My Brethren - Doctrine - Christian Ministry - R. M. Beverley
7 - The Object of Ministry in the Church
ALL these remarks, however, should be considered but as introductory to the more important view of the subject – a view nearly forgotten or unknown in these days –
that "ministry", when rightly understood, is not merely for government, or for establishing order, securing discipline, and keeping the people in subjection,
but for preserving in vigorous healthfulness the life of the body; the evidence of which is to be sought for and recognized in the love of the brethren.
Yes, Christian reader! understand this truth, that God's ministry is appointed by His most wise ordinance – not according to man's thoughts to produce a well-drilled regiment under effectual clerical management, which is the utmost extent of excellence that most people ever look to when arguing for an "ordained ministry" –
but it is intended as a help to the New Commandment by which the world is to distinguish Christ's disciples (John 13: 34).
In all the passages where God's ministry is mentioned in the New Testament this is made apparent; for the mind of the Spirit concerning the ministry which He raises up, is,
that it is the nursery of that love without which a visible church is an inoperative and lifeless thing, a machine out of order, and therefore useless.
And hence it is that when Paul wishes to urge the love of the brethren, he, as a matter of course, connects it with "ministry":
and when he talks of ministry, he concludes as naturally, pursuing only an obvious concatenation of thought, with the kindred subject of love.
In the Epistle to the Ephesians he says,
"I beseech you, that ye walk worthy of the vocation wherewith ye are called, with all lowliness and meekness, with long-suffering, forbearing one another in love; endeavoring to keep the unity of this Spirit in the bond of peace – there is one body", 4: 1-4.
And having been brought by this expression of his wish and prayer to mention the "one body", he immediately proceeds to a description of that body, and the appearance it should present, in order to be capable of eliciting this "forbearance of love, and bond of peace", for which he pleads.
Now this appearance is of several gifts of the Spirit manifested in the body at large,
"apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors, teachers, for the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ".
This is the body which possesses the power of growth; not a comely block chiselled by man's art into a handsome but dead image of the church, but the true church endowed with the faculty of augmentation, and "growing unto an holy temple in the Lord".
In this body the apostle supposes, or rather he expects that love may be pre-eminent not as it is caricatured in the form of a living clerical head, and lifeless lay members; not as a regular ordained minister, in his own single person and actions, represents the energy of all the torpid limbs;
but as "compacted by that which every joint supplieth"; and then, and not till then, the body may grow, may be increasing in the life of love, or, as Paul expresses it "unto the edifying of itself in love", verse 16.
In the epistle to the Romans, he closes the subject of gifts in the church by these remarkable words:
"Let love be without the dissimulation", 12: 9;
because he evidently supposed that the undissembled love of the saints might find an atmosphere suited to its necessities, where the whole body is allowed at least to receive the energies of the Spirit, for any form of ministry which it might please the Lord, the Spirit of life, to bestow.
But no such atmosphere as this exists, or can exist, when "a regular ordained ministry" has inflicted ministerial death on the whole body, and when the clergyman has been appointed by man to be the sole pastor, teacher, evangelist, ruler, and prophet;
just as if the human body, in a fit of lunacy, had elected the hand of the foot to perform the functions of all the other members, which it had commanded, as a consequence of this insane election, to remain in a decorous and reverential inactivity.
A body under such a discipline would soon die, and all Christian bodies, so called, where "the one-man system" prevails, are, in their corporate capacity, virtually dead; they have cut off the flow of life which was meant to feed all the members,
and have given the monopoly of vitality to one favoured limb, which consequently cannot perform its own functions as it ought, and is wholly inefficacious in imparting any show of life to the rest of the body.
In the epistle to the Corinthians Paul says,
"Follow after love, and desire spiritual gifts", 1 Corinthians 14;
and the precept is in many ways remarkable. In the 12th chapter he had discoursed at large on the gifts and ministries of the Spirit; in the 13th, by a connection which is not often noticed, he introduces the subject of love, or agape, and then he begins the 14th chapter by these words,
"Follow after love, and desire spiritual gifts",
as a preface to all that he has to say concerning the order of the church in that chapter; so that, in fact, the 13th chapter, though apparently a parenthesis between the 12th and 14th, is most intimately connected with them both.
It is part of the same subject, because that love, agape, or charity, which has been made beautiful to all generations by Paul's magnificent eulogy, is not the charity of isolated Christians, but of the children of God living harmoniously together as one redeemed family,
under the guidance and ministrations of the Spirit, and manifesting the life of the body according to God's design, and not according to the wisdom of man.
This is that love of which Paul speaks (1 Corinthians 13): neither is it possible to show that love, or to fulfill the precepts of that much admired chapter where this is not understood;
nor can the love of which he speaks be brought forth, or seen in the body, wherever the clerical theory has superseded the faith once delivered to the saints.
"Let the peace of God rule in your hearts, to which ye are called in one body, and be ye thankful", Colossians 3: 15.
But it is not in general principles only that we discover ministry and love united, as if they were different representations of one theme, and as if one did of necessity introduce the other, so that where we see one, we may be sure that the other is not far distant;
but we find positive precepts addressed to the saints, directing them to act as pastors to one another, and, in so doing, to show forth this very love, which betokens the living and the growing body of Christ.
In the epistle to the Hebrews, it is written,
"Take heed, brethren, lest there be in any of you an evil heart of unbelief … But exhort one another daily while it is called to-day, lest any of you be hardened through the deceitfulness of sin", Hebrews 3: 12.
They are to warn, to admonish one another daily; every day they are to be guarding the sheepfold; every day they are to be looking warily, lest the evil heart of unbelief open a breach for the enemy in the visible household of faith.
But whilst they are called upon to be thus watchful for one another's souls, not a syllable is dropped, whereby we might understand that this was to be the exclusive duty of "an ordained minister".
Indeed, the fact that such a precept is addressed to "the brethren", renders it impossible that the Hebrews should have been acquainted with "an ordained ministry", invested with those exclusive powers and prerogatives which we habitually in these days consider inseparable from the "ministry".
The clergy of all parties often assure us in their sermons, that exhortation of the flock is their peculiar province, in which no one may interfere; but we find it quite otherwise in the Word of God.
Paul, in addressing the Thessalonians, writes to then thus:
"Now we exhort you, brethren, warn them that are unruly, comfort the feeble-minded, support the weak, be patient towards all men", 1 Thessalonians 5: 14.
Words which exactly describe the duties that "ordained ministers" frequently assure us, devolve upon themselves alone; neither do any of their hearers think otherwise, so naturally do men tread in the sheet-track of tradition, without inquiring if the fair and ample, Word of God may have possibly furnished them with more healthful ways.
Other passages there are largely to the same effect.
"Let us consider one another, to provoke unto love and to good works; not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, but exhorting one another", Hebrews 9: 24-25.
"As every man hath received the gift, even so minister the same one to another, as good stewards of the manifold grace of God. If any man speak, let him do it as the oracles of God; if any man minister, let him do it as of the ability which God giveth, that God in all things may be glorified through Jesus Christ", 1 Peter 4: 10-11.
Now not only are such passages of high value, as incidentally confirming the truth, that the duties always assigned to the clergy alone in the clerical form of Christianity, are, in the Scriptural form of it, apportioned to all believers,
but as showing that the very offices of the supposed ministerial prerogative are shared amongst the apostles and all the saints of their day.
For instance, does Paul say to the Thessalonians,
"That he comforted and charged every one of them, as a father doth his children, that they should walk worthy of God, who had called them unto His kingdom and glory", 1 Thessalonians 2: 12 ?
– then this is the very duty which he would assign to the whole body of Thessalonian believers, when he tells them
"to warn the unruly, to comfort this feeble-minded, and to support the week".
Again, do we find that Barnabas exhorted all the believers at Antioch, that with purpose of heart they would cleave unto the Lord? (Acts 11: 23) then, also the Hebrew church reminded of their duty to
"exhort one another daily, lest any one of them should be hardened, through the deceitfulness of sin".
That Paul and Barnabas should thus exhort the the saints, the clerical school would think proper, because they were apostles, and had been "ordained by the imposition of hands"; but the same school would see nothing but irregularity in laymen daily imitating the apostles.
Moreover, it is to be observed, that though, in the epistles to the Hebrews and Thessalonians, there is distinct reference made to those who were "over them in the Lord", Hebrews 13: 17; 1 Thessalonians 5: 12, yet it is not on those overseers that the duty of exhortations is pressed by the apostle:
the epistles are not directed to the overseers; the building-up of the saints is not referred to them; admonition, exhortation, comfort, and warning, are not spoken of as their province (though doubtless exhortation and comfort were also in their province);
but all the Church is addressed, as if all the saints were mutually to edify one another; yea, and mutually to teach and minister to one another; as when Paul, having explained to the Thessalonians the second coming of the Lord, concludes thus,
"Wherefore comfort one another with these words".
The epistle to the Philippians furnishes similar evidence, and in abundance. Indeed, the whole texture of that epistle is to this point; for though the overseers and servants of the Church are mentioned in the opening of the epistle, after the saints (1: 1),
yet the whole doctrine of the epistle is addressed to the brethren; and it is not of "the clergy", but of all the brethren that Paul speaks, when he prays that
"theirlove may abound yet more and more in knowledge, and in all judgment and that they may approve things that are excellent [or things that differ]",
a prayer which by many would be thought only applicable to clergymen.
It is "the brethren" (1: 12), that he "would have understand", how his imprisonment at Rome had been made the means of many of the brethren waxing confident to preach Christ, and that he rejoiced they had done so, though these "many" preachers were unquestionably not clergymen.
It is "the brethren" he desires to "stand fast in one spirit, striving for the faith of themm Gospel", 1: 27.
Them also he admonishes "to hold forth the word of life", 2: 16; to "beware of evil-workers", 3: 2; "to walk by the same rule, to mind the same thing", as he himself did (3: 16); "to stand fast in the Lord", 4: 1 etc.;
and all this he makes sure by commencing his letter "to all the saints", and by carefully finishing it "to all the saints", 4: 21.
And all this is the more remarkable, because he does not omit the overseers and servants of the church ("bishops and deacons", English Translation). He mentions them indeed, but after the saints who may serve, and then he takes no further notice of them, classes them all together as one body,
and never for one moment so expresses his himself, as if he thought the overseers and servants had some official prerogative which should entitle them, as separated from the "laymen", to receive his instructions and precepts.
Again, in writing to the Colossians, he addresses "the saints and faithful brethren in Christ", and none others;
it is the brethren whom he wishes to "increase in the knowledge of God" 1: 10, "and unto all riches of the full assurance of the understanding", 2: 2.
He tells the brethren that "they are complete in Christ", 2: 10, and that therefore, "no man should judge them in meat and drink or holydays or sabbaths".
He bids them beware, lest any man "spoil them through philosophy, and vain deceit, or beguile them of their reward, by intruding into those things which they have not seen":
he warns them not to be subject to ordinances, "the commandments and doctrines of men";
he reminds them that "their speech should be always with grace, seasoned with salt, that they may know how they ought to answer every man", and that they should "stand perfect and complete in the will of God";
and then, after particularly addressing "wives, husbands, children, servants, and masters", he adds nothing about clergymen or official ministers.
The message to Archippus (4: 17) has been already examined, and, therefore, need not here be again discussed, but supposing, for argument's sake, that Archippus was an ordained minister – say, bishop of the Colossians –
we then find Paul, in a sort of postscript, desiring the church to remind that dignitary to fulfill his ministry, whilst the dignitary himself is wholly passed over in all the rest of the epistle.
Now then, let these things be applied to the order of the sects;
suppose that a Christian from some distant region, acquainted with Christianity only as it is presented in the New Testament, and following the language and ideas of the Scriptures alone, were to write a letter to Christians in a certain parish in the Establishment according to the usages of the Pauline epistles, what would be the style of his letter?
He would address it to the believers in such a town, and whatever might be the importance of his communications, he would of course take no notice of the clergyman of the parish; he would not, as in these days, direct the whole subject-matter to the priest; "Reverend Sir", would be to him an unknown formulary;
and it he were informed that our customs required such letters, both in form and substance, to my addressed to the clergyman, and that the minister would consider it an insult if it were otherwise, and that "the saints" were in those days all "laymen", excepting only "the minister", who was ordained to be their ruler and teacher; and that "the saints" now would deem it strange and indecorous if a letter about religion was addressed to them, and not to their "dear minister" –
would not this foreigner from a distant region naturally conclude, that we had changed our religion, and that we had ceased, in fact, to be Christians?
And who that examines ministry in the New Testament, and compares it with ministry in the sects, can doubt but that there has been effected a fundamental revolution in the order which God appointed for the edification of His Church.