The Voice of One Crying Out in a Closed Communion

Should communion (i.e. Lord's Supper) be an open or a closed thing? Arthur Sido at The Voice of One Crying Out in Suburbia does some reasoning with the bible in mind in his post, The Communion Default. I agree that it should be open to all Christians because it is, after all, the Lord's table, and not ours. And as one who has been humiliated by closed communions, I have experienced the damage that a closed communion can cause. Give it a read.

Maybe the Part-Time Churchgoer Smells the Coffee

Hat tip to Arthur Sido (who blogs at the voice of one crying out in suburbia) for pointing out a post written by Trevin Wax at the Gospel Coalition blog.

Wax writes about the "part-time churchgoer" so prevalent in today's [even a faithful] church.  He constructs a fictional couple, Geoff and Christine, who have children and serve faithfully in their local church.  Geoff is even a deacon.  But as faithful as they may think they are, they miss quite a number of Sundays to engage in other activities.  Without knowing it, they are "part-time" churchgoers.  Please read the short post here to understand what I am writing about.

My purpose in this post is to call attention to a point that I think is completely missed by both the author and most all of the commenters.

So Geoff and Christine miss church to engage in sports activities for their kids, go on vacation, take care of sick kids, host visiting family, and several other reasons.  What's the big deal? 

Getting right to the point here, Geoff and Christine may think it's okay to miss church because they aren't missed at church when they aren't there.  Nobody will notice.  And the reason nobody will notice is because the "body of Christ" that Wax attempts to portray really doesn't function like a body.  You know, like the body that the apostle Paul writes about in his epistles.  After all, if the whole body were an eye, where would the hearing be?

Imagine your body missing a major organ or other part.  If I woke up today totally blind in one eye it would affect me for the rest of my life, or until whatever temporary problem disappeared.  If I suddenly had surgery to remove a kidney, the results would be drastic.  If I were missing even one single toe, my foot planting on the ground on every step would be altered enough to give me posture problems or hinder my ability to run. 

Why do we think Paul used the metaphor of a body to describe the church?  It is because any body part that is missing would cause such a notable difference that we would suffer as a result.  But when Geoff and Christine miss church, does it noticeably affect the rest of the body?  It affects the body when the pastor isn't preaching and there's a guest in the pulpit.  But why wouldn't the body suffer the same when Geoff and Christine are absent?  Each member has the same care for each other, after all. (1 Cor. 12:25)  I don't ever recall a time where I was told that the body had a more difficult time functioning because I wasn't there on a given Sunday.  People never tell me that we were missed greatly by not being there. Is the pastor more important than Geoff and Christine?  If so, then there is a problem with the church they attend.

Maybe Geoff and Christine have noticed (or maybe they haven't) like we have that fellowship with other Christian families involved in sports is often better than the fellowship at church.  Why would that be?

The answer could be that the problem isn't with the people who don't show up on Sunday, but rather with the church that doesn't truly miss its absentees; the church that is about program and structure and not people.

Banned From The Lord's Table

Arthur Sido writes about the phone call he received from his church informing him that his family isn't allowed to commune with God.  What is also interesting is that one of the commenters doesn't see a problem with equating the Sido's family situation with gross imorality.  Let's call the fruit of man-made "formal church membership" doctrines what it is: rotten.

Why Arthur and I Love Blogging

Arthur Sido at The Voice Of One Crying Out In Suburbia writes about one of the major reasons I love blogging and reading other blogs:

It is true that the blogging world can often be banal and silly, sometimes even scandalous and a stumbling block to the Gospel. It is also true that done properly it provides a heretofore nonexistent medium for worldwide discussion, taking important conversations out of the world of academia and theological journals and making them available to every Christian. It used to be that you wrote a book, published it and waited for the reviews but now the review process is interactive and alive, allowing readers to ask questions and authors to sharpen their thinking in ways that perhaps they didn’t think of before.

Without a medium such as blogging I wonder what I would believe today.  The same thing I believed in 1995?  Maybe so.  And I'm glad that didn't happen.

But The Midweek Group Is My Church

Every church I've attended that claims to be Reformed has taught that the Sunday church meeting (aka worship service) is the central and most important event of the week for Christians.  If somebody had to decide to attend only one church activity during the week, the worship service should be it.  It contains the central focus of worship - the preaching of, and thus the listening to - the sermon, and singing and praying to the Lord.
Some people have neglected to attend on Sunday, but make other meetings during the week their main focus.  Inquiring leaders might get the reply, "But the midweek group is my church," and use the reply to warn against doing this.

But I'm wondering if those people aren't on to something.  Maybe they sense that those other weekly gatherings have more fellowship, more one-anothers, more stimulating one another to love and good deeds, more encouraging of one another (Heb 10:23-25) that is supposed to go along with not neglecting to assemble together.  And as Eric Carpenter writes at A Pilgrim's Progress, a former church of his had a built-in fellowship time that was very much enjoyed.  Arthur Sido, in the comments, notes that a former church his family attended had a difficult time getting people to stop fellowshipping during a built-in time so they could attend the formal teaching.  If more of the one-anothers that are listed in the New Testament occur in settings other than the Sunday meeting, why not allow somebody who realized this the benefit of the doubt in meeting during those other times?

Not In The Bible Either, Rev. Sproul

A huge hat tip to Arthur Sido at The Voice Of One Crying Out In Suburbia for pointing out a post made by R.C. Sproul Jr. on the Ligonier Ministries website.  The title of Sproul Jr's post is "5 Things I'm Surprised I Can't Find In The Bible."  The title of Sido's post is "Make that six things" and you can use your imagination as to why.

Sproul Jr. lists five things that are relatively unclear in the bible.  They are: 1) Proper form of church government; 2) Proper form of a service of worship; 3) Proper form for preaching the word; 4) Proper way to move from single to married; and 5) More information on the incarnation and the Trinity.  But contained in Sproul's No. 1, Sido finds No. 6, with my emphasis added:

The Bible is crystal clear that women are not to rule in the church, and that we are to submit to the elders over us. See Hebrews 13 for the latter.  Thus the Reformers were correct to list discipline as a mark of the true church. If you are not under the authority of name-able specific elders, you are not part of the visible church and thus do not have a credible profession of faith. You should get under authority.

Sido has some choice things of his own to say about this, some of which I'll lift and place here:

It always bothers me and should always cause you to pay close attention when someone airily claims that a whole chapter of Scripture [Sido references Heb. 13 in his argument] supports the point they are making without attempting to engage in the text at all and you should especially be on guard when they make statements with enormous implications to your very salvation based on these sweeping generalities. The idea that if you are not a member of a “proper” local church with name-able elders who carry out church discipline that you don’t have a credible profession of faith is a dangerous and Scripturally untenable statement. It sounds sweet to the ears of those who embrace certain church traditions but to question the salvation of someone because they don’t cling to your ecclesiastical traditions is arrogant and prideful.

And he concludes with:

 

The lesson here is that just because someone refers to a passage of Scripture and is published by a famous ministry doesn’t mean you should just take them at their word, especially not when they are questioning the salvation of other Christians.

Now I want to bring up the point I was making in my previous post on Ezekiel 34.  God's sheep can be lost, scattered, dominated, sickly, diseased, broken, wandering and slaughtered all at the hands of shepherds who did not care properly for the sheep.  And God doesn't blame the sheep in that passage.  Many people today who aren't currently involved in a church, or maybe are but are minimally involved, or who even are completely involved but haven't "signed the dotted line" of the membership papers can all fall under the pronouncement of Sproul Jr. and others who believe similar things.  I love to hear Christians' testimonies and life stories.  It amazes me how many people - including devout pastors - have had short periods of time or even seasons of their lives without the kind of church involvement Sproul Jr. speaks about.  And for many of these people, myself included, having your spirituality, level of humility or even salvation continually questioned or doubted doesn't help the cause any.  Especially for those who are younger in the faith.  Men like Sproul Jr. need to stop the "my way or the highway" authority trip and see God's sheep for who they are.  God's.

Monologue, Dialog, Preaching, Listening, Anyabwile, Carpenter, Sido and Christendom

For those of you not familiar with the dialog that's been going on, I'll keep that part brief.  For those of you who do know, you already know it.  What I have to say about it I think can benefit those not involved in the dialog, so please stay tuned beyond this paragraph.  So, a quick summary first.  Eric Carpenter at A Pilgrim's Progress critiqued a section of Thabiti Anyabwile's book on Expositional listening, which I briefly touched on here.  Anyabwile responded to somebody's critique of it at the Gospel Coalition, and many are assuming it was Carpenter's critique.  Anyabwile's post generated some big exchanges in the comments, and others I know like Arthur Sido jumped in, and then blogged on his own about another GC post on preaching as an ordinary means of grace.  Whew.

So, the ideas in question are 1) what is the role of preaching, 2) should it be done in church to believers or outside to the unbelievers, and 3) what should actually be done in the Sunday meeting.  Many of Anyabwile's critics point to their observation that there isn't a single example of a monologue sermon preached to believers in church anywhere in the NT, and all preaching is done outside of church to unbelievers.  Our Sunday church meetings should be dialog in nature, with all belivers participating in edifying one another.  Okay, I get their drift, and I also understand Anyabwile's viewpoint.  So what I have to say here is that I see people talking past one another in Anyabwile's comments section, and I think I know why.  It's partly a matter of historical and cultural contexts of both the apostles going out into the Gentile world in Acts, and the Protestant Reformation in medieval Roman Catholic Europe.  I'd like to beg everybody's pardon in advance, as I'm not a historian, and would invite correction and comment here.

The Apostles' Method

I actually see two methods the apostles used in Scripture to reach the Gentile world.  One, they went into the synagogues of the minority Jewish communities.  Their religion was already shaped by the Scriptures, they knew the Scriptures, and they were waiting for the messiah.  The message to them was, "Hey, you're God's people, but your man-made traditions have prevented you from seeing Yeshua as messiah.  Ditch your traditions and the evil deeds that come from them, and embrace Jesus."  Two, they went into the culture of the ignorant Greeks.  Their method was different.  "Your system of polytheism is death.  There's only one God, the one you missed.  He is Yahweh, and his Son is the Jewish messiah, Jesus the Lord.  Caesar isn't Lord, Jesus is.  Good news here folks, you're included in on the deal.  So repent of your sins and evil deeds you've done in ignorance, and believe in him and you'll receive eternal life."  Those "out there" that received the word were included in the church, made up of believers.

The Reformation

The context of the Reformation was different than the context of the Greek world and Roman Empire of the first century.  By the time of the Reformation, Christianity had already "conquered" Europe.  It had reached it's cultural conclusion in one sense.  The church was a dominant force in all of culture.  It affected all of life.  If you were born, you were baptized into the church.  This was the result of the apostles going out into the Roman Empire to begin with.  For the Reformers, reaching the lost wasn't a matter of going out into a strange world to preach Jesus to a lost people.  It more closely resembled my first apostolic method above, going to the Jews who had already had the foundations of religion laid down.  The lost masses were already in church.  The Reformers believed that a corrupt and wayward church had prevented the truth from making its way to the masses.  It had prevented the truth from being known even to the church leaders.  So, for the Reformers, the logical strategy would be preaching the word to those in church.  That the church was everywhere, and everybody was already connected to the church in some way.  The cultural context was one of Christendom. 

Now, seeing their context, it would be easy for the Reformers to see a positive effect preaching would have on uneducated church attenders.  They were hearing truths they never heard before.  They were being greatly affected by the application of God's word directly to them and in their own language for the first time.  And this great affect spread out over large parts of Europe.  It would be easy for the Reformers to conclude that preaching to people in church was a means of grace.  It would be easy for them to turn this into a doctrine. It would be easy to see that since this was a widespread phenomenon, that it should be something that everybody should do at all times.  It would be easy to teach this down through their own generations, and it would be easy for those who were taught it to hand it down.  It would be easy to see the same affect in other situations with a similar historical/cultural context.  It would be easy to see all this as a timeless, eternal truth rather than a contextual strategy.

But...it may be easy to see this method not working as well with a church of already more mature believers.  It would be easy to recall the tradition and its most early effects without realizing the context from which it came, and apply the doctrine to this group of more mature believers.  It might be easy to see the lack of the same kind of response as a deficiency on the part of the listeners as opposed to the deficiency of the strategy.  This could easily lead to a doctrine or teaching of expositional listening and expositional note taking.

Now, please understand, I'm not against preaching in the church, or against good listening.  My concern is that we in the Reformed world don't see our own contextual history and have a tendency to view things as applicable to all cultures at all times, simply because we're Reformed.