Paul had some great churches that he had planted, but he had one dysfunctional fellowship that he was continually correcting and trying to set back on the right path – the church at Corinth. Corinth was a splintered church in just about every way. For goodness sakes, they even found a way to observe the Lord’s Supper in a divisive way! Paul corrected their arrogant, divisive attitudes, their immorality, their wrong attitudes about marriage, their disagreements over matters of personal conscience, their abuse of the Lord’s Supper. Then, in 1 Corinthians 12, Paul addressed their divisions over spiritual matters – how God gifted, spoke to and led the church and how that church ministered to one another. Paul dealt with the problems in Corinth.
Then, in 1 Corinthians 12:31, he said, “I will show you a still more excellent way.”
There was a better way than the bickering and arrogant divisiveness of the Corinthians. I think there is a better way than we in the SBC have demonstrated. In fact, I think that unless we learn to walk the more excellent way we will soon sign the death warrant for our denomination’s days of success and influence. If we continue on the path we are on our cracks will become fractures which will become fault lines which will bring us crumbling down. You can call that overwrought language, I think it is biblical truth.
We must walk the way of love. I’m not talking about the sentimental and sappy love that you see in the movies or hear on the radio. And I’m not talking about the weak-kneed kind of love that those without a doctrinal spine often advocate. I’m talking about the love of God displayed in the people of God, the kind of love that Paul described in 1 Corinthians 13. In that passage Paul makes a bold assertion. Without love – the demonstration of the love of God in the life of God’s people – everything we do is meaningless, pointless and empty.
And there is precious little of it in the SBC today, especially in the blogosphere. If someone disagrees with my cherished positions, he is is my enemy (and God’s). So, in the immortal words from the original Karate Kid movie, “the enemy deserves no mercy.” If you do not agree with me, get out of my denomination. You are a heretic, a liberal, a fundamentalist, a legalist, an Arminian, a hyper-Calvinist – you pick the insult. Just read some of the interactions between Calvinists and non-Calvinists, between moderationists and abstentionists, concerning Mark Driscoll or Ergun Caner or Acts 29 or the GCR or Kevin Ezell or whatever. The love of God is a rare commodity in those conversations. There is plenty of “enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions” but a disturbing absence of “love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 23 gentleness, and self-control.” Of course, it is always the fault of the other side. “They started it. I was just responding to what they said.”
We spend so much time trying to demonstrate our rightness and righteousness while also showing the faults and failings of our bl0g-opponents. Our conversations tend to be marked with suspicion and insinuation and derogation instead of love and blessing. When the fruit of the Spirit is absent in our discussions and relationships, we will not be blessed by God no matter how right we are. We will bring a pox on all our houses because we are claiming the truth without exhibiting the mind of Christ and claiming correctness without walking in the way of Christ.
Examining the Love Chapter
Paul had spent 12 chapters (and countless hours) trying to get the Corinthians to work together for the cause of Christ. Finally, he had enough. “There is a better way, you bickering, bumbling, bull-headed, battling believers of First Baptist Church of Corinth!” He told them to walk with Christ in the way of love.
Read 1 Corinthians 13. Really. Do it now. Then think to yourself how that passage applies to Southern Baptists and especially to Baptist Bloggers. Isn’t there a better path than the one we have been on? Isn’t there a better way than the bickering, blasting and bashing that has marked blogging and other Baptist interactions in recent years?
There is.
In fact, Paul says that unless you walk in the way of love, nothing else you do matters at all.
If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. If I give away all I have, and if I deliver up my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing. 1 Cor 13:1–3 ESV
Paul spoke clearly here and he wasn’t joking. Whatever you do “in the name of Christ” is nothing unless it is done in the love of God. Speak with the eloquence of the angels? Meaningless. Understand everything and accomplish great works in God’s Kingdom? Nothing! Sacrifice everything, even your own body? Pointless.
We are here to walk the way of love and if we do not love, we are nothing. Whether the Calvinists are right or wrong, we are all wrong if our dialog continues as it has been.
No, love does not negate the truth, but it does change the way we state it. We speak the truth, but we do so in love. We proclaim the gospel, even judgment, but we do so with love.
Defining Love
What is love? Jesus Christ is love. He demonstrated God’s love clearly for us when he died for sinners. That’s what Romans 5:8 says. So what is love? It is acting in the best interests of others, putting their needs ahead of your own and living to make others successful, not yourself. When I love people, I sacrifice my ambitions and goal to serve the needs of others. I seek to build them up, not myself. I lay down my pride and my rights for the glory of God and the good of others.
Paul defines love clearly in the next few verses.
Love is patient and kind. (verse 4)
Patience and kindness are two sides of one coin. Patience is putting up with others’ faults and failings, even the sins of others done against us. Kindness is the response of grace to those who have been unkind and unloving. I am saddened how often people justify their unkind words and attitudes because of the words and actions of others. We do not have that option. Jesus loved sinners and called us to love them as well. He told us to love our enemies – those who seek our destruction.
Jesus made it clear that if we are only loving and kind to those who treat us well, it means nothing. True love is demonstrated by how one treats those who treat us badly.
I’m not real good at that. How about you? But can you imagine the change in the direction of the SBC (or of your church, or family, or whatever…) if God’s people returned good for evil and sought to love the unlovely and the unloving, if patience and kindness replaced harshness and vitriol in our conversations.
Love does not envy or boast. (verse 4)
Since love implies dying to self it also implies abandoning of selfish ambition and self-promotion.
Love is not arroant or rude. (verse 4
Love watches every word it speaks or writes to make sure that those words build up and bless and do not tear down and injure.
Love does not insist on its own way. (verse 5)
Is not that the source of all our troubles right now? I want you to do things my way. You want your way. So we each work to have our own way done. That self-centered demand that people accept my way as the right way is the root of much of our denominational dysfunction.
Love does not insist on getting its own way. Perhaps the best gauge of my Christian maturity is how I behave when I lose the vote, when things go against me. Do I become petulant, petty, and recriminatory? Do I pout and slander? Or do I walk in the love of Jesus?
Love is not irritable. (verse 5)
I am sometimes, but love is not. I need to make sure that every word I speak or write comes from a desire to glorify God, not to vent my spleen and make sure people know how I feel.
I have a confession to make. There are some bloggers who really irritate me. I have some good friends in the blogging world. Even they irritate me sometimes. That is a natural human reaction. We are sinners and both irritable and irritating at the same time.
But love demands a response of kindness to those who irritate us. We lead with kindness and blessing instead of venting our irritation and anger.
Love does not keep a record of wrongs. (verse 5)
The ESV says “resentful” here, but the literal Greek is “reckon the evil.” I like the NIV on this one, “does not keep a record of wrongs”. Do you have an internal listing of bloggers who have wronged you, irritated you, annoyed you or insulted you? If you have been blogging long, you probably do.
Love washes away those grudges in the blood of Christ. As God remembers our sins no more, we choose not to hold resentment for those who have wronged us or to continually bring back up those things that have been done to us.
Love does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. (verse 6)
This may have broader application, but I would like to apply this one specifically to a situation I have seen often on blogs. If I see a friend or someone I agree with insulted, put down or treated unkindly, I rise up and hold the perpetrator accountable. But if I see someone I don’t like get ridiculed or blasted, I smile and either join in or just do nothing.
Listen, if it is wrong for someone to insult my friends, it is just as wrong for a friend to insult an enemy. If I am walking in love, I will not excuse evil done by those I agree with, even if it furthers my cause. Love demands that I defend even my enemies when they are wronged.
Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things and endures all things. (verse 7)
Love does not give up easily. I have avoided naming names here, but I’m going to drop one now. I was fortunate enough to make friends with David Rogers through blogging. I have watched him be insulted, seen his words twisted and perverted to say things he never meant and I have also watched him continue to return good for evil and to demonstrate kindness and grace toward those who tormented him. That spirit needs to grow (in me at least) and spread throughout our denomination.
Love bears up against insult, injury and loss. It continues to believe that the God who saved us will lead us into all truth and accomplish his work in us. It continues to hope that the God who raised Jesus from the dead will do miracles in our midst and it endures even when it is hard and the rewards do not come.
Come Back to Reality, Dave
I know some of you are thinking that this is starry-eyed, rose-colored-glasses dreaming. I would remind you of verse 8. LOVE NEVER FAILS. The way of love does not seem to make rational sense, but it works because God is in it. When we walk the way of love, failure is not an option. When God’s people walk in the way of Christ, the way of the Cross, the path of love, God will work in us and through us by his mighty power. When we forgive our enemies and love them instead of “giving them what they asked for” we release the power of God to perf0rm miracles of grace. When we love one another instead of demonstrating harshness, division and hatred, we honor our Savior and he will lift us up.
The SBC needs a love-infusion. The GCR? Won’t help a lick if we do not walk in love. It doesn’t much matter if you are Calvinist or non-Calvinist, if you do not walk in love you are nothing. Paul’s words, not mine! Whether you are an innovator or traditionalist is insignificant and pointless unless you are a man or woman of love.
If people in the SBC who disagree cannot learn to walk in love not only is the SBC doomed – it should be. Without love we are nothing. The SBC without love is nothing.
What is the solution to the problems of the SBC? Love. We fight over so many things. Calvinism. Ecclesiology. Elders. Alcohol. Traditionalism. Cultural Relevance. Do these things matter? Yes. But not if we don’t love each other. Without love, none of it matters.
Conclusion
I urge the Southern Baptist Convention to walk the way of love. Honor one another in Christ. Accept one another (as Romans 15:1 commands) even if you disagree on certain issues. Hold fast to the gospel, but also hold fast to one another in love.
It is love that will heal our convention. Let us walk in “the more excellent way” of love.
NOTE: I can already hear the comments. “I have to stand for truth.” “Are you saying we should compromise with sin and heresy for the sake of love?” No. That is not what I am saying. As I said above, I believe we have to stand uncompromisingly for truth. There is one gospel. It is not loving to allow people to believe a false gospel that will send them to hell for eternity. If we love people, we will warn them of the consequences of their sin. Since we love God and people, we stand uncompromisingly for the truth of the gospel. I get that. I believe it.
But that does not excuse the harsh, unloving, vitriolic way in which we have often done this. We do not win people to Christ with anger and insult. We must speak the truth in love.
And lets face it, most of the things we fight about are not of that import.
It is my prayer that this will not just be passed off as some kind of impractical idealism. I believe that God’s prescription for SBC problems is his Love in our midst. I believe that while difficult, it is also practical. Oh well.
Amen! I am a layman, retired, with time on my hands to read blogs. It ain’t pretty.
I honestly believe that things are better today than they were two or three years ago. Maybe that speaks to how bad things were in days gone by, but it also says that maybe some are getting it.
‘AGAINST ‘SUCH THINGS’ THERE IS NO LAW’
Galatians 5
22 ‘But the fruit of the Spirit is…
love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness,
23 gentleness and self-control.
Against such things there is no law.’
One of the ‘Doctors’ of the Church wrote this:
” . . . to the heart that loves, all is well.”
There is a kind of love that is stronger than death itself. It is written, ‘God is love’ and it was said by a Christian leader, this:
‘At some point, we all come to ask of ourselves ‘why’ Love was nailed to a cross.’ I think Lottie Moon understood the ‘why’, because of this, her great witness of the love of Christ within her soul:
“Unknown to her fellow missionaries, Lottie Moon shared her personal finances and food with anyone in need around her, severely affecting both her physical and mental health. In 1912, she only weighed 50 pounds. Alarmed, fellow missionaries arranged for her to be sent back home to the United States with a missionary companion. However, Moon died en route.”
May we say that ‘all was well with her soul’.
When some have come to see ‘love’ as a weakness, then you know that they cannot understand its great power in this world. The ‘kind’ of love that takes up a cross, or gives away one’s needed food to others, that is not a ‘weakness’ at all.
Impractical? Absolutely.
That’s the point.
One of the keys in something like this is self-examination. It is so easy to look at the other guy, to examine his faults and failings and to point out the speck in his eye.
My job is be loving and I fail miserably, as do you and as do we all. But the fact that we all fail does not negate our responsibility to try, to continually gauge our words, actions and attitudes against the love of God in Christ.
Dave , If you think you’re ” hurling an insult ” , then you probably are. Why not just shut up instead. Takes two to argue and here on this blog there is no winner.
I’m not sure what you are talking about Jack.
Jack,
There’s something that took me a while to learn: “on a blog there is no winner.” This isn’t a contest. We almost never change anybody’s mind. Some people just cannot have a discussion that truly values the opinion of others.
On a blog, it’s all about the information, not the person. I know I’ve taken things personally and I feel foolish afterward because: I’m not a real person and neither is the person I’m conversing with. We are just pixels on a page, and any arguing is wasted time.
I’m trying to find the people that I can actually learn something from, so that should we ever meet, we could perhaps become “real” friends.
I’m also learning what names to avoid. Restraint is much harder for me but I’m committed to doing just that. Feel free to hold me to it.
Frank, Dave & i have also written behind the pages of this blog and I can tell when he will not give an inch regardless of whether he knows the subject or not. We slammed each other before today when we slammed each other again behind the scenes and then I read his Blog about “Paul’s Solution”. That reading caused my remark on page about ” if it sounds like an insult ” In other words we should practice what we preach – if we can. If it is a fact that after 9-11 at the site in New York all volunteers were removed from the job and all union labor from steel workers, iron workers, crane operators, the guy that signals the crane operator what motion to make cause he can’t see over the pile – every man and women was a trained-certified Union Worker that others could trust to work safely and the sidewalks around were loaded with other Unions Bricklayers, Electrical etc with BBQ grills going with Italian sausage, Hot Smokes and all the fixins for ALL the workers , Cops -Union, Fireman -Union and the job was completed in record time under budget and no major injuries I don’t believe – then to say nothing or but agree would be alright. My Union added over 2 million to OBL’s ransome after 9-11. We don’t need to insuly other people – we just need to understand who they are and how they live and not act like our every thought is infallible and sent from Heaven. The above in NY is true and I didn’t find out by reading in the Newspapers. The End
I think Jack is offended because I have expressed my views on unions to him. He sends me emails about unions and I tell him what I think of unions as a whole today.
Not really sure what this is all about, but whatever.
I once worked with Jimmy Hoffa’s niece.
I feel like it is appropriate to quote my favorite line from O, Brother Where Art Thou at this time.
I’m with you fellas.
How can you have just ONE favorite line from that movie?
By it’s very definition favorite implies “one”, but I probably should have said “one of my favorites” in any case.
But this is the bottom line in a nutshell. Calvinists are not leaving, so we have to learn to accept both doctrines under the same roof. If Calvinists were to leave(which as whole they will not and have not for a few centuries now) there will be a loss of 6,000 plus. A few Calvinist churches are big in numbers. Our church for example is big for our area. We are 2,000 plus and growing. Other churches who are Calvinist are much bigger than ours. It would be a hit both in giving and support of the SBC. Just those in our colleges are of a significant number are they not?
Thanks for the warning.
“”It would be a hit both in giving and support of the SBC””
I challenge that statement as a gratuitous assertion. My counter-point is that if we lost every mega-church in the Convention the net result of any loss in giving would be negligible compared to the numbers that leave.
We are by and large a “small-church” convention and by and large most typical pastors are less than passionate about debating the 5 points of Calvinism.
And, you mention your church being a “Calvinist” church. Did you all vote on becoming a Calvinist church? Do the members have to sign some kind of Calvinist document? Has your church done some sort of survey to determine you are a “Calvinist” church?
I’ve never heard of an SBC church being self-described as “Being a Calvinist church.”
No, Frank, I mentioned our church being composed of both Calvinist and non-Calvinist who if Calvinists were not part of the Convention, and since Wade is Calvinist, and since we are so a part of each other would cause our whole church to leave or not be welcome. Yes, there are Calvinist churches in the SBC. Tom Ascol’s is one, there are others. I would not exactly put our church in that classification.
Frank: I suggest you do some research because it seems you are really out of touch with the facts. This is nothing new, it has been around and going on for years, and historically at least a century or two. You may think this is new, it isn’t. Calvinists didn’t just pop up in the 21st century on Southern Baptist shores. They have been around at least since the 1800’s.
Really, since the 1800’s? You might want to do some research. But, you are close — give or take a few centuries.
Just as a point of clarification. In the above comment, you mentioned “Calvinist churches,” so Frank didn’t just pull that out of the air. Your comment also made it sound as if you classified your own church as part of that category as you said:
If that was not your intention, then that is fair enough, but hopefully you can understand why the statement left that impression. I was kind of curious what you meant by it as well but figured I would wait and see what answer the original question got. I still don’t think I understand what it means to call a church Calvinist so can you explain further.
What makes a church “Calvinist”? Is it when the pastor is Calvinist or is there more to it than that?
Unity doesn’t have anything to do with Calvinism or Baptist distinctives.
What strikes me is that we’re commanded to be united, and Jesus Himself said that if we don’t come to Him as little children, we don’t get to see the Kingdom. Hence, the unity He commands must (to me) concern those things that a child can understand. And that sure isn’t the stuff that divides the folks from the people.
Calvinists: they back up their doctrine with scripture.
Baptists: they back up their doctrine with scripture.
So. Ask yourself: which of those two groups shows more love in dealing with the other?
Great comment Bob.
I just try to remember the rule that most men need to remember in arguing with your spouse…
“Even if you win the argument… you lose!”
Victory in one’s position in the SBC is a lose/lose situation if we destroy a fellow believer’s name/character/reputation in the process
Yep. Excellent comment.
Excellent Blog, David. It is one I deeply appreciate. I Cors.13, esp. 12:31b-14:1a, has a special fascination for me. I did two years of research in the Greek text of that pericope, accumulating some 2000 5×8 notecards. Then I took an Honors course and wrote a 50 page exegesis and exposition of the passage with 305 footnotes. One of the things I found is that practically all the scholars I read on the subject, be they liberal (so-called) or Conservative (so-called), agreed that Paul’s model for his comments was the very person of Jesus of Nazareth. After the paper I did my project for the Doctor of Ministry on Christian Love and Race Relations which involved 10 lectures in Black History in the evening services and 10 sermons on I Cors.13 in the morning worhship services. Participants in the project (those who attended both services and were willing to be tested (pre and post test) did not seem to show much change. I did the project without the support of the seminary (My project director stated, “You ought to know better than to select a controversial topic like this. If they fire you, I will be right there behind the church supporting them.”). Interesting enough, the real influence of the project would come 20 years later. A participant in the project, the son of one of the deacons, later married a Black lady and had two sons. That would reveal the change that took place in the years to follow. As the wife of the deacon said to me, when she took her two grandsons on a trip with the other seniors in the church, “Mr. Willingham, they were so well behaved, and I got so many compliments.” I almost weep now as I think of the change in the attitude of the members of that church.
As to the issues you have addressed, I do appreciate your attitude and spirit. I agree with you that we need to keep the tent big and hold these people together. The first enlargement of the tent began in 1787 with the Union of Separate and Regular Baptists who agreed that the preaching that Christ tasted death for every man would be no bar to communion. This in a day when most of both groups were Particular Baptists, holding to limited atonement. The few who preached Christ tasted death for every man were in the Separate Baptists, but even the majority of them held that Christ died for the elect alone. The liberalism grew out of a deeper insight into the nature of the theology of Sovereign Grace, the theology that produced the First and Second Great Awakenings and the launching of the Great Century of Missions. That same theology, a biblical theology, produced George Whitefield and John Welsey who learned eventually to work together. Whitefield was the primary initiator of that effort toward unity. Jonathan Edwards who was the great calvinistic theologian of America would also give an impulse to that liberal spirit by taking Whitefield to task for his attacks upon the unconverted ministry and, I suppose, upon Harvard University (because, later, Whitefield would devote his considerable talents to raising money for Harvard’s library which had burnt up in a fire).
The United Baptists, the precursors of the Southern Baptist Convention, were those Separate and Regular Baptists who agreed to drop the names Separate and Regular and be called United Baptists. Fifty years (1827) later the old Sardis United Baptist Church was founded in Missouri, eventually named the Elston Baptist Church, a result of that union. I pastored that church for about 18 months in 1865-66. I did not then know from whence the church had secure its name of United Baptists. These United Baptists were the beginnings of the Southern Baptist Convention. The Spirit of the Separate Baptists and the Regulars of a charitable and liberal disposition on serious matters of difference continued in the beginning of the launching of the Great Century of Missions. Luther Rice came to Sandy Creek in 1816 and led the Association to enlist in the cause of missions. He also chaired the committee that drew up the Confession of that year, a confession that is clearly calvinistic as it spells out the fact that man is utterly impotent of his own free will or ability to save himself and that God elects and effectually saves those whom He has chosen. One of the churches that I was a member of for a few years, Mt. Pisgah, founded in 1814, the church that sent out Southern Baptists first missionary to China, Matthew T. Yates, did not know of Christ dying for every one. The Articles of Faith speak only of Christ dying for the Church..
On that committee were two men who affected me greatly. The first named member after Chairman Rice was Hezekiah Harmon, a veteran of he American Revolutionary War who was converted near the time of the Second Great Awakening (1798). Elder Harmon would found the Gum Springs Baptist Church in 1829 (3 years before his death) which I would pastor from 1972-1983. Another member of the committee, unnamed, but identified by office, the clerk of the association, was Basil Manly, Sir., born 1-29-1798. He would go on to pastor the FBC of Charleston from about 1825-1836, suggest the founding of the seminary in 1835 in a publication, I think it was called, The Southerner Intelligencer. In 1857,58,59, he would serve as President of the Educational Conventions which would organize and establish Southern Seminary. He served as firt Presidnt of the Board of Trustees, his son, Jr., would draw up the Abstract of Principles with the help of Rev. A.M. Poindexter which express quite clearly at least two of the doctrines of the Sandy Creek Articles of 1816 albeit with somewhat different wording. O yes, on 1-29-1975, I would preach the chapel service at SEBTS on the subject of A Great Awakening, Ephs.5:14, not knowing that I was bringing a Sovereign Grace Message on the 177 anniversary of the founders birth.
By 1888 a minister in North Carolina woul preach a sermon against predestination which would draw a response from (I think it was) the editor of the Biblical Recorder (Rev. Benji Ramsaur (sp?) is the source of my knowledge of this) who suggested the fellow needed to go to Southern and get a better understanding of the truth. I should mention here that Boyce’s theology is clearly Sovereign Grace or Calvinistic. He apparently was quite charitable in spirit and disposition with those who had not yet accepted such views. Indeed, I think I know of at least one I who remained what some would call Arminian all of his life. In any case, I took notes on the biography of one Southern Baptist who was converted under Sovereign Grace ministers and whose funeral many years later was preached by a Sovereign Grace minister, and he remained your typical Southern Baptist minister, knowing little of Sovereign Grace, that we find especially in the 20th century.
But prayers have been going up for many years. I know I have been praying for a Third Great Awakening since 1973, one that will win the whole world and every soul in it and continue for a total of at least a 1000 generations. And when I say win, I mean by gentle persuasion, by truth, by legitimate means of conviction and conversion….not manipulation or force. I know of one pastor who has been praying for such revival since the 1950s. That there has been an increase in Sovereign Grace believers and a renewal in so-called calvinism should come as no surprise, if that is the theology that produced the first two Awakenings and the Great Century of Missions and America with its ideals and freedoms which we now seem to be in the process of losing. People fussed about Calvinism back in the 1700s and all the while the Awakenings were taking place and more.The very Calvinists about which there was so much fussing were the ones who secured Religious Liberty, united the Separate and Regular Baptists, won General Baptists over to Particular Redemption with the result tht 46 years later that group also experienced the Second Great Awakening. Dr. Bill Leonard of Wake Forest Divinity School gave an address on the period in the 1700s and noted the fussing, especially from the angle of an Episcopalian of that day. It was funny, all that fussy and the fussers were out securing religious liberty, uniting groups, converting groups, launching missions, and establishing educational institutions. Could it be that the fussing just indicated that they were alive andthigs were going well with the freedom to fuss?
Last, I must add that there is something about the so-called doctrines of grace that enable people to become balanced, flexible, creative, and magnetic. The tension between Divine Sovereignty and Human Responsibility produced in the human mind is not an undesirable one, but one that enables the person to be flexible, balanced, creative. It gives a sense of maturity and magnetisim that draws others to the wholesomeness which Sovereign Grace produces in the recovered sinner. It is what John Newton called, Amazing Grace, and he was quite clear about it that he meant Sovereign Grace. As the lady said to a friend of mine named Spurgeon, “O it was so wonderful, I could not resist it.” If we are to have another such Awakening then it follows we need the truths that poduce such a visitation, truths which make people responsible and persevering. Gloria in excelsis Deo!
Great history, Dr. Willingham.
I just began reading J. Gresham Machen’s Christianity and Liberalism. The first paragraph of the first chapter made me think “SBC”. Not sure why.
I was thinking as I reread some of these posts, is unity really possible? My conclusion is: we talk about the kind of unity we should have in a local church and want to transfer that to a national convention.
I don’t see that as leading to anywhere but where we are. We will argue that we are a bottom-up organization but we seem to be run like a top-down corporation.
What if we severely limited the amount of business done at the national level to just one mission agency (IMB) and Disaster Relief. Let everything else be funded and controlled at the Associational level without State Conventions.
The unity issue would be driven down to the church level and might actually have a chance.
There’s simply two many heads on this one body for there to be the kind of unity the Bible speaks about.
Unity is not something we can produce by wishing; it takes prayer, pain (the pain of study of the revealed evidence and the pain of change to conform to the demands of revelation), working through differences in a process fraught with difficulties and dangers. Our history points to the way we can tackle the problems of differences. Consider how so many have so many views. One example has been te hierarchical principle. I have read where there are people who think we are to have a hierarchy, a ruling body of clergy organized in orders or ranks each subordinate to the one above it. Unless I miss my guess that is Roman Catholicism Anglicanism, and/or even Methodism. The Presbyterians have their synods and etc. But the Baptists are supposed to be congregational which means every member is an equal, and the Lord chose to use a term which clearly implies that each member is an equal, namely, the ekklesia, the term for the governing body of a Greek city-state. Every citizen of that particular city-state was a member of the ekklesia, the governing bdy, and each member had a right to participate in te discussions and debates, to propose legislation, to be elected to positions of leadership, and etc. In that day, only the me were the citizens (I suspect this had to do with the fact that they provided for the common defense. The church added females and considered them as members and provided for their participation. Phoebe was elected as a deacon (the term is masculinein the Greek), a servant of the church of Cenchrea (Roms.16:1). Eldresses are mentioned even if they seem limited to ministering to women, and desiring the office of elder is not put in masculine terms but in gender neutral terms just as salvation is. The issue is one of the the sore spots that needs to be worked throuh…not in secrecy but in open debate and discussion, in careful examinations andpresentations of the evidence for and against such practices. The founding pastor of the Pilgrims, John Robinson asked, “Who knows what new light is gettng ready to break forth from God’s word?” Within 20 years the light of religious liberty broke forth in the new world, an the Baptists in Rhode Island began the effort to establish it by law. Religious liberty was heresy with most Christians in that day. The fact that we have succeeded ought to give every reader of this blog pause for thought. If most of he believers 400 years ago could not see religious liberty, what is it in the word of God that we do not see today.
How about the problem of religious differences on salvation by Grace. Each person thinks he or she is right. I can well remembermy pastor saying in response to my request to discuss the issue of Calvinism with him (a Ph.D. from Bob Jones whose Doctoral Dissertation was on the subject “Messianic Expectations Among the Nations” and who had studied Greek for seven years) and his blunt reply, “You don’t know enough to discuss it.” He wouldnot discuss the issue with me, and yet he ordained me we I did not give the standard answer on orignal sin. He asked, “What does the Bible teach about original sin?” I answered, “Which answer do you want? There are six views!” I had in mind the six positions discussed in A.H. Strong’s Systematic theology which I had outlined along with three or four other works before my ordination. Dr. Campbell replied, “Don’t be a smart alec, Jim!” A few minutes later he tripped me up with a question that brought a gasp and then laughter from the assembld ministers of the Fee Fee Baptist Association, the association of St. Louis Baptist in Missouri as it was called at that time. On the ordaining counsel were several leading ministers, including my Bible teacher from St.Louis Baptist College, Dr. W.L. Muncey, Jr., a former professor at Central Baptist Seminary in Kansas City, the author of books on evangelism and stewardhip, and the father of five sons who were also ministers.
Dr. Campbell and the ministers did not feel turned off by my answers. They ordained me at the request of the Pilot Knob Baptist Church of Belle, Mo. Within a year after of my ordination, I had come to believe the doctrine of original sin from the Federal and/or Augustinian position. Pastoring a Baptist church led me to see what a Puritan, David Clarkson, had to say about Original Sin was the truth, namely, that man was fallen and helpless and hopeless in sin. Only a Sovereign God, the Lord Jesus Christ, was equal to the occasion. Only He had the power and the will to save filthy, depraved, and wretched sinners.
There being such a disagreement among ministers, there is bound to be controversy. The easy thing to do is to split, and sometimes that is best. The most difficult thing to do is to try and work through the differences to get at the truth as it is in Christ Jesus in His Holy Word. And that is the rub. I once served as one of the group leaders in a race relations conference designed to implement integration on a massive scale in Orangeburg, SC. That was in the Fall of 1970. One of the tools for helping people to learn to grasp and understand was the Johari Window. Four areas or panes are involved. One section involves wat you want to project and what you want others to perceive. The second is the section which people perceive which is more than you want them to perceive. There is the part of the window tht you don’t want them to perceive. Finally, there is that part which neither you nor they perceie about yourself. Using that we managed to help a group of white and black teenagers get a grip upon understanding one another enough to be able to function in a newly integrated school.
I suggest that we need to use such tools, subject to the agape love, the more excellent way, which Brother David Miller has suggested is needed, to work out the differences so that we can learn to abide with one another. Sacrificial love is the essence of the way, and that means the way will not be cheap or easy. But it will be genuine. And there is a satisfaction in working through things the right way, a sense of accomplishment, of creativity, of success.
We really need to maintain this huge force, the largest in America and perhaps in the world as far as Protestants are concerned. We cn do it, if Separates and Regulars could unite, if General Baptists could be persuaded to adopt a Particular Redemption view point, if calvinistic theology could be the chief factor in two great awakenings, the launching of the Great Century of Missions, in employing educated and uneducated ministers together in God’s service, in beginning one of the early protests against slavery (the Friends of Humanity – which unfortunately did not last very long or accomplish much good), in securing religious liberty, and more, much more. Let us care for one another, pray for one another, be patient with one another, while trying to maintain our beliefs as we understand them, but allowing for the possibility that we can misperceive, misunderstand, and even get many facts wrong. A friend of mine, a Spurgeon no less, took about 40 years to change his mind on the issue of irresistible grace. Better by far to have him take as long as necessary to change his mind. After all, these are eternal matters, and being so they are fraught with the possibilities of great dangers and great delights. Do research, gentlemen. Researc the Bible, first. That is primary and foremost. Next research Baptist History. See how they carried things out, how they learned to work together. It is a great history. Yes, it has its sad moments. Slavery and segregation are two very sore issues in the life of our churches across four centuries. How to deal with those with whom we disagree is another. The South Africans have left us the example of at least trying to reconcile matters in their Reconciliation Commissions. I wept, when I heard them say in programs that were filmedthat they could not forgive in some cases. Hw grea it was to consider that they even tried. But there were those who did and grief turns to joy at the thought, for that is the message of the Christian Faith. God bless David for trying and all who discuss even if you disagree.
Yes, I agree.
God bless David for trying.
As you know, Dr. Willingham, no effort for good goes without some benefit to this world, it’s just that we don’t always see it happen right away.
Thanks for sharing your comment. I got a lot from reading it.