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 Is
the local church a divinely instituted organization — God’s
plan for the collective action of saints? Is it, when a
plurality of saints makes it possible, a relationship of saints
and means of functioning that is God authorized and bound upon
all who would follow the precepts and approved examples of the
New Testament? Yes, Yes!! We have repeatedly offered scriptures
for these affirmations.
Now
some seem to have made it a special project to belittle the
local church — going much further than correction of abuses,
and misuses of terminology. Some of the attack upon a “church
treasury” (and they almost spit when they say it) is
fundamentally an attack upon the whole idea of collective, or
“church” action. We have long fought “churchanity” as
opposed to Christianity, and plan to continue this battle. But
we are far from rejecting the local church as a God — approved
organized entity.
We
like the way it was put in the Aug. 24, ’61 issue of the
Gospel Guardian — a five page article called “How Churches
Work Together — Christian Church Style.” Note a few quotes.
“How
similarly do many brethren today dispose of the local church as
nothing more than just one of several means Christians may use
to do spiritual work!” (There follows a quote from a ‘59
A.C.C. lecture brochure —).
Then,
“So, according to our brethren who conduct these lectures, the
local church is nothing more than one of the many ways to get
the job done; not a mandatory, God ordained cooperative of his
chosen people,
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but only an expedient, and that on the
level of those devices of man’s ingenuity. Shades of the
Christian church!”
On
the next page, “Men need to realize that the independent
action of each congregation is the direct result of God’s
wisdom and planning; they need to realize that the local church
is God’s ordained instrumentality and is the most efficient,
practical, and productive organic structure capable of being
devised. If there were a more proficient, practical, and
productive organization capable of doing the work God wanted
done, God would have devised it and set it in motion by his
word.
And
in the next column, “How to work together will never be a
problem for people who let God do their thinking for them
through his Word; who submit their wills in complete subjection
to the will of the Lord. People who feel intensely responsible
to God for their conduct will not be quick to exalt their wisdom
above the wisdom of him to whom we all shall give account in
judgement. The Lord demonstrated his wisdom in setting forth the
congregation in each locality to be the unit of “working
together.” The local church is God’s cooperative through
which combined energies of many individuals produce to the glory
of God. But to form cooperative agencies larger than, smaller
than, other than, or to form cooperatives consisting of God’s
cooperatives (the local church) is wholly without scriptural
precedent of any type or form from God’s Word.”
The
author? Bro. Harold Spurlock
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