"Another" Look At Fellowship
Brother Walter J. Calvert has treated us to "another" look at fellowship in the Firm Foundation of November 25. His title was a confession in itself, for it indeed is another look than any to which brethren have been accustomed to taking up until a few years ago. Yes, I know many of us have eaten in the church building on occasion as far back as we can remember, and "many of us" will likely continue to do so. But all through those years we have condemned the denominations for constructing their buildings with special facilities for their "purely social" functions, as a part of church work. If our practice was not inconsistent with our condemnation of them, then the identical practice is not inconsistent with our condemnation of brethren today who do what they formerly condemned sectarians for doing.
Our brother comments thus on Acts 2:42; . . . "We all argue that we can build a building in which to observe and teach the apostles' doctrine, pray, and commune — but there we draw a line! We claim that the fourth part of the verse (fellowship) cannot be engaged in the building." This is obviously his "new look" at fellowship — that when Luke recorded this activity of the early church, he had in mind assemblies for "purely social reasons" — eating, drinking, and playing, as one of their functions. And he even reproves us for opposing what the Bible authorizes! Now, isn't that some position for a gospel preacher to take? He not only defends his practice as a liberty, but contends that such assemblies "for purely social reasons" are binding on us, along with the other three items in the verse. So brethren if you are not providing for eating, drinking and playing in the church building as a part of the work of the church, you are omitting a function God requires of you! Who can believe it?
No, Brother Calvert, the issue is not whether Christians can assemble "for purely social reasons" in the church building: it is whether such activity is a function of the church and can be scripturally classified as Christian fellowship, as you are making it and classifying it. If you had confined your article to a defense of the liberty of brethren to eat a meal together in the church building, on the basis we always have, I would have had nothing to say; but when you make it an essential part of church work, trying to give divine authority for it, and binding it on brethren as a command of God, I know you are violating plain Bible teaching, as well as the very spirit of unity in Christ, and your false position needs to be exposed. You are forcing an innovation into the body of Christ, and will be judged in the last day for your action.
One of Brother Calvert's leading arguments is that we do many things for which we have no specific command, precept, or example. After this fling of careless reasoning, he should "square" himself with the readers in another article and give us a list of things we must do only with divine authority, and of things we can do without authority, and his reasons for the distinction. Our conservative digressive brethren who are sincerely seeking the truth on the music question would welcome such a treatise also. But in the very paragraph following the one in which he makes this statement, he turns right around and contends that the practice in question is authorized in Acts 2:42. Now Brother Calvert, are church assemblies "for purely social reasons" divinely authorized, or can we have them without such authority; are they required or are they optional? You have taken both positions in paragraphs three and four of your article. Why not think it over, select one, tell us what it is, and stay with it?
The first stage of innovation in the church is its practice with mutual consent before and without examination; second, its defense when opposition arises, and third, it's being bound on the church as an essential. This social and entertainment craze now spreading among churches is following this pattern, and Brother Calvert has helped to carry it into this third and final stage. May God help us to see the dangers we are facing, while we can turn back.
And, 0 yes, Brother Calvert, I do not happen to have a "do-nothing-attitude" except where God has not spoken; and God has not spoken here, where you have.