Makers of Phrases
By J. J. Musick
[Page 135] |
The church has not escaped. Both threadbare and new phrases characterize much of our preaching and writing. Someone coined the phrase "born again Christians," and it is now in frequent use. Will some user of this phrase inform us what other kinds of Christians there are? Jesus said, "Except one be born anew he cannot see the kingdom of God." Have not all Christians been born again, or, have we come to accept a gradation of Christians, with the highest grade being those who have been born again? To be sure we find some who manifest a more Christ-like life than others, but are we to think only of those who have reached a high plateau of Christian living as having been born anew? Away with this meaningless phrase!
Here is another much over-worked phrase -- "The New Testament Church." Today it is being ridden by preachers and editors as persistently as a cowboy rides his bronco. Many of us know what the users of this phrase mean. The church of which they speak is patterned strictly after the teaching, practice and life of the church described in the New Testament. And so our preachers and editors, and our church bulletins and letterheads, go on boldly proclaiming that we are the "New Testament Church."
Some of our churches seem to imitate quite well some of the churches we read about in the New Testament. They are like Corinth in its divisions, its glorying in men and in "living just like men of the world." They are like Ephesus in that they have lost their first love. They are like Laodicea, being pleasantly lukewarm, and with the largest financial budgets in history, forgetting that they may become "wretched, poor, miserable, blind and naked."
Fewer than five percent of our members ever win a soul for Christ. Less than half the members of many congregations go to the Lord's Table regularly. And shameful as it is, at the door of some congregations, those who enter must grope their way through cigarette smoke from the nostrils of elders and deacons and others who must never have read that, "they that are of Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with the passions and the lusts thereof" (Gal. 5: 24). "New Testament churches." Do we not need desperately to come from behind some of our easy-flowing phrases and face reality?
Will it surprise you to have it said that the church does not rest upon the New Testament? The church rests solely upon Jesus, not upon anything ever said or written about him, all of the creed and phrase makers notwithstanding. One speaker, discussing Matthew 16:16-18, declared that the church was built upon "our confession of Christ and his confession of us -- a "give-and-take confession" he called it. It seems to me that such exegesis of this familiar scripture might well be put in the same pigeon-hole as that which holds that the church rests upon Peter as the first pope!
The church rests alone upon Christ Jesus. No other foundation can ever be laid (1 Cor. 3:11). He is the rock against whom the gates of hades could not prevail (Matt. 16:18). He is Isaiah's "tried stone...of sure foundation" (Isa. 28:16; Acts 4:11). He is "head over all things to the church...himself the Savior of
[Page 136] |
the body" (Eph. 1:22; 5:23). Under God's new covenant of grace, the church stood upon this foundation, and under the supreme authority of its divine head, for more than a quarter of a century before the first apostolic epistle was written and for nearly a century before the New Testament was completed.
What I have stated takes no glory from the written word of the New Testament. From this record we learn of the nature and purpose of the church and how it functioned in the first decades of its history. In Acts we learn how sinners became saints and, by the same process, members of the church. Much of the New Testament was written to correct the mistakes, the false judgments and the sinfulness of the early followers of Christ, and thus to point out for them and for all future generations the type of life of the true Christian. Like all scripture, this record is given to make us ''wise unto salvation through faith in Christ Jesus." Being inspired by the Holy Spirit it is "profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for instruction which is in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, furnished completely unto every good work" (2 Timothy 2:15-17).
We repeat, the New Testament is not a foundation. It is a road map, an inspired record pointing the hearts and minds of men to fellowship in Christ. It is not, and was never intended to be, a "handle" for the church. It was here that the Jews, in the days of Jesus, missed the boat. In their meticulous regard for the scriptures of their day, and for the traditions which had accumulated about them, they missed seeing and acknowledging the Truth which stood before their very eyes in the person of Jesus.
"Ye search the scriptures, because ye think that in them ye have eternal life, and these are they which bear witness of me, and ye will not come to me, that ye may have life" (John 5: 39, 40). What had happened? Their "Bible study" had become an end in itself, a one-way street leading nowhere. They could quote the Book from cover to cover, but like many another quoter of scripture, the truth revealed was missed entirely and the great central Personality toward which all scripture points was not recognized and accepted.
This practice still continues. Men still argue the scriptures and boast of being "a people of the Book." What many seem to overlook is that we are not Christians because of faith in a book, even an inspired one. We are Christians because of faith in and unconditional obedience to Jesus Christ. We are made Christians when we see through the book to Him who is the Light of the world and the Savior of men. Our Lord had a purpose in giving us a book. That purpose is stated in John 20:30, 31: "Many other signs therefore did Jesus in the presence of his disciples which are not written in this book, but these are written that ye may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing ye may have life in his name.
We now hear a new phrase for the 70's, "The church must grow!" Certainly we cannot fall out with that. But has there ever been a decade since Pentecost when this imperative was not on the church? Of course the church must grow. Life means growth and the church has within it that divine life. However, under our new phrase we seem to be searching out strange means of growth. One plan is the absolute necessity of more and bigger buildings.
A prominent speaker, bearing down heavily on this need, came to the conclusion that the church will "strangle" which does not have Sunday school classrooms with so many square feet per pupil. This put me to thinking. First I turned to Acts, having been told that in the period covered by this record the church had its greatest growth. Not once did I find an account of a church strangling because of lack of buildings. It was interesting that I found no account of "building programs" at all.
In the 17th chapter I found the antagonists claiming that the Christians had turned the world upside down. In two or three weekend revivals led by these disturbing preachers there had been a large
[Page 137] |
number of believers added, but this had not been accomplished by gathering large crowds into the "sanctuary" and all of the young people into classrooms in "the educational building." As I read this I thought of the classic statement by W. Carl Ketcherside, "The only sanctuary God has on earth today is the consecrated heart of a believer. Here is where the Holy Spirit dwells, and not in temples made with hands." In that early day the growth of the church made emperors tremble on their thrones and shaped the course of empire. This was long before the days of ornate houses of worship and Sunday school classrooms.
Think of our own great restoration movement. When were the days of its greatest growth? Not at a time when men stopped at every crossroads to erect a church building, but when with mighty passion they proclaimed the gospel of God's redeeming love and grace in rude log cabins, under brush-arbors, and in the deep forests of the American frontier. In those days this movement became the fastest growing religious body in the nation. The spirit of the early Christian community possessed the people. Love for Christ and passionate concern for souls motivated their service. The spirit of pride in costly buildings and organizational machinery had not yet laid hold of their thinking.
Church growth for them was not a matter of square feet and numerical sittings. Outward physical comforts were altogether secondary. Leaves of the mighty oak do not burst forth in springtime because there is large room in the forest. They do not come down in autumn because they have a smooth place in which to fall. They come forth and are shed because of growth within the oak. To build a million dollar cathedral beside the oak would make no change in this law of inward growth. Church growth is an inside thing also, a thing which we seem to have forgotten. We ask for more slogans and set forth more of our plans, and we find ourselves altogether too inclined to measure growth by buildings, budgets and parking lots.
Please do not consider what is here written as a call for return to the "horse and buggy days." We are not decrying the use of church buildings and equipment. We are simply challenging any slogan which would make these things primary. The statisticians tell us the churches are losing ground -- this despite the fact that there are greater investments in church programs than ever before. Perhaps we also have today more experts telling how to run the churches. Why is the church losing ground in a day when the world needs that for which the church should stand more than in any previous age?
Has the fire gone out in the furnace? Have we quenched the Holy Spirit in his work through the church by our own plans and programs? Have the passion and power fled from modern day preaching? Are our slogans and cut and dried phrases proclaiming a message not backed up by the lives and service of our congregations? May the Lord help us to be a little more modest in our use of slogans and more concerned with approximating the ideals Christ has set forth for his church.