Do We Believe It?
Recently Bro. W. Curtis Porter represented the church of Christ in Ft. Meade, Florida in a public discussion with Mr. Albert Garner, president of the Baptist Institute in Lakeland, Florida Mr. Garner represented the Calvary Missionary Baptist church of this city. Bro. Porter with his usual amount of wit and humor handled the Truth with remarkable ability so that the unprejudiced might be led to see the Truth.
Upon contacting various individuals and families after the debate had closed, some agreed to have Bible classes in their homes in order to discuss the matters further. After studying with one family for about two or three weeks, certain tracts were given to me by them which taught Baptist doctrine along with some truth. The tract that proved most interesting was one entitled "What We Believe" by E. C. Gillentine which had the endorsement of the Calvary Missionary Baptist church here in Ft. Meade. The tract contained its usual amount of Baptist doctrine such as premillennialism, salvation wholly of grace, the establishment of the church during Christ's personal ministry and many other things. Along with the error that was in it, a certain amount of truth could be found that would even be debatable issues among many of our liberal brethren. On page 5, paragraph 18 of "What We Believe" the Calvary Baptist church says "We believe the Bible thoroughly furnishes us unto all good works, hence we do not believe that any means, except Scriptural means, (emphasis mine J.D.E.) should be employed in missionary work."
Brethren do we believe it? As such a statement is read from the pen of a Baptist, one is made aware of the fact that many of our promoting brethren would even sign propositions to debate the Baptists on that point along with "faith only" and the "establishment of the church." It's a sad note indeed to see that many brethren today have drifted to such an extent that they no longer believe that the Bible is still sufficient to furnish us a pattern of doing evangelistic work. Instead they have employed other means by which to do their evangelistic and benevolent work.
Paragraphs 19 and 20 also proved quite interesting. "We believe in every phase of the missionary work as taught in the Bible, but we do not believe in turning our mission work over into the hands of boards and conventions and high-salaried secretaries to lord it over God's heritage. (Matt. 20:25-28; I Peter 5:1-3.)
"We believe in the co-operation of churches in associated capacity on an absolute equality, and not the larger and richer churches lording it over the smaller and weaker ones. II Cor. 8:142' (emphasis mine J.D.E,) Brethren do we believe it? The Calvary Missionary Baptists do. It would be rather amusing to hear the conversation between a Calvary Baptist preacher and one of our "Big promotin' preachers" using this quote as the issue. Yes, I'm afraid that our liberal brother would be using the same dodges that the Baptists do on "faith only."
It's pathetic to see our brethren doing evangelistic work by unscriptural means such as through the Herald of Truth where there is no equality among congregations whatsoever and where small churches are drained of resources so that its impossible for them to even have regular preaching.
It's a tragic thing to see that many of our brethren have drifted to such an extent that even the Baptist church outdistances them with the truth on many points. Yes, brethren, it's a sad day to know that many will not give up their pet projects and thus will not be able to say at death as did Paul in 2 Tim. 4:7, ". . . I have kept the faith."