The Truth Between Extremes

(Foy E. Wallace, Jr., in the Gospel Advocate, May 14, 1931 — Reprinted in Gospel Advocate, September 28, 1939)

In establishing the identity of the New Testament church, the necessity of being scriptural in doctrine, worship, and name has received due emphasis. While these essential features have not been overemphasized, there are some other points that have been more or less minimized.

The organization of the church, for instance, is vital, and scriptural work is an essential feature of its identity.

I. The Divine Arrangement

The organization of the New Testament church is simple, not complex. It is the local church with elders, deacons, and members. No other organization is known in the New Testament. The local church with elders and deacons is a complete and perfect organization through which to do everything God has commanded the church to do. It, therefore, follows that any organization larger or smaller than the local church, designed to do the work of the church, is an infringement upon the divine arrangement and is unscriptural. The truth of this principle is so evident as not to require proof to one who is familiar with the New Testament teaching.

II. Methods Of Work

In the application of the above principle, however, some have failed to discriminate between methods and organization. The church may use any expedient method of doing anything God has commanded so long as it is a method only. The protracted meeting is a method of saving souls. Class teaching, sometimes called "Sunday School," is a method of imparting instruction, whether pursued on Sunday or some other day. But there is a vast difference between methods and organizations. It has been claimed that the missionary society is only a method of evangelizing the world. That is not true. The missionary society is an organization, an established institution, and uses methods of its own.

It is easy to encroach upon principles, and such encroachments are in evidence in some of the churches of Christ today. For instance, the Sunday school as a method of instruction violates no scriptural principal. Quite the contrary, it is the application of the scriptures that enjoin teaching, but prescribe no method. But when the Sunday school becomes an organized auxiliary, functioning apart from the church, it ceases to be a method and becomes an organization. It is not uncommon for Sunday school classes, young people's meetings, women's Bible classes, and other groups to function as organized groups, even to the point of maintaining a separate treasury and doing certain work belonging to the church in the name of their group. If one group has the right to so organize and function, other groups have the same right; and if followed to its logical end, the congregation as an organized unit would be destroyed. Such is a perversion of an otherwise scriptural work. When Sunday school classes and young people's meetings so organize and function, they differ from denominational B.Y.P.U. and C.E. societies only in name.

III. The Truth Between Extremes

The autonomy of the church — the independent existence and functions of the local church — is an accepted principle among all who oppose the missionary societies. But to what extent congregations can engage in cooperative work without infringing upon autonomous functioning of the church is a question not altogether easy to decide.

The truth is usually found between extremes. The extremes in this case are: organizations that usurp the functions of a congregation, on one hand, and an aloofness between churches that would prohibit all cooperation, on the other. The missionary society usurps the functions of the church. And when an individual does the same thing the missionary society does — namely, independently receives and disburses missionary funds for the churches — that individual usurps the functions of the church. On the same principle, if the elders of one congregation solicit the funds of other congregations for general distributions, then the elders of one congregation usurp the functions of the congregation whose funds they receive and disburse. It is the same in principle as if a society or individual should do so.

How, then, and to what extent, may churches scripturally cooperate? Fortunately, we have a New Testament example. The prophet Agabus prophesied of the famine that should come over the world (the Jewish world, or Judea); and "the disciples (at Antioch), every man according to his ability, determined to send relief unto the brethren which dwelt in Judea; which also they did, and sent it to the elders by the hands of Barnabas and Saul." (Acts 11:29,30)

The disciples at Antioch cooperated with the churches in Judea through the elders in relieving an emergency in Judea. For one church to help another church bear its own burdens, therefore has scriptural precedent. But for one church to solicit funds from other churches for general distribution in other fields or places, thus becoming the treasury of other churches, is quite a different question. Such procedure makes a sort of society out of the elders of a local church, and for such there is no scriptural precedent or example.

There should be no infringement upon the local church as a functioning unit.

(The foregoing articles reflect our present sentiments on the matters in question. — Editor.)