March 4, 2019 Show with Dr. Barry York on “Hitting the Marks: Restoring the Essential Identity of the Church”

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Christian scholars, and theologians address the burning issues facing the church and the world today.

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It is our hope that this goal will be accomplished over the next hour and we hope to hear from you, the listener, with your own questions.

Now here's our host, Chris Arntzen. Good afternoon

Cumberland County, Pennsylvania, Lake City, Florida, and the rest of humanity living on the planet Earth who are listening via live streaming at ironsharpensironradio .com.

This is Chris Arntzen, your host of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, wishing you all a happy Monday on this fourth day of March 2019, and I'm delighted to have back on for part two of a discussion that we began a number of weeks ago.

We have Dr. Barry J York returning to Iron Sharpens Iron Radio to discuss part two of Hitting the

Marks, Restoring the Essential Identity of the Church, which is also the title of a recently published book that is now in print with Crown and Covenant Publishing.

Dr. Barry J York is President and Professor of Pastoral Theology at Reformed Presbyterian Theological Seminary in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and it's my honor and privilege to welcome you back to Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, Dr.

Barry J York. Thank you Chris, it's great to be back with you. Great, and if you could, for those of our listeners who missed you the last time on Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, refresh the memories of those that heard you and those that did not hear you, please inform them about Reformed Presbyterian Theological Seminary of Pittsburgh.

Yes, Reformed Presbyterian Theological Seminary, or RPTS as we like to call it, is located in the east side of Pittsburgh.

It is right now the fifth oldest seminary in the country. It was established in 1810.

It is the denominational seminary of the Reformed Presbyterian Church of North America, although we do have many students from a variety of backgrounds that study at RPTS.

One of the blessings that God has bestowed upon us is in those over 200 years of existence, he's preserved us and RPTS has remained an institution that's faithful to the

Word of God. I believe it's the inerrant and foul, the Bible's the inerrant and fallible Word of God, the only basis for life and salvation, and so we teach that and train men to preach that as they go out into their ministries.

We're very thankful for just the spirit and the community that we have at RPTS.

It's located in the Old Horn Mansion on the east side of Pittsburgh, a beautiful three -story building with a basement as well, and we make use of about every square inch of that building to train men for pastoral ministry or men and women who want to study theology.

I would say one of the things that I really appreciate about being at RPTS is there's a nice balance, that we really maintain a theological rigor, and so there's an emphasis on the academics, but that's not the only emphasis.

We really work hard at making RPTS a place of prayer and spiritual formation, and so that takes place both inside as well as outside the classroom.

And then we also want to really train people for practical ministry, so we have, for instance, a biblical counseling center where students not only hear lectures about biblical counseling, but ultimately observe it, and if they continue on that track, can be trained in actually counseling life cases.

We also encourage our students to be out preaching the gospel. We have relationships with nursing homes and Teen Challenge and Rescue Mission and other places where we're getting our students to go out and really exercise their gifts of preaching.

So it's an exciting place. The Lord has been blessing us with new students, international students, so I'm very thankful for what the

Lord is doing in and through RPTS. And we plan on repeating this website, but rpts .edu

is the website for more information on Reformed Presbyterian Theological Seminary in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

And one interesting fact that I try to remember to bring up every time

I'm interviewing somebody connected with the Reformed Presbyterian Church of North America is that they were the first denomination in the

South to oppose slavery and to allow integrated worship services and Bible studies.

Am I right on that? That's right. We actually just had last month for Black History Month, we had

Dr. Bob Copeland come, and he did a fascinating talk on the anti -slavery movements and the

Reformed Presbyterian Church's involvement in it. And so it was fascinating to hear of ministers who were involved in different places, hiding escaped slaves and helping them achieve their freedom.

Praise God. Well, let's pick up where we left off in our discussion.

There were a number of things. I mean the subject matter for your book, Hitting the

Marks, Restoring the Essential Identity of the Church, that subtitle is so rich and deep that it would take months of shows to actually cover every aspect.

In fact, it would probably take a lot longer than that. You could probably just have a show every day perpetually that discusses the

Church of Jesus Christ and the essential matters involving the Church. But let's start off with an issue that we have not addressed in our previous interview.

What is the historical differences between the way the Roman Catholic Church and the Protestant Church define the

Church? Well, a lot of times when people think about the Reformation, they focus on the theological controversies, and certainly there were many of those, for instance, justification by faith.

But one of the key points of disagreement was also on ecclesiology, or how the

Church is to be governed, and even more essentially, what is a

Church? And that became a real discussion point among Reformers and Catholic theologians.

And one of the ways to help understand, I think, the different views is to look at the

Catholic Church's Council of Trent, which was a response to the Reformation, but it really sums up what they were teaching and believing.

And when they went to define what the true Church was, they pulled out the attributes of the

Nicene Creed, which states that the Church is one, it's holy, it's

Catholic, and it's apostolic. And so they built their understanding of what constitutes the

Church on those four attributes. And the Reformers, of course, upheld the

Nicene Creed, so they weren't saying that those qualities aren't part of what the Church is to be.

Certainly they are. But they were really interested in what constitutes the visible

Church here on earth, and they saw in Catholic theology a confusion.

And if you would let me just read just a short... I know it's not good to read on a live show, but I'm only going to read a couple of sentences.

But this is out of the Council of Trent, Chris, and it just helps you to understand how the

Catholics were viewing the Church. They're talking about unity, and in a section of the

Council of Trent, which is talking about the marks of the Church, it says, "...the first mark of the true Church is described as the

Nicene Creed and consists in unity." They quote from the Song of Solomon, "'My dove is one, my beautiful one is one.

So vast a multitude, scattered far and wide, is called one for the reasons mentioned by St.

Paul in the Epistle to the Ephesians. One Lord, one faith, one baptism. The Church has but one ruler and one governor, the invisible one,

Christ, whom the Eternal Father hath made head over all the Church, which is his body."

Now, if they'd stop there, we would say amen. But they didn't stop there.

They added this next phrase. So they talk about the invisible Church, which is headed by Jesus Christ, and then they say this, "...the

visible one," or the visible Church, "...the Pope, who is legitimate successor of Peter, the prince of the

Apostles, fills the apostolic chair." So in their understanding, they're saying the

Church is one, the invisible Church is governed over by Jesus, and the visible

Church here on earth is governed over by the Pope. Well, of course, the

Reformers saw that as blasphemous, because Jesus Christ is the head over the

Church, and particularly the visible Church. Paul says this numerous times in that same book that they're quoting from in Ephesians chapter 1.

He says he's head over the Church, and he's writing to a local congregation of his people, so they're thinking about the visible

Church, not just the Church in general. And so the

Reformers said that these attributes out of the Nicene Creed, and they treat each one the same way.

They take each one of these attributes, oneness, holiness, Catholicity, and apostolicity, and they trace them all back to the

Pope. And the Reformers said, listen, what really, though, constitutes a people gathered under the name of Christ as being a true gathering of his people versus those who are believing a false gospel, or being misled by someone in a false position?

And they dug into the Scriptures, and they said that there are primarily three marks, chief of which is the first one, the true preaching of the

Word of God, the true preaching of the Gospel. That's how you really know where God's people are.

What follows right along with that, then, would be the visible expression of those who believe in the

Gospel, which is that they are baptized, and they participate in the

Lord's Supper, so the faithful practice of the sacraments would be the second mark.

And then the third one that flows out of those two is that the people listening to God's Word have to respond to it, have to be obedient to it, and so they list it as the third mark, the proper exercise of Church discipline.

So those three marks, preaching, sacrament, and discipline, became the identifying marks of what separates a true congregation that belongs to Jesus Christ from a false one.

And to clarify a couple of things, when we as Protestants refer to our

Catholicity or being a part of one true holy Catholic Church, we are obviously talking about the universality of the

Church, that it's global, those that are called from out of every tribe, tongue, and people, and nation.

It has nothing to do with being connected with the Roman Catholic Church. That's right, it's a

Catholicity with a little C, not the big C. Right, and there is something very different about the way

Protestants have historically viewed the Church, and whenever I use the word Protestant, especially if I am within the earshot of new believers or people who are not even

Christians, because we do have people in those categories in the Iron Trip and Zion Radio listening audience, we even have

Muslims and people of other religions listening, but there is something very idolatrous about the understanding of the

Church that the Church of Rome possesses. And wouldn't you agree that when a person, whether they are

Catholic, Protestant, or neither, is hearing statements, whether verbally or in papal encyclicals, or they're reading it in the

Catholic Catechism, a modern Catholic Catechism, they really have to contrast modern ideas, even modern ideas of the current

Pope of the Roman Catholic Church, Pope Francis, with the Council of Trent and other dogmatic statements, because there are many statements and teachings that swirl around today under the name of Roman Catholicism, even from the

Vatican, that are not dogmatic statements and therefore could be the personal opinions of those making the statements, even the

Pope. We have to go back to Trent because there are many people who are ecumenical, for instance, who get angry with me when

I point out that I believe that anyone with a false gospel is not my true brother or sister in Christ.

And in order for us to know what the dogmatic gospel of the Church of Rome is, we have to go back to things like the

Council of Trent, who those gathered there in unanimity declared that those who have, even though they didn't use the word

Protestant, they explained the Protestant gospel in all aspects of it and anathematized those that believe those things that are uniquely

Protestant and in opposition to Rome, they anathematized us, and that is still a binding, or should

I say, those are still binding anathemas even today. That's correct. The Roman Catholic Church has never renounced the

Council of Trent, and those who are actually, I would say, faithful to their

Catholicism know that and would argue from that position and those teachings if they're really being faithful to what the

Church formally believes. Right, and the Council of Trent clearly anathematized those who believe in salvation by grace alone through faith alone, and those who believe, like we do, that good works are necessary but they are an evidence and a fruit of saving faith.

They're not an agent of saving faith. That's correct, and they also anathematized the

Protestants for many other things as well. For instance, our view of the sacraments. Yes. They believe there's seven, and so they anathematized the

Protestants because there was only two that were upheld. Right, and of course they anathematized or cursed to hell those that, they cursed to hell those that do not participate in their idolatrous rituals and rites, or at least those who oppose them, such as the praying to saints and venerating of saints and venerating of Mary in particular and even statues, images, and relics attached to those saints.

That's correct. And I'm going to give out our email address for anybody who wants to join us on the air with a question of your own about the

Church. Our email address is chrisarnsen at gmail .com, C -H -R -I -S -A -R -N -Z -E -N at gmail .com.

Please give us your first name at least, your city and state, and your country of residence if you live outside the

USA, and only remain anonymous if your question involves a personal and private matter.

Let's say you disagree with your own pastor on the subject matter we're discussing today and you don't want to identify yourself.

I can understand that. Perhaps you're a pastor and you disagree with your denomination or the majority of those in your congregation about the issues we're discussing or other similar matter.

Perhaps you're a Roman Catholic and you even object to what my guest is saying but you don't want to identify yourself.

I can understand those things. So you may remain anonymous if it's something personal and private. But if it's not, please give us at least your first name, city and state, and country of residence if you live outside the

USA. Now from your studies, which Reformers helped in the development of the marks of the

Church? And I think that two of them are going to be very recognizable names to the vast majority of people listening, but two may not be.

There are two men that are sort of forgotten heroes amongst the masses at least.

Of course people who are well -studied in church history, especially the Reformation, will recognize these names, these two names out of the four.

But I think many people, if not most, when they hear those names will be drawing a blank.

These will be new names to them. But if you could, give us these four heroes of the faith that you're referring to.

Well as I looked at the history of the development of the marks, you do go back to the you know the father of the

Reformation, Martin Luther. He of course gave us much clarity on the whole issue, as we mentioned earlier, on justification by faith alone.

But Luther also had a lot to say about the Church. One of the fascinating things about what

Luther taught was that he said that we had to pay careful attention to the study of the

Holy Spirit or pneumatology in its relationship to ecclesiology or the study of the

Church. And what Luther meant by that is where you find the presence of the

Holy Spirit, in other words where the Spirit of God is working to have the Gospel preach and His Spirit is regenerating people and granting them faith and gathering them together in the

Church, then that's a place where His Spirit is present. And where His Spirit is present,

Martin Luther taught that there would be what he called holy possessions or chief qualities that would be found in a gathering of God's people.

So right there you start hearing the language of the marks of the

Church. And in Luther's writings he would not always be real clear how many there were, but as you look at it he's starting to really focus in on such things as the preaching of God's Word and particularly the sacraments.

He put ordination in there as well because in order to have preaching and sacraments you need those who are over the leadership of the

Church. And so he began to really work through how we should understand the visible

Church. And I think next in line then, and actually a man who met Luther I think the year after he mailed,

I think it was 1518, that Martin Butzer, a priest, met Luther, and in hearing him some believe that it was really

Luther's influence that converted Butzer. And he became a minister up in Strasbourg, Switzerland, and he began to really develop his pastoral ministry there.

And in 1538 he wrote what he called his Little Handbook, which is a book on pastoral ministry.

And that book we know today as concerning the true care of souls. And in this book

Butzer develops the idea of how varied the body of Christ is, and then he begins to talk about the need for pastoral work ministers, and then that one minister is not enough, that there need to be elders, and as these minister and elders work together they should be stressing the importance of God's Word and God's authority over the life of the gathered believers.

And so you begin to see in Butzer's book again the stress on the marks.

And one of the amazing providence, acts of providence of God during this time is the same year that that book was published, 1538, someone happened to arrive in town at that time, and it was none other than John Calvin himself, who had to flee

Geneva for a period of three years. And during those three years

John Calvin learned pastoral ministry at the hands of Martin Butzer, or more vouted

I should say, at the hands of Martin Butzer. And that book concerning the true care of souls became very influential on Calvin's understanding of the

Church. And as he had already worked on the Institutes, as he kept working on them, you see in the

Institutes a development of the marks, and you start really hearing a lot of clarity regarding the marks of the

Church. One quote from the Institutes, Calvin says, often too by the name of Church is designated the whole body of mankind scattered throughout the world who profess to worship one

God in Christ, who by baptism are initiated into the faith, by partaking of the

Lord's Supper profess unity in true doctrine and charity, agree in holding the

Word of the Lord, and observe the ministry which Christ has appointed for the preaching of it. So you hear very clearly there an emphasis on the

Word of God, on the need to be marked visibly by baptism as you enter into the

Church, and then continue on in your journey with Christ by partaking of the Lord's Supper.

And then you see in the Church the formation of godly character as they obey the

Word of the Lord. In other words, that their lives are disciplined by God's Word. And so Calvin becomes extremely influential, of course, in the

Reformation, and a lot of different confessions, from the confession at Geneva, to the

Scottish Confession, to the Gallic or French Confession, ultimately to the

London Baptist Confession that was preceded by the Westminster Confession. All of these confessions are either directly influenced, the earlier ones directly influenced by Calvin himself, or begin to echo

Calvin's teaching. And consistently all of these confessions are saying, where do you find a visible

Church? What is the visible Church? And it upholds these three marks.

And then, if I may, Chris, just one other name I'll throw in there and then let you respond. About a hundred years after Calvin at Geneva, a man by the name of Francis Turgeon arose, and he became a teacher at the

Geneva Academy. And he wrote a theological work called an

Olympic Theology, a question -and -answer type theology. And I think

Turgeon is one of the most clear, gives us one of the most clear expositions of the marks of the

Church. He really spends quite a bit of time treating the marks of the Church. And his theological work was used by seminaries throughout

Europe and into America. For a long time it was only in the Latin, so when seminary students quit studying

Latin, they started going to other books like Hodge. But in recent years,

Turgeon's work has been translated into English, and that's a real gift to the Church. So if someone wants to go into a deeper study of the marks of the

Church, the first place I'd really point them to would be Turgeon's work. Yes, so the two men that I was referring to that are not widely known to your average

Christian today, even amongst many who are professedly Reformed, would be

Martin Bucer, spelled B -U -C -E -R, and Francis Turretin.

And they should become a lot more acquainted with those two great men of God if they are not already.

That's right. We are heading into our first commercial break.

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S's in the middle. I hope to hear from you soon. God bless you. Welcome back. This is

Chris Arnzen. If you just tuned us in, our guest today for the entire two hours, with about 90 minutes to go, is

Dr. Barry J. York, and he is the president of Reformed Presbyterian Theological Seminary in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

This is our second discussion that we began a few weeks ago. This is part two of Hitting the

Marks, Restoring the Essential Identity of the Church. If you'd like to join us on the air, our email address is

ChrisArnzen at gmail .com. And by the way, before I forget,

I just want to let you know of the good news that this Friday, God willing, March 8th, for the full two hours of the show, we are going to be blessed with the presence of Dr.

James R. White of Alpha Omega Ministries again. And it's these days with his busy schedule, his opportunities to be my guest are few and far between, but we are so thrilled with every opportunity that we have to have my old friend going back to the early 1990s,

Dr. James R. White on the show. He's going to be discussing the recent document that was signed by Pope Francis and a world -renowned

Muslim imam, so it should be a fascinating discussion. But today, if you'd like to join us with a question about restoring the essential identity of the church with our guest

Dr. Barry J. York, send us an email to ChrisArnzen at gmail .com, and as always, give us your first name, city and state, and country of residence if you live outside the

USA, and we remain anonymous if your question involves a personal and private matter. Dr. York, you use a target diagram in your book as a diagnostic tool for churches to evaluate their ministries.

Can you explain this to our listeners? Yes, there's many in the previous segment we talked about how the

Catholic Church, in viewing what constitutes the true church, we're using qualities like oneness and holiness, and again, those aren't wrong marks properly understood, and there are many, many characteristics a church can have and many activities it should be doing, and so it has lots of attributes or what some people might call marks, and so to try to make important distinctions,

I have this diagnostic tool, and it really came out of Luther's idea of the holy possessions, because he said that where the

Spirit of God is, there are going to be certain indisputable things present, and from that shall radiate other qualities, and so that idea of these other qualities radiating out,

I came up with this, just this very simple target diagram. In the middle of the bullseye would be what we would call the essential marks of the church, which again are preaching the sacraments of discipline, and if you want, in a few moments, we could perhaps review why those are the three that the

Reformers ultimately chose, and then related to that would be, maybe if you could imagine the second ring of the diagram, we might talk about attributes of the faithful church, so there's essential marks, and then there are attributes of faithfulness, and then from there we could think of other qualities a church might have, such as whether they're healthy or not, so we might have a third ring that could speak about indicators of a healthy church, and you could probably even go on from there, talk about various ministries a congregation could potentially do, and what

I'm trying to do in the book is to help God's people, in a sense, reset their priorities when it comes to evaluating the church, and some of this was born out of my own personal ministry experience.

Before I came to RPTS for over two decades, I was a church planter, then pastor in a congregation in Indiana, and during my time there, as I was seeking to establish a church initially, and interacting with people in the community,

I began to notice there were a lot of new churches springing up all the time, these places calling themselves churches,

I began to interact with people coming into the community who were looking for a church, and as you began to hear what was really on their mind,

I began to see that so many, and I think this is so true in American evangelicalism, that so many priorities that people have for what they're looking for the church are often misplaced.

It doesn't necessarily mean they're wrong, that they should be wanting certain things in the church, but it's a misplaced priority.

Often what people are doing are taking matters that I think should be more peripheral to what they're looking for in the church, and they make those their core, and taking things that God says are to be core and chief, and making those more of a peripheral matter in their own minds and hearts.

For instance, I had one family that, because we were meeting in a rented facility, they wanted a permanent building, and so it seemed like they liked everything about the ministry except that we didn't have our own building, and they ended up going to really what was a liberal church in town just because they were wanting a building.

And I've had the same thing happen with respect to perhaps a youth group. Again, I'm not saying that there's necessarily something wrong with the youth group, properly and publicly run, but when you make that your chief priority,

I think you're really substituting in what God says should be the qualities that you're looking for.

So that was really the purpose of this target diagram.

In his book on the church, James Bannerman has a good sentence that I think is worth our attention.

He says, there is an important distinction between what is necessary to the being of a church and what is necessary to its well -being.

So we got to talk first and foremost about the being of a church, what makes a church a church, before we go on and talk about things that might add to its well -being.

And that's what this diagnostic tool is trying to help people to understand. Yes, I have friends and acquaintances that have done this very same thing you described, and it disturbs me because I know that they are setting up idols, even if it's unconsciously, just as the

Church of Rome has done. These are just different idols. They would prefer going to a church or becoming a member of a church that is huge, has money for Broadway level theatrical performances and music, and lots of programs for the kids, but may have very heretical teaching or very shallow teaching.

Teaching that does not go any deeper than the very minimal teachings that one must believe in order to be deemed a genuine

Christian. And they would prefer that, even if they themselves believe in the same beautiful and glorious doctrines that you and I do, they would prefer the glitz and the glamour and the size of a church over these very important things that you and I share.

It's a real tragedy, isn't it? And do you think I'm overstepping the bounds by saying that very often this is nothing more or less than idolatry?

No, I don't think you're overstepping your bounds at all, and it's a sad commentary, really, on what's happened in the modern

Church. I've always appreciated the Cambridge Declaration put out by the

Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals, and I think they expressed this very clear and very well.

They talk so much about how the Church today is marketing, and that we've replaced

Gospel proclamation for more psychological messages that make us feel good, but really aren't ministering to our souls the way the

Gospel is supposed to do. And so I think these are sad trends, and I think that was over 20 years ago they put out the

Cambridge Declaration, and I think if I read those words, I think they're as true or more true today than perhaps even when they were written.

Yeah, I think it might be wise to do what you just suggested while you were speaking earlier, to highlight those three marks of the

Reformers of a true Church, and also the marks of a faithful Church. Yeah, so the marks of the true

Church, again, are the true preaching of the Gospel, the Word of God, the right administration of the sacraments, and the faithful exercise of Church discipline.

And if I might just for a minute here, Chris, explain why the Reformers saw those as being essential.

We know that it's only the Word of God that brings forth life, and is only the

Word of God by which someone can become a Christian if they hear the Gospel. And so chief among the marks, and Calvin said this was the chief mark of all, the others flow from it, is the faithful preaching of God's Word.

When Paul was describing his ministry to the elders at Ephesus in Acts chapter 20, the thing that he highlights over there, over and over again there with them, is that he had been there for three years, and that he had taught them the whole counsel of God's Word.

He talks about how he preached to them both publicly and house -to -house.

He describes his ministry as admonishing them day and night with tears. So a godly minister knows that his primary duty is to be bringing the

Word of God to people through a preaching and teaching ministry, and then praying that it would be effectual.

So preaching is chief. Secondly, we often talk about the sacraments as the visible

Gospel. In the book I use the analogy of a marriage. If Christ is our groom and the

Church is his bride, then the wedding rings, so to speak, are the sacraments.

These are the visible marks that God has given to show that we belong to him that separate us from the world.

When the Gospel was preached at Pentecost, and the people were cut to the heart, and they asked what they had to do,

Peter declares to them they had to repent, believe in Jesus, and then be baptized for the forgiveness of their sins.

And so baptism marks us, or separates us from the world, and shows that we belong to Jesus.

It represents the reception of the Holy Spirit in our lives. It represents the shedding of his blood on our behalf, and us being sprinkled clean through what

Christ has done. So we need to be baptized, and then to show that we're part of his body, and maintain fellowship and communion with him, that we need to be regularly participating in the

Lord's Supper. And then finally, if those things are true, if I'm responding to the

Gospel and joining a church, then there is a certain understanding that I'm going to be in conformity with what

I'm hearing, that I'm going to live a life that's consistent with the Gospel. And so discipleship is the third marker, or what we call discipline, properly understood.

And when you read the Reformers, you realize that they're not only talking about discipline or church discipline in the sense of the corrective, formal discipline when a church, for instance, excommunicates someone, or suspends someone, or rebukes someone, but they also thought of the formative side of that, that a church is a community where you're going to be encouraged to put off your old life and put on the new life that Jesus has purchased for you.

So that's why those marks are essential. And one of the things that I like to point out to people is that because the

Church is the body of Jesus Christ, and he is our head, then we should reflect who he is in our life and fellowship with one another.

And we know who Jesus is. We know the offices that he holds. He is our prophet, he is our priest, and he is our king.

And if you think about it, there's a correspondence between the offices that Christ holds as prophet, priest, and king, and the marks of the

Church. He's a prophet, and so he came proclaiming

God's Word to us. He was God's Word to us, and so we should be proclaiming that Word as well.

He was a priest who offered his life on our behalf and set us apart into a life of holiness, and that's really represented,

I believe, in the sacraments that represent the life, death, and resurrection of our

Lord on our lives. And he's a king, he rules over us, and so there should be that sense of when you belong to a church that you're going to be governed, or you're going to accept the discipline and the ways of the

Church and walk in unity with other brothers and sisters and the Lord. And I think that's reflected beautifully if you think about that verse from 1

Peter chapter 2, where Peter says in verse 9, speaking to the

Church, you are a royal priesthood, he says at one point. So we are royal, we're sons and daughters of the

King, we're priests, and then he goes on to say in that same verse, and he set us apart so that we could proclaim the excellencies of Christ, and so we have that prophetic voice in this world as well.

And so the marks of the Church, we have those marks because we have a marker, we have

Jesus Christ, our prophet, priest, and king, who calls us to represent him faithfully in this world by reflecting who he is through these marks.

Now you were contrasting essential with faithful before, unless I misunderstood you, as far as the marks.

Yes. So, for instance, those marks are at the core of who we are.

But let's say, again, let's talk about the Church being one. Well that's certainly something desirable, but we can look at certain churches and say they're not very unified.

For instance, we can look at the Scriptures and say the Church at Corinth, we know that it was divided into various factions, and Paul was addressing that.

So oneness is to be desired, but I would call that more an attribute of faithfulness, rather than saying that it's necessarily an essential mark of the

Church. Or let's talk about other things. The Church should be loving.

Well, again, I think that's a quality that should radiate from a Church, but it's not necessarily an essential quality in this aspect.

How do you measure love? Well, is it how many people pat me on the back or hug me when

I come into church, or, you know, how many times we visit someone? How do you measure love?

Well, I think you can see it as there's signs of a congregation that's loving.

For instance, they welcome readily strangers into their doors and greet them warmly or invite them over to their house.

Well, again, those are attributes of being faithful, but aren't necessarily the measurable qualities of having preaching, having the sacraments, and having discipline.

And I would say that really, if you want to know where true love is, you would start there, because the

Gospel is the message of God's love to us, and the sacraments are the symbols of his love, and he disciplines those that he loves.

He wants us to be like his Son, and so he works in this world to cause us to come more and more into conformity of who

Jesus is. So as we're thinking about the things that the Church is, the qualities that it possesses, or even the activities that it does.

For instance, let's talk about evangelism for a moment. Sadly, we know a lot of churches that are churches.

We're not questioning whether they're churches or not, but they might not be very evangelistically oriented, and that's not a good sign.

And so if we see a church that is evangelistically oriented, and they're reaching the lost, and their people are equipped to share the

Gospel, and work with people in the community to bring them into the Kingdom of God, I would say that's a sign of a church being healthy.

So it's a desirable quality. It should come from the Church and its essentiality, but it's a place where a church has to grow and develop in order for it to become strong in evangelism, for instance.

Yes, for instance, you could have, just to clarify this distinction that you were making between essential and faithful, you can have someone say,

I am going to remove my name from membership at this church that I believe has biblically faithful sound doctrine, that has a confession of faith

I agree with, because this other church has poured love upon me so much more, but they deny the deity of Christ and the

Trinity. They allow homosexuals to become members, and in fact they ordain homosexuals.

They perform same -sex marriages. But I'm still gonna go there, because they have really poured love on me, and they have a remarkable ministry to the homeless.

They have a soup kitchen, and all those things that seem to be more Christ -like, so I'm going to fellowship with them.

Would that be somewhere where you're in the orbit of what you're talking about, how someone might wrongly favor things that you have under the heading of faithful over and above the value of those things that are essential?

Yes, and I think in that particular example, let's say a church is doing a soup kitchen and caring for the homeless and all that, of course people can fall into, we know many liberal churches that have fallen into the social gospel, and again those things have become core to them.

That's become their identity, rather than what the Word of God says should be their true identity, which is preaching, sacrament, and discipline.

And then we need to quickly follow that up. It really shouldn't be an either -or. It shouldn't be that we're essentially doing these things, but we don't care for the poor or take care of the homeless.

No, we should be doing both. We should have at the core of who we are that we're not going to compromise on the preaching of God's Word, but if we are going to really follow

Christ, then obedience would say we're going to mature as God's people, and as a congregation we should be touching the least, the lowly, in our community.

And a person can obey God by not yoking him or herself to a false church and strive to make the positive changes in the congregation where he or she is a member that is faithful doctrinally, rather than yoking themselves with a false church and joining in on what they do that is right.

In other words, if your church doesn't have a ministry towards the poor that you think is adequate, then you can start one,

God -willing of course, if you can convince the elders and deacons to do such a thing. But that's more likely going to happen than transforming the doctrine of a apostate mainline liberal church, where you're going to get a pastor and elder boards to renounce the heretical and damnable things that they have as core beliefs.

Yes, that's virtually impossible to do. Only the

Lord can render that type of a change. Right. Well, we are going to our midway break right now.

In fact, what I'm going to do is I'm going to read a question before we go to the break, and then you can answer it when we return.

I'll give you more time to think about it. But a colleague of yours,

Dr. George C. Cipioni, adjunct professor at the Biblical Counseling Institute at Reform Presbyterian Theological Seminary in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, he has a question for you.

What is the single biggest roadblock that prevents churches hitting the marks?

And of course, as I said, I'll have you answer that when we return. This is an elongated break because Grace Life Radio, a 90 .1

FM in Lake City, Florida, has to localize Iron Trip and Zion Radio to their area with their own public service announcements and commercials.

So during this break, they air their announcements, whereas we air our own commercials and so on that are heard globally everywhere other than Lake City, Florida.

So if you could, take this time and use it wisely by writing down questions for our guest today,

Dr. Barry J. York, on the church, on the importance of the church, and also write down the information provided by our advertisers, because as I constantly remind you, we depend upon the advertising dollars of our sponsors to exist, and they are more likely going to remain our advertisers if you patronize them.

If many people in our listening audience begin to patronize our advertisers much more frequently and heavily whenever possible, that is going to be a key factor, obviously, in our advertisers sticking with us and supporting us.

So please write down the information provided by our advertisers so that you can do that, so that you can more frequently and successfully patronize them.

And of course, write down a question for Dr. Barry J. York and send it to ChrisArnzen at gmail .com,

C -H -R -I -S -A -R -N -Z -E -N at gmail .com. Please give us your first name at least, your city and state of residence, and your country of residence if you live outside the

USA. Please only remain anonymous if your question involves a personal and private matter. Don't go away.

We'll be right back with Dr. Barry J. York after these messages from our sponsors. One sure way all

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Or go to BatteryDepot .com. That's BatteryDepot .com. I'm Stephan Lindblad, Assistant Professor of Systematic Theology at IRBS Theological Seminary in Mansfield, Texas.

I accepted this call to teach at the seminary because I'm firmly convinced that the people of God in the churches of our

Lord Jesus Christ need to be firmly grounded in the truth of Holy Scripture. I'm excited to be teaching such subjects as the nature of theology and the doctrine of Scripture and even the doctrine of the person and work of Jesus Christ.

Our churches and our people need to be well grounded in these truths. Indeed, future ministers of the gospel need to understand these truths in order to proclaim them to all of God's people.

If you want to learn more about our program, visit us online at IRBSSeminary .org.

Chris Sorensen, host of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio here. I want to tell you about a man I have personally known for many years.

His name is Dan Buttafuoco. Dan is a personal injury and medical malpractice lawyer, but not the type that typically comes to mind.

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Dan also has a master's degree in theology. Dan handles serious injury and medical malpractice cases in all 50 states.

He represents many Christians in serious injury matters all over the country. Dan is an exceptional trial lawyer.

He wrote the test for the National Board of Trial Advocacy, and currently his firm has over 100 cases that have settled for $1 million or more, and in approximately 10 different states.

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Steve Lawson, founder and president of One Passion Ministries, as well as teaching fellow for Ligonier Ministries.

I serve as professor of preaching and oversee the Doctor of Ministry program at the Master's Seminary in Los Angeles.

I would like to recommend the church where one of my preaching students, Andy Woodard, serves as the pastor.

It's called New Covenant Church, NYC. They are a Reformed Baptist church that meets in Midtown Manhattan.

You can find their service times and location on their website, which is www .ncc .nyc.

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If you're looking for a church that believes in expository preaching, which is simply biblical preaching, in New York City I'd like to recommend that you visit

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Hi, I'm Stephan Lindblad, Assistant Professor of Systematic Theology at IRBS Theological Seminary in Mansfield, Texas.

I accepted this call to teach at the seminary because I'm firmly convinced that the people of God in the churches of our

Lord Jesus Christ need to be firmly grounded in the truth of Holy Scripture. I'm excited to be teaching such subjects as the nature of theology and the doctrine of Scripture, and even the doctrine of the person and work of Jesus Christ.

Our churches and our people need to be well -grounded in these truths. Indeed, future ministers of the gospel need to understand these truths in order to proclaim them to all of God's people.

If you want to learn more about our program, visit us online at irbsseminary .org.

Charles Haddon Spurgeon once said, Give yourself unto reading. The man who never reads will never be read.

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In 1 Peter 2, verse 9, the Apostle Peter describes Christ's church as comprising a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for God's own possession, so that you may proclaim the excellencies of Him who has called you out of darkness into His marvelous light.

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Visit CitizenPriest .com today. Welcome back, this is

Chris Arnsen, your host of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, and if you just tuned us in, our guest today for the full two hours with just about an hour to go is

Dr. Barry J. York, who is the president of the Reformed Presbyterian Theological Seminary in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and today we are addressing a book of his, one of his most recent books published by Crown and Covenant Publications, Hitting the

Marks, Restoring the Essential Identity of the Church. If you would like to join us on the air with a question of your own for Dr.

Barry J. York, please submit it as soon as possible to ChrisArnsen at gmail .com, C -H -R -I -S -A -R -N -Z -E -N at gmail .com,

and please, as always, give us your first name, your city and state, and your country of residence if you live outside the

USA, and please only remain anonymous if your question involves a personal and private matter.

Before we return to Dr. York, we just have some important announcements to make in regard to upcoming special events.

First of all, I want to remind you that Dr. James R. White of Alpha and Omega Ministries returns as a guest to Iron Sharpens Iron Radio after a long absence.

We look forward with bated breath to hear what Dr. White has to say in regard to the recent document signed by Pope Francis and a very world -renowned imam in the

Muslim faith, so make sure you mark your calendars for Friday, March 8th from 4 to 6 p .m.

Eastern Time to hear this interview and get your questions ready for Dr. James R. White of Alpha and Omega Ministries.

And then, coming up March 15th and 16th, the Sanctification Through Suffering Conference is being held in Freehold, New Jersey.

It's a conference being orchestrated by our friends at Striving for Eternity Ministries, and the roster, the speaking roster, includes

Justin Peters, Frank Mullis, Joe Suozzo, and Colleen Sharp.

Colleen is co -host of Theology Gals, a podcast for Christian women primarily, and if you would like to attend this conference,

Sanctification Through Suffering, March 15th through the 16th in Freehold, New Jersey, you can go to strivingforeternity .org,

strivingforeternity .org, and when you do, please make sure you mention that you heard about the conference from Chris Arnzen on Iron Sharpens Iron Radio.

And then, coming up after that, our friends at the Banner of Truth are having their

East Coast Ministers Conference in Elizabethtown, Pennsylvania, on the theme,

I Believe in the Holy Spirit. These speakers at the Banner of Truth East Coast Ministers Conference include

Jeff Kingswood, Terry Johnson, David Vaughn, who is a Reformed Baptist missionary in France, Dr.

Stephen J. Nichols, president of Reformation Bible College, the college founded by the late R .C. Sproul and Michael Morales, and Chad Vegas.

If you would like more information about this very important conference, I Believe in the Holy Spirit, the theme of the

East Coast Ministers Conference of the Banner of Truth, go to banneroftruth .org,

banneroftruth .org, click on Events, and then click on East Coast Ministers Conference. I intend to be there, so I hope many of you will approach me and greet me and let me know that you listen to the show.

And please pray that I also introduce many new listeners to Iron Trip and Zion Radio by virtue of being present there over lunch and other times of fellowship and rest and relaxation, during breaks, during the conference.

Please pray that the Lord draws many people providentially to allow me to introduce myself to them.

So remember, it's banneroftruth .org, banneroftruth .org, click on Events, and then click on East Coast Ministers Conference.

They do have a number of conferences that they conduct. It just so happens that I will be personally attending the

East Coast Ministers Conference, but if you want to attend the West Coast Conference, if you happen to live on the

West Coast, or the UK conferences that they have, because we do have listeners all over the world, including the

West Coast of the United States and also the United Kingdom, and many other places, at least 26 other countries that we know of.

But if you see a conference that's closer to where you live that you want to attend, click on that. But I hope that many of you will attend the one that I am attending,

God willing, East Coast Ministers Conference, May 28th through the 30th.

That's May 28th through the 30th in Elizabethtown, Pennsylvania, at the Elizabethtown College.

Banneroftruth .org, banneroftruth .org is the website for you to find out all the information that you need.

Please tell the folks at the Banner of Truth that you heard about them and the conference through Chris Arnzen on Iron Sharpens Iron Radio.

Another one of my favorite conferences that is coming up in December, December 19th and 20th to be precise, the

Foundations Conference, which is being held in Manhattan. And this is a conference being conducted by Sermon Audio.

And you know if Sermon Audio is conducting a conference that you can rely upon the fact that the speakers at the conference are going to be theologically sound and there's not going to be any wishy -washy nonsense going on at a

Sermon Audio conference. They have actually strict standards regarding who they permit to air their sermons on Sermon Audio.

This December 19th and 20th the roster includes Dr. Stephen J Lawson, who you just heard moments ago.

You heard his voice promoting sponsors of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, New Covenant Church NYC in Manhattan.

He is one of the speakers, Dr. Stephen J Lawson of One Passion Ministries. Rev. Jeff Thomas, a very well -known name to Reformed people, both

Reformed Baptists and Presbyterians. He happens to be a Reformed Baptist, just recently retired from the pastorate in Wales.

And I really look forward to hearing him preach again. He is a phenomenal preacher. Richard Caldwell Jr.

Rev. Ormond Tomassian, another phenomenal name that you need to know.

Phenomenal man, or brother in Christ I should say, because I met him two years ago at the

Banner of Truth conference and I was blown away by this man's gifts, the power of his preaching.

Very young man in the faith, or should I say in the pastorate, and yet very very powerful.

I think that he is going to be a name that globally people will become very familiar with because I think he's going to become world -renowned because he is just remarkable.

Rev. Ormond Tomassian. Andrew Quigley is another name on the roster and Paul Washer was just recently added to the roster.

I'm so thrilled to hear that news. Paul Washer. If you don't know who he is, you better get familiar with him because he is phenomenal.

Thefoundationsconference .com is the website where you can go to register. Thefoundationsconference .com

and you'll have all the information that you need. I would register quickly if you intend to go because it's a very small venue.

They only hold about 200 people. So I hope to see you there. I will be there, God willing, and I'm looking forward to meeting many of you at The Foundations Conference and that's

Thefoundationsconference .com. Last but not least, if you love Iron Trip and Zion Radio, you don't want us to disappear from the airwaves, you love sharing the free downloadable mp3s with family, friends, and loved ones, you love hearing the guests and topics that we offer on this show that very often are rarely or never heard anywhere else but this show, please go to IronTripandZionRadio .com,

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click support, then click click to donate now. If you're not a member of a local church and you're not prayerfully seeking for one, and that is a biblically faithful local church, you're living in rebellion against God.

You might need to rectify that. In fact, our whole program today is on the importance of the local church.

So if you need a local church, you need a help finding one, send me an email to chrisarnson at gmail .com.

I have lists of biblically faithful churches all over the world. I've already helped find quite a number of people in our listening audience, biblically faithful churches near them.

So please send me an email to chrisarnson at gmail .com and put I need a church home in the subject line or something similar to that, and I will help you find a church,

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That's ironsharpensironradio .com or should I say chrisarnson at gmail .com,

send that email to me and put advertising in the subject line. We are now back with our guest

Dr. Barry J York, president of Reform Presbyterian Theological Seminary in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

And if you want to send in a question, our email address is chrisarnson at gmail .com chrisarnson at gmail .com.

And please give us your first name at least, your city and state of residence, and your country of residence if you live outside the

USA. Only remain anonymous if your question involves a personal and private matter.

And as you know Dr. York, before the break we had a question come in from one of your colleagues at Reform Presbyterian Theological Seminary, Dr.

George C Scipione, the adjunct professor at the Biblical Counseling Institute at Reform Presbyterian Theological Seminary.

And his question is, what is the single biggest roadblock that prevents churches from hitting the marks?

Well it's nice of Scip to send in a question for us. As I was reflecting on that,

I guess if I'm thinking of the single biggest, I think in my experience at least, it's been a failure of churches to discipline.

We don't like discipline, we don't like to confront people, and so so often churches allow sin to foster and fester in a congregation, and it begins to cause a lot of problems.

I think a big part of the reason for that is churches aren't trained in discipline, and it's something that we really need to be trained in.

The whole pattern, and I treat this in the book for discipline, and the church is found in Matthew 18 verses 15 through 20, where Jesus tells us very clearly how we're to approach discipline, and it's really to start at the private level with individuals in the church.

So again, church discipline starts with you, listener. It doesn't start just with the elders getting involved when the situation's gotten out of hand.

If we are all in a church committed to being faithful followers of Jesus, being holy, wanting to walk with Him and wanting to encourage others to do likewise, then we should learn how to come alongside others who are struggling, even wandering, and go about helping restore them back into proper relationship and fellowship with the

Lord. R .B. Kuyper says in his book on the church, it's often supposed that discipline is a task of the elders only.

That's a serious error. The members of the church are primarily responsible for disciplining those who err, and often as a pastor,

I'd be sitting in my study or get a phone call, and someone would say to me, did you know that so -and -so is doing such -and - such in the church?

And often I would say, no, I didn't know that was going on, and usually they were calling me so that I would do something about it, but my first question to them always was, have you spoken to them about this issue yet?

And so often that wasn't the case, and so I would use that as a time to train and send them back and say,

I'm in a sense, unless it was some emergency or really a big situation that needed more than just an individual's attention, most of the time that wasn't the case.

I would send them back to approach this brother or sister of the

Lord themselves, and so often after that I never heard think about it again, because Jesus says, if you see your brother sin, you're to go to him privately and address your brother, try to win him back.

So I think that in my experience, churches don't do that well.

They let sin foster, it begins to affect other people, and then divisions and problems start arising in the church.

And so falling right behind that then is just a lack of knowledge of the marks, of how to value the marks, how to do discipline, and putting proper emphasis on them in our local ministries.

Again, I think a lot of people may know—well, that's not even true, not a lot of people, but many people in the church will know,

I guess, what the marks are, at least a couple of them are, but some of them really, a lot of people don't really know how to express them, why they're the marks, how they're supposed to be participating in them.

So I think that's what we really have to do as a church, again, part of the reason why I wrote the book. Well, I'm glad that somebody began to discipline that dog in the background, so we kind of quickly—we quickly heard the dog stop barking, so we're thankful for that discipline.

But on a serious note, I know that I bring this up a lot when the subject of discipline arises on our show, but I just have a word of encouragement, perhaps is the best way to phrase it, in regard to discipline.

I'm urging everybody listening who either is being told they need to be under discipline in their own congregation, or perhaps they know that they're committing a sin privately, that if it were to be known in public would warrant their discipline,

I want to urge you not to be terrified of discipline, not to allow that to provoke you to flee from the church where God has ordained you to be a member.

Church discipline, I believe, saved my life because I was, years ago, under church discipline because of my return after 18 years of sobriety to a serious addiction to alcohol, and I don't use the word addiction to lessen the fact that it was a sin.

I'm just using a term that is commonly used. Drunkenness is probably a better way to phrase it, more biblical, but I just thank

God that I was put under discipline by a loving church whose elders cared about my soul more than about my feelings, and so I was under church discipline and was eventually restored to fellowship and good standing with that church after going to Hebron Colony Ministries in Boone, North Carolina, and I strongly recommend anybody who is going through the similar sin that I was guilty of to contact

HebronColony .org, H -E -B -R -O -N Colony .org, and find out more about Hebron Colony Ministries.

I cannot stop singing the praises about this wonderful ministry in Boone, North Carolina, and please pray.

I'm obviously not going to mention the individual's name, but please pray for a friend of mine who knows that he needs to enroll into Hebron Colony, and he has all the information.

He has said that he is going to submit to the council of pastors that are insisting that he goes there, and he seems to be enthusiastic to go there to turn things around in his life by the grace and mercy and power of the

Holy Spirit, but you never know. I mean, people do fall out of grace, and they wind up starting off well and then abandoning the proper path, so please pray that this person does not do that, and that they follow through and go to Hebron Colony.

And that website again is HebronColony .org. I apologize for that detour there,

Dr. York. That's quite all right. It's good to hear personal testimonies to the power of discipline.

I shared in the book that my first session meeting with the elders as a pastoral intern, even before I went to seminary,

I started on this internship. My first meeting was when they were excommunicating a man, and this man had left his wife, committed adultery, after months of trying to win him back, he wouldn't repent, and so they had to put him out of the church, and watching my elders weeping and crying out to God as they committed this act of removing him from the church really did a work in my own heart to circumcise against sexual sin.

That man actually started the ministry in Kokomo, Indiana, that I ended up going and being the church planter for, and so it set my heart apart to do that work.

So even though it's painful, it's hurtful, it seems like every time

I've seen church discipline properly practiced, it brings peaceable fruits in people's life, if not the individual who you hope will return like you did, at least in the people of God's life as they're purified and take more earnestly and seriously the gospel message.

Yes, and even if you are listening and you have been yourself excommunicated, you've got to remember that was an act of love even though you may not recognize it, and of course there are churches that are either false churches or churches that abuse their authority and have excommunicated people for unbiblical reasons, and we know that, and we even know that people who have been excommunicated for biblical reasons, sometimes it is done improperly, but always remember that God intends it as a loving act and that you should repent and be restored to the body of Christ in membership.

Being excommunicated or being under church discipline is not the end of the road if you repent and obey

Christ and do all that is required of you to be restored to membership.

So we are going to our final break right now, and by the way, Dr. Scipione, I don't know if you already have a copy of Hitting the

Marks, Restoring the Essential Identity of the Church, but Crown & Covenant Publications has given us copies of this book to give away, and if you don't already have it, email me your full mailing address and it will be shipped out to you by our friends at Cvbbs .com,

Cumberland Valley Bible Book Service, Cvbbs .com, so just send us your email if indeed you don't already have the book and would like to receive it free of charge.

Thanks to Crown & Covenant Publications, and thanks to Cvbbs .com for shipping it out to you at no charge to you or to Iron Sharpens Iron Radio.

But we are going to, as I said, our final break. If you have a question, please submit it immediately because we're rapidly running out of time.

It's chrisarnson at gmail .com, chrisarnson at gmail .com. I'm going to read to you another question before we go to the break, and therefore you could give it more time to reflect upon it.

Tyler in Mastic Beach, Long Island, New York, asked a question, and to be perfectly honest,

I'm not a hundred percent sure what Tyler means by this question, but he says, is the fact that a believer is united to Christ by faith a major role in identifying the church?

So I'm not really sure what he means by that. Maybe he means by that is the fact that believers are united to Christ by faith in a particular congregation a major role in identifying the church, but I'm not really sure.

Maybe you can better understand that. Maybe Tyler could send us a second email to clarify what he means by that question, but don't go away.

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Spread the word about FirstLoveRadio .org. Welcome back this is

Chris Arnzen and this is our last 15 minutes or so with our guest today Dr. Barry J York president of Reformed Presbyterian Theological Seminary in Pittsburgh Pennsylvania.

We have been discussing his book which we are going to continue discuss for this last quarter hour,

Hitting the Marks Restoring the Essential Identity of the Church. If you want to join us with a question do so immediately because we're rapidly running out of time.

Chris Arnzen at gmail .com C -H -R -I -S -A -R -N -Z -E -N at gmail .com Tyler in Mastic Beach Long Island New York clarified his question.

He says that I was right basically he's speaking about the members of a church.

What I meant to say the individual members of a congregation also the spiritual unity being manifested in the congregation.

So I think that probably has a lot to do with what you were talking about before discipline because if people are just running rampant in a church living undisciplined lives living like the devil himself and not being corrected or disciplined or excommunicated this would be a very poor sign of a church being a real

Church of Christ. Correct and I understood

Tyler as well I think he was referring to the idea that faith is necessary obviously when we talk about the marks of preaching sacraments and discipline of course the believer has to be united by faith in the church he has to believe the word that's being preached and exhibit that belief in the word by being baptized and participating in the word supper and then living a life in conformity to it and there to do that as individuals to show faithfulness as individuals but then we have that corporate responsibility to hold one another accountable to that so hopefully that answers

Tyler's question. We have Susan Margaret oh by the way Tyler give us your full mailing address because you've won a free copy of the book that we are addressing

Hitting the Marks and if you give us your full mailing address that will be shipped out to you.

Compliments of CVBBS .com, Cumberland Valley Bible Book Service and also compliments of Crown and Covenant Publications who donated the books to begin with so please make sure we have your mailing address.

Susan Margaret in Dauphin County Pennsylvania says I have a number of friends and acquaintances who say that because church membership is nowhere to be mentioned in the

Bible and because we are saved by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone they are not required to join a church they feel very comfortable either bouncing from congregation to congregation to congregation without submitting to membership or not going anywhere at all just having private

Bible studies in their home with friends and praying and so on. How do we lovingly chastise and rebuke these friends and loved ones and acquaintances who might have this mindset?

Well I think that we have to understand what baptism represents and in the book

I talk about it does represent some of the spiritual truths that Susan was mentioning her friends would say that you've been regenerated and have been granted the

Holy Spirit and you've been forgiven of sins but one of the other signs of baptism what it represents is membership in the body of Jesus Christ.

We're told in the Great Commission to go and make disciples of all nations and we're to baptize them in the name of the

Father, Son, and Holy Spirit so that we show that this person belongs to the

Lord and the way that you show that you belong to the Lord is you recognize that he's your head and you're now part of the body of Christ and so you should formally belong to that body.

In the book of Acts at the Pentecost Sermon when the believers were baptized it says they were baptized and they were added.

What were they added to? Well they were added to the church so they became members of the church.

These were primarily Jewish people that were gathered there at the day of Pentecost and they knew what it meant to belong to Israel and now that the church has become the new

Israel we're to belong to it and when you see when you see the church being described it's given names that have parts but are come together as a whole or as a unit so the church is the body of Christ and many members but one body or again going back to 1st

Peter 2 .9 it's a holy nation of people for God's own possession and so that that speaks of belonging of being a member of so we're united spiritually with one another through the

Holy Spirit but that's to be represented visibly by our baptism and then our participation in the

Lord's Supper and I do think this is a huge problem again an

American evangelicalism is because so many of the shepherds are not being faithful to teach church membership it's confusing a lot of the a lot of the sheep.

Well thank you Susan Margaret if you have not already won this book from our last interview please send us our or your email address

I'm sorry please send us your mailing address so that CVBBS can ship that out to you at no charge to you or to Iron Sherpins Iron Radio and once again we thank the fine folks at Crown and Covenant Publications who published this book for donating these copies for our listeners who have questions today of course listeners who did not win one during the first interview that we did a number of weeks ago on Iron Sherpins Iron Radio.

As you know Dr. York Mark Dever has a very helpful and fruitful ministry called

Nine Marks in addition to being pastor of the Capitol Hill Baptist Church in Washington DC and I notice you interact with his teaching quite a bit in your book obviously

Mark Dever speaks of nine marks but you have only three in your book what is the difference in your approach?

Well it's really one of clarification rather than critique is I quoted earlier from Bannerman who said it's necessary to distinguish between the being of a church and the well -being of the church and Mark Dever's book is more on the second part of that he's talking about the well -being of the church that's the name of his book

The Nine Marks of the Healthy Church and of those nine marks and as I interact with them in the book

I just try to show in my diagnostic tool where I think as he explains what he means by those and again

I'm very appreciative of Mark Dever's work but as he speaks about certain qualities the church should possess to be healthy where they might fall is this an essential mark is this more sign of being faithful or healthy so for instance the first couple of his marks are preaching biblical theology and gospel understanding and as he again explains what he means by those

I think those are really subsumed under the whole idea of just preaching the true preaching of God's Word that you're going to have proper theology and the understanding of the gospel but one of the marks that he has in his book is evangelism and as we've talked about earlier that's certainly something desirable but it's not a mark of essentiality

I think that's more a mark of health in a church and so I place that in that part of the diagram.

One of the things that Pastor Dever doesn't have included in his

Nine Marks would be the sacraments they're missing. He acknowledges that, he recognizes the historic marks known in the

Latin as the Notae Ecclesiae. I would say that the sacraments are so essential that if you're going to be talking about the healthiness of the church

I think they should have been included but besides that I think that the list of things that he emphasizes, discipleship, leadership, those types of things are very necessary in the life of a church especially toward its being healthy and fruitful for Christ.

Let me just plug a previous interview here on Iron Trip and Zion Radio since you mentioned a book that I think is a very valuable book for our listeners to possess perhaps even especially for pastors to possess.

You mentioned James Bannerman's book, the 19th century gospel minister

James Bannerman, The Church of Christ, a treatise on the nature, powers, ordinances, discipline, and government of the

Christian Church published by Banner of Truth. I conducted an interview with Dr.

Carl Truman who wrote the foreword to that book, at least the Banner of Truth edition of that because it was written 100 years before our brother

Carl Truman was born. I was hoping you were going to say you interviewed Bannerman. That would have been a very interesting show indeed but I would have been guilty of necromancy.

But if you want to type into the search engine of past shows podcast on Iron Trip and zionradio .com

you will hear my one -hour interview with Carl Truman on the Church of Christ, a treatise on the nature, powers, ordinances, discipline, and government of the

Christian Church by James Bannerman and the second hour also related to that topic

Earl Blackburn, he is discussing his book Jesus Loves the Church and So Should You.

So if you type in Bannerman B -A -N -N -E -R -M -A -N into the search engine you will find that interview link and you can also

I strongly urge you to purchase the book that I just mentioned from CVBBS .com,

Cumberland Valley Bible Book Service, they definitely have any Banner of Truth title that you would like to purchase at their residence there on in Carlisle, Pennsylvania.

So go to CVBBS .com and ask for the

Church of Christ by James Bannerman, B -A -N -N -E -R -M -A -N. Well as far as your book brother,

I wanted to ask you a question before we run out of time and before we before I ask any other additional listener questions.

How might churches use your book, Hitting the Marks? Well I did really write it for the

Church. It's not an accessible theological tome.

Matter of fact, when I was thinking pastorally in my ministry about the marks of the Church, I found that my knowledge of them were in big theological books or the

Confessions, and I wanted to make this an accessible book for God's people, so it's written to lay people.

And I know right now our church is actually, we're having a class on it that I'm teaching, which has been fun to actually teach through the material in the book and have discussions regarding it, and I have a number of friends who are doing that in their congregations, so I do think that it lends itself to that.

There are discussion questions at the end, so having a class or doing a Bible study on it.

I think it can also be a helpful tool to use with friends who are thinking about a church.

Maybe you want to get them to really think about what's important in the life of the church. Each chapter is really treating a text of Scripture, so I dig into a particular part of the

Bible and get them to interact with that and see how the marks emerge in their place in the life of the

Church. So I think those are some ways that God's people could find the book useful to them.

And to remind you, you can get the book from our friends at CVBBS .com.

They also carry titles published by Crown and Covenant Publications, so you can go to CVBBS .com,

which stands for Cumberland Valley Bible Book Service, and you can order that book. If you want to get a list of other titles published by Crown and Covenant Publications, you can go to crownandcovenant .com,

crownandcovenant .com, and they have a whole assortment of books that will be helpful to you.

Let's see here, we have another listener. This is, let's see, and it's an anonymous listener.

We have time for one more question, I think. The anonymous listener says, what do you think are signs that you should leave a church where you are a member?

I know many people leave churches for unbiblical reasons, but what do you think are biblical warrants that somebody either must leave or has the liberty to leave?

Well, because these marks are what Jesus says are essential.

When he was interacting with his disciples in Matthew 16, and Peter makes that confession that you are the

Christ, the Son of the living God, and he tells Peter he's going to build the church on him as the rock, and then of course he spreads that to the other disciples as well, but he says to Peter that he was going to give him the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and I was telling

Ashley in the class yesterday that the church doesn't have a lot of power on earth the way that the world thinks of power.

We can't make civil laws, we can't pick up weapons, we can't do many, many things in this world, but the church does have one power, and that power that it has is to preach the gospel, and then to determine based on a profession of faith and fruit from their lives whether the person is truly, as far as we can tell, a

Christian or not, and to either bring them into the church, those keys of the kingdom have the power to loose, and so we say that they've been loosed from their sins, or we see that they're really not sincere, and so they're not allowed in the church, or someone in the church becomes unfaithful, they can be put out of the church ultimately through excommunication, so the church has that power, and if a church is not practicing faithful preaching, the sacraments where the

Lord's table is being guarded, and people are coming there in communion rather than just this open, allowing anyone to take up the

Lord's Supper who doesn't have the ability to discern because they're not spiritually have been saved or not, and if they're not practicing discipline,

I think that's a sign that you're not really at a place where the Spirit of God is, because where the

Spirit of God is, these things will be essentially there. So to me that would be a real sign, and if, as you said earlier, some of these things are being abused, maybe the

Word of God's present, but rather than a preacher persuasively, lovingly, pleadingly calling his church to faith and obedience, he's using the

Bible in a legalistic way to control people, they use church discipline to control, it's got cult -like behaviors to it, then

I think, yeah, you've got to go where these marks are practiced faithfully, not just practiced.

So that would be my short answer version to that. And we are now out of time, brother, and I want our listeners to know that the

Reformed Presbyterian Theological Seminary in Pittsburgh has a website, rpts .edu,

rpts .edu. I want to thank you so much, Dr. York, for being our guest today. I want to thank everybody who listened, especially those who took the time to write.

I want you all to always remember for the rest of your lives that Jesus Christ is a far greater Savior than you are a sinner.