MISSIOLOGY Part 2: Apostles, Epistles and Missions (Oh My)

Hello Beloved:

I wanted to include a brief snippet of the last post on missiology, so I guess I can introduce it like a television series:

PREVIOUSLY ON MISSIOLOGY:

In the Evangelical Dictionary of Theology (1984), Professor Arthur F. Glasser attempted not so much to define what he believes missiology should be as he does documenting what it has been and what five ”Major Issues” have surrounded it and shaped it over the last two millennia and beyond: (1) Apostolic Practice, (2) Church Structure and Mission, (3) The Gospel and the Religions, (4) Salvation and Non-Christians, and (5) Christianity and Culture. (Elwell, 725)

I think this would be a good template in guiding our series on this subject, which launches us immediately into topic number one: Apostolic Practice.  Glasser’s entry on missiology briefly elaborates on this subject that provides a solid framing in our approach:

Apostolic Practice.  How is the apostolicity of the church to be expressed if it is conceived as embracing the evangelistic practice of the apostles as well as their “received” teaching?  What is the church’s collective responsibility touching the sending forth of laborers to “bring about the obedience of faith…among all the nations” (Romans 1:5)? (Elwell, 725)

So what does [Dave] Harvey have to say about the “apostolicity” of the church?  A lot.  We barely get through page four of Harvey’s booklet when he makes a particular item bluntly clear:

Early in the history of this ministry [Sovereign Grace Ministries] it became apparent that the churches needed to be linked by more than a name and an essentially common vision.  A leadership team of gifted and proven leaders was formed and given a dual responsibility: serving the local churches and establishing strategies for future missions direction. (When referring to the overall ministry, “leadership team” is for us synonymous with “apostolic team,” a phrase defined in the following pages.)  (Harvey, 4; emphasis in bold mine)

So whatever name change takes place with the apostolic/leadership/whatever team, it’s still synonymous with “business as usual.”

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AND NOW, PART TWO:

Before we go any further, let’s remember the Great Commission from our Lord Jesus Christ:

16 But the eleven disciples proceeded to Galilee, to the mountain which Jesus had designated. 17 When they saw Him, they worshiped Him; but some were doubtful. 18 And Jesus came up and spoke to them, saying, “All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth. 19 Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, 20 teaching them to observe all that I commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.” (Matthew 28:16-20. New American Standard Bible [NASB]).

To be fair to Harvey, let’s take a look at his words in explaining exactly what the “purpose” of the Missiology booklet is:

The purpose of this booklet is twofold: to explain how Sovereign Grace Ministries understands the New Testament teaching on missiology, and to describe how we have sought to apply that teaching in response to the Great Commission. But first let us emphasize the obvious: this is far from the last word on the subject. We are a young family of churches and have much more to learn about missiology than we have to teach. Our gains have been modest and our mistakes memorable. Our understanding and practice of missiology (and indeed of every area) is semper reformanda—always being reformed. Yet, for reasons mystifying to us, there is growing interest in our doctrine and practice of missions. So here in these pages is an attempt to express and explain briefly our position and practice. (Harvey, Missiology, 3; emphasis mine)

So, after three decades, we are still getting the cop-out phrases to justify past, present and future mistakes that are, by Harvey’s admission, “memorable.”  Is this careful humility? Others, like myself, wonder if Sovereign Grace Ministries -who has had roughly three and a half decades from its inception to make a stronger announcement on its missiology- will step up to the plate to say anything substantive rather than publish an ambiguous missiology that flies apostolic authority under the radar (barely).

The flexibility of this ”semper reformanda,” used in this context, allows -I believe- for the same mistakes, a.k.a. sin, to be made over and over again with very little to no accountability to the congregation.  This results in nothing being in place to put the church back on track in regard to obedience of the Matthew 28:16-20 directive.

This is a command, and not a suggestion or good idea.  When Christ says “Go,” He is not speaking in a way that allows whimsy or convenience to dictate our witness.  The record of Scripture reveals a transformation of our souls that gives us a desire to share this Hope with the lost, and Christ is commanding us to run with it.  He is not speaking exclusively to the apostles, whom in this passage He addresses as disciples.  The Sovereign Grace Ministries Apostolic Team cannot lay exclusive claim to this passage.  But the implications of their actions as testified by many here and in their literature (i.e., church planting teams bear a sole witness in terms of a radical spreading of the Gospel) is that they do have the corner on the evangelism market.  This implies that unless your evangelistic efforts are directed by their apostolic leadership, your fruit will be minimal at best and sinful at worst.

If there is any doubt to my observations, read pp. 16-17 of Harvey’s Missiology, where he proceeds to lambaste Christian media as being inadequate and producing disciples of a lesser “quality.”  I believe many Christians, especially those in Third World countries, would disagree with Harvey and thank God for the trickle of media that can bust through the airwaves and underground pipelines when missionaries’ passports are denied; in these places, Harvey’s concept of the “local church” is stomped out harshly by murderous dictators and their regimes, and media combined with the underground church are the only way these precious brethren receive the Gospel.

Additionally, there are many in our own country that are invalid and/or disabled who have been abandoned by their own “local church.”  Where do they get their preaching and teaching?  Christian media.

I also find it amazing that statements like this can be uttered with a straight face when SGM has a veritable department store of music, books, video, and audio-message media available online.  Can Harvey honestly say to the permanently hospitalized quadriplegic that their consumption of SGM media isn’t enough?  Must they be wheeled into the local church and made to sign a member’s contract/agreement/blood oath to get the full benefit of the Gospel?

The arrogance of such statements and the audacity that Harvey has in claiming to know how to better spend $15,000-$17,000 a week (Harvey, 16-17) by planting churches can only make the blood boil of those who work hard in the media to spread the Gospel in this country and the rest of the world.  Do efforts legitimize a doctrinal stance?  Of course not.  But that’s not what we are talking about here, and Harvey makes no doctrinal distinctions when it comes to his approval of Christian media.  He views it as a supplement, at best, and nothing more.  In my case, I simply shake my head in shame that a leader of our organization can make such pride-filled, unbiblical, man-centered statements as these.  Folks, Harvey’s words are there; this is not a simplistic assignation of motives.

Harvey tries to soften the business end of his baseball bat that has been inscribed with his New Testament “local church” observations by adding the following:

Especially in cross-cultural application, added obstacles will surely arise, from seasons of persecution to the enactment of strict government policies that declare a country “closed.”  But let us remember that the New Testament depicts a world in which persecution, suffering, and martyrdom were not unusual for Christians obeying the Great Commission.  Despite such severe challenges, local churches were continually planted and strengthened.  We must not abandon our commitment to church planting simply because a nation appears hostile or closed. (Harvey, 17-18)

The above statement is not necessarily inaccurate, but it is cheapened by the high-nosed we-know-better-than-y’all Phariseeism it is prefaced by!  This is like throwing a bucket of water on a house they have already torched.  This is not Scripture or the Spirit of the Gospel by any stretch of the imagination.

And notice the word exchange and cross-definitions going on?  “Missions,” “Missiology,” “Apostolic Ministry” and “Church Planting” all become the same thing by such encompassing, generic statements.  Here’s an example (and these types of statements are littered throughout Missiology):

Apostolic ministry, so often missing from modern missions work, is nevertheless integral to the way of biblical missiology; it goes hand in hand with church planting. (Harvey, 19)

The above statement could have the underlined words rotated around like a volleyball team (try it), and to its core it would be saying the same thing every time.  Even George Orwell couldn’t have dreamed this up.  No wonder there have been outside “observations” on our “unbiblical” SGM-speak that is not “Gospel-centered” or “God-Glorifying,” particularly “in the context of the local church.”  All of this word-exchange and lexicon-building is patent nonsense, doesn’t come close to the heart of an honest treatment of missions, and it needs to stop.  I’ve been guilty of it, and God forgive me.

God forgive all of us in Sovereign Grace Ministries for ever thinking we could have an exclusive language, and build a tower to the heavens with our rulebooks as bricks and a mortar made of a pulverized flock.

Wayne Grudem describes the Purposes of the Church as follows:

We can understand the purposes of the church in terms of ministry to God, ministry to believers, and ministry to the world. (Grudem, 867)

He further breaks this down into categories he elaborates on: (1) Ministry to God: Worship, (2) Ministry to Believers: Nurture, (3) Ministry to the World: Evangelism and Mercy, and (4) Keeping These Purposes in Balance. (Grudem, 867-869)

So what is the elaboration behind Grudem’s (3) Ministry to the World: Evangelism and Mercy?  Stay tuned.  It’s a goldmine.

But let’s end on this note: Re-read the Great Commission.  It’s very clear, it’s very Gospel-centered, it’s very biblical, it’s very God-glorifying:  Christ commands you, Brothers and Sisters.  That means all of us, the saved, the transformed, the born again, the regenerated, the rescued and the called are commanded to go into all the world with the Gospel.  There is no parenthetical reference that excludes the flock from the command and defers it solely to a man-made “apostolic authority.”  Harvey even admits that the Great Commission is to the church universal (Harvey, 12-13), but then goes on to contradict this point when in the remaining pages he hammers home again and again the “apostolic oversight” that must be in place over churches.

Christ did provide apostolic oversight and His guidance: their names are the Gospels and the Epistles.  Empowered by the Holy Spirit, there is no stopping them.

Go into all the world, because Christ your Savior, your Lord, your Everything, commands you to go.

…pk

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BIBLIOGRAPHY

Elwell, Walter A. (Editor).  Evangelical Dictionary of Theology.  Grand Rapids, Michigan: Baker Book House Company, 1984.

Grudem, Wayne.  Systematic Theology: An Introduction to Biblical Doctrine.  Leicester, Great Britain: InterVarsity; Grand Rapids, Michigan: Zondervan, HarperCollins, 1994.

Harvey, Dave.  Missiology: Entering the Field of the Lord (Number 4 of the Sovereign Grace Perspectives Series).  Gaithersburg, Maryland: Sovereign Grace Ministries, 2006.

Hello Beloved:

A couple of years ago, when I first opened my new copy of Dave Harvey’s Missiology: Entering the Field of the Lord, I had to look up the word missiology, because (a) I, Protestant Knight, am not as think as you smart I am and (b) Harvey does not give a paragraph or one sentence toward a simple definition of missiology; not even a quick one that can he can launch from in the booklet’s opening pages.  He at least did readers this courtesy in the first paragraph of his booklet, Polity, by explaining polity’s meaning and its Greek roots.  Missiology is not so new a word to come onto the scene to warrant this; it landed onto the vocabulary landscape sometime in the early 1920’s, according to dictionary.com.

Instead, Harvey spends forty-six pages defining mis·si·ol·o·gy, or, the study of how missions are carried out according to Sovereign Grace Ministries (SGM).  Yes, I know, I am stating the obvious:  If someone has a booklet titled Missiology, there’s a good chance that expounding on missiology between the covers will take place.  My whole point is that this particular subject is one that Harvey wants SGM to own right out of the gate.  As we will see throughout this series, it starts off with a type of gee-whiz bewilderment that turns into a not-so-humble orthodoxy toward the end.

“Aw, c’mon PK, are you gonna pick on Dave Harvey again?”

No, just a few of Dave’s statements and conclusions in Missiology.

I believe it would be of particular value if we filtered SGM’s missiology through the strainer of some of the big brains who sit outside -and at times even close to- our camp at SGM.  Yes, Harvey’s Missiology details the missionary vision according to SGM, but in following the example of Paul telling the church at Thessalonica to ”examine everything carefully” and “hold fast to that which is good” (1 Thessalonians 5:21), we must go forward with study while Scripture is firmly in hand and view.

After a recent re-read of our Missiology, I am seeing an umbilical cord between our missiology and polity practices at SGM, as to me they seem to inform each other equally.  This makes missiology a topic of enormous importance concerning the purity of the church.  Some would make the argument that these two should inform each other equally.  Whatever the actual extent of the connection, of particular concern to me is that an infection (sin) in one can spread to the other.

So, at the beginning of Missiology, since Harvey isn’t quoting a dictionary or thesaurus or Greek lexicon or etymological word finder in regard to the word missiology, how does he in fact begin?  Missiology starts with a not-so-subtle cautionary tale as Harvey tells a story about getting lost on his way to a church in a nearby town (Harvey, Missiology, 1).  Remember, this anecdote is coming from a man who all but refuses to listen to “anecdotal” war stories regarding polity; that is, he has a particular distaste for cautionary tales -even if they are true- that warn of the abuses of those hijacking the authority and title of the apostles (Harvey, Polity, 21).  My whole point is this: Harvey is not afraid to use anecdotes to further his point, or condemn anecdotes when they deter his point.  This makes for a whimsical defense and offense that come off as Harvey being self-serving, i.e. he can use anecdotes, but the rest of the population of earth can’t.  If this was not his intention, my only advice for him is to stop it.  I personally have never been anti-anecdote as long as a scriptural basis informs it throughout, but Dave, don’t condemn a writing technique that you wish to employ before or after your own condemnation of it!

A BRIEF SIDENOTE: DOES PROTESTANT KNIGHT HAVE AN AXE TO GRIND WITH DAVE HARVEY?  No.  I have never met Dave Harvey, so I cannot comment on him personally, nor would it serve any purpose to do so on this website or in any other fashion, period.  What I can do is make an assessment of what Dave has said or written based on audio messages, outlines, booklets, books and articles he has produced.  While I do employ sarcasm from time to time, it is no different than the sarcasm employed by pastors -within and without SGM- on a regular basis to further a point or to illustrate things ranging from silliness to heresy.  If you have a problem with sarcasm, you have a problem with men like the prophet Elijah and the apostle Paul. Dave Harvey happens to be in the crosshairs on my last two series because he is the author several of the SGM Perspectives booklets I am reviewing.  These booklets are held up in high regard within SGM churches, and are handed to anyone asking about the subjects with which they deal.

In the Evangelical Dictionary of Theology (1984), Professor Arthur F. Glasser attempted not so much to define what he believes missiology should be as he does documenting what it has been and what five ”Major Issues” have surrounded it and shaped it over the last two millennia and beyond: (1) Apostolic Practice, (2) Church Structure and Mission, (3) The Gospel and the Religions, (4) Salvation and Non-Christians, and (5) Christianity and Culture. (Elwell, 725)

I think this would be a good template in guiding our series on this subject, which launches us immediately into topic number one: Apostolic Practice.  Glasser’s entry on missiology briefly elaborates on this subject that provides a solid framing in our approach:

Apostolic Practice.  How is the apostolicity of the church to be expressed if it is conceived as embracing the evangelistic practice of the apostles as well as their “received” teaching?  What is the church’s collective responsibility touching the sending forth of laborers to “bring about the obedience of faith…among all the nations” (Romans 1:5)? (Elwell, 725)

So what does Harvey have to say about the “apostolicity” of the church?  A lot.  We barely get through page four of Harvey’s booklet when he makes a particular item bluntly clear:

Early in the history of this ministry [Sovereign Grace Ministries] it became apparent that the churches needed to be linked by more than a name and an essentially common vision.  A leadership team of gifted and proven leaders was formed and given a dual responsibility: serving the local churches and establishing strategies for future missions direction. (When referring to the overall ministry, “leadership team” is for us synonymous with “apostolic team,” a phrase defined in the following pages.)  (Harvey, Missiology, 4; emphasis in bold mine)

So whatever name change takes place with the apostolic/leadership/whatever team, it’s still synonymous with “business as usual.”

Being that the above statement alone is worth chewing on for awhile, we’ll take a brief break here for comments, Beloved.  For further discussion about the office of “apostle,” click on this link.  Next time we’ll discuss Harvey’s assertions on the apostles serving-and-caring-and-caring-and-serving and how this all fits into the work of missions.

In the meantime, remain in the grip of His grace. Test all things! Hold fast to that which is good!

…pk

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BIBLIOGRAPHY

Elwell, Walter A. (Editor).  Evangelical Dictionary of Theology.  Grand Rapids, Michigan: Baker Book House Company, 1984.

Harvey, Dave.  Missiology: Entering the Field of the Lord (Number 4 of the Sovereign Grace Perspectives Series).  Gaithersburg, Maryland: Sovereign Grace Ministries, 2006.

Harvey, Dave.  Polity: Serving and Leading in the Local Church (Number 2 of the Sovereign Grace Perspectives Series).  Gaithersburg, Maryland: Sovereign Grace Ministries, 2004.

“missiology.” Dictionary.com Unabridged (v 1.1). Random House, Inc. 29 Sep. 2008. <Dictionary.com http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/missiology>.

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Hello Beloved:

Books and Scripture have been plumbed and exhausted on this topic.

Put your seatbelts on.  It’s time to call for repentance.

In wrapping up this specific series on polity, I’ll open with the remainder of Wayne Grudem’s statement from Systematic Theology; this is the last of the missing chunk from Dave Harvey quoting (or not quoting in context, as it were) Wayne Grudem… that is, Grudem’s statement that I addressed in the first post in this series:

And it also seems that individual Christians –while they may have a preference for one system over another– should nevertheless be willing to live and minister within any of several different Protestant systems of church government in which they may find themselves from time to time.  But I do not mean to say that this is an entirely unimportant matter.  In this area as well as others, a church may be more or less pure.  If there are clear New Testament patterns regarding some aspects of church government, then there will be negative consequences in our churches if we disregard them, even if we cannot foresee all of those consequences at the present time.  Therefore Christians are certainly free to speak and write on this subject in order to work for increased purity in the church (Grudem 904-905).

I am in a Sovereign Grace Ministries (SGM) church.  My church ”from time to time,” as Grudem words it, has been twenty-eight years with SGM, and twenty-plus years of that were spent specifically in SGM churches.  I met my wife in an SGM church.  I lost a parent while in SGM.  More than half my life has been spent with SGM.

At a particular Celebration I attended in 1985, I was in a youth class that had Larry T. and C.J.M. as the featured speakers for the next two days.  In C.J.’s class, he had me read a few passages of scripture from my Bible.  At the time, I was using the Amplified Bible, and I read everything that was in parentheses and brackets.  I was highly impressed with myself and C.J. was highly amused by me.  I rode the crest of people being either amused or impressed by me.  I’d grown up in a Christian home.  I said all the right things.  I did all the right things… within earshot and sightline, at least.

It wouldn’t be until 2003 -at least an observable line of demarcation for me- that God would call me out of darkness.  It wouldn’t be at church, it wouldn’t be at a Celebration, it wouldn’t be anywhere near the vicinity of an SGM church.  It would be in a cold, dark room in late Autumn on the first floor of a friend’s house… a friend who’d been charitable enough to take me in, because I was a thousand miles away from my wife.  We were separated, and my world was falling apart.

Flash forward to a few Sundays ago.  The worship leader in my church is giving his testimony of God meeting him in a very desperate hour for him and his family.  I know this man personally, and to see how God’s grace has transformed him moves me to tears.  Not much later, the Senior Pastor is giving his Sunday message, part of an expositional series on one of the Gospels; one that continues a theme of the sufficiency of Christ, when, he begins to acknowledge that we in SGM are rank with an arrogance that somehow we have the corner on the Gospel.  He elaborates, and calls the church to repentance in regard to this.  He is visibly shaken.  He means what he says.  I finally begin to see cracks in the Berlin Wall that holds my SGM church within its compound, and I experience a meltdown.  I thank my God and Savior.  It encourages me to pray harder.  I have hope.

And then Christ gently takes my chin and fixes my gaze upon Himself.  It’s then I realize that SGM is nothing without Him.  I am nothing without Him.  The cosmos is nothing without Him.  I have but to look at Christ to remove all fetters, all pretensions, and all barriers.  I go from meltdown to being destroyed.

God is good.  He is gracious.

The reason I shared the Celebration ‘85 story is because I believe we have many leaders who are amusing or impressive, but like myself in 1985, simply empty on the inside, or full of dead men’s bones.  We need men with the courage to embrace a plurality of eldership –a true plurality minus the man-made concoctions of things like “first among equals.” Can we at SGM not see the blinding and deafening hypocrisy of calling for stringent adherence to qualifications for elders while trimming some qualifications for the “apostles?”

Where do we strike that balance of calling for reform while, in the words of Grudem, being willing to live wherever we may find ourselves “from time to time?”  We’ve hit the thirty-year mark and beyond with SGM and to say we’ve experienced negative consequences is both true and haunting when taken in light of Grudem’s warning: “If there are clear New Testament patterns regarding some aspects of church government, then there will be negative consequences in our churches if we disregard them, even if we cannot foresee all of those consequences at the present time.” (Grudem 905)

Websites like this exist because of the disregard we at Sovereign Grace Ministries have had for not seeking a model of church polity that is, in our words, “God-Glorifying.”  Our leaders have spotted the toothpicks in the eyes of the sheep while neglecting to see the entire treelines of Yellowstone National Park in their own.

This is not just a call for change, but a call for repentance.  To say that we carry this polity on in good conscience while using Paul’s terms like ”Christ and Him crucified,” as a seal of righteousness puts us in a special kind of peril due to trampling on the Gospel!

The reason I shared my story about my worship leader and senior pastor -there was no exaggeration in any of that, by the way- is because there is hope.  Prayers make a difference.  Websites like this, where a call for change and repentance is tempered by prayer and love, make a difference.  And now that I have seen the cracks, the urgency is even greater.

The Bible is not our personal stamp of approval for our theological concoctions; we do not kidnap the Word and hold Him hostage at our convenience.  The Word of God is our life!  Leaders, do not treat this precious volume like you would a personal trainer: here’s a few bucks… get me in shape and make me look good… now please go.

Leaders:

Repent… as in make an about face and go another direction!

Pull the cedars out of your eyes and read the stories on these sites.  Stop dating your flock.  Stop being impressed by your image in the mirror while you mouth the words, “I’m the worst sinner I know.”  This is as dangerous and foolish as the harlequin who unicycles down your street parroting, “There is no God… there is no God… there is no God… squawk!”

Link arms with others in true accountability and do not form circles of yes-men who do your bidding.  You want to mortify sin?  Fall on your face before God and beg His forgiveness for how you’ve abused your flock and left the pasture fallow, stinking and bloody due to your lust for power!  Take an interest in your flock and stop giving them drive-by Hallmark card greetings (a bad rhyme followed by insincere commitments).

Repent… as in make an about face and go another direction!

Tear down your cults of personality.  Stop worshipping each other.  Stop erecting temples that face away from God.  Pray for one another and for three seconds stop “making an observation.”  Give God the Glory and stop giving it to each other.  Go on a sabbatical with just you and the Word.  Feed your sheep the Word of God and stop making them cannibalize each other with man-centered darkness.

Repent… as in make an about face and go another direction!

Give yourselves to your church and stop giving your church copies of Polity.

Stop handing us idols and give us back our King!

…pk

P.S. - “Therefore Christians are certainly free to speak and write on this subject in order to work for increased purity in the church (Grudem 905).”

For an even better therefore, see Romans 8:1-2

…pk

We need a Sabbatical, even if it’s brief, from our discussion on Polity.

But don’t get too comfortable in that hammock.

Today I’d like to re-post a comment that frequent and well-versed commenter Reformed Teacher submitted in the POLITY Episode 3 comments.  It’s worthy of a serious gander, and while reading it, ask yourself these questions (and I’m sure many will crop up on their own):

Do the gates of heaven swing open any wider for the Arminian or the Calvinist?  Is it possible to be a Calminian?  Should one debate this topic at all in the church?  What is your background or stand in this area?  How do you believe the sovereignty of God plays out in the events of history and man’s salvation?  Does debating this strengthen or divide the church?  What is Hyper-Arminianism and what is Hyper-Calvinism?

In our discussion here, debate is acceptable if respect is modeled, and an assurance that we can “agree to disagree agreeably.”

If anything, just enjoy this excellent read by Reformed Teacher: