Bulletin Articles
“What Makes a Church “Sound”?”
Categories: Iron sharpens ironYou are severed from Christ, you who would be justified by the law; you have fallen away from grace. (Galatians 5.4)
Look around at any American town of significant size, and it’s quickly obvious that there are an enormous number of churches to choose from. Why are there so many? Is the problem that churches just keep overflowing their capacity to fit people? No, the median church size is only about 75 people, and nearly all of them can fit more in the pews, and would love to do so. So why don’t more churches merge, and increase their numbers that way? Mostly because of doctrinal disagreements. Many congregants are simply searching for what they like or enjoy, but in general the leaders have some degree of conviction about what is true, acceptable worship, God’s plan for salvation, and many other related things. When these ideas don’t line up, the result is division.
We should all be seeking to worship as God commands. The example of Nadab and Abihu is enough to drive that lesson home: “And fire came out from before the Lord and consumed them, and they died before the Lord” (Le 10.2). What was their offense? They “offered unauthorized fire before the Lord, which he had not commanded them” (v1). Additionally, as is evident from the passage above in Galatians, a major mistake in our understanding of the gospel can have catastrophic effects, up to and including being “severed from Christ” (Ga 5.4). Clearly, then, we need to find churches that both preach and practice God’s word, not the ideas or commandments of men. We need to find churches that are sound.
That word isn’t used of churches in the Bible; in fact, it’s hardly used as as adjective at all! But around the time the church had grown enough to face serious struggles with division on a large scale, suddenly it pops up nine times in Paul’s letters to Timothy and Titus, describing people’s faith, and more importantly the teachings they promote. For example, he tells Timothy,
the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions, and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander off into myths. (2 Timothy 4.3-4)
Yet even though Paul had written numerous letters to numerous churches telling them they were wrong about numerous doctrines, behaviors, and attitudes, he never writes any churches off as having wandered entirely away from the faith, aside from the Galatians. How can it be that churches who tolerated rampant sexual immorality, racial bigotry, selfish ambition, divisive behavior, loafing and mooching, rules not imposed by God, and more—how can they be considered sound? These churches, for all their problems, are still treated as if they’re basically on the right path, or just in need of a slight redirection to bring things back into line. But the reason isn’t that all their flaws were acceptable; it’s that they didn’t fully know better, yet. When the Apostle clears up any doubt, they have a responsibility to shape up. What would have been the result, if they’d refused? Jesus later told one of them, the church at Ephesus, “I will come to you and remove your lampstand from its place, unless you repent” (Re 2.5). The lampstand represented the church itself in the preceding verses, so it’s clear Jesus means that at present it’s a legitimate church, but if they do not repent they will cease to be his body—no longer recognized before God.
Today, there are no living apostles to tell us new revelations from God or make binding decisions about the church and its work. Instead, we all are responsible to the words already revealed by Jesus and his apostles in the New Testament. No congregation will be entirely free of problems until we’re all joined in one body to our head, Jesus, at his return to this earth. But a sound congregation is one that continuously learns God’s will, revealed to us in his Word, and obeys even if it means making drastic changes to preferred beliefs, doctrines, and practices.
Most of the churches you see around any town don’t look much like the church of the first century. They’re filled from end to end with man-made doctrines and practices that seemed like good ideas when they began, but are much like the “unauthorized fire” that Nadab and Abihu used in their worship, which offended God not because it was so obviously contradictory to his prohibitions, but because “he had not commanded them” to worship in that way. What can you do, if you discover upon comparison with the pattern in the New Testament, that your church is violating God’s instructions, or adding its own atop them? The answer isn’t always as simple as we’d like, but the first step should be to inform them! Perhaps it is a sound church, and will correct its course to fall in line with God’s will, not man’s. If not, then you must ask yourself: will I hitch myself to group whose lampstand Jesus has removed from it’s place? This isn’t an excuse to church-hop or church-shop, or to build your own church that consists of you and your immediate family. Occasionally, the best you can do is worship with a group that does some things you can’t do in good conscience, but discuss the issue openly and clearly abstain from those things. Other times, the best you can do is move on and look for the New Testament church elsewhere. Examine your own conscience and motivations, and give yourself first to the Lord; and then to his church.
Jeremy Nettles
