This week’s Bible class centered around personal convictions about the faith, work, and practice of the Lord’s church. I was a little unsettled with the response or lack thereof to questions about baptism, congregational singing, and weekly observance of the Lord’s supper. It was a startling red light for me. It suggests the preacher at North Second Street is falling down on the job about some very important teaching.
Before we get started, I want to acknowledge, Christians are not always comfortable answering these kinds of questions in a public setting. I am sure the answers would have improved if there was more of a warning. But of course, we often have no head-start in a conversation about the word of God (II Timothy 4:2; I Peter 3:15).
To answer questions about the often unique practices within churches of Christ; we must first explain how those conclusions are established. It is my experience that most churches outside of the Stone-Campbell Restoration Movement are almost unconcerned with becoming a First Century church. The suggestion that we should examine the Scriptures in an effort to find and then recreate the teaching, worship, and organization of the churches from the apostolic age is as foreign to them as a water slide baptistery and worship bands would be to Christians who lived in the time of Jesus and the apostles.
Let’s get started by standing on the rock. In any discussion about Christian matters, the first thing upon we must agree is that the Bible will be the first and final rule we use to measure all questions about God and the church of his dear, resurrected Son.
Then the question becomes, “How can we all agree on what the Bible teaches?” Great question! The United States was founded during a historical era known as the Enlightenment. Thinkers in Europe thought all knowledge could be obtained by applying the scientific method, championed by Francis Bacon and Isaac Newton, to the natural world. Men like John Locke and Thomas Jefferson used what they called “rational thought” or “common sense” to evaluate the facts of the scientific method. It should come as no surprise that religious men in the country declared independent by Jefferson in 1776, would take an empirical look at the Bible and rationally discover what it’s core elements, facts, and promises were.
This intellectual tradition comes down to us as a method of interpreting the Bible. We start with the understanding that God has given us, “all things that pertain to life and godliness,”-II Peter 1:3. The Bible is breathed out by God and has everything we need to be complete and carry out all good works (II Timothy 3:16-17). With an open Bible we ask what God tells us to do, what the apostles show us to do, and what we can imply we are to do to fulfill those commands and examples.
Thomas Campbell put it like this in 1809, “the New Testament is as perfect a constitution for the worship, discipline, and government of the New Testament Church, and as perfect a rule for the particular duties of its members,” Campbell believed we know the will of God by looking into God’s word for what was, “expressly enjoined by the authority of our Lord Jesus Christ and his apostles…either in express terms or by approved precedent.”-Thomas Campbell (1809).
This is part one of a three-part lesson. Next week, we will look at specific examples of how these principles are applied to the scriptures to determine the will of God.
https://www.north2ndcofc.org/command-example-and-inference-a-case-study-2-3/
https://www.north2ndcofc.org/command-example-and-inference-a-case-study-3-3/
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