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University church of Christ

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Present Day Church Problems (Part 2)

by Cled Wallace

(This is the second of a series of five sermons delivered during the Lufkin Bible school last February by Brother Cled E. Wallace on "Present Day Problems Confronting The Church". )

I am thoroughly enjoying this meeting, and appreciate the interest that is being manifested by all of you. I have a text in mind that occurred to me during the day in connection with some things I wanted to say tonight. Paul wrote Titus in something like the same manner that he did Timothy. He said, "But speak thou the things which befit sound doctrine; that aged men be temperate, grave, sober-minded, sound in faith, in love, in patience: that aged women likewise train the younger women... the younger men likewise exhort ...in all things showing thyself an example...in thy doctrine uncorruptness, gravity, sound speech." (Titus 2:1-8)

All that is worthwhile in life and in religion has to do with sound doctrine. When I'm talking about the problems that confront the church, it is mighty hard for me to get away from the subject of the preaching. There are other problems, but this preaching problem is so tremendously important, and so much depends on it, that my observation and my conviction from what I read and know about the church, and about the divine plan, are that just about all the excellencies a church can manifest, and about all the problems it can develop, have to do with the kind of preaching it receives, and the kind of preacher it depends on. In fact, church troubles are not particularly hard to diagnose. I never have been too much impressed by a specialist in the church along certain lines. In religion if I were going to have somebody diagnose some problems, I don't think I'd call in any specialists. Any man who loves the church and knows what it is, and knows the divine plan, is a pretty good judge of what is the matter with a church. It reminds me of the story of a fellow who had a terrible ringing in his ears, and his eyes pooched out. He went to see a physician, who told him to consult an eye, ear, nose and throat doctor. He told him it was his tonsils, and he took his tonsils out. But he still had the same trouble. He then went to a dentist. The dentist told him his teeth needed to come out, and he took his teeth out. But that didn't help him any. He then went to a surgeon who told him it was his appendix, and they removed his appendix; but when he got out of the hospital the trouble recurred. Having lost his teeth and tonsils and his appendix, he finally went to see a specialist who, told him, that he had only a short time to live, possibly three or four months. The fellow said, in that case, he was going to have a good time, doing some things he had wanted to do all his life. He went downtown and bought him a $150.00 suit of clothes, and ordered a dozen expensive made-to-measure shirts. Taking his measurements, the tailor said sleeves thirty-three inches, so many inches around the waist, and a 16 collar. And the man said, "No, 15." The tailor said, "The tape says 16." The man said, "I know what size collar I wear. I've been wearing them for years, size 15." The tailor said, "All right, 15 it is, but you just wear size 15 awhile, and your ears will ring and your eyes will be bug out!"

After all, nearly anybody who knows the Bible, and knows the divine plan, can take the measure of a church and know just about what is the matter with it.

The Preaching Problem Continued

I want to call attention to some of these principles again, along the line of preaching.

When I note in the Bible the apostasy of Israel, find that nation in a terrible state, see how it started, recall the divine promises and the divine laws, think of all the safeguards that nation had, and then in the days of the prophets find it in such a bad way, we know how it happened. They got dissatisfied with God's plan, and decided that they wanted to be like the nations around them. They desired to imitate the government and the customs of these tribes of peoples about them. They wanted a king. Samuel said it was not God's will that they have a king. They said, "We will have a king; we'll be like the nations around us." God said, "Let them have a king." (1 Sam 8:6-9) The prophets later charged that they had turned away from "the fountain of living water and had hewed them out cisterns, broken cisterns that can hold no water." (Jer 2:13) They turned away from the divine plan, turned away from God appointed teachers, going after strange traditions, strange ways and strange men. The matter of fact is—the teachers they had were of their own selection.

In reading the prophets rebuke of the people and the teachers, among other things I read this: "I have heard what the prophets said, that prophesy lies in my name, saying, I have dreamed, I have dreamed. How long shall this be in the heart of the prophets that prophesy lies? Yea, they are prophets of the deceit of their own heart." (Jer 23:26) Regarding them the prophet further says: "I have not sent these prophets, yet they ran; I have not spoken to them, yet they have prophesied." (Jer 23:21) Again, "the prophet that hath a dream, let him tell a dream; and he that hath my word, let him speak my word faithfully. Is not my word a fire and like a hammer that breaketh the rock in pieces? Therefore, behold, I am against the prophets, saith the Lord, that steal my words everyone from his neighbor." (Jer 23:28-31)

The principle is that God spoke to the fathers by the prophets, he sent the prophets to them; but we know he speaks to us through his Son. Then the spoken message of the Son was made known through preaching. It was God's good pleasure through the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe. Faithful preachers and faithful preaching make the will of God known to the people. A preacher is not a sounding board for public opinion, neither is it his business to find out what people want, then give it to them. Rather in the spirit that the apostle answered some of his critics in the fourth chapter of I Corinthians, when he was under fire, let preachers now defend sound doctrine even under criticism. Paul defended himself personally, and did it sometimes in bitter, sarcastic language. I remarked sometime ago, when I was reading some things that Paul said in answer to criticisms that were made against him, that it appeared that Paul wasn't too much nicer than some of the rest of us. He didn't have the non-combatant, sweet-spirited attitude that has become so common, especially in connection with compromise. The only reason that he defended himself was because this personal criticism was related to the welfare of the cause of Christ. In answering his critics, he said, "With me it is a very small thing that I should be judged of you or of man's judgment, for I know nothing against myself, yet am I not hereby justified, but he that judgeth me is the Lord. It is required in stewards that a man be found faithful." (1 Cor 4:2-4) He said, "I am a steward of the mysteries of God." (1 Cor 4:1) A steward for whom? He was the Lord's steward. A debt of responsibility from the Lord had been laid upon him, and whether you criticize me or justify me, or whether I justify myself, means absolutely nothing. The only thing that counts is am I accounted by the Lord faithful as a steward? In other words, have I attended to his business, made his will known. Have I done what he commissioned me to do? That is the only thing that matters, the only thing that counts. Writing to the Thessalonians he said: "When ye received from us the word of the message, even the word of God, you accepted it not as the word of man, but as the word of God, which indeed it is." (1 Thess 2:13) And it is a preacher's business to preach the word of God. If he doesn't do it, he may please men, but Paul said if he were still pleasing men, he would not be a servant of Christ. (Gal 1:10) Now if preaching the truth and being loyal to it pleases some people, that's fine—but if it takes compromise, if it takes surrender of the truth to please people, the man who does it is a traitor in the sight of God.

Some rather amusing incidents have happened in my experience and under my observation. I heard my father tell about closing a sermon one evening, and a very daintily dressed woman came prissing down the aisle. She looked up at my father, and said, "Brother Wallace, that was a very fine sermon of its kind, but do you know that you are about forty years behind the times?" You know that would just kill some preachers. Oh, they couldn't stand that! I was preaching some good brush arbor sermons in a meeting in a college one time, and one of the professors with a Ph. D. degree said, "Why, we don't need that kind of preaching; that's the kind of preaching we listened to forty years ago." One of the elders said that's exactly the reason we have him here, because we need that kind of preaching. My father said to this lady, "My dear Sister, I'd rather be a thousand years behind the times than ten minutes ahead of Jesus." You know, so many times we are not satisfied with keeping in step with the Lord. Nobody has a right to go beyond what is written. "If any man speak" and I believe that the passage has reference largely to the kind of speaking we call preaching "If any man speak, let him speak as the oracles of God." (1 Pt 4:11) Be sure you say what God says.

A number of years ago, I was called to Mart, Texas, for a meeting, and my wife was with me. And we had some delightful friends, they were people of wealth and prominence, and had a beautiful home. We were guests in that home, and we received the very finest hospitality. One evening I preached on the church, I told what the church is, what it means from the New Testament point of view; that it is the body of Christ; that it includes all Christians; that people become members of it in the same way, and at the same time they become Christians; and that it is not a denomination, a party, sectarian set-up or anything of that sort, but the body of Christ; and the way to get into it is to become a Christian, which means to be born again according to the principles laid down in the New Testament. I noticed a very strange atmosphere when I walked into the home that evening. The lady seemed to be bothered. Finally, she turned on me with reproach, and she began crying. I knew by that what kind of preaching they had been having. She said, "We have worked for ten years to get this church in a respectable position. We had the leaders of all the churches there tonight, and we had some of the most prominent people in town." She had some of her bridge party friends, and some of her club members and high society friends there. She said, "You just got up there and tore down everything we've been trying to build up for ten years." I said: "Is that a fact? Give me the names of some of these leaders." She gave me the names of a Presbyterian leader, a leader of the Methodist church, and one of the leaders of the Baptist church who were there. I didn't know them, but I said to her, "I will interview these people tomorrow, I'm going to find out some things." I walked into the place of business of this Presbyterian elder, presbyter, or whatever they call them, and I said to him "I'm holding a meeting here." He said, "Yes sir, I've been there." I asked. "What did you think about the sermon last night?" He said, "Well, I'm a Presbyterian, but while you were preaching, I was thinking what a fine thing it would be if we could all just get together on the Bible and have a church according to the divine will." His reaction was perfect. I hunted up the Baptist fellow—you know how a Baptist is—and I asked him about it. He said, "Well, I'll tell you, you know I am a Baptist." I said, "Yes, I understand you are." He said, "I don't believe what you preached, I respect your convictions, and the manner in which you gave them, and I think I'll come back again." And I got a favorable reaction from the Methodist. I made a -  what do you call it? - a survey, but anyway I took one, and I went to the grocery store of a good old man, who looked to me like he had been sort of run over a little, and I said, "Brother Blank, I want to close this meeting." He said, "You're not going to do anything of the kind, we're getting just exactly what we need, and you're going to stay and fight it out, and I'm going to back you up." Well, that evening I preached on "Contending for the Bible Faith," and I asked to borrow a mourners bench from the Methodists to use on some of the brethren there who couldn't stand to hear the gospel preached. The Methodists and the Baptists were enjoying it, but the brethren just couldn't stand it!

I know the preacher is not running the church, he is not the boss of things, and I don't like the idea at all of "clergy and laity," but I'm telling you that a strong eldership, strong deacons, strong teachers in the church, men and women of faith and dependability in every part of the work, depend on the right kind of preaching. It is fundamental. Neutral preaching doesn't recognize trends and meet them. We need a lot of preventative preaching. When an issue arises a preacher is supposed to know enough about the Bible, enough about the divine plan, that he can detect tendencies that threaten the church. Paul told the elders of the church at Ephesus, "Take heed unto yourselves, and to all the flock, in which the Holy Spirit hath made you bishops, to feed the church of the Lord which he purchased with his own blood. I know that after my departing grievous wolves shall enter in among you, not sparing the flock; and from among your own selves shall men arise, speaking perverse things, to draw away the disciples after them." (Acts 20:28-30) When some heretical teaching comes up, a preacher ought to be able to recognize it and do a lot of preaching to prevent a lot of harm being done. You don't have to wait until a house is half burned down to call the fire department.

This preaching business is an important proposition. That thing I made reference to all last evening—that we don't like doctrinal preaching. Now it would be fine if somebody would say I do not like false doctrinal preaching. I guess that's what they would say they mean, but it isn't what they say. "Take heed to thyself and to thy doctrine" - "preach the word," - "reprove, rebuke, exhort, with all longsuffering and doctrine." (2 Tim 4:2-3) Did you ever hear anybody say, "I don't like a teaching sermon"? The word doctrine is synonymous with teaching, comes from the same word. That's what it really means. Nobody ought to like sectarian doctrines. Nobody ought to like false doctrines, denominational doctrines, not found in the Bible. All false teaching is speculative in its nature, but everything that the Bible says about everything that it discusses, comes in the realm of doctrine. "They continued stedfastly in, the apostles' doctrine." (Acts 2:42) Preach a sermon on honesty, on prayer, on giving or on spirituality, and they say that is not doctrine. But preach a sermon on baptism, and they say that is doctrine. What the Bible says about baptism, what the Bible says about the kingdom and the establishment of the church, old and new covenants, or anything else, that it discusses, including maintaining good works, is strictly doctrinal. You don't find that distinction between the doctrinal and the practical; doctrinal things are practical, and practical things are doctrinal in New Testament.

I know it is pretty hard to always measure up to these high standards of courage in preaching. Nobody who hasn't preached, and hasn't been under pressure, knows how hard the pressure is sometimes to let down and detour around some unpleasant truths, under some circumstances. Why, I've been under pressure. I remember one time I preached a sermon on "What Must I Do to Be Saved". Yes, I preach sermons like that. A preacher told me that he hadn't preached a sermon on the establishment of the church in ten years. He wasn't doing his duty. Anyway, I preached a sermon on "What Must I Do to Be Saved," and a woman (she was a pretty thing) came right down the aisle, and she said to me, "I understood you to say that people had to be baptized in order to be saved." I said, Peter said, "Repent ye, and be baptized everyone of you in the name of Jesus Christ, for the remission of sins".  (Acts 2:38) She said, "Yes, but I know some mighty good people" "Wait a minute, here is what Peter said," and I read it to her again "Well, but what about all these pious" "Wait a minute, let's get back to the text. Then she'd take a lunge on to some sort of contention, and I would pull her right back to the text. You know, the way she looked at me, almost wished Peter hadn't said it! But he did it is there in plain language. You know what happened? Her eyes flashed, and she stamped her foot and she said, "I know Peter said, but I don't believe it." That was what was the matter with her all the time. I had to make her mad before she would acknowledge it. A preacher must preach the truth, and he must be urgent about these things.

The Trend Toward Professional Preaching

Another trend in preachers, and maybe it past the trend stage and has become a real problem—is professional preaching, professionalism in preaching. I have watched these trends good long time. Everybody has heard about J. D Armstrong and some of his ideas. He was on of the leaders of so-called'" 'Christian Education" for many years. Shortly before he died in a heart to heart talk with W. W. Otey, he said that he was disillusioned and disappointed. Things were not going as he meant for them to go. It never was his idea, he said, to develop an institution that would manufacture and turn out professional preachers. His idea, he said, of Christian education, referring to the matter of schools, was to give young men and young women in the church and out of it, a liberal education in a Christian atmosphere to make men and women out of them, to develop Christian character, so that whatever his calling he'd be dependable and honest as a business man; and if it turned out that he wanted to be a preacher, all right, he was developed in character, then let them do whatever they were capable of doing. But he said that the colleges are turning out a class of professional preachers. And professional preachers are a good deal like professional politicians, they don't always lead, they follow. They sometimes, and often, put their ear to the ground to find out what people want, and give them what they want. You know, there is a professionalism about it that takes away that individual reservedness of character that has courage and persistence and fearlessness as its main characteristics. A man who preaches the gospel because he loves it and because he loves the church, will preach it regardless of circumstances. If he is paid he will preach it, and if he is not paid he will preach it anyhow.

You can hear today in some of our institutions, the boys on the campus talking about when they can get out and take charge of some church. Professionalism in preaching. that doesn't mean that a man who preaches ought not to be prepared, ought not to be educated, and all that sort of thing; but you can take a professionally minded young man, put him through college and put him through "seminary" we call ours "departments of religion" but you can put him through, put a scissor tailed coat on him, give him as many degrees as a thermometer, turn him loose, and there'll be some "ignoramus" rise right out from behind a bush somewhere, out in the country, and preach circles all around him. And that doesn't mean that education is a bad thing, it just simply means that there is something to preaching that you can't get unless you know the Book, unless you love the Lord, and unless you feel a good deal like Paul did when he said, "Woe is me if I preach not the gospel." (1 Cor 9:16) If a man feels that way about it, he is not going to be neutral, he is not going to lag when it comes to taking a stand on an issue that involves the welfare of the church. He is not going to be reticent and backward when it comes to speaking out on what the Bible says. He can be reasoned with, but he can't be bulldogged into compromise.

The Institutional Problem

So much on that preaching proposition. It is closely connected with another subject. We hear the word a good deal today, it is not a new word, it's the word institutionalism. Institutionalism. By the time I tell you what some of the college presidents have said, what some of the heads of institutions have said, you will be warned against the trends of institutionalism. Well, what does that mean, what are the dangers of institutionalism?

A good woman said to me a while back, what's the matter with institutions? Institutions are doing a lot of good, why are you preachers so worried about institutions? Well, suppose we go right back to fundamentals. We subscribe to the scriptural statement: "If any man speak, let him speak as it were the oracles of God;" (1 Pt 4:11) otherwise worded: "Where the Bible speaks, we speak; and where the Bible is silent, we are silent." We propose to give chapter and verse for what we believe and what we teach in religion. We talk a great deal about the restoration of the New Testament order. I believe that the Bible is inspired and that the church is divine, and that Christianity has a divine origin, and all that. Well, what do I find in the New Testament? There is no need for us going out here preaching to the world that we stick to the New Testament if we can't give chapter and verse for what we believe and what we practice. What do we find in the New Testament? The New Testament order is one of the simplest things in the world. I find three things in the New Testament order. I find the individual Christian, made so by hearing and accepting the gospel. I find the local congregations of these Christians, and I find the body of Christ, the church, including all of them. There is the New Testament order, and you can't find anything else outside of it. The church, the body of Christ, including all Christians. Here is a proposition that will stand any kind of scrutiny. The church is the body of Christ and it includes all the people of God, and whatever it takes to make a man a Christian, it takes that, all that and nothing but that to make him a member of the church. And the only organization known in the New Testament is the local congregation of Christians.

The word church is used in two senses in the New Testament. You find the church referring to those that meet together to worship on the Lord's day. Sometimes you speak of the church in somebody's house, you find the term church limited by some geographic expression, like the church of God at Corinth and that included all the people of God in that place. The church in its broadest sense that Jesus said he would build, and which God made him the head of when he raised him from the dead, is the entire body of Christ, including all Christians. It has no ecclesiastical organization, on earth, no pope, no councils, no ecclesiastical machinery, no organization of a national, state or county character, nothing of the kind, but each church is independent of every other church. Christ set us a perfect standard for the individual life. Not all of us measure up to it perfectly, but there is a perfect standard. The teaching of the New Testament sets up a perfect standard for the church, in the local, independent congregations; sets forth its mission, sets forth its duty, and gives a good many examples of it.

Well, what's the matter with an institution? Any institution in religion that is bigger than the local church and smaller than the entire body of Christ is unscriptural and anti-scriptural, as far as the matter goes. I have had people ask me what is the matter with a denomination? Well, aside from a lot of things that I could point out that is the matter with them, there is this. Is this denomination bigger than a local congregation of disciples as described in the New Testament? Yes. Well, does it include all Christians? No. Could a man be a Christian and not be a member of it? Yes. All right, it is smaller than the entire body of Christ, and it is bigger than a local church. Well, it is not the church in any sense. God ordained that the New Testament church do its work as local congregations, and there isn't anything in the way of an institution or an organization bigger than the local congregation with its elders.

What is the mission of the church? It's to preach the gospel. That's what we call "missionary." And I'll have a lot to say about this missionary problem, that's one of our problems. That will have to come later. The work of the church then is to preach the gospel, it is missionary. Further, it is benevolent, to look after the needs of the poor. I won't make a separate item of self-edification, which would possibly come under the first heading, but let's just take this for the time being, to preach the gospel and look after the needs of the poor. The whole world was evangelized in a generation. Paul said that every nation under heaven had heard the gospel. (Col 1:23) They didn't have any missionary societies, they didn't have any ecclesiastical set-ups, they didn't have any organization of any kind bigger than the local church and smaller than the entire body of Christ. The body of Christ was bound together as members, not by an earthly organization, but Christ as the head, on the common ground of faith and loyalty to Him among the members of the body within the local church. It's the business of a church now get it, and I am on safe ground here it's the business of a church to select it's own field of activity; to choose its own workers, then to raise its own money, and spend it and supervise it, and attend to its own affairs without any dictation or uninvited advice from anybody

Now, the church might not be composed of hundreds of members, it might be rather small and unimpressive from a worldly point of view, but if it is a church of Jesus Christ, and has the scriptural qualifications of a congregation, if all the preachers in the church, and all the elders were to come together in a meeting and dictate to that church what it should do, and go over there with a program and tell that church how to conduct its affairs, it would not only be the privilege, but it would be the duty of that congregation to tell them exactly where to head in.

What do I mean by institutionalism? I mean anything in the way of an organization that comes between the church and its appointed work. A church has no right to turn its obligations and responsibilities over to any kind of an institution. Now that's New Testament teaching. Twenty-five years ago, forty years ago, why, we would have found absolutely no opposition to these principles except from the digressives. You know they emphasized the need of preaching the gospel, and emphasized the insufficiency of the church to preach the gospel, and said we had to have some missionary societies. Of course, they were just voluntary organizations through which the churches developed until the first thing we knew they were dictating to all the churches. And when we called attention to the fact that they would and could dictate to the churches when they got bigger, they just ridiculed the idea. The idea of a society dictating to the church? The churches could do as they pleased. But it wasn't many years until these organizations had grown to such huge proportions and had assumed such power, that they could dictate to the preachers as well as to the congregations, their policies and everything else and the churches became slaves to the organization the missionary society and a denomination was born. That's the Christian church today. It is just as modernistic as the Episcopal, the Presbyterian or the Methodist, and more so in some respects. We, of course, were loyal, and still are. We are loud, if not noisy. We wouldn't do anything unscriptural. Well, it was perfectly scriptural and perfectly right for men who were educationally minded, as a private enterprise, to establish a school, when they looked around and saw how the state schools would undermine the influences of the home, and all that. We want to build schools where Christian instructors teach righteous principles, teach the Bible, and help preserve the influences of the home. The school would be an adjunct of or an auxiliary to the home. Fine. Everybody admitted their right to do it. But, some of these schools were doorstep babes and cried to be adopted by the churches.

Christian Education And The Church

You know a lot of members of the church now think that when we talked about Christian education we have to be talking about a "Christian college." I began to get my eyes open wider on this point when an elder of the church where I was preaching said to me: "Brother Wallace, I have something here that I want to ask you about; I don't understand it; I don't know what's the matter; it puzzles me." I said, "What is it?" He said, "I've got a questionnaire from Abilene Christian College." I looked at it, this questionnaire sent by this college to the churches of this state, and they wanted a file on the resources and activities of every church in the state, and all of its members. What's your weekly contribution? How much missionary work? What's the attitude of your members toward Christian education? How big is your budget? What is your property worth? I said to this elder, that is none of their business, put that thing in the wastebasket. Let them run their business, and you run yours. An institution can be private as an auxiliary to the home, but when they began to get statistics from all the churches as to their property, their attitude, their budget and their this and their that, and the other, including their preachers and their members it ceases to be a private institution and becomes the headquarters of all the churches. In other words, when a college attends to its business and lets the churches alone, it is a legitimate institution. The churches as such are not only not obligated to; they have no right to support it. It is not the church's business to support human institutions, or to work through their boards and organizations. Roy E. Cogdill can operate a publishing company, take in printing, sell commercial supplies, books, bibles, and publish a paper, if he wants to; the Firm Foundation and others can do the same, but the church is not in that business. It is the church's business to preach the gospel and look after the needs of the poor, and institutions that propose to take over the work of the church, having the church to operate and act through the boards of their organizations are infringing on and violating these sacred principles, and the church that does so, is doing an unscriptural thing.

Digression did not spring from missionary societies; it sprang from the schools, schools that were legitimate enterprises in themselves. Well, then what's wrong with "our" school? Take a look at the one Alexander Campbell started and you can see where "ours" are headed now—into digression and modernism, and trying to carry the church with them.

You know, you can call the church anything in the world you wanted to call it; you can criticize it and slander it, and never get a rise out of some people but you just say one uncomplimentary thing about their college, and they hit the ceiling! Put the churches under elders from such schools, with that background, with preachers preaching for them who think more of their Alma Mater than they do the church, and we will have school-controlled, college controlled churches. It may not be formal, but it is there.

But, you know, the college couldn't be controlled by the church unless the church had some kind of a denominational organization to determine the policies of the schools. Nobody thinks we could have that. Well, what's to be the remedy for it? To see to it that the school stays in its place, and keeps its hands off the church and out of the church treasury, and keep it on an individual basis, and let them maintain their ideals in their own fields of "Christian Education." I've heard that all my life. In the church at Temple, Texas, one night, where I’d been preaching a number of years, about 15 years in all, I got up one Sunday evening to preach when Jesse P. Sewell walked in, with a brief case in his hand. Well, I said, "There's Brother Sewell and I know what he wants, so I'm just going to turn this meeting over to him." He preached an hour and a half-the only man I ever knew who'd preach as long as Foy-but he preached an hour and a half on "Christian Education"—Christian education. What was he talking about? The church? No. Christian Education. He talked about the great sacrifice of the teachers of the colleges, their lack of funds, and all that sort of thing, and that "Christian Education" was the work of these schools. You know, a college monopoly on Christian education is a serious reflection on the church. Christian education just simply means educating a Christian, educating one to be a Christian, or education in Christianity. It's about the same thing as Christian edification. What is the business of the church? Christian education. When a man goes out and preaches the gospel, which is the power of God unto salvation, to people, that's Christian education. And when we have our morning services on Lord's Day, worshipping God and teaching the word of God, that's Christian education. In other words, every meeting of the church is for the purpose of true Christian education. That's the kind you find in the book. All right, if a man's going to conduct a school, and if it's going to grow into an institution, and it's a private affair, an adjunct of the home, to be supported by individuals, just like a publishing house, a hardware store or something else, well and good; but it must not assume power and reach out to control churches. It must leave the church's business strictly alone. The church is the independent body of Christ, a divine organization, and we oppose the efforts to farm out its work to the colleges and turn it over to the institutions among us.

This is all I have time for tonight—but here's the principle in the main. The church is to raise its own money, select its own workers, its own field of activity, and conduct its own work under the oversight of its own elders, and it must not allow any institution, big or little, to come in to absorb its work, take charge of its budget and carry out its mission.

Next in this series is the missionary problem. Then, you know, the fellowship problem is bound to come in for discussion before this matter is over, and various other problems of local and general interest are going to be touched up. If I leave out anything before I get through, I don't aim to do it. I am going to bring in everything that I can think of during this series, and I will try to think of everything.

Bible Banner – Sept 1948

 

Other Articles by Cled Wallace
Put Up Thy Fist Brother
Present Day Church Problems (Part 2)

 

 

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