The Collected Writings of James Leo Garrett Jr., 1950–2015: Volume Three: Ecclesiology

The Collected Writings of James Leo Garrett Jr., 1950–2015

Volume 3: Ecclesiology

James Leo Garrett Jr.

Edited by Wyman Lewis Richardson

Foreword by David S. Dockery

The Collected Writings of James Leo Garrett Jr.,

1950

–

2015

Volume

3

: Ecclesiology

Copyright ©

2019

James Leo Garrett Jr. All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations in critical publications or reviews, no part of this book may be reproduced in any manner without prior written permission from the publisher. Write: Permissions, Wipf and Stock Publishers,

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W.

8

th Ave., Suite

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, Eugene, OR

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.

Resource Publications

An Imprint of Wipf and Stock Publishers

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paperback isbn: 978-1-5326-0735-6

hardcover isbn: 978-1-5326-0737-0

ebook isbn: 978-1-5326-0736-3

Manufactured in the U.S.A.

October 14, 2019

Baptist Church Discipline by James Leo Garrett Jr. used by permission of Broadman Press. Copyright

1962

.

Baptist Church Discipline, 2d ed. by James Leo Garrett Jr. used by permission of Baptist Standard Bearer, Inc. Copyright 2004.

Baptists concerning Baptism: Review and Preview by James Leo Garrett Jr. used by permission of Southwestern Journal of Theology 43 (2001): 52–67.

The Bottom Line for Innovative Churches by James Leo Garrett Jr. used by permission of Baptist News Global/Religious Herald. Copyright Baptist News Global/The Religious Herald.

Church Discipline: Lost but Recoverable by James Leo Garrett Jr. used by permission of The Founders Journal. Copyright 1991.

The Congregation-Led Church: Congregational Polity and Responses to Four Other Authors by James Leo Garrett Jr. used by permission of Broadman and Holman. Copyright 2004.

Ecclesiology: The Crucial Issue by James Leo Garrett Jr. used by permission of Baptist Standard. Copyright 1954.

Foreword in Baptist Foundations: Baptist Polity for an Anti-Polity Age by James Leo Garrett Jr. used by permission of Broadman and Holman. Copyright 2015.

Free Church Architecture: Its History and Theology by James Leo Garrett Jr. used by permission of Broadman and Holman.

Recovering Church Discipline by James Leo Garrett Jr. used by permission of Baptist Standard. Copyright 1960.

Seeking a Regenerate Church Membership by James Leo Garrett Jr. used by permission of Southwestern Journal of Theology. Copyright 1961.

Should Baptist Churches Adopt Open Membership? by James Leo Garrett Jr. used by permission of Baptist Standard. Copyright 2010.

The Theology and Practice of Baptism: A Southern Baptist Perspective by James Leo Garrett Jr. used by permission of Southwestern Journal of Theology. Copyright 1986.

Under the Lordship of Christ Through Democratic Processes by James Leo Garrett Jr. used by permission of B&H Academics. Copyright 2010.

Table of Contents

Title Pager., 1950–2015

Foreword

Preface

Editor’s Introduction

Acknowledgments

I: Ecclesiology

Chapter 1: Ecclesiology: The Crucial Issue (Part 1) (1954)

Chapter 2: Ecclesiology: The Crucial Issue (Part 2) (1954)

Chapter 3: Preface The Concept of the Believers’ Church (1968)

Chapter 4: Understanding the Church: A Southern Baptist Perspective (1989)

Chapter 6: The Bottom Line for Innovative Churches (1999)

II: Polity

Chapter 7: Professor Examines Historical Role of Deacons (Part 1) (1991)

Chapter 8: Professor Examines Historical Role of Deacons (Part 2) (1991)

Chapter 9: The Congregation-Led Church: Congregational Polity (2004)

Chapter 10: Under the Lordship of Christ through Democratic Processes (2010)

Chapter 11: Foreword Baptist Foundations: Church Government for an Anti-Institutional Age (2015)

III: Baptism

Chapter 12: The Theology and Practice of Baptism: A Southern Baptist Perspective. (1986)

Chapter 13: Baptists Concerning Baptism: Review and Preview (2001)

IV: Regenerate Church Membership and Church Discipline

Chapter 14: Recovering Church Discipline (1960/1991)

Chapter 15: Seeking a Regenerate Church Membership (1961)

Chapter 16: The Renewed Congregation (1961)

Chapter 17: Baptist Church Discipline (1962/2004)

Chapter 18: Should Baptist Churches Adopt Open Membership? No. (2010)

V: Church Architecture

Chapter 19: Should Baptist Churches Have Chancels? (1956)

Chapter 20: Free Church Architecture: Its History and Theology (1960)

Chapter 21: The Story Behind Church Architecture (1961)

Chapter 22: Why Build for Worship? (1972)

Bibliography

Gratefully dedicated

to the memory of

Dr. George Huntston Williams (1914–2000),

historian of the Christian centuries,

most notably the sixteenth,

and my teacher

and my friend for forty-four years.

Foreword

Though it has now been almost four decades since I walked into the classroom of Professor James Leo Garrett Jr. when I was a student at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, I still remember that time ever so clearly. Here was a master historian and theologian, and I recognized what a privilege it was to study with him. The lectures were comprehensive, the readings extensive, and the course requirements were challenging. Since that time, I have continued to be his student. In God’s good providence, I have been blessed to have a four-decade long friendship with my teacher and mentor. I have not only learned directly from him though conversations and correspondence, but I have tried to read his many and prolific publications. About 25 years ago, I was honored, along with Paul Basden, to be given the privilege to edit a volume of essays in honor of Dr. Garrett called The People of God: Essays on the Believers’ Church . Not only have I read his incredibly well-researched two volumes of systematic theology, but, also, his many other works, including a host of articles and chapters represented by the collection found in this particular volume. I am certainly grateful to Wyman Richardson for his vision to bring these volumes together for a new generation of students and church leaders.

Volume three in this multi-volume collection focuses on Dr. Garrett’s writings on Baptist ecclesiology. Readers will be introduced to thoughts on the biblical understanding of church, the meaning of the believers’ church and church renewal, interaction with numerous others regarding church polity, congregationalism, and the importance of deacons, as well as thoughtful reflections on issues such as baptism, church membership, church discipline, and church architecture. As we read these various pieces, we get a small glimpse into the breadth and depth of Dr. Garrett’s wide-ranging engagement with the biblical text and early church fathers, with Reformers and contemporary theologians, with a wide array of Baptist leaders, thinkers, and confessional statements, with Roman Catholic, Orthodox, and Protestant authors, as well as with scholars and practitioners. His grasp of these issues, and perspectives on these various issues, is nothing less than encyclopedic.

A brief introductory overview of some of the church-related themes encountered in this volume will perhaps be helpful for readers. Volume three of The Collected Writings of James Leo Garrett Jr. maintains a focus on the church, which is the community of men and women who have responded to God’s offer of salvation. The church provides order, organization, and mission directives for the people of God. Dr. Garrett wrestles with the meaning of the local church as well as the universal church, doing so in conversation with other traditions. The perspectives found in this volume on these ideas and issues are faithful to the best of the Baptist tradition. Garrett’s work examines the nature and mission of the church, including the order and organization of the church, its worship, mission, ministry, fellowship, ordinances, and discipline.

Dr. Garrett contends that the biblical idea of church must be understood from the usage of ekklesia in the New Testament. The basic idea means a gathered group of people. In the New Testament, ekklesia has a variety of meanings in the 114 places where the word is found, but most of these usages point to a local body of believers. What the church is precedes an understanding of what the church does. In both origin and end, the church belongs to the triune God. Membership is by God’s grace for those who have placed their faith in Jesus Christ and who have been baptized into and indwelt by the Holy Spirit. The church is a community of believers who have been called as saints.

The church in the New Testament is presented through teaching, pictures, and images as a multisided entity. The church is more than a human organization; it is an organism, a visible and tangible expression of the people who are related to Christ. We recognize that a local church is a group of baptized believers banded together for worship, edification, service, fellowship, and outreach. As Dr. Garrett notes, members of the church are those who are willing to accept spiritual oversight and discipline, who are willing to minister to all segments of society through the various gifts in the body of Christ, and who faithfully practice the ordinances. A brief summation of a Baptist understanding of the church may be found in Article XIV of the 1859 Abstract of Principles, which states that the Lord Jesus is the Head of the Church, which is composed of all his true disciples, and in him is invested supremely all power for its government. According to his commandment, Christians are to associate themselves into particular societies or churches; and to each of these churches he hath given needful authority for administering that order, discipline and worship which he hath appointed.

Dr. Garrett’s discussions of polity, leadership, congregationalism, and the role of deacons provide the reader with much insight. The church is to do everything decently and in order (1 Cor 14:40). For the church to function well, there is a need for an understanding of biblical leadership, which includes overseers (pastors/bishops/elders) and deacons. Additional order and organization in the church develops from needs among the congregation and the spiritual gifts available for ministry in particular settings. The function of the church is more important than its form as the entire congregation submits to the Lordship of Jesus Christ, who is head of the church. That being said, Dr. Garrett makes the case for an understanding of church architecture that will be faithful to a Baptist understanding of worship and ministry.

While Dr. Garrett received a master’s degree from Princeton and a doctoral degree from Harvard, he first received degrees from Southwestern Seminary, where he was blessed to study with W. T. Conner, one of the true shaping and influential theologians in Southern Baptist history, who taught theology at Southwestern for four decades in the first half of the twentieth century. Dr. Conner often emphasized that worship is central in the existence and continuation of the church as presented in the New Testament. He maintained that the ultimate purpose of the church should be informed by the worship and praise of the One who called it into being (Eph 1:4–6). Dr. Garrett’s reflections in this volume certainly reflect continuity with the theology of Dr. Conner.

For those who have had the privilege to observe Dr. Garrett’s life and work, they know the important role that the church has played for him. Thus, the explication of the church found in this volume is much more than theoretical for the author of these writings. As readers work through these articles and chapters, they will hear the convictional voice of a confessional theologian and a faithful churchman. There is much here upon which to reflect and much for ongoing thought and meditation. God called the church into being for fellowship with himself as well as with other believers. The church is to be a holy priesthood (1 Pet 2:5) while declaring the wonderful deeds of God, who called the believing community out of darkness into his marvelous light (1 Pet 2:9). Providing opportunities for worship, ministry, service, fellowship, and celebration, the church is God’s agent in the world to carry out the missionary task to and for the world, while creating opportunities for edification and ministry for followers of Jesus Christ.

We are grateful to God for the wonderful gift to his church of James Leo Garrett Jr. I remain thankful for the privilege that was mine to have been Dr. Garrett’s student. Readers of this volume will also have the opportunity to learn from this gifted teacher and faithful Baptist churchman. We express our appreciation to all who have been involved in bringing this volume to the place of publication. I know that it will be a source of edification, education, and blessing for all who take time to read.

Soli Deo Gloria

David S. Dockery

President, Trinity International University

Deerfield, Illinois

2018

Preface

I cannot recall precisely when I became aware of two realities in the Baptist doctrine of the church. One is the pattern of nineteenth-century Southern Baptist theologians in not treating ecclesiology as an integral part of systematic theology but as a separate academic discipline. James Petigru Boyce and John Leadley Dagg were exemplars of that pattern, although my mentor, Walter Thomas Conner, did not include ecclesiology until revising his systematic theology’s part two during World War II. The other reality is the fact that virtually all of the beliefs or practices that Baptists have claimed to be their distinctives are ecclesiological in nature. This fact helps to explain why ecclesiology has been so very important to Baptists.

Historians of Western civilization are prone to reckon as decisive three divisions for Christianity: the Roman Catholic Church, the Eastern Orthodox churches, and the Protestant churches. But within the Protestant sphere there are important distinctions deriving both from the Magisterial wing of the Reformation and from the Radical wing of the Protestant Reformation. Although all those in the Radical wing did not agree on What is the church? the Anabaptist phase of the Radical wing was to be differentiated from the Magisterial wing by concepts that are essentially ecclesiological. This was true even when filtered through the Magisterial wing, namely, the Church of England. Those ecclesiological differences flowered especially in England, notably in Puritanism, Independency, and Separatism. Responsible study of today’s Baptist ecclesiology must be ever mindful of that foundation.

My most complete treatment of ecclesiology is to be found in the second volume of my Systematic Theology (Wipf & Stock), wherein eight chapters and 209 pages are devoted to that subject. This present volume contains those other ecclesiological writings wherein I pursued a given subject in greater detail: baptism, membership, polity, unity, corrective church discipline, deacons, and church architecture. 

I was thrust into ecclesiology during my year of study (1948–49) in Princeton Theological Seminary, which immediately followed the founding assembly of the World Council of Churches. I had to wrestle with church union/Christian unity. 

Corrective church discipline was explored in the context of the Charleston (SC) foundation of Southern Baptist life. My writing on baptism on the other hand was done in the context of interconfessional dialogues with Roman Catholics and Eastern Orthodox. Participation in multi-authored literary debates on church polity evoked my most thorough writing on that subject. My writing on deacons was somewhat motivated by the fact that I have served as a deacon as well as a pastor. Church architecture, hardly on the radar of theology today, was a lively issue for some during the 1950s and the 1960s.

I continue to be indebted to Dr. Richardson, who has made his own contributions to the literature of Baptist ecclesiology.

May this volume serve to motivate and inspire its readers to contribute to the divinely ordained renewal of the people of God, knowing that the gates of Hades will not overcome Jesus’ church (Matt 16:18c, NIV), for indeed He loved the church, and gave himself for it (Eph 5:25, KJV).

James Leo Garrett Jr.

Distinguished Professor of Theology, Emeritus

Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary

Nacogdoches, Texas

November 1, 2018

E

ditor’s Introduction

My first introduction to the person and published work of Dr. James Leo Garrett Jr. was to his theological instruction in the classroom and his two-volume Systematic Theology . These had an immediate impact on me. Yet even given the great impact that Dr. Garrett’s theological instruction and writings had and continue to have on me, it was Dr. Garrett’s ecclesiological scholarship that initially had an impact on me that I would call profound . In particular it was Dr. Garrett’s work on regenerate church membership and church discipline that met me with a sense of urgency and poignancy in a time of great pastoral and vocational need and trial in an early pastorate after my graduation from Southwestern. These writings, included herein, comforted me, gave me much-needed historical background, helped plant my feet in the firm foundation of New Testament ecclesiology, and emboldened and equipped me to handle a very difficult situation in the church I was pastoring at the time. I was struck then, as I am now, by the clear, clarion, and prophetic edge to Dr. Garrett’s ecclesiological work.

Dr. Garrett is a churchman. In their preface to the 1991 festschrift for Dr. Garrett, The People of God: Essays on the Believers’ Church, Paul Basden and David Dockery wrote that the theme of the Church . . . has ranked foremost in the thought of James Leo Garrett Jr. and that Dr. Garrett, perhaps more than anyone else in recent memory, has led this current generation of Baptists to focus on the church.¹ This volume will bear further evidence in support of that contention.

Early in the process of planning this project, I was touched when Dr. Garrett mailed me a list of the churches to which he and his beloved Myrta Ann Garrett belonged as members together before her passing in October 2015. I provide this list because it is important to Dr. Garrett and should be to the reader as well, for it reveals that Dr. Garrett’s ecclesiological views have not been shaped in a vacuum or in an ivory tower detached from on-the-ground congregational life. Rather, they have arisen from his own study of the scriptures in community with God’s people.

Church Memberships of Myrta Ann and James Leo Garrett Jr.

Penns Neck Baptist Church (ABC), Princeton, NJ,

1948

-

49

Gambrell Street Baptist Church, Fort Worth, TX,

1949

-

56

,

57

-

59

Tremont Temple Baptist Church (ABC), Boston, MA,

1956

-

57

Crescent Hill Baptist Church, Louisville, KY,

1959

-

62

,

63

-

68

Briggs Memorial Baptist Church (SBC/ABC), Washington, DC,

1962

-

63

New Road Baptist Church (BUGBI), Oxford, England,

1968

-

69

(attended but did not join)

Walnut Street Baptist Church, Louisville, KY,

1969

-

73

First Baptist Church, Waco, TX,

1973

-

80

Broadway Baptist Church, Fort Worth, TX,

1980

-

95

Candleridge Community Baptist Church (now Meadowridge Community Baptist Church), Fort Worth, TX

1995

-

2015

First Baptist Church, Nacogdoches, TX,

2015

-present

The church of the Lord Jesus Christ has been and is vitally important to the life and ministry of James Leo Garrett Jr. In the writings of this volume the reader will find helpful counsel on the nature of the church’s organization and polity, her governance, her offices and officers, her mission, and her character. The reader will find clear-headed examinations of the church’s ordinances, the church’s mission and purpose, and even the church’s architecture and edifices.

These writings situate Dr. Garrett firmly within the thought world of and conviction behind the often shortened and repeated 1674 refrain of Jodocus van Lodenstein, "ecclesia reformata, semper reformanda secundum verbi Dei (the church is Reformed and always [in need of] being reformed according to the Word of God").² It sometimes seems that the cry Semper reformanda! has become a fashionable and angst-ridden rallying cry in certain quarters of modern Baptist life that masks a disposition of deep resentment and frustration toward the church. One might also argue that such an approach to the church sometimes masks a certain hubris as well. But the call for reformation, in wiser and more understanding hands, is a well-thought-out and practiced conviction of men and women whose primary disposition toward the church is one of love rather than frustration. I would propose that these writings are sterling examples of this approach.

Dr. Garrett’s writings do not bear the marks of rashness or anger that so often masquerade just beneath the surface of many would-be modern reformers. Instead, they bear the marks of one who is convicted that God’s word is sufficient to guide the church out of error and into a viable obedience to and imitation of the church’s Lord. Dallas Willard has written that disappointment and self-flagellation have essentially become a sub-category in Christian publishing today.³ There is a substance to these writings that avoids the pitfalls of that unfortunate phenomenon. Or, to put it colloquially, there is substantially more light than heat here, and this is most welcome.

The reader is invited to come and drink deeply from the thoughts, reflections, and conclusions of one of the great churchmen-scholars of our day. It is my sincere hope that Dr. Garrett’s tribe may increase, by which I mean a movement of principled, biblically-based, tough-minded, clear-headed, irenic, gentle, but strong men and women who are committed to the local church and to being Christ-honoring agents of change and hope in the church today and in the years to come.

Wyman Lewis Richardson

Central Baptist Church

North Little Rock, Arkansas

April 2019

1. Basden and Dockery, The People of God, ix.

2. Horton, Reformed and Always Reforming, Kindle Loc.

2231

.

3. Willard, The Great Omission, ix.

Acknowledgments

The editor is grateful for the invaluable help of Lisa Kelley and Audra Murray, both of whom typed a number of pieces in this volume. I would also like to acknowledge the staff and membership of Central Baptist Church in North Little Rock, Arkansas, the church I am privileged to pastor. The members of Central Baptist Church have encouraged me by inquiring about these volumes and praying for me. Dr. Malcolm Yarnell, Dr. Garrett’s successor at Southwestern Seminary, has had an impact on each of these volumes and I very much appreciate his counsel and assistance at various points. My mother, Diane Richardson, gave helpful assistance in proofreading and I am grateful for her help and investment of time in this project. I am once again indebted to Jill Botticelli, archivist of Roberts Library at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, for her tremendous assistance and timely help. Charles Huckaby, also an archivist at Southwestern, provided much-appreciated and much-needed assistance as well.

I would also like to acknowledge my wife, Roni Richardson, and our daughter, Hannah. Roni and Hannah continuously encourage me. My wife has consistently encouraged me to take whatever time I need to complete this work and to do it well, a fact for which I am profoundly grateful!

I am deeply indebted to Dr. James Leo Garrett Jr., not only, of course, for his tremendous work and scholarship, but also for the great patience he has shown me and guidance he has offered me as well.

I.

Ecclesiology

1

Ecclesiology: The Crucial Issue (Part 1) (1954)

¹

What is the ultimate ecclesiological aim of the World Council of Churches? This question is particularly relevant since certain ecumenical leaders have recently charged even prior to the second assembly at Evanston that the World Council has undergone a change of policy with reference to church union.

At least three rather distinct and contradictory goals of the World Council have been expressed by those active in the ecumenical movement. One goal is that of organic church union or the fusion of denominations, the creation of an undivided Protestant ecumenical church. Even the most optimistic ecumenical leaders do not envisage the inclusion of Eastern Orthodoxy in such a union.

According to C. C. Morrison, the World Council should seek a unity that will make visible the whole Christian church as the Body of Christ. "It is strictly a council of the now separated churches, and should disappear when the goal becomes sufficiently concrete to require a more integrated embodiment. Bishop Lesslie Newbigin, however, charges that all conceptions of reunion in terms of federation are vain and that the World Council only has a right to exist as a means to something further, as a stage . . . from disunity to unity." But the second proposed goal of the World Council is that of being a world federation of churches or denominations. W. A. Visser’t Hooft, general secretary of the World Council, affirmed at Evanston:

The World Council of Churches is . . . essentially an instrument at the service of the churches to assist them in their common task to manifest the true nature of the church. It is therefore a sign of confused thinking to speak of the World Council itself as the World church. And it is completely erroneous to suggest that the World Council is or has any ambition to become a super-church that is a centre of administrative power.

Doubtless some conceive of the World Council in terms of internationalizing the functions of the old Federal Council of Churches in this country. Accordingly it would be a federated instrument for denominational cooperation in international, missionary, economic, social, and political matters.

A third goal, somewhat more difficult to explain clearly, is that the World Council should serve only to affect the birth of a world-wide Christian community—a living fellowship or community of Christians, transcending the lines of nation, language, race, creed, and liturgy, and renewed by the Spirit of God. Reinhold von Thadden, lay leader in the Evangelical Church in Germany, has espoused this goal of the World Council and criticized the idea of creating a vast network of councils—local, state, national, and world-wide—for the sake of councils. According to Emil Brunner, the goal of the ecumenical movement is not ecclesiastical reunion but the readiness of individual Christians . . . to cooperate in a spirit of brotherliness. This third goal places more emphasis on fellowship and less upon organization.

The individual Southern Baptist, looking upon the World Council as an outsider, likely wants to ask which of these is the true goal of the World Council of Churches. Can the World Council itself give an answer that will satisfy its constituent churches and its various leaders?

If ecclesiology is the crucial issue between Southern Baptists and the World Council of Churches, it should be asked, What has been the Baptist doctrine of the church? Since certain other Baptist bodies—the American Baptist Convention, the National Baptist Convention, Inc., and the Baptist Union of Great Britain and Ireland, for example—have joined the World Council of Churches, the question needs to be limited. What is the ecclesiology of Southern Baptists? What factors in Southern Baptist history and thought have occasioned or necessitated non-participation in the World Council?

Southern Baptists have magnified the church as a local congregation of baptized Christians, free and responsible in the exercise of its own affairs and in fraternal association and cooperation with like congregations for the mutual tasks of the kingdom of God.

The ultimate question for Baptists is not what Baptists have taught in earlier times but what the New Testament teaches. While the majority of the usages of ekklesia is local, there remain several passages, principally in Ephesians (1:22; 3:10; 3:21; 5:23, 24, 25, 27, 29, 32) and in Colossians (1:18, 1:24) (cf. 1 Cor 12:28), which cannot be given a local interpretation. To these passages ecumenical leaders have often made appeal. As Dr. W. O. Carver has explained, The New Testament universal church was not an institution and had no organization. The Christian movement is one church, but the churches are not under nor in one church in any outward, institutional sense. The word ecumenical never appears in the New Testament in connection with the church. The Greek noun from which it is derived, meaning simply the whole inhabited earth, is used in Matt 24:14; Luke 2:1, 21:26; and Heb 2:5.

Ecumenists are contrary to the New Testament in institutionalizing the wider concept of ekklesia even as some opponents of ecumenism are at variance with the New Testament in denying the existence of the wider use of ekklesia as the spiritual body of Christ.

The New Testament concept of the church includes much more than the determination of the local and non-local usages of ekklesia. The church mentioned in Matt 16:18 is emphatically Christ’s assembly, not the assembly of national Israel. Yet Christians are the Israel of God (Gal 6:16). In Acts the development of the concept can be discerned clearly. The followers of Jesus are called brethren (1:15), the ones that had received His word (2:41), all that believed (2:44), and those that were being saved (2:47). The corporate relation becomes more significant. Reference is made to the multitude of them that believed (4:32), the whole church (5:11), the multitude of the disciples (6:2), the whole multitude (6:5), the church that was in Jerusalem (8:1, 11:22), the disciples of the Lord (9:1), any that were of the Way (9:2), the Lord’s saints at Jerusalem (9:13), the church throughout all Judea and Galilee and Samaria (9:31), the apostles and the brethren (11:1), they that were scattered abroad (11:19), the church at Antioch (11:26; 13:1), and the disciples . . . called Christians first" (11:26).

The word frequently translated fellowship is important for an understanding of the church. And they continued steadfastly in the apostles’ teaching and fellowship, in the breaking of bread and the prayers (Acts 2:42). The literal meaning seems to have been participation, holding in common, sharing, or joint possession. The term is applied both to the divine-human and the human-human relations of Christians.

Christians were described by Paul as the temple of God. As the temple of God, the Christian community has the Holy Spirit dwelling within. For any leader to destroy the Christian community is to destroy God’s holy temple (1 Cor 3:16, 17). The Christians are of the household of God, and the entire edifice grows into a holy temple in the Lord (Eph 2:19, 21). As the temple of the living God, Christians should have no compromising intercourse with idolatry (2 Cor 6:16), God’s meeting-place with human beings is no longer a temple made with hands but the Christian community itself.

1. This article first appeared in Baptist Standard (

14

October

1954

)

6

–

7

.

2

Ecclesiology: The Crucial Issue (Part 2) (1954)

²

In the first portion of this article, the various goals of the World Council of Churches were examined, and effort was made to restate the New Testament doctrine of the church. One further New Testament term must yet be mentioned, Paul’s meaningful metaphor, the body of Christ.

In 1 Cor 12, by analogy of the physical body and its many members, Paul taught the diversity of spiritual gifts and of leadership in the one Christian community in order to deal with the problem of tongues. In Rom 12 the same analogy is employed in connection with the diverse functions of Christians to enforce an admonition to humility (vs. 3–8).

In Colossians, against the sub-Christian claims of Gnosticism, Christ is declared to be the head of the body, the church (1:18) as well as preeminent over all. To fail to hold fast to Christ the head means that the body will not have the growth God expects and is willing to