Topic(s): Denominationalism

Sometime ago I heard Leroy Brownlow speak on “Why I Am a Member of the Church of Christ.” The name and the title were both familiar to me, as they would be to most members of the church. Brother Browlow is the author of the popular book by the same name. My oldest copy of his book is the ninth edition. My most recent copy is the forty-second edition! It numbers into the hundreds of thousands.

Brother Brownlow is beyond three score and ten, but he has lost none of his power and effectiveness as a proclaimer. He enunciated his points with clarity, simplicity, and good humor. In the course of his remarks he pointed out that many people are what they are religiously, because they grew up that way. He said this was not true, however, in his case. He and his parents studied their way out of prominent denominational bodies in order to become undenominational New Testament Christians.

He spoke of how his father gave up his creed book when he obeyed the Gospel. He carried his New Testament with him thereafter, wherever he went. He described the excitement, happiness, and joy his parents experienced in becoming members of the New Testament church. They were thrilled to wear no name but Christian, to have no creed but Christ, and to hold membership in no institution except the church revealed in the New Testament.

A short time before his mother passed away, she began to observe the changes promulgated by some within the church. One day she said to him: “Son, we don’t want the church to grow into what we left!”

What a powerful expression for the undenominational nature of the New Testament church. She had studied her way out of denominationalism. She knew the difference. She understood what it meant to be a simple, New Testament Christian and a member of the church as people were in the first century.

When we see denominational trends and modernistic departures taking place around us, let us remember that fervent entreaty: “Son, we don’t want the church to grow into what we left!” —Alan E. Highers

“Stand ye in the ways, and see, and ask for the old paths, where is the good way, and walk therein…” — Jeremiah 6:16

Management or Sales?

Topic(s): Evangelism

We live in a result-oriented society. We want to see the benefits of our labors, and have set our own standards by which they are to be measured. We have brought this spirit into the church. We want to see results, and we are inclined to measure them only in responses, increases in membership, or by attendance figures.

These things are spiritual indicators to be sure, but they do not reflect God’s point of view. In fact, in our insistence on results we sometimes find ourselves in open opposition to His will. A renowned evangelist wrote that it was one of the most important lessons of his life when he finally realized that God was in management and that he was only in sales. This is simply saying that he had been trying to take over the prerogative of God in deciding on the results, rather than doing his own part well. I am afraid this characteristic is too often seen in the church.

Noah preached one-hundred and twenty years without a response. What if you had been on the “pulpit committee?” Do you not know he got discouraged? In our modem way of thinking we would have to judge him a failure, but God had a different point of view. He declared him to be “a preacher of righteousness” (2 Peter 2:5).

Paul established no congregation in Athens (Acts 17). He preached his heart out and left seemingly utterly dejected, at perhaps one of the lowest points in his career. What if you had been on the “missions committee?” Would you not have been looking for someone else to support? Yet his sermon on Mars Hill still stands as one of the greatest sermons ever preached.

Philadelphia was a congregation without blemish (Revelation 3:7-13). She was the only one of the seven churches of Asia to receive unmixed commendation. But why? Not great numbers, for all admit she must have been very small. Not because of a liberal budget or an admirable growth rate, but because she was faithful. How could anyone have compared this congregation to Jerusalem, Antioch, Corinth, or Ephesus? Yet in the eyes of the Lord the church at Philadelphia apparently was one of the greatest churches in the New Testament.

Changing our way of thinking is not going to be easy. We have been caught up on results too long. But in God’s sight Noah was a better preacher than Apollos, when Apollos was getting all the responses in Acts 18. Paul was not a failure in Athens because he was preaching the message as God wanted it preached. Philadelphia was a greater congregation than those with many times her attendance, because God is more concerned with our faithfulness than with numbers. —Jack Gray

Eloquent Prayer

Topic(s): Humor, Prayer

Eloquence isn’t necessarily flowery language so much as heartfelt expression. Consider this prayer of a country preacher in Red Rock, Mississippi:

“Oh Lord, give Thy servant this mornin’ the eyes of the eagle and the wisdom of the owl; connect his soul with the gospel telephone in the central skies; ‘luminate his brow with the Sun of Heaven; possess his mind with love for the people; turpentine his imagintion; grease his lips with ‘possum oil; lossen his tongue with the sledge hammer of Thy power; ‘lectrify his brain with the lightnin’ of the Word; put ‘petual motion on his arms, fill him plum full of the dynamite of Thy glory; ‘noint him all over with the kerosene oil of Thy salvation and set him on the fire. In Jesus Name. Amen!”

“...Always labouring fervently for you in prayers, that ye may stand perfect and complete in all the will of God” (Colossians 4:12).