Rick Warren and Jack Hyles: What’s Changed?

On the approach and strategy of church growth, Rick Warren and Jack Hyles little differ.   With all the studies Warren did to figure out his scheme, he came up with something along the same lines as Hyles.  Hyles is dead but the Hyles methods and men still operate.  I’m not saying that Warren copied Hyles or that they’re twins separated at birth.  Both of them understood human nature and marketing and used that knowledge to formulate their plan.  The big thing is to give people what they want—target a demographic and customize your pitch to fit the target.  Since what allures and attracts men hasn’t changed much, their plans have mirrored each other.  Warren has a little different packaging, but besides that, he could be a Hyles clone.

Warren and Hyles both recognized what most people have long known—the world doesn’t like church.  The world likes what the world likes, which is earthly things, so Warren and Hyles were faced with a conundrum.  They wanted big crowds of unbelievers to be interested in their churches, and yet the world doesn’t like church.  The world isn’t interested in spiritual things, and the church is all about spiritual things.  Therefore, in order to get their big crowds, Warren and Hyles offered the world the things that it liked in order to get unbelievers to come to church.  It really isn’t even that hard.  Certain types of businesses have taken advantage of the same kind of knowledge in order to draw crowds to make money, namely places like amusement parks, rock concerts, arcades, and movie theaters.

There are differences between Warren and Hyles.  In a lot of ways, Hyles is old school in the same kind of strategy as Warren.  A Hyles church would be noticeably different than a Warren church, although there would be some overlap that I have noticed.  I want to talk about the overlap first, however.  Warren and Hyles would both provide fun activities that the world would like.  Both would do a rodeo or carnival to get people to come.  Warren and Hyles would both give out popular food or beverages.  Both would alter their preaching, albeit in different ways, in order to attract and then keep a crowd.  Both would use business marketing techniques that would catch the eye of unsaved people.  So they have an overlap in technique.

On a root level, Warren and Hyles were the same.  They both believed in building a church through inviting unsaved people to church services.  They both believed in trying to get people to come by offering them things they wanted.  They both conformed the church to their church growth ideology, straining theology to fit what it took to have a bigger church.  Both would say it was about seeing more people saved.  Both tried to reproduce their findings, their pragmatism, in others.  Both have had many adherents and headed a movement built around their particular philosophy.  Both used Scripture to justify what they did.  Both attacked those who criticized them.  Both used their size and success to silence their critics.  Both preyed on the pride and the faux security that comes with bigness.

How do Warren and Hyles differ?  Warren and Hyles have cultural differences.  Warren says that finding the kind of music the world likes is the most important part of church growth.  Hyles used music, what he would call evangelistic music, but he would preach against the kind of music Warren uses.  Hyles believed music should be upbeat and fast and exciting, part of a strategy to thrill the unsaved people, but he drew a far more conservative line about what he might use.  Hyles required a dress code.    He expected modest dress, clothes with designed distinctions between men and women, and he dressed up himself, suit and tie.  His workers did the same.  Not Warren.  Warren emphasizes a lower common denominator for appearance; in essence, dress like the world dresses to make the world feel comfortable being with the church.  Warren zeroed even more on what the world liked, the earthly things, even than Hyles.  Warren preaches from multi-versions with the people in mind.  Hyles preached only from the King James Version, but his preaching was heavily entertainment, very little teaching.  They both prioritize the audience, except in different ways.   Both conformed the subject matter to fit the listeners, just in different ways.

Hyles would call Warren worldly.  Warren would call Hyles legalistic.  I would call them both about the same.  Manipulative.  Secular.  Man-centered.  Carnal weaponry.

However, Warren is far more acceptable to evangelicals than Hyles ever would be.  Many young fundamentalists would never accept Hyles.  But they don’t have such a problem with Warren.  John Piper, a real favorite among many evangelicals and young fundamentalists, and even older fundamentalists, is having Warren come to his next Desiring God conference.  That is not a deal-breaker to the Piper crowd.   If Hyles were alive, and he had Hyles, that would end the Piper favoritism.  Of course, Piper would never have Hyles, and really for the same reason young fundamentalists don’t like Hyles.  Hyles wasn’t worldly enough.  Hyles used the King James Version.  Hyles said women shouldn’t wear pants.  Hyles preached too hard against sin, i.e., he was too moralistic.   Hyles would preach against attending the theater, something like Spurgeon was death on.  They like that Warren isn’t that way.

The rock music of Warren, the casual dress of Warren, the earthly popularity of Warren, the hi-tech success of Warren, and, yes, the bigness of Warren—those are all the things about Warren that young fundamentalists and evangelicals approve about Warren.  It’s why Warren is able to go to Piper’s conference.  John MacArthur’s church uses the same type of Warren formula to attract for their Resolved Conference, so they haven’t shucked the Warren brand entirely.  It’s a working plan, especially for the youth culture.  They don’t go quite as far as Warren, just like Hyles wouldn’t go as far as Warren.  Hyles wouldn’t have a hip-thrusting praise team up leading the worship.

Across the street from our church, a Trinity Evangelical grad, that would be well-accepted, I believe, by many young fundamentalists and evangelicals, kicks off his fall program with a parking lot full of jumpers.   Especially since he went to Trinity and that’s where D. A. Carson teaches.   He’s into the big sermon series, playing off some hit movie or the Beatles hits, if not the lyrics of U-2.  Of course, he “gets it.”  He “knows” what’s really important and what isn’t.

Young fundamentalists and evangelicals talk about the old hero worship of the fundamentalists, about how that too much revolved around big personalities.  That hasn’t changed.  That’s the same today.  It’s just different personalities.  And things really aren’t that much different.  There really is quite a bit in common between John Piper, Rick Warren, Mark Driscoll, and Jack Hyles.  Oh, and the young fundamentalists and evangelicals.  Earthly things.  That’s the common ground.   Earthly things help keep their crowds.   Different types of earthly things, but earthly things. And since they keep those earthly things, they stay big and that’s their success.  Not all their success.  But a lot of it.  And God doesn’t get the glory in all of that.  The men do.  Still.

How Much of Preaching Should Be Interpretation and How Much Application?

We know we’re supposed to “preach the Word.”  However, I believe one of the major problems for fundamentalists through the years has been preaching an application that is detached from the Word.  As a result, the folks in the fundamentalist pews have found a lot to be doing without knowing what the Bible says.  They’re doing a lot that they think the Bible teaches without connecting it to what the Bible teaches.  That’s not all.  In the rush to application, a lot of fundamentalist preaching has given the hearers the wrong meaning of Scripture.  In certain revivalist circles of fundamentalism, that’s been fine, because “the Holy Spirit told them to preach that.”  So these “preachers” have perverted and added to the Bible and then blamed it on the Holy Spirit.  This common practice has shattered the discernment of a sizable chunk of fundamentalism and also created a generation of mind-numbed ignoramuses.   This has dawned on some of the victims, so they have gone looking for something more.  They’re converted and really do want God’s Word, so they go looking for it and find it with evangelical expositors and Calvinists.  Granted these don’t use the King James Version, but they also often preach more actual Words of Scripture than those who defend the King James.

Often fundamentalists have attacked biblical preaching that emphasizes the interpretation of scripture by calling it “word only” preaching.   Then eisegetic extrapolations can count as demonstrations of power and the Holy Ghost and short term effects will stand as evidence for the latter without proving the former.  Jack Hyles used to scare his adherents away from exposition by calling this ‘treating the Bible like a math book.’  I heard someone else call it “worse by worse.”  Clever.

Scripture is its meaning. You aren’t preaching the Bible when you don’t preach what it means.  The words can’t somehow circumvent the missed interpretation to find their right way in someone’s heart.   If preaching is the Bible, which it is, then telling people what it says is the only necessity in a sermon.  If you miss that, you haven’t even preached.

The primary term for “preach,” kerusso,  means “to herald.”  The New Testament audience understood the kerux to be a representative of the king who did nothing other than proclaim the king’s message.  He spoke for the king in the king’s words.  I compare his job to a waiter.  The waiter just serves the food.  He won’t add or take away from the food or rearrange it to his liking.  Within the analogy, God is the chef.  He wants the meal to get to the table as He intended it.  Often what is called “application” or “practical sermons” is nothing more than playing with the food on the way to the table or perhaps even better, eating it and then regurgitating it back onto the plate before it gets to its recipient.

Unless someone understands what Scripture means, he can’t even make an application of it.   It’s not practical not to know what the Bible is saying because you can’t practice what you don’t know.  And if you know it, then it’s already practical.  That’s what 1 Timothy 3:16-17 say, that all Scripture is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, and for righteousness.

The primacy of interpretation in preaching  exalts God’s authorship of Scripture.  It says, “He did a good job.” And, “This is fine like it is.”  Or, “If people know this, they’re going to be OK.”  Or even, “I like what He said better than what I think.”  God is the actual authority.  If what comes out of our mouths isn’t what He said, then we replace God in this.  We, of course, can’t replace God as an authority, but if we don’t care if we do or not, we’re verging on, if not committing, a kind of idolatrous practice.

One irony in this is that the “word only” preaching is the preaching that is our words, not His.  His Words do come with power and the Holy Ghost.  They can’t but do that.  Someone may say, “But I seem to get more results and I’ve found that people seem to like it more when I’m more practical, you know.”  It might be true that you might arouse more of the passions of your hearers with preaching that majors on personal application.  However, this is where what we do in this regard must be a matter of faith.  Faith is what pleases God.  And glorifying Him must be our purpose.

The preeminence of application also causes a lot of wrenching of passages from their original intention.  Texts of scripture get shoehorned into a “good sermon.”   When the audience becomes sovereign, the actual teaching of the Bible often becomes mangled beyond recognition.  The hearers might leave with an appreciated bump to their self-esteem or an incentive for more good Christian activity or a clue for an improved personal relationship, but the path to achievement doesn’t honor God nor likely will the performance itself.  God wants and deserves all the credit for the right outcome.  He’ll only get it when that right outcome springs from the divine source, the words that He inspired.

The license men give themselves with their preaching proceeds from their own doubts about the effectiveness of Scripture.   Preaching has taken on the nature of a sales pitch.  However, it isn’t so much that the Bible doesn’t “work.”  It’s just that most people don’t like what it says.  You really don’t have the option of changing Scripture, and yet that’s still what occurs.   You could call it “outcome based preaching.”  You find a message within acceptable parameters that will still meet your desired outcome.  In this way, you adjust your pitch to your target audience to produce the preferred result.  What happens here is that when the Bible doesn’t succeed like the speaker wants, he just changes the Bible.   It’s called “application of the Bible” though.

In John 21 Jesus told Peter to feed His sheep.  That’s what Jesus wants His shepherds to do.  Later in 2 Peter 3:2 we see that Peter understood this to be the “words which were spoken before by the holy prophets” and “the commandment of . . . the apostles of the Lord.”  Let’s make sure that’s what we’re doing, you know, that thing we say we’re doing.

The Apology Owed to Jack Hyles and Jack Schaap pt. 1

As anyone knows, we aren’t Hyles fans here.  But I think Jack Hyles, and while we’re at it, Jack Schaap, are owed an apology.   Don’t get me wrong—Hyles and Schaap deserve  criticism.  They merit the exposure of their errors and have earned the censures they have received.

So why the apology?  The denunciation of Hyles and Schaap should proceed from their false doctrine and practice, their violations of God’s Word.   The reprimands of them or anyone else should not arise from some personal distaste.   We want to protect and propagate the truth out of love for God.  When we desire for God to be honored, then the personalities are irrelevant.   We are honest critics, ready to point the error where we see it.   If we’re not going to be consistent in this, then we should apologize to Hyles and Schaap.    We weren’t doing it for the right reason—it was only personal.

Where men have excoriated Hyles and Schaap, they have remained comparably silent on others with the same doctrinal or practical error.  And I mean in the doctrine or principle behind the negativity over Hyles and Schaap.  In this way, Hyles and Schaap have become the whipping boys for those who don’t seem to have a problem with the actual false doctrine or practice when it is practiced by other men.  This rings of hypocrisy, one that no doubt God can see.

We’re either against a false belief and practice or we are not.   The identity of the person who holds the distortion shouldn’t matter.  So what are the practices of other fundamentalists and evangelicals that parallel those of Hyles and Schaap?

1.  DEPENDENCE ON AND ACCOMMODATION TO THE WISDOM OF MEN FOR CHURCH GROWTH

In 1 Corinthians 1, the Apostle Paul writes in v. 22 that the “Jews require a sign, and the Greeks seek after wisdom.”   Wrong church growth methodology starts with an evaluation of what unsaved people want.  Paul took the opposite tack.  He gave to the Jews what was to them a “stumblingblock” and what was to the Greeks “foolishness” (v. 23).   He just preached the gospel to them.   He didn’t want the growth of the church to stand in the “wisdom of men,” but in the “wisdom of God,” which was “to them that perish foolishness” (v. 18).  Why?  “That no flesh should glory in his presence” (v. 29).   “He that glorieth, let him glory in the Lord” (v. 31).  Men get the glory through the modernistic church growth methods.

Hyles pioneered many of the modern methods of church growth.   A primary strategy of his at First Baptist Church in Hammond was to offer a particular demographic (children) an attraction for church attendance (small toys, candy, soda pop).    The incitement to attend church would fit only the specific demographic, not another one (elderly, middle aged adults, etc.).   Hyles targeted a special group with an appropriate seduction.  Because of the success at increasing attendance, this method was imitated by many.   The Jews required a sign, Greeks wisdom, and children temporary excitement.  Rather than avoiding this wisdom of men, Hyles accentuated it.  Schaap continues it.   This technique directly violates 1 Corinthians 1:18-2:16.

But is it only Hyles?  Consider these recent statements on SharperIron, a fundamentalist forum, by fundamentalist leader Stephen Davis from Calvary Baptist in Lansdale, PA in an article entitled “Planting Urban Churches”:

Church planting involves numerous details such as strategy, demographic studies, . . .

You might be surprised at how many people think that new churches should dance to the same tune as churches which have existed for decades with their well-established traditions. The traditions are not necessarily wrong but may be unnecessary barriers in planting an urban church among those unacquainted with those traditions.

You might need to ask them to be open to different forms of worship, a different leadership style, a different philosophy of ministry, and a different way of living out practical Christianity.

Davis encourages young fundamentalists planting churches to accommodate the urban culture to enhance evangelistic efforts, just to be careful not to be too offensive to mother churches who practice something more “traditional.”  A huge emphasis of the article is this decision for the church planter to cater to the way of life of the inner city lost.

The founder of SharperIron, Jason Janz, chronicled the “launch” of his church in downtown Denver with these words:

At the end of the meeting, we passed out a white envelope to everyone in attendance, and inside it was the balance of our checking account: $1,500. We gave every person $30 cash and asked him to find a person in need and give him the money. As clear as day, God said to me that we should do it again.

I walked into staff meeting on Thursday morning and explained the direction God had placed on my heart. I thought we should do the reverse offering again and give every attendee $10. They all agreed that we should do it in spite of the fact that we only had $2,500 in our checking account and the knowledge that we could have 250 people in attendance.

“God said to” Janz that they should do it again.  This is the very kind of statement that Hyles often used to justify some evangelistic method that he used.

In the last year many fundamentalists expressed outrage over statements criticizing Calvinism by a pastor in a regional Fundamental Baptist Fellowship (FBFI) meeting.  The blog world burned up with articles and comments.  Shortly thereafter, the national meeting of the FBFI titled their corresponding children’s program, “When I grow up, I want to be a fundamentalist.” This as well fired up young fundamentalists. And yet there hasn’t been a peep about the Hyles-like philosophy represented by Davis and Janz from fundamentalists.

And conservative evangelicals?  Or even a conservative evangelical who is the hero of fundamentalists and evangelicals, John Piper?  Piper was in a conference this last year in Cleveland, OH and he answered a question about evangelical pastor Mark Driscoll, and in his answer he said these exact words, imparting his own belief and philosophy about evangelism:

These are weird people comin’ to his church . . . look at this . . . they wouldn’t come to hear me for anything.  They wouldn’t go to my church, but they’ll go to his church.  I’m cuttin’ him a lot of slack because of the mission.  It’s kind of a both/and for me.  You don’t need to go as far as you’ve gone sometime with your language, but I understand what you’re doing missiologically there and I have a lot of sympathy for, because I like to see those people saved.

Mark Driscoll does things in the way of coarse language and other strategies, completely detached from scripture and the Holy Spirit, that make him effective at seeing people saved.  John Piper believes this.

If the fundamentalists and conservative evangelicals are not going to scrutinize and denounce other fundamentalists and evangelicals, then they should just apologize to Jack Hyles and Jack Schaap.  They don’t really care about these false doctrines and practices.  I don’t know what it is, but they’ve got some other agenda.

Side Effects of Revivalism part two

I want to remind anyone reading that I’m writing about the side effects of revivalism, not revival.  Anyone who hasn’t perceived that, with all due respect, isn’t reading very closely.   We can diagnose genuine revival, contrary to someone’s comment on part one.  We use the Bible.  The point a commenter made was that my post assumed that we wouldn’t know if a real revival occurred or not.  No, my post opposed revivalism.  You can know when an occurrence or activity is revivalism, because it is something not regulated by scripture.  We are to make these types of evaluations.  Paul did (1 Corinthians 2).  Jesus did (Matthew 7:13-29), and you could say that John did (1 John) and James did (James).  In the same fashion, we can know based upon the Bible whether we have seen revival too.

I hear justification for revivalism today according to the same old arguments used by its inventors.  Men see results and they choose to attribute it to some kind of parallel with what they read in Acts.  They prayed and saw what they thought were good results mixed with bad.  The problem with revivalism is that more occurs than just prayer.  If men prayed in faith, they would assume that they had done all they could do to prepare for revival.  Prayer assumes that we’re helpless and we must wait on God.   Revivalism assumes in practice that God needs a little help.  He needs our techniques and strategies and marketing and emotionalism and choreography, in addition to prayer.  The Bible isn’t enough either—we’ve got to add our stories and histrionics.

The philosophy of concocting man-made and extra-scriptural activities intended to initiate a burst of salvation decisions is revivalism.   On the other hand, revival is a surge of genuine conversions disconnected from choreographed human efforts.   Revivalism plans revivals.  We can’t plan revivals.  We obey God.  We live by faith.  Sometimes revivals occur.  God gives them.

In this two part series, I am listing and explaining some of the side-effects of revivalism.   These negative consequences demonstrate revivalism and debunk it.

Inordinate Human Ingenuity (cont’)

Formulaic Sanctification

Bible reading and prayer can contribute to the sanctification of the believer.  They also manifest that sanctification.  However,  these two disciplines are not sanctification.   A revivalist Christian, who wants God’s blessing on his life, might think that a habit of Bible reading and prayer will align him sufficiently with God to generate a revival.  This isn’t true.

A revivalist might not need to know what he read in his chapters.  The Bible, he’s been told, is a supernatural book, and it will do something to you irregardless of understanding the meaning of the words.  You let it speak to you.  You pray for it to give you the message you need.  That may not be what it is saying, but still “the Holy Spirit was able to use it in your life.”  This isn’t true either.

The revivalist might think that God will reward him according to the number of hours of “soulwinning” he does.   It could relate to how many verses he memorizes.  He might commit hundreds to memory, and again, not know what they mean, but those English words bouncing around in his head, seeing that they are the same ones found in his King James Bible, will leave a spiritual effect in their wake.  And this also isn’t true.

None of the above is said to discourage prayer, Bible reading, evangelism, and Bible memorization.  All of these can be wonderful spiritual disciplines with their rightful spirit, understanding, and emphasis.  They could be a means to an end.  They might be part of the end in itself.  But not necessarily.

Invented Office

Iain Murray in Revival and Revivalism writes (p. 201):

Revival is not something that men can plan or command as they will; the revivals in the Northeast, which occurred over a period of thirty years, followed no pattern or sequence . . . but why these were years of great harvest, rather than others no one can explain.  It was certainly not because of ‘protracted meetings’ (special evangelistic services), for they were unknown in Connecticut before 1931.

David Benedict in Fifty Years Among the Baptists writes (p. 326):

The revival ministers, as they were called, soon became very popular; they were sent for from far and near, and in many cases very large additions were made to our churches under their ministrations.

The itinerant preacher, who travels from church to church, for a week of meetings, was not an office formed by scripture.  It isn’t the “evangelist” found three times in the New Testament.  Knowing what we see about Philip the Evangelist (Acts 21:8) in Acts 8, that office was more of a church planter, someone who evangelized a community with the possibility in time of an assembly gathering.

Today what is commonly known as “the evangelist” seems to be an invented office.

Methodological Excesses

Many, if not most, programs in local churches are the fruit of revivalism.  The operation of a church in the New Testament reads very simple.  We should assume that this is how God wants us to operate, since the Bible is sufficient.  Many inventions have come out of this movement to aid God through our new measures.  Some have taken other legitimate aspects of church worship to manipulate men.  The revival song, what once was a part of praise directed to God, now takes on the task of enducing men to a saving feeling.  This has been taken to new heights with contemporary Christian music.

Recently popular evangelical pastor John Piper was asked what he thought about the coarse pulpit speech of Mark Driscoll.  As a part of his answer, he excused Driscoll by saying:

These are weird people comin’ to his church . . . look at this . . . they wouldn’t come to hear me for anything.  They wouldn’t go to my church, but they’ll go to his church.  I’m cuttin’ him a lot of slack because of the mission.  It’s kind of a both/and for me.  You don’t need to go as far as you’ve gone sometime with your language, but I understand what you’re doing missiologically there and I have a lot of sympathy for, because I like to see those people saved.

John Piper calls himself a seven-point Calvinist.  He’s the hero all over of professing young evangelical Calvinists.  And yet you get this kind of revivalistic language in which missions has become so dependent on us.  You see  the conclusion here.  Mark Driscoll does things in the way of course language and other strategies, completely detached from scripture and the Holy Spirit, that make him effective at seeing people saved.  John Piper believes this.  And in this case it is the worldliness of Mark Driscoll that he says is causing it.

This understanding of Piper is no different than Jack Hyles or other well-known revivalist fundamentalists through the years.  Perhaps the gimmicks of Driscoll, congratulated by Piper, are more appreciated by the younger evangelical and fundamentalist of the day.  These same would say that they despise revivalism.  They just choose a different brand of it.  Iain Murray writes (p. 412):

Whenever wrong methods are popularised, on the basis of a weak or erroneous theology, the work of God is marred and confused.  Dependence on men, whoever they are, or upon means, is ultimately the opposite of biblical religion.

Decreased Discernment

Inaccurate Assessments

One almost unanimous characteristic of revivalism has been inaccurate assessment of results.  Murray again comments (p. 215):

[T]hese leaders were against treating anyone as a convert simply on profession of faith.  Beecher’s warning against ‘the hasty recognition of persons as converted upon their own judgment, without interrogation or evidence’, was echoed by all his brethren.

The revivalists are often anxious to quote post meeting successes as proof of the genuineness of the experience.  In the same audio of Piper above in his answer about the methods of Driscoll, he mentions the “four hundred” whom Driscoll had “baptized” on Easter Sunday as reason for admiration.  For Hyles, it may have been his 3,000 “new converts” on a Pentecost Sunday.

What is ironic about many of the false results of revivalists is that the methods produce the results and the results validate the method.  This is a destructive circular reasoning that circumvents the Word of God as the authority for faith and practice.  Ignoring the Bible leaves solely human evaluation, which falls short as a means of discernment (John 17:17).

Wrong Credit

Because revivalism depends so much on man’s methods and inducements, he gets the credit no matter how much he might protest it.  This is in part why Paul said what he said in 1 Corinthians 2.  We see the purpose of keeping man out of God’s work in v. 5:

That your faith should not stand in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God.

God doesn’t want the results of His work to be understandable, we see that in the last several verses of 1 Corinthians 1:

27 But God hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise; and God hath chosen the weak things of the world to confound the things which are mighty; 28 And base things of the world, and things which are despised, hath God chosen, yea, and things which are not, to bring to nought things that are: 29 That no flesh should glory in his presence. 30 But of him are ye in Christ Jesus, who of God is made unto us wisdom, and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption: 31 That, according as it is written, He that glorieth, let him glory in the Lord.

God doesn’t choose things that seem to men like they will work.  God chooses to use what looks like it would never work.  It does work, not because of man’s cleverness, but because of the power of God.

Genuine Christians will be concerned when God isn’t glorified by what they do.  They won’t fight to defend their own turf and reputations.  They want something real.  In the end, what we produce will produce a lot of us, yet telling people that it is God producing something of God.  We’ve got to be scriptural, transparent, and honest about this.  When we follow God’s ways, the world will despise it, but God will be pleased and praised.

The Prayer for Power

In his day, probably no one was more well known for exhorting professing Christians to pray for power than the late Jack Hyles, the long time pastor of First Baptist Church in Hammond, Indiana and father-in-law of the present pastor there, Jack Schaap.  He influenced thousands of men toward this practice.   He wrote this in his book, The Fulness of the Spirit:

We prayed from 1:00 until 2:00; from 2:00 until 3:00; from 3:00 until 4:00; from 4:00 until 5:00 and sometime between 5:00 and 6:00 in the morning the sweet power of God settled upon us, and I knew that God had given me some fresh power, some fresh oil, as spoken of by the Psalmist in Psalm 92:10, “But my horn shalt thou exalt like the horn of an unicorn: I shall be anointed with fresh oil.”

Hyles said that prayer was the means of getting this power.  He explained:

The question immediately comes: How may this power be obtained? Of course, there are obvious steps such as separation from the world, faithfulness to the cause of Christ, hours of studying the Word, obedience to the commands of God and to the will God, etc., but the main thing is for a Christian to be so sincere that he pays the price in agonizing and pleading and tarrying, begging God for His power. Notice Luke 11:5-13, “And He said unto them, Which of you shall have a friend, and shall go unto him at midnight, saying unto him, Friend, lend me three loaves; for a friend of mine in his journey is come to me, and I have nothing to set before him? And he from within shall answer and say, trouble me not: the door is now shut, and my children are with me in bed; I cannot rise and give thee. I say unto you, Though he will not rise and give him, because he is his friend, yet because of his importunity he will rise and give him as many as he needeth. And I say unto you, Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you. For every one that asketh receiveth; and he that seeketh findeth; and to him that knocketh it shall be opened. If a son shall ask bread of any of you that is a father, will he give him a stone? or if he ask a fish, will he for a fish give him a serpent? or if he shall ask an egg, will he offer him a scorpion? If ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children: how much more shall your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to them that ask Him?” The word “importunity” in verse 8 means “much begging.”

Because prayer was the means Hyles believed was how to get the power that was a necessity for success, he reported:

On my desk I see the words, “Pray for power.” Behind my desk I see the words, “Pray for power.” In the Bible that is in my lap I see the words, “Pray for power.” On the mirror where I shave I see the words, “Pray for power.” On the door leading from my office into the hallway I see the words, “Pray for power.” Hundreds of times a day I plead with God for His power. Then, of course, there are seasons of prayer when I go alone with God to plead for the power of God.

What else is Hyles’ basis for this? He didn’t invent the subject, even as he argued:

I read about John Wesley, who at three o’clock in the morning on October 3, 1738, after having prayed with a number of preachers for most of the night was filled with the Holy Spirit. His ministry was never the same. I read about George Fox, who went alone for two weeks begging for the power of God, and how his life was transformed. I read about Peter Cartwright, who had been filled with the Holy Spirit and mighty power came upon him. I read of George Whitefield, who on June 20, 1736, was ordained to preach. As he knelt at the altar, Bishop Benson laid his hands on the young preacher and George Whitefield knew then and there that he was filled with the Holy Spirit! I read about George Muller, who was filled with the Holy Spirit the first time he ever saw Christians on their knees in prayer. I read how Billy Sunday used to preach every sermon with his Bible open to Isaac 61:1 and how the Spirit of God came on him. My heart began to burn from within! “Was this for me as well as for them? Was that power that Moody had and Wesley had and Whitefield had and Billy Sunday had available for little Jack Hyles, a poor country preacher in east Texas?”

Hyles sought the same experience for himself. According to him, he got it.

I began to walk in the woods at night. Night after night I would walk and cry and pray an beg for power. My heart was hungry. I got a Cruden’s Concordance and looked up the terms, “Holy Ghost,” “Spirit of the Lord,” “Spirit of God,” etc. I looked up every Scripture in the Bible that had to do with the Holy Spirit. I read in Judges 6:34 that the Spirit of the Lord came upon Gideon and in Judges 14;6 how the Spirit of the Lord came upon Samson and in 1 Samuel 11:6 how the Spirit of God came upon Saul. I read in 1 Samuel 16:13 how the Spirit of the Lord came upon David. I read in Acts 9:17 where Paul was filled with the Holy Ghost and in Luke 4:1 where Jesus was full of the Holy Ghost. My heart burned! I needed something. I needed the blessed power of God. I needed the fulness of the Holy Spirit. I didn’t understand all the Scriptures. I read in Luke 3:16 the words, “He shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost and with fire.” I read in Acts 1:4 the mention of the “promise of the Father.” In Luke 24:49 I found the words, “be endued with power from on high.” In Acts 1:8, I found the words, “after that the Holy Ghost is come upon you.” In Acts 2:17, I learned of the “pouring out of the Spirit” and in Ephesians 5:18, I found the term, “filled with the Spirit.”

I was not seeking sinless perfection nor was I trying to name what I wanted God to give me. I had no desire to speak in tongues nor did I even desire to have some kind of an experience. I just wanted God to work in the hearts of the people while I preached and witnessed. Could it be for me? Yes, it was for Samson, for Gideon, for Torrey, for Moody, for Billy Sunday, for Jonathan Edwards, for Muller, for Whitefield, for George Fox, for Christmas Evans, for Savonarola, for Peter Cartwright, for John Rice, for Bob Jones, for Lee Roberson, but was it for me? I was just a country preacher. I can recall how my eyes fastened on Isaiah 40:31 and Acts 2:4 and Acts 4:31. I was hungry!

“I must have results. I must have power.” I can recall saying to God, “I’m not going to be a normal preacher. I’m not going to be a powerless preacher.”

Night after night I would walk through the pine thickets of east Texas, up and down the sand hills, begging God for His power. If you had driven down Highway 43 outside Marshall, Texas, on the way to Henderson, Texas, in the wee hours of the morning, you could have heard me praying, “Where is the Lord God of Elijah?” and begging God to give me power.

I was losing weight. I couldn’t eat. What I did eat came back up! My family was worried about me. My deacons got together and said to me, “Pastor, you’ve got to take care of yourself. You are going to get bad sick.”

Then came May 12, 1950. All night I prayed! Just about sunrise I fell to my face in some pine needles and told God I would pay the price, whatever it was, for the power of God! I did not know what I was saying. I did not know what that meant.

In less than four hours, my phone rang in our little country parsonage. The operator said that it was a long distance call for Reverend Jack Hyles. She put the call through and a voice said, “This is Mr. Smith. I work with your dad. Reverend Hyles, your dad just dropped dead with a heart attack.” I put the phone down. I could not believe what I had heard. . . . On May 13, 1950, Mother’s Day afternoon, we had a little service in the chapel. We then followed the hearse about 50 miles south to a little cemetery on the northeast corner of Italy, Texas, where two of my little sisters were buried. Down near the creek was a hole in the ground. They lowered my daddy’s body in the grave. Not long after, I returned to that grave and fell on my face and told God I was not going to be a powerless preacher any more and that I was not going to leave that grave until something happened to me. I don’t know how long I stayed. It may have been hours; it may have been days. I lost all consciousness and awareness of time. I did not become sinlessly perfect nor did I talk in another language nor was I completely sanctified, but my ministry was transformed!

Hyles regularly told the story of begging on his father’s grave.   What I noticed was that the details of the story often changed, especially how long he stayed at the grave.   I would have a couple of questions about the power that Jack Hyles claimed to have received from God.

• Why didn’t the power work toward the raising of his son, Dave Hyles?  How did it selectively affect one area, how big his church got, but it circumvented where the power should have been having the greatest impact, on his son?  When Jack Hyles was disqualified from the office of the pastor, why didn’t the power take him the direction that the Bible takes disqualified pastors?
• If someone has that kind of power, why do they also need gimmicks in order to get people to church?  Wouldn’t the power be a greater force for persuasion than a small toy or candy?  And then in the end, God would be glorified, because it was His power and not a gimmick, wouldn’t He?

Those are just two sets of questions that commonly come to my mind when I think about the power of Jack Hyles.  The Bible reveals the real manifestations of the power of the Holy Spirit in someone’s life.  We can be satisfied with those.   The late John R. Rice, who had a lot of impact on Jack Hyles, in We Can Have Revival Now! talked of the same experience:

Charles G. Finney would frequently feel some lack of power and blessing and would set apart a day of fasting and prayer “for a new baptism of the Holy Ghost,” as he was wont to say. Moody sought God unceasingly for two years, until he was mightily endued with power. Dr. R.A. Torrey started the prayer meeting in Moody Church in Chicago and there prayed for two years that God would send a great revival. Then suddenly a committee from Australia came and sought out Torrey, the Bible teacher who had never been much thought of as an evangelist, and Torrey began the mighty campaigns in Australia that led him finally around the world, with hundreds of thousands of souls saved under his great ministry. Torrey learned to pray, so he learned to have revivals.

Hyles and Rice and that branch of fundamentalism are not alone in talking about this practice.  In his article, “Philosophy of Evangelism,” the more recent Mark Herbster writes:

[The evangelist] must pray for power and liberty in his preaching. The evangelist must have this grace from God alone. He cannot and will not be able to carry on within his own strength and power. He must be filled with Holy Spirit fire.

You will find some of these same thoughts in some unlikely sources.  The late D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones wrote:

The prayer for power is always in evidence in the history of the Church prior to revival.

Robert L. Thomas comments:

[Paul] climaxes his own prayer in [Ephesians] 1:15-23 by pleading God’s power for believers.  In 3:14-21, he commences his intercession with prayer for power.  He seeks power from God, for “power belongs to God” (Ps. 62:11). . . .  Such power from the God of power comes to prayer to Him.

DOES THE BIBLE TEACH CHRISTIANS TO PRAY FOR GOD’S POWER?

No.  Scripture doesn’t teach us anywhere to pray for God’s power.   I can understand people wanting a kind of power that can do the things that these men covet.   I believe it is akin to a generation of people that seeks after signs.  Of course, we know what Jesus said about that generation.    This teaching, which isn’t in the Bible, comes from three sources:  poor exegesis of the Scripture, personal experiences, and historical anecdotes.  Certain scriptural truths clear this up.

We Already Have All of God’s Power the Moment We Are Justified

According as his divine power hath given unto us all things that pertain unto life and godliness, through the knowledge of him that hath called us to glory and virtue:  Whereby are given unto us exceeding great and precious promises: that by these ye might be partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust.  2 Peter 1:3-4

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ.  Ephesians 1:3

God’s divine power has given us believers  “all things that pertain unto life and godliness.”  Do you think that we need anything else to live the Christian life?   The Greek begins the sentence with “all things.”  That’s even the emphasis.   We’ve got everything we need for our entire life in the way of any and every resource we need right when we’re justified.   “Hath given” is a perfect passive participle in the Greek.    The perfect tense expresses that all those things that we’ve been given can’t be taken away.  They are ongoing for the believer.

God has also given us every spiritual blessing that there is.  Do we need more spiritual blessing than every spiritual blessing?  What are we saying to God when He says we have every spiritual blessing, but we come to Him in prayer as if we haven’t been given that.  One of the passages quoted in support for praying for power was Ephesians 1:15-23.   The pertinent section (vv. 17-19) reads:

That the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give unto you the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of him:  the eyes of your understanding being enlightened; that ye may know what is the hope of his calling, and what the riches of the glory of his inheritance in the saints, and what is the exceeding greatness of his power to us-ward who believe, according to the working of his mighty power.

This was used by Robert Thomas from Master’s Seminary to back up a point to pray for power.   The prayer is for a spirit of wisdom and knowledge, so that your understanding is enlightened so that you will “know” what is the exceeding greatness of his power.  The prayer is not for power.  It prays for a kind of knowledge that would know the power that a Christian already possesses.  “Know” there is experiential knowledge.  Paul prays that the Ephesians believers will experience the power that they already have.  Our problem is not that we lack in power.  We have that.  Our problem is that we forget that we already have it so that we don’t use it.

The Holy Spirit is God, so He possesses all the power of the universe.  The Holy Spirit moved upon the face of the waters in Genesis 1:2 and created energy—gravitational force, electromagnetic force, and nuclear force.  The Holy Spirit indwells all believers.

But ye are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit, if so be that the Spirit of God dwell in you. Now if any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his.  And if Christ be in you, the body is dead because of sin; but the Spirit is life because of righteousness.  But if the Spirit of him that raised up Jesus from the dead dwell in you, he that raised up Christ from the dead shall also quicken your mortal bodies by his Spirit that dwelleth in you.  Romans 8:9-11

We don’t need to pray for power because we already have the power.   The prayer for power is actually a lack of faith.   We need to access the power we already possess.  We experience the power by yielding to the Holy Spirit.  We don’t need power.  We need yieldedness.  I feel sorry for people who are praying for power.  They feel like spiritual have-nots and they don’t have to.

Let me illustrate.  Fred gives you all his money, a million dollars.  You need ten dollars.  You don’t use the million that you already have.  Instead, you ask Fred, who has given you all of his dollars, to give you the ten.  It is absurd.  It questions the sufficiency of God’s provision at your justification.  It is not a prayer in God’s will.

Some may ask and rightly so, “Well, if these famous men prayed for power and they didn’t actually get anything out of that prayer, then why is it that they saw so many great things happen?”  This is where biblical discernment comes in.  I’m not responsible to explain everything that happens.   I’ve got to judge based on what God’s Word says.  Lots of false beliefs look like they’re working.  One amazing blessing about this particular branch of false doctrine is that now we have some history to see where a lot of these results ended.  We get the gift of hindsight to see that the extra-scriptural and unscriptural behavior didn’t have long-lasting results in many cases.  It even often hatched monstrosities.

Yes, many times the consequences do last and good things turn out.  God is a good God.  He will bless despite us.  That doesn’t justify unbiblical beliefs and activity.

The Holy Spirit Was Poured Out in the Book of Acts and Will Be Again Just Once in the Future

We don’t pray for the Holy Spirit because He’s already here.  We don’t pray for the Holy Spirit’s power because the Holy Spirit is God.  He already has unlimited power.  The outpouring of the Holy Spirit, which was prophesied by John the Baptist, was fulfilled on the Day of Pentecost in Acts 2.   For the next outpouring of the Holy Spirit to occur, He will have to leave, which He will (2 Thessalonians 2:7).   The Holy Spirit will be outpoured one more time, when He comes to indwell Jews saved in the tribulation period (Joel 2:28-29).

The reason the apostles were praying for the Holy Spirit in Luke 24:49 and taught to pray for Him in Luke 11:13 was because He hadn’t come yet.  Something similar is Jesus’ teaching that we should pray for His kingdom to come.  When we get into the kingdom, we won’t be praying to get into it anymore.  Even so, since we already received the Holy Spirit, we don’t need another outpouring of Him.  Saved Jews in God’s tribulation will get the second outpouring.  That is not for believers today who have already received the Holy Spirit the first time.

When you read Hyles’ teaching above from his book on the fulness of the Spirit, you see that he strung together a whole lot of verses from all over without context or explanation to come to the conclusion that he wanted people to make.  Usually he proceeded to stories from there and that was where Hyles real authority came from.  People were knocked over by his personal examples.  If you heard him enough times, you started to discern that parts to the stories would change and contradict.

If you pay attention to the verses and even look up their contexts, you would see that Hyles isn’t careful to differentiate between “filling” and “baptism.”  This is a common error for the revivalist.   The two do not mean the same thing.  Jesus had the disciples praying for the baptism of the Spirit.   In Luke 24:49 He instructed them to do so, that is, stay in Jerusalem and pray for that particular event or experience.  However, once the Holy Spirit had come, they were to be filled with the Spirit.  The baptism was an event.  The filling is ongoing.

I hear people pray for Holy Spirit filling.  I believe that many of them do so because they are mixing those two words around.  We don’t pray for baptism of the Spirit because that’s already over.  They prayed for that and then it was answered.  Filling isn’t something we pray for.  We are filled with the Spirit by yielding ourselves to the Holy Spirit’s control.  Then we are filled.  When I hear someone praying for Holy Spirit filling, I believe he is confused about his responsibility.  God commands us to be filled with the Spirit (Ephesians 5:18), so it isn’t something we pray for.  We just yield ourselves to the Holy Spirit, and He will fill us.  He wants to do that.

Deconstructing Fugate and Schaap and a Conclusion about Ranking Doctrines

You can buy Oxy 10 (strong zit cream) now that performs two tasks—dries up the pimple and covers it with a flesh tone coloring.  It’s both a medicine and a make-up.  Teenagers, no more need for those unsightly bandaids waiting for a bad blemish to heal.   This essay will also multi-task by delivering my break-down of the Fugate-Schaap fight and finish up the actual topic of the month—Ranking Doctrines.  The first will surely bring the largest crowd (fitting for Fugate and Schaap) and the latter will draw the most commentary.   This month our blog has had more readers in its bathroom than other blogs have had in their auditoriums.  Jeff Fugate and Jack Schaap are google gold.

Fugate and Schaap

I still get The Church Bus News, once printed by Wally “Mr. Bus” Beebe, and since his death, the domain of Jeffrey Fugate of Lexington, KY.  I get the major mailings, including The Voice, from First Baptist in Hammond, now headquarters for Jack Schaap.  Like most of you, first I received the special edition of the Fugate magazine (23 pp) and a little later Schaap’s answer (16 pp).  The same day as Schaap’s reply to Fugate, I got the surreal letter to Jack Hyles written by Russell Anderson.   I’ve never been in the Fugate/Schaap loop, but I was happy to have them tell me what they thought about the doctrine of preservation and the King James Version.

Fugate and Schaap represent the Hyles’ branch of fundamentalism.  Schaap took the mantle from Hyles.  He refers to the moment on p. 2:

On his (father-in-law, Jack Hyles) deathbed he took my hand and stated pointedly, ‘I love many people, but I don’t trust them all.’  He paused, squeezed my hand, and continued, ‘I trust you, Jack, with everything I have.’  It was a holy and sacred moment for me.

Schaap has done a phenomenal job in keeping the Hyles’ circus going.  I would not have thought anyone could do it.  He has.  Fugate had to settle, it seems, for getting Russell Anderson, which is a feather in his Hyles cap, but he is a simple Hyles’ grad with a Hyles honorary doctorate, which can’t compare to being in Hyles’ family and getting the Hyles’ death bed handshake.

Synopsis

For those who haven’t seen the mailings, let me start with the Fugate one.  Around a huge, half page picture of himself, Fugate explained and justified his mailing on pp. 2-3.  On pp. 4-5 he presented quotes from Jack Hyles on the subject from Hyles’ book, The Need for an Every-Word Bible.  Fugate printed a chapter from a recent Ms. Gail Riplinger book from p. 6 to p. 12.  Fugate wrote a chapter called “The Inspired, Preserved Word” from pp. 13-17, and then reproduced his “Open Letter to Dr. Schaap” from p. 18 to p. 23.

On the top fold of the newsprint style Special Pastor’s Edition of The Voice read in giant red letters, “Dr. Jack Schaap Speaks on Inspiration and the King James Bible.”  On the top 1/3 of the first page, but numbered p. 2, in about 25 pt. font, Schaap stated what he believes, and after that an open letter to no pastor in particular, p. 3 an answer to eight different questions that he said he had received from various people, pp. 4-5 his Jack Hyles pages, quoted for his own defense, pp. 6-7 excerpts from two different booklets in which he deals with this subject—Why Stand against the King James Bible? and Dr. Jack Schaap Answers, p. 8 the doctrinal statements of seventeen different Baptist schools to support his position, and pp. 9-11 letters from deacons, staff, Charles Colsten, Wendell Evans, and Ray Young in full support of Schaap.   The last three pages were miscellaneous defenses of the Schaap position—one the letter to the readers by the KJV translators, dictionary definitions of “inspiration,” lexiconal entries for theopneustos, and ending with observations and conclusion.

Both of them quote Hyles for their own purposes.  Ironically, I believe that it was possible to defend more than one position with Hyles’ words.  Hyles would say that he always took the same position, but if you read his early Revelation commentary,  you’d see that he commonly corrected the KJV in that book.  Then later he turned to the position that said someone could not be converted except through the KJV.  In between there, he made many varied and contradictory statements on the subject, so much so that men with different positions both use him to defend themselves.

Schaap Mistakes

Fugate and Schaap make convoluted or inaccurate statements.  In the large font on p. 2 Schaap wrote what is his official position:

I believe the King James Version of the Bible is the divinely preserved translation of the inspired Word of God for English speaking peoples.

What’s wrong with that?  It isn’t easy to understand.  I can’t tell what he believes about the underlying Greek and Hebrew text by that statement.  I don’t know what he believes about inspiration or preservation from the statement.  Someone asked Schaap this question:  “If we believe in divine preservation, don’t we then believe that the inspired words were preserved in their inspired state?”  As part of his answer, he made this statement:  “We have copies of an English translation that came from copies of other translations, etc., etc.” By the time he was done, I couldn’t tell what he believed.

When you read the official position of the church and college, you find the same indecipherable type of statement (p. 9):

Furthermore, we believe the Scriptures were translated, copied, and preserved under the watchful care of divine providence and that the English speaking peoples of today have in the King James Version of the Scriptures an accurate, reliable, divinely preserved translation of the Scriptures.

It says the Scriptures were translated, copied, then preserved.  Isn’t copying the way they were preserved?  Wasn’t the copying or preservation of Scriptures done before they were translated?  Nothing else that was written by Schaap or any others from Hyles-Anderson cleared this up.

Fugate Failings

Gail Riplinger took up the bulk of the space for Fugate, carrying the doctrinal water for him.  She wrote on p. 6:

The actual ‘originals’ have not been the recipient of the promise of preservation, as they have long since dissolved.

I haven’t read anything that Riplinger has written until this paper.  She made the above inane statement in the second sentence of her presentation.   She said there was no “promise of preservation” of the ‘originals’ because they have long since “dissolved.”  How does a promise of preservation relate to whether we still possess the originals or not?  The absence of originals doesn’t change what Scripture promises or doesn’t promise.  And how do the “originals” receive a promise anyway?  God wrote promises to people, not to manuscripts of the Bible.  The next sentence brings confusion to what she even means by “originals”:

As is demonstrated in detail in the previous chapters of Greek and Hebrew Study Dangers, all currently printed Greek and Hebrew editions contain errors.

From that statement you can see where we’re headed with Riplinger, but you can also see that when she says “originals,” she doesn’t mean “original manuscripts” but “original languages.”   So she is saying that Scripture doesn’t promise original language preservation.  So what does it promise about preservation?  We’ll get there.

On top of that, how does Riplinger know that every Hebrew and Greek text has errors?  She doesn’t possess the original manuscripts, so she doesn’t know that.  She can’t compare any of the editions of the Hebrew and Greek text of Scripture with their original manuscripts, so she can’t even come to that conclusion.  What she should conclude, based upon a biblical view of inspiration and preservation found in God’s promises in His Word, is that we do have all of the Words without error in the Hebrew and Greek text of Scripture.

But that isn’t where Ms. Riplinger is headed as she teaches us her bibliology.  She claims to know that we don’t have a perfect original language Bible, but what we do have is a perfect translation of the Bible.  So a perfect translation came from a corrupt text.  And she based that upon what?

The answer to the question, ‘Where is the living word of God’ lies in God’ s promise given to Isaiah 28 and fulfilled in Acts 2.  “With men of other tongues and other lips will I speak . . . saith the Lord” (1 Cor. 14:21) [bold hers].

What do you think of that exegesis?  She concludes that God is telling us in 1 Corinthians 14:21 that His Word would come with men of other tongues—not Hebrew and Greek ones—and we know now that they are English ones.  We’re supposed to read that out of that verse from Paul in 1 Corinthians 14 (I wish she had read a little further down to 1 Cor 14:29-35 and practiced that instead).

She has many more errors, crazy ones, as you continue to read her.   Her writing should be respected by no one.  What you can see that she believes  is that we didn’t have a perfect Bible from the moment those original manuscripts “dissolved” until we got the King James Version (1611 or 1769?).  She is a living example of why women shouldn’t be teaching doctrine to men (1 Timothy 2:9-15).  When Schaap challenged Fugate on the phone about learning theology from a woman, Fugate’s comeback was (p. 23):

Gail Riplinger is a woman who holds an honorary doctorate from Hyles-Anderson college for her work on the KJB.

Somebody should tell her that her career in doctrinal mangling is over.

What kind of respect does Fugate hold for Riplinger? This really shows you the caliber of these types of men.  Not only is half his presentation a chapter from her book, but then he writes his section and plagiarizes paragraphs of her from the very chapter that he printed.  Some editor should have stopped chewing his bazooka and informed him of this.  On p. 15 in the first column and on p. 16 at the bottom of the first column and top of the second, Fugate plagiarizes almost word-for-word two paragraphs of Riplinger’s chapter located at the bottom of the last paragraph on p. 6 and then the last paragraph on p. 7.

Trying to be the diplomat, Schaap wrote this on the back page of his paper:

I don’t think any one of us could slide a piece of paper between our differences.

I want to go on record to say that there is far more than paper-thin differences between the scriptural position and what most of the Hylots have written.  Try a boulder.

An Aside

As an aside, the new filing director at Sharper Iron, Greg Linscott, linked to Dave’s last article on Schaap-Fugate.  It is presently the most visited thread of their filing section and heavily commented.  One of their moderators, a “Larry,” wrote this about Dave:

The irony of this article is that someone who does not have a biblical doctrine of preservation is complaining that someone else who doesn’t have a biblical doctrine of preservation doesn’t have a biblical doctrine of preservation.

That’s all he said.  Clever, huh?  He didn’t say how it was unscriptural, just that it was.  It’s throwing raw meat to the MVO (multiple version only) crowd.  He knows it.   Classic fundamentalism.  What is truly ironic is a person with no biblical doctrine of preservation, Larry, saying that Dave doesn’t have one.   I’ve never ever heard an MVO advocate, someone like Larry, ever start with the Bible to come to his position on preservation.  As a matter of fact, they believe that you start with textual criticism and then restrain your doctrine from keeping the “evidence” from leading you to the “truth.”   Larry’s view of preservation is the new post-enlightenment position that all of the doctrines of scripture have been preserved, not the words.  You won’t find it in the Bible.

Final Comments about Ranking Doctrines

In the previous three posts of mine about reducing scripture to essentials and non-essentials, I haven’t presented much of a scriptural argument against that position and practice.  In my first installment, I linked to a five part series that I had already written, that did give a biblical basis for an every teaching is essential approach.  I also argued against the defense mounted by the other side.  I would like to spend a little time dealing with their main arguments.  I contend that their main point isn’t in the Bible at all and it is invented only to maintain a type of fake unity between all believers.  However, here are some of the passages to which they refer to state their case.

1 Corinthians 15:3

For I delivered unto you first of all that which I also received, how that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures;

Those who rank doctrines see this verse as inferring this practice.  They understand “first” (protos) as “first in importance.”  They explain that Paul is saying that the gospel is foremost of all the doctrines, based on this text.  This is how the New American Standard and the English Standard Versions translate protos.  Protos more often means “first in time.”  If it does mean “first in importance,” then Paul could be saying that the gospel is foremost in this chapter.  With such relative ambiguity, we shouldn’t base a doctrine on the understanding of this one word.  Even if it does mean “most important,” then it is an even further stretch to say that it is the only doctrine or one of the few doctrines worth separating over.

Matthew 23:23

Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye pay tithe of mint and anise and cummin, and have omitted the weightier matters of the law, judgment, mercy, and faith: these ought ye to have done, and not to leave the other undone.

Essential or non-essential people infer their practice from the use of the word “weightier” (barus).  The Pharisees paid tithe on certain small herbs, but didn’t accomplish the “weightier” matters of the law, like mercy, etc.  What are “weightier matters?”  Barus carries with it the understanding of “difficulty.”  The Pharisees chose to do the easier things, tithing their little herbs.  Jesus is refuting the ranking of doctrines.  They had voided certain practices and replaced them with other easier ones.  Why?  The easier ones they could do on their own.  This is a major reason why men will rank doctrines–because they don’t see how they can keep everything that God said.  They’re right.  They can’t do it, which is why they need justification by faith.

1 Corinthians 16:22

If any man love not the Lord Jesus Christ, let him be Anathema Maranatha.

Certain violations come with severe punishment.   Those ranking doctrines  say that this indicates that these issues are essential, rated ahead of other doctrines or practices.  If someone doesn’t love Jesus, then he isn’t saved.  That’s why he is cursed.   It is ironic that people who do love the Lord Jesus will keep everything that He says (John 14:21-24).  In other words, “Anathema Maranatha” if you won’t do everything that Jesus says to do.

1 Corinthians 3:11-13

For other foundation can no man lay than that is laid, which is Jesus Christ.  Now if any man build upon this foundation gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, stubble; Every man’s work shall be made manifest: for the day shall declare it, because it shall be revealed by fire; and the fire shall try every man’s work of what sort it is.

Jesus is foundational to everything.   No one is arguing with that.  We must believe in Jesus Christ or all other doctrine or practice won’t matter to someone’s life and eternity.  In 2 Peter 1, believers will add virtue to faith and knowledge to virtue.   That doesn’t mean that faith is more important than virtue.

Romans 14:5

One man esteemeth one day above another: another esteemeth every day alike. Let every man be fully persuaded in his own mind.

Romans 14 applies to non-scriptural issues.  Colossians 2:16 says that we shouldn’t judge one day above another because they are merely shadows of Christ.  1 Corinthians 5:7 says that Christ is our passover.  Days are not a doctrinal issue.  You can’t apply this to scriptural doctrine and practice.

Philippians 3:15

Let us therefore, as many as be perfect, be thus minded: and if in any thing ye be otherwise minded, God shall reveal even this unto you.

This verse has been used for ranking doctrines.   It isn’t remotely about that.  What is the “same mind” that Paul wanted the Philippians to have with him? It was the same mind or attitude of this pursuit of Christlikeness that he just talked about in the context. Paul uses sarcasm with the term “perfect,” because he himself had just said that nobody had reached perfection until they reach Christ. If they weren’t going to have that mindset of pursuing Christlikeness, then his hope was that God would expose this wrong way of thinking and help them change it.

I’ve already made arguments for not having the essential/non-essential teaching over at my blog in a five part series.  I’ve only dealt with the other side here.  I’ve found that this is all they’ve got to offer.

Defining What Fellowship Is

In the comment section, one brother asked me about fellowship, to define what it was.  I thought it would be worth doing here.   I’m not fellowshiping with someone at the park with whom I’m playing pick-up basketball.  I might take an unsaved person out to lunch.  That isn’t fellowship if I have the purpose of evangelism.  I’m on the board of two orchestras.  That isn’t fellowship, even though there are other Christians on one of the boards.  Winning an election and joining Congress isn’t fellowship.

Fellowship is an association with a common spiritual purpose and goal.  I may talk to another professing believer who believes differently than me.  We can sit down for coffee or a meal with the attitude that we are attempting to be in fellowship if possible.  This may take many visits.  I know that these two paragraphs don’t deal with every situation.

Conclusion

Sometimes the word “core” is used. I see it spreading.  Core values. And then fancy words like triage, which puts people in such a daze that they refuse to keep thinking about it. Taxonomy is another one. None of these are taught in Scripture. “Fundamental” is very much like “foundational.” I have no doubt that certain doctrines are “foundational.” For instance, who cares if you practice complementarianism when you are not saved. Being saved is foundational. It could also be fundamental in that sense.

But let’s be clear. We know why “core” and all these exciting new theological terms are being used. Men want to be able to water down belief and practice and not be punished for it. The world loves minimizing and reducing, so these same churches will be more popular with the world. And then all the churches that love being popular will also be popular with each other. It’s like a big peace treaty that we could hand out a Christian version of the Nobel Peace prize. We can all smile at each other and get along while we disobey what God said. Then you’ve got a guy that says everything is important, and that’s, you know, an attack on unity. It’s a fake unity like what people have at a family reunion.  Real unity is based on what God said.

Fugate v. Schaap, Round 2 (ding, ding!)

We are seeing the fulfillment of Paul’s prophecy in our desire to rank doctrine. Every young preacher boy is taught Paul’s instruction to Timothy in 2 Timothy 4:2.

Preach the word; be instant in season, out of season; reprove, rebuke, exhort with all longsuffering and doctrine.

In the next verse, Paul gives a reason for this instruction, making the instruction all the more important.

For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but after their own lusts shall they heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears; And they shall turn away their ears from the truth, and shall be turned unto fables.

That time has come. We have lost our taste for sound doctrine. We teach after our lusts the message we want to teach, with a desire only to have a text for the sake of the audience which demands one. The natural result is that we have turned away the ears of many from the truth, and in many cases the truth has been turned into fables.

Of course, as an Independent Baptist, I want to blame the neo’s for this. They are, after all, the most convenient target, sorta like TV and MTV is the easiest of the cultural targets. But it would not be entirely accurate to blame the neo’s. In fact, in the Independent Baptist circles, we find a frequent disregard for God’s Word in our understanding of doctrine. We ‘preach,’ sure.  We ‘preach’ in the sense that we rail, snort, stomp, slap our thighs, wave our hankies, wave our Bibles, wave our shoes, wag our heads, shake our fingers, and wag our tongues. We preach in the sense that we have a message, a main point, an outline, and a verse, which the congregation dutifully opened their Bibles up to. But do we follow Paul’s instructions? Do we preach the Word? My experience says that we do not. We preach our message. We get a text for it too. But we don’t preach the Word.

Pre-Game Commentary

I have been taking advantage of current events in the Hyles camp. I admit it. I have been shamelessly riding the wave of interest in Fugate’s beef with Schaap in order to boost our ratings and draw readers to our blog. I confess.

But my purpose in this has not been entirely for personal gain. I really do think that the whole issue fits well with our topic for February.  Kent has been dealing with it from the left end, where men defend their licentious fellowship practices.  I intend to deal with the right end of the issue, where men defend their pet doctrines, and turn a deaf ear to the other.  The former is a purposeful ranking of doctrine on the basis of the opinion of the many.  They determine importance on the basis of fellowship.  They set up standards for the sake of unity with others, making that the basis for distinguishing between essential and non-essential.  The latter, on the other hand, work in sort of the opposite direction.  They determine importance on the basis of tradition.  The set up standards on the basis of distinction and independence.  They set up standards for the sake of conformity to their Pope, making that the basis of essential and non-essential.

One reason we think it acceptable to rank doctrines has been that we have been doing it in a practical sense for decades now. We have finally gotten around to defending the practice, but we did it long before we felt the need to defend it. Traditionally, Independent Baptists have decided what they thought important from the Word (or not from the Word), and have insisted on those traditions regardless of whether it is Biblical or not.

We have ourselves to blame for the current state of affairs. It began way back when we decided that our preaching did not need to be directly from the Word. It began when we thought that the message to be preached was more important than the Word of God. It began when we stopped preaching the whole counsel of God. It began when we elevated topical preaching above any sort of exposition, when we decided that our topic trumped the text and context.  It began when we set our standards first, and then found a basis for them in Scripture.

By our blatant disregard for God’s Word, we set the new standard. We de-valued doctrine for the sake of traditions and pragmatic practices. Success became our priority, and doctrines were important inasmuch as they brought us success. No, there was no official doctrine ranking ceremony. They were ranked by default. Dr. Big Britches had great success, and if you wanted to be successful like him, you needed to do what he did. The doctrines that were important to him no doubt played a role in his wonderful achievements, and you too would need to stress them if you wanted similar success. And thus began a tradition of judging the doctrines of God. Your garden variety Doctrinal Statement was birthed out of this need to identify with the traditions of the powerful and successful. Growth became faithfulness, and externals measured everything.

Now, today, we have little concern about whether or not we are getting our doctrine from Scripture. We have every concern about whether or not we have all the doctrines off the list of “important ones” as listed by the Guru of Church Growth. Our credentials come, not from the Word, but from traditions and how we line up with them. We ignore the doctrines that don’t make us grow, and that don’t matter to Dr. Fancy Pants with the sexy college. The others we make sure we get right, down to the commas and semi-colons.

Post-Game Analysis

Years and years ago, Jack Hyles made himself the judge and determiner of which doctrines “mattered.” And now, in our day, we have this fight erupting between the various factions of Hylotry. Jeffery Fugate says that Jack Schaap is unfaithful to the doctrines that Jack Hyles upheld. Jack Schaap says that he is in fact faithful to Jack Hyles’ doctrines. But who wants to judge a man by his faithfulness to the teaching of the Word?

The push to rank doctrines is nothing new. On the one side, we have those who ignore Scripture in order to promote their agenda. On the other side, we have those who attempt to give a Scriptural basis for tolerating blatant disobedience to Scripture. Does the fact that one side is more conservative excuse them from their practice of ignoring Scripture? I think not.

What’s This, Tag Team?

Now, with all of that in mind, I intend to give an opinion – my opinion – of the Schaap/Fugate matter. I do so because I believe it provides us with a wonderful illustration of the results of deriving doctrine from Tradition rather than from the Word. Consider:

Tuesday was an interesting day, at least for my mailbox. I received my very own copy of “The Voice” — the official publication of the First Baptist Church of Hammond, Indiana. Emblazoned across the front of the paper is the headline “Dr. Jack Schaap Speaks on Inspiration and the King James Bible…” I also received, in that very same mailbox, a letter from Dr. Russell Anderson (The Anderson half of Hyles Anderson). Anderson’s letter was addressed to “Dr. Jack Schaap, Dr. Jack Hyles, Students, Graduates, & Faculty of Hyles-Anderson College.”

My interest was piqued. Interestingly enough, the letter was mainly addressed to Dr. Hyles, who has been dead (last time I checked) for more than seven years. But talking to the dead is, apparently, one of those really important doctrines that Hyles held. He, after all, was frequently heard to talk to his mama after she was dead, sometimes even from the pulpit. If Jack did it, then it must be okay (or at least, so reasons Russell). Russell Anderson writes this letter to the very dead Jack Hyles, and the letter is about Hyles’ other famous son (in-law), Jack Schaap.

Russell Anderson wants us all to know that Jack Hyles taught him the doctrine that the King James Bible was the inspired, preserved Word of God. And Russell still believes it. In fact, Russell believes that God blessed and used him and Hyles because of this doctrine. And, in case you were wondering just how God blessed and used Russell Anderson, Russell Anderson wants you to know. He said (and I quote),

As of December 31, 2008, ten million three hundred thousand (10,300,000) people have been saved, mostly through the works of Hyles Anderson College graduates Dr. Rick Martin in the Philippines and Dr. Kevin Wynne in Mexico City. (note – Russell also tells us that he  supports these and other personal soul winners with about $500,000 per year).

But that is not all. Anderson continues…

I have helped build ten Bible Colleges.

I have helped build 900 churches.

I have given over thirty-five million dollars ($35,000,000.00)

I appreciated the way Russell wrote out the dollar amounts both numerically and in English, so that I could feel the full impact of those numbers. And I’ll have you to know that I did search the letter diligently, but did not find anywhere in it a statement like “I have become like the most high.” In case you were concerned.

Anyhow, Russell is upset with Schaap, who was just a teenager when WE started HAC (says Anderson). Russell wants to know, did Dr. Hyles know that Schaap is now preaching that the King James Bible is not inspired in the college WE have started, which I gave over TWELVE MILLION DOLLARS to? (emphasis is mine).  Obviously, the dollar amount donated by Russell is relevant to the issue at hand. “It seems,” says Dr. A, “that Brother Schaap thinks he knows more about the Bible than you did.” To which we all emit a collective “ouch!”

So, Russell Anderson is upset with Jack Schaap. He (Anderson) is the brother that Jack Hyles never had, and so he wants Jack to know that he is still defending the King James Bible. The same King James Bible that both he and Jack believe is the inspired, preserved word of God. Or, at least, Anderson assumes that Jack Hyles believes that still.  I didn’t find any place in the letter where Anderson said whether or not Jack Hyles had contacted him since he left the building.

Blow-by-Blow

Schaap, meanwhile, in his paper “The Voice” has provided us with 16 pages of material, all designed to assure us, the reader, that he is still faithful to all of Jack Hyles’ teaching.

Now, in fairness, I have to say that in this controversy, I think that Schaap is in the right.  Or perhaps I should say that I think Fugate and Anderson have done him wrong. Ever since ascending to the throne of First Baptist Church, Schaap has had to re-affirm his credentials as a true, card-carrying Hylot. And, as far as that goes, he really is. Perhaps the problem for men like Jeffery Fugate and Tom Neal is that they don’t like the real Jack Hyles. They had a different image erected in their minds, a less accurate version. In a sense, Jack Schaap is the King James Version of Jack Hyles. Men like Fugate and Neal were looking for a newer version… they wanted Schaap to be more like a New King James, or perhaps a New International Version of Hyles. But he isn’t. He’s the real deal. Hyles with Hair to Spray.

And they don’t like it. Short of Schaap doing a hatchet job on the writings and works of Jack Hyles (and that isn’t very likely — a hatchet job on Scripture, perhaps, but not on Hyles), Jack Schaap has fully demonstrated that he is simply repeating exactly what Jack Hyles taught about the Bible.  He demonstrates it multiple times, and in multiple ways, by quoting Jack Hyles directly.

And that really is the problem We have a position on the Inspiration and Preservation of Scripture that really doesn’t come from Scripture at all. Yes, it is what Jack Hyles taught, but it isn’t what God said.  You see, Fugate thought that Hyles meant that God directly inspired the King James.  Schaap understood Hyles to be teaching that God (only) preserved His inspired Words in the King James.  Who cares, really, what God Himself actually said about it.  What we need is more quibbling about what Jack Hyles meant.

Some questions that I have asked of our English Preservationist friends (one that has yet to be answered) are these: when did God decide to stop preserving His Word in Greek and Hebrew (the languages in which they were given), and switch preservation to English? And how do we know that God decided to do this? And, if God decided to switch to English, which edition of the King James did He decide would be the final edition?

Jeffery Fugate twists Scripture terribly to arrive at his position. I quoted him in last week’s article, highlighting the most blatant of those examples. Certainly, every copy of the Word is called Scripture. That does not mean that God directly inspired each and every copy. What Fugate does is to lower the definition of inspiration to a level that could include our U.S. Constitution, the Declaration of Independence, and a major part of the works of William Shakespeare.

Do I like Schaap’s position better?  He at least gets it that inspiration and preservation are two different doctrines in Scripture.  He believes that God has preserved His Word.  I’m glad for that.  But, he also insists that there is no preserved word in Greek (a position which the majority of English Preservationists take as well), and that the King James Bible is the place where God is preserving His Word.  He demonstrates that he does not understand the true TR position of preservation.  And in general, he shows that he needs to study the issue a little more.

I am not attempting to restate our position on preservation.  That has already been done, and you can read our Biblically sound defense of perfect preservation in this section of our blog.  (You might find this article helpful).  God promised to preserve His Words… every jot and every tittle.  Those, by the way, are not English.  God gave the Word in Hebrew and in Greek.  God preserved the very words that He gave.  It bothers me greatly to hear those who will claim that in 1611, God started preserving His Word in English also claim that there is not a single edition of the Textus Receptus that is or can be called the Preserved Word of God.  If there is a 1500 year gap between the giving of the Canon and its preservation, then God didn’t keep His Word.

As I see it, we really have to get this issue settled once and for all. Preservation is a Scriptural doctrine, not merely a traditional doctrine. God promises to preserve His Word, as the Westminster Divines said, “by His singular care and providence.” The Bible tells us how God would do it… through His church, the pillar and ground of the truth. Until we get back to taking our positions on Scriptural, rather than on traditional grounds, we will continue to wallow in confusion and contention. We must, then, get back to a reverence for the Word of God, to holding all doctrine to be equally important.

The Point and Presumptuousness of Ranking Doctrines

Where does Scripture tell us that only a limited number of its teachings are worth separating over?  Answer:  Nowhere.  You can’t find that anywhere in the Bible.  Phil Johnson says it’s just common sense for us to rank doctrines and bemoans the loss of common sense since post-modernism.   C. H. Spurgeon came along before post-modernism and perhaps even modernism, so based on Johnson’s standard for common sense, I wonder where Spurgeon’s is, when I read this quote from his 1856 sermon, Zion’s Prosperity:

I believe that we ought not to say that any truth is non-essential; it may be non-essential to salvation, but it is essential for something else. Why! you might as well take one of the jewels out of the Queen’s crown, and say it is non-essential, but she will be Queen all the same! Will anyone dare to tell God that any doctrine is non-essential?

He lacked the “common sense” that Johnson claims in many other sermons he preached as well.   Johnson must retreat to the 17th century to find anyone expounding on essentials and non-essentials and really to only two volumes, one of which was Herman Witsius’ Sacred Dissertations on the Apostle’s Creed.   Witsius argues that essential doctrines are only those necessary to salvation.   One of Witsius’ life goals was reconciliation between the reigning orthodoxy of his time with the new covenant theology.   His doctrinal taxonomy would help bridge the gap between those two.   We must consider that objective when we read Witsius’ arguments as well as  to understand that he’s unpacking the Apostle’s Creed, which on its own is a monumental contraction of doctrine that among the few things that it states as essential, it includes:  “I believe in the . . . holy catholic church; the communion of saints. . . .”

The Point of Ranking Doctrines

Witsius revealed his point of ranking doctrines—the holy catholic church and the communion of saints.   He believed that all believers made up the true church, the holy catholic one, and that unity was required, the communion of the saints.  I agree with total church unity.  Paul admonishes the Corinthians in 1 Corinthians 12:25 “that there should be no schism in the body.”  Of course, two verses later (v. 27) he also calls the Corinthian church the body of Christ.

Scripture doesn’t teach the communion of the saints.  1 Corinthians 10:16 teaches “the communion of the body of Christ,” but the “body of Christ” and “the saints” are two different terms and two different concepts.  “Saints” is a soteriological term.  It means “saved people” in essence.  “Body of Christ” is an ecclesiological term.   It is speaking of the church, local only, which is why Paul said to the church at Corinth, excluding himself, in 1 Corinthians 12:27, “Ye are the body of Christ.”

You can clearly see “saints” and “church” are different in 1 Corinthians 14:33, where Paul mentions “all the churches of the saints.”  “Saints” and “churches” are differentiated from one another in their usage.   The church is an assembly of saints in a particular location, and it is in the church where unity can be found, because a church has the means provided by the Lord Jesus Christ to maintain unity:  church discipline, the Lord’s Supper, and the church officers, among other tools not given to all the saints in general.  The church, local only, is the “pillar and ground of the truth.”  God gave churches the capacity to protect and propagate the truth and nothing more than churches.  A church can keep factions out of itself (Titus 3:10-11).   It can do that by means of church discipline.

It is no wonder that Phil Johnson says that ranking doctrines is common sense.  It’s the only way that he sees that all believers could get along.   There’s way too much diversity even on a plain subject like baptism for “the communion of the saints.”  Yet, how far do they reduce the doctrines to get down to the essentials?  Ironically, almost everyone disagrees on what is essential, so that they even divide over what to divide over.

Even if these evangelicals make the gospel the one non-negotiable, they do not consistently separate over that either.   There is a huge divergence in the gospel understanding of Billy Graham and Albert Mohler, but that did not stop them from coming together in a “gospel” endeavor in 2001.   Graham preaches universalism.   John MacArthur understands very clearly what Graham told Robert Schuller in 1997.  But then Mohler and MacArthur are in very close fellowship.  Mohler’s doctrinal triage is the means that he wants to bring the Southern Baptist Convention together, he and Graham both being Southern Baptists.  As a part of Together for the Gospel, MacArthur and Mohler also both join with the Charismatic C. J. Mahaney.  MacArthur has written scathing material against Charismatic doctrine, but that doesn’t keep him from fellowship with Mahaney.  In other words, these men who believe that the true church is all believers use ranking doctrines as a means to unify everyone.  What we can see by their practice is that they unify whether they believe the same gospel or not.  Instead of calling themselves “Together for the Gospel” (T4G), they should label themselves “Together for the sake of Getting Together.”

Johnson and MacArthur and their evangelical guys aren’t the only one who believe this.  We also have the fundamentalists as represented by Kevin Bauder and his indifferentism and everythingism teaching, and as exemplified by the 2009 Bible Conference at Bob Jones University.   Of course, they’re a lot less diverse than the evangelicals, but the diversity that’s there comes because of a kind of theological triage they also possess.  I’m sure that Paisley is a Calvinist.  I’m sure that Ollila is not, especially in light of the reported statement that he is a “no-point Calvinist,” that is, “there’s no point in discussing it.”  In Paisley and Sexton we have King James Only.  Among some of the other speakers are multiple versionists.  Sexton markets himself as with Spurgeon in most of his publications, but on the Crown College campus he has a building named after Curtis Hutson, one of the fathers of the modern no-repentance-for-salvation doctrine, and has the image of Jack Hyles hanging in his preachers hall of fame.

Scripture must be consistent because God cannot deny Himself (2 Timothy 2:13).  God can’t tell us to have no schism in the body on one hand (1 Corinthians 12:25) and then to separate from believers on the other hand (2 Thessalonians 3:6-15) if the body of Christ is all believers.   Those two teachings would contradict one another.  The unity must be based upon doctrine and found only in the church, which is local only.  If churches choose to fellowship, they will do so based upon doctrine and practice.  However, we are together for more than just the gospel.

Ranking doctrines was invented for the point of a  fake unity that is based upon degrading the teachings of God’s Word.  Unity trumps all other doctrines in this scheme.  Earlier Baptists were tortured and died over mode and recipient of baptism, but now baptism is a doctrine to overlook in order to get together and to get along.   With so much doctrinal disagreement, instead of separating, men unify based upon a lower common denominator, reducing the teachings of the Bible into essentials and non-essentials.   It encourages disobedience to Scripture.

The Presumptuousness of Ranking Doctrines

Jesus told the religious leaders that they left the weightier matters of the law undone.  He also said that there was a greatest commandment.  Paul said that certain doctrines were foundational.   From those teachings, one is presumptuous to think that he can choose certain doctrines to deemphasize in order to stay in fellowship with another professing believer.  Those verses don’t say anything about that.  The ones who do the ranking are guilty of the Pharisaic practice that Jesus confronted in Matthew 15:6:

Thus have ye made the commandment of God of none effect by your tradition.

Ranking doctrines is tradition.  It isn’t taught in the Bible.   This tradition, however, has led to the fall of many a man by making the commandment of God of none effect.  Sure, they might recognize the commandment of God—so did the Pharisees—but it isn’t necessary to practice, because they’ll suffer no loss of fellowship for disobeying it.

Uzzah presumed on God and touched the ark of the covenant.  God killed him.  Nadab and Abihu presumed on God in the matter of the recipe for the incense to burn at the altar of incense.  They offered strange fire unto the Lord.  God killed them.  Ananias and Sapphira presumed upon God  in holding back certain money they had promised from the sale of their land.  God killed them.  Adam and Eve presumed about one piece of fruit on one tree in the Garden.  They died the day they ate thereof.

In the form of a serpent in the garden of Eden, Satan tempted Adam and Eve to presume upon God.  Certain things that God said weren’t essential.  They just weren’t as important as other things.  Jesus, however, never presumed upon the Father.  He always did the will of the Father, who sent Him.  And he said that the greatest in His kingdom is the one who does the least of His commandments.