"Too Much Of Paul---Not Enough Of Christ"
Brother Lowell Blasingame, in the Blytheville Newsletter of the Blytheville (Ark.) Church of Christ, writes: "Recently I was a little startled to hear the diagnosis that the thing wrong with our preaching today is that we are getting 'too much of Paul and not enough of Christ."' He writes that a denominational preacher said of Acts 2:38, concerning baptism: "That's just what Peter said." I hasten to agree with Brother Blasingame that this kind of teaching is certainly not from heaven, but of men. It will cause those who listen to it to be lost.
Everybody ought to be taught such Scriptures as John 16:12-15 and 17:14-22. Then we ought to emphasize that these apostles laid hands on others and they, too, were guided into all truth by the Spirit Whom they received miraculously: Acts 8:5-17; 6:5, 6. Men like Paul or Peter received not their teaching from men, "but by the revelation of Jesus Christ" (Galatians 1:6-12). Therefore, a red letter New Testament is rather misleading, because all of the words therein came from God through the Spirit and through Jesus Christ, whether those words are found in John or Galatians, or any other New Testament book!
And yet we must remember that "neither is he that planteth any thing, neither he that watereth; but God that giveth the increase" (1 Cor.3:7). This is true of even Paul!
Our speaking and ministering must be to this end: "That God in all things may be glorified through Jesus Christ, to Whom be praise and dominion for ever and ever" (1 Peter 4:11).
Why do I hear brethren so often quote 1 Peter 3: 21,22 down to the end of the first clause only, and omit the remainder of verses 21 and 22? Anybody ought to know that "by the resurrection of Jesus Christ," etc., modifies the verb "save," and without that resurrection, our faith is vain, the apostles are false witnesses, and we are yet in our sins!
Don't assume that "Brother Hinton is going soft on the essentiality of baptism." I simply do not think it is fair either to God or lost souls to quote His Word so fragmentarily. If anybody ever quotes me that way, they will certainly hear from me! "These things ought ye to have done, and not to leave the other undone" (Matthew 23:23).
-Dora, Alabama