Devoted to the Propagation and Defense of New Testament Christianity
VOLUME 11
May 28, 1959
NUMBER 4, PAGE 2-3

"Each One" Speaks "One By One"

James A. Allen, Nashville, Tennessee

The congregation is the divine institution. There is no other institution like it. All its members are created to operate and function. There cannot be any inactive members. Every member must take an active part in the work of the congregation or he will die from inaction. There can be no dead members of the body of Christ, "which is the congregation."

"For the body is not one member, but many." (1 Cor. 12:14.) To be a normal, healthy body, "not one member, but many," must properly function. The body cannot import an outsider or artificial member to do all or most of its work for hire. To do this is for the body to commit suicide, retarding and dwarfing the growth of its own members until they are seized with paralysis and are unable to function.

There are no unnecessary or inactive members in the body, "which is the congregation." It is the responsibility of the overseers to see that each member is healthy and active and properly functioning. Being an elder or overseer in a congregation is a great, grand and noble work. "Faithful is the saying, If a man seeketh the office of a bishop, he desireth a good work." (1 Tim. 3:1.) To be a bishop is to have to work. It is to have a work to do. It is indeed a good work, a glorious work. But it is a work, a certain business to attend to. It is not a figure-head job. The congregation cannot grow and succeed in its work with nominal bishops, or bishops in name only. Being on the "Board" of officers, which meets at officially designated periods, does not fulfill the work of a bishop. Making "the announcements" on Sunday morning, just before "the minister" takes over, is not the Alpha and Omega of his work. The work of the bishops of a New Testament congregation is such an immense work that no one man could possibly do it. It takes a plurality of bishops in every congregation, as was ordained by the apostles. "And when they had appointed for them elders in every church, and had prayed with fasting, they commended them to the Lord, on whom they had believed." (Acts 14:23.) The word bishop, grammatically and properly, means an overseer. In its present day corrupted use by an apostate religious world, it means "a clergyman who is head of a diocese or of a church district." But such a use is unknown to the New Testament. Such "bishops" were and are the products of "the falling away" from the teaching of the apostles.

The bishops or overseers in a work or business are the math life of it. No group of laborers can efficiently and successfully accomplish their work without good overseers. The first effect of the great apostasy from New Testament Christianity was to break down the work of the bishops or overseers of the congregations. One man became "the Bishop" of the congregation, and commercialized it; then later, he became the Bishop of the diocese or district in which the congregation was located. In A. D. 606 "the Bishop," or the one man "minister" or "preacher," became the Pope of Rome. Every congregation where one man does the most of all of the work should keep in mind that the one-man system led to and ended in popery. To say that "the minister" is under the jurisdiction of the elders, and that they have the power to hire and fire him, does not change the fact that he is the one important man in the congregation and that without him the congregation is impotent and helpless and cannot satisfactorily conduct its own services. He is the one man for which the congregation provides a "manse" and whose maintenance requires much, if not most, of the money contributed. In no sense can the elders claim to be his equal in standing or influence, except in the power to hire and (just sometimes) in the power to dismiss. In many cases, before the elders can dismiss him, he dismisses them.

We are not now discussing the support of those grand and noble men who are giving their lives to preaching the gospel. Nor are we intimating that a congregation cannot sustain a man in evangelizing "publicly, and from house to house," in its own community, as well as in other places. We are pointing out that the congregation cannot properly grow and develop if it depends on one man to conduct its services and to do the main part of its work. The work of the congregation is not a one-man proposition. Every congregation that is able should keep one or more evangelists working continually.

It is the office of the overseers to see that all the members of the congregation are learning and growing and that each one is personally and individually active in laboring to accomplish the great objectives that constitute the work of the church. The work of the congregation is to teach, school, develop and train each member in living the Christian life, in evangelizing its own neighborhood, "publicly, and from house to house," and in disseminating "the gospel even unto the parts beyond," and in feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, visiting the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and in caring and providing for the poor. The congregation, if properly functioning, is the one and only organization that carries human society to its highest heights and as near to heaven as human society in this world can possibly go.

A study of the New Testament churches, as presented in The Acts and in the Epistles, shows that in each church, under its own overseers, each of the brethren was expected to take an active part in its public services. In setting the churches in order the apostles appointed elders and deacons in every church and ordained that all the brethren should take an active part in the work and in the public services of the church of which they were members. The simple fact that the apostles, as they were guided by the Holy Spirit, by the laying on of their hands, conferred various spiritual gifts upon different brethren, shows that edifying and instructing the church is not a one-man work, but that it requires the varied efforts and the diversified talents of all the brethren.

The instruction and edification of the congregation was of such momentous import, as congregations, like individuals, are what they are taught to he, that, in the infancy of the church, while the New Testament was being written, the apostles, by the laying on of their hands, conferred the temporary spiritual gifts on the brethren to enable them to properly teach and instruct it. The fact that these spiritual gifts were conferred on various members of the congregation shows that teaching, exhorting and instructing the congregation is not the work of one man, but that it requires the many. And the fact that the spiritual gifts were various and diversified, shows that it takes the various and diversified types of teaching to give the congregation the complete and well-rounded instruction and exhortation it must have to properly function.

With the completion of the New Testament, and the close of the Bible canon, the temporary spiritual gifts passed away. The church was no longer in its infancy, but had attained "unto the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a full grown man, unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ." (Eph. 4:13.) With the full and complete revelation of the Christian religion and the close of the New Testament, the revelation from God to man, through Christ, is full, complete and perfect, enabling the man of God to "be complete, furnished completely unto every good work." (2 Tim. 3:17.)

With the completed Bible in their hands, those instructing the congregation, since the passing of the temporary spiritual gifts, have everything and more for teaching, that was conferred by all of the spiritual gifts. All are taught to study, to "Let the Word of Christ dwell in you richly," (Col. 3:16.) to "Give diligence to present thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, handling aright the Word of Truth." (2 Tim. 2:15.) The fact that there is no clergy, nor clerical class, no preacher class, but that all are preachers to the extent of their ability and opportunity, shows that these instructions are applicable to all.

The order of procedure in the meetings of the New Testament congregations, which congregations are the pattern for all congregations unto the end of the world, is shown in 1 Corinthians, 14th chapter. In this chapter the apostle is regulating the procedure in the meetings of the church when all the brethren take a part. In the absence of the New Testament different spiritual gifts had been bestowed on the brethren. These spiritual gifts continued until the New Testament was written. He commands, "Let all things be done unto edifying." (Verse 26.) Everything must be orderly. "For God is not a God of confusion, but of peace." (Verse 33.) A brother with the gift to speak in foreign languages is not permitted to address the church unless another brother present has the gift to translate or interpret what is spoken, so that the church may understand and be edified.

The particular point we are here calling attention to is, that all the brethren in the church took a part in its worship and services. In so doing the church grows and develops. Without this, the brethren in the church cannot have the training they must have, or be developed as they should be. Verse 23 says, "If therefore the whole church be assembled together and all speak with tongues, and there come in men unlearned or unbelieving, will they not say that ye are mad." The point is, that "all speak." One man, except on special occasions, as when Paul visited Troas and spoke until midnight, did not do all the speaking. Verse 26 says, "What is it then, brethren ? When ye come together, hath an interpretation. Let all things be done unto edifying." The point is, "each one hath" something to say. They cannot grow without doing it. Otherwise they will be helpless and impotent, many of them unable to even lead a prayer, or talk to a neighbor about obeying the gospel. Verse 31 says, "For ye all can prophesy one by one, that all may learn, and all may be exhorted." In verse 34 the apostle commands the women not to take a public part. "Let the women keep silence in the churches, for it is not permitted unto them to speak; but let them be in subjection, as also saith the law."

We are not discussing the work of a congregation in supporting an evangelist. Every congregation should sustain one or more evangelists in preaching and teaching the gospel, "publicly, and from house to house," not only in their own community, but in every place. If a congregation is too small and weak financially to so do, it should never-the-less send "once and again" to those who are evangelizing and thus have a part in keeping them going.

The overseers should labor diligently to see that every member of the congregation is living and active and that he or she does a part of the work of the congregation. That is one of the things that overseers are for. An overseer, in the very nature of things, cannot be an overseer in name only or simply a member of a sort of "official board." Unless he oversees he is not an overseer. The overseers should diligently endeavor to train very man in the congregation to take a part in its public services and to be able to conduct them. It is a weak congregation indeed that cannot conduct its own services, but has to hire some one else to come and do it for them.