Issues Facing Missions Today: 56. When Wolves Come Among You: Paul’s Speech to the Ephesian Elders

Issues Facing Missions Today: 56. When Wolves Come Among You: Paul’s Speech to the Ephesian Elders

[This post continues New Testament studies on false teaching and ministry in the Church.  Such studies are relevant for understanding mission as Church renewal, which is a particular need in the Church's mission to the West (but not only there) in our time.] 

Introduction

If there was one certainty the early Church had about its future, it was that it would be plagued by persecution from without and false teaching from within.  Jesus, himself, was crucified by the Roman and Jewish leaders and betrayed by Judas, and he warned of false prophets who would arise as wolves in sheep’s clothing (Matthew 7.15).  Even persons intimately involved in ministry could be false ministers:

Matthew 7:21-23 "Not everyone who says to me, 'Lord, Lord,' will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father in heaven.  ²² On that day many will say to me, 'Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many deeds of power in your name?'  ²³ Then I will declare to them, 'I never knew you; go away from me, you evildoers.'

Paul also warned of savage wolves preying on the Church.  His final address to the elders of the church of Ephesus is a somber warning of this very thing.  He tells them to be on guard for the divisions that will arise in the Church because of false ministers and their false teachings.  This post looks at Paul’s speech to the Ephesian elders in Acts 20.18-35.

Not all divisive issues are of equal importance.  Matters of indifference in the early Church entailed differences over food, drink, circumcision, and days of religious observance (e.g., Galatians 6:15; 1 Corinthians 7.9; 8.1-10.31; Romans 14.1-15.13).  More significant matters were matters essential to Christian faith and to salvation.  For example, Paul began ministry to new converts with teaching on sexual ethics, communal love, and living a quiet life in society (1 Thessalonians 4.1-8, 9-10, 11-12).

Paul’s warning to the Ephesian elders is not over matters of indifference in the church.  He speaks to several kinds of issues, which we might categorize as ministerial and convictional issues.

Ministerial Issues

Paul contrasts the nature of his ministry with false ministers on a number of points.

            Humility, Meekness, Gentleness

Paul emphasizes that his ministry was conducted in humility (Acts 20.19).  This is an issue that had arisen earlier in his ministry as he encountered pretentious ministers who had arrived in Corinth.  These ‘super apostles’ tried to minister out of their personal authority rather than the authority of the Gospel (2 Corinthians 10-12).  Over against such ministers, Paul set before the Corinthian church the ministerial conduct of Christ himself.  They may have been perfectly acceptable to the Corinthian church because they fit rather well into the pattern of travelling orators in the Graeco-Roman world.  However, Paul sets over against them the ‘meekness and gentleness of Christ’ (2 Corinthians 10.1).  Indeed, he sought to model his own conduct after Christ, being humble and yet destroying ‘every proud obstacle raised up against the knowledge of God’ (2 Corinthians 10.1, 4-5).  His ministry was gentle, like the care given to children (1 Thessalonians 2.7)—a gentleness that, nevertheless, corrects others out of love for them.

            Financial Independence

Paul realized that, in his case, financial independence in ministry was important.  He recognized his right to be paid for ministry (1 Corinthians 9.1-18), yet he saw that remuneration could be construed in such a way that it would be an obstacle to his ministry.  Rather than being a means to some personal gain, he wanted the ministry to be understood as an obligation laid upon him (1 Corinthians 9.16).  Nor did he want anyone to be able to accuse him of coveting what others had:

Acts 20:33-34 I coveted no one's silver or gold or clothing.  ³⁴ You know for yourselves that I worked with my own hands to support myself and my companions.

This same issue arises in various ways in the Church today.  Where salaries, medical benefits, pensions, manses, mission support, and other benefits offered to ministers create a dependency that leads to some compromise of the Gospel, the situation is comparable to Paul’s.  How easy it is for a minister to look the other way when an elder in the church needs correction because the same elder is determining the minister’s salary.  How easy it may be for a minister or bishop to compromise the Gospel when a heretical church or compromised archbishop offers money along with political, moral, or doctrinal changes contrary to Scripture.  Thus, Paul reminds the elders in Ephesus that his ministry among them was self-supported and therefore untainted (Acts 20.33-34).

Paul also saw his own work to support his ministry as a way to model work for the Christian community.  As community could lead to dependency relationships, where some persons benefit from the gifts and labours of others, Paul wanted to offer an alternative arrangement.  He wanted to provide the example of service instead of dependency, where able-bodied persons worked to support the weak.  He said to the Ephesians,

Acts 20:34-35 You know for yourselves that I worked with my own hands to support myself and my companions.  ³⁵ In all this I have given you an example that by such work we must support the weak, remembering the words of the Lord Jesus, for he himself said, 'It is more blessed to give than to receive.'"

            Pastoral Correction, with Tears

Financial independence gave Paul freedom to correct persons, which was essential for a ministry of the Gospel.  Proclamation of the Gospel called people to change their lives—their beliefs and behaviours—in significant ways.  Ministry was not and should not be passive, conducted only by invitation, or entail a softening of the truth.  It is still confrontational even if done with humility and gentleness, with sincerity and conviction and out of love and caring concern.  Paul said to the Thessalonians that he and those ministering with him ‘made demands as apostles of Christ’ (1 Thessalonians 2.7).  The minister must guard against any distortion of the truth in order to gain people’s favour.  Paul says,

Acts 20:30-31 Some even from your own group will come distorting the truth in order to entice the disciples to follow them.  ³¹ Therefore be alert, remembering that for three years I did not cease night or day to warn everyone with tears.

Paul’s compassion and desire for fellowship with the church did not cause him to soften the Gospel; rather, it led him to tears in admonishing persons to receive Christ and transform their ways.  He said to the Thessalonian church,

1 Thessalonians 2:11-12  As you know, we dealt with each one of you like a father with his children,  ¹² urging and encouraging you and pleading that you lead a life worthy of God, who calls you into his own kingdom and glory.

Paul’s compassion for the church is also seen in his direct involvement in their lives.  He does not simply want to write them letters, but he prays to be present with them in order to ‘restore whatever is lacking in your faith’ (1 Thessalonians 3.10).  Indeed, his presence in ministry was not to affirm communal unity in itself but in order to have such unity through his sharing the spiritual gift of his ministry among them (Romans 1.10).  His ministry involved preparing Christians to be an acceptable and sanctified offering to God (Romans 15.16).

Thus, Paul reminds the Ephesian elders that he had ministered among them in just these ways.  He never distorted the truth, as some false ministers would inevitably do among them (Acts 20.30).  Nor did he tell half the truth so as to avoid any conflict or to pander to what ‘itching ears’ wanted to hear (cf. 2 Timothy 4.3).  Rather, he says, ‘I did not shrink from declaring to you the whole purpose of God’ (Acts 20.27).

            Life-on-Life Ministry

Paul understood how essential ministry in person was.  While he did minister in public settings, he also ministered from house to house (Acts 20.20).  His ministry among the Galatians took place through intimate fellowship, which appears to be why God used some infirmity of his to draw people into close relationships (Galatians 4.13-15).  The closeness of this relationship did not, however, lead Paul to soften the truth that it was his duty to share (Galatians 4.16).  The close relationship was, rather, like that of a mother, who endures the pain of childbirth for her children ‘until Christ is formed in you’ (Galatians 5.19).

Any pastor finding his or her ministry to be more from the pulpit than from around the kitchen table is a minister who has lost touch with the intensely personal calling of pastoral ministry.  Thus, Paul exhorts the Ephesian elders to care for the church of God, which Christ obtained with his own blood (Acts 20.28).  The supreme cost of obtaining the Church—through Christ’s blood—also reminds us of the priceless value of the Church.  No minister can take his or her responsibilities lightly, and no minister can narrow ministry to services and programmes when the Church was established through a very personal, blood sacrifice.

Convictional Issues

Paul’s speech to the Ephesian elders picks up some of the content of the convictions on which ministry is based, the essential teaching that ministers are called to teach.  He mentions (1) repentance toward God, which means that the Church is composed of persons who (a) acknowledge their sins and (b) repent of their sins.  Also, (2) Christian convictions centre on ‘faith in our Lord Jesus Christ’ (Acts 20.21).  Thus, Christian teaching entails trusting in the salvation that God provides in Jesus Christ, the Lord of the Church.  There are no alternative paths of salvation.  As Peter said to the rulers and elders of the Jews,

Acts 4:12 There is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among mortals by which we must be saved."

Further, (3) in this speech Paul spoke of the ‘Gospel of the grace of God’ (Acts 20.24).  God’s grace—His salvation—was a free offer, but it was an offer of life in the kingdom (v. 25), and therefore it involved the offer to submit to the ‘whole counsel of God’ (Acts 20.37).  Only so, could Christ be called ‘Lord.’  Grace was not license, but citizenship, life in the Kingdom of God.  Entrance was free, by the blood of Christ, and yet it was, after all, an entrance into life with Jesus Christ the Lord.  Thus, Paul’s ministry was not only a proclamation of God’s grace but also a declaration of the ‘whole counsel of God’ (Acts 20.37).

The Church, then, is a community that is commended to God and to His grace.  This is an offer of inclusion, whether to Jews or to Gentiles—that is, to everyone who will answer the invitation.  But it is more.  The Church does not merely receive God’s message, for His message is an active Word among them that is able to build them up such that they will receive an inheritance ‘among all who are sanctified’ (Acts 20.32).

Whenever ‘savage wolves’ come among the flock—Paul is saying—they will turn the sheep away from the truth so as to gain followers for themselves (Acts 20.29-30).  They speak twisted things.  Such wolves in the Church regularly devalue Scriptural authority, discount orthodox teaching, and undermine Christian ethics.  It is a pattern regularly repeated since the early days of the Church and one that Paul warned against with tears.  Thus, elders in the Church are to pay attention to their own lives and to the flock in their care.  They are to remember that their ministry is as overseers appointed by the Holy Spirit to shepherd the flock (Acts 20.28).[1]

Conclusion

Acts 20.18-35, Paul’s speech to the Ephesian elders, is a speech about divisions that will inevitably come to the church.  It is an instructive word for the Church today.  We learn, first, that there will be divisions—faultlines—in the Christian community.  The Church is not to labour to smooth over these divisions but to identify them and their causes and to recognize that some in the Church are not shepherds but savage wolves.  The first pastoral duty is to overcome the instinct to find unity where there is serious error.  Only so can one heed Paul’s warning.

Second, error can develop through a harmful understanding of ministry itself.  We can put into effect practices in ministry that will actually harm the people of God.  Paul encourages the Ephesian elders and other churches to affirm humility, meekness, and gentleness rather than power in Christian ministry.  He commends financial arrangements that will not compromise the Gospel and the concern in pastoral ministry to speak the truth rather than what people will want to hear.  The pastor’s heart is not soft towards the truth but towards people, and he or she can only be so by presenting to the flock the whole counsel of God.  The pastor, moreover, is to be in intimate fellowship with the flock, not aloof.  He or she is to be so involved in the lives of the church that he or she visits from house to house and admonishes persons with tears to let Christ be formed in them.  This life-on-life ministry is essential for keeping wolves at bay from the flock that Christ purchased with his own blood.

Paul also warns of the distorted content of the wolves’ teaching.  They will distort and soften the full counsel of God, accommodating the truth to what people wish to hear rather than what God has revealed in His Word.  They thereby undermine the Lordship of Christ while they promote ideas that do not separate the Church from the world but blur the distinction altogether.  We might remember that Paul’s letters to Timothy were written to him in Ephesus, and therefore his warning against false teachers in 2 Timothy is quite relevant to the concern in Paul’s speech in Acts 20.  Paul says to Timothy,

2 Timothy 4:3-4  For the time is coming when people will not put up with sound doctrine, but having itching ears, they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own desires,  ⁴ and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander away to myths.

Paul’s warnings to the church in Ephesus are warnings that the Church in every place and in every age does well to heed.  False ministers and false teaching will come, and Christian unity is not to be misconstrued as finding ways to journey together but in separating from error so that one may remain in the unity that can be found with the Lord Jesus Christ.

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[1] The ESV, NIV, and NRSV punctuate this verse in a way that separates being appointed as overseers from shepherding the church of God.  However, the verse reads naturally as a single thought: the elders are appointed by the Holy Spirit to shepherd the flock: their authority as elders is not in being in a position of elder-leadership but in being responsible shepherds.

Issues Facing the Church: 55. The Seven Demons of the West’s New Tribalism

Issues Facing the Church: 55. The Seven Demons of the West’s New Tribalism

Introduction: The New Tribalism of Western Society

We are already in a post-postmodern society, a society best understood as ‘tribal,’ as I have earlier argued.  To be sure, this tribalism has a particular flavour for Western culture: being politically correct lies at the heart of post-postmodern tribalism.  Abundant examples of this can now be given for society at large—such as the latest regulations, with fines applied, regarding the ‘correct’ terminology to use for the self-identity of sexually confused persons.[1]  But how does this new culture create a new understanding of ‘orthodoxy’ and ‘heresy’ within the Church at large?

In the pre-Modernist (pre-mid-17^th century) and Modernist (Enlightenment, post-mid-17^th – 20^th centuries) periods in Western society, when the notion of ‘truth’ was still defined in terms of objective reality, heresy was a matter of denying official, orthodox teaching.  That official teaching might have been described in terms of authoritative documents (such as Scripture), authorities (such as the Church—or some denomination), or—in the case of the university and the increasingly secular society—objective research through scientific disciplines.

For both good and ill, postmodernity challenged certain established authorities.  Who is to say that the Encyclopedia Britannica was more authoritative than, say, Facebook?  Postmodernity functioned to deconstruct the established authorities that allowed an objective description of truth and reality.  This effectively called into question the very concept of ‘heresy’—and we saw a variety of ways this deconstruction was administered.  It could be accomplished in the simple enough challenge of how to ‘do church’ and turn away from denominations to the independent, mega-church of the 1980s to today.  It could also be seen in the subversive writings of someone like Bart Ehrman, who is one of the champions of deconstruction of Christian faith through distortions in scholarship.

But postmodernity has now given way to a new tribalism in Western society.  This shift from deconstruction to new tribalism reminds the writer of Jesus’ warning:

Luke 11:24-26 "When the unclean spirit has gone out of a person, it wanders through waterless regions looking for a resting place, but not finding any, it says, 'I will return to my house from which I came.'  ²⁵ When it comes, it finds it swept and put in order.  ²⁶ Then it goes and brings seven other spirits more evil than itself, and they enter and live there; and the last state of that person is worse than the first."

The Seven Spirits of the New Tribalism—With Thanks to Archbishop Welby

If we have cleaned out the unclean spirit of Modernism through postmodern deconstruction, we are now beginning to identify the ‘seven other spirits’ of the new tribalism in Western culture.  Heresy is no longer understood as a denial of some objective orthodoxy but is now any affirmation of objective truth.  If ‘unity’ used to mean the confession of a common faith and following apostolically established practices and convictions, it now means acceptance of diverse faiths and endorsing alternative practices.  The Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, has recently and helpfully (although unwittingly, it seems) identified some of the clichés used to obfuscate objective truths in the interest of introducing ‘new spirits.’  Welby lists the following clichés heard in mainline denominations exploring their unorthodox unity:

 "There is a lot to do although we have journeyed far; what unites us is more than what divides us; our common history tells us . . . whatever; real unity is invisible; what we need is a new Committee."^[2]

These clichés help us to identify the demons of New Tribalism.

1.     The Demon of Communal Authority: Tribalism affirms the authority of the community making decisions, not the authority in some more objective entity, such as Scripture, orthodox Christian teaching, or scientific enquiry of ‘reality.’  Tribalism locates authority in the social groups that have come to dominate the culture.  ‘Reality’ is not objective; it is negotiable and subject to being defined by dominant groups.  The dominant groups can either be a majority or a powerful minority, enforcing its perspective on others.

2.     The Demon of Socially-Constructed Reality: In such a situation, the focus comes to rest on perceived or socially constructed realities rather than reality itself, on common activities rather than convictions, and communal processes rather than careful interpretation of authoritative texts and orthodoxies.  Thus, people can enthusiastically speak of what they do together rather than what they believe, or that they ‘journey together’ rather than hope to persuade others of the truth.

3.     The Demon of Marginalising Convictions: Another example of how the new tribalism of Western society functions is in the cliché ‘what unites us is more than what divides us.’  This is a way of demoting what used to be considered truths or facts in an earlier age by giving them a certain value that is determined simply by the executive authority of those controlling the dialogue.  A good example of this is in how President Barack Obama has simply refused to enforce certain laws.  It is one thing for a legislature to pass laws but quite another for a President to marginalise these laws, giving them a peripheral value at best and simply not applying them.  In the same way, past convictions of the Church are now being demoted in mainline denominations to the periphery and, ultimately, deposited on the rubbish heap of irrelevant rules.  This takes place, in the new tribalism, through a social process: what ‘we’ decide should unite us rather than divide us.  It is not the objective truth of a conviction held by the Church but the value some group places on the conviction that determines the group’s practices.

4.     The Demon of Relational History: Further, Welby reminds us of the phrase, ‘our common history….’  This phrase has no relationship to the authority of an orthodox Church’s history, as though Church history matters.  It rather has to do with the social history of a people—quite likely the present people in a relationship.  Such a reconstruction of Ecclesiology makes division impossible, since the mere fact of relationships disallows division over essential doctrine and ethics.

5.     The Demon of Invisible Unity: The phrase, ‘real unity is invisible’[3] is a way of renouncing the possibility of disunity.  If one group breaks fellowship with another group over its convictions, proponents of this cliché can refuse to accept that the disunity is real.  This is similar to Roland Barthes’ (a French philosopher, 1915-1980) suggestion that reading is not about gaining knowledge from the author but entails the playfulness of readers.  Barthes begins The Pleasure of the Text by laying out a challenge to objective truth and therefore of unity in truth: [4]

Imagine someone … who abolishes within himself all barriers, all classes, all exclusions, not by syncretism but by simple discard of that old specter: logical contradiction; who mixes every language, even those said to be incompatible; who silently accepts every charge of illogicality, of incongruity; who remains passive in the face of Socratic irony (leading the interlocutor to the supreme disgrace: self-contradiction) and legal terrorism (how much penal evidence is based on a psychology of consistency!).  Such a man would be the mockery of our society: court, school, asylum, polite conversation would cast him out: who endures contradiction without shame? … the Biblical myth is reversed, the confusion of tongues is no longer punishment, the subject gains access to bliss by cohabitation of languages working side by side: the text of pleasure is a sanctioned Babel.

Barthes’ suggestions may have seemed an outlandish attack on truth even in non-Christian circles in the 1970s; they are, however, fairly descriptive of many in Western, mainline denominations today.  Welby’s own approach to maintaining ‘unity’ could have been taken from the pages of Barthes’ writings.

6.     The Demon of Dialogue: Relatedly, then, the practice of forming a committee for constant dialogue on issues on which the Church once had clear convictions demonstrates the playfulness towards doctrine a Barthesque philosophy has.  The Zhulu and Xhosa tribes use the term ‘indaba’ to describe an important conference of tribal elders.  Traditionally, the purpose was to come to an agreed decision on important matters.  However, the adoption of this approach—suggested first by Archbishop Rowan Williams in 2008—became a way to focus on dialogue more than coming to decisions.  The focus came to be on the social dimensions of the process rather than on conclusions.  The term ‘indaba’ is, nonetheless, appropriate for the new tribalism of Western society as it is, after all, a tribal process.  There is not an approach to doctrine through ‘right’ interpretation of authoritative texts.  There is considerable disinterest in the convictions held by the Church through the centuries.  Rather, the focus on the present persons engaged in fellowship and dialogue becomes the new process for enquiry itself.

7.     The Demon of Sexual Confusions: Finally, the specific issue dividing the Church today functions as the ‘seventh demon’ of the West’s new Tribalism: sexual confusions.  Opposition to the Creator’s intention for marriage and sex lies at the heart of a social revolution in Western society.  With no ground in nature and design, sex is disassociated from procreation between a man and a woman in marital union and is now considered a means to pleasure in any relationship.  Sexual pleasure stands at the heart of relationships rather than in a male-female marital covenant, commitment, and contract.  Tribes exercise social constraints on relationships rather than any oath, although traditionally the two went together.  The West’s new tribalism, however, downplays oath-taking and discards any concept of a ‘right’ relationship.  Relationship per se is the new focus, with sexual encounter defining the intensity of the relationship.  This is thoroughly unbiblical and non-Christian.  That this view is embraced in the West’s mainline denominations shows just how possessed they are by the demons of Western culture.

Conclusion

Thus, Anglican Archbishop Justin Welby’s address to the heretical Church of Scotland, which has voted to affirm same-sex marriages for its ministers, helps us to identify the seven spirits of the West’s new tribalism.  Sadly, he does so in an affirming way.  He locates ecclesiastical unity in witness to Christ [an empty statement in this context if ever there were one] and a political, historical, economic, global, and communal unity.  In other words, ‘unity’ is understood relationally and socially—a feature of tribalism.  One wonders if Welby is so much a creature of the new tribalism of Western culture that he simply does not notice the absence of any concern for unity through obedience to the Scriptures and through what all the Church has always taught everywhere—St. Vincent of Lerins’ definition of orthodoxy from the 5^th century.  Or, more sinisterly, is he Roland Barthes’ man who ‘abolishes within himself all barriers’?

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[1] See ’29 New Words for Deviance You Can Be Fined $250,000 for Not Using in New York City,’ online: https://www.lifesitenews.com/news/29-new-words-for-deviance-you-can-be-fined-250000-for-not-using-in-nyc?utm_source=LifeSiteNews.com+Daily+Newsletter&utm_campaign=37abf9e89b-LifeSiteNews_com_Intl_Headlines_06_19_2013&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_0caba610ac-37abf9e89b-326197606 (accessed 28 May, 2016).

[2] See ‘Archbishop Justin Welby’s Speech to the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland’ (25 May, 2016), online: http://www.virtueonline.org/archbishop-justin-welbys-speech-general-assembly-church-scotland (accessed 28 May, 2016).

[3] The language of real unity being invisible was already engaged in 1919 by Newman Smyth and Williston Walker, Approaches to Christian Unity (New Haven, 1920), p. 56, as a way to permit ministers to work in either Episcopal or Congregationalist contexts.

[4] Roland Barthes, The Pleasure of the Text, trans. Richard Miller (New York: Hill and Wang, 1975), pp. 3-4.

Issues Facing Missions Today: 54. Mission as Church Renewal through a Return to Scriptural Authority

Issues Facing Missions Today: 54. Mission as Church Renewal through a Return to Scriptural Authority

I have recently been writing about mission as Church renewal, particularly as it applies to a mission to the West.  To this end, I have been examining Biblical texts as they address what we might call a theology of unity and division.[1]  Reformation of the Church is, as Protestants in the 16^th century emphasised, accomplished through a constant revision of ecclesiastical errors by returning to the teaching of Scripture.  The Latin phrase, semper reformanda—always reforming—was fundamental for the Reformation—not just ‘a’ reformation but a continual reformation of the Church.  Why?  Because the Church is always prone to error in human hands.  How can the Church be reformed?  By constantly returning to the Scriptures to see where human interpretation has strayed from God’s authoritative Word.

Consider now this.  Yesterday, the Church of Scotland affirmed the ordination of same-sex ministers.[2]  In so doing, it has determined to oppose the clear teaching of Scripture and the consistent witness of the Church throughout the centuries.[3]  Yes, this is the Church of John Knox—the 16^th century preacher who helped to bring the Reformation to the Church of Scotland.  Now, Knox’s Reformation Church has set itself up in opposition to the very Scriptures it once turned to in order to free itself from error.  In so doing, it has plunged itself into such error that the issues of the 16^th century pale in comparison to those of the 21^st century.

At the time of his first public debate (1547), Knox was examined for his views.  His inquisitor continuously stood on the teachings of the Church, whereas Knox called for reform of the Church’s accrued teachings on the basis of Scripture.  In Knox’s words, ‘the spouse of Christ [has] neither power nor authority against the word of God."[4]  His debate partner retorted that, if Scripture were to be allowed to reform the Church, there’d be no Church.  Knox replied, in essence, that there could indeed be a ‘Church’ that was not based on what Scripture teaches, but such a Church would not have Jesus Christ as its pastor as it would be a Church that refused to hear His voice.

Now, nearly 500 years later, Knox’s own Church has voted to have a Church without Christ as its pastor because it is refusing to hear His voice in the Scriptures.  The Church of Scotland, mind, has been in free-fall for a number of years.  David Robertson reported the following statistics for the old Kirk in Christianity Today last year:[5]

	2004	2014	Decline
Membership	535,834	380,163	-155,671
Baptisms	7,745	5,147	-2,598
Elders	41,621	32,834	-8,787
Professions of Faith	2,661	1,273	-1,388

We might, for that matter, note that the American daughter church of the Church of Scotland, the Presbyterian Church, USA, has also jettisoned Scriptural authority in favour of cultural relativity.  It, too, has recently determined on its own authority that Biblical teaching on sin needs to be repudiated.  It, too, has chosen to take its convictions not from Scripture or the Church’s continuous witness but from culture.[6]  It, too, has seen steady decline in Church membership as orthodox believers and churches have fled to other denominations, especially the newer Presbyterian denominations (the Presbyterian Church in America, the Evangelical Presbyterian Church, and now the Evangelical Covenant Order).  As reported in The Layman, membership decline in the PCUSA is as dismal as that of the Church of Scotland:[7]

  

Year	Total	Change	% Change
2005	2,313,662	-48,474	-2.10%
2006	2,267,118	-46,544	-2.05%
2007	2,209,546	-57,572	-2.61%
2008	2,140,165	-69,381	-3.24%
2009	2,077,138	-63,027	-3.03%
2010	2,016,091	-61,047	-3.03%
2011	1,952,287	-63,804	-3.29%
2012	1,849,496	-102,791	-5.26%
2013	1,760,200	-89,296	-4.83%
2014	1,667,767	-92,433	-5.54%

  

The real story of these once thriving Christian Churches is not that this or that denomination has changed its mind on an issue that has always been taught in Scripture and the Church.  Rather, the real story is that so many Christians have left the particular denomination because of its increasingly unbiblical teaching that the heretical minority has become the majority.  One can only wonder what other core convictions will be forsaken as the Church of Scotland and the PCUSA—and similar denominations—continue to lose members to other, orthodox denominations.

As for John Knox, there is no question whatsoever that the very founder of the Church of Scotland would today be the loudest critic of the mainline Presbyterian denominations that his reform efforts founded.  He would critique them on the very same grounds that he once called for reform in his own day.  Orthodoxy—what all Christians have always taught everywhere[8]—is only possible when what Christians teach is the unchanging revelation of God in Scripture.  As we limp our way to the 500^th anniversary of the Reformation (1517),[9] we are once again in need of that other reforming principle of Protestants in the 16^th century: sola Scriptura.  Denominations that have lost this principle have, not surprisingly, lost their essential means for continuous renewal of the Church.

As John Knox said (to paraphrase), ‘You can have your Church without Christ as its pastor, refusing to hear his Word.’  But a mission of Church renewal requires an authority for such renewal, and that authority is none other than the Word of God.  Mission as Church renewal in the West will be a reforming movement based on Biblical authority and teaching.  Sometimes that ministry of renewal will be conducted within a dying denomination (since not all believers leave these organizations--and sometimes they stay precisely because they have an opportunity to proclaim the Gospel in them).  At other times, the ministry of the Church will move to healthier denominations.  While the light of God’s revelation in Scripture flickers and is finally snuffed out in certain denominations, the flame of God’s Word will catch light and burn brightly in other places.

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[1] One will never understand Church unity without also understanding the appropriate time for Church division.

[2] ‘Church of Scotland Votes to Allow Ministers to be in Same-Sex Marriages,’ The Guardian (21 May 2016); online at: http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2016/may/21/church-of-scotland-ministers-same-sex-marriages (accessed 21 May, 2016).

[3] For this argument, see S. Donald Fortson and Rollin G. Grams, Unchanging Witness: The Consistent Christian Teaching on Homosexuality in Scripture and Tradition (Knoxville: B&H Academic, 2016).

[4] As quoted by Peter Lorimer, John Knox and the Church of England: His Work in Her Pulpit and His Influence on Her Liturgy, Articles, and Parties (London: Henry S. King & Co., 1875), p. 9.  This is from Knox’s first public debate in 1547.

[5] David Robertson, ‘Is the Church of Scotland in Terminal Decline?,’ Christianity Today (20 April, 2015); online at http://www.christiantoday.com/article/is.the.church.of.scotland.in.terminal.decline/52437.htm (accessed 22 May, 2016).

[6] The most prominent example of this is the PCUSA’s 221^st General Assembly’s affirmation in 2014 of same-sex marriage.  See online: http://oga.pcusa.org/section/ga/ga221/ga221-marriage/.

[7] ‘PCUSA Continues Membership Decline 92,433 Members Gone in 2014,’ The Layman (13 May, 2014).  Online: http://www.layman.org/pcusa-continues-membership-decline-92433-members-gone-in-2014/ (accessed 22 May, 2014).  The mainline Presbyterian Church (in its northern and southern church bodies until 1983, when a merger took place), has been in decline in membership since 1965.  This story is typical of other mainline denominations in the West.

[8] This is the definition for orthodoxy given by St. Vincent of Lerins in the 5^th century.  His point was that the Church’s orthodox teaching by all, everywhere, and always was its teaching of Scripture.  He was not advocating a teaching of the Church on its own authority.  The test for whether the Church has correctly interpreted Scripture, rather, was the test of unanimous interpretation.

[9] 1517 was the year when Martin Luther posted 95 theses to the door of the church in Wittenberg.  The theses called for reform within the Roman Catholic Church of his day.  This began the Protestant Reformation in Europe.