A Better Covenant

I think I have finally realized something, that will now put me in a very flaky category with many but that is okay also. I won’t preface what I believe because I think that has been clear by my statement of faith which could easily be defined by Romans 3:21-27 and 1 Corinthians 15 with a dash of monergistic salvation.

So I want to say this and this may change tomorrow but it is at least food for thought. That is if we “must” do something, then that “must” has to be aligned with scripture. You see I used to get confuse about all the fuss on paedo/credo baptism. But now I think I get the argument. If we “must” baptize which I believe the bible says there is a right and wrong way of doing it. But this opens up Pandora’s box for me. Why? Because I am a blog follower and avid book reader and what I am starting to see is. Most of these authors and bloggers ain’t leaving room for flexibility. Most are very dogmatic as it comes to certain things which I will list below. But truth be told they should be. Why? Because if these things are must, then they “must” be done the right way. In steps the proverbial problem. So lets look at some things together.

1. If we must be a member of a church, then that church should function as biblically as possible. With 24K known denominations you know we got serious problems in that area.

2. If we must have leadership, then that leadership must reflect the biblical model. So either plurality, Senior pastor, blended leadership with a senior elder, senior pastor/deacon. Presbyterian, Episcopalian, Methodist or neither are right. We just can’t say the bible is flexible on this but we must have them. That is like a doctor telling you, that you will die and you need some medicine but their is flexibility in what you take. Either one of them are right or none of them are right and if you tell a Christian that must submit to leadership that leadership “must” be biblical.

3. The Lord’s Table. Many of my Reformed Brothers are big on the Lord’s Supper, Communion or whatever you want to call it these days. So if we must do this, and some believe God is present in the partaking of the table, then it must be done as biblical as possible. I don’t believe a thimble of juice and an oyster cracker is sufficient. But I will leave that open to debate.

4. Church discipline. If we are to discipline than we must discipline as biblically as possible. Once again if we make this a must there should be consensus on how God wants this done. So we don’t even know how to do what we must do. Some feel that leaders are responsible others feel that the whole church is to know (I agree with the latter)

5. Women in ministry. Now this is a huge one. Most evangelically conservative churches agree that women should not be in “authority” (whatever that means) in the church and nor should they teach. The problem is teaching in one church is not teaching in another and authority in one church isn’t authority in another. So we have glaring inconsistencies though we are clear that we all agree on 1 Timothy 2-3. This can’t be right. Somebody is in sin for allowing a “woman” to do something she shouldn’t be doing and is causing or condoning her sin also. Should she be a worship leader, new members director, deacon, can she teach men on finances or counsel men (with their wives hopefully)? The inconsistencies across the board on this are alarming indeed.

6. Some will tell me that Christ died for the local church to be established also. If that is the case what should that look like? How should the local church function? How should they not function? Should we court the attendance of non-believers. Should we focus more on the believers? How about leaders again. Are we a church only if we agree with Calvin? You know, sacraments faithfully administered, biblical leaders, the word faithfully taught (whatever that means)? Or can we be like some guys I know that meet over coffee?

7. Then what about worship? Can I have nonbelievers playing in my worship band? Should we sing certain songs while others are not acceptable? What is acceptable? Should we have worship leaders or those who facilitate worship? Should we have choirs or worship teams? Not again if we must do worship, then shouldn’t we do it the way the bible describes it? Though many will say that they are it is radical inconsistencies between parties.

8. Finally I will leave with teaching! Now we all agree we “must” teach. But then some feel that expository preaching is the only way. Others believe it should be interactive. Some say preaching is logic on fire. Can we have a 15 minute pep talk with 30 minutes of worship and 15 minutes of announcements? Should we have 45-1hour preaching with all of the seminary homiletics employed?

I am not being mordant here, I am saying again if cans are musts then musts have musts.