It is an odd thing to be a person who writes articles about faith in Jesus Christ. I never thought of myself as becoming one of those people. Yet, here I am. As a way of excusing myself, I thought it would be appropriate for me to write about writing.
As Christians who strive to be solely guided by the New Testament; we reject creeds, commentaries, or councils as having any authority within the church. So why am I (or is anyone else) writing anything? Good question.
Preaching and teaching have biblical authority (Ephesians 4:11-12; I Timothy 5:17; II Timothy 2:2; 4:2). The men and women tasked with preaching and teaching are uninspired. So what is the result? Fallible humans take the truths of the infallible Bible and administer them in their own words to those around them. It is a ministry given by God to us.
The key to successful teaching or preaching (and I consider these bulletin articles a part of our teaching here at North Second Street), is your foundation.
“Everyone who comes to me and hears my words and does them, I will show you what he is like: he is like a man building a house, who dug deep and laid the foundation on the rock.”-Luke 6:47-48
Paul tells us the church and her teaching are, “built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the cornerstone,”-Ephesians 2:20. Everything we preach of teach should flow from the Scriptures. What Jesus, the apostles, and prophets gave us is the inspired word of God (II Timothy 3:16). It is the, “faith that was once for all delivered to the saints.”-Jude 3. The New Testament is the constitution of the church of God. Here’s what I mean.
If a law is passed in this country, it must be constitutional. That means that is must not contradict a principle laid out in the United States Constitution. The law may either say the same thing as the Constitution or it may agree with it. It can neither change the original wording nor disagree with any principle laid down in the ruling document.
For example, the U.S. Constitution sets certain rules for members of Congress: “No Person shall be a Representative who shall not have attained to the age of twenty-five years, and been seven years a citizen of the United States, and who shall not , when elected, be an inhabitant of the State in which he shall be chosen1.” The constitution says; if I have been a citizen for seven years, I can be elected to Congress. No law can be passed which says I can be elected after four years or that I must wait ten years after I become a citizen. Either one would be unconstitutional. On the other hand, I can write a law that repeats or reflects the principle laid down earlier.
It works the same way with our teaching and the Bible. For instance, Jesus tells us, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God…Do not marvel that I said to you, ‘You must be born again.’”-John 3:5-7. It is wrong to say, “I do not have to be born again to be a Christian.” It would also be wrong to say, “Water has nothing to do with me being born again.” Both would be false teaching because they contradict a foundational principle laid down by Jesus. If I write an article entitled The Importance of Baptism and point out that Jesus says I must be born again, I am doing so constitutionally or scripturally. What I am encouraging others to do is in line with the teaching of the Bible. It may repeat the word of God. It may agree with the word of God. But it most not contradict the word of God.
So, we uninspired humans teach and preach building on the foundation of Jesus and the apostles. Within churches of Christ, writing has always been an influential part of our identity. From Alexander Campbell’s Christian Baptist and David Lipscomb’s Gospel Advocate to the Bible Banner, Guardian of Truth, and others of the last 50-years, men have influenced the church through writing articles. What we must all be careful to do is stay on the foundation. Paul, in referring to the church at Corinth, says, “Let each one take care how he builds upon it. For no one can lay a foundation other than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ.”-I Corinthians 3:10-11. My prayer is that you occasionally find these articles helpful in your walk with Christ. My aim is they stand on the one firm foundation of the word of God.
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