Back to the discussion… I think the most difficult part of community is being vulnerable. After being hurt by so many, you (this is an impersonal “you”) just don’t want to get hurt again. Community occurs only where there is safety. Keeping things safe is hard.

Though I have been blessed in many of my experiences, I have also found that community is often hard to find. The scary answer to it being hard to find, as I assume you have discovered, is the call to be the one to start it where you are at.

Do you have a blog or somewhere I can follow you?

-Dwayne

Congratulations on the third!

-Dwayne

Mark@DR

Thank you kindly for your sharpening comments. As the debate has progressed, I have sensed your Christian care and concern for those who read my review(s), and for our collective fidelity to the Scriptures.

Dwayne, I had really hoped to respond at length, but my wife had a new baby (our third) last week – returning to work this week has nixed those plans.

To be brief, today I will adjust my review so that the distracting usage of Christ’s words don’t appear. Neither will I use Romans 14:5, but will make myself clear in plain English. I do see the value in this and appreciate the arguments that you all have brought to bear.

Some trivia I omitted to include in my first comment concerns John Benton’s experience living in the UK, where many small towns and villages have only one church. My personal experience, having lived in the UK for 18 months, was similar. The gospel light can indeed be in danger of going out if small churches are not invested in by gospel-centered Christians.

Please always feel free to be in touch with me by emailing me at Discerning Reader: first initial + last name (Tubbs) [at] discerningreader.com.

Blessings, guys, and thanks for your concern to uphold the integrity of the Word of God.

Mark@DR

Does Jesus’ saying “not everyone can accept this teaching” as applying to big church/small church invoke a comparison that big church equals divorce/remarriage adultery while small church equals marriage the way Jesus prescribes? If it doesn’t for you (what I suspect) then you could have been clearer about that. You made the good faith assumption that people would connect dots that some folks obviously didn’t connect. I connected them but your shortcut to application was a little too short. :) It’s not invoking 1 Timothy 5 to say stay-at-home dads are in sin by a long shot but you could have fleshed out that you were extrapolating a principle so you could demonstrate you’re not on ground as shaky as might first appear in how you apply the text.

Alright I’m back. Let’s get started.

With regards to the first quotation, if you are going to draw my attention to your “almost” then I must draw yours to my “sounds”. It “sounds” crazy to me that one would say small churches have an “edge” for presenting the gospel in an authentic and personal (small scale) way when compared to a large church. Now one possibility for this sounding crazy to me and not to you could be due to differing experiences that we have each had.

The first church that I was a part of as an adult consisted of 50-70 adults and children. In a church that small how could you hide or not serve? I mean I knew everyones name and what they did and so on and so forth. We happily attended there for almost 2 years before we left and shortly there after began attending Mars Hill. I can’t recall how large Mars Hill was at that time, but let’s just say it was a wee bit larger. It was not too long before we were invited to a small group (in Mars Hill language “small” meant of 30+ people.) In a matter of weeks I realized just how lacking the community was at our first church. These people were opening there lives and sharing sin and hope and walking together in life with each other. They were . . . a family. If I attempted to recount the ways that I have seen and heard the gospel shared in an authentic and small way at Mars Hill it would take far too long then I have today! I hope that helps to explain why I used the phrase “sounds crazy” with regards to the first quote.

As to your use of Christs words, you said that I am not “taking into account how Christ himself used Scripture” Are you really so sure of that? What if I am? What if I am also taking into account that you are not Christ though? I know that sounds, uh, harsh, but I’ll continue. I have not read either of those two books. Thank you for the recommendations. With regards to NT usage of OT passages I have noticed that they are, hm, peculiar at times. Sometimes the NT authors and speakers tell us that an OT passage has a meaning that left to myself, that is without the NT teaching, I would have never put together. They say this OT passage refers to this reality, this truth. I look at the OT passage, its context and I do not see exegetical grounds in the OT passage to support the NT assertion.

That being said though, I am persuaded in my spirit by the Spirit that the authors of the NT were men who were carried along by the Spirit and wrote with infallibility. How could this not be for the Scriptures are the Words of God and if they are wrong then God is wrong. May that never be said. So the NT authors seem to be giving teaching that goes beyond the sum of the Scriptures up to that point. In fact that is what they are doing. They are teaching things by the Spirit that had not yet been revealed. I believe this. I am not sure if this is part of the subject of those books, but those titles conjure these thoughts in me.

So the question is, if the NT authors and speakers could say an OT passage meant this or that without exegetical grounds in that passage then can we follow suit? I say no. The role of these men was to reveal the truth in Gods word by the revelation of the Spirit and our role is to follow it by the power of the Spirit. If we believe that a passages main point is X and we believe that X is in play in a given situated then I believe we are on the most solid ground to share and apply a passage to the person(s) in the situation. I believe that the farther we get away from the main point of a passage the weaker the ground is that we are on.

To use the example that you gave of Romans 14:5, the main point of the passage is not the Sabbath or a festival. Nor is the main point being a vegetarian or not as discussed in the preceding verse. Paul makes it clear that these are only examples as he continues to build his argument. The argument climaxes at verse 21 with “21 It is good not to eat meat or drink wine or do anything that causes your brother to stumble. 22 The faith that you have, keep between yourself and God. Blessed is the one who has no reason to pass judgment on himself for what he approves. 23 But whoever has doubts is condemned if he eats, because the eating is not from faith. For whatever does not proceed from faith is sin.” Here Paul invokes the words “anything” and “whatever”. His teaching is not limited to the Sabbath of verse 15. The reason that I can say that with confidence is because Paul says it though. It is not by an unction of the Spirit that I say this section of Romans applies to what size church you choose. No, Pauls own argument shows that it applies to the “anything” and “whatever” of lifes decisions.

So I agree with you that the main point of this Romans passage is that each of us should be fully convinced in our own minds as to what “open handed” things God is particularly calling us to be “closed handed” about and that to resist this call and make actions not in good faith but against it is to sin. To apply that passage and its teaching to any situation where someones conscience is wavering or they are considering going against it is more then reasonable – The passage itself calls us to that. So, I like the idea of using the Romans passage because I think its main point is the point that you were making and therefore it is a great usage of the passage.

The ground for using the passage that you chose though seems much weaker, though possibly not baseless. Christs main point was that his teaching on divorce remarriage was a hard teaching and therefor hard to follow (God help us.) It seems as though you extracted out of it the principle that “there are some teachings that hard to follow” and then were meaning to apply that principles to someone who is called to go to a small church when they have desires to go to a large one. Ehh, I mean, I get it, but I just don’t think it’s the best usage of the passage. With that type of thinking you could of used almost any passage. For example when Peter was saying that he didn’t want Christ be crucified Jesus responded with “Get behind me Satan.” We could extract the principle that “When we resist Gods will God rebukes us” and then we could apply that passage as such Elsewhere, Jesus says “Get thee behind me Satan”. These verses almost certainly apply to the person who feels called to a small church and yet resists and goes to the local mega church.

Do you see what I am saying? You can do it, sure. I just don’t think it is the best way to handle Scripture.

Now all of that being said: I am more convinced then ever that 1) I agree with your short review! Some people are called to small churches and they are going against that call due to a desire to be comfortable or entertained and so forth. 2) I should have emailed you instead of making a blog post! 3) I should learn how to write more concisely!

Thank you again for the interaction. If you have further thoughts I would be more then happy to receive them. May Gods grace be on you and your family.

-Dwayne Forehand