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We
would all do well to read the scriptures, especially those of the
New Covenant, with this threefold distinction in mind. Even in the
Bible, not to mention our modern church life, one sees that some
things are essential, while others are important and still others
indifferent. It would help us to get things in proper perspective if
we keep these distinctions in mind. True, we may in some instances
disagree on what “issues” and practices fall into which
of the three categories, but we are not likely to make much headway
until we are aware of such distinctions. As a philosophy teacher I
have often pointed out that a person never learns to think
critically and analytically until she learns to make distinctions.
Part of being an educated person is to learn what is important over
against what is not, and certainly to recognize what is essential
and not simply important. Socrates, the father of philosophy, taught
his students. that few people ever really learn to distinguish
reality
from
appearance.
The
suggestion well applies to Bible study.
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The
leaders of the primitive church were aware of some such distinction.
Those involved in what we have come to call “the Jerusalem
Conference” —even by Church of Christ folk who do not
believe in conferences!— found themselves within the stress of
polarities. The issue was the Gentile converts to the faith. Should
they be accepted on the same basis as the Jews. simply by faith in
Christ Jesus, or should they be required first to become Jews, more
or less, and then Christians? Some of the Jewish believers who had
come to Antioch were insisting, “Unless you are circumcised
according to the custom of Moses, you cannot be saved.” (Acts
15:1). This caused a lot of dissension and debate, with such
“liberals” as Paul and Barnabas leading the attack,
which shifted the controversy from Antioch to Jerusalem, before the
apostolate itself. The conference produced some dramatic moments and
real valor. The apostles Peter and James, who probably never
completely overcame their prejudice toward Gentiles, were real
heroes, moved as they were by the force of scripture and by the Holy
Spirit within them.
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It
was after there had been much debate that Peter rose and said, and I
like the way he referred to our heavenly Father: “Brethren,
you know that in the early days God made choice among you, that by
my mouth the Gentiles should hear the word of the gospel and
believe. And God who knows the heart bore witness to them, giving
them the Holy Spirit just as he did to us; and he made no
distinction between us and them, but cleansed their hearts by
faith.”
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Then
he nailed the legalists, transcending their prejudice: “Now
therefore why do you make trial of God by putting a yoke upon the
neck of the disciples which neither our fathers nor we have been
able to bear? But we believe that we shall be saved through the
grace of the Lord Jesus, just as they will.” Peter’s
rebuke is as appropriate in the church today as it was then, for
some of us want to put the yoke of law-keeping and legalism upon the
necks of those who have been saved by God’s grace as well as
the rest of us.
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James
was especially magnanimous toward his Gentile brothers, the very one
we might expect to be hardnosed. He had the advantage of hearing
Paul and Barnabas recite the wonders God had wrought by their hands
among the Gentiles, and he was moved by what Peter had said and by
what the prophets had said in scripture. “My judgment is,”
he told them. and his decision would about settle the matter. “that
we should not trouble those of the Gentiles who turn to God.”
It was a simple admonition, and one that should not have been
necessary.
Let’s
not give our brothers in Christ a hard time!
We should not have to be told something so obvious. but it is as
applicable to us as it was to them. We should write above the door
of all our buildings:
Let’s
not trouble each other!
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James
named four things that he deemed necessary for the new Gentile
converts, the Jewish-Gentile problem being what it was. They were
set forth in a letter to be circulated among the missionary
churches. and that’s where Acts 15:28 comes in. “it has
seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us to lay upon you no greater
burden than these necessary things: that you abstain from what has
been sacrificed to idols and from blood and from what is strangled
and from unchastity. If you keep yourselves from these, you will do
well. Farewell.”
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These
requirements were set forth so as to placate the Jews. For the sake
of unity they were deemed essential. Except for the last one they
could not ordinarily be made essential for all Christians for all
time. and so we could not apply this text to someone today who likes
blood pudding. And since none of us follows the kosher type of
bleeding of animals, we all violate the third regulation. This
illustrates how even essentials may be limited to particular
situations. So we must always ask:
essential
for what and for how long?
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I
spoke of James being magnanimous at a time when he might have thrown
his weight around. It is noteworthy that in writing to his Gentile
brothers that James studiously avoided issuing a command as such.
“It seemed good to lay upon you no greater burden than these
necessary things.” No ultimatums. no commands, even from the
ruler of the Mother Church. That should say something to those of us
“who are somewhat” in the church today.
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James
was not only magnanimous but also discerning. There were a lot of
accretions and claptrap that some Jews would have laid on their
Gentile brothers. but James looked for what was absolutely necessary
to the situation. and that only. It is a good lesson for us to
learn.
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If
we look for what is essential for unity. fellowship, and
brotherhood, over against what is only important. we might all be
surprised to find our list of requirements dwindling the more we
study and pray. In recent years many of our folk have discovered
that such questions as agencies, societies. millennial theories,
Sunday Schools. instrumental music, methods of serving the Supper.
glossolalia. sponsoring churches, and sundry doctrines are not
essentials. Some of them are not even important. Many of us who have
become liberated from our “lawful” and awful past. which
we remember as oppressive and debilitating. find that the pet
notions and practices that we once cherished as absolutes gradually
diminish in our esteem from essentials to matters of importance to
matters of indifference. It must have been so with those who first
turned to Jesus. Once they saw in him the way. the truth. and the
life their little systems were no longer either necessary or
important.
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I
am indebted to J. S. Lamar for the title of this essay. He was one
of our most respected preachers of the third generation, having
lived from 1829 to 1908. He along with Errett, Lard, and Franklin,
served on a committee that created the Louisville Plan in 1869, an
effort to save the faltering American Christian Missionary Society
that had begun in 1849. The society was saved but not by that plan.
Lamar was a good thinker and a fine writer, well representing what
was then known as “the Disciples’ plea.” When Z.
T. Sweeney published
New
Testament Christianity
in
1923 in three volumes, made up of sermons by outstanding men of that
era, one by Lamar on “The Essential, the Important and the
Indifferent” was the first selection for the first volume.
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Lamar
found two things to be essential: faith in Christ and obedience to
him in baptism. Faith is not mere intellectual assent, but “Our
convictions must be so deep and earnest and heartfelt that it leads
to an actual and practical acceptance of the Lord Jesus
in
the
character and offices which make Him the Christ.” So faith
implies obedience. As for what is important, Lamar concedes that in
a sense everything related to Christian faith is “essential,”
if not for being then for well-being, and he draws a distinction
between these. The absolute essentials are those things that give
the sinner
being
in
Christ. The important things are those that provide the Christian
with
well-being,
all
the things that make us better, wiser, stronger believers.
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Many,
many things associated with our Christian life, says Lamar, are
matters of indifference, but they are allowed to grow into “issues”
and become the nuclei for parties. “However trivial a matter
may be,” he writes, “it acquires a sort of importance,
and becomes sometimes practically momentous, by reason of the
feelings and prejudices which are engendered by it.” Writing
at a time in our history when instrumental music was an issue but
not yet openly divisive, he appeals for toleration on such matters,
suggesting that “the true, catholic church of the future”
will be sufficiently free not only to tolerate such differences
between congregations but actually encourage such peculiar tastes
and peculiar preferences. As he puts it: “If they want an
organ, let them have it. If they are averse to it, respect their
preference.” He says it is a weakness of human nature to
suppose that we must have uniformity respecting all these secondary
matters, and that others must accept our tastes and be governed by
our preferences if we are to accept them.
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Lamar
says he prefers this “spontaneous variety” on all the
nonessential matters to a stale, dry, dead uniformity. He sees
different congregations in the same town, satisfying the tastes and
preferences of the whole community in non-essentials, and yet all of
them free of sectism and all being the one Body in faith and
obedience to Christ. Otherwise you have opinions and preferences
made a test of fellowship and each congregation becomes a sect with
each one appealing to but a small fraction of the community. And
they are necessarily at war with each other!
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This
impresses us as sound and sensible, and J. S. Lamar can hardly be
dismissed as a wild-eyed liberal. He reflects the best thinking of
the pioneers, and it is what our people have always stood for except
for the “Church of Christism” that has emerged in recent
generations.
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And
it is true to the Ancient Order for in the New Covenant scriptures
we see a distinction drawn between the basic core of faith and
obedience, which was true of all the churches, and the less vital
matters that range all the way from important to indifferent.
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We
are reminded of the plan for the unity of all Christians as set
forth by Alexander Campbell in 1841, which is an appeal to the
recognized essentials: “Resolved,
that
the union of Christians can be scripturally effected by requiring a
practical acknowledgment of such articles of belief and such rules
of piety and ,morality as are admitted by all Christian
denominations.” —the
Editor