Theology Central

God did not create human beings to suffer or die. Nothing in the Bible teaches that pain had any place in the world God made. God fashioned humanity, both male and female, as part of His good creation. He gave them His blessing. He put them in a place of shelter and provision. He understood and provided everything that was good for them.

In return, He required only one thing: that Adam, and later Eve, would not eat of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and bad. Why this restriction? Surely not because anything was wrong with the tree or its fruit! The Bible observes that, “the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one wise” (Gen 3:6). No, the problem lay in the meaning of the eating. For Adam to eat of the fruit of the tree would signify that he was rejecting God’s judgment of the good and seizing the right to judge what was good (or bad) for himself. For Adam to seize this right could only mean that he saw the Creator as untrustworthy. It would constitute a declaration of independence from the true and living God.

God is the source of all life. Anything that lives derives its life from Him. To declare independence of the Creator is to separate one’s self from life. No wonder that God warned that the penalty for disobedience would be death. God’s threat was no curmudgeonly wish to deny Adam a legitimate pleasure. Instead, it was fair warning against a penalty that would be both a judicial condemnation for and a natural consequence of Adam’s disobedience.

In the end, Adam and Eve allowed the whisperings of the tempter to outweigh the command of God. They ate the fruit, expecting to become wise and to know good and bad for themselves. It was a wretched choice. They gained nothing good. The only part of the tempter’s promises that they actually experienced was a direct and personal knowledge of the bad.

Every aspect of their being was corrupted by their choice. They could no longer enjoy direct and easy communion with God; instead, they fled from His presence (Gen 3:7-11). They began to view each other as competitors, leading to suspicion and the potential for abuse (Gen 3:12, 16). With the sentence of death arose the beginning of human pain (Gen 3:15-16). The created order was cursed and altered so that it no longer functioned according to its intended purpose; a destructive element was introduced (Gen 3:17-18). Sorrow, pain, and hard labor became part of the human experience (Gen 3:17-18).

A couple of conclusions can be drawn from Genesis 3. First, the death penalty that God pronounced upon Adam worked at more than one level. The sentence clearly involved more than the death of the body. The judgment of Genesis 3 weaves several concepts together. These include alienation from God, alienation between humans, the corruption of human moral nature, the disordering of the created world, and the introduction of suffering and hard labor to human experience.

Second, all of these calamities began with the fall. None of them existed before that time. All were imposed because of Adam’s sin. They were either the penalty for or the outgrowth of human disobedience. If Adam had not eaten the fruit, then none of these bad things would have happened. Creation would not have been spoiled. We would not grow jealous or suspicious. We would never see each other as enemies. We would not experience grief, pain, hardship, or death. Most of all, we would enjoy God’s blessing as we walked with him in transparent trust.

The moralistic principle, which sees every calamity as the result of specific sin, is mistaken and unbiblical. The Bible does not permit us to infer that those who suffer are necessarily being punished for vice, just as it does not permit us to infer that those who rejoice are necessarily being rewarded for virtue. Some people (infants, for example) experience pain and death, even though they have never committed any personal sins. Neither prosperity nor suffering is proportioned to present righteousness.

On April 12, 2019, Emmanuel Deshawn Aranda seized a five-year-old boy—a perfect stranger—and threw him from a third-story balcony at the Mall of America. By his own admission Aranda intended to murder the child, who suffered broken arms and legs in addition to massive head trauma. Amazingly, the boy survived. When we ask why a child should have to endure such horrors, one of the crassest possible answers is that he was somehow a worse person than his assailant. This child was not being punished for his sins.

Even so, every instance of human suffering stems from Adam’s wretched choice. Adam’s revolt was what made Emmanuel Aranda’s hate possible. It was what brought pain into the world, from the garden of Eden all the way down to the Mall of America. Every bit of human trauma, anxiety, contempt, alienation, grief, torment, and death can be traced to that fateful choice. We suffer because our first father brought sin into the world, and with sin came death.

If we are at all thoughtful we have to ask, “How can this be fair? How can God force all humans to suffer because of something (however wrong) that Adam did?” The writers of the Bible were aware of that question. The Bible provides the answer.

This essay is by Kevin T. Bauder, Research Professor of Historical and Systematic Theology at Central Baptist Theological Seminary. Not every one of the professors, students, or alumni of Central Seminary necessarily agrees with every opinion that it expresses.

Backward with Humble Shame We Look

Isaac Watts (1674–1748)

Backward with humble shame we look,
On our original;
How is our nature dash’d and broke
In our first father’s fall!

To all that’s good, averse and blind,
But prone to all that’s ill;
What dreadful darkness veils our mind!
How obstinate our will!

How strong in our degenerate blood,
The old corruption reigns,
And, mingling with the crooked flood,
Wanders through all our veins!

Wild and unwholesome as the root
Will all the branches be;
How can we hope for living fruit
From such a deadly tree?

What mortal power from things unclean,
Can pure productions bring?
Who can command a vital stream
From an infected spring?

Yet, mighty God, thy wondrous love
Can make our nature clean,
While Christ and grace prevail above
The tempter, death, and sin.

The second Adam shall restore
The ruins of the first,
Hosanna to that sovereign power
That new-creates our dust!

Human suffering is universal. We all feel pain. We ought to expect it, but usually we don’t. When suffering intrudes, we default to self-pity. Rather than saying, “It’s my turn,” we ask, “Why me?”

Perhaps we ought to remember why people suffer at all. We should recall that God did not hardwire our affliction into the original creation. The early chapters of Genesis include two accounts of creation, the second of which retells a part of the story from the first. In the first narrative (Gen 1:1-2:4) God creates the entire world in six days, resting on the seventh. As He creates, he repeatedly pronounces His creation to be good (Gen 1:4, 10, 12, 18, 21, 25, 31). The seventh time He pronounces it very good (Gen 1:31). This sevenfold declaration underlines the goodness of creation in its completeness and perfection.

In this context, the word good (Hebrew tov) has the idea of useful or beneficial. The goodness of the created world consisted in its utility. Of course, God did not need to tell time by sun, moon, and stars (Gen 1:14-19). God did not need to eat fruit, seeds, and leafy green vegetables (Gen 1:29-30). Who did need these things? The answer is that humans, the apex of God’s creation, did. God made a world in which humans could thrive.

Furthermore, God placed His blessing upon the human race (Gen 1:28). Under God’s blessing humans were meant to be fruitful, to multiply and fill the earth, to subdue it (a strong term, as its use in Esther 7:8 shows) and to rule over God’s creation in the world. Just as God had ordered creation previously, humans made in God’s image were to continue bringing order to the created world.

In this good creation, under God’s blessing, the human relationship to God was fundamentally one of trust. Humans did not decide what was good. God did. That is the theme upon which the second creation account expands (Gen. 2:5-24). God created the man and placed him in a garden—a place of shelter and beauty. God furnished the garden with plants and fruit trees. The man was given permission to eat of the fruit of any tree except one: the tree of the knowledge of good and bad (Gen 2:16-17).

Undoubtedly this was a real tree, with leaves, bark, and fruit that could be touched and tasted. It was not a magic tree that would somehow poison the soul. It was, however, a symbolic tree, as its name indicates. It stands for knowing good and bad. Up to this point in the story, only God had said what was good. The man simply received what God knew to be good. For Adam to eat of the fruit of the tree would represent his decision to “know” or determine good and bad for himself. That would be a rejection of the creator’s evaluation of the good in favor of Adam’s own understanding.

In other words, for Adam to eat of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and bad would, in effect, be to declare his independence of God. This act was the worst thing imaginable. It would certainly entail a rejection of God’s good gifts. Worse, it would involve a fundamental distrust of either the Creator’s ability to discern or willingness to provide the good. As an act of distrust, it would indict the very character of God.

God announced that the penalty for transgression was death. The phrase “you shall surely die” does not mean that Adam would die the instant he ate. Rather, it is a Hebrew idiom indicating that Adam would immediately come under sentence of death. How could it be otherwise? God is the source of life. To declare independence of God is to declare independence of life. Death is the only possible result.

The critical question posed by the tree, and by Adam’s probation, is quite simple: Is the Creator trustworthy? Can He be trusted to know and provide what is good? In answer to this question, God for the first time announced that something is not good. Specifically, it was not good for the man to be alone (Gen 2:18). Consequently, God determined to provide the good. First, however, he had to make Adam aware of the deficiency.

God taught Adam this lesson by making some animals and inviting Adam to engage in an exercise of comparative taxonomy (Gen 2:19). As Adam classified the animals he had to compare and contrast them; in the process he must inevitably insert himself into those comparisons and contrasts. As a result, Adam became aware of his own alone-ness. He could find no helper “like him” (Gen 2:20).

At this point God placed the man in a deep sleep, removed a rib, and fashioned it into a woman (Gen 2:21-22). Interestingly, God did not breathe into her the breath of life. Evidently she received her life, not directly from God, but through the man. Humanity is not merely a collection of similar individuals; it is one race enlivened by one life principle. Each individual human being is born as an instance of the same unifying life principle that God first breathed into Adam.

Adam should have understood that the Creator was trustworthy. When God brought the woman to him, his response was to utter the first poem that any human ever composed (Gen 2:23):

This is now bone of my bones,
And flesh of my flesh:
She shall be called Woman,
Because she was taken out of Man.

These words recognize the excellence of the Creator’s gift. Knowing that something was not good,

God made Adam aware of the deficiency. Then God supplied the good in a way and to a degree that Adam could never have imagined. Adam should have known that the Creator could be trusted.

That is the truth that helps to understand how serious the events of Genesis 3 actually were. In the fall, Adam did more than to eat a piece of fruit (though he certainly did that). At a deeper level, he attacked the trustworthy character of the Creator and came under the promised condemnation. The significance of that condemnation, however, will require further explanation.

This essay is by Kevin T. Bauder, Research Professor of Historical and Systematic Theology at Central Baptist Theological Seminary. Not every one of the professors, students, or alumni of Central Seminary necessarily agrees with every opinion that it expresses.

Praise to Thee, Thou Great Creator

John Fawcett (1740–1817)

Praise to thee, thou great Creator;
Praise be thine from every tongue;
Join, my soul, with every creature,
Join the universal song.

Father, source of all compassion,
Free, unbounded grace is thine:
Hail the God of our salvation:
Praise him for his love divine.

For ten thousand blessings given,
For the hope of future joy,
Sound his praise through earth and heaven,
Sound Jehovah’s praise on high.

Joyfully on earth adore him,
Till in heaven our song we raise;
There, enraptured, fall before him,
Lost in wonder, love, and praise.

Last week I began a brief series here in parallel to Kevin Bauder’s “Growing Up Fundamentalist.” Kevin showed how his early interaction with fundamentalism was healthy and uplifting. My early exposure and experience entering into fundamentalism was equally healthy, though I entered into the movement, if it can even be called one, in my late teens. I had scarcely heard of fundamentalism before I went to Bob Jones University. I studied at BJU not because it was a fundamentalist school but because I met a young man who loved God and had a major discipleship role in my life. His purpose was not to make me a fundamentalist but to help me in my personal journey to become a thriving believer. His emphases were not on externals—forms of music, clothing styles, Bible versions, or social taboos. He emphasized a love for God and a commitment to serve Him. He modeled true Christianity to me and was someone I wanted to be like.

In a similar fashion, many of those whom I subsequently met in my days in college were equally interested in my personal growth in godliness. From fellow students to University professors and staff members, God placed men and women in my path to help shape me and direct me into His service. I had many positive experiences at this part of my journey and there were many who helped me along the way. But there were a few challenges. Those who know my story may be tempted to suggest that I am only telling half the story. Indeed, there were some hard relationships and some difficult interactions, but before I say a word about those, let me commend several other individuals who helped on my spiritual pilgrimage.

Perhaps the most influential professor I had at BJU was Mike. I took him for more hours (19 as I recall) than any other professor. He taught me second year Greek, first year Hebrew, Aramaic, and Advanced Old Testament (I took it the only year he taught it!). He had a way of saying things that stuck with me, like saying that he would not make us memorize the sixteen uses of the genitive in Greek. His wife could do that and she didn’t know Greek. One day in Hebrew, someone was laboring over a Hebrew dagesh (a small part of a letter). Mike said off the cuff “Don’t sweat the dagesh!” That became for me a handy phrase when I was struggling—don’t sweat the small stuff!

Our Hebrew exams in his class were brutal. A score of 35% might be a B+. After one particularly difficult exam he told us his rationale—“I don’t want to know what you know. I want to know what you don’t know!” Finally, I remember a lecture he gave: “The Nature of the D-Stem in Semitic Languages.” I was in his class the only time he ever gave that lecture. So why am I telling you all of this? Because Mike left a mark on my life that abides to this day. He was a great professor with an engaging manner who gave his students a desire to learn difficult things. As an historian, I don’t keep up with some of what Mike taught me so long ago. My own academic interests lie elsewhere than the biblical languages. I cannot know everything. But this is no reflection on Mike. I hope I can have the same kind of influence on my students that he had on me.

Then there was Jesse. I tremble even calling him by that name. Perhaps I should say Mr. Boyd. He modeled Bible exposition in a way I had never heard. His preaching and teaching was substantive and rich. I grew much under his teaching and I was grateful for the hours I spent attending his church on Sunday nights.

I should also mention Fred. He ran the dining hall during my later years. I worked there three of my four years at BJU so I knew the people there well. Fred was a friend and mentor to me. He rebuked me when it was needed, laughed with me, and encouraged me. Near the end of my journey, I said something I shouldn’t have said but he instructed me and helped me. Thanks, Fred, for your role in my life also.

One last man I wish to thank is Doug, who sixteen years ago took a chance and hired me to teach at Central. I am about to complete my fifteenth year here. Thanks, Doug, for your ministry in my life. You are a blessing indeed.

Life is about sanctification, becoming more like the Lord Jesus. Not every relationship in life is pleasant. Sometimes interactions with people go awry. Sometimes these sour experiences were my fault and sometimes not. I learned valuable lessons even in these hard things. What is happening in us is more important than what is happening to us. Sure, people do wrong. I did and so did others. There are two ways to respond—biblically and otherwise. I wish I could say I always acted in a biblical manner. Such is not the case. But as I look back over these experiences, they were not the fault of nasty fundamentalism. They were the result of sinners sinning. Sadly, we sin against each other, and that sin causes disruption. However, even in the disruption, God is still on the throne.

A verse that has come to mean a great deal to me down through the years is Philippians 1:6. “He who began a good work in you will bring it to completion.” There is a well-known story of Franz Schubert’s Symphony No.8 in B Minor, commonly called the “Unfinished Symphony” because he started it in 1822, lived six additional years, but left only two complete movements of the four typical of symphonies. Scholars debate the whys of Schubert’s incomplete work, but it stands out as an incomplete musical legacy.

With the child of God, the Father never leaves His work unfinished in our lives. He will do a good (perfect) work in us and we will be brought into greater conformity to Christ in preparation for eternity. Those professing believers who do not exhibit the sanctifying work of God should be concerned about their eternal destiny. God will complete what He starts. In some of my difficult situations with others, I was being sanctified. God allowed certain things to happen. He even allowed me to be wronged that I might be sanctified. My duty in those situations was to learn to respond in a biblical fashion. Did I always? No. But God was orchestrating my life to conform me into His image. Sure, there were men who sinned against me who happened to be fundamentalists. And I sinned against them, despite being a fundamentalist.

This is a sin problem, not a problem of fundamentalism.

I have met many fine men in the movement called fundamentalism. Most good, some flawed. I found fundamentalism to be filled with good and godly men and women who have stood with me, prayed for me, rebuked me, and encouraged me as I have made my forty-five-year journey. I did not grow up in fundamentalism. But I have no problem being associated with those whom God has brought into my life these past forty-five years. Soli Deo Gloria!

This essay is by Jeff Straub, Professor of Historical and Systematic Theology at Central Baptist Theological Seminary. Not every one of the professors, students, or alumni of Central Seminary necessarily agrees with every opinion that it expresses.

‘Tis Finished! The Messiah Dies

Charles Wesley (1707–1788)

‘Tis finished! the Messiah dies, 
cut off for sins, but not his own. 
Accomplished is the sacrifice, 
the great redeeming work is done. 

The veil is rent; in Christ alone 
the living way to heaven is seen; 
the middle wall is broken down, 
and all the world may enter in. 

‘Tis finished! All my guilt and pain, 
I want no sacrifice beside; 
for me, for me the Lamb is slain; 
‘tis finished! I am justified. 

The reign of sin and death is o’er, 
and all may live from sin set free; 
Satan hath lost his mortal power; 
‘tis swallowed up in victory. 

In recent weeks, my colleague Kevin Bauder has written a series reflecting on the fundamentalism of his youth. He expressed gratitude for those who he knew in his early life and their influence upon his future ministry.  His exposure to fundamentalism happened early and was pretty good.

This got me thinking about my journey of not growing up in fundamentalism—actually, of not growing up in a Christian home at all. We were Christmas and Easter Christians. Oh yes, and I was an altar boy for a while as a kid, around the time of my confirmation as an Anglican. But I really remember little of my religious life before I was exposed to fundamentalism in my later teen years. My parents separated when I was fifteen and shortly thereafter my father died. I was living with him when he died and I returned to live with my mother, which was not a positive experience. I was placed in foster care and soon moved from Oregon to Georgia to live with my dad’s brother. I occasionally attended his Presbyterian church (I am unsure of the group to which it belonged) but I was little impressed with it. A neighbor invited me to a Southern Baptist church near where I lived. It was into this church that I was baptized. The church was a warm, loving group of people, but soon I was attending a youth Friday night Bible study at another church. It was there as a junior in high school that I met a freshman, Becky, whose mother was a youth leader. Soon I was attending the larger SBC church with the active youth program.

I needed to find a different place to live as my uncle felt I was an unwholesome influence on his young children. He was right: I badly needed discipleship and mentoring. I was sent to a private college prep school in Rome, Georgia, where I graduated from high school and became attached to the family of a Christian man at this larger SBC church. Becky was dating Tommy, a boy about my age and member of the family.

When I came home for Christmas, I met an independent Baptist pastor from Indiana who was starting a youth camp. His philosophy was that “it is easier to build boys and girls than to repair men and women.” He allowed me to come and work at the camp for the summer. I quit smoking on the Greyhound bus headed to Indiana. At that camp, I met JD, a physical education major at Bob Jones University. I had never heard of the place. JD loved the Lord and had a zeal for God that was impressive for a young man. He became a mentor and a friend to me.

He also took me to a summer banquet in Indianapolis where I met the president of BJU, Bob Jones III. I had been planning to go to Auburn University to major in wildlife conservation, but after hearing him speak, I determined to attend BJU in the fall. When I told my SBC foster dad the good news, he told me I could not go and hung up the phone! When I was still committed to going after camp, he informed me that if I went, he would not support me. He was true to his word, financially at least. He said that BJU encouraged their men to lead their churches out of the SBC. Keep in mind, this was the summer of 1974, five years before the conservative resurgence in the SBC began. I had no idea what he was talking about.

As I prepared to go to college, Mr. C. took me to a clothing store to buy some clothes. I bought a couple of sport jackets (never having owned a suit nor even a jacket). He fussed at me for wasting my money. As it turned out, I needed a jacket for dinner! Seems you had to “dress up” for dinner at BJU. Remember, I had never visited there. I only knew one student, my friend JD. But I wanted what he had, and it seemed like BJU was the place to get it.

So now I had been around fundamentalists for the summer. As a busy camp worker, there was little time to appreciate my surroundings. As a student at BJU, things were different. We were told when to get up and when to go to bed. We could hang out with girls only in certain places on campus and at certain times. We couldn’t even talk to them after supper. Since there was only one pay phone on each dorm hall, we couldn’t call to the other side of campus either. The school wanted the phones kept free so parents could reach their students. No cell phones, texts messaging, or internet. How did we survive?

As a freshman at BJU, I met a wide assortment of men and women whom God would use to shape my life over the next six years. The man who hired me as a dishwasher in the dining hall was interested in my Christian life. Mr. Gillespie encouraged me and helped me navigate some of the University’s rules. It really was only the grace of God that I was not expelled in my early years, though I tried hard. I received 74 demerits my first semester and 60 my second! Stupid things on my part—cleaning my room, or lack thereof, tardiness to class, horseplay—who me? I once went back to bed after my hall leader came into the room to ensure we were up. He told me not to return to the bed, but I did anyway. I was tired. A roommate turned me in. He even timed me. I was back in bed for 20 extra minutes! Did my hall leader give me grief! But I deserved it! I was careless and needed correcting. I survived with no scars and I smile as I remember these days.

My university days were filled with lots of new experiences and new friends. I met men in the early days with whom I have served Christ and men who today are dear friends. We have walked together apart serving Christ. One dear brother I came to learn had been a drug dealer newly converted. We met in the weight room and became friends. Years later, he would invite me to Romania for my first overseas ministry. Because of this dear brother, I went on to earn a PhD and will soon complete my fifteenth year at Central. Thanks, Steve, for your influence!

There are many others like JD, Mr. Gillespie and Steve. I could speak of Mrs. Boyd, my French teacher who helped me discern the will of God to go to Canada and spent the summer on an Indian reserve. I had been accepted into a Baptist Mid-Missions missionary apprentice program and planned to go to France. I soon heard about a ministry team headed to Manitoba. I was stuck between a rock and a hard place. In speaking of my plans to Mrs. Boyd, she gently suggested that my French was too rudimentary to be of much service that summer in France. I should wait until my skills were better before embarking on a summer ministry there. I heard her counsel and chose the Canadian ministry team. I would later return to that spot when the missionary I had worked with over the summer retired. It was the beginning of nearly twenty years of serving Christ in Canada! Thank you, Mrs. Boyd, for godly counsel!

I didn’t go to BJU because it was a fundamentalist school. I went there because I met a committed Christian whom I wanted to emulate. I did not hang out with people who were “defenders of the faith” though perhaps they were that too. I met men and women, some my age and others my teachers or supervisors, whom God used to help shape my life. “A man’s steps are ordered by the Lord” (Ps 37:23). In my case, the steps took me to Bob Jones University and into fundamentalism. Thank you, Lord, for your kind direction.

This essay is by Jeff Straub, Professor of Historical and Systematic Theology at Central Baptist Theological Seminary. Not every one of the professors, students, or alumni of Central Seminary necessarily agrees with every opinion that it expresses.

Through Good Report and Evil, Lord

Horatius Bonar (1808–1889)

Through good report and evil, Lord,
Still guided by Thy faithful word,
Our staff, our buckler, and our sword,
We follow Thee.

In silence of the lonely night,
In the full glow of day’s clear light,
Through life’s strange windings, dark or bright,
We follow Thee.

Strengthened by Thee we forward go,
’Mid smile or scoff or friend or foe,
Through pain or ease, through joy or woe,
We follow Thee.

With enemies on every side,
We lean on Thee, the Crucified;
Forsaking all on earth beside,
We follow Thee.

O Master, point Thou out the way,
Nor suffer Thou our steps to stray;
Then in the path that leads to day,
We follow Thee.

Whom have we in the heaven above,
Whom on this earth, save Thee, to love?
Still in Thy love we onward move;
We follow Thee.

At the time my father enrolled in Bible college, few fundamentalist pastors went to seminary. That was beginning to change a decade later as I approached my senior year. Some of my professors were encouraging me toward seminary. One evening our church hosted a seminary president at a special event, and he took the time to talk to me about the process. He invited me to come visit his school. He also suggested that I think about a one-year Master of Arts program if I was uncertain about the three-year Master of Divinity. He was a sly old fox.

Debbie and I drove to Denver with her parents to visit the seminary. It was a small school, and classes weren’t in session. I had a chance to meet several professors, though, and was impressed by the personal interest they took in me. I was also impressed by their credentials and reputations.

Days after graduation Debbie and I left for Denver pulling all our goods behind my Chevy Nova in a twelve-foot trailer. The temperature was in the 90s, and the little 250 straight-six constantly threatened to overheat. That night we stopped west of Omaha and a cold front blew over us. The morning was chilly and rainy, and we had no more trouble. We pulled into our apartment in Denver (actually Thornton) that night, and the next morning we awoke to snow.

We quickly adjusted to life in Denver. That summer, three things happened to solidify my direction. First, I got a job with a security company, which left me time to read at work. I set myself to work through A. H. Strong’s Systematic Theology. It was an imposing work, over a thousand large pages of fine print supplemented by even finer print. It was the first serious theology with which I had tried to grapple. I found myself in a constant argument with Strong, underlining passages and looking up references. Sometimes he would convince me; other times not. By the end of the summer, however, I had begun to love the work of systematic theology.

Second, my father gave me a copy of Francis Schaeffer’s The God Who Is There as a graduation gift. While Schaeffer’s work has its weaknesses, I am indebted to him for two reasons. One was that he provided me with my first overview of Western intellectual history. The other was that his obvious interest in art, music, and philosophy gave me what I can only call permission. I’d always been drawn to the arts and humanities, but I had the impression that they were beneath the interests of serious Christians. I should be clear at this point—neither my parents, my churches, nor my college ever told me that. Numbers of my college professors would have been horrified at the suggestion. It was an inchoate impression that I’d picked up somehow, and Schaeffer dispelled it entirely.

Third, I struck up an acquaintance with two old college classmates who had gone on to get philosophy degrees from a state university. They brought me into a whole world of questions and discussions that I’d hardly known to exist. They fired my intellectual curiosity and furthered my resolve to take the life of the mind seriously.

One might think that a small, fundamentalist seminary would be a poor place for genuine intellectual growth, but it was exactly what I needed. Students and professors enjoyed more of a peer relationship than I had experienced in college. I was able to study both their intellectual intensity and their personal devotion. They did not all share the same intellectual interests, of course, but each set an example that challenged me to pursue his discipline to the best of my ability. Among them were individuals who read widely and thought deeply about the permanent questions, and they provided both stimulus and guidance.

Seminary also brought a widening circle of friendships. Not all seminary students have the same interests and abilities, so those friendships developed in different directions. Most important to me were the friends who, besides sharing exegetical and theological progress, stoked my interest in art, music, and philosophy.

More important than the intellectual growth of those years was the spiritual deepening. This progress came not so much from study as from the relationships that I enjoyed with my professors. The president, William Fusco, may have been the kindest man I have ever met, even though his wife was dying (and eventually did die) of a terrible disease. Faculty salaries were months in arrears; most of the professors had to work outside jobs, often doing menial work. I never heard them complain, but I did hear them cry out to God in moments of need. They always took time to give personal attention to their students. I was challenged by these examples and understood that God might well ask the same of me someday.

After earning my MDiv I stayed an additional year to work on a ThM. I was also given my first opportunity to teach—an experience that changed my direction in ministry. Two years later, the seminary closed its doors and the faculty was scattered. My diplomas may as well be made of rubber, and one school to which I applied for doctoral studies stated as much. For years I wondered whether I had really received a credible education.

Eventually I went on to complete both a DMin and a PhD from large, accredited seminaries. In those institutions I sat in class with graduates of most of the important seminaries and schools of divinity in this country. That was when I discovered that I was as well prepared for doctoral studies as any of my peers, no matter what schools they had attended. In fact, I was better prepared than most. Evidently it was possible to get a decent education at my little Bible college and seminary.

I graduated with my ThM in 1983, exactly ten years after leaving high school and nearly forty years ago. Now, decades later, I am still growing up. I am also still a fundamentalist. Completion of seminary, however, seems like a reasonable place to end this narrative. It is also the place to say a word about why I have written it, but that must wait for the next installment.

This essay is by Kevin T. Bauder, Research Professor of Historical and Systematic Theology at Central Baptist Theological Seminary. Not every one of the professors, students, or alumni of Central Seminary necessarily agrees with every opinion that it expresses.

Let Zion’s Watchmen All Awake

Philip Doddridge (1702–1751)

Let Zion’s watchmen all awake,
And take the alarm they give;
Now let them from the mouth of God
Their solemn charge receive.

‘Tis not a cause of small import
The pastor’s care demands;
but what might fill and angel’s heart,
And filled a Savior’s hands.

They watch for souls, for which the Lord
Did heavenly bliss forgo;
For souls, which must forever live
In raptures, or in woe.

All to the great tribunal haste,
Th’ account to render there;
And should’st thou strictly mark our faults,
Lord, how should we appear?

May they that Jesus, whom they preach,
Their own Redeemer see;
And watch thou daily o’er their souls,
That they may watch for thee.

One of the rituals of life at Bible college was the daily chapel service. In chapel we heard preaching by local pastors and other Christian leaders. We sang hymns—usually better ones than the hymns I’d grown up singing. Part of chapel was also devoted to community life. Chapels were like student assemblies with announcements, skits, and congratulations for students who achieved some milestone.

Life in a Bible college was as varied as life in any college or university. We had concerts and recitals, speech and theater, intervarsity and intramural sports, a student paper. The food in the cafeteria was good. Unlike some Christian schools, relationships between male and female students were fairly relaxed; we could date whom we chose when we chose. We pretty well had the run of Des Moines, which offered plenty of interesting things to do.  

Besides these activities, the college hosted special events that focused on spiritual interests. Class schedules were modified for a week each semester as the college hosted a missionary conference in the fall and a Bible conference every spring. Most of the preaching at these events was well above average. Our own faculty and administration could offer outstanding exposition of Scripture.

All classes were taught from a Christian perspective. The history courses were largely church history. The classes in social studies reflected a biblical perspective on human nature. The course in ethics was geared toward establishing and defending biblical morality. Students seeking a bachelor of arts would take two years of biblical Greek.

In a Bible college, all students major in Bible. Our studies began with survey courses that covered both the entire biblical corpus and the entire system of doctrine. All students completed a class in biblical interpretation. More required courses focused on individual biblical books such as Genesis, Matthew, Acts, and Romans. Students could take many other biblical and theological electives.

This constant focus on biblical and doctrinal content was an important formative force in my life. Through my first year-and-a-half I tried to ignore it, but it pressed on me constantly. The teaching of my professors, the intensity of the spiritual conferences, and the daily routine of biblical preaching in chapel began to reshape my understanding of who I was and what mattered. Along with my roommate Dave’s example, this constant biblical teaching helped to bring about that mid-sophomore-year renewal of long-neglected dedication.

At that point my whole perspective changed. The primary emphasis on our campus no longer seemed to be one of denial, but of opportunity. Ours was a small school in which faculty, students, and administrators knew each other personally. I saw that the president, the professors, and others were serving at considerable personal sacrifice. Furthermore, they were on my side. They were not there to repress me, but to help me succeed.

I had said that I would start giving back. The next day I heard a chapel announcement that one of the school’s theater troupes had lost an actor and was looking for a replacement. Theater was right down my alley, so I tried out and got the part. I spent the second semester traveling with that group. We performed in high schools and churches from Ohio to the Rockies. It was the first time as an adult that I actually tried to do something just to serve the Lord.

The experience was wonderful, and I don’t mean from a thespian point of view (I’d been in better productions in high school). What was different was the sense of mission and camaraderie shared by the actors and crew. Those people became my friends, and the friendships were different in quality from any I’d experienced before. One young woman became a special friend. I took her to the spring formal that year. After she graduated, we kept up a relationship through the summer. At the end of the summer she agreed to become my wife.

Early in my junior year I learned that an old injury had been improperly treated and was going to require surgery. About halfway through the first semester I dropped out of school. By that time, my wife-to-be had been offered a staff position at our college. I took a daytime job and did not return to school again for more than a year.

When Debbie and I were married, I had no sense of vocation at all. I was working full-time in an auto parts warehouse. That was definitely not my calling. An insurance agent tried to recruit me to sell insurance. A chiropractor tried to convince me to go into his field. Nothing seemed right.

During that time Debbie and I began working with the young people in my father’s church. Teaching the Bible just seemed to fit. Preaching felt natural to me. I had never really considered the ministry, and I had a list of reasons that I thought I wouldn’t do well. Over the next year, however, the Lord put me in positions in which every one of those reasons was tested—and collapsed. One day Dave even encouraged me to think about the pastorate.

Over these months I began to sense that ministry should be my life’s work. To this point, however, I had said nothing to Debbie. I brought the subject up over dinner one evening: “What would you say if I told you I thought the Lord was leading me to be a preacher?” She replied that she had seen this coming and that she fully supported me. That was that. I knew what I was going to do.

Of course, this decision meant returning to Bible college. I started with a single course, a night class on Psalms. This was the first time I’d taken a class really wanting to learn the Bible. The book of Psalms just seemed to come alive. Studying the compositions of David and Asaph was not a chore; it was a delight.

Next fall I was back full time. The first morning that I stepped on campus one of my old professors saw me crossing the parking lot. He looked me up and down, grinned, and said, “I knew you’d be back.”

Perhaps the most formative course that I took was a summer class on the history of fundamentalism. This was the first time I had heard any sustained description of fundamentalism, either as an idea or as a movement. The professor didn’t try to sugar-coat anything. He was frank about the problems in fundamentalism, but he was also clear about what fundamentalism was. I entered the class doubting that I would ever be a fundamentalist. I left the class knowing that I already was one.

The next two years flew past. Debbie and I lived in the small town where I’d spent my high school years. After my father moved to a different state, we became members of the formerly-Presbyterian church he had pastored. We formed new friendships and learned new life lessons. Along the way I wrote a paper or two that impressed my professors, and they began to encourage me toward seminary. Though a married man, I was still growing up fundamentalist.

This essay is by Kevin T. Bauder, Research Professor of Historical and Systematic Theology at Central Baptist Theological Seminary. Not every one of the professors, students, or alumni of Central Seminary necessarily agrees with every opinion that it expresses.

Let Worldly Minds the World Pursue

John Newton (1725–1807)

Let worldly minds the world pursue,
It has no charms for me;
Once I admired its trifles too,
But grace has set me free.

Its pleasures now no longer please,
No more content afford;
Far from my heart be joys like these;
Now I have seen the Lord.

As by the light of opening day
The stars are all concealed;
So earthly pleasures fade away,
When Jesus is revealed.

Creatures no more divide my choice,
I bid them all depart;
His name, and love, and gracious voice,
Have fixed my roving heart.

Now, Lord, I would be Thine alone,
And wholly live to Thee;
But may I hope that Thou wilt own
A worthless worm, like me?

Yes! though of sinners I’m the worst,
I cannot doubt Thy will;
For if Thou hadst not loved me first
I had refused Thee still.

My parents always stressed the importance of college education. My father actually modeled his commitment to higher education by going to college during my teen years. He graduated the same spring that I graduated from high school.

As commencement drew near, the question was not whether I would attend college, but where and how. The how was a matter of finances. Neither I nor my parents had money. My grades weren’t good enough to earn a scholarship (I actually graduated in the lower half of my class). The idea of paying for college loomed as a huge, intimidating barrier.

I’ve mentioned that my mother ran the bookstore at my father’s Bible college. One of her perquisites was that I was granted free tuition. An added bonus was that I could continue to live at home. Effectively, the where was decided by the how. That fall I enrolled at the same college.

In January my father moved to a new ministry. I had to move into the dorms and pay tuition like everybody else. It was probably the best thing that could have happened to me, but at the beginning I hated it. Besides having to make the usual adjustments to dorm life, I found that the college’s rules were rather stricter than my parents’ household rules had been. They weren’t as bad as some institutions I’d heard about, but they were still strict enough that I found them onerous.

On the other hand, my roommates were not stereotypical Bible thumpers. Three had transferred from state universities. One was just out of the Army. After he was discharged in Panama, he rode his Honda 350SL up the Pan American Highway until he blew the engine in Kansas City. We rebuilt the bike in our dorm room that spring—surreptitiously, because motorcycles were against the rules.

My roommates were a riddle to me. On the one hand, they were serious about spiritual things in a way that I was not. On the other hand, they weren’t exactly pietists. They had seen more of life than I had, they knew what they liked, and they weren’t averse to skirting institutional regulations to enjoy themselves. I found myself drawn to that side of their character. I still wasn’t what most people would think of as a bad kid—I still didn’t drink or do drugs or even go to movie theaters (which were strictly forbidden by fundamentalists of that era). But I did like to have a good time, and I didn’t really care whether I broke a few rules doing it. My grades, never very good, plummeted.

After our freshman year, two of my roommates left the school and a third went in a different direction. I continued to room with Dave, the guy who rode his motorcycle up from Panama. He was about five years older than me, which seemed like a lot at that age. He took it upon himself to tutor me in a kind of quasi-countercultural masculine maturity. Dave taught me about motorcycles, stylish clothes, big stereos (he introduced me to Yes and to King Crimson), and revolvers (Dave had one in our dorm room—naturally against regulations).

Oddly enough, it was also Dave who showed me again the importance of spiritual things. He read his Bible like he expected to hear from God. When he prayed, his prayers were not just forms like mine were. Dave was genuinely trying to grow in his walk with God. As his roommate I saw the struggles through which he passed. As these unfolded, I perceived that some of them were the result of Dave’s past sins. I began to understand that sin produces consequences in one’s life. I also saw that my own sins, particularly my rejection of authority, were beginning to produce consequences in my own life.

I received a particularly rude shock when our residence advisor (the student leader of our dorm) challenged me about the negative results of my attitudes and actions. I’d had conversations like this with others (including the dean) and remained unmoved. Mark, however, was from the church in this college town—the church I had joined at thirteen and where I judged the young people to be indifferent toward spiritual things. Mark and I had been in the junior high youth group together. It was jarring to realize that his commitment to the things of the Lord exceeded my own.

To this day I insist that some of the rules at my little college were silly and unnecessary. Some of them, however, were designed to protect us from spiritual influences that really did have the potential to hinder our wellbeing. Others were intended to keep immature college students from hurting each other while they were trying to grow up. I saw that some of my choices really were hurting other people—perhaps only in small ways, but the hurts were real. Furthermore, I began to grasp that simply living life to have fun was not going to produce much fulfillment in the long run. For the first time in a long time I took a good look at myself, and I did not like what I saw myself becoming.

The result was a change of direction during the middle of my sophomore year. At that time I remembered the price that Christ had paid to save me. I recalled that I had once promised my life to Him, and I recognized that I had been neglecting that promise for years. In fact, I began to see myself as something as a leech on the system. Godly men and women had built my college to prepare young people for future ministry, but at this point I had no intention of serving the Lord. In fact, I really had no idea what it would even look like to serve Him.

This was a turning point. I chose to renew the commitments that I had made years before, and to renew them in the following terms. (1) I had no idea what the Lord might wish to do with me; I really had no sense of calling at all. (2) I was willing to allow God to direct me in my future choices, including big ones like vocation and marriage. (3) Rather than simply freeloading on the system, I would look for ways to give something back, to make my school better, and to make life better for the people around me. (4) While a student, I would no longer try to judge which institutional rules ought to be kept, but would do my best to keep them all, both in letter and in spirit.

From a theological perspective, I’m not fond of talk about rededications. Too often that talk betrays a seriously flawed understanding of the normal Christian life. Still, I admit that what happened to me in late 1974 does look suspiciously like a rededication. I did not walk down an aisle or make any sort of public demonstration. But the choices I made were real, and I began to put them into action immediately.

This essay is by Kevin T. Bauder, Research Professor of Historical and Systematic Theology at Central Baptist Theological Seminary. Not every one of the professors, students, or alumni of Central Seminary necessarily agrees with every opinion that it expresses.

Lord, Thou Hast Won

John Newton (1725–1807)

Lord, Thou hast won, at length I yield,
My heart, by mighty grace compelled,
Surrenders all to Thee;
Against Thy terrors long I strove,
But who can stand against Thy love?
Love conquers even me.

All that a wretch could do, I tried,
Thy patience scorned, Thy power defied,
And trampled on Thy laws;
Scarcely Thy martyrs at the stake,
Could stand more steadfast for Thy sake,
Than I in Satan’s cause.

But since Thou hast Thy love revealed,
And shown my soul a pardon sealed,
I can resist no more:
Couldst Thou for such a sinner bleed?
Canst Thou for such a rebel plead?
I wonder and adore!

If Thou hadst bid Thy thunders roll,
And lightnings flash to blast my soul,
I still had stubborn been:
But mercy has my heart subdued,
A bleeding Savior I have viewed,
And now, I hate my sin.

Now, Lord, I would be Thine alone,
Come take possession of Thine own,
For Thou hast set me free;
Released from Satan’s hard command,
See all my powers waiting stand,
To be employed by Thee.

My will conformed to Thine would move,
On Thee my hope, desire, and love,
In fixed attention join;
My hands, my eyes, my ears, my tongue,
Have Satan’s servants been too long,
But now they shall be Thine.

And can I be the very same,
Who lately durst blaspheme Thy name,
And on Thy Gospel tread?
Surely each one, who hears my case,
Will praise Thee, and confess Thy grace
Invincible indeed!

During my childhood my father was a rising manager with a national airline. When I was thirteen, however, he moved us from Michigan to Iowa so he could attend Bible college. He continued to work for the airline, but he had to take a demotion to do it. It didn’t matter to him. He was convinced that God was calling him into pastoral ministry. When we left Michigan, our church presented both of my parents with leather-bound New Scofield Reference Bibles.

We moved into a home right across the street from the college my father would attend. We immediately joined the fundamental Baptist church in that college town. This church was much larger than our old one, and it had an entirely different atmosphere. Quite a few of the young people seemed uninterested in spiritual things. This was the heyday of the counterculture, and several of the church’s youth were more fascinated by the symbols and slogans of that generation than by spiritual priorities. I should add, however, that several of them did go on to serve the Lord as adults.

For a while my father taught the junior high boys’ Sunday school class. One Saturday he took us to the airport and let us more-or-less run wild in a Boeing 727. The seat cushions were attached with Velcro, which none of us had ever seen (or heard) before. We were fascinated by the ripping sound it made when we pulled the cushions off. For a while a dozen young teens ran down the aisle tearing off every seat cushion. Then Dad started the engines and taxied the plane around a bit. Needless to say, the airline industry has changed since then.

This congregation also gave me my first taste of church politics. There was a faction that wanted to fire the pastor. For a while things were pretty brittle. They contrived to get a vote of confidence, but a sizable majority voted for the pastor to stay. The minority left the church. Some of their children were among the least interested in the Bible or the things of God.

Overall, this church was not a happy experience for me. I was not a cool kid—in fact, I was a bit odd. I certainly didn’t fit in with the other teenagers in the church. Most of them were indifferent toward me and some were overtly hostile. For the first time, I found that I really hated going to church and especially to youth meetings.

Then my father took the pastorate of a tiny church in a nearby village. We moved from a suburban community to a country town of fewer than a thousand. The church was actually Presbyterian, but it could not find a Reformed pastor and so the people and elders promised to let my father preach Baptist doctrine. Over the next three years the church withdrew from its Presbyterian denomination, first becoming an independent Bible church, then a Baptist church. It also began to grow.

Now a sophomore in high school, I became (regrettably) more interested in extracurricular activities than in the things of the Lord. I wouldn’t have been judged a bad kid: I never drank, smoked, or did drugs, never got involved in promiscuity, never got into fights or vandalism, never shoplifted or drove recklessly. But my heart wandered from God. I knew that I was living to please myself and not Him. Band, chorus, journalism, football, and especially theater were what really mattered to me—those, and an unsaved girlfriend.

Still, having a father who was both a pastor and a Bible college student kept me close to the Bible and its teachings. What he learned in the classroom was discussed around the dinner table. It also became fodder for his preaching and teaching. Both church and family learned what he was learning.

During these years I also started to become aware of the broader fundamentalist and evangelical world. When my father accepted his first pastorate, the congregation was part of the Reformed Presbyterian Church, Evangelical Synod. This group had broken away from Carl McIntire during the 1950s. It was also the denomination of Francis Schaeffer and J. Oliver Buswell. In 1970 McIntire tried to take over the American Council of Christian Churches by forcing an illegal vote. News of McIntire’s antics was still reverberating when my father became a pastor.

Though it seems strange in retrospect, I had never thought of either myself or the churches in which I’d grown up as fundamentalist. McIntire gave me my first real impression of the fundamentalist movement—and he did not create a good one. The second impression, which wasn’t much better, was created when our church’s mail brought a pair of life-size cardboard cutouts of a balding man in a black suit. The accompanying letter gave his name as Lester Roloff. He ran a girls’ home in Texas, where he was fighting with the state. He sent the cutouts to remind us to pray for him and to send him money. I thought he looked frightening, and when I finally heard him on the radio my auditory assessment matched the visual impression.

While I was still a sophomore in high school, one of the big churches in Des Moines invited Frank Garlock to speak to a youth rally. Garlock taught music at Bob Jones University, and he wanted to convince us that rock and roll was bad. I had never listened to much music of any kind, so his lecture was probably my first real exposure to rock (he played Dylan, among others—and I don’t mean Dylan Thomas). Garlock also did something more: he took the time to explain what Tchaikovsky was doing musically in the last movement of his Fifth Symphony. If most of Garlock’s lecture was lost on me, I came away fascinated with the idea that music was a medium of communication. I wanted to hear more of that kind of music. I also wanted to hear more rock.

It was in my public high school rather than in my church that I began to hear rumors of still other fundamentalists. I heard about schools where young men and women weren’t allowed to touch or even converse. The word was that these colleges even built separate men’s and women’s sidewalks. Courting couples were required to be chaperoned. These institutions were supposed to be highly authoritarian, using demerit systems to expel students for even minor infractions of their numerous rules.

My dad’s school wasn’t like that. I was in a position to know. I delivered newspapers for two of the college’s presidents. One of the professors lived across the street from us for a while; another professor became one of my father’s closest friends. My mother ran the campus bookstore. I was on speaking terms with most of the faculty and administration. While I judged many of the students to be a bit odd, I never saw the kind of extremes that I heard rumored of other colleges. And that was good, because my options for colleges were pretty narrow. But more on that later.

This essay is by Kevin T. Bauder, Research Professor of Historical and Systematic Theology at Central Baptist Theological Seminary. Not every one of the professors, students, or alumni of Central Seminary necessarily agrees with every opinion that it expresses.

Strait the Gate

Benjamin Beddome (1717–1795)

Strait the gate, the way is narrow,
To the realms of endless bliss;
Sinful men and vain professors,
Self-deceived, the passage miss;
Rushing headlong,
Down they sink the dread abyss.

Sins and follies unforsaken,
All will end in deep despair;
Formal prayers are unvailing,
Fruitless is the worlding’s tear;
Small the number
Who to wisdom’s path repair.

Thou who art Thy people’s guardian,
Condescend my guide to be;
By Thy Spirit’s light unerring,
Let me Thy salvation see:
May I never
Miss the way that leads to Thee.

When I was growing up our church held at least four public meetings every week. During Sunday school the children would be taken to graded classes for instruction while adults remained in the church auditorium for a Bible lesson. Sunday school was followed by the morning service, which featured singing, prayers, giving, and the exposition of a biblical text. The Sunday evening service was similar to the morning, only a bit more relaxed with more gospel songs and choruses and fewer hymns. Sunday evening services could also feature a variety of diversions such as personal testimonies or the selection of favorite songs by members of the congregation. Wednesday evening was for prayer meeting, which also included biblical teaching. Once each quarter the Wednesday meeting became the church’s business meeting, and it often went long.

Besides these regular services the church also participated in an array of special meetings. These were of different sorts. Three merit particular mention.

During the school year, fellowshipping churches in our area sponsored monthly youth rallies. These meetings were held on Saturday evening and were open to young people from seventh to twelfth grade. They were typically held in the auditoriums of some of the larger churches. An energetic song leader would wave his arms through a mix of Singspiration and Wyrtzen choruses, with some John W. Peterson thrown in. Each church would select some of its brightest young people to participate in Bible quizzing, where contestants would compete to be the first to answer questions about particular biblical passages. Usually the church that sent the largest delegation would receive an attendance trophy. Every rally also included something to eat and drink.

The central feature of these youth rallies was the preaching. The preachers tended to be younger and more energetic than usual. Their preaching was more exhortation than exposition. Typically the sermons focused on evangelism, dedication, or Christian service. Occasionally one of the preachers would take the opportunity to challenge “worldliness,” which meant the sins to which he thought young people were particularly susceptible. Sometimes (especially after about 1968) this sort of sermon could degenerate into a rant against boys wearing long hair, girls wearing short skirts, or either wearing bellbottomed jeans. These were among the symbols of an American youth counterculture that was perceived as hostile to biblical Christianity. As with camp, these youth rallies sometimes combined different sorts of fundamentalists who held different values, and those differences left me a bit confused.

Besides youth rallies, our church participated in week-long missionary conferences every year. We were too small to hold our own conference, so we would team with neighboring churches to host several missionaries in a “round robin” conference. Each missionary would speak at a different church every night; by the end of the week each church would hear all of the missionaries.

While the most exciting missionaries were those who ministered in strange and far-away places, our pastor always made sure that we gave an equal hearing to “home missionaries.” These were the people who were planting churches in the United States. We were convinced that their work was just as important as planting churches in Africa or Asia. Since the home missionaries lacked the exotic appeal of many foreign missionaries, their presentations tended to be a bit plainer—but there were exceptions to this rule.

One outstanding exception was Ezell Wiggins, who was planting True Bible Baptist Church in Des Moines. Wiggins was one of the most electric speakers I can remember. He brought personal grace and a sense of situational humor into his presentation, employing his considerable rhetorical skills to emphasize the gravity of the work he was doing. That work was ministering in the African-American community; he himself was one of a cadre of Black fundamentalist ministers who (I learned decades later) were at that time being rejected by the leadership of the Regular Baptist movement. Wiggins had reason for resentment, but he never expressed a shred of it. He was as utterly committed to the cause of Christ as anyone I ever heard. Because of his presence in our pulpit, it never occurred to me that a church ought to be anything but racially integrated or that race should have anything to do with spiritual leadership. I was shocked later on when I discovered that some fundamentalists felt differently.

In addition to youth rallies and missionary conferences our church enjoyed evangelistic meetings every year or two. I can remember two evangelists that we hosted on multiple occasions. One was C. Leroy Shevland, a gospel-preaching artist. Typically the crowd would gather an hour before the service began. We would watch Shevland paint a complete picture—usually an outdoor scene—in less than an hour’s time. During the service he would preach an evangelistic message, then he would do a “chalk talk” during which he would reemphasize the gospel message while doing a chalk sketch. At the end of the talk he would switch off the auditorium lights and shine an ultraviolet light on his canvas, revealing a hidden picture. This was great entertainment and I loved it.

The other noteworthy evangelist was cowboy singer Redd Harper, also known as “Mr Texas.” Harper coordinated a media and publicity campaign that the church had to implement weeks in advance. He would arrive in full cowboy regalia, which made quite a sensation in rural Michigan. He put on a complete show: he would sing and play the cowboy guitar, then he would tell stories about Roy Rogers and other Hollywood figures of his acquaintance, then he would talk about movies in which he had appeared (including Oil Town USA, Mr. Texas, and The Strawberry Roan). Some nights he would play the steel slide guitar, and it seemed that he could almost make it talk.

During Harper’s meetings the auditorium was packed. Many people walked down the aisle to profess faith after his preaching. Few of those people, however, wanted to be baptized, become church members, or even to be instructed in the faith. While many in our church (including me) had great fun at his meetings, our pastor became less and less comfortable with Harper’s methods. After the second year he was never invited back.

All of these special meetings stood in contrast to Preacher Weckle’s normal method of patient, biblical preaching and teaching. While I looked forward to the youth rallies and to the week-long missions and evangelistic meetings, Preacher Weckle’s exposition is what really taught me the Bible and challenged me toward Christian living and Christian service. His example also taught me that pastors must take responsibility for the right instruction of the flock, even when others are doing the speaking. That was a good example.

This essay is by Kevin T. Bauder, Research Professor of Historical and Systematic Theology at Central Baptist Theological Seminary. Not every one of the professors, students, or alumni of Central Seminary necessarily agrees with every opinion that it expresses.

Sinner, Where Is Room for Doubting?

Albert Midlane (1825–1909)

Sinner, where is room for doubting?
Has not Jesus died for sin?
Did He not in resurrection
Victory over Satan win?

Hear Him on the cross exclaiming—
“It is finish’d,” ere He died;
See Him in his mercy saving
One there hanging by His side.

‘Twas for sinners that He suffer’d
Agonies unspeakable;
Canst thou doubt thou art a sinner?
If thou canst—then hope farewell.

But, believing what is written—
“All are guilty”—“dead in sin,”
Looking to the Crucified One
Hope shall rise thy soul within.

Hope and peace, and joy unfailing,
Through the Savior’s precious blood,
All thy crimson sins forgiven,
And thy soul brought nigh to God.

One aspect of growing up fundamentalist was going to summer camp. Every fellowship of churches seemed to have a camp of its own. There were also a number of independent camps. Ours was a Regular Baptist camp located west of Traverse City, Michigan. The site had been one of Al Capone’s hideouts during the Roaring Twenties. Michigan Baptists bought the property during the late 1940s. One of the Capone-era buildings, an old hotel overlooking the lake, was still usable. So was a nine-hole golf course with “greens” made of pea gravel.

I’ve already mentioned that my father had building skills. He helped to erect the dining hall, many of the original cabins, and some of the first recreational facilities. After nearly sixty years I can still remember him setting the poles for tetherball and pouring concrete for the holes on a miniature golf course.

Most summers my parents would use their vacation time to work as counselors or kitchen help. While performing these ministries they worked with a variety of helpers from other churches, so they gradually built up a network of acquaintances. We could hardly visit those churches without meeting someone we knew. Sometimes, pastors who knew my father would ask him to lead their song services.

My parents sometimes took me with them even when I was a small child. When I grew older I attended as a camper in my own right. Preparation began weeks ahead of time with a visit to the doctor: a physical examination was required for all campers. There would be a period of several days to a couple of weeks for selecting clothing and recreational gear, followed by packing. Finally the day would arrive for the trip across the state.

Campers were transported on our little church bus. More often than not Preacher Weckle drove. Superhighways were a new thing, and none of them went near either our town or our camp. The drive entailed several hours of jolting and bouncing over secondary and tertiary roads. Campers would pass the time belting out Singspiration choruses or chattering about the activities they planned to enjoy.

Activities were indeed plentiful at camp. Much of the day was planned, but during free time campers could engage in team sports, tetherball, miniature golf, ping pong, leathercrafts, and a variety of other pursuits. Every afternoon featured swimming in the lake.

Planned activities began with calisthenics at the flag pole every morning, followed by breakfast and then cabin cleanup. We’d sit through a morning chapel service, a cabin devotional time, and a Bible or missionary hour. After lunch we always had a rest break, during which we had to stay on our bunks in our cabins. Then there would be some sort of cabin activity (usually a team sport) followed by free time until supper. Another chapel service was the last planned activity, followed by another half hour of free time. An adult counselor would always lead the cabin in devotions before lights-out.

Mealtimes were a big deal. At our camp we were served in a chow line before we found seats at one of several long tables. The food was good, helpings were generous, and seconds were almost always available. This was also a time when the camp staff clowned around with skits and songs. At the noon meal the camp director distributed the mail, including spoof letters from imaginary boyfriends and girlfriends back home.

During those years, the only paid worker at our camp was a caretaker. All other positions were filled by volunteers, usually one week at a time. The cooks, the camp nurse, the counselors, and even the lifeguards at the lake were our pastors, parents, adult friends, and other people from our churches. What these camps may have lacked in polish and professionalism they made up for in strengthened relationships both within and between our churches.

The spiritual emphasis was the most important part of camp. With cabin devotions twice each day, two chapel services, a missionary time, and (usually) some sort of Bible memorization, every camper could expect to be challenged with the things of the Lord. It was during one of those camping weeks that I first understood how the claims of Jesus Christ upon my life were truly absolute. Faced with that challenge, I made the deliberate choice to devote my life to whatever He wished (some would call this a dedication). That was the second time that I can remember responding to a public invitation. Preacher Weckle was in that service and he came and found me afterward. He wanted to know whether I really understood what I was doing, and when it turned out that I did, he wanted to encourage me in doing it.

Camp was also one of the venues through which I slowly became aware that not all churches were just like ours. While I couldn’t have described the difference then, some of the sermons were short on biblical content and long on the preacher’s stories. Some of them were manipulative. In retrospect, I can say that a few were even abusive. I didn’t know it then, but I was experiencing the tension between different versions of fundamentalism, and those differences sometimes left me perplexed.

I doubt that our camp was significantly different from the hundreds of other Bible camps around the country. In fact, as a high schooler I also attended a secular camp once; except for the spiritual emphasis, the programs were nearly indistinguishable. That emphasis, however, made all the difference in the world. I’m sure that some kids’ decisions were based on manipulative preaching or were just shallow. Mine was not. The truth is that, taken on balance, going to camp was one of the best parts of growing up fundamentalist.

This essay is by Kevin T. Bauder, Research Professor of Historical and Systematic Theology at Central Baptist Theological Seminary. Not every one of the professors, students, or alumni of Central Seminary necessarily agrees with every opinion that it expresses.

Blow Ye the Trumpet, Blow

Charles Wesley (1707–1788)

Blow ye the trumpet, blow,
The gladly solemn sound!
Let all the nations know,
To earth’s remotest bound,
The year of Jubilee is come;
Return, ye ransom’d sinners, home.

Exalt the Lamb of God,
The sin-atoning Lamb;
Redemption by his blood
Through all the lands proclaim:
The year of Jubilee is come;
Return, ye ransom’d sinners, home.

Ye slaves of sin and hell
Your liberty receive:
And safe in Jesus dwell,
And blest in Jesus live:
The year of Jubilee is come;
Return, ye ransom’d sinners, home.

Ye bankrupt debtors, know
The boundless grace of heaven;
Though sums immense ye owe,
A free discharge is given;
The year of Jubilee is come;
Return, ye ransom’d sinners, home.

The gospel trumpet hear,
The news of pardoning grace;
Ye happy souls draw near,
Behold your Saviour’s face:
The year of Jubilee is come;
Return, ye ransom’d sinners, home.

Jesus, our great High Priest,
Has full atonement made;
Ye weary spirits, rest;
Ye mournful souls, be glad!
The year of Jubilee is come;
Return, ye ransom’d sinners, home.

During the years following my parents’ conversion, our little church went through a series of pastors. Some were more qualified and some less so. The congregation finally called a church planter from the Fellowship of Baptists for Home Missions. He is the pastor who baptized me and who began to instruct me in the faith. His name was Robert Weckle, but the first time I met him he told me, “Kevin, just call me preacher!”

In the meanwhile the church secured new facilities, moving out of its store front into a decaying building that had been the home of a Congregationalist church. The men of the church did their best to refurbish this facility. None did more than my father, who had skills as a builder. I have a particular memory of these men knocking the decrepit steeple off the belfry, then putting shingles on the remaining flat roof. The result looked odd: a belfry rising above the building but ending suddenly as a square stub. The bell still worked, though, and as I grew up I often got to ring it at the beginning of the Sunday morning service.

The city built a fire station right next door to the church building. Every Sunday the fire whistle would blow exactly at noon, loudly enough to drown out the speaker if he went overtime. We became used to just waiting for the preacher to continue after the whistle.

Preacher Weckle was not a great pulpiteer. The main thing that I remember about his sermons is that they tended to be long and dry. His presentation emphasized biblical content. In those days, just about every preacher used a King James Bible. Preacher Weckle’s was a Scofield Reference Bible. He would sometimes announce texts by giving the page number in his Scofield Bible. His goal was to have everybody in the church studying Scofield’s notes.

Of course Preacher Weckle was a dispensationalist. He had a big, canvas dispensational chart that would stretch all the way across the front of our auditorium. Every couple of years he would hang it from a wire and teach through the dispensations, usually on Sunday nights. I was fascinated with that chart, its pictures, and its intricacies. I loved to hear him teach as I kept one eye on the chart and the other eye on the notes in Dad’s Scofield Bible.

When I was in seventh grade I was finally given my own Scofield Bible. This turned out to be a problem: it was a New Scofield Reference Bible. Nobody had ever seen one before. The page numbers weren’t the same. Some of the notes were quite different (better, in retrospect). Most alarmingly, the editors had updated some of the most obscure terms in the King James, inserting their changes between straight-line brackets. As the popularity of this new Bible grew, it created a problem during the public reading of the Scriptures. You could hear part of the church reading straight King James English, while the other part read the edits from the New Scofield.

Though he was not a powerful orator, I found Preacher Weckle fascinating. He had more books than anybody I’d ever met. He knew so much about the Bible that I assumed he had a doctor’s degree (years later I learned that he had only a three-year diploma from the Bible institute). He was one of the few people who could correct my father—an impressive feat in my childish eyes. Most of all, he cared deeply about his people and looked for opportunities to help them grow.

He would sometimes take me fishing along with his son (who was a bit older). Not only did he talk continuously about spiritual things, but I got to see his reaction when his son locked the car keys in the trunk. He passed this test of character.

Our church bought a little bus that the Preacher would drive to pick up people from the community. He would invite me along on this bus route. I’d sit on the front step and work the door as people got on. Here, too, he would talk to me about spiritual things.

I was often in Preacher Weckle’s home and he was often in ours. He created occasions for conversation, whether one-on-one or in groups. He taught me far more in those informal moments than I ever learned in a church service.

The church had its share of services. We had a graded Sunday school on Sunday morning, followed by a morning service that hardly ever ended at noon. There was also an evening service on Sundays, and another evening prayer meeting on Wednesdays. On top of those, there were programs for children and adolescents.

These included a youth hour that met before the Sunday evening service. We never seemed to settle into a regular curriculum. I remember a military-aviation themed program called Jet Cadets, and a different one called Space Cadets. Younger children had a program called Eager Beavers. These programs emphasized Bible memorization and featured frequent “sword drills” to see who could find a given passage of Scripture most quickly. An adult would always teach a Bible lesson. Some emphasis on witnessing or missions was often included.

One afternoon during the week the children would attend “Joy Club.” Every child earned a beanie and a patch that said “Joy.” We would wear these as we sang songs, learned a Bible verse, and engaged in other activities before hearing a Bible presentation. Joy Club had a distinctively evangelistic emphasis.

During the summers our church hosted a Vacation Bible School for children. This program consumed mornings for an entire week or sometimes two. VBS kept a kid moving. An opening assembly with lots of singing was followed by a missionary time, a craft time, a refreshment time, a recreational activity, and a Bible lesson. Every year brought a different contest in which teams would compete over attendance, Bible memorization, and sometimes missionary offerings.

Speaking of contests, every year or so our church would compete against other area churches in an attendance contest for Sunday school. These contests had different themes, but they typically began with a rally day during which every attendee would release a helium-filled balloon into the air. I always loved to see the mass of color as it rose and floated away.

Between regular church services and special youth times, I could expect to be involved in some church activity at least six hours every week—and my parents made sure I was in every one. This level of participation was good for me in several ways. For one thing, I was bound to learn something just by dint of repetition. Most of the theology that I now hold was in place by the time I began high school. For another, it inculcated habits that are still part of my life. Perhaps most importantly, it provided a ready-made, trans-generational social network within which I always knew that I was accepted, which is no small matter for a shy kid who was not popular at school.

This essay is by Kevin T. Bauder, Research Professor of Historical and Systematic Theology at Central Baptist Theological Seminary. Not every one of the professors, students, or alumni of Central Seminary necessarily agrees with every opinion that it expresses.

In One Fraternal Bond of Love

James Montgomery (1771–1854)

In one fraternal bond of love,
One fellowship of mind,
The saints below and saints above
Their bliss and glory find.

Here, in their house of pilgrimage,
Thy statutes are their song;
There, through one bright, eternal age,
Thy praises they prolong.

Lord, may our union form a part
Of that thrice happy whole,
Derive its pulse from Thee, the heart,
Its life from Thee, the soul.

Life is full of ironies! These short essays came about in response to the recent cancellation of Sunday services at a Baptist megachurch. I wanted to challenge those who read the Nick that what was done was—perhaps—out of harmony with the Word of God. The first essay stressed the importance of corporate gathered worship as the New Testament model and expectation. Essay two suggested that while house churches may have a limited role, they are really neither the New Testament expectation nor the universal preference of the Church. Just before I sat down to pen this third essay, a response came from a brother who prefers his small, family house church because the money saved on salaries and air conditioning can be used to fund Christian refugees and feed college students who joined his little family gathering. It was an interesting idea but hardly biblical. Not a thought was given to world evangelism or discipleship.

In this final essay, I consider the appropriateness of cancelling church services, whether on the Lord’s Day or otherwise. I remember hearing an old preacher encourage the congregation that “it takes three to thrive,” referring to the Sunday morning, evening, and Wednesday night services. It is four if the Sunday School is added. So, how many services should the Christian be expected to attend in a week and is it ever acceptable for the church to cancel a regular service?

The irony of this third essay is that as I write, the temperature is -27 and much of Minneapolis is closed: no schools or mail service, malls are closed, some businesses and many/most churches with activities are shuttered. Also, last Sunday the weather forecasters predicted a major snow event of 5-8 inches beginning at 3 PM and lasting through the night. Our pastor announced that the evening service would be cancelled. As it turned out, the snow didn’t begin until 7:30. Finally, this week is Super Bowl Sunday—a day which a good many churches alter their corporate worship practices to accommodate the game.

I have tried to make the case that Sunday is the Lord’s Day and it has become the Christian day of worship. The day is set aside as the one day in seven when we assemble together to celebrate His person and work. We need to hold the idea of the Lord’s Day as important if we wish to follow biblical models. But just what should be done on that day is a matter of debate.

In the Victorian era, Sundays were a day of multiple services among Baptist churches. Spurgeon saw that many visitors from across London showed up at his Sunday evening meetings because other churches didn’t have them. Moreover, in answer to the question “How is the Sabbath* to be kept?” Spurgeon’s catechism responded “The Sabbath is to be sanctified by a holy resting all that day, even from such worldly employments and recreations as are lawful on other days (Lev 23:3), and spending the whole time in the public and private exercises of God’s worship (Psa 92:1-2; Isa 58:13-14), except so much as is taken up in the works of necessity and mercy (Mat 12:11- 12).” Wow! We have certainly come a long way if we think that cancelling a church service for a sporting event is acceptable.

Even if we hold to a similar view as Mr. Spurgeon, we still have not answered the primary question—can services be canceled on the Lord’s Day? The answer is a qualified yes. Biblically, we ought to make every effort to carry out the spirit of the New Testament by having a Lord’s Day service, but there may be times when this is simply not possible due to weather, political chaos, community disasters, and the like. The California wildfires certainly affected how churches functioned as the countryside blazed. Our snow event, while missing the mark as to the timing, could have been otherwise. We still met on the Lord’s Day morning, fulfilling the spirit of the New Testament.

A second question to ponder is whether we really need multiple meetings on the Lord’s Day. Getting back to the brother’s email that house churches are a better use of resources, it does seem rather expensive that we build massive structures for a one-hour meeting on a Sunday, if this is all we meet. Pushing back, can we really do an adequate job of corporate discipleship in one or two hours per week? For this reason, at least, most churches offer multiple services for multiple opportunities for Christian growth and discipleship—times dedicated to fellowship, times dedicated to instruction, times dedicated to worship and the observance of the ordinances.

I have never felt that the church services, any of them, were primarily aimed at evangelism, though evangelism may certainly take place within a church meeting. If we use Acts 2:42 as an indication of the early Jerusalem church, it met for the study of the apostle’s doctrine, for fellowship, for the breaking of bread (the Lord’s Table), and for prayer. Can we do all of this in an hour or two? Likely not. Multiple diverse services allow us to accomplish these important objectives.

It used to be that churches had regularly scheduled times of prayer: prayer for the lost, prayer for the pastors, prayer for the ministry of the church, and prayer for the saints. The Moravians had their 100-year prayer meeting. The point of the meeting was prayer. A prayer meeting was held in Spurgeon’s church while Spurgeon was preaching, and he attributed to these gatherings the source of the power of his pulpit. His people prayed for him. Today, prayer meetings of that sort are seldom held.

It seems to me that before we cancel any particular meeting, we need to ask ourselves why we meet in the first place. If we understand why, then perhaps the question of cancellation is clearer. Services that are ancillary to our stated goals may be and perhaps should be cancelled. Meetings that go to the heart of why we exist as a church may need to be held, even when inconvenient, as a matter of priority. We all make choices and we make them all the time. Churches make choices. The why of the service will drive the when and how often. Perhaps we cancel too lightly because we don’t really grasp the why.

Finally, part of the reason we have church is to build up the saints. If we aren’t really doing this, then we need to step back and evaluate our ministry to ask afresh what it is that we are seeking to accomplish. Simply having services for services’ sake is hardly biblical. In the end, there is no easy answer to the question of cancellation. I think this is how the Lord planned it. We should serve Him, worship Him, and follow Him out of devotion, not merely by checking off a list of things we do to please Him. What we value with our time says more about who we are than most anything we say.

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* I recognize the issue of Sunday as the Christian Sabbath is problematic, but this would take another essay to reply to. For the sake of this Nick, I grant that Sunday is not the sabbath as such. But let’s not lose the bigger issue Spurgeon is addressing: Sunday was a day set apart for devotion to God. Are we the poorer if we fail in this regard?

This essay is by Jeff Straub, Professor of Historical and Systematic Theology at Central Baptist Theological Seminary. Not every one of the professors, students, or alumni of Central Seminary necessarily agrees with every opinion that it expresses.

Come, Let Us Join With One Accord

Charles Wesley (1707–1788)

Come, let us join with one accord 
In hymns around the throne: 
This is the day our rising Lord 
Hath made and called his own. 

This is the day that God hath blessed, 
The brightest of the sev’n, 
Type of that everlasting rest 
The saints enjoy in heav’n. 

Then let us in his Name sing on, 
And hasten to that day 
When our Redeemer shall come down, 
And shadows pass away. 

Not one, but all our days below, 
Let us in hymns employ; 
And in our Lord rejoicing, go 
To his eternal joy. 

Last week I began a brief series on an influential pastor’s decision to cancel services at his nine-campus church on the final Sunday of 2018. About the same time my essay was being written, another well-known pastor released a podcast on the same issue. Our addressing the same question from a similar vantage point was providential.

In the first essay, I dealt with the priority of first-day-of-the-week worship from a biblical point of view. I rehearsed standard, boilerplate New Testament theology that has been widely accepted across the spectrum of Christianity since the post-apostolic era. Christians worshipped together on Sunday, the first day of the week. The church is a gathered community of believers. Worship is a corporate experience which means it is rightly done together. The Bible models this and the church has universally followed this practice.

What about worshipping at home either as a family or a small group? I say small group because few believers have the kind of houses that would accommodate a large gathering, unless it is in a warm climate and the group holds an outdoor meeting. One might have hundreds gathered under such circumstances. A house meeting is going to have far fewer in attendance. Moreover, what the brother in question was suggesting was a family worship experience as opposed to a corporate gathering or a small group. His Twitter feed declared “there are no services at our campus locations this weekend. This is a great chance to worship at home with your family!”

This was promoted as family worship and not small group worship, although perhaps some of the congregation gathered with other believers.  I took exception to the “family worship” format at minimum, because it deviates from the recognized New Testament pattern which Christendom has historically embraced, irrespective of theological orientation—gathered corporate worship.

Now, I am sure there are those who would emphatically push back at this criticism because, after all, didn’t believers start out by holding church meetings in houses? Early churches didn’t have buildings, so why should they be important today? If Christians met in homes in the New Testament, what would be wrong with doing so today? This really is a good question that deserves a thoughtful answer. Is tradition the only real reason we gather in buildings tradition? The answer is not as simple as one might think.

In the first place, while early New Testament believers did indeed meet in houses, it was not their first choice for a meeting place. The earliest Christians started by meeting in Jewish places of worship—initially in the Temple for those converts in Jerusalem (Acts 2:46) and in the synagogues for those outside the city (Acts 13:14ff) scattered across the Diaspora. In both cases, soon after Christians tried to assemble in these places as Christians, they were driven out as Jewish heretics by angry hordes of non-Christian Jews. Christians didn’t abandon Jewish places because they found them inconvenient, but because they found them dangerous.

Without the ability to meet in Jewish places, where could they meet? Some may have met outside, in public spaces, or on private property away from the prying eyes of their detractors. Many believers met in the houses of other believers (Acts 2:46). We know this because Paul refers to “churches” in “houses” on several occasions (Rom 16:5, 1 Cor 16:19, Col 4:15). Clearly “house churches” existed in the New Testament era. Also, it is quite likely that when Paul met the elders from Ephesus in Acts 20, he was meeting with men ministering in house churches across the city. Elder plurality arose out of the need to minister in these small group settings. There is no evidence or biblical intimation that the church at Ephesus had a building. They met in homes across the city and a plurality of elders was needed to care for the many small gatherings who met for church.* I have a friend who pastors two churches in Romania about 15 minutes apart by automobile. It would be impractical to try to handle two churches on a Sunday if he had to walk between them. This brother preaches three to five times per Sunday between these places. Only in the modern era can this be done. Still, these believers have buildings in which to gather. In the early New Testament era, there were no buildings.

Over time, Christians began to pool resources and erect buildings for convenience for gathered worship. Sadly, many of these early structures were razed by the authorities during the years of persecution that preceded the Edict of Milan (313 AD). Under Constantine’s administration, after he legalized Christianity, it received favored status. The emperor actually built or funded churches across the empire to curry favor of Christians with the aim of solidifying his civil authority over the nation. House churches likely still existed in places, but these gradually gave way to dedicated buildings for gathered worship.

Today, there is a strong house church movement in some parts of the world. It is well known that many Christians meet in homes in China, though this is not their preferred practice. Since 1951, Chinese Christians have had few options—either the state sanctioned Three-Self Patriot Movement (or its Catholic equivalent) or illegal house churches. They are illegal because they refuse to be controlled by government officials. Many house churches have dedicated buildings or use apartments for their meetings. Now the government is oppressing these illegal churches who refuse to be kept under the thumb of the government. Some have built buildings without government permission only to have their crosses torn down, their buildings razed, and their pastors arrested for the crime of corporate worship. This reminds me of 17th century England, when the infamous Conventicle Act kept more than five people not of the same family from gathering together for worship. When believers defied the Conventicle Act (1664), the government imposed the 5-Mile Act (1665) which made it illegal for ministers to travel to within five miles of parishes from which they had been removed.

Nevertheless, Christians resisted these strictures, even as in other countries. Christians gather secretly in “house churches” or out in the woods because corporate public worship is otherwise too dangerous. Some Christians resist the persecution by deliberately holding public corporate gatherings, not to oppose their governments but to show their allegiance to Christ and His Word.  The thought of deliberately cancelling an established public worship service for no greater reason than congregational fatigue is incomprehensible to much of the global Church.

Yes, historically, Christians have worshipped in houses. Sometimes, family worship may even be a necessity (family illness or travel to remote areas). These occasions are out of necessity and not out of preference. The global Church has chosen to gather together in dedicated buildings wherever possible as a public testimony of their loyalty to Jesus Christ. The pattern is hardly on the small groups but on the large assemblies with their choruses of voices raised to the glory of God!

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* At this point, I don’t want to get into the idea of the church as ekklesia because there is dispute as to what the word signifies, although many think that the very nature of the word highlights a gathered group of people called out from the world to follow Jesus Christ.

This essay is by Jeff Straub, Professor of Historical and Systematic Theology at Central Baptist Theological Seminary. Not every one of the professors, students, or alumni of Central Seminary necessarily agrees with every opinion that it expresses.

Built on the Rock

Nikolai Grundtvig (1783–1872); tr. Carl Doving (1867–1937)

Built on the Rock, the church shall stand
even when steeples are falling;
Christ builds His church in ev’ry land;
bells still are chiming and calling,
calling the young and old to rest,
calling the souls of those distressed,
longing for life everlasting.

Not in a temple made with hands
God the Almighty is dwelling;
high in the heav’ns His temple stands,
all earthly temples excelling.
Yet He who dwells in heaven above
chooses to live with us in love,
making our body His temple.

We are God’s house of living stones,
built for His own habitation;
He fills our hearts, His humble thrones,
granting us life and salvation.
Yet to the place, an earthly frame,
we come with thanks to praise His name;
God grants His people true blessing.

Thro’ all the passing years, O Lord,
grant that, when church bells are ringing,
many may come to hear God’s Word
where He the promise is bringing:
“I know My own, My own know Me,
you, not the world, My face shall see;
My peace I leave with you. Amen.”