Appropriately enough given what we were speaking about yesterday, this month an important new book was released by Crossway. Entrusted with the Gospel is based on expositions of 2 Timothy and has a broad range of contributors. Here is what I said about it, I encourage you to go buy a copy and read it! Here is what I said about it:

“Piper, Ryken, Driscoll, Copeland, Chapell, and Duncan are very different people, but they are all proven champions of the unchanging gospel of Jesus. This book will help all Christians study to be faithful to the task we have been entrusted with to spread that same message. Paul’s advice to his young apprentice Timothy is ably explained in these pages. Do your family, friends, and fellow church members a favor—read this book and apply it.”
—Adrian Warnock, author, Raised With Christ: How the Resurrection Changes Everything

I can’t offer two conferences for the price of one, but I can—in one post—discuss two conferences which, for all the similarities of their names, do have some important differences. For a start, they are on opposite sides of the Atlantic, so booking into the wrong one would be a significant logistical headache! I am quite sure, however, that many will cross the “pond” to attend one of what I am calling the “Together” conferences. In fact. they don’t happen at the same time, so it is very possible for you to attend BOTH if you want to, as at least one blogger I know is considering!

Both conferences have one important thing in common—they are filling up FAST and expect to be sell-outs, having to turn people away. Hotel rooms are disappearing even more rapidly for both events. Since I have now firmly booked my own place on the second one (sadly I can’t make the first), I feel safe to remind you, my readers, that it is time to MOVE QUICKLY!

TOGETHER FOR THE GOSPEL (T4G)
Tuesday April 15 – Thursday April 17, 2008
Kentucky International Convention Center, Louisville, KY
BOOK HERE

TOGETHER ON A MISSION (TOAM)
Tuesday July 8 – Friday 11, 2008
Brighton Conference Centre, UK
BOOK HERE

I have spent a bit of time over the last few days rediscovering Theopedia. It is not quite so frenetic and unstructured as Wikkipedia. This is probably due to its requirement that you acknowledge a statement of faith and be registered before editing items. They are keen for more contributors and if you have good quality material you have blogged and are willing to adapt, they are happy for it to be included in their articles with the appropriate acknowledgments. Would be great to have a few more bloggers over there. Here are the articles for which I have made some contributions so far (some more significantly than others):

• Gifts of the Spirit
• Gift of Prophecy
• Penal Substitutionary Atonement
• Pastor
• Steve Chalke
• Mark Driscoll
• Wayne Grudem
• C. J. Mahaney
• Together For the Gospel
• Mark Dever
• Ligon Duncan
• Albert Mohler
• Jacob
• Terry Virgo

Lig Duncan has promised us he will write more on the reasons why this debate is not an easy one to resolve. His statement got me thinking, and while I’m still resisting the temptation to state who I agree with, it has rattled around in my brain long enough for me to want to have a go at explaining why these disagreements are almost inevitable.

To me the whole issue is about something else altogether. It’s really about authority. Different understandings of how to run a local church make these differences almost inevitable. If you believe that a church should be run by its congregation, then you will be more careful about who you allow to become a member. Churches have allowed flexibility in the view of baptism in their members before, and found that over time the church has switched sides on the issue of paedobaptism versus credobaptism. It is interesting that the congregation of John Piper’s church has, so far, refused to allow him to follow his convictions on this issue. In fact, it is more surprising in a way that Piper feels the way he does, given that he has a congregational form of church government, at least on paper.

If your church is run by local elders, and the congregation can only show their dissent by speaking to their leaders or eventually by leaving, I can imagine that leaders may be more relaxed about allowing members to have a different viewpoint, presumably while insisting that future leaders will have a similar perspective to the existing leaders.

There are also differences about how the local church is viewed, and how tightly defined doctrinally church memberships should be. I think that one thing we can all agree on is that there are genuine Christians who differ from us theologically. I, for one, have a very loose definition of a Christian. When the Bible says, “If you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved” (Romans 10:9), who am I to add further conditions?

However, I do believe that faith in Christ should be accompanied with trust in his Word and a humble submission to it. Thus, sometimes I find the boundaries of precisely who is saved and who is not hard to define. In fact, I do not feel that it is my job to say definitely that an individual is a genuine Christian or not. It is because of this grey area that many will place a further level of limits on church membership. Thus, a local church will usually define what it thinks is a Christian in good standing a little more tightly than the lowest possible denominator of professed faith in Christ. This makes sense, not least because it would exclude someone living in blatant sin while claiming to be a Christian. There are surely few churches that would allow membership to everyone who claims to be a Christian.

But for many the local church is not simply a collection of everyone we believe to be saved and in a good standing before God. For most churches there are secondary doctrines used as identification markers. As a result, some will define their membership requirements to include agreement with some of these doctrines. This is to protect the doctrinal integrity of the local church and becomes more important if authority in the life of the church rests with the congregation.

Since many Baptist churches in particular take a valid believer’s baptism to be the gateway to church membership, it is little wonder that many of them would deny membership to the unbaptized. Since many paedobaptist churches will recognize either believer’s or infant baptism as valid, it is no wonder that they allow people who hold to both perspectives to become members.

Similar issues arise about the Lord’s Supper. People have differing perspectives about who should be allowed to partake. In a large church it can be next to impossible to manage a communion service which is in any way closed, so it often becomes a free-for-all. The issue of who can take the Lord’s Supper then becomes an irrelevance. In smaller churches, frequently leaders believe that some care should be taken about to whom the Lord’s Supper is administered. If the Lord’s Supper is seen as a meal for church members rather than any professor, is it any wonder that some get to the position that those who do not qualify for membership in a local church should not share the Supper with that church?

In short, I believe that these kinds of decisions should be taken by the local church’s leadership teams. I would not presume to tell them how they should act. I respect their right to have differing opinions and to change those opinions, as both Grudem and Piper have done.

As Duncan was insinuating, for those who truly believe in the truth of the Bible and the importance of doctrine, it is no surprise, given our fallibility, that we have different doctrinal positions and different opinions about how to act in the local church in light of those differences. Ecumenicalism hides our differences in order to pretend we are one. True biblical unity acknowledges our differences, respects them, and goes on to partner for the sake of the Gospel. We may find that we can partner only to a certain extent with some, since to go further would require us to compromise our convictions, which although secondary, we should not be forced to give up. Thus a complex web of partnerships will emerge, some closer than others. It is not wrong for us to agree to partner in some ways, but not in others, with those with whom we differ on many issues.

I hope that makes some sense, although I am sure that Lig will do a better job of explaining it!

Lig Duncan has responded resoundingly to both sides of the debate about whether he should be allowed to join a Baptist church. He argues that these differences are important and demonstrate a passion for truth that is critical. Here is just some of what he says:

“. . . let me say that this significant difference (on baptism and church membership), far from being fatal to our unity, is precisely one of the reasons that Mark and Al and C. J. and I are in fact “Together for the Gospel.” It is precisely one of the things that makes Together for the Gospel so different and extraordinary. Let me attempt to begin to explain.

The unity of T4G is not a unity in spite of doctrinal differences, in which we gain unity by downplaying doctrine, minimizing ecclesial differences and going with a lowest common denominator. Our unity is instead a unity of respect for the truth and for truth-in-practice, that sees in each other such a dogged commitment to God’s Word in both faith and practice that we want to be together promoting biblical Christianity, even in the points of principle on which we seriously disagree . . .

I would never want to say to Mark or Al, “I will be with you ‘Together for the Gospel,’ as long as you relinquish your Baptist principles or as long as you do not follow your Baptist convictions in church practice.” No, it is precisely their love of truth and their desire to see Gospel truth and love worked out practically in the life of the local church which causes my heart to love them as Jonathan did David.

I love Mark and Al’s deep concern for truth and biblical church practice (even and especially at the points in which they disagree with me). I love the fact that they are not willing to compromise on points of biblical conviction, and yet at the same time they work so hard to promote principled unity. I love the fact that even though they believe me to be in serious error on this issue of baptism, they truly love me, constantly co-labor with me (and invite me to do the same with them), and reach out to numerous other non-Baptist evangelicals regularly, deliberately, nationally, and internationally to build biblical consensus and cooperation among the churches. To know Mark and Al is to know two men of unshakable conviction and broad sympathy, and I deeply value that.

There are actually good reasons why this debate should not be an easy one to resolve . . . “

In news that will shake the blogosphere, Justin Taylor has not only shown that he is with Sam Storms on these issues, he has exclusively revealed that Lig Duncan was not baptized as an infant! Anyone questioning his commitment to the Presbyterian cause would no doubt be told “It wasn’t my fault my parents didn’t baptize me!” which perhaps to a credobaptist is precisely the point! Anyway here is what Justin said:

Trusted sources tell Between Two Worlds that Ligon Duncan was not baptized as an infant, but was baptized as a believer! This certainly adds a wrinkle to the discussion, doesn’t it? So shouldn’t Dever accept Duncan both into membership and at the Lord’s Table? Inquiring minds want to know!

I’m not sure why anyone would care what my position is, but I agree with old Piper, new Grudem, and unchanging Storms. I agree with Dever about membership and disagree with him regarding the Lord’s Supper. And I think we’d all get along if we just followed the happy middlemen, Ted Christman and Vern Poythress!

Lig has written about his main reasons for believing in paedobaptism. What he hasn’t said is whether he thinks he should be allowed to become a member in a baptist church if he wanted to, or whether a baptist would be free to join his church. Here are Lig’s arguements for christening babies:-

1. God, in both the Old and New Testaments, explicitly makes a promise to believers and to their children (Genesis 17:7; Acts 2:39).

2. God, in both the Old and New Testaments, explicitly attaches specific signs (respectively, circumcision [Genesis 17:10] and baptism [Acts 2:38, cf. Colossians 2:11-12], to this promise that he gives to believers and their children.

3. Therefore, since God has given an explicit promise to believers and their children, in the New Testament, and attached a sign to this promise, and enjoined us (in the new covenant) to administer that sign [baptism, Matthew 28:19-20], then we should give the sign of the promise he has made to believers and their children, to believers and their children, in humble obedience to biblical command and example. QED.

Just in case those arguments are causing any good baptists out there to wobble in their convictions, Justin Taylor has constructed a quick reply to Lig though he is planning a fuller one soon. He said -

. . . as a credobaptist, I think that Peter’s command and promise says more than the paedobaptists want it to say. It reads:
38 And Peter said to them, “Repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. 39 For the promise is for you and for your children and for all who are far off, everyone whom the Lord our God calls to himself.”
Note the portion I’ve italicized. “You,” “your children,” and “all who are far off” are all on the same level. In other words, (1) the condition and the command (repent and be baptized) as well as (2) the promise (you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit) are designed not only for you and your kids, but also for all people . , ,

Tim is doing a sterling job as usual live-blogging for us. I am especially enjoying his little throw-away comments that really give you a feel for what the place is like. My big question? How much “physical expression” is there in the worship times, Tim?

Anyway, here’s a quote that stood out to me from his notes from Duncan’s session. Challies begins by explaining that he was giving us a “specific example of mining seemingly-strange and irrelevant passages of the Old Testament and using them to point to Christ.” Go over to Tim’s blog to read the rest, but I leave you with a quote:

“I want you to see how exciting, practical and applicable the book of Numbers is.” Not words we are accustomed to hearing in the church!

After laying out several of the challenges of preaching from Numbers, Duncan read from 1 Corinthians 10:1-13. He showed that Paul valued the book of Numbers as everything that happened to the Israelites in this passage happened in the wilderness and much of it was recorded in Numbers. Paul is telling us here how Numbers is edifying and important for us today. He says that the events recorded in Numbers actually happened for us, and that God wants us to learn from them as Christians how we are to live today . . .

The events that happened in the wilderness happened as a moral warning to us. Those events are designed to warn us off from evil cravings . . . The Apostle does not merely say these things are recorded as examples for us but that they happened as examples for us. In God’s design, all the pain and suffering in the wilderness happened so that we can learn from it and from this we learn just how much He loves us…

Paul specifically applies this to New Testament believers in four areas. 1) Do not be idolaters. 2) Do not be immoral. 3) Do not presumptuously test the Lord. 4) Do not grumble against providence.”

— Lig Duncan

Continued at Shepherds’ Conference V - Al Mohler: Preaching the Cross, Not Human Wisdom

Over at Together for the Gospel Lig Duncan has a great post that will enrage the hearts of any Arminian readers I have left. He lists multiple reasons why he feels Reformed preachers are better evangelists!