Hi Steve,
I am belatedly joining your GCS via the lectures on the website and really enjoying them & learning quite a bit.
I have worked my way up to Genesis 2 & 3 lectures from last summer at your new GCS. A question please -- talking about marriage, you make a point that the family needs to take precedence over the church group, while still being subject to church discipline. Can you give one or more example of how this would be lived out? Are you just contrasting this to slavish attendance even when there is a pressing need like illness, or did you have something else in mind? Church seems to work AGAINST our walk with the Lord and family spiritual growth. Our best years were when we were homeschooling elementary school and were SMO (Sunday morning only), but increasingly churches are demanding covenants, membership for communion, long "do lists" in order to be allowed to worship with them. We've been through several churches, one worse than the next for chewing up your family, and are quite burned out.
Paula
GCS Lectures Question
Re: GCS Lectures Question
Hi Paula,
When I said that church authority can not pre-empt the divinely-established authority structure of the family unit, except in the case of church discipline, what I meant was the following:
The Church refers to the family of God worldwide, throughout history, comprised of all who are born of the Spirit and following Jesus. That family is charged with upholding Christ’s standards within its ranks. This is where church discipline comes in. Church discipline is only for cases of someone practicing sin, or influencing others to do so (Matthew 18:15-17/ Rom.16:17/ 1 Cor.5:1-5, 11-13/ 2 Thess.3:14-15/ Titus 3:10/ Rev.2:14-15, 20).. Sin is defined by God’s commands, not by church leaders’ expectations about one’s degree of participation in the activities of a given congregation.
The Bible knows nothing of “local churches” such as we know today. The "church" in any given town is simply the entire local sample of those members of the worldwide Church who happen to live in one geographical region. All the Christians of the town belonged to that one church in town, because Christ is the Head over only one universal body, or Kingdom, which has member colonies in many localities.
Of course, there are even smaller samples of the Church in individual gatherings, which we might call congregations. However, if a town has ten (or two-hundred) separate meeting places for the local Christians, that is only a logistical necessity—they do not comprise independent political entities—since all of the members of each of these groups are really only a sampling of the one local church, which is itself only a local sample of the one universal Church. It is a single political entity worldwide, having only one King (or Head—1 Cor.11:3) over all of its membership.
What this means is that no individual congregation in a town (what would today be called a “local church”) has any independent authority over its attendees—as if they belonged to that group specially, and not to all the other Christian groups equally. Of course, it is a practical necessity for most Christians to be somewhat more involved with one smaller segment of Christians, as opposed to attempting to be equally involved with all Christians. There are only so many relationships that will fit into our lives before all of our time and resources have been completely spoken for.
Also, God will, no doubt, lead you and your family to intertwine with a few select families or friends, whom He has provided to be an intimate support network. These may all be of one congregation (a handy thing), or they may attend multiple congregations. Where people worship on Sundays is less significant than the quality of their real-life relationships.
All the attendees of every Christian congregation are subject to the same standards that govern the universal Church—which means that no Christian is allowed to live in willful sin and unrepentant rebellion against Christ. Thus, every local church is obligated to enforce the standard of obedience to Christ in all of its congregations—and all congregations should uphold the legitimate discipline imposed in any individual congregation.
Beyond this, there is no legitimacy in the attempts of a given congregation to regulate the private or family lives of its attendees (I do not say “members,” since the concept of being a “member” specially of one congregation in a town would be abhorrent to someone like Paul (1 Corinthians 1:10ff).
The leaders of the church must discipline unrepentant sin in their congregations, in order to bring them into moral conformity with all other congregations of the Church, but where there is no sin being practiced, the local leaders have no special authority over the internal government of the family, of which the husband/father is the head.
The only cases I can imagine in which the leaders of the church would have any right to intrude their authority into the governance of a Christian family would be:
1) Where the husband/father is himself in unrepentant sin and must come under church discipline; or
2) When the husband/father is failing to govern his own wife and children, so that they are either being endangered or are themselves causing disruption or scandal to the church.
There might be other scenarios I am not thinking of, but these two do come to mind.
Congregational involvement can be a boon or a bane to a family. Where it becomes the latter, the husband/father must govern his family wisely for their good, even if this means that they do not attend as frequently, or involve themselves as deeply in church activities as the church leaders would prefer.
To my mind, church “covenants” are an abomination in the sight of God. They are seen as analogous to marriage covenants (which are ordained of God for couples, but not for congregations). Churches that advocate covenants actually talk as if a Christian's visiting other churches ("church hopping," as they call it) is like a woman jumping from one man’s bed to another’s. It is an absurd analogy and a transparently mischievous controlling device. Of course, a woman cannot go from one man’s bed to another’s—because she is exclusively her husband’s woman by covenant. No “church member” belongs to an individual congregation in that sense. There is no analogous exclusive claim upon people that can be maintained by a single organization of Christians. I am convinced that, if there were no church budgets and salaries to be paid (and no egos or control-freaks in leadership) the "church covenant" idea would never have been contrived, nor would it have commended itself to the leaders of churches.
Nothing could be more divisive of the true Body of Christ than this “church covenant” concept. Paul was aghast that the Christians in one city would begin to think of themselves belonging to different groups, some under Paul, some under Cephas, and some under Apollos. The “church covenant” not only tolerates this abominable practice, but legitimates and enforces it.
When I said that church authority can not pre-empt the divinely-established authority structure of the family unit, except in the case of church discipline, what I meant was the following:
The Church refers to the family of God worldwide, throughout history, comprised of all who are born of the Spirit and following Jesus. That family is charged with upholding Christ’s standards within its ranks. This is where church discipline comes in. Church discipline is only for cases of someone practicing sin, or influencing others to do so (Matthew 18:15-17/ Rom.16:17/ 1 Cor.5:1-5, 11-13/ 2 Thess.3:14-15/ Titus 3:10/ Rev.2:14-15, 20).. Sin is defined by God’s commands, not by church leaders’ expectations about one’s degree of participation in the activities of a given congregation.
The Bible knows nothing of “local churches” such as we know today. The "church" in any given town is simply the entire local sample of those members of the worldwide Church who happen to live in one geographical region. All the Christians of the town belonged to that one church in town, because Christ is the Head over only one universal body, or Kingdom, which has member colonies in many localities.
Of course, there are even smaller samples of the Church in individual gatherings, which we might call congregations. However, if a town has ten (or two-hundred) separate meeting places for the local Christians, that is only a logistical necessity—they do not comprise independent political entities—since all of the members of each of these groups are really only a sampling of the one local church, which is itself only a local sample of the one universal Church. It is a single political entity worldwide, having only one King (or Head—1 Cor.11:3) over all of its membership.
What this means is that no individual congregation in a town (what would today be called a “local church”) has any independent authority over its attendees—as if they belonged to that group specially, and not to all the other Christian groups equally. Of course, it is a practical necessity for most Christians to be somewhat more involved with one smaller segment of Christians, as opposed to attempting to be equally involved with all Christians. There are only so many relationships that will fit into our lives before all of our time and resources have been completely spoken for.
Also, God will, no doubt, lead you and your family to intertwine with a few select families or friends, whom He has provided to be an intimate support network. These may all be of one congregation (a handy thing), or they may attend multiple congregations. Where people worship on Sundays is less significant than the quality of their real-life relationships.
All the attendees of every Christian congregation are subject to the same standards that govern the universal Church—which means that no Christian is allowed to live in willful sin and unrepentant rebellion against Christ. Thus, every local church is obligated to enforce the standard of obedience to Christ in all of its congregations—and all congregations should uphold the legitimate discipline imposed in any individual congregation.
Beyond this, there is no legitimacy in the attempts of a given congregation to regulate the private or family lives of its attendees (I do not say “members,” since the concept of being a “member” specially of one congregation in a town would be abhorrent to someone like Paul (1 Corinthians 1:10ff).
The leaders of the church must discipline unrepentant sin in their congregations, in order to bring them into moral conformity with all other congregations of the Church, but where there is no sin being practiced, the local leaders have no special authority over the internal government of the family, of which the husband/father is the head.
The only cases I can imagine in which the leaders of the church would have any right to intrude their authority into the governance of a Christian family would be:
1) Where the husband/father is himself in unrepentant sin and must come under church discipline; or
2) When the husband/father is failing to govern his own wife and children, so that they are either being endangered or are themselves causing disruption or scandal to the church.
There might be other scenarios I am not thinking of, but these two do come to mind.
Congregational involvement can be a boon or a bane to a family. Where it becomes the latter, the husband/father must govern his family wisely for their good, even if this means that they do not attend as frequently, or involve themselves as deeply in church activities as the church leaders would prefer.
To my mind, church “covenants” are an abomination in the sight of God. They are seen as analogous to marriage covenants (which are ordained of God for couples, but not for congregations). Churches that advocate covenants actually talk as if a Christian's visiting other churches ("church hopping," as they call it) is like a woman jumping from one man’s bed to another’s. It is an absurd analogy and a transparently mischievous controlling device. Of course, a woman cannot go from one man’s bed to another’s—because she is exclusively her husband’s woman by covenant. No “church member” belongs to an individual congregation in that sense. There is no analogous exclusive claim upon people that can be maintained by a single organization of Christians. I am convinced that, if there were no church budgets and salaries to be paid (and no egos or control-freaks in leadership) the "church covenant" idea would never have been contrived, nor would it have commended itself to the leaders of churches.
Nothing could be more divisive of the true Body of Christ than this “church covenant” concept. Paul was aghast that the Christians in one city would begin to think of themselves belonging to different groups, some under Paul, some under Cephas, and some under Apollos. The “church covenant” not only tolerates this abominable practice, but legitimates and enforces it.
Re: GCS Lectures Question
As you can see, I posted this answer where my original post (where I begged time to respond) originally stood. It only made sense, after doing so, to delete all the other posts that were simply discussing my computer problem and possible solutions, since the reference to the problem was brought up in my original post, which has now been replaced. I did not think anyone would object to my deleting their (and my) posts that discussed that side issue. I apologize if I overstepped.
-
Candlepower
- Posts: 239
- Joined: Wed Oct 29, 2008 3:26 pm
- Location: Missouri
Re: GCS Lectures Question
Steve,
Thank you for that post. It brings back some bad memories of our attendance at a couple of "Reformed" congregations in Oregon - one in Portland and another in Salem. Both operated in terms of the "Church Covenant" model. We never joined either one, though we attended regularly.
My wife and I know exactly what Paula meant when she said, "We've been through several churches, one worse than the next for chewing up your family, and are quite burned out." The reason we didn't join is that (even before we first heard you on the radio) we could not find such a system described in Scripture. It seemed so contrived -- so political. We agree, church covenants are "...a transparently mischievous controlling device."
But there were a lot of nice, ignorant folks in those churches we attended, and our children had made friends there, so we kept going for several years, until we finally began home-churching. We live in another state now and meet with a Christian couple at least once a week -- sometimes twice -- in either our home or theirs. They are members of a United Methodist Church, but don't consider themselves to be Methodists. Currently, we are going through Revelation and are using your lectures as our curriculum. They are great folks with open minds and a genuine love for Jesus. We love getting together with them.
May I copy your post to WORD and forward it to them?
Candlepower
Thank you for that post. It brings back some bad memories of our attendance at a couple of "Reformed" congregations in Oregon - one in Portland and another in Salem. Both operated in terms of the "Church Covenant" model. We never joined either one, though we attended regularly.
My wife and I know exactly what Paula meant when she said, "We've been through several churches, one worse than the next for chewing up your family, and are quite burned out." The reason we didn't join is that (even before we first heard you on the radio) we could not find such a system described in Scripture. It seemed so contrived -- so political. We agree, church covenants are "...a transparently mischievous controlling device."
But there were a lot of nice, ignorant folks in those churches we attended, and our children had made friends there, so we kept going for several years, until we finally began home-churching. We live in another state now and meet with a Christian couple at least once a week -- sometimes twice -- in either our home or theirs. They are members of a United Methodist Church, but don't consider themselves to be Methodists. Currently, we are going through Revelation and are using your lectures as our curriculum. They are great folks with open minds and a genuine love for Jesus. We love getting together with them.
May I copy your post to WORD and forward it to them?
Candlepower
Re: GCS Lectures Question
Of course you can. What I post here is in the public domain (until someone somehow abuses it).May I copy your post to WORD and forward it to them?
-
Candlepower
- Posts: 239
- Joined: Wed Oct 29, 2008 3:26 pm
- Location: Missouri
Re: GCS Lectures Question
Thanks.