Thoroughly Biblical
Church
by Beresford Job
Let me ask a really excellent question: What are the
irreducible minimum requirements for a church in order for it to be
biblical? And the reason it is such an excellent question is the equally
excellent answer it brings forth from the Word of God! So hold on to
your hats because here we go!
It is clear from Paul's writings that the
practices passed on by the apostles have the force of biblical command,
and this is true be they, for instance, concerning people working and
providing for themselves and not being idle, or the manner in which
churches functioned, that is, what they did, when they met together.
Let‘s have a real good look at some of these scriptures:
“So then, brethren, stand firm and hold to the
traditions (Gk: paradosis - a handing down, established practice)
which you were taught by us (the apostles), either by word of mouth or
by letter.....And we have confidence in the Lord about you, that you are
doing and will do the things which we command......Now we command you
brethren, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that you keep away from
any brother who is living in idleness and not in accord with the
tradition (paradosis - established practice) that you received
from us.”
(1 Thessalonians 2v15, 3v4 and
6)
And in these verses Paul is referring to
Christian behavior in general, and then the need to work in particular.
But when we come to our next references, found in his first letter to
the Corinthians, then it is of the utmost importance that we understand
his context to be purely concerning that which they are doing when they
come together as a church. So what follows is Paul’s claim for divine
command concerning the way they were meeting when they came together as
a church.
I Corinthians 11v2 - “I commend you because you
remember me in everything and maintain the traditions (paradosis
- established practice) even as I have delivered them to you.” (And this
refers to Paul’s comprehensive blueprint for the Corinthians as a
church, and in particular their practices when they gathered
together.)
I Corinthians 11v16 - “If anyone is disposed to
be contentious, we recognize no other practice, nor do the churches of
God.” (Notice here Paul‘s insistence that all churches were to be the
same in these respects and based purely on apostolic practice. And of
course the particular issue dealt with in this verse is that of women‘s
head coverings during the church gathering, which I personally
understand to mean the need for women to wear their hair
long.)
I Corinthians 14v33b - “As in all the churches of
the saints......” (Here, regarding the issue of women speaking during
the church gathering, it is again assumed that all the churches are
practicing in the same way.)
I Corinthians 14v36-38 - “What! Did the word of
God originate with you, or are you the only ones it has reached?” (Just
feel the sting of Paul’s sarcasm here) “If anyone thinks that he is a
prophet, or spiritual, he should acknowledge that what I am writing to
you is a command of the Lord.” (All this is church practice, and you
can’t get a stronger statement that this concerning it. The particular
way in which the Corinthians did things when they met together as a
church was not optional, but rather the commands of the Lord through one
of His apostles, in this instance Paul.) “If anyone does not recognize
this, he is not recognized.” (In other words they were to ignore anyone
who maintained they should do things differently from the way Paul had
laid down.)
And so we see that apostolic command, receiving
it’s authority directly from Jesus Himself, is not just concerned with
ethics, as, for instance in Paul’s command to the Thessalonians to work
and not be idle, but also with how churches should be set up and then
function. And from the New Testament as a whole we can piece together a
clear picture of just what this apostolically commanded church practice
actually was. I would consequently list the following:
- Believers met as churches on the first day of
the week. (And it is instructive to note at this point that this is
the only apostolic practice that the early church fathers didn't mess
around with and change. And of course the reason for this is that it
doesn't in any way touch on the actual nature of what a church is, and
therefore didn't affect the wrong teachings and changes to church
practice they introduced one way or the other. They therefore left
this one thing unchanged and it remained as the apostles had
originally established.)
- When churches came together they met in
houses.
- When they came together in their houses their
corporate worship and sharing together was completely open and
spontaneous (I Corinthians 14v26 describes the proceedings as,
"...each one has..."), with no one leading from the front. The early
believers didn’t have anything that even approximated a church
service.
- As part of these proceedings they ate the
Lord's Supper as a full meal, indeed as their main meal of the day,
commonly referring to it as the love-feast.
- They understood each church to be an extended
family unit (the idea of churches being institutions or organizations
would have been totally alien to them), and practiced non-hierarchical
plural male leadership that had arisen from within the church they
would subsequently lead. This indigenous eldership (elder, pastor/
shepherd, bishop/overseer being synonymous terms in the New Testament)
sought to lead consensually wherever possible, and was understood to
be purely functional, and not in the slightest way positional.
Now that is what the Bible clearly reveals as to how the
apostles, who were the recipients of Jesus’ full revelation and
teachings, established churches to operate and function. But the
question before us is: How much of their blueprint could be changed
whilst leaving a church as still fundamentally biblical in it's nature
and functioning. (I use this phrase because nature and functioning are
totally interrelated, being actually different sides of the same coin.
As in the rest of life form follows function - it is just the way things
unalterably are! Parents and children, for instance, function together
differently than colleagues at the work place, and it's the difference
in nature that makes the difference in function so important. A family
where parents and children relate together more like workmates than
blood relatives would be an example of, not a normal family, but a
dysfunctional one. So likewise, churches that function as institutions
or organizations, rather than extended families of the Lord's people,
are examples of dysfunctional churches and not, biblically speaking,
normal ones.) So let us now proceed in earnest to the answering of our
question, and see what parts of the apostolic blueprint, if any, are
non-essential in maintaining both the nature and functioning of a
biblical church. And we’ll start with the issue of which day churches
ought to meet.
Now as far as nature and function are concerned
this is indeed entirely neutral, and as I pointed out formerly the early
church fathers realized this and so saw no need to make changes. They
saw that you could alter the functioning and nature of churches without
reference to the day on which they met and so in that regard left things
as apostolic status quo. And, conversely, a biblical church could change
the day on which it got together yet remain everything it already was,
and continue to practice and function in the same manner in every other
respect.
And I would be the first to say that being
(nature) and doing (function) church biblically is more important than
the day on which you meet in order to so be and do; and would rather be
part of a church that was biblical in practice and function but which
met on, say, Thursdays or Tuesdays, than one that met on Sundays but
which wasn't biblical according to our earlier definition. But here is
my question:
When the early church
fathers themselves chose not to change the day of the gathering of
believers, on what basis, and for what possible reason, should
we?
Though I say again that I do accept without
reservation that a church meeting on a different day of the week to
Sunday can be otherwise fully biblical. Further, if it ever became
illegal to meet on Sundays, but not Thursday, then I would probably,
under such circumstances, be quite happy to make the necessary changes.
But outside of such extenuating circumstances, and I shall be back to
that thought later, why change the day on which the early church, under
the guidance and care of the apostles, met?
And let me also answer at this point the
completely legitimate point that in the world of the New Testament the
Jews started a new day in the evening, and this means the first day of
the week for them started on Saturday evening. Therefore, if any church
met on Saturday evenings specifically for that reason then I would
accept it as a biblical thing to do. However, it must still be said that
this would seem to be illogical in countries where each day is reckoned
to commence in the morning. For most of us the first day of the week is
the time period from when we get up on Sunday morning until we go to bed
again, so I would still maintain that meeting as churches on Sundays
remains the biblical norm as far as we are concerned. So let's move on
now to the question of meeting in houses.
That the early church did meet in houses no-one
with an ounce of sense or Bible knowledge is going to deny, and the
nature and functioning of the meetings they had when they came together
as churches simply meant that there was never any need for them to do
otherwise. Numbers in each church were, by definition, supposed to be
small, and interactive gatherings with no one leading, and with a meal
thrown in to boot, are just perfect for a house setting. After all, what
better place could there possibly be? And so once again we see form
following function as it always does in the New Testament. (The eventual
move from houses into specially sanctified religious buildings was, as
with all the other changes we are considering, down to the early church
fathers. And it is interesting to note too that this was the final
change they made to the apostolic blueprint, and that meeting in houses
was actually the original apostolic praxes that survived their
reinvention of the Christian church the longest.)
But let us now
consider the plight of 20 Eskimos in a village somewhere near the North
Pole who have just become Christians, and who therefore want to become a
church, but whose largest igloo can only fit 8 people in it. Now if they
therefore decided to hire a slightly larger igloo with the express
purpose of using it for their gatherings as a church, then assuming they
still meet as the Bible describes and don’t therefore change the nature
of what their gathering together ought to be, then I would see no
problem. Indeed, I would rather be part of a biblical church that met
outside of homes for their main gathering (assuming though that the
other biblical practices were in place) than part of a church that met
in homes but which was unbiblical in every other respect. You can
maintain the nature and functioning of a church, if you really have to,
whilst meeting somewhere other than in a home. Indeed, the church of
which I am a part sometimes utilizes a rented hall for the bit of our
gathering together that includes the singing, this being out of love for
neighbors having heard their complaints about the noise. But we sit in a
circle, just as we would in a home, and what we do in that hall is still
completely open with everyone free to spontaneously take part, and
without anyone leading from the front. And when we are done we return to
one of our houses for the love-feast. But let me underline now what I
just said about if you really have to; because we must make sure that we
don't let deviations from the biblical norm, permissible only because of
extenuating circumstances, actually become the norm. Let me illustrate
what I mean by this from what the Bible teaches about
baptism.
Biblical baptism, like apostolic tradition for
the way a church functions, is a command from the Lord. And although
it's actual mode isn't anywhere commanded in the pages of scripture, we
know from the way the early church did it (apostolic tradition again)
that it was to be done upon conversion, with no time lapse, and in
water. (And of course the immersion bit we get from the simple fact that
the actual word baptism in English is simply a transliteration of the
Greek word baptizo which literally means to dip, dunk or
immerse.) And many of us would be greatly concerned at any idea that we
are free to make changes to this, whether regarding who is to be
baptized, the mode of their baptism, or indeed it's timing, and remain
painfully aware of how the church at large has massacred it in each of
these ways for far too long. So our position would be that, in order to
comply with the teaching of the Word of God, a person should be baptized
upon profession of faith in Jesus, as soon as possible, and by full
immersion in water.
But let us now address an instance of someone
coming to the Lord but who is bedridden because of illness. Baptism, as
biblically commanded and exampled in the New Testament, is clearly out
of the question as far as they are concerned, so would not coming up
with some other more appropriate mode be incumbent upon us? And of
course we would respond to this in the affirmative! In such a
circumstance one would technically be out of step with the teaching of
scripture as to the mode of baptism, yet still be in complete harmony
with it’s intent and spirit. But here is the vital point: Nothing of
what I have just said could possibly apply to the conversion of an able
bodied person, and the normal mode would have to be employed in order
for things to be as the Lord wants. And neither could anyone argue for
baptism for someone who hadn't responded to Jesus by faith, because that
would attack the very nature of baptism, even though it's external mode
might still in accordance with the scripture.
And of course this
is what I mean when I say we must not make biblically permitted
deviations, necessitated because of extenuating circumstances, become
the norm. If the church of which I am a part here in England had access
to the size of houses that similar churches have, for instance, in
America, then we would not in a million years have even thought of using
a hall for part of our gathering together. And if we return for one
moment to our postulated brothers and sisters at the North Pole, should
it turn out that they do have igloos big enough to fit a good number of
people in after all, then what possible need would they have of hiring a
large public building-type igloo for their church gatherings? And of
course the truth of the matter is that any process of negotiating away
any of these factors which together make a church biblical is usually a
lead up to attempts at smuggling in alternatives to the other three
things I listed:
- Open worship and sharing with no one leading
from the front
- The Lord's Supper as a full meal
- Non-hierarchical plural male indigenous
leadership
And do let me make it quite clear that with
the above three things we are now looking at the completely
non-negotiable and irreducibly bare minimum requirements for a church to
be said to be biblical. But let me make it clear as well that I do not
by this mean that everything has to be in place from the word go, there
is often and frequently the need for instruction, development and
spiritual growth first. Yet it still remains the case that these things
must be at least where a church is headed, it’s destination so to speak,
even if it has not yet arrived. Of course the Lord's Supper as a full
meal ought to be in place from the word go, there is no possible reason
for such to not be the case, but eldership will normatively arise later.
And it is often the case too that someone might take an initial lead in
the corporate weekly gatherings until others learn how to begin to play
their part. But the thing to grasp is that it would nevertheless be
quite clear where the church was headed in regards to how it functions
and does things.
And of course the issue here is that anything that touches
on these three things does indeed impact on the very nature of what a
church is. Change things here and you cause a church to begin
functioning in a way that is not only different from what the New
Testament reveals, but completely alien to it and virtually it's
opposite. To return to our example of baptism we might say that here we
have the equivalent of baptizing an unbeliever. The very nature of the
thing is changed and the Lord’s intention for it made void, canceled
out; indeed, virtually done away with! And it boils down to this: Why
would anyone who understands these last three parts of the blueprint
want to play around with the first two in any case, unless there were
the most pressing extenuating circumstances virtually forcing them into
it? I have yet to hear it put better than by my good friend Steve
Atkerson: “The question is not so much why we should do things the same
way the apostles did, but rather why would we want to do anything
differently?”
And I rather think that says it all!
Beresford Job is an elder and Bible teacher at Chigwell Christian
Fellowship in Essex, England. He was the keynote speaker at the 1999
Southern House Church Conference.
He may be reached at:
Beresford Job
37, Beaconfield Road,
Epping, Essex CM16 5AR
United Kingdom
Beresford@chigwell24.freeserve.co.uk
