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Review of Chapter 5

A FIRST-CENTURY MODEL OF PERFECTION

By Terry W. Benton

As with all the chapters thus far, LaGard shows great skill and takes us through a list of things that connect to the original model. The New Testament presents a model of the conversion process and that model must be followed today. As for models, baptism was a major part of the conversion process and models to us the point in faith in which remission of sins is received. Initiation into Christ was brought about in the scriptural act of baptism through penitent faith. We have the model in the New Testament. We can and must conform to that model today.

INDIVIDUAL MODELS

We also have a model of the purpose that guided and provoked these people on to spiritual growth and maturity. The model is for holiness and separate-from-the-world principles for living. The model calls for regular, steady, spiritual growth. Each Christian must press on to the mark of the high calling. It is radical purity. Of this, LaGard is certainly correct.

We have, in the New Testament, a model for radical piety. Prayer was regular and fervent. Fasting also has a time and place in a life of piety before God.

We have, also, the personal models of hospitality. By personal models, we mean that certain individuals personally invited others into their home for a meal and others were recipients of the hospitality. The time for this was personally decided by each head of house as ability and opportunity presented. While each person has personal responsibility for piety expressed in hospitality, each individual decides when and how many to entertain at any given time.

COLLECTIVE MODELS

While there is indeed a pattern or model for personal piety, we must be careful not to force the issue of personal piety in such a way as to set the times for the individuals as to when they must invite others into their homes. Each individual is encouraged to pray, but we (as a collective body) are not to impose the times for prayer. We encourage fasting, benevolence, and hospitality, but leave it to each individual to freely decide when, and how often.

The model of together activities demands immediate attention. That there are other personal models does not take away from the fact that we each participate in some collective activities. We must not blur the distinction. I have an immediate stake in the assembly on the issue of instrumental music, for example. It immediately affects my concentration and my scriptural right to worship God in truth and my conscience. I do not have an obvious and immediate stake in when others pray, fast, or show hospitality. Therefore, we must address our together activities with a more immediate urgency. We must encourage greater individual piety, but the rate of individual growth is individually decided and individually handled. The issues of collective action must be handled from the outset of our very first meetings. Failure in collective activities means failure in ALL the people assembled. But, failure of an individual to pray, be benevolent, or hospitable, does not mean failure in all people in the church. Therefore, we do not deal with all "models" in the same way. While LaGard is doing a fine job in showing various models of perfection, we feel that a note of caution should be raised here. It is too easy to generalize and imagine that no one in the local church is praying enough, or being hospitable enough. But, we do not know all that others are or are not doing. It is also easy to equate personal failure with collective failure. It is not really fair to judge a collection of people by personal failure. So, I would urge this note of caution because it seems that LaGard is, unintentionally, equating all models. Individual models and collective models are different and demand attention at different levels and at different times.

SUPERNATURAL MODELS?

Pages 102-105 offers a strange appeal to a "model" that LaGard throws into the mix. He does so with some measure of hesitancy. He refers to a "Model of Belief in the Supernatural", yet, he confesses that it is a model that we cannot follow altogether today. He offers another generalization that lacks truth because it is too general. This has been a common mistake throughout his book. In too general a judgment he says, "The devil of Scripture has a long and vivid history which first-century disciples, unlike ourselves, had not forgotten."(p.103). This is a generalization that says all modern Christians have forgotten the reality and history of the devil. Many have, but some have not. Many first-century Christians had also forgotten it. Strangely, LaGard then moves into the issue of "visions" that some early Christians had. LaGard confesses, "While I’m not suggesting we today can have similar visions.....",- which invalidates his claim that supernatural acts serve as a "model" for us. Two sentences after admitting that we cannot have similar "visions", he says, "...the model church was a visionary church". He cannot have it both ways. Either the visions are a model that we must have visions, or they were temporal for revealing what all people must believe.

MODEL OR MANNER?

The model is WHAT was revealed, not the manner in which it was revealed. We can mimic believing what they believed, but we cannot mimic receiving the revelations in the same way. If the manner of getting knowledge is a model, then we must have the apostles and all the miraculous gifts of 1 Cor.12. These were the manner of receiving knowledge. We must follow the models, but everything is not a model to follow. LaGard admits that "we cannot have similar visions". Therefore, by his own admission, the manner of getting knowledge (visions) is not a model or something we can copy today. Peter raised up a lame man. Was this a "model" for us to follow? Of course not! But, his compassion and generosity was a model. His being empowered and our not being empowered is not an issue. We both believe in the same power that empowered him in that special way. That is the issue. The issue is not whether Peter believed in God, or whether he believed God could work through him. It is not a failure in our faith in the supernatural that we cannot do what Peter did. Many believers, even around Peter, were not able to do what he was empowered to do. Therefore, the possession of miraculous powers was not a "model". A "model" implies a high standard that all should try to reach and copy. LaGard admits that we cannot have "similar visions". Therefore, his claim that "the model church was a visionary church" is invalid. He was not talking about "vision" in the sense of wise looking ahead which all can do. He was talking about supernatural visions.

EFFECT OF GENERALIZATIONS

It seems that too many generalizations have been thrown out, and the effect is to create enough dissatisfaction to perhaps open some minds to the kind of "renovation" LaGard hope to offer in the rest of his book. But, it is a mistake to be too general in accusations. It tends to make us wonder how reckless the man will be in other matters of truth. It takes away credibility.

MODEL OF EXPECTATION?

On pages 105-108 he offers the argument that there is a model in the early churches’ sense of urgency. He says "they lived"(as if every early Christian did so live) "with an expectancy of the Lord’s Coming which is essentially unknown among ourselves"(there is his generalization again). One would think that all Christians in the first century were models and that there are no models today. Again, being too general, LaGard loses credibility. If the disciples believed wrongly that the literal return and final judgment was "at hand" and in their life-time, then their mistake cannot be a model for us to continue. If they believed He was coming in their life-time and He didn’t come, then they were wrong, mistaken, and that cannot be a model. However, if the coming was, contextually, the visitation upon Jerusalem and Judaism and NOT the literal final coming of the Lord, then we do not expect that (the coming against Jerusalem) to happen again in our lifetime. Certainly those in that generation knew that the time before the Lord’s coming in judgment on Jerusalem was near at hand, and they had to prepare for all the fall-out of the national and world unrest that Jesus predicted (Matt.24). But, that does not "model" to us the same thing. We should all expect that death can take us at any time, but we cannot see the judgment of the Lord on a nation in the same way they could see the various signs of Matthew 24 coming, and know when to flee to the mountains or get out of Jerusalem. LaGard makes the common mistake of confusing the coming passages. They were not expecting the final judgment within their lifetime. They were expecting a coming of the Lord, such as He described would happen in their generation (Matt.24), but we cannot expect that. They were not expecting the final judgment within their lifetime, but we can know only that it CAN happen. We have not signs to watch and know that the time is near.

THE "SOON" PASSAGES

All of the "soon" passages that LaGard mentioned had or probably had some connection to the signs that Jesus promised to bring upon "this generation"(the one that heard His curses and woes upon the Jewish leaders). See Matt.23-24. We cannot entertain all the same thoughts that they had to entertain then as that day drew near. All that prompted them cannot serve as a model to prompt us. We share only some things along the same line. We both know we can die at any moment. We take one major thing out of the sense of urgency. We know that Jerusalem and Judaism will not fall again and we know that there are no signs preparing us to see that day approaching. We must NOT teach that Jesus is coming in judgment on Jerusalem and Judaism in our generation, but they had to.

GENERALIZATIONS AGAIN

Again, LaGard says that they "really believed" that they were living in the last days and then he adds another generalization that "we really don’t"(p.106). However, there is a difference that does make a difference. They really believed they were in the last days of the Jewish system. It was destroyed in AD 70 according to Jesus’ predictions. We don’t and shouldn’t believe that we are in those same last days.

THE SAME "LAST DAYS"?

We should believe that we are in the last era of time on earth, but we have no signs to alert us that that time of the end is near or even in our lifetimes. Ours is a faith that is urgent because of the uncertainty of when death will end our opportunities. Ours is a faith that also knows that the final day of judgment may or may not come during our lifetime here. We cannot see the coming signs that the early Christians knew were going to happen in that very generation. Jesus did not promise a coming in our generation. We must get ready for what we are certain of, our death or the possible final coming of Jesus. Many Christians are not sufficiently preparing today, even as many Christians in the first century were "heaping to themselves" teachers who would tickle their ears(1 Tim.4:1-4; 2 Tim.4:1-3). Preparation and urgency is a model, but being assured that a specific calamity is going to happen in our generation is not a model we can follow. Jesus promised His involvement and spiritual presence in the judgments on Judaism and Jerusalem in that very generation (Matt.24:1-36). No such similar things are promised to our present generation. Therefore, the same reasons for urgency doe not serve as a "model" for us. General preparation for death and an uncertain time of final judgment is our model.

CONCLUSION

LaGard is correct that we should live daily with a sense of nearness to the Lord, our death, or His final coming. He is wrong that all Christians lived with that urgency in the first century, and he is wrong in his generalization that none live with that sense today. It is here that we register our word of caution. We agree that the New Testament gives us the model of conversion, initiation, purpose, purity, piety, relationships, response to persecution, belief in the supernatural, and in urgency. We disagree with some of LaGard’s applications and with all of his generalizations. All in all, he has some very good points in regard to personal restoration, and these are good challenges to personal growth. We commend these truth and sift through the rest with caution.

Terry W. Benton 

Terry's Website and E-Mail Address

www.pinelanechurchofchrist.com

terrywbenton@bellsouth.net