On being so concerned about being Reformed you become Roman

I know, I know. There are just some links I shouldn’t click on. I don’t mean links that tout Obama wanting you to go back to school or IQ tests or EVE Online (since I already play) or those poor lonely girls who are stunning but can’t seem to find a date. Those aren’t my Achilles heal. My Achilles heal are blogs, specifically Reformed blogs on the lunatic fringe of reformed theology. There are some places in the blogosphere that keep calling liken a siren, tempting me to see what sort of shenanigans are going on. Thus I found myself several weeks ago at Ground Zero of the “Truly Reformed” camp, the Heidelblog. I am never disappointed when I stop by the Heidelblog because invariably there is going to be a prime example of what is wrong with much of the Reformed wing of the church. I did not come away empty handed.

The victim this time is "every member evangelism", i.e. Biblical Christianity. The post, Does Acts 8 Provide A Warrant For Every Member Evangelism?, argues that Acts 8 does not give us an example of the whole church declaring the Good News, but actually argues just the opposite. It takes quite a bit of linguistic and logical gymnastics to suggest that Luke didn’t mean what he said and instead was saying the exact opposite of what he said.

I wasn’t going to post this because there is nothing new here, the same old clergy exalting stuff that is so commonplace at the Heidelblog. I was just going to move on. Then I read this quip in one of the comments by Clark:

He gave the keys to the visible institutional church. Full stop. That’s the great truth with which the modern revivialist movement has not grasped.

What?! That is so outrageous that it demands a response because it strikes me as so, well for lack of a better word, Roman Catholic. What did Christ say about the keys in Matthew 16? Not what do our traditions tell us, what does it say?

And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.” Then he strictly charged the disciples to tell no one that he was the Christ. (Matthew 16: 18-20)

Who did He give the keys to? To Peter. Not a visible, institutional church that didn't exist at this time. Christ says something similar in Matthew 18:18

Truly, I say to you, whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven. (Matt 18:18)

Ironically, this statement follows a question by His disciples as to who is the greatest in the Kingdom of Heaven

Whoever humbles himself like this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven. (Matt 18:4)

The greatest in the Kingdom, according to Christ, is not the one who has the most initials after his name to tout his academic achievement, or who goes to the best conferences, or who has the most books published or who “pastors” the biggest church. It has nothing to do with titles or offices. The mark of true greatness is in humility and service. It is ironic that a discourse that starts out speaking of finding true greatness in simplicity and humility and service would be used by some to exalt certain men over others based on extra-Biblical church traditions. I would ask again, what does this sound like, Biblical Christianity or Roman Catholicism? What next, Bibles chained to pulpits lest the laity overstep their bounds?

OK, having said that and opening Pandora’s Box, what about the original point of the post? Dr. R. Scott Clark claims here (and in other places) that the “authoritative, official proclamation of the gospel” is not something that is permitted for the majority of Christians. He makes this claim by use of a tortured distinction between a Christian “witness” and the preaching of the Gospel. This distinction, no surprise, is declared to be based on the “clear biblical distinction between the teaching/preaching offices and the laity”. I obviously vehemently reject that distinction as an unbiblical tradition but it is a key for many people in the church, as a practical if not theoretical matter.

Let’s step back and look at Acts 8.

First, what does Acts 8 say? We need to answer that before declaring that it does or does not support the idea of “every member evangelism”? Here is the text in question:

And Saul approved of his execution. And there arose on that day a great persecution against the church in Jerusalem, and they were all scattered throughout the regions of Judea and Samaria, except the apostles. Devout men buried Stephen and made great lamentation over him. But Saul was ravaging the church, and entering house after house, he dragged off men and women and committed them to prison. Now those who were scattered went about preaching the word. (Acts 8: 1-4)

The keys to support “every member evangelism” here are that the church was scattered except for the apostles and that those who were scattered, i.e. the church minus the apostles, went about preaching the Word. This is pretty clearly an example of the idea of the entire church, the Body of Christ, preaching the Word. Not according to Clark. In his interpretation, what was really happening was that those holding apostolic office were the ones preaching, in spite of what appears to be an obvious exclusion of the apostles. He specifically mentions Philip and verses 5-6 of Acts 8. In verse 5-6 we see mention of Philip preaching the Gospel in Samaria:
Philip went down to the city of Samaria and proclaimed to them the Christ. And the crowds with one accord paid attention to what was being said by Philip when they heard him and saw the signs that he did. (Acts 8:5-6)

Are verses 5-6 a separate thought from verses 1-4? Philip was an apostle, one of the twelve. That would seem to indicate that he was not one of those spoken of in verse 1. So it would seem odd that Luke would say that those scattered didn’t include the apostles but at the same time refer to Philip as being the one who was scattered and was preaching the Word.

The other problematic issue is one that Clark inadvertently brings up. Philip was an apostle and was accompanied by all manner of signs of apostolic ministry. If the point is that only Philip and the other apostles had the right to “authoritatively” preach the Gospel, then where do modern Protestant ministers get off doing so? They were not ordained by the apostles nor are they exhibiting signs of apostolic ministry. They can’t even draw a linkage back to that Peter like Roman Catholics with their “unbroken” line of popes or mormons with their even more creative use of ghostly apostles making new apostles. There is not a man alive who holds the same sort of apostolic office that Philip and Peter did as eyewitnesses of Christ and having the same miraculous powers that the apostles exhibited.

Which is more Biblical, “every member evangelism” or “invite someone to church to hear the pastor evangelism”? Keep in mind a quick ground rule that seems common sense but obviously bears repeating: for something to be “Biblical” it needs to have a command or example in the Bible. I think hiding behind “this is the historical Reformed understanding” argument is a cop-out and intellectually lazy. Something is Reformed because it conforms to the Bible, not because it is a traditional understanding of a doctrine in Reformed circles.

Again, at the risk of being repetitive/beating a dead horse/sounding like a broken record, we see all sorts of examples of evangelism in the New Testament: the church scattered in Acts 8 except the apostles spreading the Gospel, evangelism in the street, evangelism in a hostile setting (the temple), evangelism in homes, evangelism along a road to an Ethiopian. We never see “evangelism” that consists of regular Christians inviting a lost person to “church” to hear a sermon.

So where does that leave the laity based on Clark's view? Apparently the role of the "laity" is to sit down, shut up and listen. Good enough to have a job and put money in the plate apparently, but they certainly they cannot be trusted to preach the Gospel to someone. They can be trusted to tell people that they are Christians and invite them to church, but the "real" preaching can only be accomplished in a church setting by a man who holds the proper ecclesiastical office.

What ends up happening in this mindset is that you get so concerned about being "true, blue Reformed" and getting the Gospel proclamation precisely right by Reformed standards that you become fearful of those who don't meet your standards and you simultaneously become suspicious of the "laity". You can't control what they are saying outside of "church" so you tell them to invite people to church to hear you. That way you can be sure they are getting the "right" message. Only those who are properly vetted and credentialed can be trusted the preach the Gospel. Thus we have the confusing and silly distinction between professional ministers “preaching” and every-day Christians witnessing. I guess that I think that if you truly believe God is sovereign you should trust Him to work through imperfect creatures, even those without the benefit of ordination.

I think there is also a dangerous overreaching of the idea of vocation here. If you are a plumber, that is your vocation and you should do that to the glory of God. But preaching is off limits to you because that is a job for those who have that vocation: i.e. professional ministers, seminary trained and duly ordained by an appropriate denominational entity. I am all for people doing whatever they do for the glory of God, but if you use that concept to restrict evangelism to the professionals and create a distinction between the laity and the clergy, that is an unwarranted application of the idea of vocation.

I can hear some people brushing this off. Well that was then, this is now. That raises the question. Do we never see the “invite someone to church” evangelism in the Bible because they didn’t have “churches” or because that was not fulfilling the call of every Christian to proclaim the Good News? Keep in mind that we don’t see anyone in the New Testament inviting someone to come to a house to hear Peter preach a 45 minute sermon. We do see Christians proclaiming the Good News to lost people wherever they were found. When the eunuch returned to Ethiopia, did he keep his mouth shut about what had happened to him? Or did he proclaim the Gospel? The Bible doesn’t address the issue but I am pretty confident in saying that he didn’t tell people something happened to him but that they needed to go to Jerusalem to hear a licensed and ordained cleric preach an expository sermon to them.

If you are given the chance, preach the Word to the lost. If you want to invite them to the gathering of the church, that is great, but it is not a substitute for proclaiming the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Someone who is elect is not going to ask to see your ministerial credentials before hearing the voice of the Good Shepherd. Peter was an apostle, but he was not a seminary trained, professional minister. He was a fisherman who became a disciple by following Christ and proclaiming Him, not by seeking the approval of a session or presbytery or a pastor search committee. Let the “Reformed Randy Weaver” types hide out on their mountaintop retreat. The rest of us will carry on doing the work of ministry.