|
"But if I
tarry long, that thou mayest know how thou oughtest to behave thyself
in the house of God, which is the church of the living God, the pillar
and ground of the truth" (1 Tim. 3:15.)
Paul tells his son Timothy to "hold fast to the pattern of sound
words." Many Baptists have forgotten that exhortation. One of the most
common phrases heard in our Baptist Zion today is about "kingdom
work." It is neither scriptural nor sound. The Scriptures never use
it. They talk about church work but never mention kingdom work. What
the Scriptures are silent about is not scriptural. It is as unsound as
it is unscriptural.
Two serious errors grow out of our much talk about kingdom work.
First, if our work is kingdom work, then since all the born-from-above
are in the kingdom, "union" meetings and "union" missionary activities
and "union" Sunday School work and many other unscriptural practices
and agencies divert both funds and workers from scriptural church work
on the plea that they are kingdom workers. Serious leakage, both of
men and money, would be stopped and much needed time, money and work
would be conserved to the spread of the truth, if our Baptist people
would quit using the unscriptural expression "kingdom work" and
magnify church work. No commission was ever given by our Lord and King
to anybody, even though in the kingdom, who was not loyal enough to
the King, to obey Him in baptism and become a member of His church.
His commissions were given to church workers, not to kingdom workers.
And herein is the second serious hindrance to our Lord’s work that is
done by Baptists, who magnify kingdom work. Unconsciously and
unwittingly perhaps, but nonetheless truly and painfully, do they
cripple and impair the work of the churches of the Lord Jesus, by
leaving the impression that the kingdom and kingdom work are the main
things; and that it doesn’t make any difference whether the born anew
obey their Lord in baptism and obey the commission, given by Him to
His churches or not. And growing out of this unsound talk about
"kingdom work" and the resultant idea, that the kingdom is the main
thing, you hear everywhere today the specious plea from men, who are
disloyal and disobedient to our Lord and King, that it doesn’t make
any difference what church you join, just so you are sincere. "Bigots
to laxness," as Samuel Johnson called them, may so talk and so think:
but the Son of God did not so teach. He said "And why call ye me,
Lord, Lord, and do not the things which I say?" (Luke 6:46).
Obedience is the test of loyalty and love. And no one is obedient to
Him, who substitutes sincerity for obedience. The institution, which
He founded and called "My church," is the only one that He would
recognize and own. Since the only time we find the expression
"churches of Christ" in the New Testament, it is in the plural, the
Holy Spirit thus testifies in the most convincing way possible, that
the "My church" founded by the Lord Jesus, is a local and not a
universal church. It makes lots of difference to Him, whether you
belong to His church or some church founded by a man. And when you see
your church works, that were wrought to build up some man’s church
instead of the one He built, go up in smoke and ashes at the last day
and you are saved so as by fire, you will think it made a good deal of
difference as to what church you joined.
But to my text.
I. A Local Church Spoken of In the Text.
The first question that men ask, when they read this text is: What
kind of a church did Paul mean, when he said the church is the pillar
and ground of the truth? Catholics say he was speaking of a universal,
visible church, the hierarchy, which they call the Holy Catholic
church. Protestant Pedo Baptists and others say he was speaking of the
universal invisible church, which they say includes all the saved.
The context shows conclusively, however, that Paul was speaking of a
local church. "Likewise must the deacons be grave, not double tongued,
not given to much wine, not greedy of filthy lucre; Holding the
mystery of the faith in a pure conscience. And let these also first be
proved; then let them use the office of a deacon, being found
blameless. Even so must their wives be grave, not slanderers, sober,
faithful in all things. Let the deacons be the husbands of one wife,
ruling their children and their own houses well. For they that have
used the office of a deacon well purchase to themselves a good degree,
and great boldness in the faith which is in Christ Jesus. These things
write I unto thee, hoping to come unto thee shortly" (1 Tim 3:8-14).
Paul had been setting forth the qualifications and duties of bishops
and deacons and their wives. They are officers in a local church. This
is always true and their service as there outlined is limited to the
individual church of which they are officials. My church spoken of in
the text then must have been the local church, of which Timothy was
pastor at this time. Jesse R. Thomas in his book, "The Church and
Kingdom," on page 232 says of this passage: "It is singular that any
reader of this epistle should interpret this personal counsel to a
local pastor as to the proper behavior of a pastor or his people, in
relation to the body, to which they both belong, as in any way
referring to a world church. For, in the first place, both house
(household) and church are an anarthrous, as well as the words
following. It should read a house of God which is a church of a living
God, a pillar and a stay of the truth. This implies as Hort concludes
that Paul’s idea is that each living society of Christians is a pillar
and stay (bulwark) of the truth, as an object of belief and a guide of
life for mankind. It would have been useless to instruct Timothy as to
the duties of a pastor of the church universal, for he held no such
office, or the church invisible, for it has no officers at all."
The American Commentary says: "Paul sends these instructions to
Timothy that he may know how to conduct himself in the affairs of the
Ephesian Church. The importance of guiding aright the affairs of the
church is shown from the momentous relation of the church to the world
as the pillar and base of the truth, in conserving and proclaiming
divine truth among men. Each church is a column and base of the truth.
It is God’s chosen institution, by which His truth is up borne and
made known through all ages. Its office is to conserve and publish it
as God’s message."
Strong’s Theology says: "The whole church, not the bishop (so-called)
is to maintain pure doctrine and practice." This is proven "from the
committing the ordinances to the charge of the whole church to observe
and guard. As a church expresses truth in her teaching, so she is to
express it in symbol through her ordinances. Baptism and the Lord’s
Supper are not to be administered at the discretion of the individual
minister. He is simply the organ of the church; pocket baptismal and
communion services are without warrant. The only organized body known
to the New Testament is the local church, and this is the only body of
any sort, competent to have charge of the ordinances. The Invisible
church has no officers. The Lord’s Supper was observed by these
churches as organized bodies." Pages 505, 551.
These testimonies are unanswerable and are abundant to prove that the
church referred to in the text is a local church.
II. Each Baptist Church a Conserver and Propagator of the Truth.
The word translated "pillar" means a stay, a column, a support, that
which upholds whatever is resting upon it. That means that every
Baptist church is to uphold and defend the truth against all comers in
its community. Wherever any Baptist church is recreant to that sacred
trust, the truth falls to the ground in the community in which it is
located. Wherever Baptists compromise, the truth is compromised:
wherever Baptists are true to the faith, the truth is conserved and
upheld and caused to stand. The only foundation that truth has in any
community is the Baptist church in that community. No other church has
the truth and if it had it, it is not strong enough to support it,
because of the weakness of its foundation, being wholly of men. Only a
church of Christ can support the truth, because no other has a
foundation against which the very gates of hell themselves cannot
prevail. If the truth falls Christ is dishonored and the truth
defamed. How important then that Baptist churches should uphold and
conserve and defend the once delivered faith!
Baptists are not simply to conserve the essentials, they are to
conserve and preserve all the truth. The truth is a unit. It stands or
falls together. "If Christ isn’t Lord of all He isn’t Lord at all." If
Lord of all, He is Lord as to baptism and church membership and
tithing and world wide missions and church polity. If these things are
thrown into the scrap heap on the plea that they are non essentials,
then His deity and God-hood go with them. He spoke as authoritatively
about them as He did about His God-hood. There is more in the New
Testament about close communion than there is about the virgin birth:
more about baptism than there is about His deity; more about church
polity than there is about the resurrection: more about the work of
the local churches than about the second coming of our Lord. The local
churches of our Lord are the God ordained pillars and conservers of
the truth and only those churches, which are conserving all the truth,
are really conserving any of it.
But not only is each local church a conserver of the truth: it is also
a propagator of the truth. The word translated "ground" means a base,
a bulwark, a base of supplies for the spread of the truth. Each church
is to be not only a conserver of the truth, but a publisher and
proclaimer of the truth. What a base of supplies was to the men at the
front in the army, a Baptist church is to be to the gospel and the
truth. Just as munitions and nurses and doctors and food and recruits
were supplied the men at the front from the base of supplies; so every
church of the Lord Jesus is to supply men and money for our missionary
work and workers at home and abroad. The commission was given by our
Lord to the first church and then as the churches multiplied, to each
one of them. Each church was a recruiting station for men and supplies
for all kinds of missionary work.
Each New Testament church was, under the Holy Spirit, a self
governing, self supporting and self propagating base for the truth.
Jerusalem sent men to Samaria. Antioch sent men and money to western
Asia and to far away Europe. Philippi sent resources and supplies to
Paul and Timothy and the balance of their co-laborers and supported
them while they preached the gospel and organized churches and trained
workers. Paul robbed other churches to open up work in Corinth, a
great wicked, heathen city, on foreign mission territory: and the one
charge of inferiority he brought against them was that they were not
self supporting and did nothing to support him in propagating the
truth in other places.
Churches that are willing to be helped out of mission funds instead of
helping to support missionaries who are carrying the gospel to others,
are inferior churches and are not worth supporting long. They are
cumberers of the ground and ought to die and get out of the way of
churches that will be real bases of supplies for the truth. Eight or
ten times in the New Testament we are told to be church builders:
never once are we told to be kingdom builders. The command to make
Baptists is as imperative as the command to make disciples or
Christians. And the command to teach or indoctrinate the churches,
thereby making them self-supporting, self-governing and
self-propagating bases of supplies for the truth and the whole program
of the Lord Jesus, is just as imperative as to make disciples or to
make Baptists. If a church will not be made self-supporting and
self-propagating, either in the mountains or in the cities in the
homeland or on the mission fields, it ought to be turned out to die.
When the Son of God told the church at Ephesus: "Remember therefore
from whence thou art fallen, and repent, and do the first works; or
else I will come unto thee quickly, and will remove thy candlestick
out of his place, except thou repent" (Rev. 2:5), He said in the
plainest way possible, that if they did not become self propagating
and missionary as in the days of their first love He would let them
die. A church that isn’t missionary isn’t worth supporting and ought
to die.
The most far-reaching work Paul ever did, he did in the nearly three
years he was at Ephesus. Six or seven other churches, known as the
seven churches of Asia, were all founded and established by Paul
during his stay at Ephesus. When the Lord Jesus walked among them in
the days of His revelation to John, He sends word to their pastor
(angel) that, if they do not repent and become missionary as they were
in their first love, He is going to let them die.
It was to this same church, while Timothy was their pastor, that Paul
sent word in the words of the text that they are to be the "conservers
and propagators of the truth." The business of a Baptist church is to
be a conserver and a propagator of the gospel and the once delivered
faith. If they and their pastors are not doing that, then the Lord
Jesus, the great Head of the church, threatens to remove their
candlestick, for though they have a name to live they are in reality
dead. The very life of the church is threatened by the Lord Jesus, the
head of the church, if they leave their first love. The first love of
the church at Ephesus made them the most missionary church in all
Western Asia except Antioch. Seven other churches were established by
Paul during his three years stay in Ephesus. They were a great
missionary center. Their missionary zeal and enthusiasm had now lagged
and flagged and the Lord Jesus is now threatening their very life
because of the decay of their love for missions and the gospel.
|