It’s just Marketing 101 applied to the Church. After all, we do the same thing in the business world. We make sure we meet the job qualifications but that’s just the barebones—the nitty gritty is in who you know and how you impress them. That sort of thing can easily wind up working in an area where we might not like it happening but it happens anyway. We might not like Absalom or Diotrephes but they’re methodology isn’t going away any time soon.

Enter these churches that say they are directed by the Holy Spirit. They don’t elevate any elders unless the Holy Spirit seems to indicate this person is doing the work of the Elder and so forth. Perhaps they’re a congregational model that doesn’t operate on voting: whatever. Would they be protected from this sort of system gaming?

Apparently, 95% of Pastors are married. Maybe that’s not surprising if a group believes that there is a blessing attached to marriage but this is hefty considering that there are non-married men who are alternately blessed and even more focused on the Lord’s work—note Paul’s thinking (1 Cor 7). When you look at one of the surveys that they use for narrowing down candidates, you’ll see that the stuff that they consider is divided equally between subjective, interpersonal and outright qualifications.

What other qualifications would led-by-the-Spirit churches bring to the table? How do you judge Led by the Spirit-ness? Is it based on the amount of people that are influenced? Well, that would stink for some of the OT prophets. What about the amount of people that agree with his teaching? So ends Jeremiah’s ministry.

I actually wish that there were some sort of study that reflected what percentage of church leaders were tall.

Anyway, I imagine that if you take a look at these sort of churches, you’d find the same exact dynamics occurring as churches that use checklists and subjective sensibilities you would use at any interview. In other words, even in these churches you’ll (conceivably) have people who are charismatic, know how to shake the right hands, know how to preach according to the playbook being elevated when they probably shouldn’t be.

Personally I’ve seen this sort of thing in our own Plymouth Brethren. You have giants of Evangelicalism like FF Bruce who were committed to the Plymouth Brethren almost entirely forgotten by the Plymouth Brethren today. Why? I’ve seen men who belonged to the right family get elevated to the pulpit and I’ve seen humble, God fearing men who can’t look anyone in the eye because they worry about pride, get kick out of ministry for absolutely zero reason. I’ve seen this happen in Southern States and Northern States. I’ve seen this happen in urban, suburban and rural settings.

Diotrephes has no problem operating wherever he’s given opportunity.

What do we do about it? Well, Paul warned the Ephesians that they would have wolves rise up amongst themselves in Acts 20 but it’s always easier to see the wolf in someone else’s flock than one’s own. Heck, it’s even harder to see the wolf when he’s looking right back at you in the mirror.

One thing I do know. Using this idea of Spirit blessedness should probably be re-examined in light of Scripture. And maybe, continue using the term while admitting that another Spirit may be at play.

Technorati Tags: false teachers, heresy, leaders

Extensive Bibliography (DOC)

Barber (PDF): Who Are The Brethren

Baum (PDF-German): Origin of the Brethren

Bellet (PDF): Reminiscences

Crowley (PDF)

Darby (PDF): A Letter of Separation

Darby (PDF): Narrative of the Facts

Dronsfiled (PDF): Exclusive Brethren History

Grant (PDF): Heresies and History

Miller (PDF)

Newman (PDF)

Noel (PDF)

Neatby (PDF): History of the Plymouth Brethren

Reid (PDF): Refutation

Reiduoft (PDF)

Teuluoft (PDF)

Teulon (PDF): History and Teaching

Whately (PDF)

On FF Bruce

• Barclay
• Coad
• Howley
• Marshall
• Payne
• Pickering

Charts

• Diagram (JPG): Schisms
• Diagram (JPG1 and 2): Family Tree

Technorati Tags: brethren movement, darby, history, Plymouth Brethren

What I’ll do for these features is quote Wikipedia or something similar and link to some good reading, either about them or by them..

Today’s feature: F.F.Bruce. Yeah, He was one of us.

Frederick Fyvie Bruce (12 October 1910 — 11 September 1990) was a Bible scholar, and one of the founders of the modern evangelical understanding of the Bible. His work New Testament Documents: Are They Reliable? is considered a classic in the discipline of Christian apologetics.

 

He was born in Elgin, Moray in Scotland and was educated at the University of Aberdeen, Cambridge University and the University of Vienna. After teaching Greek for several years first at the University of Edinburgh and then at the University of Leeds he became head of the Department of Biblical History and Literature at the University of Sheffield in 1947. In 1959 he moved to the University of Manchester where he became professor of Biblical Criticism and Exegesis. In his career he wrote some thirty-three books and served as editor of The Evangelical Quarterly and the Palestine Exploration Quarterly. He retired from teaching in 1978.

 

Bruce was a distinguished scholar on the life and ministry of Paul the Apostle, and wrote several studies the best known of which is Paul: Apostle of the Heart Set Free. He also wrote commentaries on several biblical books including Romans, Acts of the Apostles, 1 & 2 Corinthians, The Gospel and Epistles of John, and the Epistle to the Hebrews.

 

Bruce was a dedicated member of the Open Plymouth Brethren. However he did not affirm the dispensationalism and pretribulationism usually associated with that movement.

 

Most of his works were scholarly, but he also penned several mainstream works on the Bible that were quite popular. He viewed the New Testament as historically reliable and that the truth claims of Christianity hinged on its being so. To Bruce this did not mean that the Bible was always precise, and this lack of precision could lead to considerable confusion. However, he believed that the passages that were still open to debate were ones that had no substantial bearing on Christian theology and thinking.

 

He was honoured with two scholarly works by his colleagues and former students, one to mark his sixtieth and the other to mark his seventieth birthday. He was elected a Fellow of the British Academy, and served as President of the Society for Old Testament Study, and also as President of the Society for New Testament Study. He is one of a handful of scholars thus recognised by his peers in both fields.

Recommended Reading. Gospel of John. Men and Movements of the Primitive Church. New Testament History. In Retrospect.

Technorati Tags: ff bruce, Plymouth Brethren, scholar

1. Assumption One: The Church was something New. Jesus points out that upon this rock (being Peter or Christ, depending on your interpretation) the Church would (in time: future) be built (Matt 16:18). And even though the church may have been hinted at in the Old Testament or spoken of as a Gathering (such as the Congregation of Israel), Paul points out that the Church, when it became realized, was an unveiled thing (Rom 16:25-27)
2. Assumption Two: The Church is made up of people. It does not consist of a building or institution but a group of people gathered not for an ideological position but underneath a person (Eph. 2:20-22; 1 Pet 2).
3. Assumption Three: The Church could only be built after some historical requirements were fulfilled. Paul would say that the prophets, the coming (suffering, death and resurrection) of Christ, and the apostles were all historical requirements for the Church. (Rom. 11; Eph 5:25-27; Col 1:24). Jesus points out that upon this rock (being Peter or Christ, depending on your interpretation) the Church would (in time: future) be built (Matt 16:18). And even though the church may have been hinted at in the Old Testament or spoken of as a Gathering (such as the Congregation of Israel), Paul points out that the Church, when it became realized, was an unveiled thing (Rom 16:25-27) [I've changed my mind about the four assumptions deciding that I was correct in thinking that the first and the third assumption were too similar. I'll operate with this framework and modify the bottom of the post accordingly.]
4. Assumption Four: The Church’s leadership is divine. In other words, the head authority of the Church is Christ (Eph 1:22; 5:23) and the entire Church belongs to God (1Ti 3:15). It is altogether God’s church (2 Tim. 2:19). This is not to say that the leader’s in the Church are divine or that any one human in the Church has a divine authority-this is to say that the origin, purpose, duty, equipping and demarcation of the church is solely divine. He specifies who is in, who is out, how the Church will operate and for how long.

With these four assumptions in place there winds up being several entailments which I’ll deal with later but first I want to make sure: are there any other assumptions that should be made? Or are some of these assumptions repetitive–such as 1 and 3? [I've decided that these two assumptions are in fact repetitive and together they give stronger support to what the Third assumption was already stating]

Technorati Tags: church, New Testament, pastors, Plymouth Brethren

Misuse of the verse aside (since we all know that the context of the verse has nothing to do with the local church meeting but with the correction of a person who has sinned against another), does the argument hold together? Firstly, I don’t think some of the statements are completely factual and secondly if the argument is sound I don’t think the conclusion is restrictive enough. I’ll talk about the second point first.

Assuming that all the statements before the conclusion are accurate I don’t think we can honestly limit the dressing up to the meeting of the church. The (mis)use of Christ’s words would seem to indicate two or three believers from anywhere: which would mean even in the household. So if the husband is a believer and the wife is a believer there is an example of two gathered: Christ is with them. Since we dress up for important people who we esteem and we think Christ is important and to be greatly esteemed, then it follows that in the home we should wear our best clothes, shoes and all. In fact, we’d probably have to go to bed with the same outfit (if we allow that its okay for us to sleep in front of someone who is Important and Greatly Esteemed).

It does seem pretty silly when we see that outworking and I don’t think even the most restrictive fundamentalist would go there (although he or she might say that this applies on Sunday where I heard one man proudly say that he’d wear his tie and suit the entire day).

So where else does the argument go wrong?

Well, People don’t only wear their best clothes when they meet someone important since they also wear their best clothes when they want to impress (ie: a date) or to ensure that they’re not seen in a bad light (ie: by a potential boss) or to stand out from the crowd (which is practically Impress) or even to fit into a crowd (ie: employees of an Ad Agency). In other words, if I were to meet the president, I wouldn’t dress up so much because he was important or even because I wanted him to be impressed but because I didn’t want him thinking less of me or because I wanted to fit in with anyone else meeting him.

With those things in mind I can think of several immediate reasons why someone would want to dress up for church to Meet Christ (and allow for not-dressing-up in the home). 1) To Impress Christ; 2) Because they don’t want to be thought less of by Christ; 3) Because they want to fit in with the crowd of like-dressing individuals who are meeting Christ.

Here I think we see every statement imploding. No one is going to be able to impress Christ–he’s seen the worst in man and guess what: it’s even in those who dress nicely or wash their hands before eating (Matt 15:11). No one is going to be thought less of by Christ since His mission resulted in the ultimate sacrifice for weak, sinful people (Rom 5:8). No one fits into the crowd of like-dressing individuals when this is the same person that is said to dwell in Us and know what is in the hearts of people (John 2:25).

Technorati Tags: church, clothing, fads