The Church's Pattern - Part 2

gracEmail (THE CHURCH'S PATTERN - 2)
Edward Fudge
Sep 20, 2005

Someone recently admonished: "The New Testament provides the pattern which the true church must follow. We learn that by commands, examples and necessary inferences. The church revealed in the New Testament is the one we must imitate if we respect Bible authority."

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The New Testament nowhere tells us to follow some interpretative system of commands, examples and necessary inferences. Those terms and that approach spring from Scottish philosophy and the English common law. They might be useful at some time, but the Bible does not teach them or require them. Instead, it assumes that a person with a true heart set on pleasing God will be able, with the Spirit's aid, to read the Scriptures prayerfully and to discern God's leading day by day and moment by moment (Rom. 12:2; Eph. 1:16-17; Col. 1:9-12; 2 Tim. 2:7; Heb. 13:20-21; 1 John 2:27).

Devotion to the system of "command, example and necessary inference" simply is not necessary in order to show respect for Bible authority. That system of interpretation is not found anywhere in the sacred Scriptures. It was invented by uninspired man and became a grid through which some people have read the Bible -- which then conformed to the shapes and categories of the human grid itself. Not only is that system lacking in biblical support, but, as history makes plain, it is legalistic when used as a standard of righteousness and divisive when made a basis for unity. As commonly applied, this system of interpretation binds what Scripture leaves loose and ignores what Scripture seems to bind.

The New Testament Scriptures (which the early church did not even have for several decades) never claim to be a constitution or detailed pattern for all areas of church life. Those who wrote them do purport to read and understand the Old Testament Scriptures as illuminated by the Jesus event (his incarnation, life, death, resurrection and ascension). They also set out, based on the Jesus event and assisted by the Holy Spirit, to describe the moral and relational life appropriate for those who believe in Jesus as God's Son and Savior and to describe at least in broad terms the mission of Christian communities and those individuals who constitute them within a watching world. The earliest church's pattern was Jesus himself. It did not somehow replace Jesus as the pattern for the church during successive generations. ___________________

© 2005 by Edward Fudge. Unlimited permission to copy without altering text or profiteering is hereby granted subject to inclusion of this copyright notice. For encouragement and spiritual food any time, visit our multimedia website at www.EdwardFudge.com .