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These expositions by Dr. Kirksey are offered to suggest sermon or Bible study ideas for pastors and other church leaders, both from the exposition and from the illustrative material.
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Introduction

To be a Christian is a contradiction in many ways.  Dr. A. W. Tozer shares in That Incredible Christian:

Let us . . . simply observe the true Christian as he puts into practice the teachings of Christ and His apostles.  Note the contradictions:

The Christian believes that in Christ he has died, yet he is more alive than before and he fully expects to live forever.  He walks on earth while seated in heaven and though born on earth he finds that after his conversion he is not at home here.  Like the nighthawk, which in the air is the essence of grace and beauty but on the ground is awkward and ugly, so the Christian appears at his best in the heavenly places but does not fit well into the ways of the very society into which he was born.

The Christian soon learns that if he would be victorious as a son of heaven among men on earth he must not follow the common pattern of mankind, but rather the contrary.  That he may be safe he puts himself in jeopardy; he loses his life to save it and is in danger of losing it if he attempts to preserve it.  He goes down to get up.  If he refuses to go down he is already down, but when he starts down he is on his way up.

He is strongest when he is weakest and weakest when he is strong.  Though poor he has the power to make others rich, but when he becomes rich his ability to enrich others vanishes.  He has most after he has given most away and has least when he possesses most.

He may be and often is highest when he feels lowest and most sinless when he is most conscious of sin.  He is wisest when he knows that he knows not and knows least when he has acquired the greatest amount of knowledge.  He sometimes does most by doing nothing and goes furthest when standing still.  In heaviness he manages to rejoice and keeps his heart glad even in sorrow.

The Best of A. W. Tozer: Book One, compiled by Warren W. Wiersbe, Chapter 20, (Camp Hill, PA: Wingspread Publishers, 1978, 2000) [Originally published, A. W. Tozer, That Incredible Christian: How Heaven”s Children Live on Earth (Harrisburg, Pa.: Christian Publications, 1964)] © 1978, 2000 by Zur Ltd..  Database © 2007 WORDsearch Corp.

It is my prayer that we will be able to say with that Puritan of old:

I am mended by my sickness, enriched by my poverty and strengthened by my weakness. . . .  What fools are we, then, to frown upon our afflictions!  These, how crabbed soever, are our best friends.  They are not indeed for our pleasure, they are for our profit.

Abraham Wright, The Golden Treasury of Puritan Quotations, compiled by I.D.E. Thomas, by permission of Banner of Truth (Carlisle, PA: Banner of Truth Trust, 2000), p. 17.

Dr. John Thain Davidson, author of Talks to Young Men (New York: A. C. Armstong & Son, 1885), shares the following in an article titled “The Christian”:

The word “Christian” occurs but three times in Scripture.

In the first we read of being “called” a Christian; in the second, of being persuaded to “be” a Christian; and in the third, of “suffering” as a Christian.  There is thus here an ascending graduation: first, the name; second, the reality; and third, the suffering or experience.

Up to the year of our Lord 42 or 43–that is, the period indicated in our first text–the followers of Jesus had no distinctive title by which to separate them from the world around; that is to say, they had no appropriate designation accepted by themselves, and recognized by those who did not belong to them.  Not till this time, indeed, as I shall presently show, had such a designation been necessary.

But, as it may be interesting to trace the appellatives applied to the followers of Jesus from the commencement of the Christian era, let me, in a single sentence or two, enumerate them.

The very first name given to them was that by which their Divine Master Himself was pleased to designate them, viz., “disciples,” a word which means learners and followers, and which occurs in the gospels more frequently than any other, e.g., “Then said Jesus to those Jews which believed on Him, If ye continue in my word, then are ye my disciples indeed” [John 8:31].

The second name was “believers,” which was given to them on account of the faith they professed; e.g., “and believers were the more added to the Lord, multitudes,” [Acts 5:14] etc. This name, however, as we learn from profane writers, was sometimes applied by way of reproach, though of this we have no instance recorded in the New Testament.  It was not unusual for the Greek philosophers to nickname the Christians credentes, that is, “believers,” because they did not exercise their reason, but took things on trust.  Augustine used to say, “Let them jeer us for our faith; let us nevertheless believe.”  In human and earthly concerns belief comes after knowledge, but in spiritual things it often goes before: e.g., John says, “We believe and are sure (lit. know) that thou art the Christ,” [John 6:69] etc.; not “We know and believe.”

A third name given to Christ’s people was “the brethren” [Acts 6:3].  This they were called because of the spirit of love that bound them together, and the recognition of their oneness and equality.  “We know that we have passed from death unto life, because we love the brethren” [1 John 3:14].

The fourth and only other name, so far as we can learn, by which they were know among themselves, was “saints” [Acts 9:13,32,41 26:10].  This they were called because of their holiness, and separation from the ways of the world; e.g., “Salute all them that have the rule over you (that is, the office-bearers of the church) and all the saints” (that is, the members) [Hebrews 13:24].

The names I have now mentioned, “disciples,” “believers,” “brethren,” “saints,” were all honourable and pleasing titles, and were given to the early Christians by their Divine Master, by the Apostles, and by each other; but, you will observe, there is nothing in any of these designations to mark them out, in the eye of the world, as a distinct and separate people.

As their numbers increased, however, and they became as a body more consolidated, it was to be expected that some generic title would come to be attached to them; and so it happened.  And as the name “Christians” became the distinguishing appelation of the followers of Christ, the fact itself, and the place where the name originated, were worthy of record.

By whom or in what spirit this name was given to them is not certainly known, and yet we have some glimpses of truth in regard to the matter.  Undoubtedly it was not the Jews who originated the title; for as the word “Christ” means simply “Messiah,” to call the followers of Jesus “Christians” or “Messianists,” would be giving up the argument to them altogether, and acknowledging that their Master was indeed the true Christ.  No; the ground of their reproach against the disciples was not that they believed in a Christ or Messias, but that they accepted Jesus of Nazareth (or of Galilee) as the Christ.  Hence, whom they wished to designate the disciples contemptuously, they called them “Galileans,” [Acts 2:7] or more frequently “Nazarenes” [Acts 24:5].  Thus we read (chap. xxiv. 5) that one of the charges which Tertullus (a legal orator engaged bye the Jewish party) brought against Paul before the governor Felix was, that he was “a ringleader of the sect of the Nazarenes,” which just meant a leader of the Christian body.

And as their name was not given them by the Jews, neither, we have reason to believe, was it directly given them by God.  Some have taken up this idea, and imagined that the title was a matter of special divine revelation.  To this I reply, that there is not hint given of such a thing; and as the word occurs only in two other places, and is not once used by Paul, it is extremely unlikely that it came from divine suggestion.  It was given to them, no doubt, by the citizens of Antioch.  Those Gentiles could not enter into the spirit or meaning of such words as “disciples,” “believers,” “brethren,” or “saints,”  nor could they enjoy the paltry spleen which the Jews exhibited in their contemptuous title “Nazarenes;” and as Antioch was the first place where idolatrous Gentiles were converted and real missionary work began, and the infant church was therefore becoming less and less identified with the Jewish nation, what more natural than that they should call the disciples after the name of their great Master, especially as that name was doubtless continually on their lips?

It is possible, indeed, that they may have been a vein of derision in the origination of this title, but eventually this passed away; and it is a singular thing that most of those names which are now honoured and respected in the Christian Church, were framed at first as terms of reproach and contempt.  I need only mention the words [Huguenot], Puritan, Methodist, and even Protestant, to show how names that were derisive in their origin may afterwards be gloried in as titles of true nobility.

Such, then, seems to have been the origin of the name “Christians;” not given by God, nor by themselves, nor by the Jews, but by their heathen neighbours, to mark them as a new sect, and designate their relation to Him whom they acknowledged as their Head. The honoured name we accept; let us seek to be worthy of it.

“The Christian: A Weekly Record of Christian Life, Christian Testimony, and Christian Work,” Thursday, April 28, 1870, (London: Morgan & Scott, 1870).

As we have noted, we find the term translated “Christian” three times in the Bible.  After reading each passage we will ask a question.

I. The first mention of the term translated “Christian” is in Acts 11:26.

Let us begin reading in verse 19, where Dr. Luke writes,

Now those who were scattered after the persecution that arose over Stephen traveled as far as Phoenicia, Cyprus, and Antioch, preaching the word to no one but the Jews only.  But some of them were men from Cyprus and Cyrene, who, when they had come to Antioch, spoke to the Hellenists, preaching the Lord Jesus.  And the hand of the Lord was with them, and a great number believed and turned to the Lord.  Then news of these things came to the ears of the church in Jerusalem, and they sent out Barnabas to go as far as Antioch.  When he came and had seen the grace of God, he was glad, and encouraged them all that with purpose of heart they should continue with the Lord.  For he was a good man, full of the Holy Spirit and of faith.  And a great many people were added to the Lord.  Then Barnabas departed for Tarsus to seek Saul.  And when he had found him, he brought him to Antioch.  So it was that for a whole year they assembled with the church and taught a great many people.  And the disciples were first called Christians in Antioch (Acts 11:19-26).

Are you frequently perceived as a Christian?

Based upon your actions and attitudes do people regularly perceive you as a Christian?  Are you “the salt of the earth” (Matthew 5:13) with flavor?  Are you the light of the world” (Matthew 5:14)?  Are you “a city set on a hill [that] cannot be hidden” (Matthew 5:14)?  Does “your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works and glorify your Father in heaven” (Matthew 5:16)?

II. The second time we find the term translated “Christian” is in Acts 26:28.

Let us begin reading in verse 24,

Now as he thus made his defense, Festus said with a loud voice, ‘Paul, you are beside yourself!  Much learning is driving you mad!’  But he said, ‘I am not mad, most noble Festus, but speak the words of truth and reason.  For the king, before whom I also speak freely, knows these things; for I am convinced that none of these things escapes his attention, since this thing was not done in a corner.  King Agrippa, do you believe the prophets?  I know that you do believe.’  Then Agrippa said to Paul, ‘You almost persuade me to become a Christian.’  And Paul said, ‘I would to God that not only you, but also all who hear me today, might become both almost and altogether such as I am, except for these chains.’  When he had said these things, the king stood up, as well as the governor and Bernice and those who sat with them; and when they had gone aside, they talked among themselves, saying, ‘This man is doing nothing deserving of death or chains.’  Then Agrippa said to Festus, ‘This man might have been set free if he had not appealed to Caesar’” (Acts 26:24-32).

Are you fully persuaded as a Christian?

Paul forcefully witnessed to Agrippa.  Unless you are fully persuaded you will never be persuasive.  Paul was fully persuaded as he writes in 2 Timothy 1:8-12,

Therefore do not be ashamed of the testimony of our Lord, nor of me His prisoner, but share with me in the sufferings for the gospel according to the power of God,  who has saved us and called us with a holy calling, not according to our works, but according to His own purpose and grace which was given to us in Christ Jesus before time began,  but has now been revealed by the appearing of our Savior Jesus Christ, who has abolished death and brought life and immortality to light through the gospel,  to which I was appointed a preacher, an apostle, and a teacher of the Gentiles   For this reason I also suffer these things; nevertheless I am not ashamed, for I know whom I have believed and am persuaded that He is able to keep what I have committed to Him until that Day” (2 Timothy 1:8-12).

Paul writes in Romans 8:31-39,

What then shall we say to these things?  If God is for us, who can be against us?  He who did not spare His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, how shall He not with Him also freely give us all things?  Who shall bring a charge against God’s elect?  It is God who justifies.  Who is he who condemns?  It is Christ who died, and furthermore is also risen, who is even at the right hand of God, who also makes intercession for us.  Who shall separate us from the love of Christ?  Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword?  As it is written: ‘For Your sake we are killed all day long; / We are accounted as sheep for the slaughter.’  Yet in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us.  For I am persuaded that neither death nor life, nor angels nor principalities nor powers, nor things present nor things to come, nor height nor depth, nor any other created thing, shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Several months ago, my good friend Scott Ward, with GuideStone Financial Resources of the Southern Baptist Convention, sent an article titled, “Young adults less devoted to faith.”  In it Cathy Lynn Grossman states, “Most young adults today don’t pray, don’t worship and don’t read the Bible, a major survey by a Christian research firm shows.

If the trends continue, “the Millennial generation will see churches closing as quickly as GM dealerships,” says Thom Rainer, president of LifeWay Christian Resources.  In the group’s survey of 1,200 18- to 29-year-olds, 72% say they’re “really more spiritual than religious.”

Among the 65 percent who call themselves Christian, “many are either mushy Christians or Christians in name only,” Rainer says.  “Most are just indifferent.  The more precisely you try to measure their Christianity, the fewer you find committed to the faith.”

Key findings in the phone survey, conducted in August 2010:

•65% rarely or never pray with others, and 38% almost never pray by themselves either.
•65% rarely or never attend worship services.
•67% don’t read the Bible or sacred texts.  Many are unsure Jesus is the only path to heaven: Half say yes, half no.

“We have dumbed down what it means to be part of the church so much that it means almost nothing, even to people who already say they are part of the church,” Rainer says.

The findings, which document a steady drift away from church life, dovetail with a LifeWay survey of teenagers in 2007 who drop out of church and a study in February by the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life, which compared the beliefs of Millennials with those of earlier generations of young people.  . . .

Even among those in the survey who “believe they will go to heaven because they have accepted Jesus Christ as savior”:

•68% did not mention faith, religion or spirituality when asked what was “really important in life.”
•50% do not attend church at least weekly.
•36% rarely or never read the Bible.

Neither are these young Christians evangelical in the original meaning of the term — eager to share the Gospel.  Just 40% say this is their responsibility.  Even so, Rainer is encouraged by the roughly 15% who, he says, appear to be “deeply committed” Christians in study, prayer, worship and action. . . .

The 2007 LifeWay study found seven in 10 Protestants ages 18 to 30, both evangelical and mainline, who went to church regularly in high school said they quit attending by age 23.  And 34% of those had not returned, even sporadically, by age 30.

The Pew survey found young people today were significantly more likely than those in earlier generations to say they didn’t identify with any religious group.  Neither are Millennials any more likely than earlier generations to turn toward a faith affiliation as they grow older” (Cathy Lynn Grossman “Young adults less devoted to faith”, USA TODAY, Available from: http://www.usatoday.com/NEWS/usaedition/2010-04-27-1Amillfaith27_ST_U.htm Accessed: 08/12/10).

III. The third time we find the term translated “Christian” is in 1 Peter 4:16.

Let us begin reading in verse 12, where Peter writes,

Beloved, do not think it strange concerning the fiery trial which is to try you, as though some strange thing happened to you; but rejoice to the extent that you partake of Christ’s sufferings, that when His glory is revealed, you may also be glad with exceeding joy.  If you are reproached for the name of Christ, blessed are you, for the Spirit of glory and of God rests upon you.  On their part He is blasphemed, but on your part He is glorified.  But let none of you suffer as a murderer, a thief, an evildoer, or as a busybody in other people’s matters.  Yet if anyone suffers as a Christian, let him not be ashamed, but let him glorify God in this matter.  For the time has come for judgment to begin at the house of God; and if it begins with us first, what will be the end of those who do not obey the gospel of God?  Now ‘If the righteous one is scarcely saved, / Where will the ungodly and the sinner appear?’  Therefore let those who suffer according to the will of God commit their souls to Him in doing good, as to a faithful Creator” (1 Peter 4:12-19).

Are you fiercely persecuted as a Christian?

One pastor lamented after reading the Book of Acts, “You know wherever the Apostle Paul went, there was either a revival or a riot.  Everywhere I go they serve tea.”

From 2 Timothy 3:1-12, we read,

But know this, that in the last days perilous times will come:  For men will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, unloving, unforgiving, slanderers, without self-control, brutal, despisers of good, traitors, headstrong, haughty, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, having a form of godliness but denying its power.  And from such people turn away!  For of this sort are those who creep into households and make captives of gullible women loaded down with sins, led away by various lusts,  always learning and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth.  Now as Jannes and Jambres resisted Moses, so do these also resist the truth: men of corrupt minds, disapproved concerning the faith; but they will progress no further, for their folly will be manifest to all, as theirs also was.  But you have carefully followed my doctrine, manner of life, purpose, faith, longsuffering, love, perseverance,  persecutions, afflictions, which happened to me at Antioch, at Iconium, at Lystra—what persecutions I endured.  And out of them all the Lord delivered me.  Yes, and all who desire to live godly in Christ Jesus will suffer persecution.

In an article titled,

“American missionaries gunned down for ‘preaching Christianity’”, Kathy Gannon shares the following:  “KABUL, Afghanistan – Taliban terrorists have declared they shot and killed a team of missionaries, including six Americans, because they were ‘preaching Christianity.’”

Ten members of a medical team, including six Americans, were shot and killed by the Islamic terrorists as they were returning from providing eye treatment and other health care in remote villages of northern Afghanistan, a spokesman for the team said Saturday.

Dirk Frans, director of the International Assistance Mission, said one German, one Briton and two Afghans also were a part of the team that made the two-week trip to Nuristan province.  They drove to the province, left their vehicles and hiked for hours over mountainous terrain to reach the Parun valley in the province’s northwest.

Taliban spokesman Zabiullah Mujahid told The Associated Press in Pakistan that they killed the foreigners because they were “spying for the Americans” and “preaching Christianity.””

Kathy Gannon further explains, “Among the dead was team leader Tom Little, an optometrist from Delmar, New York who has been working in Afghanistan for more than 30 years, Frans said.

Little was expelled by the Taliban government in August 2001 after the arrest of eight Christian aid workers – two Americans and six Germans – for allegedly trying to convert Afghans to Christianity.  [On September 11, 2001, Muslim extremists, known as al-Qaeda, coordinated a series of suicide attacks on the United States of America.]  He returned to Afghanistan after the Taliban government was toppled in November 2001 by U.S.-backed forces” (Kathy Gannon – Associated Press Writer – 8/7/2010 6:20:00 AM “American missionaries gunned down for ‘preaching Christianity’”  Available from: http://www.onenewsnow.com/Church/Default.aspx?id=1116150 Accessed: 08/12/10).

Conclusion

Dr. A. W. Tozer shared his pulpit once with Dr. Vance Havner (1901-1986).  After the message Tozer went up to him and said, “Finally, a man I don’t have to clean up after.”  Dr. Vance Havner wrote a book titled Why Not Just Be Christians? (Vance Havner, Why Not Just Be Christians? Available in electronic format from:  http://www.wordsearchbible.com/catalog/search.php?author=Vance+Havner Accessed: 08/14/10).

From The Best of Vance Havner we read, “The early Christians did not adjust to the situation, they adjusted the situation” (Vance Havner, The Best of Vance Havner, Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books, 1989). Dr. Havner shares the following in Hearts Afire: Light on Successful Soul Winning:

There is a lot of soft, sentimental talk about Him today that brings no conviction.  When Isaiah saw the Lord, he did not feel comfortable!  Neither did Habakkuk nor Daniel nor Paul nor John.  We want a picture of Him today that does not disturb us, that smiles at sin, and winks at iniquity.  I remember a man who told me he wanted to hear no hell-fire sermons but rather about the meek and lowly Jesus.  Yet the poor man did not seem to realize that the meek and lowly Jesus said more about hell than is reported from the lips of anyone else in the Bible!  We need a true and complete vision of God in His holiness and Christ in His glory that will bring us to repentance.”  Dr. Havner further observes, “But we are a pretty comfortable crowd of Christians, who seem to forget that for us the Gospel is not something to come to Church to hear, but something to go from the Church to tell.  The cause of Christ is not carried forward by complacent Sunday morning bench-warmers who come in to sit but never go out to serve.

Vance Havner, Hearts Afire: Light on Successful Soul Winning (Westwood, NJ: Fleming H. Revell Company, 1952) Database © 2009 WORDsearch Corp.

Invitation

Allow me to ask three more questions:

First, do you have genuine Christian Faith?

“So then faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God” (Romans 10:17).

Paul writes to Timothy, “But you must continue in the things which you have learned and been assured of, knowing from whom you have learned them,  and that from childhood you have known the Holy Scriptures, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus” (2 Timothy 3:14-15).

“For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast.  For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them” (Ephesians 2:8-10).

The Christian faith is an evangelical faith.  It matters what you believe.  We must believe the good news as we read in 1 Corinthians 15:1-4, “Moreover, brethren, I declare to you the gospel which I preached to you, which also you received and in which you stand, by which also you are saved, if you hold fast that word which I preached to you—unless you believed in vain.  For I delivered to you first of all that which I also received: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, and that He was buried, and that He rose again the third day according to the Scriptures.”

Furthermore, do you have warm Christian Fellowship?

John writes in his first epistle,

This is the message which we have heard from Him and declare to you, that God is light and in Him is no darkness at all.  If we say that we have fellowship with Him, and walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth.  But if we walk in the light as He is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanses us from all sin.  If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.  If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.  If we say that we have not sinned, we make Him a liar, and His word is not in us (1 John 1:5-10).

Paul warns, “And have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather expose them” (Ephesians 5:11).

Finally, do you have a sharp Christian Focus?

From Hebrews 12:2 we read, “Looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.”

This verse calls to mind a hymn by Helen Howarth Lemmel (1963-1961) who was once a vocal music teacher at Moody Bible Institute in Chicago, Illinois.  From the Refrain we read, “Turn your eyes upon Jesus, / Look full in His wonderful face, / And the things of earth will grow strangely dim, / In the light of His glory and grace.”

Make certain that you have repented of your sin and believed on the Lord Jesus Christ.  If not, may the words of the old African American spiritual be yours, “Lord, I want to be a Christian in my heart”  [Emphasis mine].

May each one of us truly know what it means to be a Christian.

At its annual meeting in Indianapolis in 2008, the Southern Baptist Convention spoke clearly on the issue of regenerate church membership. This is an area in which many SBC churches (my own included) have struggled greatly. At an earlier time in our convention’s history, it was not at all uncommon for a church with 100 members to average 200 or more in weekly attendance. We have turned that right around in the last century or so, and that’s not a good thing. We’ve taken membership and discipline far less seriously than we ought, and our witness as churches has suffered for it. It is indeed sad that a person who may have walked an aisle, repeated a prayer, and been immersed in a tank of water when they were seven years old can, at the age of 50, say with a straight face that they are a member of the church where these events took place when they have not attended a service for three decades or more. What is even sadder is that the church might be more concerned with offending someone than they are with the spiritual condition of their erstwhile “member.” Yet this situation, in some variation or other, is played out countless times in churches throughout our convention.

Several years ago, a blogger named Brad Williams published a post in which he shared a letter his church had sent to “members” that nobody knew how else to contact. In the post, he shares the text of the letter, along with the rationale behind it, listing four reasons why the church’s bloated membership roll was biblically unacceptable. While I agree with all of his reasons, I’d like to highlight his fourth reason in particular:

“4. It lessens the high commitment Jesus calls for in Christian life and service, and it makes a sham of the Lord’s Supper table.”

We need more pastors who will take the doctrinal stand that Williams did. However, it fascinates me to see that there are those within our convention, perhaps even some who teach in our seminaries, who seem to be advocating an abandonment of any connection between the Lord’s Table and the covenant community of believers. This is especially interesting to me in light of our convention’s clear statement on the importance of regenerate church membership. Our confession of faith unambiguously recognizes that biblical baptism is prerequisite to participation in the Lord’s Supper. Therefore, in an environment in which Southern Baptists seem to be recognizing the need to take church membership more seriously, I believe we should take the Lord’s Supper more seriously.

NOTE: This post was originally published on my now-mostly-dead personal blog in October of 2007.

In doing some research for a report I am to deliver to the Frisco Baptist Association at next week’s annual meeting, I read through some of the minutes of the Philadelphia Baptist Association from their meetings in the eighteenth century. My last two posts on the subject of church membership and discipline generated some healthy discussion on the topic, so I thought I would add the view of some of our Baptist forefathers to the mix, in the form of responses the association gave to queries from member churches.

Their regard for the importance of membership in the local church was so great that they didn’t believe it proper for someone to pass another Baptist church on their way to the one of which they were a member. This is from the annual meeting of 1735:

Upon a motion moved by some members of the Association:
Whether a person that is a well-wisher to us, and desires to be admitted a member into a church far distant from the place of his abode; whereas a church of the same order is nearer to him than the church that he proposed to join with; whether it be orderly for the distant church to receive such an one? Yea or nay?
Resolved in the negative, there being substantial reasons to the contrary. Such practice is contrary to the intendent, in instituting particular churches.

They also didn’t think it proper for a person to change their church membership unless it was required by a move, as they asserted in the annual meeting of 1728:

Query from the church at Montgomery: Whether a church is bound to grant a letter of dismission to any member to go to another church, while his residence is not removed?
Answered in the negative, we having neither precept nor precedent for such a practice in Scripture.

Does it bother the pastors in my readership when faithful members are missing from services, and later they can’t wait to tell you about the nearby preacher they went and heard instead of coming to their own church? It bothered our eighteenth-century brethren, if the following answer to a query from the church at Middletown is any indication (from 1734):

Whether it be justifiable for our members to neglect our own appointed meetings, and at their pleasure go to hear those differing in judgment from us?
Answered in the negative. Heb. x. 25

I don’t think anyone would argue against the reality that church membership today doesn’t mean what it used to mean. The questions I have are these: Are the attitudes toward membership reflected in these answers worth reclaiming, and if so, how do we go about reclaiming them?

This is part of an article originally published January 1922 in the Southwestern Journal of Theology by Dr. L. R. Scarborough entitled, “Poisoning the Fountains of Truth.” It was republished in the most recent Southwestern Journal of Theology, “Baptists and Unity.” You can find part one here and part two here. May a voice of our past speak to us today. Below is part three of a four part series reprinting Dr. Scarborough’s essay:

2. Another way by which the fountains of truth and life of our churches can be poisoned is by doing violence to the ordinances of Jesus Christ, in depreciating their value and emasculating their testimony. This is done when a Baptist church receives baptism administered at the hands of some other organization than a Baptist church. If a Baptist preacher admits into the fellowship of his church Christians who have received baptism at the hands of pedobaptists, without requiring them to be baptized by a Baptist church, he violates the truth of God and is guilty of a heresy in ecclesiology which will eventually ruin the testimony of the ordinances and vitiate the witness of Christ’s churches. Such practice eats at the very heart of the life of Christ’s churches. Such a practice will not only injure the life of the church practicing it, but will eventually poison the fountains of truth in all of our churches

A pastor of one of the leading churches of Texas told me recently of a member from another Baptist church in Texas seeking admittance on a letter from this church, but when questioned as to her baptism she reported that she came to this other church on the baptism from a certain Campbellite church and had not been required to be baptized by this Baptist church. This pastor tells me that he promptly refused to admit this woman into the fellowship of his church. I think he did right.

There lies at this point a great danger and we should guard the fountains of truth from the poison that will come by the emasculation of the ordinances of Jesus Christ.

Reprinted with permission, Southwestern Journal of Theology

John wanted the church to realize its responsibility to keep herself pure from false prophets, false teachers, and false living. That is why he began this portion of the letter (4:1-6) with the two commands: not to believe every spirit and to test the spirits. In unpacking all of this, I finally came to the application that dropped some jaws. The way we accept members into our church is unbiblical. I always assumed it was proper to accept someone who walked forward during the invitation and answered correctly that they accepted Christ as their Lord and Savior and was properly baptized. A thirty second interview later and voila, new members! Yet, as I study and read more scripture, I am realizing that each generation has the responsibility to be guardians of truth, morals, and church membership.

I read that early Baptists would require any candidate for membership to give their testimony to the church, answer theological questions, and finally come under a time of watch care to see if the person exhibited fruits of a redeemed life. Obviously our forefathers took the commands of not believing and testing seriously. Fast forward to today, what does a biblical method of accepting transfer members look like in the 21st century? While I don’t claim a perfect model and it is definitely a work in progress, here are some ideas with which I have been toying:

1. Stop voting on membership at the moment when someone presents themselves. Move it to a business meeting. After all, don’t we vote to transfer members out of our fellowship at that time?

2. Require an orientation class for membership. This class would be an opportunity to present the candidates our basic philosophy on who we are and how we live out the command to make disciples. During this class we would present our church covenant, basic statement of beliefs, and our mission and vision statements. Ultimately, it would be a vehicle by which we could get people plugged into the mission of the church.

3. Take one on one time to talk with the candidates about their salvation. If they realize they are not saved, encourage them and lead them to come to the Lord. If saved help them construct a written testimony of their salvation to present the church. Also help them clear up any unfinished business (baptism, repenting from a particular sin) if necessary.

4. Have them somehow demonstrate their agreement with our church covenant/statement of beliefs. Also have them commit to using their time, talents, and tithes in helping our church achieve her mission and vision.

While I don’t expect Immanuel B. C. to make an 180 degree turn immediately, I am in the process of praying and proclaiming in an effort to allow the Holy Spirit to move in His people. May Jesus be glorified as Lord of His church!

On a side note, it will be some time before I am able to blog again. I have several responsibilities weighing upon my time during the months of June and July. While I may be able to sneak one in here or there, I will for the most part be absent. I look forward to seeing many of you in Louisville.

If I could start again, a zillion miles away,
I would save myself; I would find a way

–“Hurt” by Trent Raznor, covered by Johnny Cash, American IV: The Man Comes Around, ©2002, American Recording Company

The palpable agony in Johnny Cash’s final album still haunts me nearly a decade after its release and Cash’s death one year later. “Troubling” has been an apt word for the lyrical accomplishments of Johnny Cash, all the way back to his scandalous shooting (in the fictional lyrics) of “a man in Reno, just to watch him die,” back in 1955. But American IV is, in my opinion, the most troubling project in Cash’s career.

The lyrics of “Hurt” are certainly dark in and of themselves: “I hurt myself today to see if I still feel” are the opening words. To hear Nine Inch Nails perform the song is somehow less disturbing—young people often go through difficult seasons in their lives, and they occasionally tend toward unmerited melodrama. It is easy, therefore, to write off Nine Inch Nails’s dissonant performance of “Hurt” as someone going through a phase (or a narcotic-induced stupor), but destined to sort it all out as maturity dawns and to discover that life isn’t so dismal after all. But to hear the voice of a tired old man bringing forth such fatalistic and dark poetry is another experience altogether. It brings one to doom and loss not as the angst of overwrought hormonal excess, but as a final judgment upon the vanity of life from one who has lived long enough to have some credibility upon the subject. His final words, feverishly attempting to conjure up hope for self-salvation give us, in the end, more an unfulfilled (unfulfillable?) desire for “a way” than any tangible belief that such a way exists.

That the album includes a couple of songs hinting toward Cash’s professed faith in Jesus Christ, to me, only makes matters worse. It places before us the proposition that the source of all of this angst is not one who has no hope merely because he hasn’t looked for any. He has searched. He has engaged the Christian faith, and it has left him to face death in despondency. I don’t know that Cash actually felt that way, but that is the inescapable message of his final recording project.

The final strains of “Hurt” put before us the idea of starting again, not as a belief in reincarnation, but as a hypothetical exercise. The author doesn’t suggest that he’s learned any concrete lessons that he could readily and easily apply. He makes no appeal to being wiser for being older. He doesn’t know the way; he only knows all the more how important it is to try to save himself.

The image that these final couplets of “Hurt” place into my mind is that of Matthew Broderick, Ally Sheedy, and John Wood in the 1983 movie “War Games” standing in the bowels of Cheyenne Mountain watching the WOPR computer play “Global Thermonuclear War.” The computer restarts the game over and over and over.  It tries something different each time. Every plan ends in the annihilation of the world in this Cold War thriller. Finally, the computer compares the prospect of thermonuclear war to the game tic-tac-toe. “An interesting game,” WOPR declares, “The only winning move is not to play.”

Cash’s final album seems to make the same observation about life.

Is the new birth in Jesus Christ a “winning move” in the game of life? No, I don’t mean in the sense of Your Best Life Now. But can the Christian believer arrive at the culmination of earthly living genuinely singing “I Can Only Imagine” instead of “Hurt”? I’m convinced that genuine conversion makes that difference. I’ve seen it in the people of my church. You may be convinced as well. But the world around us is not. They hear too many who claim the name of Christ but who seem to lack confidence in Him as the answer to their problems in this life and beyond. Certainly something has been said about the relevance and reality of Christ as the Conqueror and conversion as a winning move when a purported believer utters something like “I focus on the pain, the only thing that’s real.”

I believe that this phenomenon of such an uncertain witness coming from self-identified believers has major implications for our fulfillment of the Great Commission as Southern Baptists. In 1735 a young John Wesley—missional, devout, and pious, but as of yet unconverted—encountered his own panic and despair in the face of death. A brutal Atlantic storm beat down upon his ship, threatening the crew and passengers with their imminent demise. Wesley’s momentary angst dwelt upon his own mortality, but the enduring angst from that moment focused upon the difference between Wesley’s reaction to the danger juxtaposed against the reaction of a group of Moravian missionaries in the ship. Wesley panicked; the Moravians sang and prayed very calmly. Even after the storm had passed, Wesley’s disquiet about the contrast between himself and the Moravians remained. It persisted for a full three years until it drove Wesley in 1738 to the Moravian meeting at Aldersgate and to his own conversion.

The momentary angst of our contemporaries is focused upon their jobs, their 401(k) accounts, their upcoming tax bills, and their mortgages. This storm will pass…may already be passing. Will those who live across the street from Southern Baptists or who work in the next cubicle emerge from this storm with any enduring angst, any sense after weathering these storms together with us that they are lacking some peace that Christ has imparted to us? If so, this reality would greatly assist us in fulfilling the Great Commission in our land. Some Southern Baptists certainly are demonstrating Christ’s peace in their lives, but we must face the fact that many members in good standing of Southern Baptist churches do not show the evidence of Christ in their lives because they do not have Christ in their lives.

Meaningful and biblical church membership takes the Johnny Cashes of this world and engages them with something more real than pain. If they remain unconverted, it calls them to conversion. If they have been converted but are walking disorderly lives, it brings them the encouragement and accountability and support that they need to find Christ’s strength for victorious living. If they will have neither of these things, it refuses to ignore their troubles until and unless they address them.

This biblical covenant community of encouraging accountability is the way. It is not a means for saving ourselves, but a means of acknowledging that we cannot possibly do so and pointing us to the only One who can. It does not require going back to some imagined decision-point a zillion miles earlier in life, but demonstrates that life can change even now when the Creator creates us anew. It confronts us with a message that strips away the veil and demonstrates pain to be nothing more than “temporary light affliction” that, while quite real, fades into insignificance in comparison to the glory yet to be revealed.

The way was there all along, right under Johnny Cash’s nose. Let’s knock the dust off it and make sure that everyone else can see it better from now on.

This post available for reading and commenting at my personal blog: Praisegod Barebones.