The Ancient Order …

IS THERE REALLY AN ANCIENT ORDER?

Anyone who is writing a series of essays on the Ancient Order certainly needs to make up his mind as to whether there is any such thing. Our pioneers spoke of the search for the Ancient Order. It would be ironic to conclude there is no such thing after all and that any such search is in vain. Since I believe that such a search is both appropriate and rewarding, I must conclude that there is such a thing as the Ancient Order. But since I do not understand the Ancient Order to be what many of our people understand it to be, it is appropriate that we come to terms with the idea.

I do not believe there is the Ancient Order in the sense that the scriptures provide an exact pattern or blueprint for all the details of the work, worship, and organization of the church and of the Christian life. There is no uniform pattern of how the primitive congregations were set up, and there are differences from one church to the next. The corporate worship does not follow a set scheme, and while the worship of one assembly may not contradict that of another, the differences are nonetheless impressive, such as what we find at Corinth over against what we find in Ephesus or Jerusalem. The primitive community had no explicit name and no definite way of identification, except by such oblique references as “the Way” and “the sect everywhere spoken against” in Luke’s history. For upwards of a generation it was more or less thought of as another Jewish sect.

While our churches today are elder-centered, it is not exactly that way in the primitive churches. The apostles are the most important persons in Jerusalem and the elders sort of slip up on us later in the narrative. We have more information on the worship of the Corinthian church than any other, but elders are not even mentioned. One would think that the letters to the seven churches in Asia would be sent to the elders, as would almost certainly be the case with us, but they were not. Prophets and teachers are in the church at Antioch (Acts 13:1) and apparently directed it. Elders are not mentioned. The extra-canonical writing, the Didache, written about 140 A.D. and respected for its factual information as well as its antiquity, tells of Syrian churches ruled exclusively by “prophets and teachers.” And yet elders are mentioned sufficiently in scripture to inform us that they were a part of the life and makeup of the earliest congregations, at least in some of them. In most all areas of worship and organization our information is fragmentary. We do not have the solid, complete picture that our claim of “restoring the New Testament church” would imply.

As for the government of the church, it seems to have been progressive. The centers of the faith, such as Jerusalem, Antioch and Corinth, were at first directed either by the apostles themselves or by especially endowed prophets and teachers, with only modest reference to elders, if that. In Jerusalem a body of elders eventually took their place alongside the apostles (Acts 15:6, 22), but we do not know for sure that elders had such a role alongside the prophets in Antioch and Corinth, at least not at first. In what might be called “the mission churches,” those resulting from Paul’s missionary journeys, we have the most substantial evidence for the rule of elders, a plurality of them. Acts 14:23 shows that elders were appointed in each of these churches, while Titus 1 and 1 Tim. 3 not only assume the existence of such an office but lay down qualifications for those who would hold it. 1 Tim. 5:22 probably refers to the practice of an evangelist ordaining elders by the laying on of hands. Timothy is urged to show caution in making such ordinations.

But there is a question as to how uniform the practice was of elders in every church. If Paul had had the especially endowed prophets and teachers in the mission churches, such as were available at Antioch, he might have postponed the appointment of elders. Being Jewish and synagogue-oriented, he probably organized the mission churches after the synagogues, which were conducted by elders. The fact remains that even after they were of some age some churches had elders and some did not, or at least they are not mentioned when we would expect them to be. It is noteworthy that Paul lists eight offices, or perhaps ministries, that God has placed in the church, and elders are not mentioned by name (1 Cor. 12:28). They might be included in administrators, for this refers to governing the church, some what equivalent to the rulers of the synagogue. But what else might administrators include? Where do the deacons come in, who are not listed either? Perhaps they would be included in helpers. The list of eight ministries includes not only apostles and prophets, but also those who work miracles, healers (these two may relate to the church’s ministry to the sick and poor), as well as those who speak in various kinds of tongues.

It is not easy to go down this list and check off precisely which of these ministries are relevant to our age and which are not. There may be more latitude than we have allowed. Helpers, for example, might allow a church to have staff psychologists, counselors, and lawyers, ministering to the poor and the deprived.

It is also noteworthy that “the order” continues to progress over the next few decades. By the time of Ignatius, who wrote as early as 110 A.D., numerous churches had “the bishop” as well as elders and deacons. Playing the game our way, we have said this was the first step toward apostasy, that “the bishop” is a departure from the pattern. Can we be sure about that? Ignatius was not exactly a heretic or an apostate. When he wrote his letters to the various churches, in which he addresses the bishop, he was on his way to Rome to be executed for his faith.

Ignatius might have said that “the bishop” is among the administrators in Paul’s list in 1 Cor. 12. Besides, these words that he wrote to Polycarp do not sound too far off base: “I am giving myself for those who are obedient to the bishop, the elders, the deacons, and may I have my portion with them, in God. Toil together, struggle together, race together, suffer together, rest together, rise together, as God’s managers, assistants, and servants.”

He does, however, go too far for most of us. He told the church at Ephesus to “look upon the bishop as the Lord himself,” and he elsewhere advised that it is impossible to have a church and to baptize and break bread without the presence of the bishop. If this is too strong for you, then you answer the question as to when and how a group of people becomes a true church, properly set in order? Do they need no government? Are they a church, ipse dixit, just like that, by simply gathering around the Supper? Or is there some necessary order to their going into housekeeping for the Lord? When a group supposes that it needs a preacher to have “a real church” it is leaning toward what Ignatius was saying. The power assumed by some preachers would no doubt put the Ignatian bishops to shame.

Ignatius as a “church father” lived within the apostolic age. We are not talking about hundreds of years. The distinction drawn between “the bishop” and the elders could not have evolved overnight, so it must go back well in to the first century. If there had been a definite, patternistic kind of apostolic order of elders and deacons, and no more, in each church it would be unlikely that “the bishop” could have emerged in so many places by the close of the century. We’ve all heard of the beloved Polycarp, who, at 86, gave his life for the faith by being burned at the stake, and did it nobly and courageously. He was “the bishop” of the church at Smyrna around 150 A.D. Does being “the bishop” make him some kind of heretic?

We are saying that these things developed the way they did because the order of the church was fluid from the outset rather than fixed. There is no blueprint, and it is folly, if not asinine, to argue that there is. Everyone who so argues has to be very careful in what he selects from “the pattern” and what he leaves out. The patternists among us will ignore the likes of Rom. 16:1, for whoever heard of a deaconness in a Church of Christ? And they’ll make those chosen in Acts 6 the deacons of the church, for it fits well into the sermon outlines. They’ll virtually ignore 1 Cor. 12:28 since they find no need for “healers” and “workers of miracles” in the church, even though Paul says God placed them there—and he didn’t say temporarily! Since God is selective about the centuries in which His church heals, the first but not the twentieth, why have healers? And yet they’ll find “the minister” in every New Testament church—someway, somehow he’s there since we have him in every church!

We should note in passing that it is this “pattern fallacy” that is the culprit in our ugly habit of dividing every few years. He who presumes to have the pattern all worked out calls us to “the loyal church,” which is but one man’s opinion of what the true church is. 1 Cor. 14 rules out Bible classes. The presence of the scriptures themselves rules out literature. “Jesus took the cup” rules out a plurality of cups. The silence of the New Testament in regard to instrumental music necessitates only a capella music. The “pattern” does not allow for any kind of agencies, societies, or auxiliaries, or any kind of cooperative schemes, as these are sinful.

And yet a dozen different kinds of “loyal” churches, none recognizing any of the others as true Christians, manage somehow, despite the “pattern,” to justify multi-million dollar edifices in a world where half the people are starving, cushioned pews, all sorts of electronic devices, audiovisual aids, a bevy of buses, lectureships (if not agencies), graduate schools of religion (if not seminaries), multi-million dollar cooperative TV enterprises (if not missionary societies), and pooled resources from numerous churches in order to save a Foundation (if not the Herald of Truth). We all manage to justify what we want, and we can’t let “the pattern” get in our way. We only make sure that we place it in our brother’s way, “marking” him with this or that epithet if he does not toe our party line.

So our divisions through the years are based upon a colossal fallacy: the presumption that the scriptures provide an exact blueprint or pattern in regards to all these things in the life, worship, work, and organization of the church. This fallacy has been an albatross about our necks, and the bird is eating at our innards. This is Restorationism rather than the reformation of the church that our pioneers pled for. They were neither legalists nor patternists, for they argued that the unity of the church can be realized by making a test of fellowship only those things on which Christians universally agree.

This fallacy is not only at our doorstep, causing soiled tracks in every room of our Movement, but it has cursed the church since the days of the Anabaptists, who, because of their patternistic concept, had to break with the Protestant reformation and launch their own dissident movement. If we count all the children of the Anabaptists, we come up with some 176 different conceptions of the true Church of Christ. C. C. Morrison, in his The Unfinished Reformation, rightly calls this “a monumental absurdity.” The people in our small Texas towns must also consider it absurd to see three or four different kinds of “Church of Christ” in a few blocks of each other, each claiming to be the true church, and having no fellowship with each other. Morrison observes that if the Protestant Reformers had embraced the fallacy of the Anabaptists, they would have become so splintered that Romanism could easily have overcome the Reformation, but they rejected it. So did our own pioneers of the first two generations. They rejected pattern ism and pled for a catholic faith, identifying themselves with the Reformers of the 16th and 17th centuries and not with the underground groups. When later generations turned to legalism and patternism, making themselves sons of the Anabaptists, we started dividing and sub-dividing.

So, restoration must mean to us reformation. Our pioneers called themselves Reformers, like Luther, not Restorers. It is what Carl Ketcherside calls renewal through recovery. It does not mean and cannot mean a restoration. of the primitive church in the sense that there is an exact and detailed pattern for that church. If we can learn this lesson, our battle for a freer, more responsible, more spiritual, and unsectarian Church of Christ will be half won.

And yet after saying all this I hasten to add that I do believe that there is in the scriptures what can be called the Ancient Order. There is an order, even if fluid and progressive, and it is ancient. The term appeals to me. It means that we have our roots in the ancient past, even in the scriptures. It means that we have norms, examples, guidelines, principles, commands. We have sound (healthful) doctrine, even the words of the Lord Jesus, and these, rightly appropriated, will bless us now and forever. Jesus thus becomes the basis of the Ancient Order, for it is all built on him who is our Pattern. That order reveals to us a church that is one, holy, catholic and apostolic. That alone provides ample motivation for reformation and renewal. Let’s renew the church through a recovery of its catholicity.

As to what we are to make of the Ancient Order in renewing the church in our generation, that continues to be our task through the remaining seven installments of this series. But I will now give two examples.

The first is the ministry of elders or presbyters. It is interesting that this facet of the Ancient Order helped to give birth to our Movement back in the old world with such groups as the Scotch Baptists. The point was to wrest the church from the rule of the clergy, usually one man, and from the state, and return it to the people who would run the church democratically through its duly appointed elders.

The Ancient Order is so replete with the presence of elders, even if there be no fixed pattern in reference to them, that virtually every church in Protestantism has the ministry of elders in one form or another. This could be listed as one of the catholic or universal features of the church. By the way, while stating earlier that elders are not mentioned at Corinth (and there might not have been any when Paul wrote), I should add that in 95 A.D. when Clement of Rome writes a letter to Corinth he does make reference to their elders!

And there are norms and examples as to what elders should do, to be drawn from the Old as well as the New Testament. Those of us who are part of a Movement to renew the church can bear witness to the value that this has to the universal church upon earth. And yet there is fluidity here. We cannot insist that each church be congregational in government, each ruled by a plurality of elders, even if we conclude that the evidence leans in that direction. In Jerusalem many assemblies seem to have been directed by the one board of apostles, then later elders. We cannot presume that some exact pattern rules out the way the Presbyterians do it. Nor can we anathematize “the bishop” who often serves the Episcopalians with more humility than do our “senior” elders. When things go wrong, they may pray for an abdication, while we refer to the need of a few “good funerals.” The fact that we have on our side is that there are elders or presbyters throughout Christendom, all over the place, and that alone implies a New Testament norm that is generally recognized. Let’s explore that norm more creatively, discovering what the ministry of elders can really do for the church, and let it be seen throughout the Christian world. We can thus show our understanding of the Ancient Order by our good works and our good elders without putting down others who come up with a different arrangement of the presbytery. If you can accept dear old Bishop Polycarp , when he humbly ruled over the presbyters, then you should not feel too far removed from the Methodist bishop in your nearest large city. After all, when Polycarp died he apparently felt no pain, the smell of his burning body was like sweet incense, and those who stood by heard the voice of angels. And he was the bishop of Smyrna—and your brother, whether you like it or not! I for one like it.

The second example has to do with evangelism rather than church organization. However much we (and Paul!) criticize the church at Corinth, one of the most remarkable insights into the early Christians’ outreach is found in 1 Cor. 6. “Do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God?” the apostle assures them. Then he gives this catalogue of gross sins: “Do not be deceived; neither the immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor homosexuals, nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor robbers will inherit the kingdom of God.” That is strong language, isn’t it? It shows us how serious some sins are that we take all too lightly, such as greed. Such instructions become a norm for our lives, even when negatively stated, and this too is part of the Ancient Order.

But after listing these terrible sins, Paul says: “And such were some of you. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ and in the Spirit of our God.”

This shows that a church can reach out into this sinful world and by means of the gospel of love bring the desperate ones into the fold of Jesus. Corinth stank with its filthy sins. Adultery, homosexuality, drunkenness, thievery. The apostle says that the church had in its number those who had lived in such sin. The redeemed ones reached out and snatched fornicators, drunkards, and homosexuals from destruction. What a testimonial that is to a church!

This is part of what I mean by the Ancient Order. While no congregation in the New Covenant scriptures is a pattern for our churches today, certainly not Corinth, there is nonetheless an order of life and mission that emerges from their experiences. We can see that there are some significant respects in which we should be like the church at Corinth. When the apostolic documents are responsibly interpreted, the kind of church that God wants His people to be begins to emerge. It may not be in the form of an architect’s blueprint, but it is there. —the Editor