Methodist and Lutheran preachers can find enough water in Mt. 19:14 to sprinkle all the babies in the world, and there is not a word in the whole chapter about water. But John 3:5, where water is said to be an essential element in the new birth, is bone dry.

Christian Church preachers can find an organ in Eph.5:19 and a Missionary Society in Mt. 28:18, while in neither passage is either mentioned.

Some of my brethren can put money from hundreds of churches into the hands of one eldership to spend in preaching. They can, and will, and have put so much pressure on a church just for announcing a gospel meeting in another church that is not in harmony with their ecclesiastical practice, that the elders where the meeting was announced got up and publicly apologized for making the "mistake" of announcing the gospel meeting. And all of this can be done without interfering with the autonomy of another church. But just mail a few bulletins to members of a church which supports these brotherhood projects suggesting that we need to examine our authority for some of the things we are doing, and you are "violating the Bible teaching of congregational autonomy." Hmm. It "do" make a difference, "don't" it?

Truth Magazine XXI: 28, pp. 446
July 21, 1977