This week's article is a "pause" in the search for the historical roots of departures from God's Word. The reader is referred back to last week's article, in which was considered Paul's warning to the Ephesian elders of departures arising out of the eldership. Read again also Paul's description of the coming departure in 2 Thessalonians 2:1-5.
In an earlier issue of It Is Settled,
we reported comments from a preacher on TBN who said that, for 40 years,
his group had been permitting women to preach and God hadn't expressed
His displeasure about it. In recent weeks, we've looked at departures in
the work and qualifications of bishops and in the purpose and mode of
baptism. Using the TBN preacher's reasoning, it could be said that God
hasn't come down and expressed His displeasure about these departures
either. One principle man needs to understand is this: when God speaks
on a subject, "it is settled"! There is no need for Him to
repeat Himself! God has already spoken about bishops, about baptism, and
about women preachers. We can read His instructions in the New
Testament. Men and women who truly desire to please God respect Him
enough to learn what He has said on various topics, then obey Him! Hear
what God says about preaching "another gospel": "I
marvel that ye are so soon removed from him that called you into the
grace of Christ unto another gospel; which is not another, but there be
some that trouble you, and would pervert the gospel of Christ. But
though we, or an angel from heaven, preach any other gospel unto you
than that which we have preached unto you, let him be accursed. As we
said before, so say I now again, if any man preach any other gospel unto
you than that ye have received, let him be accursed" (Galatians
1:6-9).
When a denominational preacher or
teacher is questioned about a departure from God's Word, sometimes he
turns to ridicule. In personal correspondence with Hugh Pyle, a
well-known Baptist evangelist, he correctly identified immersion as the
proper mode of baptism. Yet, in his booklet, "The Truth About the
Church of Christ," members of the Lord's church are called
"water dogs" for teaching baptism is a burial, an immersion,
for the remission of sins! When this column pointed out the New
Testament truth that women may not be preachers, a letter filled with
ridicule and sarcasm was received. (Check out the June 28, 2002, issue
of It Is Settled.) Regardless of man's opinion, God's Word is
unchanging and unchangeable!
To set the stage for further historical
searches into departures from the New Testament, let's look at two
opposing ways of looking at God's Word. Martin Luther desired to retain
all that was not expressly contrary to the Scriptures. He took Biblical
silence on a subject to mean God's approval of man's innovations
concerning that subject. Another Reformer, Hulerreich Zwingli, of German
Switzerland, is not as well known as Luther. He was born in 1484, and he
resolved to accept and practice only what God's Word teaches, and to
abolish everything else. When the Restoration came to America in the
early 1800's, this principle was expressed this way: "We speak
where the Bible speaks; we are silent where the Bible is silent."
Keep in mind these two opposing views of God's Word, as we look further
into departures.
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