An
Outstanding Address
I know I have already drawn
attention to the 9Marks Conference on Church Discipline. I have been challenged listening to the
addresses, but yesterday I managed to listen to our own Mez McConnel’s
contribution. It blew me out of the
water – biblical, practical and forceful. I only wish our friends at the
Covenant Fellowship, especially new ministerial candidates, would listen to all
these addresses and this one in particular.
There is nowhere left to
hide. I loved his comments on snuggling
up to wolves, as if they are cuddly pets – accommodation with wolves is a
dangerous pastime! Yesterday was a sort of super-Tuesday, with the majority of
the remaining Church of Scotland presbyteries deciding on support or otherwise
of gay marriage in office-bearers and members. The final figures are not out,
but all bets are off. The liberal progressive majority will triumph, if current
returns are any indication. Too many evangelicals are keeping company with wolves.
But there was another aspect of
what Mez said that really caught my attention.
It was the error that “poor” congregations, those in socio-economically
deprived areas where perhaps the general educational standards are lower, do
not need and cannot cope with doctrine. Mez blasts the unbiblical bias in this,
and the error of giving the “poor” only milk and not the meat of the word. The “poor”
need doctrine, the "poor" can cope with doctrine, and the “poor” relish good
biblical doctrine. It is a sure defence
against false teaching and false teachers!
One facet of this is the need to
supplement expository preaching with doctrinal and topical teaching. A diet of only biblical exposition without
the synthesis of that teaching into doctrinal and ethical teaching is in its
own way imbalanced. If we want our
people to know of the Trinity, we need occasionally to preach on that theme,
(Trinity Sunday?). If we want them to have a clear grasp on justification we
need to complement Galatians and Romans with direct teaching on the topic, and
also direct refutation of errors.
In the Scottish tradition we have
the Shorter and Larger Catechism – at one time, as in the Dutch churches,
catechetical teaching was part of our regular spiritual diet. The catechisms are not just for children. I have taught through the catechism in a
midweek study and am currently preaching through it when I preach in my own
local congregation’s morning service.
But we could also use the creeds,
some of the modern evangelical statements of belief or some of the subject
specific statements such as the Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy, or the
Danvers Statement on gender. I have also
used the OPC’s Directory for the Public Worship of God, an excellent teaching
tool.
Don’t let the elites claim that
ordinary people can’t cope with doctrine.
The New Testament epistles were written to ordinary people, some of whom
were illiterate slaves. It strikes me
today that some of the more doctrinally sound and biblically informed
congregations are in the less middle class areas. They, perhaps, will be the future
bastions against doctrinal and moral heresy.
Listen to Mez, and see if he has
not made a sound, biblical, practical, and frankly unanswerable case for doctrinal
discipline and doctrinal instruction:
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