Calvary Baptist Church

Calvary Baptist Church, Grenada, MS, USA

Holding to the truths embraced by Baptist for centuries.

CHAPTER VI

THE POLITY OF THE CHURCH ON THE ROCK

John 17:18

"Polity'' is defined as "a specific form of political organization," or "the form of government of a religious denomination." Polity, then, is policy plus procedure. Anything organized has, of necessity, some sort of polity.

The governing principles and means of execution for them are set forth in the New Testament for churches, as they are for our nation in its Constitution. They are brief, simple, and elastic enough to allow for changing circumstances without change in any fundamental principle. We will attempt to extract a few ideas from an examination of the post-resurrection Scriptures, realizing that as the number of members, and the number of congregations, grew, that polity questions gained prominence.

First, there is the matter of Regular Praise. As is well known, Jesus was in the tomb over a high Sabbath (John 19:31). On the first day of the week, He made five appearances in His glorified body (to Mary Magdalene, Mark 16:9; to the other women, Matthew 28:9-10; to the two on the Emmaus Road, Luke 24:13-32; to Simon Peter, Luke 24:34 and I Corinthians 15:5; and to the ten in the upper room on Sunday evening, John 20:19-25.) Thomas missed church that Sunday night, and the apostles went on a visitation program which brought their backsliding brother back for the next scheduled worship service. It is of more than passing interest that this next appearance was "after eight days," John 20:26; evidently it was on the following Sunday night. If all Sunday night absenteeism could be dealt with as effectively as this church did in the case of Thomas, none of our congregations would ever consider closing the Sunday night worship services!

Again, the day of Pentecost (Acts 2) was a Sunday morning worship service. According to Leviticus 23, the wave sheaf was to be offered on the Sunday morning following the Passover. Both of these were typical of Christ: I Corinthians 5:7 calls Christ "our passover,'' and in the same book, the Holy Spirit says through Paul that Christ is the "firstfruits," or wave offering. Christ as our passover speaks of the sacrificial work of Calvary; Christ our firstfruits speaks of the evidential work of resurrection. As the Passover lamb was sacrificed, and after an intervening high Sabbath the first stalks of grain coming up out of the ground were waved before the LORD in the place of worship, so Christ died for our sins, lay in the tomb for three days

and three nights, and came forth from the ground, the firstfruits of those who slept, to be joyfully waved before the Giver of harvest as a token of faith in the coming crop which will include all who are "in Christ'' the resurrection of the body.

Leviticus 23:15-16 tells us that the "fiftieth day feast'' or Pentecost was always on "the morning after the seventh sabbath,'' and therefore on a Sunday.

Again, in Acts 20, Paul was traveling from Greece to carry a major love-offering to the poor saints at Jerusalem (a cooperative mission project, in which messengers of the churches associated on the journey). He was in a rush, but according to verses 6 and 7, he waited (with Luke) for seven days in order to meet with the disciples on the first day of the week, a regular Sunday worship service. Had they been accustomed to scheduled worship on other days, after his Monday arrival, would a man on a tight schedule wait a full week?

Also, Paul gave an order (arrangement) to the churches of Galatia and to the Corinthians to receive their tithes and offering at the storehouse "upon the first day of the week." This is a fairly explicit direction assuming regularly scheduled worship services on the day commutating the resurrection, not a dead and buried day of legalism but a living day for a living Lord.

A second element of polity is suggested by Acts 1:13-14: the matter of Regular Prayer. The whole church met together in the same upper room where the Lord had instituted His supper, and the whole church continued with one accord in prayer and supplication. Our polity ought to follow that of the first church by beginning in praise and continuing in prayer. Rather than rushing through our mechanical activities, we need to begin our polity with all glory, laud, and honor to Christ the King, and continue by earnest requests for His power, guidance, and glory in all that is done.

This sort of regular prayer and regular praise went hand in hand through the powerful book of the Acts of the Holy Spirit in the early churches. Note Acts 2:42, 4:23-31, 12:5, and similar passages.

There is also the matter of Regular Procedures. In at least two cases, the congregation met for the discussion of church business and the decision of crucial matters of practical church life. The first of these occasions is recorded in Acts 1:15-26, where Peter cited three inspired Scriptures (Psalms 41:9, 69:25, and 109:8), and by the leadership of the same Holy Spirit Who inspired them, interpreted them to indicate the necessity of an apostle to replace Judas.

The qualifications for this replacement are given in verses 21 and 22: "Wherefore of these males (not the general word for people) who have accompanied us all the time that the Lord Jesus went in and out among us, beginning from the baptism of John, until that same day that He was taken up from us, must one be ordained a witness with us of His resurrection." These qualifications may be summarized briefly.

The objection that Peter ran ahead of the Holy Spirit and that Paul should have been the twelfth apostle ignores these facts:

At any rate, the church voted. Those entitled to participate in the selection process were the 120 whose names were on the church roll, according to verse 15. The text does not say "the number of people," but "the number of names," and the Greek text says "names upon the it,'' an idiom for "names on the list." Regular procedure demands some sort of record of those eligible to participate in church activities, and such a list is not unscriptural. It also facilitates the exchange of information concerning believers who move from one area to another and desire (as we ought) to participate in the work of a similar congregation in their new home. Saul (Paul) needed such a "letter of recommendation'' when he moved from Antioch to Jerusalem (9:23-28) and wished to join himself to the disciples. They, knowing his reputation, did not wish to receive him, until Barnabas "co-signed'' for him. Phoebe, moving from Cenchrea to Rome, carried her letter as part of an inspired document, Romans 16:1. Paul also refers to this habit in II Corinthians 3:1, when he asks if he would need a letter to join the church he started as others would, or if he could join on statement!

One objection to considering Matthias as the twelfth apostle, as a replacement for Judas, is that he is not heard from again. But where in Acts do we read of Philip and Andrew, Bartholomew, Thomas, or some of the other apostles, after 1:13? Yet they were present in the upper room in 1:14, and they were present, with Matthias, on Pentecost (2:14), and they were present in Jerusalem when the church was scattered (8:1), and there is no reason to suppose Matthias any less effective than the others who are not again named.

The second business meeting carefully noted in Acts took place when a group of grumblers raised the cry of "Racial discrimination!" This could have been settled by segregation, or by a knock-down drag-out fight, or by the "ignore them and the problem will go away'' approach, but it was settled by a church business meeting. The twelve (including Matthias!) may have

discussed practical approaches among themselves, but they did not impose a decision. They "called the multitude of the disciples'' together, and proposed a resolution of the issue which "pleased the whole multitude." (How could they have known that it pleased the whole multitude without a vote?)

Again, the business of the church was managed by regular procedures, not haphazardly. The congregation was to search out the seven males (same word as 1:21) who were to manage the church's beneficence, while the ministers gave themselves continually to their primary responsibility, prayer and the ministry of the Word.

Another area of polity is the matter of Regular Perpetuity. In Acts 7, Stephen, one of the seven selected to "deacon" or minister at Jerusalem, preached so powerfully that the Pharisees joined their sworn enemies the Sadducees (as they had in the mock trials of Jesus) to eliminate this Christian message. In chapter 8, the church was scattered abroad except for the preachers, and they who were scattered went everywhere preaching! Philip, another of the deacons, later called an evangelist (21:8), went among the Samaritans preaching the gospel of Christ, and just as those of Sychar in John 4, these "outcasts'' gladly received the message which had been cast out by the children of the kingdom!

Philip, of course, was a part of the Jerusalem church, a member of the body of Christ manifest at that place. He did not go to the city of Samaria as a "lone wolf," but under church guidance. How do we know that? Verse 14 tells us. When the apostles, the remnant of the "mother church'' at Jerusalem, heard of the good work there, they sent a committee (Peter and John) to constitute this mission into a fully autonomous church! And God gave a sign of His blessing, by the empowering of the Holy Spirit which the Jerusalem congregation had received in Acts 2.

"But," someone objects, "did not Philip have the authority to do all that himself?" Well, when Peter and John came to town, did Philip say, "Leave my territory alone, you poachers!”? No; he gladly submitted to the authority of Christ as expressed through His body, the church of which he was a member.

This sort of continuity is also exemplified through the account of the eunuch from Ethiopia, who had gone to Jerusalem intending to worship and had been turned away because of their view of Deuteronomy 23:1. But a higher law was found in Isaiah's Gospel. As the eunuch read the scroll, which he had doubtless purchased in Jerusalem, his interest mounted. When Phillip, under the influence of the Holy Spirit, joined him as a "holy hitch- hiker," the eunuch's excitement reached fever pitch. He had noted a message to his own country in chapter 18, and a revelation of a God Who was above all nations and all classes and races of men. Phillip, a Grecian Jew, was willing to accept this and to expound to him Jesus. But would Phillip accept him where the temple-keepers had refused him?

"See, here is water; what does hinder me to be immersed?'' The question was doubtless asked with a trembling voice, in view of possible rejection.

And Philip's reply is delightful. (For those who feel that Philip sprinkled the Ethiopian with water from the drinking jug in the chariot, let us note that "they went down both into the water...and...were come up out of the water," vv. 38-39. Big jug, wasn't it!) He did not ask, "Are you a Jew?" "Are you willing to be circumcised to become a Jew?" "Are you willing to keep the law of Moses?'' Nor did he institute a new legalism. As a member of the Jerusalem church, a missionary sent out by and from that body of Christ, he immersed his new brother, by the authority of Jesus the Christ, expressed through that church, which then extended its life through that new brother into Ethiopia, where Christianity was largely biblical for centuries after. Scriptural missionaries do this today; entering a new area, they take advance authority from their home church (as custodian of the ordinances) to baptize until a church can be duly constituted on the field. If Philip did not do this, and if he did not report back to Jerusalem, how then did this passage come to be in Acts?

And what of the eunuch, as he "went on his way rejoicing"? Should we think that he stopped reading Isaiah? Or did he go on to find the promise to Gentiles and to the barren, in chapter 54? Did he read of salvation in chapter 55 and remember that Philip had not charged him for baptism? And did he rejoice with joy inexpressible and full of glory when he came to chapter 56? God, pre-writing history, had so arranged the inspired Scriptures that this "son of the stranger, that has joined himself to the LORD," could not say, "The LORD has utterly separated me from His people," nor could the eunuch say, "Behold, I am a dry tree." Though he could not be admitted to the temple on the earth, he was given by grace a "name better than of sons and daughters...an everlasting name, that shall not be cut off." And it is this context that God reminded us, "My house shall be called a house of prayer for all nations." Shame on us when we do less!

Another instance of this Regular Perpetuity is found in Acts 10-11, when PETER TOOK WITH HIM A COMMITTEE of his fellow church members to the household of the Gentile Cornelius. He even took a vote of the committee (10:47), implying that one negative vote, properly based, would have prevented baptism. A church is a fellowship and fellowship is based on agreement. To accept irregular baptisms, or to accept into fellowship those not of one accord is hypocritical and destructive.

Also, in Acts 11, those who went from Jerusalem began work in Antioch and enjoyed such success that the Jerusalem church sent Barnabas to examine the work and constitute it. Note that Antioch is not called a church until after this formal recognition, v. 26. Prior to that time, it was an arm from Jerusalem, a daughter waiting to be delivered.

It is in this light that we can best understand the action of Antioch in chapter 15, in the matter of some who came from Jerusalem preaching circumcision. They did not report to the "mother church'' to see what to

believe, but to determine if there really was agreement or disagreement. As one equal to another, in an "associational meeting," the messengers from Antioch and the members of Jerusalem discussed and settled, not how people are saved: that was only the occasion, not the issue. They settled the question of fellowship, or exchange of letters and missionary cooperation. If there is no doctrinal agreement, there can be no real fellowship. Until the Christians at Antioch were satisfied that Jerusalem had not departed into heresy, they could not participate with them or endorse their actions. Would that our associations and conventions today could settle the doctrinal basis of fellowship in the same spirit and with the same truth as held sway in that council!

And last, we note the matter of Regular Provision. Financial support of the ministry and mission of a church was practiced during Jesus' earthly life (Luke 8:1-3, John 12:4-6, etc.). It was continued by the church after Pentecost, Acts 2:44-45, 4:34-5:4, etc.). It was expanded by the missionary outreach of the Antioch congregation and the broad vision shown to the churches through the ministry of Paul.

There are some who would suppose this selling of property and sharing of goods was communism. That it was not is plain from Acts 5:4, where Peter plainly told Ananias, "While the land remained, it was your own." Under communism, private property does not exist. Nor does Peter rebuke the concept; the rebuke is of the falsehood. Further, he said, "And after it was sold, was it not still in your own power?" Under communism, free choice of stewardship is impossible. At the most, this was communalism, which is voluntary where communism is coercive.

But even the communal approach disappeared rapidly, and was not followed by later churches. Why not? Possibly it was this system which led to the poor saints at Jerusalem for whom Paul received his great collection, and which led him to pen the words, "If any would not work, neither should he eat." Free enterprise is never condemned in Scripture, and enterprise is always commended. Even among the comparatively small and homogenous groups of New Testament Christians, as was the case 1600 years later at Plymouth Colony, that system which works best for this world is morally conditioned capitalism. While any economic system may be abused, that on which America was built has lasted longer and done more for the poor, given more to missionary causes, and developed more mature, responsible persons than any other. While every portion of the book of Acts is inspired, we need not feel that the Jerusalem church spoke ex cathedra in its every action. The concept of support is clear; the method is more explicitly spelled out in I Corinthians 16:2, where giving is to be regular (upon the first day of the week), personal (every one of you), church-centered (in store), proportional (as God has prospered him), and missionary (that there be no special offerings when the mission speaker comes, but the money be ready in the treasury!)

Such giving provides for an on-going world ministry. The finest Christians are those who first give themselves, as the surprising Macedonians did ("not as we expected," II Corinthians 8:5), and then of their means. Sporadic giving indicates roller-coaster living, with spiritual highs and lows. Sustained giving indicates the victorious Christian life, possibly more strongly than any other sign.

While other elements of church polity might be noted, these four serve to remind us of the order of our God, Who is not the author of confusion. God's business is big business, and should be conducted as such. Our budgets, our selection of mission causes, our expenses for evangelism and benevolence, our expressions of the gospel in dollars and sense, ought to be prayerfully considered, thoroughly explained, and constantly monitored. The mere sending of money is never enough. If our churches are sending God's tithes and offerings to false teachers, of whatever sort, it should stop! If Jerusalem is teaching circumcision and the Law of Moses for salvation, we ought not seat messengers from Jerusalem (after due deliberation), nor exchange letters with them. If our messengers (II Cor. 8:23, named in Acts 20:4-5) cannot control the offerings gathered by our churches, then our churches ought to review their polity and see if too much power has been placed in extra-church machinery. While it is true that the larger the operation, the more difficult to follow, it is also true that larger operations can be more efficient. When they are open for full free inspection to all interested parties, so that salaries, operating expenses, and all other details can be easily confirmed, we Baptists have no difficulty in supporting the largest program of world mission effort, the boldest thrust of evangelism, that this world has known for twenty centuries.

Regularity of succession, orderly conduct of inter-church business, and above all regular praise and regular prayer, are the elements of successful church polity. Does this recipe "cook up" great churches? Consider this gospel arithmetic from the early chapters of Acts.

In 6:7, "the number of the disciples multiplied in Jerusalem greatly." = thousands x thousands x thousands!

Thus God's arithmetic blessed the polity of the Jerusalem congregation, which in spite of their humanity was in large part in God's eternal purpose and is therefore the best example for our churches today.