December 13, 2023 Show with Josh Buice on “The Importance of Biblical Church Membership”

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This is Chris Arnzen, your host of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, wishing you all a happy Wednesday on this 13th day of December, 2023.

And I'm absolutely thrilled to have back as a returning guest my friend Josh Bice, who is pastor of Praise Mill Baptist Church in Douglasville, Georgia, and founder of G3 Ministries.

And today we're going to be addressing a very important theme, the importance of biblical church membership.

It's my honor and privilege to welcome you back to Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, Pastor Josh Bice. Good to be with you,

Chris. And let our listeners know, for the sake of our listeners, which I'm sure will be a minority of them, but for the sake of those who are unfamiliar with Praise Mill Baptist Church, why don't you give another explanation of this fine congregation?

Yeah, happy to do that, Chris. So our church is Praise Mill Baptist Church. Located on the west side of Atlanta, 181 -year -old

Reformed Baptist Church. And just, you know, as a point of reference,

I grew up here as a boy. My wife grew up here in the context of our church as a little girl.

We met here, married here, and then in God's providence was called back to serve as pastor of this church where I've been serving for the past 13 years.

Praise God. And can you tell us something of the theological makeup of Praise Mill Baptist Church? Yeah, so historically,

Chris, this was a Southern Baptist church, although it predates the SBC. It was a partnering church in the

SBC for many, many years. And then as I arrived back here in the context of this church to serve as pastor, over time we would eventually try to address some of the, you know, issues related to the health of the

SBC. Eventually, because of conviction's sake, we would separate ourselves from the

SBC. So we are a 1689 church and so located here on the west side of Atlanta.

Great. And for the sake of our listeners who are unfamiliar with Praise Mill Baptist Church, it is spelled

P -R -A -Y apostrophe S, named after the original historic person who used his land for the church.

If you could tell us just a little bit more about him. Yeah, well, interestingly enough,

I mean, they wanted to name it after him, but he did not want that to be the case. So he was an individual who was settling here at Ephraim Prairie.

He was settling from Maine with inheritance from his father and had no local church to attend, would really travel by horse and carriage some 12 miles to the closest church.

So he gave of land and he gave resources to build a building that was used for a schoolhouse through the week.

And it was used for a house of worship on the Lord's Day. So they insisted to name it after him, but he refused.

So they named it after his mill. So that's why the name is P -R -A -Y apostrophe

S Mill. So there you go. And the website is PraiseMill .com.

Obviously, no apostrophe in the website. PraiseMill .com. And God willing, we will be giving that to you later on as well.

And now tell us about G3 Ministries and not only tell us about what this wonderful ministry stands for, but any upcoming events that you will be having.

I believe the next G3 conference is a regional conference, if I'm not mistaken.

But if you could, let us know about G3 Ministries. Sure. G3 Ministries was a originally existed as a conference that I founded here and started in the life of our church back in 2013.

It was a theology conference. It grew to become one of the strongest theology conferences through the years.

We eventually moved to form G3 Ministries, which really, in many ways,

Chris, just exists for the purpose of strengthening local churches. So when you think of like a parachurch ministry, in many ways, that's the way that this ministry exists.

We do have events like conferences. We have a national conference every other year.

And then in the off year, we have our regional events. We have workshops for preachers and we have worship workshops to help strengthen local churches in the area of biblical worship.

And then, of course, we publish books and resources and journals. And so we're very busy doing lots of things.

But everything that we do is for the strengthening of local churches for the glory of God. Our next conference, as you mentioned, will be next spring in South Lake, Texas.

It is in partnership with Joel Beakey and Reformation Heritage Books, and it's going to be titled the

Reformation Conference. You can find out more information at the website g3min .org.

Well, since you mentioned our mutual friend, Dr. Beakey, who I've known since the early 1990s, before he was well known,

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to 2 p .m. at the Church of the Living Christ in Loisville, Pennsylvania, and that is located in Perry County, Pennsylvania, and everything is free of charge at this event.

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Well, the subject at hand is a vital one for two reasons.

Not all professing evangelical Christians agree on exactly what church membership should be.

On the one hand, you have our very dear Pato Baptist brethren, who typically—not all

I've discovered, but I would say the majority of them—believe that an infant, when baptized, is automatically a member of Christ's church and even a member of the

New Covenant, even if that child later proves to be unregenerate and not of the elect if they live long enough to demonstrate that they do not repent until their death.

But they would still be considered a member of the church and the

New Covenant. Baptists believe that the church is a regenerate church, and when we find out that there is a false professor amongst us, we are supposed to be conducting discipline, and if they do not repent, we are to excommunicate them.

And that's the other side of the coin, is that there are many churches, evangelical churches, because of the unpopularity involved in church discipline, they have often left people on the membership rolls for decades, even, who have never darkened the doors of those congregations, and they still persist in identifying them as members.

And I don't know if you intend to address both of those issues, or what is your primary concern today,

Pastor Josh? Yeah, so one of the main things I wanted to focus on, Chris, was this idea of a regenerate church membership and then how we as churches should focus on holding one another accountable from a shepherding perspective, but also from a relational perspective in terms of accountability within the life of the church.

So one of the things that we're doing in the life of our church is always trying to figure out a way to know who it is that we as pastors are accountable for shepherding.

And so, again, we must not, as pastors, allow for people to just come into the life of the church, shuffle around as members in the church for a season, and then somehow just disappear, and then float along for long periods of time in a status of non -attendance.

When we read the Bible, we don't see this category of non -attending church member.

We just simply don't see that. So we need to, as pastors, be diligent to shepherd the flock of God, which means that we would pursue those sheep that wander off and go astray.

But at the same time, we need to be willing to clean up our church roles by dismissing individuals who persist in their non -attendance.

And so that's some of the things that we focus on here in the life of our church. And, of course,

I've just written an article recently about that on our website at G3 Ministries.

But we need to be encouraging pastors who go into a church, maybe they're going in as a young pastor and they're going into a church that's older and established, and they need to be putting into place a process by which they can move in that direction.

A lot of churches within the Southern Baptist Convention will have 812 people on their roles, but only 85 people that actually show up on the

Lord's Day. And so we need to address those issues and make sure that we know who it is that we are accountable for shepherding and who it is, quite frankly, within the life of the church that the membership are accountable to and should be holding others accountable as well.

Yes, I can vividly remember a friend of mine, perhaps as long as two decades ago, he was in the process of being removed as pastor of a particular congregation because he had changed his eschatology.

This was a dispensationalist congregation, and this brother came through his study of Scripture to abandon his dispensationalism and he became a non -millennialist.

Now, I'm not necessarily questioning the validity of a church removing a man for that reason, even if I disagree with that church's eschatology.

But the thing that was quite disturbing is that when they were taking a vote on this, this friend of mine said there were dozens of people who he had never met before who showed up for the vote because they were still technically members of that church.

And that kind of thing is really outrageous, isn't it? Oh, it certainly is. And of course, that just allows for abuse, you know, in the life of the church, and we certainly don't want that.

We know that there is no perfect church this side of heaven, but at the end of the day, we need to begin by defining what is a church and then how in the world should this church, this body of believers function in a way that honors

God. And I believe that as we read the Bible, specifically the New Testament, we're going to see that the

New Testament puts on display for us that there was a genuine, real church membership that was functioning in the early church.

We see baptisms that are being counted. We see widows that are being recorded.

We see church discipline that's being practiced in a biblical way. And so that's indicative of the fact that there was a functioning church membership.

And that's critically important as we think about the language of the New Testament, referring to the church as a body in 1

Corinthians 12 or as an assembly, that language in Hebrews chapter 10. And then, of course,

Peter speaking of the church of God as being a flock. And so all of these words and these sentences form a specific image that helps us understand the importance of the structure of the church, a flock being more than one, a building, of course, taking on many different parts, a body, obviously, taking on many different parts.

And so we should be a together people, and we should be very much committed to that. And so let's start off with a biblical definition of exactly what is the church.

That may seem like a no -brainer to many Christians, but they may be surprised that their own understanding of what is the true church, or what is a true church, if you're speaking about congregations, they may be surprised that their presuppositions don't exactly match what the

Bible says. So if you could. Yeah, absolutely. So, you know, obviously, the church is not a social club.

It's not a religious club where we just get together in, like, a book club or something of that nature.

The church is made up, really, in many ways, as those who are redeemed by Christ, who have come to faith in Christ alone for the remission of sins, and have been baptized as a follower of Christ, and then obviously being identified as a follower of Christ, and then identified with Christ's people, the church, assembling together for the service and worship of God.

And obviously, there are other aspects of church life, which would involve Christian fellowship, and so on and so forth.

But the church of Jesus Christ is known by that basic definition.

Now, you can talk about what we would call the universal church or the Catholic church, not to be confused with the

Roman Catholic church, but all true believers of all times from all places around the world.

And obviously, that is a true statement. You can talk about the church of Christ globally, but the church is very much visible and local.

So the majority of the time when we see the word church used in the New Testament, it's in reference to a local assembly of baptized followers of Christ who assemble together for the purpose of worship and service to God.

And so that's just a basic definition. But obviously, what we need to see in that definition is that we have a structure.

There are elders serving in leadership capacities. There are deacons serving in service roles and responsibilities.

And then the membership is engaged in a covenant relationship, which involves accountability to one another.

And so there is that together language and that one another language that we see that really, in many ways, is a part of the total fabric of the

New Testament. Now, just to reiterate something I said at the outset that I think should be repeated, when we have these disagreements with our

Presbyterian and Pado -Baptist brethren over what is a true church, when we say that the church is comprised exclusively of regenerate members, sometimes you will have a

Pado -Baptist friend chuckle because they say, what are you talking about?

There are Baptists who, over and over again, you hear in the news or you hear just through the grapevine,

Baptists who not only were members of a congregation, but perhaps were even in leadership, a pastor, an elder, a deacon, trustee, whatever you want to put in whatever category they may have been in, who was exposed as someone who is an unrepentant individual, perhaps involved in very scandalous sin, and therefore demonstrating that they're not regenerate.

So how on earth could you believe in a regenerate church? And once again, we are saying we are not omniscient.

When we welcome someone into membership of a church after they've been baptized, we are only saying with our own fallible understanding that this person has demonstrated at that time a credible profession of faith, and therefore we are just trusting in what we, with our senses, can see, hear, and know, and until that person demonstrates otherwise, we are to count them as a brother and welcome them into membership unless some kind of unrepentant sin requires of us to remove them.

So it is not that we are saying that we infallibly only welcome regenerate people into our membership.

What we are saying is we should not intentionally let unregenerate people remain in membership.

Isn't that what we're really saying? Oh, absolutely. There is no possible way that anybody, no group of elders, regardless of their giftedness, will ever be able to determine with 100 % precision whether or not someone is genuinely saved upon a membership interview.

Like in the context of our church, we have a five - or six -week membership class that we offer a couple of times a year, and we'll have, after that class, we'll have interviews with the pastors before they come into the life of the church.

And so when we think about a process like that, it's not foolproof. We can have people that will come in and give all the right answers, but still be unconverted.

But there is a mechanism for correction that the Lord himself has given to us in Matthew 18 that gives us the means by which we could separate those individuals from the church and to excommunicate them, and that is what we call biblical church discipline.

And in fact, what I'm arguing for in this article that I've written just this week at G3's website titled,

Why a Church Should Aim for Regenerate Church Membership, I'm actually arguing for a process that would really, in many ways, fall under church discipline.

And it's this idea of confronting people who are persisting in their non -attendance patterns.

If we confront them and they're not, you know, if they haven't gone and joined another local church, and they're just insistent that they're a

Christian, but that they don't want to come to church anymore for whatever reason, then we have to explain to them how that's not acceptable according to God's word.

And so if they persist in that, then we would then remove them as members, which is a form of excommunication.

Now, if someone refuses to be a part of a local assembly of Bible -believing

Christians, there is a spectrum of thought on this,

I believe, and perhaps you could be more detailed, but I don't think we should either automatically with certainty assume that that person is genuinely saved to begin with, but we should not also err in the opposite end of the spectrum and immediately assume that they are lost because of the fact that there are, as you and I know, people who have been seriously harmed mentally, emotionally, spiritually, and perhaps even physically at a church where they were a member, where number one, it could have been a false church, it could have been a cult, but it could also have been a doctrinally sound church with a false professor as a pastor or false professors as elders who somehow did serious harm to these individuals, either through dictatorial, tyrannical, authoritarian rule, or perhaps they were molested or any other thing, and it has placed a person in a frame of mind where they have no trust in being a part of a local church.

Now, I'm not justifying that as something that's acceptable, but don't we have to be cautious when we review a situation as to why a person is not going to church?

Yeah, I think that that always needs to be something that we evaluate. Obviously, as you stated earlier, in terms of salvation, we believe in salvation that comes by faith alone in Christ alone for the remission of sins, so we reject any idea of works -based salvation in the beginning.

Again, as we look at the Roman Catholic Church, they will teach that there is no salvation apart from the church, and they're referencing in their catechisms, they're referencing the

Roman Catholic Church. We would push back against that and say, we are not saved by church membership, but what we must be honest about is that if someone has zero interest in God's church for whom

Jesus actually laid down his life for, then we should have massive red flags and be very cautious to actually call that person a brother or sister in Christ.

Now, in such cases of abuse or maybe even immaturity after someone has just soon come to faith in Christ and they were never raised in a

Christian home and they lack massive discipleship, that person may just need to be dealt with in patient shepherding and care, but to correct them nonetheless.

I just simply do not believe that we can read the New Testament and be honest about what the

Bible teaches and suggest that there is a category for individuals who would say, yeah,

I want to be called a Christian and embraced as a brother in Christ, but I don't want to have anything to do with the church.

In fact, if we read 1 John 2 .19, it specifically states, they went out from us because they were not of us, for if they had been of us, they would have no doubt continued with us, and obviously that's referencing not just showing up on the

Lord's day, but embracing the body of Christian doctrine that we would hold to as well.

Yes, whenever I hear about someone who says that, yes,

I'm born again, but I don't need to be a member of Christ's church, that's legalism.

I do not have any interest in becoming a part of any local church.

I don't like organized religion. It always reminds me of Saul of Tarsus on the road to Damascus when

Jesus Christ from heaven declared to Saul, Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me?

I am Jesus whom you are persecuting. This is after Jesus died and was raised and ascended into heaven.

So therefore, Jesus was equating or making an extremely strong connection between himself and the church.

Am I overstepping here? No, not at all. I mean, again, you are right to look back at the example of the

Apostle Paul who he had nothing good to say about the church. He hated

God's church. And yet, the very moment after his conversion, and then after his eyes were opened there, he went to immediately associate himself with God's people.

And we see that on and on and on again, when people are converted, they want to be with God's people.

And so yes, there's diversity within the church. We're not all cut from the same mold. There are all sorts of differences, but there's a common bond that brings us all together.

We should just want to be with God's people. That's the thing. And if a person is isolating themselves from the church, that is a very dangerous place to be.

And again, if you just look at the imagery of sheep and shepherds, and that's all throughout the

New Testament. And that imagery is used for the church and pastors and pastoral leadership.

One of the things that we can note is that when a sheep wanders off by itself, it's very much vulnerable to predators.

And, you know, sheep are really in many ways, dumb animals. Anyway, they'll walk into the mouth of a predator off of the side of a cliff.

And so they need shepherds to care for them. So we have no example in the

New Testament of someone who is a lone ranger Christian, just doing it all by themselves.

Amen. Well, we have to go to our first commercial break. If anybody would like to join us on the air with a question for Josh Bice, our email address is chrisarnzen at gmail .com.

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But if it's a general question, please give us your first name at least, city and state and country of residence. We'll be right back with Josh Bice.

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So go to royaldiadem .com, mention Iron Sharpens Iron Radio. We're now back with Pastor Josh Bice, and we are discussing the importance of church membership, of biblical church membership.

And our email address is chrisarnson at gmail .com. If you have a question, we have Ted in Moundville, Alabama.

Does Praise Mill have a membership covenant agreement that must be signed by prospective members?

How would you respond to a prospective member who objects to one or more points in that agreement?

For example, if that person told you, I can sign on to almost everything in this covenant, but if I decide that I no longer desire to be a member for any reason, this is a voluntary association, and my decision to terminate my membership must be accepted by the church as the final decision on the matter.

What would be the church's response? Yeah, that's a great question.

So we do have a church covenant, and we recite that church covenant together on a quarterly basis when we come together for our members meetings.

We begin that meeting by reciting that covenant together. That church covenant is provided in our governing documents of our church to all members as they go through the new membership process.

So they understand as they come into the life of the church that they are engaging in that covenant.

If we had someone that came to us in that process and wanted to ask questions or maybe even push back on some language within that covenant, then we would be happy to have that conversation with them.

But again, that covenant has been drafted, edited, and approved through a proper channel from the leadership of the pastors here as well as the members affirming that covenant.

Now, in terms of severing membership within our church, we would simply state that there are really only three ways in which a person can, you know, sever their membership within the life of our church, and that would be by death, by moving membership to another local church, or by excommunication.

So we wouldn't have a category where someone simply wants to resign their church membership and then just float along out there on their own.

If they are in pursuit of another local church, then we would provide them opportunity to do that, but we would not allow that process to go on for years and years where they're still technically members of our church without having joined another church.

So I hope that answers the question. And I would also assume that you would not accept a resignation from someone who is clearly doing this to avoid church discipline.

Yeah, correct. So if someone is living in sin and they, you know, it might even be just that they persist in non -attendance, and they say, well, then, you know,

I tell you what, we just want to resign our church membership, we would simply state that we don't see that any place in Scripture.

And so we are committed to, obviously, worshiping God and engaging in church life as we see prescribed for us in the

Bible. So we don't see that any place in Scripture, and so we're going to push against that. And so in our governing documents, we have the three ways by which a person can sever their church membership, or that their church membership can be revoked, and that would be by death, or by joining another church, or by excommunication.

All right, I'm going to go to other listener questions later on, because I want you to, in more detail, explain why this is so important.

There may be people who are trivializing the importance of this, because they think to themselves, well, if these people who are either shallow in their faith, or perhaps they're even unregenerate, and they're gone, why make the big fuss over this?

And even if they may be on the membership rolls, so what? That's a technicality, that kind of thing.

Why don't you address why that should not be fluffed off as trivia?

Yeah, so when you become a member of God's church, at the point of regeneration, when you're born again, then obviously the very first thing you need to be doing is looking to join yourself to a local church, where you can be.

Acts chapter 2 demonstrates the functionality and the importance of church membership in the earliest phases, you might say.

But it's the body of Christ coming together under the teaching of God's word, which was in Acts 2, the apostles.

And then obviously, with regard to the church as a whole, there's going to be responsibilities and privileges given to members.

And those responsibilities would involve the together and the one another passages that we see.

If you just did a word study on the one another's or the together language of Scripture in the

New Testament, you would be astounded to see all of the things that God would require of us as members.

So it's not an individualistic sort of thing when we think about the life of a

Christian in the life of the church. We need to be thinking about how we are to carry one another's burdens.

We are to fellowship with one another. We are to hold one another accountable. We are to reprove and rebuke one another.

And so we can talk about that horizontal aspect, but then there's also the accountability to leaders.

And we are to be submitting ourselves to pastors and obeying the things that they teach and preach from God's word.

And then, of course, in a positive sense, from Hebrews chapter 10, you see this idea that we are to be stirring one another up to love and good works.

You can't do that if you're not showing up, if you're not present. You can't do that in the life of the church if you're not with other believers, specifically those that you've been given to in a covenant relationship.

So this is critically important. This is why we can't allow this idea, this false idea in many ways, to continue to be, you know, prevalent among evangelicals that it's possible to be a

Christian and yet not have any time for God's church. It's just not possible. We shouldn't see that taught in the

Bible. Yes, and for those who, and I've heard this many times, by people who either just like to stay home and watch videos of preachers, or they just bounce from church to church to church and never seek membership in any of them, they will say there's nothing in the

Bible that teaches church membership. But clearly we have at least one example in Hebrews 13, 17.

Obey your leaders and submit to them for they keep watch over your souls as those who will give an account.

Let them do this with joy and not with grief for this would be unprofitable for you. Now that clearly implies membership because you,

Pastor Josh, you're a pastor of a church, but I am not in submission to you.

I mean, I'm in submission to my own elders. I'm in submission to you if I'm ever doing anything in cooperation with Praise Middle Baptist Church or G3 Ministries.

You have authority if I am involved in some very primary way in something that your church or parachurch ministry are doing, obviously at that point you would have authority over me to some extent.

But as far as the submission being spoken of here, there are specific people who are ordained to watch over my souls, and that's the elders of my own church where I am a member.

So this would clearly imply membership, wouldn't it? Well, it certainly would.

All throughout the New Testament, you see this idea of church membership, and again, you've cited that verse from Hebrews 13.

But if you just look at the New Testament, you can look in Acts 2, verse 41. It states that after Peter preached, there's about 3 ,000 souls that believed the gospel and were baptized.

You just have to ask an honest question. Why is it that we see the numbers? Well, it certainly wasn't the case that they had certain church groups and associations back in that day that were competing with one another for the end -of -the -year records.

That's not what was happening. We see the numbers because that's indicative of the fact that there was a functioning church membership that the apostles knew out of all the people that heard the sermon that Peter preached, these individuals have professed faith in Christ and followed in believers' baptism.

So now we need to make sure that we are prepared to shepherd these souls. You see again in Acts 4, there's another record of conversions of people who believed the gospel that was preached.

And again, why do we have the numbers? It's because of the fact that they were establishing who was actually a part of God's church.

And then, as we've discussed numerous times in this conversation this afternoon, Chris, when you start talking about church discipline, and Jesus himself did not give us some statement that we should just consider regarding church discipline.

He actually commands it. And so when we look at Matthew 18, and we see this language of excommunication, we see this language of putting someone outside of the fellowship, treating them like a tax collector, treating them like a publican, depending on what translation you're reading.

Obviously, we need to be mindful of the fact that that's indicative, it's proof that there was a church membership that's at play here.

Because if you're excommunicating someone from the life of the church, you have to, first of all, be able to differentiate between the general community and the church.

And how would you do that if you didn't have a functioning church membership? So time and time again, throughout the

New Testament, you see that there was a definite church membership that was functioning, and it's very clear.

Okay, we have a listener who is from Dogwood City, Texas, Deacon, and I'm assuming that is his name and not his office in the church where he is a member, or maybe it's both.

But Deacon says, one of the things that truly grieves me is when other congregations totally disrespect the elders of a church that has placed someone under discipline, and that person who is under discipline flees from that congregation and is welcomed with open arms in other congregations who are fully aware of the situation.

Isn't this outrageous, and what steps should be taken by an obedient church in pursuing the grievous error on the part of the other church that welcomes the unrepentant sinner?

Yeah, that's a very good statement, a very good question, in fact, and it's a massive problem,

Chris, as this brother Deacon has made known. So one of the massive problems across evangelical circles is the woeful lack of practice of church discipline.

So you just simply don't see church discipline being practiced, and it's almost as if Jesus just gave us a choice in the matter, like, you know, if you want to do it, then do it.

If you don't think that it fits within your model of ministry, then by all means, don't do it. That's not what we see in the

New Testament. Jesus commands it, and so one of the great tragedies of our era is the fact that church discipline is not being practiced.

But in the cases of where it is being practiced, in the case of, say, a healthy church, and then those individuals evade, or maybe they're even excommunicated, and then they go join another church, well, in those cases, if that church is made aware of it, and then they choose not to deal with it, there's absolutely nothing that we're going to be able to do in our own local church's case.

But for us, what we've determined to do is that if someone does leave on bad terms, or they're under discipline, and then they go join another church, if that church reaches out to us to let us know that they're actually, you know, joining their fellowship, then we will write a letter from the pastors here to let them know why it is that we can't recommend them in good standing and in good faith and conscience into that local church on the basis of whatever the details might be.

And we feel it really, in many ways, as a necessity to let that local church know.

Now, if they choose to not do anything, then that's on them, but we've done all that we can do in terms of our own responsibilities.

Now, if the shoe were reversed, and someone was actually coming into the life of our church, and then we found out that they were under discipline, then we would point them back to their local church to resolve those matters before we could ever even entertain the idea of accepting them as members.

Okay, we are going to follow that thread for a little bit when we return from our midway break.

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I just wanted to pick up on that theme of, you know, people leaving a church and so on.

There are many people who might think that we are being too strong in pushing for the necessity of church discipline, and they may think that we are speaking as people who have never experienced something like that before, but I can tell our listeners that I have been under discipline over a decade ago due to my falling back into the sin of alcoholism, or drunkenness is a better word, and I believe that the discipline under which

I was placed was used by God to rescue my life physically, let alone re -establishing a membership in good standing with the church in a right standing before God.

So I just want to let our listeners know that that does not have to be the end of the world when you are under discipline.

You follow your godly leader's counsel, and do whatever they insist that you do, and be restored to God's church.

Let that burden be lifted off of you that you are living in secret sin and so on, or even living in openly public sin and you are seeking to run from the discipline of the church.

Please don't do that. It could mean your very physical life as well as your eternal soul.

So I just thought I'd throw that in there, Pastor Josh. But what about those circumstances when there are churches that are legalistic, heretical, perhaps even nutty, just plain nutty, and somebody shows up at the doorstep of Praise Middle Baptist Church, and he says,

Pastor Josh, I really hope I can find a home here and a membership here. I'm under discipline from the church that I just left because my wife insists on wearing very feminine slacks.

They insist that she wear prairie dresses, or they have me under church discipline because my hair extends beyond the collar of my shirt.

I mean, we could go on and on with some strange things. It may be a minority in our day and age that those things happen in churches, but they still exist.

So how far do you go in contacting the former church?

I'm assuming that you should just to make sure the person's not exaggerating or making something up out of whole cloth as to the reason for the discipline, but if you could just mention your ideas on that.

Sure, yeah. So anytime someone comes into the life of our church, if they're pursuing membership here, then we're going to try to take every single individual and every family on a case -by -case basis, and they're going to go through a full -on interview process with the elders, and if any of that comes to the surface, then we're going to, at that point, start to ask more pointed questions to try to figure out and assess, is this a biblical situation, or is this an unbiblical situation?

And if it's some goofy thing, like you've mentioned, you know, that it's just based on preferences of clothing attire and things of that nature, then obviously at that point, we as elders would receive them into the life of our church on the basis that that type of judgmental, legalistic form of bondage or, you know, discipline, whatever it might be.

I hesitate to call it discipline because it's not genuine biblical discipline. Then we would certainly just take them into the life of our church with that noted.

But if, you know, it's a rare thing for there to be someone pursuing membership where they're undergoing healthy church discipline, and that's really, in many ways, the problem today.

Most of the time, people just leave one church, they go to another. In the life of the Southern Baptist Convention, the transfer of membership is mainly just so that, you know, a church can just let another church know the decision that has already been made, and then the local church and the pastors of that church really had no say -so in it whatsoever.

And so this is a really troubling trend, and we need to really resist it and push against it.

Yes, I even know of a very sad, tragic situation where a woman in a church committed adultery with the husband of her best friend, and the two unfaithful spouses filed for divorce, and they wound up marrying each other.

They went to a church who was fully aware of what happened, and they welcomed—not only welcomed them with open arms—very quickly, without contacting the church where this occurred.

They welcomed them into membership, and on top of that, the unfaithful spouse—the unfaithful wife—was appointed as a

Sunday school teacher. And this was a church that claimed to be a fundamentalist

Baptist church, so that's even more amazing. It seems to me sometimes when those things occur, you have a church that is just so desperate for the extra money in the collection plate, or they just want to see more numbers in the pews, or whatever the reasons they have.

It may be even some kind of revenge against churches whose theology they despise, and we'll teach them, we'll welcome their members into our church because they were under false teaching, and so on.

So this is another area of really disgraceful and harmful activity on the part of churches, because they are not really looking out for the souls of those that they welcome into their midst.

They're not doing them favors by doing that, am I right? Oh yeah, absolutely. I'm firmly convinced that we need to do a full -on study across evangelicalism.

I think more books need to be written, more conferences need to be focused on this subject.

I think that there needs to be a greater focus on what church membership actually is, and how it should be functioning according to the

Bible. And then just not blush or be ashamed at the fact that we're just going to follow what the

Bible teaches, but we must get away from this trivial, superficial, entertainment -based, man -centered view of church membership.

It is simply not what the Bible teaches. We have Monroe in Garden City, Indiana, and Monroe says,

Should a sin always be exposed to the congregation when an ordinary member is guilty of committing a sin that is scandalous, or is that kind of exposing of the guilty individual reserved for office bearers?

Yeah, I mean, I think obviously every case is a case -by -case basis, but if someone is getting, if you get to the place where you are actually going to what

Matthew chapter 18, verses 15 through 20 teaches, individual confrontation privately, private confrontation with two or three witnesses if the person persists in sin, and then eventually the third step is that you would tell it to the church.

Now, how you tell it to the church matters, and it can never be done for the purpose of revenge or for merely getting even with someone or to shame someone.

That's never the purpose of church discipline. Church discipline is always in a positive sense for restoration, and so when you get to a place where you're actually telling it to the church, which would then precede removing that person from the life of the church, you must tell the church what they're guilty of at some level.

So yeah, that will be necessary for anyone that is being excommunicated from the church.

Great, and just to give a specific example, if a member of a church is revealed to be an adulterer, but the person is repented, the spouse is willing to preserve the marriage, and they are working obediently with the elders of that church, you would not necessarily see a reason to publicly expose that, but if it is a deacon or an elder, there is no choice in that matter.

They have to expose it. Am I right on that? Yeah, I mean, I think obviously it's going to be, again, a case -by -case basis, and the church is going to have to seek to follow what the

Bible teaches, but if that person's repentant in the life of the church, then there's not necessarily a specific mandate to let the church know.

Now, if someone had been guilty of some grievous sin or crime, even in the community, and it was on the front page of the local newspaper, then there might need to be, even if the person is repentant, might need to be some sort of statement that is made, or at least in a member's meeting, give the opportunity for that individual to then state their open repentance and just make that public, but it wouldn't be mandated if there's repentance before you got to the final step of excommunication, but obviously in cases of church leadership, where there's elders who are guilty of sin and that sort of thing, then obviously there's going to be a need for the church to be made aware of what that looks like, and so the beauty of a plurality of elders would be that the elders are able to lead in that whole process, and it's not that there's just one single pastor that's responsible for bringing all of that to light in the life of the church.

We have Miriam in Eagle, Idaho, who asks,

Are there any sins that would permanently bar a man from returning into pastoral ministry?

And I'm assuming that the person asking the question, Miriam, means the sin was committed while the individual was a pastor, not like before he was saved or something like that.

Sure. Yeah, I mean, obviously, that's a tricky question, right? I mean, we don't have a list that says, you know, if this, then, you know, a person can't serve as a pastor any longer, but obviously what we do have is we have plenty of texts of Scripture that deal with qualifications for overseers, so is this pastor, is he, you know, is he well thought of by outsiders?

Is he, you know, still living above reproach in this office that he holds?

Because if he's not, then obviously, you know, you might have a variety of different types of sins that could cause a man to not be thought of well, and to have a, you know, a proper testimony in the community that would then cause him to be disqualified from that office.

And obviously adultery and certain sins would fall into those categories where we would have to say, you know, that man should not be welcomed back into the office of elder.

So, you know, again, I think we need to read the text of Scripture and apply the text of Scripture to that specific, you know, situation and then ask ourselves, you know, is this or is this not what the text is teaching?

But obviously an elder must be held to specific levels of accountability within the life of the church and respectable conduct, dignity, and above reproach for the glory of God.

Don't you think very often Christians make the error of viewing any human because they admire that person?

That person has an enormous number of gifts and character traits and knowledge and wisdom that we erroneously come to the conclusion that this person is absolutely indispensable and they must be restored to a position of a pastor, for instance, because God needs that person.

Don't we have to really put the brakes on when we come to thinking that way?

And sometimes when it comes to our personal affections towards somebody that we've known for years, loved them, have grown and benefited from them, we might even have come to salvation under their ministry, that we unconsciously even come to view that person as a

Teflon -covered individual that, you know, God needs that person.

That's a huge mistake, isn't it? It's a massive mistake, and yes, we must put the brakes on any idea that God needs a specific person.

God doesn't need anyone. And so, regardless of a person's giftedness, we need to be always committed to the idea that if someone falls, someone sins in such a way that they are disqualified from the office of elder.

We need to be able to make that distinction and say, well, in their previous life, in their previous service, they benefited me and I can read their books that they wrote and still do so with good conscience, but they should not be serving in the office of elder presently because of this.

And we need to be able to make that distinction and do so for the glory of God.

Because if we don't, then we're going to be guilty of doing exactly what you're saying. We're going to capitulate and compromise because we're going to be thinking, well, you know,

God's church is going to suffer greatly because of this gift that is now gone. Well, indeed, there will be a ripple effect when anyone falls into sin or if anyone, you know, departs from an office or has to be removed from the office of elder, that's going to be detrimental to the life of a church.

But what will be far more detrimental is to allow someone to stay in the office of elder that has been guilty of grotesque sin that would result in, you know, bringing reproach to Christ and His church.

Well, before I go to any more listener questions, I want to make sure that you highlight things that are primarily on your heart and mind involving this conversation.

Yeah. So, Chris, thank you. You know, a couple of things I would just say, oftentimes, when it comes to trying to clean up a church role and make sure that you're getting down to business with how many members you actually have in that covenant relationship in the life of a church, sometimes a young pastor may come into the life of the church and think, man, this is just an unbelievable task.

I don't know how I'm going to do this. I mean, I've got, you know, the church secretary telling me that we have, you know, 680 people on the church role, but we have 112 people that show up on the

Lord's Day. So how do I go about this process? Well, it's going to take patience and it's going to take a lot of, you know, hard work, but it can be done.

You know, the goal of the pastor should be that when he's asked about the church's membership, he should be able to state a specific number.

And that's not for boasting, but it's to know that's how many people I'm accountable to and how many people

I'm accountable for according to my shepherding responsibilities. But just a couple of things

I would say. I would say we need to be as pastors guarding the front door of the church. So joining a church should not be super easy.

We need to make sure that we're, you know, taking time to go through a proper interview process or even a new membership interview or class.

We need to be willing to guard the back door of the church where we're going after those people who disappear.

And then, of course, just some helpful things that I've found that are really helpful. It's been mentioned in this conversation today, in fact, and that's a church covenant.

If a church adopts a church covenant, then that oftentimes when recited can oftentimes help the church, even if it's only recited once a year, it can help the church be mindful of what this church means, what membership means and should mean to each individual person.

And then in terms of just sort of keeping the church life healthy and strong is to provide opportunities for, you know, healthy community and participation in the life of the church.

Church membership is not ecclesiastical spectatorship. We should not just come to the life of the church with this idea that we're just going to watch what happens.

That's Roman Catholicism in many ways. Historically, it's just sit there and watch all of the worship happen as the priests are doing it for you.

And they'll tell you what they've said or may not tell you what they've said, but then they're going to tell you what you should do.

That's not what church membership should look like. There should be vibrant, healthy participation happening in the life of the church surrounding the worship services, but also during the worship services.

And so it should just be noted that it's impossible to truly be a part of a local church if you're not there.

And so that's just really one of the things that I'm focused on in this article is trying to figure out a way to address that massive problem of people who are claiming to be a member of the church but yet not really seeing the importance of actually showing up on the

Lord's Day. And how would you counsel people to stick it out?

I mean, they may be in a church that is the only theologically sound church within great traveling distances.

And yet, there may be something genuinely inadequate, not outright sinful or heretical or, you know, an abuse of authority there, but it's just inadequate that perhaps the pastor is not the greatest communicator of biblical truth.

You know, we could go on and on and on with some of the reasons why it may appear to be a chore for someone to be in this church.

They don't look forward to it anymore. They have to drag themselves out of bed on Sunday to go. How do you counsel that this person stick it out and seek to prayerfully thrive in spite of any obstacles they're facing in a church?

Yeah, again, Chris, that's a great question. I've written extensively on church membership on our website at G3 Ministries.

That's g3men .org. You can go and search church membership or leaving a church.

And I've provided articles that are just on that subject on, you know, like a certain checklist, a grid that you should go through before you just up and leave a church.

I do think that it should be hard to leave a church. I think that there should be tears involved at times when we leave a church because church membership is that important.

It really should be to us. Again, we've had lots of people join our church over the past few years, and we've had people move from New Hampshire to be here.

We have people driving over an hour every single week to be here, even on the midweek prayer service.

But when I counsel people, I try to tell them that church membership should be so vital to us that we should not see it as just, well,

I'm going to drive an hour, but I'm only going to do that on Sunday mornings. We should try to look at the holistic view of what church membership looks like and give ourselves to the membership of that body of Christ in such a way that we're able to use our giftedness.

We're able to be present and active and engaged. So membership should not be relegated down to the level of just showing up for one service, and then that's it.

We need to look at church membership as something far more than that, and we should try to give ourselves to it as much as we possibly can as the

Lord gives us the opportunities throughout the week. Let's see, we have

Umberto in Eagle Nest, New Mexico, and Umberto says, if you're in an area where you do not know of any biblically faithful churches,

I'm not talking about the fact that these churches are all heretical in the area, but they may not be churches that teach the doctrines of sovereign grace and other things that you find very important.

If you're in a situation like that, is there anything wrong with perhaps starting out having like -minded brothers and sisters in the community gathering for Bible studies and praying and actively seeking if perhaps a larger like -minded church somewhere might want to send a man to become a pastor in a church plant?

If you are doing this, are you doing anything sinful in regard to the people who are gathering with you temporarily before an official church is established because you are considered a sheep stealer by the other churches from which these people came?

It's a great question. A couple of things to remember. No, I don't think ultimately gathering with people in a case like that where it's really remote, there's not a lot of churches to choose from, and the ones that are there are really, really super unhealthy.

For you to gather with like -minded brothers and sisters in Christ and pray for the possibility of maybe a church plant to take place.

There's a couple of things to remember here. First of all, I would not encourage them to be taking of the

Lord's Supper in that setting. But obviously, meeting together and praying for God's will to be done is not in and of itself sinful.

But long term, if there's not a sponsoring church plant, because churches plant churches, members don't just go and plant churches.

So if there's a church that's capable of planting a church there, but you've reached out to these places, these different pastors, and there's really no interest, then the next question to ask yourself is this, do

I have to live here? Can I possibly move? Now, just recently, we've had a family that's relocated from the

Pacific Northwest all the way across the country to the west side of Atlanta just to be a part of our local church.

Again, they were a part of a setting just like this, where they were struggling, their family was struggling, they needed a healthy church.

And they had, of course, known of our church and had listened to the sermons. And so they made the decision that they were just going to move across the country because that's how important church membership should be.

Now, that's not always possible for every person in a case like this, brother, who's asked the question.

But it is far more possible than a lot of people would like to think when it comes to moving from city to city.

Because, again, the choice of a local church will send ripple effects through a person's life for generations to come.

And we just need to remember that. This is not like choosing what t -ball team your child's going to play on for a couple of years.

That decision may or may not have any lasting effect whatsoever on a family.

But the choice of a local church certainly will. And in fact, I know that I've said this many times on this show.

But when you are making a decision about what church you want to connect yourself with as a member, what church that you want to place yourself under the authority of their elders, the primary reasons why you're doing that, if these should be reasons at all, should not be the size of the congregation, what kind of programs they have for the kids, what kind of musical ministry they have.

Some people might only want to go to a church and become a member of a church that has a large, talented choir or orchestra or an enormous modern gym of programs that keep the kids occupied.

And we could go on and on and on. I know personally people who are theologically

Reformed and yet go to very shallow churches when it comes to theology and doctrine, and some perhaps even on the border, if not crossing the border, of being aberrant just because of those things.

They love the music ministry and on and on. These cannot be reasons why, at least on the top of our list, why we join a church, can they?

Well, it certainly should not be any more than, you know, the type of music that's playing in the lobby of your doctor's office.

That's a good observation. Well, we have to go to our final break. Please don't go away.

We're going to be right back after these messages from our sponsors. I'm Dr.

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Hello, my name is Anthony Uvino, and I'm one of the pastors at Hope Reform Baptist Church in Quorum, New York, and also the host of the reformrookie .com

website. I want you to know that if you enjoy listening to the Iron Sharpens Iron Radio show like I do, you can now find it on the

Apple's iTunes app by typing Iron Sharpens Iron Radio in the search bar. You no longer have to worry about missing a show or a special guest because you're in your car or still at work.

Just subscribe on the iTunes app and listen to the Iron Sharpens Iron Radio show at any time day or night.

Please be sure to also give it a good review and pass it along to anyone who would benefit from the teaching and the many solidly reformed guests that Chris Arnson has on show.

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Iron Sharpens Iron Radio podcast right now. And while you're at it, you can also sign up for the reformrookie .com

podcast and visit our website and the YouTube page. We are dedicated to teaching Christian theology from a

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Book of Leviticus, the Reform Rookie podcast and YouTube channel is sure to have something to offer everyone seeking biblical truth.

And finally, if you're looking to worship in a Reformed church that holds to the 1689 London Baptist Confession of Faith, please join us at Hope Reform Baptist Church in Corham, New York.

Again, I'm Pastor Anthony Avino, and thanks for listening. Getting a driver's license, running a cash register, flipping burgers, passing sixth grade.

Do you know what they all have in common? They all require training, assessments, and certifications.

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Please visit us at truthloveparent .com. As host of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, I frequently get requests from listeners for church recommendations.

A church I've been strongly recommending as far back as the 1980s is Grace Covenant Baptist Church in Flemington, New Jersey, pastored by Alan Dunn.

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or call them at 908 -996 -7654. That's 908 -996 -7654.

Tell Pastor Dunn that you heard about Grace Covenant Baptist Church on Iron Sharpens Iron Radio. And remember, folks, the new website for Grace Covenant Baptist Church of Flemington, New Jersey is gcbc -nj .org.

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We're now back with our conversation with Pastor Josh Bice of Praise Mill Baptist Church and also founder of G3 Ministries.

And we have a question from Kyle in Queen City, Missouri.

And Kyle says, I understand that if we are a member of a church where the leaders disagree with us on certain theological points, that we shouldn't actively seek to undermine the teaching of that church.

But at the same time, how much should we muzzle ourselves when people may approach us and ask about what we think of this or that that has been taught from the pulpit without being a divisive and sinful and disobedient member?

Yeah, it's a great question. Obviously, if you're a part of a local church, we have to be according to Scripture.

Ephesians teaches us that we have to be eager to maintain, notice the word maintain, the unity of the spirit and the bond of peace.

So, it's not really up for debate. We have to really work at what it means to be unified together as a body of Christ.

In terms of theological differences, there are times when we might have some differing opinions.

It might be on eschatological aspects or it could be perhaps doctrines of grace, and you might be in a church where the leadership does not embrace the doctrines of grace, and you've come to a reformed position on soteriology.

Well, you just need to be very careful and wise as to how you're going to talk about those differences of position in the life of the church so that you're not being divisive.

But at the same time, if you feel as if your position on, say, soteriology is different not only from the pastors who lead, but also really in many ways from the whole of the church, you should not see it as your mission to try to figure out a way to reform that church, specifically if you're not a part of the pastoral leadership.

So, if you see that it's just going to be a matter of time before there's an explosion that happens, it would be far better for you to go and meet with the pastors and explain and ask for their blessings for you to leave than to stay and cause massive problems in the life of the church.

Yeah, don't you think a key issue in this is humility? To give you an example, when

I first got saved and I was being interviewed by my elders for baptism,

I was saved in a Reformed Baptist church. And at the time, I did not believe in the unique tenets of Calvinism at all.

And I told them during the interview, I love you guys, I trust you to be my shepherds,

I want to be a member of this church, but I don't think I'm ever going to become a Calvinist. And they said to me, we're not going to insist that you're in agreement with the five points of Calvinism before we baptize you or admit you into membership.

As far as membership goes, you just have to agree not to seek to undermine the teachings of the church.

You're not to bad mouth sermons after they've been preached. You're not to try to stir up a

Bible study of an opposing view, you know, in a stealth manner in the church and that kind of thing.

So, thankfully, I was brought to the true understanding of the doctrines of grace within months, but I sought to be humble about it.

In fact, I didn't keep my mouth shut about it, because that's the only way members in the church could know that I didn't understand these things, and they approached me gracefully and gave further teaching and gave me books and so on.

In fact, it was the booklet, George Whitfield's Letter to John Wesley on Election, that the

Lord used to open my eyes to these truths, that was given to me by a member of the church.

So, don't you think that that humble approach has to be a key thing when we disagree?

Yeah, absolutely. I think that, you know, when we come to study the gospel, it should do nothing but humble us at every turn.

You know, if you're thinking of the gospel like a rare diamond, and you're turning that diamond to look at it from various different vantage points, every time that you turn to see a new aspect or a new dimension of that stone, if we're talking about the gospel in that way, as we study the gospel, we should be amazed at God's love for us.

So, it should not lead to arrogance. It should lead to humility. Amen.

Well, I want to make sure that our listeners have your websites. First of all, Praise Mill Baptist Church in Douglasville, Georgia.

The website for that church is PraiseMill .com, P -R -A -Y -S -Mill .com,

and of course, G3 Ministries. You can find out more detail about that wonderful ministry at G3Min .org,

G3, and that's the number three, Min, M -I -N .org. I want to thank you so much,

Pastor Josh, for doing such an absolutely superb job today, and I look forward to frequent return visits to Iron Trump and Zion Radio from you.

I want to thank everybody who listened, and I want you all to always remember Jesus Christ is a far greater