Below is the second excerpt from Safe Houses of Hope & Prayer by R. Maurice Smith. You can find out more about Maurice by going to his website risingrivermedia.org. The first excerpt can be accessed by clicking here.
I would dare say that most Christians in traditional institutional churches never achieve or experience genuine fellowship (what I would prefer to call genuine community). Why? Because genuine fellowship is messy, takes work and requires perseverance. For time pressed leaders, it is much easier to teach people to death with impressive Bible notes in PowerPoint presentations than it is to work through the personal issues which stand in the way of genuine community. And lectures you can control are easier than dialogues which you can’t.
Our English word translated “fellowship” is the Greek word koinonia which comes from the Greek word koine, meaning “common.” Fellowship is the holding of certain things in common. In the life of the organic house church it is a mutual sharing of our lives together. We share a common life in the Kingdom of God and drink from a common River of His Spirit in the bond of Christ.
The desire for genuine koinonia was not new in the ancient world, nor was it exclusively Christian. The Classical Greek philosophers had envisioned a utopian fellowship that they described as koinonia. But all classical attempts to achieve this koinonia by human effort had failed miserably. But now, through the death and resurrection of Christ and the outpouring of the Holy Spirit, God had accomplished in the Church and the Kingdom of God what the efforts of men throughout the ages had never achieved: genuine fellowship. And this fellowship, this genuine koinonia, was manifested in the organic house churches of the New Testament where believers shared their lives with one another. They shared meals together in one another’s homes. They prayed together, endured persecution together, worshiped together and, at times, they even died together. They preferred one another’s company above all others and gave sacrificially to meet each other’s needs. To express it in contemporary terms for today, these early house churches were made up of people who loved to hang out together. They shared an affinity an attraction based on common interests – that surpassed the natural – it was supernatural. True koinonia or fellowship means that as Christians we share a common life in the Kingdom of God.
A quick word is in order at this point about genuine koinonia or community versus pseudo-community. In genuine community the reality is that baggage happens and this frequently results in conflicts. But mature believers look past the conflict and work together to “bear one another’s burdens” (Galatians 6:2) and help each other unpack their baggage and resolve their conflicts. Unfortunately, this is a new experience for many people who have only experienced the pseudo-community of most churches (traditional and otherwise).
In his excellent book The Different Drum Dr. M. Scott Peck describes pseudo-community this way:
“The essential dynamic of pseudo-community is conflict avoidance. The absence of conflict in a group is not by itself diagnostic. Genuine community may experience lovely and sometimes lengthy periods free from conflict. But that is because they have learned how to deal with conflict rather than avoid it. Pseudo-community is conflict-avoiding; true community is conflict resolving.”
Genuine community, genuine koinonia requires intimacy, vulnerability and conflict resolution with both God and men. Genuine koinonia requires a willingness to work through differences, baggage and conflict. If we are to be successful as organic house churches and as Safe Houses of Hope and Prayer, then we must pursue genuine community in our house churches and create a safe place where it can take place.
I really enjoyed reading Safe Houses of Hope & Prayer by R. Maurice Smith. His writing is down to earth, comedic and full of wisdom. The excerpt below addresses how relational gatherings can transform messy people. You can find out more about R. Maurice Smith by going to risingrivermedia.org. Another excerpt from this book can be accessed here.
Let’s face reality, shall we. For several years now I have taught a simple maxim in our house church network: “Life is Messy.” If we look with honest eyes we quickly see that people’s lives are a mess. Their families are a mess; their marriages are a mess; their finances are a mess. And that messiness is most often (but not always) caused by sin and its ripple effects. This is true of the non-Christian as well as for the believer. For those of us seeking a Jesus-shaped spirituality in organic house church, our challenge is how to respond to the messiness of life (particularly other people’s lives) when it shows up in our living room. Over the years we have had just about everything from divorce to demonic manifestations show up in our living room. That’s the challenge (and the blessing) of organic house church. But the messiness of life raises issues of how we deal with issues of sin and its consequences in the lives of those around us as we seek to lead people into the Kingdom of God.
Generally speaking, there are two basic ways such messes can be addressed: 1) We can attempt to create religious rules (“Do these ten things and God will love you and we may let you back into our house church!”) designed and intended to clean up messes and prevent sin, or 2) we can seek God for the inward transformation of the heart and life which overflows in obedience to God.
Brandon and Alondra know how to handle all kind of messes.
The choice between these two approaches for dealing with issues of sin and the messiness of people’s lives, the choice between outward religious conformity to rules versus trusting God for the inward spiritual transformation of the individual, will eventually confront every organic house church. And how you respond will define your ministry and your walk.
I want to urge you to believe God for the inward spiritual transformation of people’s hearts, in spite of the messiness of their lives, rather than allowing yourself to walk in a spirit of control and religious legalism. Every ministry, including the organic house church which meets in your house, will eventually be defined by two things: What it stands against, and what it stands for. As organic house churches and Safe Houses of Hope And Prayer, we must stand against sin and the kingdom of darkness in all of its manifestations, and against any spirit of control and outward religious conformity which believes and teaches that you can fight spiritual darkness with man-made religious rules. We stand for the Kingdom of God in all of its righteousness and holiness, and for the genuine spiritual transformation of the individual heart which will overflow in obedience to God.
Is your life a mess?
Here is where life gets complicated and messy. You see, in order to deal with or prevent the sins which they see in others, people and ministries are constantly tempted to create rules of outward religious conformity. We fail to comprehend Paul’s description of the Law in 2 Corinthians 3 as representing a ministry of death and which offers only a fleeting, temporary glory. All too often we fail to realize that, if the Law of God brought only death and condemnation, any laws and rules of men can only do worse! Religious legalism is like fools gold. In the end it is a worthless disappointment, but one which leads many people astray before the truth is discovered.
But because men are sometimes desperate for any kind of glory, however fleeting, they will pursue even a temporary and fading glory which they can control, rather than a greater abounding glory which only God by His Spirit can give. And there’s the rub. A religion-shaped spirituality made up of legalism and outward religious conformity places trust in ourselves to conquer sin and to clean up life’s messes by our own efforts. But a Jesus-shaped spirituality seeking spiritual transformation must always trust God, for He alone gives His Spirit without measure.
What does this mean for Safe Houses of Hope And Prayer and organic house church? And why is this an issue? It means that in both word and deed our message MUST be that we are not here to call anyone to obey our set of rules. We are here to proclaim the Kingdom of God and liberty to the captives. We are here to proclaim that God wants to transform people from the inside out, to deliver them from the ministry of death and condemnation and to introduce them to the abiding and abounding glory of God in the face of Christ. To the extent that we impose our man-made rules of outward religious conformity, we short-circuit the work of God’s Spirit and offer the fool’s gold of believing that personal transformation will come as the result of keeping a set of rules.
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Timothy Germain has created this great little PDF, 69 pages with images and graphics. Solid material and easy reading that can be sent to a friend to introduce them to House Church. This can also be used as a study guide for current groups. The PDF is free to download. I have also included a sample page below.
I’ve read a few books by Stephen E. Atkerson and it seems his model of House Church or Small Church is a bit of a mystery to me. The Second edition of New Testament Church Dynamics was published in 2024 and contains some interesting concepts not found in most books on the subject. I hope he has success and people do life well under his ministry, but I can’t recommend his book. You can read some excerpts below.
Aberrant Theology The lure of a participatory meeting might attract those looking to promote an eccentric doctrine. This is another situation where leaders are needed. Timothy, stationed in Ephesus and temporarily functioning as an elder, was to “charge certain persons not to teach any different doctrine” (1Ti 1:3). One qualification for an elder is that he must “be able to give instruction in sound doctrine and also to rebuke those who contradict it” (Titus 1:9). Similarly, Titus was told: “Exhort and rebuke with all authority. Let no one disregard you” (Titus 2:15). John warned about a known deceiver: “Do not receive him into your house” (2Jn 1:10). The prevention and correction of error is one reason elders are needed.
One way to filter out doctrinal error is for the church to have an official statement of faith. Remarks made during the church meeting must be consistent with the belief statement. Members with odd beliefs should not be free to publicly express them. In addition, only brothers who are in good standing with the church should be allowed to share. Each week, an announcement should be made that only church members are permitted to speak. The leaders are the gatekeepers for would-be speakers.
Congregational Size Meetings that are either too big (hundreds of people) or too small (fewer than ten or twenty) present hindrances to participation. The presence of too many people will be inimical to intimacy. It will intimidate the shy and inhibit sharing and accountability. Only a tiny fraction of those present in a big meeting would be able to share anyway (even if they had the courage). Too few contributions from people in a tiny congregation could make the meeting seem dull because of the absence of diversity of spiritual gifts. The typical first-century church, meeting in a wealthy person’s villa, might have sixty-five to seventy people in attendance. There were 120 in the upper room. Early church meetings comprised scores of people: not hundreds and, certainly, not thousands.
Overall I think Stephen promotes the idea of a small church in a building that allows others to speak and share a meal. This seems more of a hybrid between a typical organic church and the institutional church. Like I said above, if people are becoming more like Christ, then God bless them.
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Secret Church by Maurice Smith is sobering, well written and important. Is the Church ready to face the darkness when the moral and spiritual lights go out? How does the Church prepare itself? I recommend this book and I look forward to reading other works by Maurice. The excerpt below is about getting started. Check out his website risingrivermedia.org.
“And day by day continuing with one mind in the temple, and breaking bread from house to house, they were taking their meals together with gladness and sincerity of heart, praising God, and having favor with all the people. And the Lord was adding to their number day by day those who were being saved” (Acts 2:46-47).
When the Church was born in the Book of Acts, beginning at Pentecost, those early disciples had no idea how to “do” Church. Like you, they had NEVER “done” Secret Church, or any other kind of Church gathering. But by Acts Chapter 7, after a span of only a few weeks, those early disciples had recognized gifted leaders, assigned responsibilities according to gifts, callings and needs and organized thousands of new converts into a network of organic house churches, spread out all over Jerusalem. These “Secret Churches” met regularly from house-to-house, shared meals together and shared resources to help those in need (read the first seven chapters of Acts to get the whole picture). What is truly amazing, by modern “church growth” standards, is that they did it all without a budget, a building, a professionally trained staff, any “how to” manuals, any church planting or church growth workshops, and no worship team. And they did it all while enduring persecution, first from institutional Judaism and later from Rome itself. It was Simple Church. It was Organic Church. It was Secret Church. It later became an Underground Church. But most importantly, it was Effective Church, effective for the times in which they lived. How effective? So effective that they were accused of turning the Mediterranean world upside down (see Acts 17:6).
There’s an important point here. Secret Church isn’t about a program. Secret Church is a lifestyle; a lifestyle of being a disciple of the Kingdom, lived out in community with other disciples of the Kingdom. That was true of Secret Church in the 1st Century, and it is true of Secret Church today. It is somewhat ironic that as our civilization collapses and devolves into that same moral and spiritual paganism which characterized ancient Rome, God is calling His Church back to being the counter-cultural witness of 1st Century Secret Church. Your journey into Secret Church truly begins when you and I embrace the biblical truth that we don’t “go” to Church. We “are” the Church, a small manifestation of the Kingdom of God where ever we happen to be, starting in our homes.
American Christians seem to have a built-in “default” button. Press it and the average American Christian will show up at a building on Sunday morning at 11 AM looking for a bulletin and a program, ready to sit for an hour-or-so while “others” (paid professional staff) “do” Church. That isn’t church, not in the biblical sense. As A.W. Tozer described it a generation ago, and little has changed since.
“When we compare our present carefully programmed meetings with the New Testament we are reminded of the remark of a famous literary critic after he had read Alexander Pope’s translation of Homer’s Odyssey: ‘It is a beautiful poem, but it is not Homer.’ So the fast-paced, highly spiced, entertaining service of today may be a beautiful example of masterful programming – but it is not a Christian service. The two are leagues apart in almost every essential. About the only thing they have in common is the presence of a number of persons in one room. There the similarity ends and glaring dissimilarities begin.”
Secret Church doesn’t have a default button. If it did, when pushed, the result would be a potluck in someone’s home, worship together, ministry to each other based upon individual spiritual gifts and needs, and maybe even a discipleship study. The focus would be on building community, worshiping together, making disciples and finding ways to sow the seed of the Kingdom by serving those in need. Making the mental transition to Secret Church will take both time and intentional effort. And we may quickly discover that we have less time than we think. The urgency to move forward may well be determined by events which are beyond our control.
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Off Course! is a great little book by Rick Sundblad. Rick highlights eleven perils, which the early church faced, that threw the church off course. If you want to learn about the early church fathers and how their theology changed the direction of the true church, this book is for you. The excerpt below is from a chapter addressing how to get back on track.
Discipleship is designed to help us become more like Christ. Biblically it is done when believers share their lives in Christ through meaningful discussions focused on the directives of the Scriptures and learning how to apply God’s truth to our daily lives. This is what true biblical fellowship, or the Greek word koinonia, is supposed to be about. It is life sharing, spiritual nurturing, a bonding together of the body of Christ. We could look at this like receiving a spiritual life transfusion, helping one another in the preparation process God uses to make us like Jesus to be servants of his grace. “Each of you should use whatever gift you have received to serve others, as faithful stewards of God’s grace in its various forms” (1 Peter 4:10).
But if you are discouraged from talking openly about your relationship with God how can you ever hope to really improve it? I know some may say, “I can talk about God whenever I want!” But please be honest, how often, if ever, do those conversations get to where the rubber meets the road spiritually? Where iron sharpens iron and genuine repentance is seen in people’s lives, and the relationship and connection with the body of Christ are made stronger? Or do those types of exchanges nicely end up with, “You should talk to our pastor.”
Living a life of true discipleship involves a daily walk with Christ that will be reflected in a desire to constantly focus on things that have eternal value. If we are closely walking with Jesus, not at a distance, we will have a much better chance of staying on his course. If we get too far apart, out of sight from WHO we are to be following, we will surely lose our way.
In Renaissance: The Power of the Gospel However Dark The Times, author Os Guinness gives this admonition against losing our way and the hard work it takes to prevent it.
“Do we know the world well enough to know how and where it is likely to be squeezing us into its mold? And do we know our faith well enough to know where the mold of our world will be beneficial and where it would be harmful? We are to be as close as we can be to our Lord’s call to us to be in the world not of it-a challenge that requires not only faithfulness and obedience, but discernment and the willingness to count the cost and say no to the world.”
“God loves the world-the people of the world, that is and in this sense so must we. But God does not love the spirit and system of the world that is set against his kingdom, and neither must we. Thus one positive reason to understand the world is our desire to love the world too and to witness to the world, for the world is the social setting within which people hear what we have to say. Equally, one negative reason to understand the world is the danger of worldliness, for unless we discern its spirit and its shape, the world will always threaten to squeeze us into its mold unawares.
When we truly live in the world but are not of it, the church becomes-under God-the greatest transforming agency the world has ever seen. The glory goes to God and the credit to the truth of the gospel. It is not we ourselves, but our living-in-truth that changes the world. Our small part is simply to live the truth of the way of Jesus to which we have been called [p. 88].”
Sadly, it appears we may have collectively wandered off course and gotten stuck in the morass of self-righteous pride, time-ignorant worldliness, lukewarm complacency and blind selfishness. Such a pity. We miss so much of what he wants. And don’t forget, if one part of the body is stuck, we are all stuck. “If one part suffers, every part suffers with it” (1 Cor. 12:26). May we sincerely repent and ask God to forgive us, and help all of his true church to get back on his charted course for his glory.
“For whatever was written in the past was written for our instruction, so that we may have hope through endurance and through the encouragement from the Scriptures. Now may the God who gives endurance and encouragement allow you to live in harmony with one another, according to the command of Christ Jesus, so that you may glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ with a united mind and voice” (Romans 15:4-5 HCSB).
Published in 2003 and edited by Steve Atkerson, ekklesia addresses the roots of biblical church life. This book is an earlier version of a book published in 2008 entitled House Church. You can read an excerpt of House Churchhere. The ten contributing authors make ekklesia a well rounded book and I recommend it. I especially enjoyed the two different perspectives on women being silent in the church. Below is an excerpt written by my good friend Jon Zens on how to deal with conflicts and problems that will eventually arise in any group.
No human family can function indefinitely without having to face a conflict or problem. Likewise, in Christ’s family there will be problems that must be resolved. Indeed, much of what was written in the New Testament had to do with correcting errors of teaching and practice among the saints. What guidelines does the New Testament give for working through the bumpy times that any congregation will inevitably face? 1 Corinthians 1:10 reveals some critical apostolic teaching in this regard.
First, it can be noted that Paul directs his exhortation to the “brethren.” These were believers in a city who maintained an ongoing relationship with one another in the bonds of Christ. They were committed to one another because of their common interest in the Gospel. It is this deep mutual fellowship (koinonia) in Christ that provides the backdrop for Paul’s approach to them with correction. Larry Crabb notes a vital perspective that emerges from this consideration, “Change takes place when truth is presented in relationship. Perhaps a relationship of deep regard and empathetic concern is the context for change, creating an atmosphere in which the truth of God can be heard nondefensively and thus penetrate more deeply…to be healthy, a church must present truth in the context of encouraging relationships” (Encouragement: The Key to Caring, Zondervan, 1984, pp.84,91).
This insight reflects what we saw in Romans 15:7. A loving, caring, accepting atmosphere must be the context for speaking the truth to each other in love (Rom.15:14). What reason would we have to think that Gospel truth will take deep root in a setting which reflected instead the modified line from the old song, “Where seldom is heard, an encouraging word”?
Next, Paul confronts the Corinthians with a very serious problem. Paul had a number of issues with them, but this is the one at the top of his list. They were clustering around gifted personalities, and by such schism were ruining the image of an undivided Christ. “Each one of you is saying, ‘I’m of Paul; and I’m of Apollos; and I’m of Peter; and I’m of Christ.” This sinful division was already occurring and had driven the saints apart from one another.
To solve this problem Paul appeals to them “to agree” about the wickedness of this situation. If they “agreed” then the divisions could no longer exist. The participle katartismenoi used in verse 10 is significant. It is from the same verb used in Ep 4:12, translated there as “equip” or “prepare.” It is the verb used when the disciples were “mending” their nets (Mt 4:21; Mk 1:19). We could loosely translate the verb, “mending with a view toward rendering something as functional again.” This idea also emerges again in Galatians 6:1, “restore such a one…”
As used in the context of 1Co 1:10, we can see an important implication of being “perfectly united in mind and thought.” While we are not given any of the details as to how they worked this out, at a minimum we can say that the Corinthians had to work through this matter until the breach was “mended” and they finally “agreed.” A process which results in unity is in view. They were already split apart, so in order for the torn garment to be repaired they had to: (1) take the apostolic instruction; (2) come back together; (3) face and discuss the word of the Lord together; (4) repent of their sins; and (5) be restored again to their original oneness.
The utterly amazing fact is that, even with all their problems, Paul assumes that the assembly has the spiritual resources to overcome their waywardness. Many posit that the problem-solving abilities Paul presupposes will only work among mature churches. But this is a bogus suggestion. Corinth was in many ways a very immature assembly, but Paul still expects them, for example, to deal with immorality in their midst (1Co 5) and to resolve their disputes internally without going to unbelieving courts (1Co 6).
The apostles taught that within the New Covenant community all were anointed by the Holy Spirit who enabled them to “test” and “discern” what the will of God might be (1Jn 2:20,27; 4:1; 1Th :21). The ekklesia, therefore, is first of all a discerning community, able to “bind and loose,” and thus is also a decision-making community. The very word chosen to earmark the New Covenant people of God, ekklesia, is taken from the secular political realm, not from a religious context. Ekklesia referred to a group of people with common interests getting together to accomplish certain business. It would be very similar to the town meetings that took place in developing America in the 1800’s. John H. Yoder observes that, “The word ekklesia itself…does not refer to a specifically religious meeting, nor to a particular organization: it rather mean the “assembly,” the gathering of a people into a meeting for deliberation or for a public pronouncement… The church is where, because there Jesus is confessed as Christ, people are empowered to speak to one another in God’s name… It is only in the local face-to-face meeting, with brothers and sisters, who know one another well, that this process can take place of which Jesus says that what has been decided stands decided in heaven” (“Binding & Loosing,” Concern #14, Feb. 1967, pp.2ff.; cf. TDNT, IV, p.336).
As you reflect on the New Testament epistles, it is quite striking that church leaders are not addressed separately, as if some special decision-making authority resided in them. Instead, Paul directs his writings to the entire assembly. For example, he does not rebuke the elders at Corinth for failing to deal with the immoral person or for not resolving the disputes among the brethren. He puts the nexus of responsibility on the whole congregation to carry out Christ’s revealed will.
Paul’s approach flies in the face of the traditional decision-making method, which views “the pastor,” or a body of leaders, as the source of decisions. Abraham Kuyper, for instance, removed the “right to judge” from the congregation and asserted that “the administrative authority over the church rests not with the members, but properly with the presbyters” (“Pamphlet on The Reformation of the Church,” The Standard Bearer, Oct. 1979, p.14). Jay Adams avers that “take it to the church” means “take it to the elders,” who then forgive or excommunicate (Ready to Forgive, Pres. & Reformed, pp.3-4). Such an interpretation is arbitrary, informed more by presuppositions than by the text itself. Elders will certainly be a part of the “discerning” process in the body, but the New Testament will not sustain the notion that elders are the process itself. The truth is, there is very little focus on elders in the New Testament, compared to the at least fifty-eight “one-another” imperatives found therein.
Both times Jesus uses ekklesia to identify His New Covenant people, He attaches “binding and loosing” to its function (Mt16:19; 18:18). This clearly indicates that we need to significantly broaden our ideas of what is entailed in doing “church.” Traditionally, doing church means going to a building, sitting in a pew, singing some songs, putting some money in a plate, hearing a sermon, shaking the pastor’s hand, and heading home to get your roast out of the oven. Most fundamentally, however, ekklesia means doing the whole gamut of kingdom activities with other committed believers in a local congregation. We are not used to thinking of resolving disputes within the body as “church,” but the essence of practicing ekklesia involves problem-solving and decision-making in an atmosphere of loving acceptance where Christ’s truth can be spoken in love.
It behooves us, therefore, to realize that it is expected of assemblies to “agree with one another” and to be “perfectly united in mind and thought”. This does not mean that we must have unanimity regarding every doctrinal nuance, but it does mean that we must be ready to work things out with our brethren as required in light of apostolic teaching. Paul was not surprised when congregations had problems, but he was upset when they failed to work through their problems together as a body. Here is a question each of us needs to face: when the inevitable day comes in my assembly that a problem surfaces, am I going to run and hide from it, or am I going to stand with the body and do my part to be part of its resolution? Real ekklesia requires hard work and commitment, but we must never forget that Jesus’ presence by the Spirit, persistent prayer, preferring others ahead of ourselves, and fervent love are where the battles are won.
I am not recommending the book House Church, edited by Steve Atkerson with eight other contributors. The book is a little over 300 pages with small font, single-spaced and information I did not agree with, making this an unpleasant slog. I did find one excerpt from Beresford Job that I thought was compelling and it’s highlighted below.
It is amazing to realize, though nevertheless a fact, that Jesus’ conflict with Israel’s religious leaders was not over the Mosaic Law. Jesus kept the Old Covenant to the letter. Apart from one attempt to trip Him up using the occasion of a woman caught in adultery, those who sought to do battle against Him did so for other reasons. What made them so angry with Jesus wasn’t that He went against anything in the Old Testament Scriptures, but rather that He challenged and went against something called the tradition of the elders.
We read in Mark’s Gospel, “Now when the Pharisees and some of the scribes who had come from Jerusalem gathered around him, they noticed that some of his disciples were eating with defiled hands, that is, without washing them. (For the Pharisees, and all the Jews, do not eat unless they thoroughly wash their hands, thus observing the tradition of the elders; and they do not eat anything from the market unless they wash it; and there are also many other traditions that they observe, the washing of cups, pots, and bronze kettles.) So the Pharisees and the scribes asked him, ‘Why do your disciples not live according to the tradition of the elders, but eat with defiled hands?”” (Mk 7:1-5). So what, precisely, is going on here? The answer is that whereas in theory Israel considered the Old Testament scriptures to be its final authority in matters of both faith and practice, the reality was somewhat different. The Jews actually paid far more heed to a system of teaching and practice known as “the tradition of the elders” or “the Oral Law.”
Pharisaic Judaism taught that when Moses was on Mount Sinai he was given not one, but two laws by God. The written law, or Mosaic Law, was recorded in the pages of the Old Testament. However, a second, secret law was said to have been passed on purely orally down through the generations. This secret law allegedly only came to public light in the years preceding the time of Jesus. When the inevitable conflict between these two laws and what they taught came about, Israel had to eventually decide which one was their actual final authority. After all, you may claim to have two things equally as your final authority (in this case the Old Testament and the Oral Law), but you can really only have one, and it is that which you obey if contradictions between the two emerge. Incredibly, Israel went with the Oral Law, and relegated the Mosaic Law, and thereby the Old Testament scriptures, to second place. Indeed, the Pharisees taught that it was more punishable to set against the tradition of the elders than the Old Testament scriptures.
What we must understand is that, at the time of Jesus, the nation of Israel lived under the authority of a system of teachings and practices which, in vitally important ways, went against other teachings and practices laid down in the Old Testament. They did this whilst claiming to have been led to do so by God Himself, under the pretext that this Oral Law had supposedly been given to Moses by Him. A system of completely man-made and merely humanly originated teachings and practices had therefore usurped and replaced the revealed truth of the written Word of God, yet under the claim that, even though they contradicted the Old Testament Scriptures, such traditions and teachings had nevertheless come from the Lord God of Israel Himself.
However, if we ask what the Lord God of Israel thought about this (supposedly) inspired Oral Law, then all we have to do is to look at Jesus’ responses to it: “He said to them, ‘Isaiah prophesied rightly about you hypocrites, as it is written. “This people honors me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me; in vain do they worship me, teaching human precepts as doctrines.’ You abandon the commandment of God and hold to human tradition” (Mk 7:6-8).
Hypocrisy! That was the Lord’s clear and unwavering verdict on such traditions as were causing His people to go against the inspired traditions as revealed in the Word of God. To hold to merely humanly originated practice, whatever it may be, as opposed to biblical practice is, according to the Lord Jesus Christ, to “abandon the commandment of God.”
I think you’ll agree that this is pretty heavy duty stuff, and I can imagine the kind of responses even now being elicited from my readers: “Amen brother! That’s terrible what Israel did!” “Imagine that! Israel going against the Mosaic Law in favor of their own man made teachings and practices and traditions. No wonder God judged them!” “What? Abandoning the commandment of God by holding to merely human tradition? Unthinkable!” But I have to tell you that, for virtually two millennia, we Christians have been doing exactly the same thing.
It is incredible beyond words to realize that when it comes to our experience of church life, by which I mean the traditions, or established practice, which the vast majority of Christians unquestioningly follow, virtually all of it is based on a system of practices which, just like Israel’s tradition of the elders, has nothing whatsoever to do with the Word of God. Far from being what we see revealed in the pages of the New Testament, it rather originated from, and was implemented by, men who came on the scene after the Apostles of Jesus were dead and therefore after the writing of the New Testament was completed.
Many church traditions are not just different from what we see in Scripture, in the sense of being merely variations. They are actually the complete opposite of what we see in the New Testament. Far from being mere developments whereby biblical practices are applied in slightly different ways, they are rather practices which are actually at complete variance with what the New Testament teaches. They are practices that cause those adhering to them to go directly against what we see revealed in the Word of God, the very thing Jesus so unwaveringly and blatantly condemned.
Israel disobeyed the Old Testament at various points because of their beloved, yet totally wrong and unbiblical, tradition of the elders. The Christian Church has done exactly the same thing, only with the tradition of the Early Church Fathers. In England we call that a double-whammy, and it’s time we started to put it right. What are we going to go with? The traditions of man? Or the traditions of the Divine? I leave you, dear reader, to decide for yourself!
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Biblical Church by Beresford Job has become one of my favorite books and is highly recommended. This is the second excerpt from the book. The excerpt is a bit longer than my usual posts but I hope you take the time to read it. You can read the first excerpt here.
No! This is not about ‘perfect’ churches. It is rather about something as attainable as any other aspect of obedience to scripture, and that is bringing biblical churches into being.
But neither is it about advocating churches without problems. That would be as ridiculous as any notion of having ‘perfect’ ones. In a sinful world, and given that churches both exist in that world and are precisely comprised of redeemed sinners, problems are actually one of the things you can positively count on. So no, it’s not about being problem-free either! In fact, as someone who has practised church life as advocated in this book for three decades, the author can testify with some conviction that, as part of such a church, you will very possibly have more problems than you would in an unbiblical one. Yet what you can be assured of is that you will at least then be experiencing the problems you are meant to have, and which result from being true to scripture, rather than, as with unbiblical churches, having to give such considerable time and effort to dealing with problems and difficulties that arise precisely because of not being biblical; problems and difficulties which are, therefore, actually entirely unnecessary and completely avoidable. Just imagine never again having to give the slightest thought, or money, to buildings and infra-structure. Consider never having to give time or effort to the process of choosing your next Minister or Pastor, or giving thought to how much the church is going to have to pay him. Revel with me in the sheer delight and freedom of not having to bother with keeping up with what the ‘big cheeses’ higher up the church hierarchy are getting up to, or what they are expecting of you. Savour too the joy of being able to put family life first, and of being part of a church setup which positively encourages and enables the families in it to do just that.
The problems which do emerge though, and emerge they will, are those of significant ongoing relationships. How we love and serve one another, and how we grow in the Lord together! But of course those are the precisely the problems we are meant to have. They are the ones which sanctify us, which bring us into that ‘death to self’ we so desperately need to experience. They bring us to our knees, and therefore more and more in line with the teaching of scripture, and the knowledge and experience of Jesus living his life in and through us. It is hard; yes! And sometimes it is harder than you think you are able to bear; but it is life! It is real life and it is real discipleship! Through it we are able to share the sufferings of Jesus, become like him in His death and resurrection and, as a result, grow in grace, love and truth.
There is another misapprehension that needs to be addressed here, and it is any idea that I am contending that if only we get church structure right, if only we set up churches which function and operate according to the blueprint found in the New Testament, then all will be well. However, not only am I not contending that, I do not in any way believe it to be the case. It is perfectly possible for a group of believers to get together and form a church which observes the structure this book outlines down to the smallest detail. They could meet in absolute accordance with the format I am arguing for and they could go through the checklist and tick every box in my ‘irreducible minimum’ chapter, and then some. Yet they could nevertheless be cold, unloving, and virtually without anything of the grace and power of the Lord amongst them. Indeed, they could constitute quite the most unpleasant church on the face of the earth.
The issue, ultimately, is not that of just getting structure and format right at all. It is much deeper and far more profound than that. It is understanding that the structure and format is only as it is in scripture in order to enable and encourage something else entirely; the sharing of the life of Jesus together. Although the Lord used the picture in a slightly different context, we are nevertheless talking about the difference between wine and wineskins. It is not the wineskin which ultimately matters, but the wine which it contains. Yet if the wineskin is not the right sort, then as Jesus taught, the wine will escape and you are left with nothing but an empty wineskin. And whereas it is certainly the case that you could have a wineskin of the right shape and size, but with little or no actual wine in it, representing a spiritually dead and, therefore, useless and unpleasant biblical church; nevertheless, having an unbiblical church which is alive in the Lord though obviously much better than having a dead biblical one is still an ultimate compromise because it can just never fully experience what the Lord wants for it; or rather, for those individual believers who together comprise it. Precisely because it is an ultimately passive experience for the vast majority of believers in it, an unbiblical church can never fully hold the wine of the life of Jesus in the way an alive, biblical one can. The wine is what really matters and not the wineskin. Absolutely! Yet if the wineskin is wrong, then our experience of the wine will always be severely compromised and limited.
Think of it like hands and gloves. If we liken a church to a glove, then Jesus is the hand that goes inside it. Without the hand inside it is, of course, a dead thing; but when the hand is in it there is both life and movement. The glove then truly becomes that which the hand is lives and moves through. The issue then arises concerning the design of the glove. What, exactly, should it look like? What shape should it be? And of course the answer is that it should be the appropriate and correct shape for a hand to fit into it. The more correct and appropriate the shape of the glove, the more freedom of movement afforded to the hand inside the glove.
Unbiblical churches, because they are not based on the design and blueprint found in the New Testament, are like a glove that has, for example, two fingers and one thumb. Or maybe eight fingers and three thumbs. Whereas the hand can get in the glove, nevertheless, because the glove is the wrong shape for the hand to fit into properly, the movement of the hand inside the glove is compromised in varying and major ways. The life coming from the hand is truly there, but heavily restricted in what it can do.
As So what about biblical churches in this regard then? Well, what we can say with absolute certainly is that they are, at the very least, the right ‘shape’. They are the perfect design for the life that wants to fit inside them. Remaining with our picture we can say that they do indeed have the requisite four fingers and one thumb, and the hand can therefore fit inside with very little problem. However, even this is not sufficient on its own, and the reason I am making clear that you can have a spiritually lifeless and completely unappealing biblical church. Vital though it is to have the correct structure and format of church life, it is not of itself anything like enough. A glove, whilst being completely the correct shape, could nevertheless still be made of silk, or cast iron. It could be correct in ‘shape’ – that is, in structure and format – yet hard, unyielding and immoveable. You could quite easily have a group of believers who gather together on the basis of a mutual and completely correct understanding of what the Bible teaches about church structure and format, but who are, both as individuals and as a corporate church, nevertheless still completely missing the point: and that is the life, power and presence of Jesus lived out amongst them. If we were to take a certain amount of liberty with the well known saying about ‘an iron fist in a velvet glove’, then we might say that such a church, though fully biblical in its structure and format, would nevertheless be the equivalent of the velvet touch of the hand of the life of Jesus being pretty much completely constricted inside a hard and unyielding iron glove.
So let it be properly understood just what is, and is not, being said in this regard. If someone asked me what is best, a loving and spiritually alive unbiblical church, or a harsh, unloving, legalistically driven biblical one, I would unhesitatingly reply that it is the former. Yet that thinking is, ultimately, a false dichotomy. Why be limited to merely choosing between two such things when we can simply look to the Lord to enable us to form into loving, spiritually alive biblical churches? You might as well ask me whether I think you would do best to marry an unbeliever who is brilliant with children, or a believer who is not and who can’t stand them. My reply would be simple: Why not just trust the Lord and go all out for a spouse who loves the Lord and children, and who is good with them?
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I’m currently reading, Biblical Church by Beresford Job and came across this gem I wanted to share. I added a second excerpt from the book and you can read it here.
This is radical stuff! I don’t, however, mean in the sense of how the word gets used to describe something as being new or different, but rather its more accurate meaning of going to the root of a thing. When Jesus told the religious leaders of the day that the axe was being laid to the root of the tree, he meant that their fundamental problem, their plight at the foundational level, was the belief they held that they were right with God, and therefore Heaven-bound, simply by virtue of being Jews. However, believing what they did virtually guaranteed that they would reject their very own Messiah and end up with the opposite. Jesus confronted the root causes and, therefore, got right to the heart of the matter. It is also what we must do regarding the issue of church life.
It is, however, going to be somewhat of a rough ride. Whenever Christian thinking and practice is challenged at a fundamental level, church history sadly demonstrates that those believers who are unwilling to honestly look at whatever is being addressed will rather just seek to attack, vilify and discredit those doing the challenging. And of course this must not just be put down purely to failures of approach, lack of wisdom or graciousness, or anything else for that matter, on the part of the dissenters. Those issuing the challenge may, or may not, present their case well. They may, or may not, raise the necessary issues lovingly and humbly. Anyone swimming against the tide of Christian opinion does indeed need to greatly attend to the importance of so doing in a Christ-like manner and gracious spirit: but the truth of the matter is that there nevertheless does seem to be a principle at work in Christian history whereby believers in the last reformatory move of God strenuously resist those in any current such move quite irrespective of other factors.
The Reformation is itself a case in point, although one does need to bear in mind that those who did the resisting in that particular instance weren’t actually believers. However, the principle remains the same. So-called ‘Christian’ thinking was challenged at a fundamental level, the issue then being the very nature of salvation, and of course all hell soon broke loose against the challengers from those who wanted the existing status quo to prevail. Far more pertinent to us here, though, is that even the Reformers, who were undoubtedly genuine believers, persecuted other genuine Christians whose only crime was to want to go even further in the implementation of newly recovered biblical truth. The Anabaptists, for instance, taught that the baptism of infants was wrong and that only believers should be baptized. They further maintained that there should be a separation between church and state, and purity not just of doctrine, but of practice as well. In short, they wanted to live in accordance with the teaching of the New Testament somewhat more comprehensively than did the Reformers who, having understood that salvation is through faith in Jesus alone, were happy to leave things there and not go much further.
Another example would be the advent of Pentecostalism at the turn of the last century and the retrieval of the experience of the baptism with the Holy Spirit and the miraculous spiritual gifts. Again, Christian thinking was challenged at a fundamental level and, once more, all hell broke loose against genuine believers at the hands of other genuine believers who saw them as nothing more than dangerous tongues-speaking maniacs and deceivers. But now, keeping the strands of church history in dynamic motion, there are those of us who are saying that it is time to move on to the next area of biblical truth that has been lost and ignored down the ages: church practice! Acknowledging with great gratitude how the Reformers regained the truth of salvation (whilst mourning their treatment of those who wanted to go further), and how the Pentecostals rediscovered the power and ministry of the Holy Spirit, the cry is now going up that we need to go full circle and put in place what may well be the last piece of the Reformatory jigsaw puzzle: biblical church practice!
However, those who labor to teach and implement such truths and practices, far from being heralded as ‘prophets at the cutting edge of what the Holy Spirit is doing’, are rather more likely to be seen as subversive and divisive troublemakers of the first order. At the very least and I thank God that here in the West in the 21st Century we live in reasonably civilized times where public executions at the behest of established church authorities, such as befell the Anabaptists at the hands of the Reformers, cannot happen-we will be badly spoken of and rejected as being undesirable, weird, or even a new and dangerous cult. Even in the most promising of scenarios where brothers and sisters do take us seriously, we are nevertheless still going to be bombarded with both strident and deeply felt objections to what we are saying. However, this should not be seen as a negative problem, but rather something we should positively welcome. It isn’t easy, of course, but any opportunity to get this issue on the agenda with Christians must be considered a bonus.
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