A Little Consistency

Shortly after God came in 1998, I heard John MacArthur teaching about church discipline. In his teaching he spoke about his determination to practice biblical discipline. A friend of his warned him that such a thing would never fly and people today would simply never put up with it or join in with it. Yet they now had all these thousands of people at whatever church he pastors who have all joined in with it and do put up with it, because it is an important part of the New Testament experience.

Q: Which parts of the New Testament experience are unimportant? Which parts of the New Testament pattern are we at liberty to simply ignore?

I'm glad that MacArthur felt that way about 'church' discipline, and grateful to him for introducing that topic to me over a decade ago, but what about so many other aspects of the New Testament Christian life?

For those of you who have not read NTRF's House Church (previously and better titled 'ekklesia') they make the point that what they are arguing for is a little consistency. Unfortunately, a little consistency is exactly what we already have. It's the very thing that keeps the Body divided in a thousand sects (better known as 'denominations') and acting exactly like a body that has been divided. What the Body of Christ needs is plain old Consistency, period.

But, of course, consistency isn't like some sort of commodity that you can acquire, as if perhaps someone will give us consistency, or we can buy it down at Wal-Mart, or we are all waiting until Jesus instructs the Holy Spirit to give us consistency and then we will all be able to come to unity and one accord. Consistency is a choice, an act of will, and the only waiting is God waiting for His people to decide that His Word is important enough for us to take it seriously and do as He already said.

Most 'churches' and denominations have one or two aspects of the New Testament pattern that they have grabbed ahold of and that's their 'thing', and they take pride in the fact that they are doing this part of the NT pattern that all the other 'churches' aren't doing.

For example:
Baptists are known for their teaching and practice about water baptism; they baptize by full immersion instead of sprinkling, and they do not baptize infants, but only those old enough to clearly make a choice for Christ, because that is the clear New Testament pattern (although most Baptists do not adhere to other aspects of New Testament baptism, notably that new converts are to be baptized immediately). Secondarily, Baptists are known for their partial adherence to New Testament congregationalism similar to the ekklesia norm. But they do not adhere to other aspects, such as a plurality of unpaid elders without a professional schooled and salaried 'Pastor' to deliver the 'message' or 'sermon' every Sunday. Or celebration of the Lord's Supper every Lord's Day.

Presbyterians are known for their 'presbytery' – their elders, in partial accordance with the NT pattern – but they still retain the Catholic clerical position in the form of 'The Pastor', and lots of other unbiblical practices.

Pentecostals and Charismatics are known for their acceptance of and belief in the New Testament gifts of the Spirit such as tongues, prophecy, etc. But they don't much want to adhere to biblical guidelines for practicing these gifts (calling that 'legalism'), which results in a lot of ungodly weirdness and hocus pocus; and they especially tend to want to have nothing to do with biblical elders, lifting up 'The Pastor' over the 'church' as 'The Man of God'.

And non-denominational 'churches' each have their own salad bar approach to which parts of the New Testament they comply with, and which they reject.

Can anyone out there tell me what exactly would be wrong with all of God's people making a commitment to God and to their brothers and sisters in Christ to sincerely search the scriptures and to perform the things written there to the absolute best of their ability and understanding? Instead we all rest on our dividing unbiblical traditions – whether it's what Grandma and Grandpa used to pray, or whether it's a tradition that came out of some guy's new book last year, we all lift up our traditions above the clearly revealed will of God in the Scriptures.

People! Jesus died on the cross! He gave us the Holy Spirit! He caused the apostles to write for us all the words of this Life in a book! His servants in the reformation were persecuted, tortured, and burned alive to give this book to us that we might both read it and do it! Everything we need is in our grasp!

Come on people, now come on!