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Our
theme for this volume is
The
Ancient Order,
which
at the outset is to be distinguished from the ancient faith, a
distinction clearly defined by our pioneers, and one that we believe
is upheld by the scriptures as well. The ancient faith is the gospel
itself, the Good News announced by prophets and angels and fulfilled
in the coming of the Christ. It was the ancient faith that called
lost souls to Jesus and enrolled them as citizens in “the
colony of heaven.” Jesus told his disciples to “Go into
all the world and preach the gospel to every creature.” This
is the ancient faith, and there is nothing about it that
necessarily
implies
an order. It was conceivable that the gospel would be preached,
sinners would be saved, and that the end-time would come too soon
for any order to evolve.
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If
the ancient faith is the Good News that brings the lost into the
community of the saved, then the ancient order is the norms and
guidelines for the life, ethics, work, organization, and corporate
worship of the saved community. What name or names did they accept
as God’s redeemed people? How did they organize their
congregations, and what relationship did the congregations have to
each other? What was the character of their corporate worship? How
did they relate to the world? These questions have to do with the
ancient order, which is, of course, closely related to the ancient
faith, for it is the faith that undergirds the order, and the order
grew out of the faith.
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It
appears to be the case that the order that evolved with apostolic
direction was due to the many problems that arose in the primitive
communities of faith. But we must say
“the
order”
with qualification, for there is no single order for all the
churches in that some have features in work, worship, and
organization that others do not have. Yet generally speaking there
is an order that emerges once all the sources are considered, even
if it is not a hard and fast pattern. This will be part of our
study, to identify the variations and to consider what they mean to
us in our quest for the ancient order.
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But
I repeat: the apostolic order for the churches grew out of a myriad
of problems. As the church became more catholic, reaching out as it
did to the Gentile nations, the problems intensified all the more.
All this had to do with the order that gradually emerged. Had the
Lord returned within the first few years, as some believers supposed
he would, there would have been little distinguishable
Christian
order,
for there would have been fewer problems and the context of the
church would have been mostly Jewish. The order would have been
virtually identical to the order of the Jewish synagogue, an
influence that remained strong even with the passing of time.
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Problems,
problems, problems. The primitive congregations had them and the
apostles sought to solve them. Thus comes the order. We are not
always able to determine exactly what the problem was with this or
that community, such as with the Colossians. Yet that little letter
is chock-full of goodies on how believers are to order their lives.
In writing the letter the apostle helps to answer a question that
Francis Schaeffer is popularizing these days,
How
should we then live?
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For
example, Paul said to the Colossians, as I read in the Jerusalem
Bible: “Make sure that no one traps you and deprives you of
your freedom by some secondhand, empty, rational philosophy based on
the principles of this world instead of on Christ.” While this
gives us some hint of the nature of their problem, it is unlikely
that we can appreciate these words as much as they could, for they
were written precisely to meet their pressing need. And we
understand it all better when we realize that we have this precious
morsel only because they had a problem. Whatever their problem was,
we are blessed by the information that the Spirit passes along to
us, and we can apply it to our own struggle with the world, even if
our struggle is not exactly what theirs was. It teaches us that (1)
we can be trapped and deprived of the freedom we have in Christ—we
can become enslaved all over again; (2) there is in the world out
there an insidious intellectual force that has rational and
philosophical appeal that is as empty as it is dangerous, and we had
better watch out in that it could lead us away from Christ.
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This
is not a part of the ancient faith as such, for it was written to
those who were already in the faith, and it is information they
would never have been given had they not had a special problem. It
was therefore not necessary to their faith, but to the
preservation
of
their faith, the circumstances being what they were. But this
information was written only to this church, and we may conclude
that most of the earliest Christians lived and died without ever
knowing what Paul said about “the elemental spirits of the
universe.” But none of them lived and died without knowing
about the Good News, which was the basis of the ancient faith.
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Walter
Scott, in the quotation that appears at the outset of this piece,
articulates the difference between the ancient faith and the ancient
order as understood by our pioneers. He sees restoration as twofold:
to recover the ancient gospel as preached by the apostles as the
means of making men disciples of Jesus; and to restore the ancient
order, which includes everything necessary to keep them disciples.
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The
distinction is of great importance in that it recognizes that folk
are “in the faith” when they have believed and obeyed
the gospel, even if they are not equally informed in the apostolic
order and thus differ here and there. The distinction also suggests
that
error,
a
word that has come to have grave implications in our ranks, is more
likely to be fatal in reference to the faith than to the order.
Walter Scott, for instance, would almost certainly agree that one
might for various reasons be confused on various points of order
when it would be fatal for him to be confused about the faith.
Surely there are essentials to the ancient order, but these are
essential to good discipleship, not to becoming a disciple. And they
are essential only as one comes to understand them, and this
requires time and growth. We are all at one place “in the
faith” in that we are in Jesus together. But as in a family or
in a school, we are all at different periods of growth or at
different grade levels in the apostolic order for our lives.
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In
failing to make this distinction we miss the beauty of what it means
to be
faithful.
Those
who have not yet learned all that is involved in “continuing
steadfastly in the apostles’ teaching, in fellowship, in the
breaking of bread, and the prayers” may nonetheless have
believed and obeyed the gospel Peter preached on Pentecost. They are
faithful
if
they have accepted Jesus as Lord and are obeying him in all things
according to their understanding. If people can be faithful only
when they correctly perceive and practice all that the apostles
enjoined upon the churches, then we all have to doubt our
faithfulness.
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This
is to say that faith is personal, centered, in a Person, and not
doctrinal, as is the apostolic order. Order has to do with forms,
institutions, ordinances, procedures, the way of doing things, etc.
while faith has to do with trust in Jesus. All these are based on
faith in Jesus, and the order is given so that we might express our
faith, and it is not simply arbitrary instruction. God is
for
us,
and so the apostolic order is for the enrichment of the fellowship,
and we are to delight in it. But the order is of such a nature, in
that it requires schooling, that it is to be distinguished from the
Good News that initially enrolls us in the school when it is
believed and obeyed.
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The
book of Revelation illustrates the point we are making. Few among us
would contend that we have to understand it alike. But why? It is
explicit about providing a blessing to all who read and listen to it
(l:3), and it pronounces a curse on those who would add to it or
subtract from it (22:19). If being faithful means to understand and
obey everything in the New Testament, then the faithful are very few
indeed since Revelation is part of the New Testament.
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But
if we realize that Revelation is part of the apostolic order given
to those harassed believers who were perplexed by the apparent
triumph of pagan and secular powers over the kingdom of God, we can
see how brethren can be “in the faith” and yet differ in
their interpretations of the book. This gives Revelation its
rightful, important place. We study it in our search for the ancient
order in that it deals with the Christian life under great
oppression and persecution, and we learn something of how we are to
deal with similar problems in our pilgrimage.
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This
is not to minimize the doctrinal order, but to give it its proper
place. First the faith, then the order. The faith undergirds the
order and the order strengthens the faith. Indeed, we consider the
apostolic order of such importance that we are making it our theme
for the year. But if at the outset we confuse those instructions
that set the churches in order with the proclamation that brought
the churches into existence, our labor will be in vain. —the
Editor