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Now, here comes a tough question. What about a common-law member who is errant in doctrine or practice? Can you exercise church discipline on such a person? The common answer I have heard is, "no" because they are not members, have not agreed to be bound by the "terms and conditions," and thus they can sue you if you publicize their sin to the church.

That is a practical answer, but it is not Biblical. I do not see in Matthew 18:15-17 where official membership is part of the equation. "And if he refuses to hear them, and if he has signed a membership application, tell it to the church..." is not what the text says. The text is talking about a brother. If I could be allowed to make a distinction between a member and a believer, I would make it here. Practically there are situations where you have to be able to treat the errant brother as a believer even if he is not a member. Indeed, we share more in common with members of our church than generic believers, but we do share some things with believers, especially those who are attending our church. And one of those things we share is a responsibility to carry out the Biblical command of accountability through discipline, whether the person "signed on the dotted line" or not.

All this was a factor in the origination of my "common-law" concept because I do not think it is appropriate for a person to be loosely joined to a church, not a member, and think that they can walk away any time things get a little sticky. Such situations are all too frequent. For example, person A is a member, and has abandoned any attendance at the meetings of the church. Person B is a non-member, but was attending all along as well, and then stopped. In the church meeting, we "discipline" person A by dropping him/her from the membership roll. Another member asks, "What about person B?" Good question. Person B is guilty of the same behavior, but B is treated differently just because his/her name was not on the list.

But if common-law members are warned ahead of time that they will be treated as members on the discipline side of the equation, that might encourage them to consider the whole package of membership so they can partake of the benefits as well as the accountability aspect of it.

Our local church membership process is quite simple. We essentially ask the candidate to publicly answer four questions: Are you saved? Have you been baptized by immersion since you believed? Do you agree to subscribe to the doctrine and constitution of the church? And are you conducting yourself generally as a Christian? If a credible "yes" is given to all four questions, the church votes to receive the person into membership. Actually, our membership class explains all of this in great detail in four sessions, followed by a time of sharing testimonies with the church board.

To those common-law members who may object to this simple process of membership, here are some thoughts: Isn't checking up on a person's salvation testimony a wise thing to do? Shouldn't we safeguard the gospel and the local church by asking a few select questions? Church discipline is a safeguard for the church after a member has entered; the membership questions form a safeguard for the church on the incoming side. Both are fallible processes, but shouldn't we make some attempt through a formal process? If the church membership is asked to vote in order to add a member, shouldn't they be assured that the person applying for membership is in agreement with them on the basics? Such agreement would have to be publicly testified for the church to accept it.

So, what should we do about those who are not willing to publicly give a positive response to these four questions? Some people languish in that state so long that a third category like a common-law member seems practical, even if not ideal. Christians are not supposed to somehow float along with no connection to a church family. The fact is that these people share in many things of the church--worshiping, hearing the preaching of the Word, giving, sharing meals, doing mundane tasks around the church, their names are in the church directory, etc. Some things they cannot do, of course. The kicker for me is that as a pastor I feel some responsibility toward them, and I actually exercise shepherd oversight and care for them as much as possible. So, they are kind-of-members but not full members. Maybe they are being silly, or even sinful, in their refusal to commit to membership, but then again there are a lot of other ways our official members can be silly or sinful and the pastor still shepherds them.

In my experience, people have a few reasons (excuses?) for refusing church membership: 1) A desire not to commit or not to be subjected to certain restrictions or conditions in the church; 2) A bad experience with a previous church; 3) An objection to membership on grounds of principle.

Examples for each case, written from the first person perspective:

1) A church carries a heavy load of debt and I do not want to tie myself into that debt load and ethical responsibility to care for the debt. Or, I feel that certain conditions of membership are too restrictive or legalistic.

2) A previous church in my life burned me when the church went down a wrong path. The church lacked integrity in its selection of a pastor or other business matters. I do not want to be officially associated with or involved in that kind of situation again.

3) I do not believe the New Testament gives explicit instructions about how local church membership is to be done or even that there is such a concept. Or, Once I become a believer, I am automatically a member of the church through which I was saved.

I am not justifying any of these reasons; I'm just saying they are thoughts in people's minds. Maybe the non-member wants the best of both worlds by basically being a member but not committing to membership; or the leadership wants the best of both worlds by counting the person as a member most of the time but when things get difficult they can simply write off the person without any public mention of it. Some of my Baptist readers may be flummoxed by this line of thought, but it is real. If you are a person who grew up in churches that do not have a substantive membership, or do not promote it (ahem, some Bible churches), or if you are very strongly opposed to extra-Biblical structures, you know what I am talking about.

What is a common-law member? When I came up with the term, the idea that I had was this: a common-law member is a person who regularly attends our church, who does not have another church, who supports the church financially, who is not disgruntled with the church, but for whatever reason refuses to submit to a simple process of church membership.

It is akin to a common law marriage, which Princeton's WordNet defines as "a marriage relationship created by agreement and cohabitation rather than by ceremony." There is no official ceremony, but the people agree to live together as married. With a common-law member, there is a level of agreement to participate in church together, even if there is not full agreement on the part of the membership or church leadership in the sense that they are not the happiest with the arrangement, but are content to "live with it."

More later...

It is still kind of amazing to me that believers can take money and turn it into ministry in their own church, or in global missionary efforts. Useless paper dollars can be transformed into the eternal salvation of human souls. Wow.

Recently the Lord has allowed our church to begin regularly supporting a new missionary family in addition to the others that we have already been supporting. Our philosophy is not to support dozens and dozens of missionaries for small change every month. Rather, we want to have a select team and offer each family more substantial financial support.

One of the other things that we were able to do to open 2012 was decide that we will temporarily increase all of our missionary support by 1/3. So, for the first half of 2012, instead of sending X to each missionary for the 6 month period, we are sending 1.33 * X. We decided to do this in light of the hard times that they are facing.

I hesitated to write the previous paragraph, mainly because I don't want to be seen as tooting our own horn. And, I am supposed to preach a message on humility at DBTS in a couple of weeks! But I decided that this is not an individual-type thing where pride is puffing up an individual sinner. Instead, this is a church-type thing, and as a challenge to our brothers and sisters in like-minded churches, we think it is good to raise the level of support to the cause of missions rather than to cut it. Even Paul offered a financial challenge to his readers based on the generosity of other churches (2 Corinthians 8:1-3).

Obviously, the recent state of the economy in Michigan may not allow everyone to rise to our challenge, but there are some churches who probably could. Consider some of our "tough" times in light of currency fluctuations and recessions in other countries and reduced support levels from US churches to missionaries overseas, and you can imagine the pinch some of them are feeling. Just this morning, a missionary wrote how their mission told them last week that they would be having an increase in their health insurance premiums. Surprise surprise! But this increase is not accompanied by an increase in support from their churches!

We need to remember that the workers are worthy of their hire. They are not rightly in the work for the "hire," but they do need some "hire" to stay in the work.

The first sentence of Dr. Bauder's article "Let Me Tell You How to Vote" certainly captured my attention. It said, "Churches have no business addressing political questions." After reading the article a couple of times, I still was perplexed. Perhaps, I thought, he has simply made a too-broad statement that is inconsistent with the rest of his article. Maybe he purposefully said it with the intention of returning to the issue later to clarify things. Maybe he means something different by "political questions" than I do when I use that general phrase. Maybe the church is not supposed to address political questions, but the Christian academician is permitted to do so.

The article is helpful, and one of the ways it was helpful was that it prompted me to think on the issues. Generally I agree with the principles Dr. Bauder puts forth. I differ in where I draw the line as far as principle and application, and this affects my summary statement. That is, churches have to address political questions because those questions often have some connection to Christian morality.

So...here are some of my thoughts.

I wondered if we would be having the discussion in the way that Bauder frames it if we did not have to concern ourselves with 501(c)(3) constraints. In other words, if we were given totally free religious speech, would we just "spit it out" and avoid the circumlocutions?

When I say "circumlocutions," I am thinking of the ways in which Bauder frames his eight biblical concerns such that they are effectively recommendations on "who to [not] vote for" even though he writes in terms of "general principles." If you preach Bauder's list, most people are going to understand your message in light of the current political situation and candidates. Consider some of his concerns and how they would be "heard" by the contemporary audience:

1. Reputation for Integrity - Don't vote for Newt Gingrich.

2. Right to Life - Don't vote for Barack Obama, and maybe not for Mitt Romney either, and possibly not for Ron Paul either.

3. Rule of Law - Don't vote for Barack Obama, and maybe not for some of the other candidates because of their weak stand on the immigration issue.

4. Restraint of Evil - Don't vote for Barack Obama.

5. Respect for Property - Don't vote for Barack Obama or most other Democrats, nor many establishment Republicans.

6. Recovery of Moral Responsibility - ditto.

7. Recognition of Israel - Certainly don't vote for Barack Obama, and probably not for Ron Paul either.

8. Responsible Use of Nature - Don't vote for most everyone on the left.

Now, as I said, I am in almost 100% agreement with Bauder's principles. However, in a sin-cursed world it is tough to apply them with 100% consistency. Maybe Rick Santorum is left standing after all these principles are applied, but maybe not. Couldn't we just say what we mean in terms of contemporary application instead of talking around it?

Another thought on the point about integrity comes to mind. Bauder says "a man who will violate his marriage oath is one who will violate his oath of office." He does not say "a man who has violated his marriage oath in the past is necessarily of the same character now and will certainly violate his oath of office in the future." All men are inconsistent in some ways. Some would violate their oath toward their spouse but not toward their job. Others maybe have learned their lesson and do not want to repeat their past mistakes.

Another thought: I would add a ninth biblical concern to Bauder's list.

9. Reduction of Debt by Paying it Off Fully. Proverbs 22:7 tells us that the borrower is slave to the lender, and Psalm 37:21 says that the wicked borrow and do not repay. The United States is currently a slave nation as well as a wicked nation in this regard. The continual piling up of yearly deficits into the national debt is morally wrong. The weak dollar policy that causes inflation, lessening the value of debt that is paid back on the same face value, is morally wrong as well. A default on sovereign debt would be morally wrong. And the surreptitious reduction of the purchasing power of savings held by our citizens by means of that same inflation is also morally wrong.

The point about debt, then, brings me to my final thought. Bauder makes the popular appeal to downplay purely economic issues in one's decision to vote (the idea is "don't worry about your pocketbook, vote for life/integrity/property rights/etc.!"). The problem is that many economic issues are also moral issues. Most of the concerns enumerated by Bauder are not only spiritual concerns; they are also economic concerns; and they are also political concerns, at least in the common sense of the term "political." Since the Bible gives us wisdom for all areas of life, it does so also for political questions. In preaching the whole counsel of God, we will necessarily run into passages that have applications that deal with political questions. It is true that principles must guide our decisions as to how to vote, but these principles at some point have to come down to the level of application in answer to the question "who to vote for," or at least who not to vote for, as well. —MAP

For those thinking about children's programs in the church, the following by Ken Ham is a helpful reminder:

Sadly, many churches today make the mistake that we disciple adults but only entertain children; they don’t teach our young people the “deep” things of the Christian faith because they believe children cannot understand much of it. But we are failing our children when we don’t teach them the Word of God and give them answers in today’s modern scientific world. Children in our churches are largely biblically illiterate, and they don’t see Scripture as relevant in their lives. We shouldn’t be surprised that two thirds of the young people growing up in the church will leave the church in their 20s (as we examine in our book Already Gone).

Last weekend we had several missionaries in to speak to the church. It was a wonderful and refreshing time in which we could refocus on the Great Commission as the new year begins.

We learned about missions work in limited access countries through the Internet, about Bible distribution, about the training of national pastors, and about translation of the Scriptures into some of the nearly 6700 languages that do not have any Bible translation.

Not all of these ministries are "traditional" evangelistic and church planting ministries, but they are necessary to carry out the Great Commission. It is marvelous to think about how God uses so many different Christians in so many different ways, working together to accomplish the Great Commission to bring the gospel to the world. And then, to think that many of us can stay right where we are and participate in that work through prayer, financial support, and other service ministry—that's amazing!

Join me in thanking God for His great work in the world. --MAP

The Bible reading plans for 2012 are now available. There are three of them:

• Read the New Testament twice in 2012
• Read the New Testament once in 2012
• Read the Old Testament once 2012
• Key chapters for young readers

I hope you will read along with us. If not on this schedule, use some other schedule. This is how to hide God's Word in your heart. --MAP

An esteemed theology professor contacted me with some concerns about my previous post. In particular, he questioned what I was saying about the beliefs of the believers at the Institute for Creation Research. It seemed that I should make a couple of clarifications.

What the ICR video was doing was rehearsing Henry Morris's special creation view of the virgin birth:

The Necessity of Special Creation

Therefore, even though He was nurtured in Mary's womb for nine months and born without her ever knowing a man, it was also necessary for all this to have been preceded by supernatural intervention, to prevent His receiving any actual genetic inheritance through her. The body growing in Mary's womb must have been specially created in full perfection, and placed there by the Holy Spirit, in order for it to be free of inherent sin damage. Christ would still be "made of the seed of David according to the flesh" (Romans 1:3), because His body was nurtured and born of Mary, who was herself of the seed of David. He would still be the Son of Man, sharing all universal human experience from conception to death, except sin. He is truly "the seed of the woman" (Genesis 3:15), His body formed neither of the seed of the man nor the egg of the woman, but grown from a unique Seed planted in the woman's body by God Himself.

That is, God directly formed a body for the second Adam just as He had for the first Adam (Genesis 2:7). This was nothing less than a miracle of creation, capable of accomplishment only by the Creator Himself. "That holy thing which shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God" (Luke 1:35).

The special creation view says that there is no "actual genetic inheritance" from Mary to Jesus. This is the main point to which I objected in my previous post. I believe that there is a real, organic connection between Jesus and Mary so that Jesus is a son of Adam, a son of Abraham, a son of David, a human being in the line of Davidic kings.

But I also listed three other objections. The first one was as follows:

First, it [the video] does not make clear that Joseph had absolutely no role in the parentage of Jesus. He was a bystander in that sense. Jesus was conceived and born of a virgin.

In this first objection, I did not intend to suggest that ICR denies the virgin birth by including the involvement of Joseph. I understand that the believers at ICR do indeed champion the virgin birth and it seems obvious that they do deny any procreative involvement of Joseph. That said, my intention was to critique the special creation view by referring to the words used in the video. The video said:

While Joseph and Mary were his earthly parents, the Bible says that Jesus was God's only begotten Son.

To the theologically uninformed viewer of the video, to say that Jesus' earthly parents were Mary and Joseph leaves just a little bit to be desired. They were his earthly parents, but did not come to be so through the normal earthly means. The video, unfortunately, does not make explicit that Mary was a virgin, and I believe that it would have been better if it had.

I could eliminate this objection, but maybe I should rather reword it: "The video should make clear that Jesus was born of a virgin and that Joseph was his adoptive father." There is no question that the late Henry Morris and the ICR folks believe this proposition. But it gets lost in the video's scientific discussion of zygotes and all the rest.

My third objection included this sentence:

They have no Biblical warrant to talk about a fully formed zygote with no connection to Mary or Joseph.

Now, it is true that ICR has Biblical warrant to talk about the lack of connection to Joseph, but my point was not to suggest that they were implying a connection there. Rather, the point was again to use their own words and say that, on the whole, they have no warrant to talk about the virgin birth like that. The mention of zygotes, and the idea that there is absolutely no connection to Mary, seems to go beyond what the Bible teaches.

So, I still would like to see ICR revise the video. They could say something like this:

"But what about Jesus? The Bible says that Jesus was born of the virgin Mary. Joseph was the adoptive father of Jesus, but God was His real Father. Since Jesus had to be sinless in order to die for our sins, the only thing He inherited from Mary was His human-ness. The Spirit of God ensured that, concerning His connection with Mary and the human nature and body that He received, that none of these contaminated Him with sin. This humanity added alongside His deity rendered Him the perfect God-man. Because of His connection to Mary, He could be a real human with a real connection to Adam, Abraham, David, and the Jewish nation from which He came. Jesus thus "inherits" characteristics from both God and Mary and has a resemblance to both God and humanity. His birth was a miraculous and unique event in history. And so we can celebrate Christmas knowing that our creator and savior arrived by miraculous means to live a miraculous life and accomplish a miraculous purpose."

Hopefully all this wordiness does not make things worse! --MAP