Ninety Years Later -- A Study Of Congregational Cooperation (No. 3)
Editor's Note: This is the third in a series of articles transcribing a speech delivered by Brother Moyer.
III. Three Fundamental Considerations Based On The Authority Of God
A. The Scriptures authorize and teach a distinction between the work of the individual and the work of the church. I find that many people in seeking to justify their practices will begin to say, "Oh, if the individual can do this, the church can." But that is not so, because the New Testament authorizes the individual to do certain things that it does not authorize the church to do. Let us take an example that will nail it down so firmly that you cannot miss it. It is 1 Tim. 5:16. Paul is here talking about two groups of people.
I Timothy 5:16
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1.
On one side he is talking about individuals — "If any man or woman." "Any" puts it on the basis of individuals. On the other side is the church. Paul puts individual responsibility on one side and church responsibility on the other and says that the church cannot be charged with the individual's responsibility. Here is a distinction in what individuals are authorized to do and in what the church is authorized to do. As an individual, I am authorized by expressed statement to provide for the deficiency of my widowed mother. The church cannot be charged with the care of my widowed mother. Why? The Bible expressly forbids that — "Let not the church be charged." "Oh, well, whatever the individual does, the church can do." Can you believe it? Can you take this passage and say that because the individual can, the church can? No, Sir! This draws the line of distinction. Let the individual do it so that the church will not be charged with it. The church is not authorized to care for my mother, but I am! We cannot take that which individuals are authorized to do and call it the work of the church unless the church itself is authorized to do it.
2. We see that principle illustrated even further in James 1:26-27. An authorization is given here: "If any man among you seem to be religious, and bridleth not his tongue, but deceiveth his own heart, this man's religion is vain. Pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this, To visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep himself unspotted from the world." Now, I ask you: Who is authorized in this passage to visit (provide for) the widows and orphans? It specifies who is: the individual (oneself). It is not within the scope of my sermon this afternoon to go into the means that individuals might employ in doing their particular work. We know that it is authorized to care for widows or orphans in our own homes. You say, "Well, how do we know?" I heard someone here a while back say, "You have got to give me the passage for that before I'll believe any such thing." Well, I'll give it to you. In John 19:25-27: "Now there stood by the cross of Jesus his mother ... When Jesus therefore saw his mother, and the disciple standing by, whom he loved, he saith unto his mother, Woman, behold thy son! Then saith he to the disciple, Behold thy mother! And from that hour that disciple took her unto his own home." Now there is one way that is authorized. No one would deny that such is authorized. And we infer from. 1 Tim. 5 that it is right to care for them in their own homes as individuals. Our time does not permit us to go into a study of how we, as individuals, may care for those who are our responsibility. But that is not the problem that is confronting the church anyhow. The question is what the church is authorized to do in accomplishing its mission in the world. So you see that the Lord makes a distinction between the church and the individual. The individual is authorized to do things that the church is not authorized to do.
B. God, in accomplishing His mission in the world, authorized an organization according to the wisdom that was His. What is the organization that God authorized?
1. Why, it is the church; all of us recognize that. It is through the church that the manifold wisdom of God is known. (Eph. 3:10-11.) Eph. 3:21 tells us that it is in the church that we glorify God throughout all ages. So the church is the organization that God has authorized, and Paul tells us that there is only one religious body. (Eph.4:4.) God established, ordained, and authorized the local congregation as the only unit of organization within the New Testament scriptures. Therefore, the local church is the only organization that God has ordained to do His work in the world. There was an old saying in the Restoration movement that needs to be repeated today: "No organization but the church." Or sometimes, "No organization larger than the local congregation; no organization smaller than the local congregation; and no organization other than the local congregation." This is New Testament teaching. (1 Cor. 1:2; Phil. 1:1; Rev. 2-3.)
2. I ask you, Is any other organization authorized to do the work of the church? No, God did not authorize any other. In Heb. 8:2 we learn that Jesus is the minister of the true tabernacle which "The Lord pitched, not man." The Lord pitched one — the church. Man didn't pitch the church. When man establishes an institution to do the work that God gave the church to do, it violates the specific organization that God has ordained. The specific excludes all others. Thus, a human institution that is designed to do the work of the church is excluded by God's teaching.
3. Now, in caring for orphans or doing any work of the church, we cannot violate this fundamental principle. No organization other than the church is authorized to do the work of the church. Therefore, I ask, can churches cooperate through a human institution? Can men build an arrangement or organization through which churches may cooperate? NO! why? It is without authority! Yet men are building human institutions for the express purpose of having churches cooperate through them in doing their work. In this case it is the care of orphans, which they say is the work of the church. It is like this:
Churches --$---> Human Institution --->- Work It is a human institution. It has a board of directors over it. Churches are cooperating through it. Did God ordain this kind of cooperation? NO, it is something that gains its authority wholly from man. None of it comes from the Father.
4. But what about the orphan homes among us today? Are they human institutions?
1) Consider the Ontario Home. The elders of the Broadway and Walnut church of Christ in Santa Ana (who are directors of the home) say: "The home itself is not and cannot, be a part of the church. It is a separate organization . . ." Is it the church? No, Sir. Did God authorize congregations to cooperate through something other than the church? No. Can't do it. Is this separate organization designed to do the work of the church? Yes, Sir! They say it is. They say that it is chartered to care for orphans which they say is the work of the church.
2) Now the Boles Home:
Boles Home is not the church nor is it an organization within the church. The church is not Boles Home, nor an organization within Boles Home, they are two separate, independent, distinct organizations. (Boles Home News, Oct. 10, 1956)
These homes are chartered to do what they affirm is the work of the church. They are human institutions designed to do the work of the church, and thus are a violation of God's authority. When I oppose such, I am not opposing the means of orphan's care. Almost every time this is discussed, someone says, "We differ over the means of caring for orphans." But that's not it. I am opposing another institution — one designed to do what they say is the work of the church — an institution that is not authorized. Now whether the church should do the work or a human institution, both or either of them would have to furnish the means. The question is: Which institution is authorized to do the work of the church?
In the Otey-Briney Debate on the missionary society, Briney kept saying: "The method of doing this (preaching) is not specified." Brother Otey answered by saying:
The question to be considered is not whether the Gospel should be preached to the whole world, if possible. That is not the question, but the question is, through what organization shall it be done — the church, or such organizations as the Illinois Christian Missionary Society, the Foreign Christian Missionary Society, etc. That is the question. Otey-Briney Debate, p. 176
Again:
Now, I want to call your attention to this fact, the use of that word, "method.". Suppose he organizes a society. Will not the Society have to adopt methods to do the work? Then, why not let the church itself do the work? Now, he confuses method with organization. Ibid, p. 207
The same is true in reference to the orphan home question. We are not opposing a method, but another organization.
A human institution designed to do the work of the church or through which the churches cooperate is wrong because:
1) It is unauthorized.
2) It violates God's specific organization — the local congregation.
(More to follow)