that referred to the same office (see Acts 20:17, 28; Phil. 1:1; Titus 1:5, 7). Episcopalians suggest that the early church showed evidence of ministries which transcended the local congregation (e.g. the apostles). It may have been that Timothy, Titus, and James had responsibility over a number of congregations. A three-fold form of ministry can be traced back to the second century, perhaps as a response to heretical movements that were threatening the orthodox congregations. Roman Catholicism is a particular historical expression of episcopalianism.

The presbyterian form of government comes from the Greek word for “elder” (prebyteros) and is seen in the Reformed, Presbyterian, and some Methodist churches. In some of these churches the “elders unite in a central body, such as a national assembly, and in local presbyteries with jurisdiction over smaller geographical territories.” [9] The presbyterian form of government claims direct biblical authority from the New Testament pattern of appointing elders in local congregations. Acts 15 may provide an illustration of such a system in place. Within such an elder structure, some may be set apart as “teaching elders” in distinction from “ruling elders” (1 Tim. 5:17). In Presbyterian churches the whole congregation has a say in the selection of ministers, and a system of deacons provides support ministry (the day-to-day affairs of the church). All ministers are formally of equal status (as opposed to the episcopal form of government).

The congregational form of government emphasizes the role of the local congregation and is the form of government which marks the Baptist, Congregational, Pentecostal, and other independent types of churches. The local congregation decides matters of policy; the minister, deacons, and elders are on the same level as all the other members of the congregation. Local churches may unite with other congregations of similar concern, but no power outside the congregation can dictate policy to it. The New Testament seems to emphasize the local congregation. Little evidence can be found in its pages of outside involvement in the local church’s affairs. Congregationalism recognizes the value of mutual fellowship and cooperation without interference.

Let us be honest. In some of our churches, the form of church government which seems most in power is anarchy! How we need to get back to the Scriptures.

The Ordinances or Sacraments of the Church

An “ordinance” is a custom or practice which communicates or symbolizes a biblical truth. The term “sacrament,” is sometimes used and may be defined as “an outward and visible sign of an inward and invisible grace” (from the Catechism of the Church of England). Traditionally the majority of Protestant Christians have identified two ordinances: baptism and the Lord’s Supper. [10] Although there may be some room for disagreement, the following three-fold guideline may help in identifying what should be considered an ordinance: It is (1) instituted by Jesus in the gospels, (2) practiced by the early church in the book of Acts, and (3) explained in the Epistles. Only water baptism and the Lord’s Supper meet these qualifications.

Water Baptism

Although there are variations in the mode of baptism, two views of water baptism are prominent among evangelical Christians. The paedo (infant)-baptists such as Presbyterians hold to infant baptism, while the immersionists teach that only “believer’s baptism” has clear New Testament support.

Paedo-baptists suggest that baptism is a sign of the covenantal grace of God (similar to circumcision in the Old Testament) and can or should be administered before one comes to the “age of accountability,” that is, the age at which one can understand and respond to the gospel of Christ. Such a sacrament does not save but brings one into a context of grace which will bear fruit in a later conversion. Support for infant baptism is taken from the practice of circumcision in the Old Testament, and the baptism of “households” which is mentioned in Acts 16:15, 31 and 1 Corinthians 1:16. The mode of baptism here is usually that of sprinkling.

Immersionists, on the other hand, see the New Testament indicating that baptism is to follow conversion, not precede it (Acts 8:26ff). They, therefore, support the practice of believers baptism. They also feel that immersion provides a better picture of the believer’s being buried with Christ and being raised to newness of life (Rom. 6:3–4; 1 Pet. 3:21; Acts 8:37).

I agree with the sentiment that the mode of baptism (sprinkling, pouring, immersion) is less important than the meaning of baptism. The debate on this issue continues between equally sincere Christians. As Milne points out, “ultimately disagreement about infant baptism appears to lie in the realm of the nature of the continuity and distinction between the old and new covenants.” [11] God has blessed his servants who have stood on both sides of the baptism issue, and we should learn from that truth of church history.

The Lord’s Supper

During the early days of the Reformation, the German Reformer Martin Luther and the Swiss Reformer Ulrich Zwingli met to consider whether they should join forces. They discussed their respective understandings of theology (a good thing to do if done in the right spirit!) and agreed on fourteen out of fifteen areas of doctrine. They decided not to join forces. The area upon which they disagreed was the issue of the Lord’s Supper. [12]

Luther vehemently quoted Jesus’ statement in Matthew 26:26—“This is my body!” Zwingli responded by calmly quoting Jesus’ statement in John 10:7—“I am the door!” Zwingli’s point was that Jesus was using a figure of speech as he instituted the Lord’s Supper in Matthew 26.

Several terms are used for the Lord’s Supper, such as Eucharist, Communion, and Breaking of Bread. Whereas the ordinance of water baptism is initiatory (it brings one into the local church), the Lord’s Supper is an on-going, repeatable practice of remembering the finished work of Christ on the cross.

Different Views of the Lord’s Supper

It is important to understand the basic interpretations of the Lord’s Supper, which are four:

1. The Roman Catholic view is called transubstantiation. They believe that the elements of bread and wine, when duly consecrated by an ordained priest, are changed into the body and blood of Christ.
2. The Lutheran view is called consubstantiation. They argue that the body and blood of Christ are present “in” and “under” the elements of bread and wine. The substance of the elements does not change, but those who partake of the elements physically partake of the glorified body of Christ. For many, the Lutheran view still seems very close to the Roman Catholic view.
3. The Zwinglian view is called the symbolic view. The bread reminds us of Christ’s body and the wine/cup speaks of his shed blood for sinners. Christ is present only in the way in which he is always present to the believer through the indwelling Holy Spirit.
4. The Reformed view says that just as we are physically nourished by bread and wine, we are spiritually nourished by partaking of communion. Some connect Jesus’ bread of life discourse in John 6 to communion (although there is little evidence to make this connection).

1 Corinthians 11:23–34

As a fulfillment of the Jewish Passover feast, the Lord’s Supper was not only instituted by the Lord Jesus in the Synoptic Gospels, but was elaborated on by the apostle Paul in 1 Corinthians 11:23–34. We learn the following details about the Lord’s Supper from this passage:

1. The partaking of the bread and cup both commemorate the past atoning work of Christ and the future return of the Lord. Verse 26 says, “For whenever you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes.”
2. The emphasis in the text is not on the frequency of the ceremony, but on the focus of it. When Paul says, “for whenever you eat this bread and drink this cup” (v. 26), the Greek language is not indicating how often we should partake (some traditions have a weekly Lord’s Supper; some a monthly one, etc.), but why we should celebrate it.
3. There is a danger in partaking of communion in an unprepared condition. The bread and the cup can be taken in “an unworthy manner” (v. 27), that is, failing to recognize the meaning of the feast. Parents are doing their children a disservice by allowing them to partake of communion when the children think of it almost like cookies and milk!
4. God is not beyond exercising great discipline towards his people when the Lord’s Supper is abused. We read in verse 30 that many of the Corinthians were “weak and sick, and a number [had] fallen sleep.” Commentators agree that God had prematurely taken some of the Corinthians home to heaven by way of death, and others were inflicted with illnesses because of their abuse of the Lord’s Supper

Some Additional Matters

The Role of Women in Ministry

One of the most controversial matters in recent years concerns the question of the role of women in ministry. Some of the questions which have been debated include: Are women restricted from holding any ministry positions? Are teaching and preaching gifts restricted by gender? Have women been unfairly—and unscripturally—denied equal access in terms of church ministries? Is the Bible culturally conditioned in its apparent strictures on the role of women in the church? Does one’s value before God depend upon one’s role in ministry? Does God call women to become pastors?, etc.

Generally speaking, the discussion has produced two perspectives:

1. The egalitarian position argues that in Christ “there is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus” (Gal. 3.28). Egalitarians declare that no ministry position is gender-specific. There were women in key positions in the New Testament, and there are no good biblical reasons for withholding any opportunity for service to Christ from those who are female.
2. The complementarian position argues that men and women are to complement (complete) each other in their respective ministry roles. Although created equally in the image of God, men and women have different ministries in God’s kingdom. The complementarians believe that only men should be elders. God has placed the responsibility for spiritual leadership squarely on the shoulders of the male for both the home and the church. We are to resist “gender-blending” in our society, and we are to enjoy the differences which each gender presents as we serve God together. The complementarian insists that differences in ministry roles do not imply inferiority of value before God.

Some of the primary texts to be considered are:

1. There is…neither…male nor female…in Christ Jesus” (Gal. 3:28). Is this text referring to ministry roles or salvation? 
2. “A woman should learn in quietness and full submission. I do not permit a woman to teach or to have authority over a man; she must be silent. For Adam was formed first, then Eve. And Adam was not the one deceived; it was the woman who was deceived and became a sinner” (1 Tim. 2:11-15).
3. “Women should remain silent in the churches. They are not allowed to speak, but must be in submission, as the Law says. If they want to inquire about something, they should ask their own husbands at home; for it is disgraceful for a woman to speak in the church” (1 Cor. 14:34–36).
4. First Corinthians 11:2–16 is a lengthy passage which deals with head coverings for women and issues of order in the church.
5. Texts such as Ephesians 5:21–33; Colosians 3:18–19; 1 Peter 3:1–7; Titus 2:5; 1 Timothy 3:4, 12; Genesis 1–3 have been used to argue that male leadership in the church follows the biblical pattern of male leadership in the home.
6. “Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ” (Eph. 5:21).
7. In Acts 18:26 Priscilla was a fellow-worker of the apostle Paul and is mentioned before her husband, Aquila.
8. Older women are to “teach what is good. Then they can train the younger women” (Tit. 2:3–4). Eunice and Lois are examples of women who taught their son and grandson Timothy the truth of God (2 Tim. 1:5; 3:14).
9. “Greet Andronicus and Junias…. They are outstanding among the apostles” (Rom. 16:7). Some have suggested that “Junias” (a male name) was actually “Junia” (a female name). They then argue that she was a female apostle. [13]

I feel that this selection of texts supports the complementarian position. However, there is considerable literature in support of the egalitarian view. The position papers for the egalitarian view may be accessed from the Christians for Biblical Equality website: http:// www.cbeinternational.org/. The home site for the complementarian organization known as the Council for Biblical Manhood and Womanhood is: http://www.cbmw.org.

Church Discipline

Another important issue concerning the church is the question of church discipline. Passages such as Matthew 5:23–24, 18:15–20, and 1 Corinthians 5:1–13 teach that we are to deal with sin in the church, even if it means asking someone who does not submit to discipline to leave the church. Lawyers who specialize in church matters encourage us to make our membership requirements clear and accessible to all. Although some outside the church might look negatively on the church’s taking action against an unrepentant member, there will be some who respond, “I wish I belonged to a loving community who cared that much for me!”

Denominationalism

On the issue of denominationalism, we must admit that the fracturing of the church has risen to scandalous proportions. When churches refuse to cooperate with one another, or demonstrate an unchristian, competitive spirit, or fail to reflect their unity in Christ, a watching world sneers and looks away. Jesus prayed in John 17:20–23:

My prayer is not for them alone. I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message, that all of them may be one. Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me.… May they be brought to complete unity to let the world know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me.

Someone has poetically captured the attitude which characterizes too many of us Christians:

• Believe as I believe—no more, no less;
• That I am right (and no one else) confess.
• Feel as I feel, think only as I think;
• Eat what I eat, drink but what I drink.
• Look as I look, do always as I do;
• And then—and only then—I’ll fellowship with you.

The world waits to see Christians really united to one another because of their love for Christ.

Notes

1. Philip Yancey, Church: Why Bother? My Personal Pilgrimage (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1998).
2. “From Fantasy to Reality: An Interview with Malcolm Muggeridge,” Christianity Today 22 (April 21, 1978): 9.
3. Philip Yancey, Disappointment with God (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1997), 99.
4. Martin Luther King, Jr. once said, “The church must be reminded that it is not the master or servant of the state, but rather the conscience of the state.”
5. Donald Bloesch, Theological Notebook: Volume 1 (1960–1964) (Colorado Springs: Helmers & Howard, 1989), 31.
6. Alister E. McGrath, Understanding Doctrine: What It Is—And Why It Matters (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1990), 11–12.
7. Leighton Ford, Good News Is for Sharing (Elgin, lllinois: David C. Cook, 1977), 67–72. Dr. Ford tells me the analogy was first published in a pamphlet entitled “The Craziest Football Game Ever Played.”
8. I am indebted to Milne’s Know the Truth, 244ff for some of the following discussion.
9. Milne, Know the Truth, 242.
10. The Grace Brethren and Mennonite churches identify a third ordinance—footwashing. The Roman Catholic church has seven sacraments.
11. Milne, Know the Truth, 234.
12. Martin Luther did not treat Zwingli kindly as a result of their disagreement. He refered to him several times as a tool of Satan and a “papist” (a follower of the Pope), etc.
13. These questions and discussion of these passages are covered from the complementarian position in the booklet, “50 Crucial Questions about Manhood and Womanhood,” written by John Piper and Wayne Grudem (Wheaton: The Council on Biblical Manhood and Womanhood, 1992).