Adult Sunday Scholl - Going Public Part 1 (Chapter 1)

A gracious Father in Heaven, we thank You, Lord, again for a day of life, for breath in our lungs, for the capacity to stand here before You in Your presence in the midst of Your congregation. We pray, Father, that You would grant us now peace and tranquility as we endeavor to lay aside earthly cares and earthly sorrows and, Father, focus on the teaching of that Word and later the preaching of that Word.

We pray, Father, that You would edify Your Church, edify Your people, and grant us guidance and, Lord, edification by means of Your Spirit. And we pray, God, that You would lead us into all truth on this important and serious topic.

And we pray that it would be and result more to the glory of Your name. In Jesus' name we do pray, amen.

Why Church Membership and Polity Matter

All right.

You can be seated.

I don't have a song for you. So we're going to be starting chapter one of this book called Going Public. And I want to kind of set the stage, because the topic, the chapter is setting the stage. Like why are we studying this?

Like why do we as elders decide, hey, this should be something that we invest time and attention to? What are some of your thoughts? Why do you think this is an important subject to consider as a church?

That's a great point. You know, individualism is rampant. Now, I'm a rugged individualist when it comes to, you know, system of government and self-reliance and my views on church, on, you know, government.

But when it comes to church government, I'm not so much an individualist. I'm more of a communist when it comes to church membership. And so I believe much more in a community-based approach or biblical community-based approach to church membership, not just a rugged individualism that we see today so prevalent in evangelicalism.

Mario?

Say again? That's right.

That's right. That's right.

Emmanuel, you had your hand up earlier? So it has to deal with the nature of membership, right?

Yeah.

Pastor?

That's right. That's right. That's right.

Hmm.

Oh, man.

Dale?

So you're just salivating for this, huh?

You're just ready.

Yes.

Well, I mean, that's certainly a scriptural support that Pato Baptist would use. And so, you know, what's interesting is that this book is not so much a debate between Credo and Pato Baptist. It's more so the nature of membership.

And so just to quickly answer that, you know, early in church history, you kind of see the switch towards sprinkling, and then, of course, to, you know, infant baptism pretty early in church history. And it was born out of a couple things.

You had the Dadaque, a document that was used, certainly amongst early Christians, that kind of said, here's how you can baptize, okay? Ideally, perfectly, if you're baptized, you're baptized by full immersion in water and running water, living water.

If that doesn't work, then you can do it in still, you can do it in basically bath water. If you don't have enough water, then you can, you know, dunk someone's head. If not, you can sprinkle their head.

And so you can see how the kind of practical pragmaticism started to take over. And so, you know, what Baptists did is that they wanted just to return to the simple biblical formula of baptism and do what the Scripture says, and that is to baptize people upon profession of their faith in Jesus, which is the, you know, the Acts formula that we see.

But this isn't so much a topic on pedo versus credo. This is really a discussion on the nature of church membership. It really comes down to church polity. That is not a really fun subject, right? So most people don't really care, especially in modern evangelicalism.

Evangelicalism is a mess today. And I'm telling you, as my last church background, I came from a non-denominational church, and boy, would this book have been so helpful. And so one of the reasons I'm excited to delve into this book is because I think that this subject matters immensely, partly was because some of the things that are going to be discussed here is what led to my last church actually there being a church split, was because when I stepped into that church in 2018, it had basically been around, it was basically a church plant.

It had been around for maybe four years prior to me. And it was a pretty healthy church in some regards, but also not healthy. And the not healthy aspects was, you know, when I came in, I was given a list of names of all the people who, and it was kind of broken into three sections, okay?

I had the members, people who were members. So they'd sign a covenant, people who were regular attenders, and then people who were called floaters, okay? So we had three categories. And I'm trying to figure, okay, well, why aren't these people members?

Like, how long have they been coming here? Oh, they've been here since the beginning. Oh, he actually serves on the worship team. And I'm like, why isn't he a member? Oh, he refuses to be a member anywhere.

And so if we're really staunch about it, then he'll just leave and we lose our guitar player for the church. And I said, well, this doesn't make any sense. And then I saw, okay, we have this member here.

Okay, great. You know, these members, you know, how long have they been members? Oh, they've been members for about two years. Oh, great. You know, were they baptized? No. Were they baptized anywhere?

No. So why are they members? Oh, because, you know, they came to membership class and they signed the paper and they're.

Members.

And I said, oh, and I was like, this is a mess. It is an absolute mess. And in the two years that I was at that church, the leadership told me basically not to even push membership because it was too pushy.

And they had the impression very quickly that I was a very pushy guy, which I don't think.

I am.

But they got the impression I was a very pushy guy and they were afraid that if I pushed it too hard, people would leave. And the opposite began to happen. We became so loose with church membership that people started to leave.

You know why? Because they weren't committed. They weren't committed. And so to them, it was just, okay, this works for me now, and then when it doesn't work for me, then I'll just leave. You know, and they were not committed to the church.

And so people would just leave. And they would treat the church, you know, like a buffet table. They like this. They like that. They find something better elsewhere. So they go. There was no commitment to the local church.

And so those things really began to divide the church. And I tried in my last two years to reemphasize, re-push the concept of membership. And even then, just kept running into walls with the church leadership there where they really didn't see, they would say, oh, this is divisive.

This is not a gospel issue. All these pretexts in order not to get, you know, their way. And it eventually led to a church split where people felt like, okay, no, there is a difference in polity. There's a difference in governments that's so important, that's so big, it requires us to go our separate ways.

And actually, I agree with the sentiment of those who split because, yeah, the church structure and environment just wasn't biblical and it wasn't conducive to church life and polity.

Yeah.

It just basically means like church government.

Yeah.

Church structure, church government.

Yeah. Yeah.

Say again?

Yeah.

So like, we have, every church has a constitution. You know, every legal body in the United States has to have some type of legal structure. And so, you know, the church I came from is what's called an elder-ruled church.

So kind of similar to Presbyterians in some regard. The word Presbyterian coming from the Greek presbyter, which means elder or overseer. And so that's their distinctive mark is their church polity, is their church structure, which is why they're Presbyterians.

We're Baptists, and Baptists are historically congregationalists in our church polity and our church structure. And so, yeah, it just means, you know, the church structure, church politics. So any other thoughts or questions before we go into the material of the first chapter?

Seeker-Sensitive Churches and the Problem of Loose Membership

Yes, Pastor?

Exactly. Exactly.

And you'll see this a lot too. And again, evangelicalism, you know, you'll hear this term used a lot, seeker-sensitive. And even some solid evangelical churches who would not consider themselves seeker-sensitive.

Seeker-sensitive is kind of a derogatory term on our end, right? We would say, oh, that's, they're seeker-sensitive. Meaning that they are too, they make the gospel and they make church life too palatable beyond the scope that Scripture allows.

So they tear down the barriers. And so basically, it's easy entry. And a lot of churches are like this, especially megachurches, right, where you can attend a megachurch, you know, for years and people will not even know you exist.

Because it's so easy to slip in, slip out, and, you know, you don't have really, you know, you're attending a service, you're not part of a church, right? And that's so common today. You know, people are watching services, and even talk to people today, you know, they'll say, oh, I go to church every Sunday.

I said, great, where do you go to church? My couch. I watch my favorite preacher on YouTube every Sunday, live stream. I say, that's not church. You know, that's fine if you're sick, that's fine if you have issues for a season, but that's not church life.

So yeah, we need to move away from that. I think this book is going to help us to get a pretty solid understanding of the implications of baptism, the implications of church membership, church life, and I think it's going to help us reinforce kind of the things that we're already doing.

We are a church that is, in the eyes of the seeker-sensitive folks, divisive. And we're divisive because we hold firm to some pretty basic biblical principles on baptism and on church polity, and particularly the Lord's Table.

I've had many, I've had at least a few instances so far where after service, people would say, loved the service, loved the message, but I've got a problem. I don't like the way you guys do communion, because I felt excluded.

I didn't feel like I could, you know, freely partake. And I said, well that's okay, there's a reason for that, right? And trying to explain to them graciously and lovingly, you know, ours is not, we don't close the table, or we don't have a closed communion table because we want to be, you know, a nice, cool, exclusive club.

We do it to safeguard the integrity of the Lord's Table, and we do it to safeguard the integrity of church polity, right?

Emmanuel? Yes.

Yes. They didn't like the fact that we have what's a semi-closed communion, right? And we'll have people who, you know, they'll come for the message and then they'll just leave right before, you know, communion because they feel a certain way about it.

And so, I don't think that's a healthy view of looking at communion. And part of this going public book, which is, you know, Why Baptism is Required for Church Membership, has a lot to do with the communion table.

And they're interlocked or interconnected.

Why?

Because these are both ordinances that the Lord gave the church, and there's a connection between the two that we're going to uncover over the next several weeks.

Yes.

I think, yeah, we would be more of a close communion. It's not closed, but close communion. And so, we'll actually go into a little bit in that first chapter as it kind of gives us that distinguishing markers for those.

And so, let's go into the first chapter, chapter 1. I think, again, we're just setting the stage for it. And one of the things that he brings up early in the book is a lot of people would say, well, this is not a gospel issue.

So why even talk about this? If it's not a gospel issue, then it's just divisive. What say you to that? Go ahead, Pastor. What I think people probably mean by that when they say it's not a gospel issue is they're saying it's not a salvific issue, right?

So they're saying, well, our eternal salvation doesn't hinge on whether you have the right polity or the right baptism. And so, as a result of that, we should just leave it alone. We should just shelve it and focus on more important things.

That's typically the evangelical response to some of these things. Pastor?

Baptism, the Lord's Table, and the New Covenant

Yeah.

Tim?

Go ahead.

That's a great quote. That's right. That's right.

Tim?

That's right.

Right.

Well, that's a great point. That's a good point.

Anyone else? Dale, did you have something? Dale? I think I saw his hand up earlier. Are you talking about eschatology?

Yeah. Yeah.

I mean, people get more excited about, certainly, eschatological debates, and I think when it comes to emotional discussions of eschatology, people get far more invested in it versus something that's kind of boring like church polity.

But I would say that this has far more importance than eschatology. And so even though eschatology might be more fun, this is far more important, this discussion on church polity and baptism and church membership, because it has far more implications.

Whether Jesus comes back tomorrow in a thousand years, this doctrine on church membership has actually more implications for us today. And so I think it's really important for us to examine that. So a lot of folks will say, hey, you know what, just walk away from this conversation.

It's not the gospel. It's not at stake. It's not the trinity. It's not essential to salvation. So why even bother having this conversation? And again, I think we've all laid out some pretty good reasons why that shouldn't be the mindset that we have as we approach this subject, that this is an important subject and it does merit our studying in close consideration.

What's interesting is that this is a one-issue book. He's not going to go into the differences between as much credo-pedo-baptism. He's not going to debate about much of other things other than this issue of baptism and church membership.

And in particular, its connection and consequences for the Lord's table. And so I think I want to define some terms here. And we start seeing some of those terms and conditions in about page 13. And we have these terminologies that are used, open and closed communion.

What is an open communion? What is an open communion? Yeah, so typically in a church setting, in our church in Wisconsin, not because I wanted to, but because it was the church polity, we had what's called open communion.

So I would say, if you've repented of your sins, you believe in Christ, you're welcome to partake of this table. And so everyone would partake now. And we also didn't have weekly communions. We had very irregular communion, where there was no set calendar or schedule.

A lot of evangelical churches probably do it on the first Sunday of the month, sometimes the last Sunday of the month. We would do something like that, or kind of whenever someone would remind us, we would break out the crackers and the grape juice.

But there wasn't a seriousness to the table, and I didn't like that. And part of it, again, was this laid back mentality. You know, I lived in Sturgeon Bay, Wisconsin, you probably never heard of that place, but Sturgeon Bay, Wisconsin is kind of a sleepy town, and it's a really laid back town.

Sturgeon Bay is technically an island, right on Lake Michigan. And so, if you've ever seen a map of Wisconsin, Wisconsin kind of has like a little thumb. On the middle of the thumb, it actually breaks, and it's an island.

And so, I lived on the island of Sturgeon Bay, essentially, in Door County. And so, everyone has kind of an island mentality, you know? Everyone's kind of super slow, super laid back, nobody wants to, it's very hippie.

And oh man, it drove me crazy, because, yeah, people just didn't take things as seriously as they should, you know? And it was very upsetting to me. And so, it manifests itself in church polity and communion, baptism.

And so, that's why, when I came here, I was happy to be amongst the people who took these things far more serious than most other churches and Christians do. But certainly, you know, open communion is very, very common, and especially the larger the church, the more likely you're going to have open communion, you know why?

See, it's easier, and it's harder to enforce a closed communion, because the more people you have, the less of them the pastors actually know. And so, they can't, they don't know who's who, and they can't keep tabs on people.

And so, it's just easier to have an open communion. Yeah, pastor. Yeah, and as pastors, I mean, we both can attest that we've spoken to people who we've noticed who partake and probably shouldn't, and we'll talk to them, and we'll help them understand the arrangements of the table.

Either they'll respect it, or we won't see them again, is just typically what happens, right? And so, again, people feel kind of emotional towards being able to have access to the table, rightly or wrongly.

So, those are always things that can be a turnoff. And we recognize that it is, this, our position is an unpopular position in Christendom today. It's an unpopular position, but we think it's the right position.

What's a closed communion? Members only, and how does that typically look in a church service? Yes, Dale. So, that's a super closed communion.

Yeah, that's good.

And we hear, yeah, we're hearing that, and maybe some of us may feel a little uncomfortable,.

Like, man, okay.

You know, just the optics of it, and say, okay, you guys can go now, and we'll meet you up later. You know, yeah, there is, again, there's an optic challenge with this closed communion, and I think it's something we have to, like, actually, like, wrestle with, and say, okay, there's a way in which this doesn't really look that inviting, right?

I mean, would you feel invited? Would you feel like, oh, this is the place for me, if you saw that? Now, again, should that be the reason not to follow through with a biblical mandate? You know, the scriptures should always be our first consideration.

Emmanuel?

Do you want to get rid of the tension that took its way, disobeyed? I mean, when I first came here, I was a member of another church, and I still was a 19-year-old. I still had to go to the membership class, and go through the confession of faith, and once I finished that, I was a member, and I was able to partake.

I thought we accepted people, members of other churches as long as they were baptized.

Yes, which is what we're going to define that in a few moments, because there's closed communion, then there's close communion, and closed communion is basically what? What's the difference between close and closed communion?

Yes, so that's an important distinction. If you are baptized by full immersion, so receiving a believer's baptism, and you're a member of a church of good sense, so another church has affirmed your testimony, affirmed that you're a Christian, then you're welcome to partake with us at our table if you're visiting.

I thought that.

Yes, but because it's one and the same. That's our position.

Right?

So if you are, if you are, if you, like if you're baptized here, you're a member here. Correct, which is why we make sure that it's both, right? So if you've been baptized upon a profession of faith, and that you are a member of a church in good standing that holds to the same gospel, right?

So that, so it's both, because we understand that that is certainly the case in a lot of churches where they can be a member and not be baptized. I had a guy at our previous church that had been a Christian for 20 years.

He was a youth pastor at some point as well, somewhere in there, and he had never been baptized. Never been baptized. And he was a member at our church, and I was like, so why are you not baptized? And he's like, well, no one ever did it.

And he was a big guy. He was like super tall, you know, huge, wide guy. And when I baptized him, it was the funniest picture ever, where it's this guy, I had to actually get him on his knees in the, in the lake because he was just so big.

And even on his knees, he was taller than I was. And so then just getting the guy in the water and out, it was just, actually, I think we had two guys help me. He was a big guy. And so yeah, it's common.

A lot of folks don't, a lot of churches don't follow the same practices that we do, which is why we protect the table in that way when we do allow for visitors to partake. Yes, Emmanuel? No, go for it.

Yeah.

And again, part of it is just that I think that people have expectations of what a good church is. And a good church is inviting, warm, good worship, good preaching. We have this kind of notion of what a good church is.

And if one of those legs or peers are taken out, then we start to consider, okay, maybe this isn't a good church, right? And so I've had a lot of folks say, not a lot of folks, but I've had several folks say to me that I like your church, I just don't like that, you know, you guys seem a little bit too strict and stuff.

And I don't deny that there is a level of strictness that we have that's unique, but it's not beyond what the scripture says. And it's not a strictness out of legalism. It's a strictness out of wanting to preserve the scriptures and wanting to obey the scriptures.

And so maybe we are strict compared to other churches. But if you compared us to, you know, a New Testament church, I think we're probably behind.

The pail.

We're not as strict, we're not as obedient as we can be or should be. And so there's areas for us to grow in as a church family. And certainly, again, compared to other mainline evangelical churches, we might have the appearance of being strict.

But again, I think it's called obedience. And obedience, the Bible says, is better than sacrifice. So it's better to be obedient than to sacrifice all these hosts of things. So, any other thoughts or questions?

Now this is, again, we've got these terminologies that's used here, okay? So we've got close communion, closed communion, open communion. What this is presupposing, what it's assuming, is that historically, the Christian church, mostly on all three sides, so Protestant, Orthodox, Catholic, agrees that in order to partake of the Lord's table, you need to be baptized.

Now the paedo-baptists have it easy because they baptize babies. Then you just have to go through confirmation, and then after confirmation, they can partake of the Lord's table, or, you know, of the Eucharist.

Versus a Protestant church, and the historical Protestant position also has been that if you are baptized, only if you are baptized can you partake of the Lord's table. With a few exceptions, some of them surprising, such as Modern Times, John Piper, John Bunyan.

You know, you've got some big names out there that said the opposite, who advocated for an open communion, which means that even if you were not baptized, you could partake of the elements. But that's not the way we view this.

Rather, we understand that these are two ordinances that are interconnected. And the reason why baptism should come before the Lord's table is why? Give me an argument for it. Christ commanded what, in particular?

Baptism. And baptism serves as what? So, okay, yes, that's true.

A new covenant.

Emmanuel?

Okay.

I like that.

Anyone else? Mario?

No.

That's true.

That's a great point. That's a great point. Anyone else?

So here's, I think, something that we should consider. As was just mentioned, baptism is a sign. It's a sign of the new covenant. In the Old Testament, there's a sign of the covenant, which was what? Circumcision.

Circumcision was a sign, blood oath. It was a blood oath that says, I'm part of the covenant community of Yahweh. I'm under his lordship. I'm under his tutelage. I'm under his law. And his law commands that we ought to be circumcised.

Right?

Baptism, which is so abundantly clear in Scripture, I mean, no one even argues this, is the new covenant oath. It is the sign of the new covenant oath. Just as circumcision was the old covenant oath, now baptism serves as the new covenant oath.

Okay?

And it is an initiatory oath, meaning that it is the first oath that initiates us into the new covenant community.

Okay?

Which means that the Lord's table, which Jesus also says is a sign of the new covenant, when he institutes it in Luke 22, he says, this cup is the new covenant in my blood, which is poured out for you.

Do this in remembrance of me. The difference between the new covenant baptism and new covenant Lord's Supper is that, as it's said in page 15, in the middle it says, he says, I'll argue baptism is the new covenant's initiating oath sign.

And the Lord's Supper is its renewing oath sign. So the Lord's Supper, it's a renewing of the oath. And it's a weekly renewing of the oath. Man, this is so important that we understand this, because now we get a better picture of what the Lord's table means.

And what we're doing, what we're accomplishing there. You know, it's like, you know, you get married, and sometimes on the 10-year, 15-year mark, 20-year mark, 30-year mark, 40-year mark, you might do what's called the renewing of vows.

And it's not necessary. You've made a vow. But I like it. And I, again, actually the same couple, the same guy I was telling you about earlier, the big guy that I baptized, who was a member of the church in Wisconsin, they recently celebrated their 20-year anniversary, and they renewed their vows.

And I thought, you know, that's beautiful, especially because I know their story, I know what they've gone through, I know the struggles, and that they can come together, mark this momentous, you know, anniversary, and renew it, and say, you know what, we're still here, we still love each other, we're still committed to each other, we're still going to do life together, we're still going to go all the way to the end.

And that's essentially what we're doing at the Lord's table, in some respect. We are recommitting, we're making that oath over and over again, and saying, I belong to Jesus, and I'm with Christ, Christ is with me, I'm taking spiritually in the life of Jesus, through the communion, it is a beautiful thing, it is truly a beautiful thing.

So it's not just taking some dry crackers and some water juice, there is a spiritual power and presence that comes of the communion table. And if we deny the first oath, and if we don't do the first oath, we cannot truly participate in the second oath, in the renewing oath.

It's like trying to renew vows of not even being married, it would make no sense, would it? And so, does that help understand the difference between the ordinances of baptism and the Lord's Supper? And why they're interconnected, and why baptism needs to come first?

I think so, right? Any thoughts, any questions? Jesus?

The Lord's Table and the renewal of the vows, and the renewal of the covenant, so it's like, we're doing a vow again? Would that be a single, like, the same way as in the Lord's Supper is, whoever drinks or eats in the world of might and power, the word of God, the punishment, by oppressing God, would it be like something, like if we break a vow, like, would it be in the same whole part of, like, the severity of eating or drinking on a worldly matter?

That's a good question, I'd have to think about, ponder that for a moment. You know, what distinguishes the Lord's Supper is that it is a, it is a vow of remembrance, right? So, do this in remembrance of me, and we do this until the Lord returns, right?

So, we do this in remembrance of Christ. And so, it's not exactly the renewing of vows, it's not totally appropriate to go too far of that analogy, but it is an act of remembrance, and what is a renewing of a vow, but again, kind of an act of remembrance, starting where you began, and saying, okay, this is the initial vows that we took, and we are recommitting ourselves, in some respect, to those things.

And so, I think it's, you know, I think it's appropriate to consider it in that light, but not to go too far of the imagery, as it probably falls short. And so, I'd have to give that a little bit more thought, but I will, I'll get back to you.

Pastor, it looks like you're cooking something.

It becomes a distinction without a difference if we take it too far.

That's right, that's right, that's right.

I think that's a good way of looking at it. I think this is all very helpful, and there's key terms at a glance, there's a kind of a, in page 15, you kind of see those terminologies kind of hashed out pretty simply for us.

So, closed membership, open membership, just that discussion centered on whether baptism is or is not required for church membership. So, closed communion, open communion, whether baptism is or is not required for participation in the Lord's Supper.

So, again, baptism, membership, communion, these are all three connected. You can't divorce them from each other, because they all have implications for the life of the church and church polity. Closed communion, closed communion, whether baptized members of other churches may participate in the Lord's Supper, closed, or only the members of that local church, which is closed.

And then, occasional or visiting communion, that is, participating in the Lord's Supper in one church when one is a member of another, so that's for the person who is visiting and going to another church.

Here's an interesting question for you. Would you feel comfortable partaking communion at another church where you are visiting? Okay? Okay, good. To me, there's no right or wrong answer. It's an interesting question to pose.

Pastor? Yeah, that's a good answer. What would it depend on?

First of all, I assume I would have sat in on the preaching, had some connection with the people, even if only for a few moments, I'd have a sense, though I'm foul, that it's a gospel-believing church.

When Sue and I were on vacation in Oregon, we stopped at a church that was very pre-millennial in the MacArthur vote, so it was a true gospel-believing church. We connected, and we felt comfortable taking the Lord's Feast as baptized believers.

Yeah, amen. Jesus?

I'd also like, as Pastor George said, as long as it's a gospel-believing church, I would go put in the monocle of a Reformed church, but that would also expand the model in my head to at least expand the model to the Baptist church or the Union churches.

Then I would feel comfortable after sitting to the preaching, of course, and I'd think, oh, yes, I would feel comfortable.

Yeah, very good. Go for it, Chris.

I know this isn't a thing against paid-of-baptists and free-of-baptists, but when they're talking about non-baptized people, would the reason be probably that they were sprinkled?

Yeah, so that would be our position. That's our position as a church, and it's the position that's taken by this book, the author. We're assuming baptism by immersion, believers' baptism, yeah. Tim?

The question about taking community at a different church, they share a similar understanding.

That's right.

We visit churches, we're members of churches, you know, part of the understanding where communion would, in effect, be a very different thing. It's almost more like an experience. In one church, you receive the elements, and you're instructed to go off and find some private, they met at a school, and you go off and find some private corner somewhere.

You look at that, that's just a very different understanding of what's happening. Now I work at that church again, I would not be comfortable with that. This is a different thing.

Right, yeah. What became kind of popular during the pandemic season was Zoom communion. Yeah, I feel a certain kind of way about that. I remember it was brought up at our church in Wisconsin. Like, hey, we should do this thing, we should just do communion through Zoom.

And I said, no, I'm not doing that. I draw the line there, I'm not doing that. It's true, we have to consider what is and is not communion, just as similarly as we have to consider what is and is not baptism.