Author's Preface
1. Accepting Or Uniting
   
2. Who Is A Christian?
   
3. "Why Don't You Leave The Church of Christ?"
   
4. The Iniquity Of The Fathers
   
5. Our Judicial System
   
6. "You Are My People Now"
   
7. Serving "Otherwise Than As Prescribed"
   
8. Does Baptize Really Mean To Immerse
   
9. Our Relationship Through Baptism
   
10. Those Gospel Meetings
    
11. A Prelude To Worship
    
12. Worshipping In Spirit And Truth
    
13. The Forbidden Prayer
    
14. "I Didn't Hear Nobody Pray"
    
15. Communion Prayers
    
16. Communion With Bread, Wine, And Money
    
17. Thursday Is The Lord's Day Too!
    
18. Not Forsaking The Assembly
    
19. Acts 20:7 One More Time
    
20. Our Father Who Art Where?
    
21. Does Nature Reveal God's Love
    
22. Copyrighted: All Rights Reserved
    
23. Don't Pour Water On Them
    
24. The Remaining Restriction For Women
    
25. Some Questions About Revelation
    
26. Must One Fully Repent Before Baptism?
    
27. Nicodemus In Context
    
28. Our Respected Myths Of Religion
    
29. Hook's Points: A Potpourri
    

Even though it probably was boring to you then, in your high school class you were taught that there are three functions of civil governments: the legislative to make the law, the executive to enforce the law, and the judicial to interpret the law.

In our country these are separate branches of government. In countries with a monarch, the responsibilities have been distributed variously. Where a dictatorship prevails, the entire system may be tightly controlled by one person.

What sort of rule prevails in the spiritual realm? Are there legislative, executive, and judicial functions ruling the church?

God, working through Christ and the Holy Spirit, is the legislator and executor in the Kingdom of Heaven. Although his will has been made known through Spiritguided men, no man has ever been delegated to make laws or enforce them. Inspired men offered help in interpreting and applying the will of God in some specific instances through their epistles.

From those inspired men we may discern principles for judging many questions that arise in our effort to do what God wants. But our modern issues are not all addressed by the inspired men. For instance, the Scriptures do not mention church owned property, contraception, voluntary abortion, or the clapping of hands in the assembly. Who is to judge questions about such things today? Who is authorized to define right and wrong on current issues? Whose interpretation is to prevail?

Under the code of law given through Moses, there was no question that God required Israel to remember the sabbath. That command can serve as an example to make our point. All could agree that they should not work on the sabbath, and all sincere Israelites were eager to keep the day holy by refraining from labor. But the Law did not define work! Who was to judge and declare what was work and what was not?

The Jews believed there were two kinds of law given to Moses, the written law and the oral law known as the Torah. Both were accepted as equally authentic. The concept of oral law was not devised to evade or compromise the written law. Their sincere purpose was to determine the intent of the law as it applied to specific questionable cases after Moses was gone. Through succeeding generations, spiritual leaders made judgments of how the law applied in current situations not described or defined in the written law.

Those judicial decisions of the fathers were respected as being definitive on points where the law was not. In a similar manner, when a constitutional case is tried in our civil courts, the decision becomes a precedent that is respected in later trials. The accumulation of their interpretations came to be known as the Traditions of the Fathers.

Jesus' conflict with the rabbis, scribes, and Pharisees was not over the Law but over the traditions, which they bound as law. The judiciary had usurped the legislative! David W. Chadwell has given us a most helpful study of this development in his Beware of the Leaven of the Pharisees (Quality Publications, P.O. Box 1060, Abilene, Texas 79604).

The Roman Catholic concept and practice is similar to that of the Jews. They accept the Bible as the inspired written law, but they declare a need of a judicial system to interpret the law in each generation. Beginning with the supposed primacy of Peter, they have established the papacy and hierarchy as the living voice of God on earth through which God gives the oral law. Through this means, the church has added new interpretations through the generations which have become equal in authority with the Scriptures. Thus the church usurped the legislative powers. Their compilation of Canon Law is larger than the Bible.

Believing these rules to be the official judgments of the living voice of God, the individuals felt no concern about interpreting and understanding the Bible. They were catechized in the teachings of the church to enable their proper obedience. In fact, any attempt of an individual to interpret the Bible was considered to be a sinful affront to the church. Not only did the Catholic system develop a judiciary role, it also claimed an executive, enforcing power which it exercised by penances, excommunication, interdiction, and even executions. By this means that we have described, it was able to preserve an enforced unity by conformity. There could be no splinter groups who accepted the papacy. (In fairness to the Catholic Church, let me say that much change is currently taking place and their people are encouraged now to study the Bible.)

The Protestant Reformation put things in a different light. The reformers accepted the Bible as the only guide from God, with him as both the Lawmaker and Enforcer. But what of the judiciary role? It was returned to the disciple! They advanced the right of individual interpretation along with the priesthood of the believer. Of course, we are speaking of our discerning the intent of God's message for ourselves rather than judging others. God has delegated all condemnatory judgment to the Son.

Although that is an exciting concept, in view of what we have already reviewed, we can see caution flags go up immediately! Confusion lies ahead!

In seeking to apply the will of God to their own situations, people will judge the meaning of the Scriptures influenced by many variables. All will not have equal access to the Scriptures. Intelligence and literary training will vary widely. Each believer will be influenced and conditioned strongly by his culture which is molded by nationality, political climate, great thinkers, educators, and philosophers, and the period of history in which he lives. Even his emotional makeup of right brain/left brain dominance will affect his judgments.

In view of these factors, there is no possibility that all people will reach the same understanding in applying the Scriptural teachings. Will people with differing judgments, opinions, scruples, convictions, and practices be acceptable to God? Or must the community of believers develop a judicial system to determine the intent of God's message in each problematic situation? Historically, those who have tried to interpret for the rest of us have differed and divided. They have developed creeds which serve as fences and boundaries. Is unity hopeless?

Some clarifications concerning justification are in order at this point. The first covenant involved a code of law, the Law of Moses. Historically, the Catholic Church has held a more legalistic concept of the New Covenant scriptures. So they have emphasized justification by keeping works of law. Strict legal details of rituals have been demanded to avoid infraction and to gain the blessing sought.

Although that approach is being moderated in this generation, it prevailed in the time of the Protestant Reformation.

The reformers directed us to the Scriptural concepts of justification by grace through faith rather than by works of law or merit. We gain right standing apart from any system of law. Obeying the gospel (2 Thes. 1:8) or becoming obedient to the faith (Acts 6:7) is not the submission to another code of law but the acceptance of the grace offered to those who will identify with Christ in his death, burial, and resurrection. In this essay, my theme does not relate to justification but to our sanctification, our life of holiness, growth, and endurance. Are there rules or laws that we must follow in our holy living? Yes, but these are no legal code. These may be boiled down to a single principle of action.

Our motivating principle of action is love. That is the law of Christ, the law of liberty, the royal law, the law which they had heard from the beginning of Jesus' ministry, and the great commandment which fulfills all "if there be any other commandment."

When your actions are motivated by love, you are fulfilling God's will. You need not seek someone else to interpret that for you, for you alone are able to judge your motivation and action. You accept your own judicial responsibility and are accountable only to God for your decision.

The Scriptures provide instructions, examples, exhortations, and warnings which give guidance in expressing our love to man and God. Our responses to the scriptural instructions become expressions of our commitment to God rather than efforts to gain his favor or right standing. As simple as this seems to be for the individual, our judicial problem is not all solved yet.

Many sincere disciples have declared that we do not need to interpret the scriptures but that we should just take them for what they say. That may sound good, but it is woefully simplistic. We will consider the prohibition of killing as an example. This will illustrate the complexity of deciding the intent of God's will in countless other situations.

Thou shalt not kill was a part of a code of law. In our time it is still sinful to kill, not because we break a code, but because our principle of action (love) would be violated in killing. Love always fulfilled that law. But may a person with love kill another and remain innocent? Again, things are not all so simple that we have no need to interpret what fulfills the intent of the prohibition.

Since killing is not fully defined in the Scriptures, our individual judgment must determine what would be an infraction. Would the following actions be killing which is condemned?

· taking the life of an animal?

· taking life in selfprotection or in defense of country?

· executing a criminal or approving of capital punishment?

· preventing conception or voluntary abortion?

· destroying life in an auto accident you caused?

· causing a fatal accident by speeding or carelessness?

· allowing your child's death by failure to buckle him up?

· withholding mechanical lifeprolonging aid from the dying?

· allowing a child to drown in your unfenced, unguarded pool?

· discouraging a depressed person who then takes his life?

· losing a patient, as a doctor, due to carelessness?

· encouraging a spouse's smoking and diet that caused death?

· taking one's own life while depressed emotionally?

· exposing a person to AIDS which takes his/her life?

· giving medical advice that causes a person's death?

· refusing medical help in favor of prayer for a dying child?

· failing to rescue an endangered person?

· failing to send food to the starving in other lands?

· wishing for Saddam Hussein to be killed?

Who is to interpret the will of God and judge your guilt or innocence in any or all of those circumstances? Who can define kill as prohibited in thou shalt not kill? As much as I might like to do it, I cannot bind my judgment on you. I might offer you advice, but you are the only one who can examine your own heart and determine if you were motivated by love with no selfish or impure heart involved.

We have let killing stand as an example of the complexity of applying a rule. Paul used circumcision, the eating of meats, and the observance of days as test cases. Read again Paul's liberating discourse in Romans 14.

When I would bind my scruples on you, he jolts me back to my senses with "Who are you to pass judgment on the servant of another?"! Paul defends the right and responsibility of the weakest of brothers by scolding the one who would judge him: "Why do you pass judgment on your brother? Or you, why do you despise your brother? For we shall all stand before the judgment seat of God; for it is written 'As I live, says the Lord, every knee shall bow to me, and every tongue shall give praise to God.' So each of us shall give account of himself to God".

Through prayerful selfexamination you judge your own heart and conduct in light of the Scriptures. Thus you form your own opinions, scruples, conscience, and convictions. Then, "The faith that you have, keep between yourself and God; happy is he who has no reason to judge himself for what he approves." For your conclusions, you are not accountable to me, the preachers, the elders, the editors, or anyone else. They may aid your understanding, yet they disagree and lead in different directions. Their only proper course is to accept you. If I am responsible for my own decisions and you are responsible for yours, then neither of us can be responsible for the decisions of the other.

A wide range of individual convictions is tolerated in most of our congregations. The freedom allowed for open discussion of personal scruples varies in our congregations. They do not become problems generally until a person tries to bind them on others. At that point, the one who would make his opinion law thinks he is contending for the truth, but others will consider him as divisive. And he will indeed be divisive if he rejects, or leads others to reject, disciples who do not agree with his point of view.

James erects a STOP! sign: "He that...judges his brother, speaks evil against the law and judges the law. But if you judge the law, you are not a doer of the law but a judge. There is one lawgiver and judge, he who is able to save and to destroy. But who are you that you judge your neighbor?" (James 4:11f).

So far, we have considered individual judgments only. Now we will get into the really sticky stuff! Who is to decide the intent of God's message in questions that relate to the entire congregation?

In the StoneCampbell Movement major issues have been made of such matters as the function of women in the organized work and the assembly, unleavened bread or leavened bread, grape juice or wine, one cup (a glass) or individual cups (plastic "glasses"), singing groups, instrumental accompaniment to singing, congregational cooperation, Sunday schools, support of Christian colleges, the hired minister, various matters relating to elders, and other debatable items. People holding opposing convictions about these practices simply cannot serve and worship in the same assembly without offending the conscience of some or curtailing the liberty of others.

The disciple convinced that the use of individual containers in the communion is sinful is not obligated to violate his conscience for the sake of conformity, yet he must not jump from his judicial privilege to the legislative function in an effort to bind his conviction on all others.

In like manner, the woman who cannot sing conscientiously with mechanical accompaniment cannot be expected to sing where instruments are employed. Although this sincere sister judges that she is right, she cannot make a law which overturns the judgment of equally sincere sisters who think they are right.

These are but two illustrations of the problem of conformity in all the debatable areas mentioned above. Those who disagree may study and discuss, but neither group may rightly seek to override the judgment of the other and bind its decisions on them.

Charitable concessions may be made out of respect for the ones who hold certain convictions. A congregation may give up individual containers, Sunday school, or instrumental accompaniment in order not to offend members who believe those things to be wrong. That can be a generous gesture. But must each congregation give up all practices and teachings which some persons object to?

Some who object to instrumental music still call upon the people who use instruments to give them up for the sake of unity. In doing so they try to blame the instrumentalists for keeping our people apart. If a congregation wishes to heed that plea as an irenic gesture, that is fine. But will the noninstrumentalist make that same concession for unity with those who oppose paid ministers, multiple cups, Bible classes, congregational cooperation, churchowned property, and many other controversial practices? Surely not! The shoe doesn't fit the other foot!

Does sincere endeavor to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace demand that we give up all individual liberties for the sake of peace? It does not. Paul was willing to refrain from eating meat and drinking wine for the sake of his weak brother. But after he informed the brother, he was no longer the weak brother, though he might be the stubborn brother. Paul cherished his right to eat and drink (1 Cor. 9:3). He would not allow the vegetarian, the keeper of days, or the contender for circumcision to make a law of his judgmental decisions on such matters. He would not permit the church to be hobbled forever by the binding of every man's convictions on all. The "objector's rule" is a tyranny that usurps the judicial role of all. The list of conscientious objections is limitless. There was room in the fellowship for the sincere ones on both sides of those and other issues. One had no permission to condemn the other, nor was the latter permitted to disdain the former. Read Romans 14 again!

In view of all this, is unity impossible? Our traditional concept of unity is impossible. I fear that we have not really understood the kind of unity Jesus prayed for and created.

It is unrealistic to think that all of us will ever come to understand everything alike. That has never been the case, even under the tutelage of the apostles. And it is not necessary. Each can serve according to his or her own beliefs with others who have similar convictions. No one is called upon to violate his conscience in order to conform to a group. People who tremble at the thought of singing with a piano may assemble with those of like mind. The person who is shocked by a woman leading singing may gather where men lead. The disciple who demands that one cup be used in the communion may meet with those who believe likewise. Those who are convinced that the church must wear a certain name may serve in a church that wears that name.

We may apply that principle to those in each of the diverse groups of disciples. But you may protest that I am justifying the very divided state that we live in; however, that is not exactly right. There is a valid distinction that I am making.

Although there is no mention of separate groups meeting to accommodate different convictions, we would not rule out the possibility that the Grecians met separately in Jerusalem. The same could be true of those who contended for circumcision, those who continued to keep the Law of Moses, the disciples of John, and the Samaritans. Those who refused to observe days could hardly have participated in the activities of those who were observing them.

A group may find it expedient to write out a statement of its beliefs, aims, practices, and procedures. There is nothing improper about stating what you believe and practice. It does become disastrously wrong, however, for the person or group to demand that all others must conform to the stated judgment. To refuse and reject those who do not conform to it is to become divisive separatists.

Yes, we may rightly serve with others with whom we are comfortable. Our right of private interpretation demands that. But we must recognize the same right given to all brothers in Christ and must continue to share with them in God's family. Regardless of the set of scruples a group is built around, its members have no right to reject equally sincere brothers in the other groups. It is not meeting in separate assemblies that is divisive and sinful; it is the rejecting of others whom the Lord has added to his body that is inexcusably sinful. Rejection is a violation of the love that binds us together.

It is time for us to look over our walls and to reach over our fences to others in Christ saying, "With your interpretation of God's will on some issues, we cannot agree. But we do not impose our convictions on you or make unkind judgments against you. You are our brothers. We are one in the Lord. We love you, pray for you, want to associate with you, and stand ready to work with you in promoting his cause on earth." Such loving gestures would soon crumble our separating walls and dissolve our party loyalties.

Please bear with me a little longer. Jesus did not labor under delusions about the nature and ability of man. When he prayed for unity, he knew that there would never be total conformity and agreement in even a small group of people. But his prayer for unity was fulfilled! We have missed the focus of his prayer.

Jesus prayed "that they may all be one; even as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be in us, so that the world may believe that thou hast sent me. The glory which thou has given me I have given to them, that they may be one even as we are one, I in them and thou in me, that they may become perfectly one..." (John 17:21f). He and the Father are one. We are in the Father and the Son. We are one in them. Beginning on Pentecost, all the saved are united in them. Through his grace they become "perfectly one!" That is the unity of the Spirit, "for by one Spirit we are all baptized into one body." There is only one body. Disciples may reject others in it and separate from them to their own condemnation, but man cannot divide it for oneness is an essential nature of the church.

Our revered pioneer, Thomas Campbell, grasped that profound truth and expressed it to us long ago: "The Church of Christ upon earth is essentially, intentionally and constitutionally one; consisting of all those in every place that profess their faith in Christ and obedience to him in all things according to the Scriptures, and that manifest the same by their tempers and conduct."

The Campbells understood that God's saved people were not limited to some exclusive group but that, though they were scattered among the separated groups, the Church of Christ had not lost its essence of being one in God and Christ. They recognized that constitutionally the ekklesia is one. They set out to unite the disciples in all the sects. By that they were not calling them from their churches to form a new "undenominational" one. Their plea was for all to cease rejecting those in churches other than their own. To their shame, succeeding generations lost that perception of true unity and made a one hundred and eighty degree reversal.

Fellowship is not with doctrines and practices but with Christ. As it relates to us, fellowship is a noun denoting relationship, not a verb identifying something we do. Fellowship is not something we extend or withdraw but it is the relationship granted by God of being one with God and Christ and all who are in them. It is not an approval of the beliefs, practices, or sins of others. All who are in Christ are imperfect, sinful people who are in error on various issues. Fellowship, then, actually equals unity, for all who are in Christ are one. God makes us to stand by his grace in spite of our deficiencies and misdirections. That is our only hope. And what need we more!

Jesus knew that all of us could not understand and apply law in all situations of the dedicated life; so he did not subject us to another legal system. Therefore, we need not develop a new sort of Talmud, Canon Law, or Traditions of the Fathers. Sadly, however, we have tended to do that very thing in our misunderstanding and misdirection, and it has led to our rejection of others for whom Christ died.

What I am saying here does not mean that we must sanction the flagrantly, impenitent immoral person, the one who denies the basis of our hope, or any who are divisive.

Jesus gave us only one principle of action by which to measure each response in life. That law/principle is not obedience to a code or rituals, but it is love which determines every proper action in the committed life. You, and only you, can discern your motives so as to judge your own conduct. That is Jesus' wise provision!

These expressed truths may lead you further than you are ready to go. Although we have professed to believe in the right of individual interpretation, our mindset has been to edge on over from the judicial seat to usurp the legislative authority in binding our own convictions on everyone else. Thus we have become more at ease in rejecting others than in accepting them. That is the deadly disease of a divisive, sectarian spirit which is destroying us.

Brothers and sisters of my beloved heritage, is it not high time for us to recognize our sinful, rejecting attitude and to begin accepting and loving all of God's people?

The responsibility of individual interpretation is the judicial system that God entrusted to the citizens of his kingdom. That precludes the right that any may claim over your faith. Only in respecting that right given to each of us will we ever come to realize the unity that God created in Christ. He put us in one body. Let us respect it that way.