Bible Warfare, How to Defend Your Faith,
lesson number five; title of this lesson, What Makes the Church of Christ Unique,
and this is part one. Well, I think that most folks in this class know our
procedure and our purpose in this particular series. I'm answering Bible
questions that you've submitted about topics that you have been asked about
and perhaps were not able to answer, or they could be questions
you yourself have had wanted, perhaps, a clearer answer to. And I've broken the
questions down into several categories and answers. One oft-repeated question or
several specialized questions each week. And I started with the questions that
were most asked by people. We've done those in the first three or
four lessons. In addition to this, we set up a kind of ground rules to guide our
discussions with other people when we talked to them about Bible or faith
issues: respect others' sincerity, keep the discussion based on the Bible, and
remember, the sentence that keeps the thing objective and not
subjective, okay, is, I believe that the Bible teaches... and then go from there. Not
I feel or I think. I believe that the Bible teaches... and you go from there. And
then of course, be patient. All right, so let's get to some of the
questions. One of the questions that came up in many different forms was, what's
the difference between the church of Christ and... you fill in the blank. You fill in the blank between any number
of groups or denominations - Catholic, Protestants, Baptists, Methodists, whatever,
Jehovah witnesses. What's the difference? Now, I've put all of these questions together
because the essential difference between the church of Christ and other churches,
whether they be Roman Catholic or mainline Protestant, evangelical,
sectarian groups like the Mormons, the difference is always the same.
In the simplest of terms, the difference is this: we are consciously striving to
be a New Testament church and they, whoever they are, are not. That's the
basic difference. Now some, especially among the evangelical churches, may claim
to be New Testament churches, but they neither understand nor practice true New
Testament style Christianity and church organization. So the question that
naturally follows this statement is: what then is a New Testament church? If that's
the way we're different than all the other groups, what is that? Well, there
are two parts to this answer. One is theological. We're different
theologically; and we're also different historically. We'll take theological
difference first. New Testament churches, like the church of Christ, are different
theologically than others because our approach to the Bible, the source for
Christian theology - theology, by the way, the study of God and all that relates to
God. We are different in our approach to theology than other groups in two basic
ways. Number one, we believe that the Bible is completely inspired by God and
is the only and final authority in spiritual matters. That is the bedrock
basis of the difference between churches of Christ and all other, quote, Christian
groups. For example, in Second Timothy 3:16 the Bible says, "All scripture is inspired
by God and profitable for teaching reproof, for correction, for training in
righteousness." Notice it says, all scripture. Not some scripture, all
scripture is inspired, by who? By God. And then it goes on, Paul goes
on to explain how we use the scriptures. We use them to teach
and to reprove, for correction, for training. In
opposition to this, Roman Catholics, for example, believe that the Pope and
church tradition has equal authority to the Bible. Protestants, some, don't accept all as
inspired and include the teachings of their founders like Calvin, Luther, as
authoritative. Evangelicals, on the other hand, for the most part agree with us on
this particular point. Various sects, when I mention a sect I'm
talking about Jehovah Witnesses, Mormons, Seventh-Day Adventists. Various sects
give equal authority to their prophets and founding leaders, as they do to the
Bible. There's always, well, there's the Bible, and then there's the Book of
Mormon, there's the Bible and then there's this other book that we use
in combination for our religious theological authority. So when you have
one church that considers the Bible as the only and complete inspired
authoritative document from God, and then other groups who only accept parts of
the Bible or they include information from other sources as authoritative,
you're bound to have different outcomes sooner or later.
For example, we, in the churches of Christ, believe that homosexuality is a sin and
it is an unacceptable lifestyle, because in both the Old Testament and the New
Testament the Bible says so. In the Old Testament, Leviticus 18, verse 22. That's
just one reference. In the New Testament, Romans chapter one, verses 26 to 27 very
clearly denounces it. There's not even the word homosexual that exists in the Bible.
That's a word made up to explain that activity. In the Bible there's no Greek
word that says homosexual. It's actually a phrase - men sleeping with
other men as they do with women. That's how its explained. It's not
explained as a style of life, it's explained as an action, okay. And then it
is denounced. Many Roman Catholics believe that homosexuals can remain this
way without change because the Pope has made a special provision
for them in the church. The most recent Pope has accepted the
idea that there is a genetic source for homosexuality - completely unscientific. I
don't know where he got that. In some Methodist and Presbyterian churches,
homosexuals can become ordained ministers, because many of their leaders
do not consider the epistles of Paul as being inspired. So if you can
say, well Paul, sometimes he was inspired and sometimes he was not. Well,
you're going to get a different, you're going to get a different result for
sure. Many in the denominational world see Paul's epistles as simply the work
of a human being, a prejudiced human being. The argument being, well,
Paul was a product of his time and in those days homosexuality was looked
down upon, and so therefore, it was natural that he would be
negative about homosexuals, but we've evolved, we've grown. Now, I
choose this example because it is so glaring, but there are a thousand
other differences, because we, as a New Testament church, see the Bible as fully
inspired and we see it as the single religious authority that guides our
moral and spiritual lives, and other people, other groups, either take away
some parts of the Bible, or they add to it in some way. And so, they come to a
different conclusion because of that. So when you do this, you get a different
result and conclusion on issues of faith and practice. For example, if I
don't believe that the writings of Paul are part of
the inspired record, well then, I can use instruments in worship, because it's Paul
that writes about this idea that you sing, when you worship sing. Or I can
have women be elders in the church, because Paul is the one that writes
about this particular issue. And I can organize the church like a business or a
government or a royal thing, as many churches do, because most of the
information on these matters come from Paul's epistles, and if they're not
inspired or authoritative, then I can do what seems best to me. The thing that people
don't realize, however, is that Paul also talks eloquently about salvation in the
book of Ephesians and he describes the the gifts and the rewards that God has
prepared for all those who remain faithful. So if you want to discount Paul as an inspired
authority for issues like homosexuality and the role of women in the church, well
you also have to discount whatever he says about the gifts that we're
receiving from God. You can't pick and choose. You reject it all,
or you accept it all. Of course, the Bible does say something about this as
well, Proverbs 30, "Do not add to His words or He will reprove you and
you will be proved a liar." First Corinthians 4:6, "Now these things,
brethren, I figuratively applied to myself and Apollos for your sake, so
that in us you may learn not to exceed what is written. So that no one of you
will become arrogant on behalf of one against the other." Revelation chapter 22,
"I testify to everyone who hears the words of the prophecy of this book, if
anyone adds to them, God will add to him the plagues which are written in this
book, and if anyone takes away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God
will take away his part from the tree of life and from the holy city,
which are written in this book." Notice that Solomon and Paul and John
restated the same idea, that God forbids any tinkering with His Word - no adding, no subtracting. And so, churches of Christ, as
New Testament churches, we take this command literally, and we accept the
entire Bible as inspired by God and we are careful not to add or change
or eliminate any part of it. That's the thing, well, one of the things
that makes us different than other groups. Now hear what I'm saying. I'm not
saying that we understand everything in the Bible. I'm not saying that our
teachings are all perfect, no fault. We understand every idea, every
doctrine, everything, like we get everything - I'm not saying that. I'm
saying that we accept the fact that the Bible itself is perfect. The Bible itself
is fully inspired. And we are doing our very best to understand it and to obey
it. We're not saying we do that perfectly. I tell people, we're not perfect, but we've got the right target. We're shooting at the
right thing. We're trying to do the things of God, given to us in the Bible,
according to the way God has given it to us. That's the right target. Now, another
thing - so that's one thing, why are we different, how are different, that's one way, very important way - we accept the Bible as fully inspired and many, many
religious groups that claim Christ as Lord, do not. Another thing that creates
differences between us and others from theological perspective is our
approach to interpreting and applying God's Word in our lives in practical
ways. In other words, we believe that it's inspired, but we have a method of
studying it in order to arrive at a consistent conclusion
every time. For example, Roman Catholics see the Bible as a basis
from which to begin their religious ideas, which are then developed by
papal teaching and church practice and tradition, church tradition, even if it
contradicts the Bible. How, would you say? Well, they add festivals, they add
doctrines, they add laws, they add hierarchy not in the Bible, not even
spoken in the Bible. The doctrine of Mary being
assumed into heaven, transported into heaven like
Elijah, that's not written in the Bible anywhere. They just made that up. Whole
cloth. T hat the Pope is infallible when he speaks, as we say, ex
cathedra, meaning, when he speaks from the chair of Peter he's infallible, no
mistakes. They made that up. That was put together 125 years ago and it passed
the vote among Cardinals. Many Cardinals voted against it, who
actually knew the Bible and were saying, no, you can't do that. And yeah, they
won. They won the vote and that became part of the Catholic theology and
doctrine. Nowhere in the Bible does it say that. So they add stuff. I mean, I could go
on and on. Protestants, they do the same, except they have a variety of
practices and traditions developed by many teachers since they rejected the
authority of the Pope and put it into the hands of their scholars. So modern
Protestantism is largely driven by their academics, who have long ago abandoned
the Bible as the final authority. I tell people, you go to Harvard Theological
Seminary, you're lucky if you get out of there still believing in
God, never mind the Bible. This has led to their synods or
associations or conventions becoming the place where things become decided, and
not simply by the Bible. The idea of allowing homosexuals to openly serve, to be openly gay, to be practicing as a gay person and then to
be serving as a minister of the church, how did that happen? Well, it happened, the academics began to undermine the authority of the
inspiration of the scriptures, and then at conventions and synods, they took a
vote, they took a vote. And what they decided with a vote became doctrine for
them. So how are we different? We never sit around and take a vote to figure out
what the doctrine is. This is why they have so many different groups. Each group
can exist separately from the other because it's all about individualism. I'm
talking about, now, evangelicals. For example, for evangelicals, the Bible is a
resource book, a good book, an inspired book, but it's a resource for a happy and
satisfying life here. And a book that gives them a glimpse into the future,
heaven. So the multiplication of groups under the
evangelical banner is increasing each year because as a subjective process
there is no way to decide which group is legitimate or not. You've got the First
Baptist, the Second Baptist, the Third Baptist Church, the Fourth Baptist. The
minute somebody deviates from a doctrine, they have another idea on
stuff, well they just form a new group - Missionary Baptist, New
Missionary Baptist. The sects - Jehovah Witness, Mormon, Seventh-Day
Adventists - they focus in exclusively on one doctrine or key idea
in the Bible, in order to separate themselves from other groups and justify
their existence. The Jehovah Witnesses, God's name. The Seventh-Day Adventists, the Sabbath. And from this base they evolved an entirely new
religious experience and group, all based on - note that the one thing that causes
the differences between all of these religious groups all claiming Christ as
Lord, is the way they approach and apply the Bible to their lives as believers,
and their organization and function as churches. That's what makes them
different. Because of this we have a special way to study and apply its
teachings to both our personal and church life. We do. This approach, this
method that we have, that gives us the results that we have, and makes us unique
among every other church and religious group out there, because we, the
churches of Christ, are the only ones using this approach. This approach that
I'm talking about, this way to practice or to apply our theology is called
pattern theology, based on the instruction of several scriptures. In Second
Timothy one, verse 13. Paul says, "Retain the "standard of sound words, which you have
heard from me in the faith and love, "which are in Christ Jesus."
Retain, keep the standard, keep what I've given to you. Maintain what I've given to
you he says. The teachings that I've given to you, that Paul gave to Timothy,
retain these, hang on to these. In Jude three, Jude says, "Beloved, while I was making
every effort to write to you about our "common salvation, I felt the necessity to
write to you appealing that you contend "earnestly for the faith, which was once
for all handed down to the saints." What is
Jude asking here? He says, I felt it necessary to write to you appealing that
you, what? You contend, you fight for. Fight for what? Well, you fight in order to
maintain, to maintain what? He says, the faith. There's an article there. In the
Greek there's faith like, I trust you, I have faith in you, I believe. There's that
faith. And then there's the faith, which is a body of doctrine, a body of teaching.
So here, you see it, the article, that you contend earnestly for what? For the
faith, the body of teaching, the body of doctrine. And what does he say? Which was
once for all handed down to the saints. Everything that God wanted to give to
the church, that body of doctrine, he has already given it. So when I hear
60 Minutes - a new scripture, new epistle found, they've got a new -
No. There's no more. We have it all. We've got it all. They may have written others,
but they're lost. We know that Paul wrote more epistles than he did, but they
were lost. So here's the thinking behind this, in these two scriptures and others,
the Apostles are encouraging the church to maintain the integrity of this body
of information. You have this body of information, he says, and your job is not
only to maintain it and teach it, but maintain it in its purity and hand it
down to the next generation, who will then do the same. They will teach it,
maintain it, keep it pure and hand it down to the following generation.
And if we don't think that that's an important idea, take a look around. Take a
look around at what the people, what people have tried to do with the Bible -
tear it up, take things out, add stuff to it. Of course, that's the job. That's
the work that we've been given to do. I'll give you an example of how pattern theology works,
this here is just a picture of, you know when they came out with
the new series of quarters. They were minted with the
special design for every state. This is the one that they minted for the state
of Oklahoma. It's got the regular front and then on the back it's
got Oklahoma and this is the scissor- tail and all that stuff.
Now, at the mint they have the original dye or pattern for this particular
coin. And so long as they have the raw materials, they can produce an unlimited
number of coins which are exactly like the original in every way. Well, this idea
exists in every industry - you create an original pattern and you produce any
number of copies from that original pattern, for dresses, for steering wheels,
for can openers, anything. Well, if we apply this idea to religion, the pattern
theology approach says the following: the Bible contains all the patterns
necessary to produce all facets of spiritual life. What we have here is a
book of patterns, a book of blueprints. These include, but are not limited
to, the pattern for how one becomes a disciple of Jesus. Someone says, well, I
want to be a disciple of Jesus, how do I do that? Well, one guy says, clap
your hands three times and jump up in the air three times saying Jesus, and
you'll be one of His disciples. And the guy goes, really? Yeah, that's right.
And then the other guy says, well let's look at the Bible and see what the Bible
says about how you become a disciple. Then, I mean, I'm
preaching to the choir here. When you read, slowly but surely you
find out, well, wait a minute, if you want to be a disciple, Matthew 28, you need to believe in Jesus, you need to repent of your sins,
you need to be baptized. All these things are necessary to become a
disciple. How do we know that? Well, the Bible contains the pattern that teaches
us how to do that thing. The Bible contains the pattern for how to organize
Jesus's church. This is where the term, by the way, New Testament church comes from.
A New Testament church is the church that is organized according to the
pattern for church organization found in the New Testament. And so, the short form
for that is New Testament church. New Testament church, as a church, was
established organized and functions according to the pattern for this given
in the New Testament. Now we see a pattern for some practice or experience
because through direct communication or examples or basic logic the Bible gives
us a pattern of teaching to follow for everything: the pattern for proper
service, the pattern for personal spiritual growth, the pattern for
resolving issues, the pattern for choosing leaders, and the list goes on
and on. So we are different from others because everything we
attempt to do is done with this approach in mind. We don't always say,
what's the pattern, even though that's technically the correct thing. We
usually say, what does the Bible say. Well, that's the same thing. How does the Bible
tell us to do such and such. I mean, you have a personal dispute with
someone, the Bible has a pattern for how to resolve a dispute that you have with
someone else. A classic example of course on a larger scale is the issue of the
use of instruments in public worship. We are different than others because we are
among the only ones who are a cappella or singing only in worship. Every
other group uses instruments. Well, every other group, again, except the
Greek Orthodox Church, they don't use instruments, because Greek, they
speak Greek, they understand the language. So when they read the New Testament in
the Greek, they understand that singing that's the way you're supposed
to worship in public, so they don't use instruments. We do not use instruments
because when we ask ourselves what is the New Testament pattern or blueprint
for public worship? When we ask that question and begin
scouring the New Testament, we find out certain things about this topic.
For example, in every passage that gives information about music and worship, the
command or the instruction or the example given to us is that we should
sing without the use of musical instruments. Now people - I've answered
this before, but people say, oh well yeah, they sang in the Old
Testament. That's not the question. They also offered bulls and goats in the
Old Testament as well, you want to do that too? We're interested in how does
God want us to offer public worship according to the New Testament.
So First Corinthians 14, Ephesians five, Colossians three, James five, we could go on and on.
Every time music in worship is discussed in the New Testament it is always
discussed with the idea that Christians will sing to offer public worship.
It's interesting to note also that the specific word used in the Greek
translated to sing was the word psallo, which specifically meant to sing without
the use of instruments. It was the Greek way of saying a cappella-type singing.
Now, there are a 181,253 words in the King James Version of the
New Testament, and not a single one makes any reference to the use of musical
instruments in Christian worship. Well, how did we get there? We
got there because somebody just set this aside and said, we're going to do it this way, because they're doing it, okay.
So the pattern of teaching in the New Testament on this subject, music and
worship, shows us in clear terms that in public worship we are to sing without
the use of instruments. So here's the point, if we want to be a popular church
and reach younger people, youth group, Millennials, I mean, it's a lot better to
have a well-produced musical worship service, with a professional group of musicians, drama, cartoons,
whatever. If you want to get people to, young people, get them
interested, the end justifies the means.
How can it be wrong? We've got so many young people coming into
church. How can it be wrong? That's the ends justifying the means. If
we want to create impact, bring visitors, get people involved, start a band, get
going with a choir. If, on the other hand, we want to be exactly like the church
described in the Bible, oh well, then that's going to be different. Then we're
going to follow the pattern for New Testament worship, and have all the
church sing praises to God without any accompanying instruments, regardless of
what's in style, regardless of what's happening in other churches. This will
make us different, but not because we don't use instruments, most others do.
No, we're different because we have deliberately and consciously chosen to
follow carefully and as exactly as we can the teaching in the New Testament
about this particular thing. That doesn't make us legalists. Some people say, oh
you're so legalist, so conservative, so narrow-minded. No. That makes me a lover of God. That's what that makes me. That's what
that makes me. It makes me a lover of God, because I want to do what God wants me
to do, more than anything else. I don't care about being popular.
I don't care about that. I only care about pleasing the Lord. That's all I
care about. So this is what makes us different. We're trying to follow the
pattern while others are not dedicated to this objective. I'm not saying that
other people are not sincere or they're bad people, I'm just saying that they're
not dedicated to what we're dedicated to. And a lot of times, a lot of people in
our congregation don't understand this idea. When was the last time you
had a class about pattern theology, right? It's the thing that appealed to me the
most when I became a Christian. I was looking for explanations,
because I grew up Catholic, as you know. Why are they doing this? Why are they
doing that? And I'd read the Bible. And then when somebody
finally explained to me the approach, well, yeah. This is what creates
the similarity between us and other people at a time. This is why there can be
thirteen thousand congregations of the churches of Christ in the United States
alone, without any hierarchy beyond the local church. We don't have a state group,
union. We don't have some big honcho in Dallas running the show. The highest authority in our churches are our elders. And if Herald,
for example, and Jane, decided to move to Dallas, to be closer to some of their
grandchildren, and they started going to another congregation of the church, he
wouldn't be an elder anymore. It's not transferable. I mean, they could ask him,
obviously, with his experience. But you know what I'm saying,
you can only be a leader in your local church. Why do we do it
that way? Because that's the way it's done in the New Testament.
And not just one leader per congregation. According to the pattern in the New
Testament, always a plurality of elders, a collegiate, a collegial-type of
leadership is what we practice. So 13,000 congregations, some
are big, some are small, some are dynamic, others bumping along. But the thing that we all have in common is that we all are devoted to
following the patterns in the New Testament for our practice of
Christianity, in every area of life. Some churches seem to be able to do that real
well, others are struggling, but we're all agreed. And if you travel at
all, and if you go to different places and you go to the churches, you walk in and you go, yep. And sometimes you walk in, I mean,
you think you're in the right place and there's a big piano and the band in the
front. You go, okay, I'm not in the right place. I mean, Baptists, they believe
Jesus is the Son of God and so do we. We're are the same in
this because they follow the pattern of teaching about the identity
of Christ and so do we. It's just that they don't follow the
pattern of teaching about all the other stuff as well.
Now, what usually creates the differences and makes us unique is that the churches
of Christ are dedicated to trying to follow the New Testament pattern for
everything pertaining to our spiritual lives in faith and other groups are not.
Sometimes they do it and sometimes they don't. We, on the other hand, try to do it
every time. Again, it doesn't mean we succeed, it doesn't mean we succeed, but
we do try. We know what we're trying to do, and who we're trying to be, okay. I've
got too much material to do in one class, so we're going to talk about the
history of this next week.
Thank you for this