Not Many Fathers
W. Carl Ketcherside
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"I do not write to make you ashamed, but to admonish you as my beloved children. For though you have countless guides in Christ, you do not have many fathers. For I became your father in Christ Jesus through the gospel" (I Cor. 4: 14, 15).
So pregnant with meaning are these three sentences that a proper understanding of them would correct many of the abuses extant in the churches today. We freely admit our own incapability of bringing out the depth of thought, but suggest a few items for your meditation. The gospel is the means through which spiritual children are begotten. It is the initial proclamation to aliens to enlist them as citizens. It is not the course of teaching or discipline by which children are to be reared. This is designated "the apostles' doctrine." This latter was revealed as congregational growth or mistakes demanded it, just as we train our children in various phases of their growth. But the gospel was as fully proclaimed on Pentecost as it ever was. It had to be, else those who were born that day would have been deformed.
A loss of this distinction has been productive of many errors and is today standing athwart the path of restoration, barring the way to a complete return to primitive Christianity. It is directly responsible for much of the factionism promoted by "The Church of Christ." In a future article I intend to show that these brethren hold to the false premise that "the gospel" embraces the whole of the new covenant revelation. On that basis, since obedience to the gospel brings us into fellowship, they demand that one, in order to be in their "fellowship" must believe and understand every part of the new covenant scriptures exactly as they do. Refusal to conform in any degree means cessation of fellowship and creation of another faction. They are split over their interpretations of the apostolic doctrine on marriage, divorce, civil government, the Lord's Supper, the millennium, care of orphans and widows, Bible classes, and a host of other items too numerous to mention. Their divisions in many localities are a scandal in Christendom, and in their ignorance of fundamental truths they have raped the restoration.
I shall prove these grave charges at another time, but it is sufficient now to say that a child, once begotten, need never be begotten again. He may have many
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Paul declared that the saints in Corinth might have ten thousand instructors in Christ. This has a strange ring in these days, when, in spite of educational facilities and attainments, brethren are taught that they are not able to teach or instruct each other, but must hire someone for a fee to come in and do that. The apostle wrote to all, "Ye ought to be teachers"; the modern version is, "Ye ought not to be teachers." But the theme of our remarks is that there is a difference between bringing men into Christ, and instructing those who are in Christ. Men are begotten by the gospel, they are taught in the apostles' doctrine. The gospel is the good news! One does not teach news. He announces or proclaims it.
What is the relationship, then, of an evangelist to a congregation which he plants? The great evangelist, Paul, regarded those whom he had led to Christ, as beloved children. He declared that he became their father through the gospel. Now the duty of every parent is to work himself out of a job. From the moment a child is born, the true parent is dedicated to the task of training that child to the point where he can stand alone and be independent of the parent. If the child is pampered and spoiled, and does not reach emotional maturity, the parents have failed. Thus, the apostle wrote, "For you know how, like a father with his children, we exhorted each of you and encouraged you and charged you to lead a life worthy of God" (I Thess. 2: 11). He also said, "We were gentle among you as a nursing mother caring for her children."
Parents do not desert their helpless offspring. They care for them night and day, and often shed tears over them. Thus, Paul said, "Remember that for three years I ceased not to admonish you all, night and day, even with tears" (Acts 20: 31). But, having brought them to maturity, he commended them to God, and the word of his grace, which was able to build them up. The primary work of an evangelist is to proclaim the gospel. This we derive from the very word itself. Paul declared, "For Christ did not send me to baptize but to preach the gospel." One is not a father because he assists at delivery, but because he begets his children. A doctor or midwife may assist the children into their new relationship. The work of training immature children grows out of the relationship of a father to his offspring. Fatherhood necessitates care for children until they are self-supporting. Thus, an evangelist is obligated to provide for a congregation of his planting until men are developed and appointed as bishops. The work of guiding and supervising then passes into the hands of these permanent officers. As relates to a congregation, an evangelist must be constantly striving to work himself out of a job, so that he may be on with his primary task. His chief purpose is to preach the gospel, but this is a work with aliens, not saints. The sooner he can rear a family to maturity, the sooner he can be out in his real field.
Because of a misconception of these great truths, many congregations never mature to the place where they can be free from the service of an evangelist. They grow up and become big, but they are helpless and unskilled. They must nave a "nursing mother" to gently cherish and pamper them. They appoint elders !o meet "the form of church government" but these are often not qualified, and it is never the intention to allow them to supplant the evangelist. In truth, their chief task in many places is to pass upon the merits of prospective foster-fathers, and to hire another for the family to support,
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A new term has been invented to designate these rotating foster - fathers. They are called "located evangelists." Since the holy scriptures know nothing of such a system, human organizations have been created to produce them. Those who would enter the ministry are shipped off from the local congregation where they hold membership and out from under the care of the bishops charged with their spiritual growth, and sent to Tennessee or Texas, to be polished and perfected as pulpiteers, by a human organization. Then they go looking for a family to adopt, and exhibiting their wares, they await the verdict as to whether or not they will be adopted by the family and placed on the pay roll.
The present practice of sermonizing will never produce a mature congregation for it is impossible for it to do so. After years of it under one man, the church will be as weak and helpless as when he started, and upon his departure another sermonizer will have to be hired. No evangelist worthy of the name can engage in such a practice without a sense of guilt, for he is obtaining money under false pretense. Lest we extend this treatise unduly, we conclude with the words of Alexander Campbell, which we commend unto your careful reading and meditation.
"This everlasting sermonizing! What good is in it? It resembles nothing that is rational in all the compass of thought. A. B. professes to teach arithmetic; he gets a class of forty boys from 12 to 15 years old, we shall say. He tells them to meet once a week and he will give them a lecture or sermon on some important point in this useful science.
"The first day he lectures on cube root for an hour. They sit bookless and thoughtless, heedless, and, perhaps, often drowsy, while he harangues them. He blesses them and sends them home, to return a week hence. They meet. His text is arithmetical progression. He preaches an hour, dismisses as usual. The third day of the meeting up comes vulgar fractions; the fourth, rule of three; the fifth, addition; the sixth, notation; the seventh, cube root again, etc.
"Now in this way, I hesitate not to say, he might proceed seven years and not finish one accountant. Who ever thought that a science or art could be taught this way? And yet this is the only way, I may say, universally adopted of teaching the Christian religion. And so it is that many men have sat under the sound of the gospel (as they call it) for forty years, that cannot expound one chapter in the whole New Testament. And yet these same Christians would think it just to prosecute by civil law that teacher who would keep their sons four or five years at English grammar or arithmetic, and receive their money, and yet not one of their sons able to expound one rule in syntax or arithmetic.
"They pay the parson -- they are of maturer minds than their children, and they have been longer under his tuition, and yet they will excuse both the parson and themselves, for knowing just as little, if not less, of the New Testament, than their striplings know of grammar or arithmetic....
"People can never be taught the Christian religion in the way of sermonizing. Public speeches may be very useful on many occasions; but to teach a church the doctrine of Christ, and to cause them to understand the Holy Scriptures, and to enjoy them, requires a course essentially different from either hearing sermons or learning the catechism."