Transcription
Friends, I have had a number of conversations lately in which I have found myself discussing the importance of Congregationalism as an aid to discipleship. I've had a number of conversations lately in which I found myself discussing the importance of Congregationalism as an aid to discipleship, and I think a lot of pastors today don't think that church polity has anything to do with the average Christian's life. I think pastors are tended to think it's a matter of interest maybe for preachers or church historians or church nerds, but it is not of real value in trying to see people mature in Christ. I think, on the contrary, understanding what the New Testament teaches about church polity—that is, about how your church is to be structured—is part of not only obedience to Scripture but also how you help to see the members of your church mature in Christ. So this is what I'm saying is very unusual today; it would have been very not unusual 150 years ago, but it's very unusual today.
Let me just begin by pointing out just a little historical definition for us. We turn—when you think of polity, how a church is organized—there are basically three traditional ways people speak of it: Episcopalian, Presbyterian, and Congregational. Episcopalian meaning that there is an episkopos, a bishop overseer (used interchangeably with pastor, elder); there's a there's a single bishop that oversees a multitude of churches. And these days, that could be the Episcopalian structure of a denomination, or it could be a multi-site Church where, you know, David pastors a church that meets in Virginia and another church that meets in DC and another church that meets in Maryland, but because it's—if they have one, you know, pastor and, what John was saying earlier, one budget, one brand, they call it one Church. The Presbyterian structure is very similar, but instead of the bishop, it's a court of people, and they oversee a number of churches. And then, as opposed to this, the third type is Congregational, where each each church is understood to oversee itself. There's a lot more you could say about it, but it's it's understood to oversee itself.
When you use the word independent, it's really not the same thing as Congregational because of the history of the English Reformation. Those words—if if an Anglican is speaking—those words independent and congregational are often used interchangeably, and this confuses people who read older material, thinking they think the two are the same; they're not. Independent is a basic statement saying that the local church is not under a higher authority, either of a group or an individual, but each local church will take care of itself. It doesn't actually in itself speak to how that local church makes decisions, because you could have an independent church that is kind of like a little Episcopal see, you know, where the senior pastor rules—espy rules, you know—and that's just how decisions are made, you know, kind of like if Brian were to become the senior pastor at Arise Christ Fellowship in Philadelphia, and Brian decides this is what will happen at the church, all right? Or the very common thing among independent churches, you could have elder rule where you have a plurality of elders inside the local church, a kind of local Presbyterianism, but they make the decisions for the congregation as a whole. So that's still an independent church, but it's not in any sense congregational. Congregational, which again 300 years ago was often used interchangeably—the independent—meant a specific kind of independency. Because when the people who are coming to Christ in the 1500s and 1600s and studying their Bibles and wanting to reform the Church of England, very few advocated keeping the polity they had—Episcopalians—and most of them thought we need to go here, we need to go this more representative kind of Presbyterianism, or as they kept setting—some of them like Thomas Goodwin, John Cotton, John Owen—said, actually, what we need to go to is this. Nobody was really advocating these things; these are fairly recent. This was seen to be the more biblical alternative to this by some people, and they press on over, and that's called Congregational independent. And in America, we've seen these others grow up—the senior pastor ruling or elder rule in a local church.
So what I want to maintain in this brief talk is that this is what the Bible teaches, and this will help the Christians in your church grow more. So that's the basic simple idea of what I want to say here. Now some people think that if you're independent like this, you don't cooperate well with other churches. Well, that may be, but friends, there are a lot of Presbyterian churches and Episcopalian churches that don't cooperate well with other churches, especially other Bible-believing churches. You know, a Congregational Church is free to cooperate with any other local church, including an Anglican Church or an Episcopalian Church or a Presbyterian Church, any way they want to, any way they see the gospel and their ministry together. So independency does not have to mean that cooperation with others is inhibited. We can work together in missions; we can work together in education; we can work together in evangelism; we can work together in disaster relief. What what independency means is simply that no one—a bishop or Pope or no body of presbytery or an association or a General Assembly or a Southern Baptist Convention—can say from outside of a local church what that local church must do. So what we're saying is that local church has that responsibility in matters of discipline and doctrine to follow the Lord, what they see in His word. So relying on the clarity of Scripture, perhaps more than and the other polities mentioned here, we assume that God will lead His people as a whole to understand who should be recognized as its members and leaders, what should be believed, and what should be done.
So to be clear, by Congregationalism, I mean that the last and final Court of Appeal in the matters of the life of your local church is not the Bishop of Rome or the Bishop of Constantinople or of Washington or of Raleigh; it is not some international body or some national assembly or conference or convention; it's not Acts 15 happening again; it's not the president of a denomination or the chairman of a Board of Trustees; it's not a regional Senate or a ministerial Association; it's not even a group of elders inside the local church or the senior pastor like Brian; it is, in fact, the final Court of Appeal in the matter—the life of the local church is and should be the congregation itself. So friends, I'm—to those of you who are here who are Episcopalian in your structure, which could be a lot of Baptist churches these days or Bible churches or Presbyterian—a few Presbyterian brethren—or a lot of just elder rule or practically senior pastor rule, I want to lovingly argue with you for just a few minutes that the Bible clearly instructs us on this matter. The Bible clearly instructs us on this matter. So in matters of dispute between Christians, in Matthew chapter 18, Jesus is very clear—verses 15 to 17: "If your brother sins against you, go and show him his fault, just between the two of you. If he listens to you, you have won your brother over. But if he will not listen, take one or two others along, so that every matter may be established by the testimony of two or three witnesses. If he refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church." And now here's the drum roll: Is it gonna be to the Pope? No. Is it gonna be to the bishop? No. Is it gonna be to the presbytery or the General Assembly or the Standing Judicial Committee? No. Is it going to be to the senior pastor? No. Is it gonna be the elders? No. Tell it to the church. And if he refuses to listen even to the church, treat him as you would a tax collector or a Gentile.
If you look in Acts chapter 6, when there's another dispute—it's gotten bigger; it's not just a personal matter; it's between the Greek-speaking widows and the Hebrew-speaking widows and the daily distribution of food—there's concern, and this was requiring a good bit of the Apostles' attention, evidently. Look in verse 2 of Acts chapter 6: "So the twelve gathered all the disciples together and said, 'It would not be right for us to neglect the ministry of the word of God in order to wait on tables. Brothers, choose seven men from among you who are known to be full of wisdom and the Spirit; we will turn this responsibility over to them, and we'll give our attention to prayer and the ministry of the word.' This proposal pleased the whole group." Uh, if you were to go over to 1st Corinthians chapter 5, you would see the famous example of the man who was having his father's widow, and Paul specifically tells the Corinthians in verse 12: "For what have I to do with judging outsiders? Is it not those inside the church whom you are to judge?" Who is the "you"? It's in the plural, and it's referring to the members of the Corinthian congregation, not the elders, you know, where it refers to the elders; it's to the members.
So friends, according to the Gospels—Matthew 18; according to the book of Acts—Acts 6; according to the epistles—1st Corinthians 5—in matters of dispute between Christians, the congregation as a whole is the final Court of Appeal in Scripture. And it's not just in matters of disputes; it's also in matters of doctrine. In matters of doctrine, all of the letters of the New Testament except Philemon and the pastorals were written to churches as a whole, instructing them as a whole on what their responsibilities were. Even in matters of fundamental understanding of and definition of the gospel, the congregation seemed to be the court of earthly final appeal. So the famous example of this—Galatians chapter 1—Paul calls on congregations of fairly young Christians to sit in judgment of angelic and apostolic preachers, even himself. He says in Galatians 1, verse 8: "If they should preach any other gospel than the one which the Galatians had accepted…" He doesn't write merely to the pastors or to the presbytery or to the bishop or to the conferences or to the convention or to the seminary; he writes to the Christians who comprised the churches, and he makes it quite clear that not only are they competent to sit in judgment on what claims to be the gospel, but, brother preacher, here's where your work comes in, but that they must—okay, if your members must do that, you are in error; if you are not equipping them to do that, a basic part of your pastoral work is to give their doctrinal olfactory senses trained where they don't just sniff, "Am I submitting to the elders?"—bad—they need to sniff, "Is this according to the Bible?" Yes. You want to teach them to be Bereans. Now, will some of them be argumentative jerks? Yes. And we know this because some preachers are argumentative jerks. So definitely some members will be argumentative jerks, but it doesn't mean that the Bible isn't clear that this is our responsibility, and our members will not know this if we don't teach them this. We must teach them that they have an inescapable duty to judge those who come to them claiming to be messengers of the good news of Jesus Christ; they need to judge them against what they know to be the good news of Jesus Christ that would just saved their souls.
Paul makes this point again in 2nd Timothy chapter 4, verse 3, when he writes, counseling Timothy and the church in Ephesus on the best tack to take with false teachers, when he describes the—the coming tide of false teachers in the church in Ephesus—he particularly blames—it's very interesting—2nd Timothy chapter 4, verse 3: "Those who, to suit their own desires, gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear." So whether that is in selecting those teachers or paying for those teachers or approving of their teaching or simply consenting to sit there listening to them repeatedly, the congregation that Paul envisions here in Corinth is culpable; they are guilty; they are responsible; they are held as guilty for the teaching that they tolerate as are those who teach them falsely. So we have no debate about the responsibility of the teachers; they certainly have a responsibility—that we know that—you know, James 3:1: "Not many of you should be teachers, brethren; teachers will be held accountable to a stricter judgment"—but what's often not understood and not highlighted is the fact that the people sitting there willingly listening, they have a responsibility; they are enabling that to happen. By forming a congregation, you know, when Snoopy preaches in Charlie Brown, he makes a bunch of old snowmen, you know, he preaches to them, although snowmen have no responsibility, you know, those snowmen we would all agree have no free will, but when you have a congregation of people who choose to come, that part of that is their responsibility; they are choosing to sit there and listen to this, and if we as the preachers have not instructed them to realize the significance of their choice, they will remain uninstructed.
In this also, in matters of discipline, the congregation has the final authority. We see that very clearly in the case I alluded to in 1st Corinthians chapter 5, and in matters of church membership, even—it's implied. So in 2nd Corinthians chapter 2—it's well, it's more than implied here; it's implied in all the cases of discipline that are dealt with, but here in second—in chapter 2, verses 6 and 7 and 8: "For such a one—this punishment—referring to someone, perhaps the guy in 1st Corinthians 5, we don't really know—but for such a one, this punishment by the majority is enough." So the action was taken by the majority to plain him, and again, he's not writing to elders; he's writing to members, and he's assuming that these members then who took the person out for unrepentant sin would have the authority to bring them back in. So who the members of your church are is established in part by the congregation. Now I think by implication we can see other—so I've given you four ways that I think we clearly see the New Testament evidencing the congregation has responsibility: in disputes between Christians, and matters of doctrine, and matters of discipline, and in matters of church membership. You should teach those four things clearly to your congregation. I think it's also by implication of the case that we have responsibility for our pastors, for choosing our elders, and this is actually the thing you can find most clearly from church history. You can find this in other denominations; you'll find this in in Presbyterian denominations; you'll find this in Anglican denominations; you'll even find at the Roman Catholic Church; you'll find a long history of voting for the pastor, the preacher of a church. And I think by implication you can get there because of some of these matters that we've already mentioned, especially the responsibility of the congregation in the teaching of the church, in making sure that teaching is Orthodox. There are other matters of Congregationalism—the congregation's authority—that are mere matters of prudence that I think we could disagree on between our congregations. So, for example, we will always vote on our church budget; it just seems wise—if it's going to be your money—if you're in the congregation that we are taking to spend, that you would be able to give consent to that or warn us if you're not going to. So if the elders bring forward a budget and our members—60%—vote it down, well, guess what? We probably won't be having that budget, but that that's a matter of prudence; that's not a matter of anything directly, I think, from Scripture. So that's Congregationalism defined.
Now I would just want to talk a little bit in the few minutes I have left about what it doesn't mean, so that people don't misunderstand this. Simply saying the scripture presents the congregation as the final Court of Appeal, the final earthly authority of the meaning and application of God's Word in our lives, does not mean that the congregation is always right. You think of the example I just gave from 2nd Timothy chapter 4, verse 3, when Paul is writing to Timothy and he tells him, "Look, men will not put up with sound doctrine; a time is coming instead they will, to suit their own desires, gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear." It's very interesting there that as culpable as the teachers of an assembly are for false teaching, Paul does not only suggest that those who teach are responsible—which we clearly see in Scripture—but he also says those who hear have a responsibility. And Congregationalism is biblical, but that does not mean that the congregation is inerrant, right? So we're not—not saying that at all. I think the portrayal of Congregationalism in the New Testament is admittedly an incomplete picture; you find it in snatches and asides and assumptions. I think it's clearly present, and the more one thinks of it, the more obvious it comes through. Out nevertheless, that the sort of peripheral, assumed nature of it would seem to leave not only it clear that it's there but a good bit of liberty in how we might vary from congregation to congregation and how we exercise it. There's great ground for Christian prudence—that Christian prudence, according to the general rules of the word, as the Westminster Confession put it—that means that a church in which the congregation only holds title to the property is in some sense a congregationally governed Church, because they can always decide to jerk the property from the person who's preaching there if they need to. Even more, is a church considered congregational if it has the final say in the issues of budget or even who calls the pastor? And the call of a pastor—you add to that the congregation is the final Court of Appeal in terms of doctrine and discipline and disputes and membership—and then you seem to have a Congregational Church not unlike the models given us in the New Testament. Now how much further a congregation decides to involve itself corporately in decisions about the leadership of the staff, the budget—that's a prudence and discretion for the individual congregations—but we just have to know that there aren't nominating committees in the New Testament. You look in vain for Finance Committees; you look in vain for small group leadership teams. Belief in the sufficiency of Scripture doesn't forbid those things happening, but it just kind of relativizes their authority over against what is in Scripture, and this is in Scripture. So any structure of committees or leadership council which would undermine the biblical offices and the responsibilities of the congregation should not be encouraged and should certainly not be planned; it should instead be opposed.
Friends, what I want you to see is that this matters; it matters in terms of faithfulness to Scripture; it also matters for the life of your congregation. Part of how we live out the Christian life together in our churches is formed, is created by our recognizing this and our teaching the members the responsibilities that they have. We should respect the structures that God has put in place and trust His wisdom in doing so. I know there are many godly Congregational Baptist churches which, in deciding to have elders, have also decided to have constitutionally mandated standards of subscription for elders that are higher than the subscription standards for the members of their church; for instance, they have all the members of the church affirm the New Hampshire Confession while they ask the elders to affirm the 1689 or something like that. I think it's good to desire exemplary maturity in the elders of a congregation; I think that's healthy; I think that's biblical, but I think this way of achieving it leaves something to be desired. I would caution you against that; we don't see this model in Scripture, and I wonder if this wouldn't perhaps leave the congregation both feeling and appearing unprepared to be the court of final appeal in matters of doctrine as Paul used them in Galatians. And you have to decide this ultimately for yourself, but while I will certainly desire and probably expect a more mature understanding of doctrine from those who would serve us as elders, I would not for a moment want to move our congregation to a more clergy-dependent position than I find on the pages of the New Testament, and I fear that formal requirements like that may tend to that. And they're also not as flexible as real life and the changing issues of the day and the varying maturity of the men in your congregation are. I think certainly Christian history gives me no encouragement to think that the more centralized the polity is, the better it protects orthodoxy and the gospel; that's always the argument that's given—the presbytery or the bishop or the church with the missionaries—the church is—these will do a better job protecting the gospel. Well, look at the Greek Orthodox Church; look at the Roman Catholic Church; look at the church that John Calvin preached in; look at the church that John Knox preached in; look at all the oldest Presbyterian churches in all of our cities in America. Friends, do you know—in God's kindness—where you can still hear the gospel preached as it was preached 100 and 200 years ago? It's usually not in the Episcopal churches or the Presbyterian churches; it's in these churches over here where people—who—there's no requirements for M.Divs; there's no educational requirements—but people simply know how they got saved; they got saved because of the gospel of Jesus Christ and trusting Him. Those churches—they're the ones who are still preaching the same gospel they were preached—like this one is—140 years ago. It was founded—when sadly—I feared I had a kind of ad hominem argument like this, but I think it's related to the to the reasons for the arguments. If you go to any Episcopalian Church or Presbyterian Church founded in Washington, D.C., the same year this church was, I fear today they won't be preaching the gospel, and that is sad. And the irony is deep because the whole justification for their structures is that they will do a better job protecting orthodoxy. My friends, they haven't.
Now are there—are their liberal Congregational churches? Well, there are; yeah, that's why the 4 Cs has to exist. But I would say a couple of things there—well, just one overarching thing: If you're not careful to protect the members of the church with a clear preaching of the gospel and only intend to have only regenerate members—and I say there's no way our Presbyterian brother would understand—only provenly believers, credible professors take communion—this exact same conversation, you know—if we're not careful about that, but if we become lax in our standards of membership—as so many Baptist churches have become—well, then Congregationalism is an absolute, you know, crash; it's a wreck; it's just—it's a mess because you have a bunch of unregenerate people arguing with each other. Well, of course that doesn't work, you know. In that sense, it's tidier to have this or or even this if you're gonna have a lot of unregenerate people in your church, but if you're gonna have regenerate people who are well-taught, friends, this puts the demand and the weight of discipleship on the people in the way I think you want it to be there. I have to say that for us as a church, we want to understand the congregation's responsibility in order to teach the congregation what responsibility they have and to teach each member what responsibility therefore they have according to the Bible—what what we should do. It puts a greater weight, when you join this church, on them, because they have to say that they themselves agree with the statement of faith; they can't just say they're agreeing to be taught this—that to say they think the Bible teaches this. So, friend, they have to sign our statement of faith in order to become a member because the members, at the end of the day, vote—they change the statement of faith. So I remember one time doing a membership interview with a friend from Connecticut who didn't believe in the eternity of hell; he was playing with the idea of annihilationism, and he loved everything about our church; he loved everything else in the statement of faith; he just didn't agree with that. And uh, I said, "Well, then, you—" He said, "So can I sign this?" I said, "I don't think with any integrity you can." So I would counsel you not to sign this. I said, "Listen, I gave a couple of things to read in Scripture and some sermons, so when you go and read these things and come back and talk to me in a couple of weeks…" Well, he went away, and he read these things, and a couple of weeks later he comes to talk to me, and you know what he said? He became convinced of the eternity of hell, and he said—he said, "Mark, it's revolutionized even when I come to church." He said the hymns are sweeter; his thing about the atonement is deeper and richer; I never had any idea that that little—father—much—I didn't think about that much—would have such big implications. Friends, as a pastor, you need to stand vigilant guard.
Over the membership of the church, you need to teach them what they need to understand if they're gonna be a member of the church. And that can also tell you it has very helpful effects, not just on the individual Christians who are members of the church, but on our eldership. It makes our eldership very thoughtful about what we will bring to the members because we know that we have to prepare them to vote correctly. So we can't just quickly decide.
I've had good friends—this happens pretty much annually—who are in larger churches and who will have some mess up over church discipline. And often it's because of something like a pastor excommunicating someone. See, that—that's to speak gibberish and gobbledygook in the New Testament. I don't think a pastor can excommunicate anybody; that's just not—it's not in our confidences. I can't fly, you know. Well, I just can not; I do it badly. I can't. Well, in the New Testament, an individual cannot excommunicate; it is a church that excommunicates.
So when you know that, and your elders know that, and your members know that, then that brings a kind of a weightiness to what we're doing in our eldership. We're deliberating because we're knowing that we don't have to just become convinced among ourselves; we've got to turn around and convince them. We've got to help them understand the seriousness of this. We've got to not say too much lest it become gossipy, but we have to say enough so that they will understand the nub of the matter and be able to use their judgment drill to go, "Yes, this—this is unrepentant sin, from everything we can tell. Because we love this person, we love the Lord, we must—we must excommunicate them."
Our elders knowing that helps us do a better job as elders, and it helps us to equip the congregation better. Friends, my time is up, but I want to convince you that the Bible teaches this kind of responsibility of each local congregation, and it will actually help the members of your church to grow as Christians if you recognize this and if you teach this in your own local church.