Truth Magazine

By By Hugh J. Mooney

In cigarette country, television commercials show two or three handsome, rugged cowboys on beautiful horses. Or there are sports cars, planes or scuba gear. The scene is always one of clean, windswept health. The people have a look of supreme confidence; the lovely girls all smile.

I know another country. It is a land from which few return. In this sad region there are no strong men, no smiling, pretty girls. Executives and store clerks there look very much alike, not only because they wear the same clothes, but because people living on the raw edge of a thin hope somehow get the same haunted expression on their faces.

I am referring to cancer country. I have been there.

I am 44 years old, and have a wife and two small children. By 1963, I had a comfortable salary with an insurance firm, and the future seemed bright. In May of that year, I developed a slight difficulty in swallowing. Our family physician said that if it persisted for another week, he would arrange an appointment for me with a throat specialist. It did persist. The specialist diagnosed it simply as “a case of nerves”-a diagnosis that he was to reaffirm in October. Finally, in January 1964, convinced that it was more than a case of nerves, I entered a hospital. And there the doctor told me, as gently as he could, that I had cancer of the throat.

The first thing that occurred to me was that I would die and Eileen, my wife, would have to give up the house. What a shame that my children would not be able to grow up in that house! We had bought it only two years before.

The doctor suggested that I enter a well-known Eastern hospital. Two days later, Eileen and I drove there. I was assigned to a four-bed room on the seventh floor of the east wing. This is known as Seven-East.

When I saw the three other patients in my room, I didn’t want to believe my eyes. It was suppertime, and the patients were eating. It wasn’t much like the television campfire scene. These men stood by their beds and carefully poured a thin pink liquid into small glass tubes. Then they held the tubes high over their heads. The fluid drained down out of the tubes through a thin, clear plastic hose which disappeared into one nostril.

They had to eat this way because throat, mouth, tongue and esophagus had been cut away in surgery. I could actually see the back wall of their gullets-the entire front of the throat was laid open from just below the jaw down almost to the breastbone. Each of them had a large wad of absorbent bandage under his chin to catch the constant flow of saliva pouring out of his throat.

The sight of these “tube feeders” shocked and depressed me more than anything since the day I learned 1 had cancer. As soon as I had changed into pajamas and robe, I rushed back to the solarium where Eileen was waiting. Shaking, I lit a cigarette and stared about me at all the other patients, some of whom would be dead in a week or so.

The doctor assigned to my case found us there in the solarium. I made it clear to him that I never wanted to become like those other patients. I said that I would rather die than be cut up that way. He told me not to think about it, that perhaps such drastic surgery would not be necessary in my case.

A heavy snow was falling outside. Eileen had to leave to drive the 60 miles home. I walked with her to the elevator, pretending a lot more optimism than I felt. “Drive carefully,” I said, and kissed her good-by. The first few hours after the elevator doors closed behind her were probably the worse of my life.

I fled to the solarium, unwilling to face the surgical horrors in my room. Yet everywhere I looked there were patients whose tongues, pharynxes, jaws, throats, chins or noses had been removed. Many of them were waiting for plastic surgery to reconstruct their faces and necks.

For this, it is necessary to grow extra pieces of flesh. Through some sort of surgical miracle these pieces of flesh-called pedicles-can be made to grow anywhere on the patient that the surgeon decides is best. One patient had flesh growing out of the side of his neck in a tubular U, like the handle on a suitcase. Another man had one growing from between his shoulder blades over his right shoulder to a spot in his throat just below the chin. It must have been 18 inches long.

I was torn between horror and pity. What might I look like soon? I reminded myself that surgery might not be necessary, and kept my eyes on the walls, the floor-anywhere but on the other patients.

The television set was on, and the cigarette commercials droned along, extolling the wonderful taste of the product. But these people who had smoked all their lives could no longer taste cigarettes-or anything else. Their food was poured through plastic tubing. There are no taste buds in plastic tubing.

All the people in the commercials had wonderfully appealing voices, young and vibrant. But the patients around me in the solarium did not have very nice voices. 1n fact, many had no voices at all; their vocal cords had been cut away.

These voiceless wraiths carried pad and pencil to communicate. Others, whose throat openings had been closed, were able to use an electronic device that looked something like a flashlight. You hold it against your throat, and it picks up vibrations from the section where your vocal cords used to be. It produces a tinny, electronic voice-faint, but understandable.

Next morning, I was taken to the operating room for a bronchoscopic examination. This is very much like sword-swallowing. You tilt your head back as far as you can, and doctors slide a metal tube through your mouth and all the way down into your trachea. Your gag reflexes go crazy trying to eject this tube, and you find that it is completely cutting off your supply of air. All this time two or three doctors are taking turns looking down the pipe.

Occasionally they take a sample for a biopsy — lowering something down the tube that snips off a specimen of flesh here and there. I passed out from lack of air during the examination, and came to back on my bed. 1 was told not to eat or drink anything and to remain in bed for at least two hours.

In an effort to save my voice, so important in insurance work, it was agreed that radiation treatments would be tried. The treatments were not effective, and in August 1964 the doctors told me I would have to undergo surgery.

The night before the operation, knowing that I would never speak again, I tried to tell Eileen how much I loved her and the children. She was very brave. The next morning, on my way to the operating room, I remember praying and repeating the name “Jesus” over and over. It seemed somehow right that this should be my last spoken word.

Eleven hours later, I was brought back to my room. Except for an hour in the recovery room, I had spent all that time on the operating table. Next day, I learned that the surgeons had removed my larynx, my pharynx, part of my esophagus and a few other random bits and pieces. I was now one of those “surgical freaks” whose appearance had so shocked me some months before. From this time on, I would breathe through a hole at the base of my throat called a stoma.

Knowing how odd my open throat made me appear, I felt completely cut off from humanity-a mere biological specimen, It was a difficult and lonely period of adjustment. Eight subsequent operations were required to reconstruct the front of my neck. Television helped pass the time. All of us there in Seven-East were, I confess, morbidly fascinated by the cigarette commercials. After smoking approximately 19,000 packs of cigarettes, I-we all-had turned out a bit different from those handsome fellows and beautiful young women.

Young people today are great believers in realism. It might be interesting, therefore, if some advertising agency were to do a cigarette commercial featuring a patient who had lost his throat to cancer caused by smoking. They could choose a man growing one of those flesh pedicles. Or the camera might slowly pan around the room, showing all of us still faithfully smoking brand X or brand Y-those of us who still had a complete mouth to put a cigarette into. They might even show the one total addict I met who smoked by holding his cigarette to the hole that led into his windpipe, through which he breathed air into his lungs.

We don’t ride horses or helicopters or sports cars in Seven-East. We ride wheeled tables to the operating room, and if we’re lucky we ride them back. Seven-East is only a part of cancer country. They treat lungs on the third floor. I thank God that I have not yet had to visit there.

Truth Magazine XIX: 52, pp. 821-822
November 13, 1975

By Roy E. Cogdill

In our last article, we emphasized the Lord’s plan for the government of the church by the appointment of qualified men as elders, bishops, or pastors over the local church. The divine plan is a plurality of these in every church. They have the “rule” of the church committed into their hands by the Holy Spirit. It must not be done by their own arbitrary will, or be lording it over the church, but God has committed to them the “oversight” of the flock and charged them with the responsibility of directing its affairs in harmony with His will. We have suggested that it takes two things to make a man an elder in the church of the Lord, qualification and appointment. When men are thus selected, they are made “bishops” by the Holy Spirit (Acts 20:28) just like men are made Christians and deacons or evangelists by the Holy Spirit; that is, through the guidance and direction of the Holy Spirit through divine truth.

The Oversight of the Elders

When elders are thus selected and appointed, what do they oversee? Frequently we come across someone who has the idea that the spiritual affairs of the church are under the oversight of the elders but that the deacons are to have charge and the oversight of the material affairs of the congregation. This puts the facilities of the congregation in the way of physical equipment and the financial affairs of the congregation under the direction of the deacons according to this conception. Such an idea is not found in the word of God. The scriptural arrangement is for the elders to have the oversight of the church in all of its work and worship. There is no part of the church that has not been-given to the oversight of elders in the church. They may be made directly responsible for some work under the supervision of the elders, but it must be under the supervision of the elders. The preacher, as a special servant to do the work of preaching and teaching the Word of God, is in the same position as a deacon or any other member-under the supervision or oversight of the elders. Of course, all are responsible, first of all, to the Lord.

What then, do the elders oversee? First, they have the oversight of the members and must watch for their souls as they who shall give account unto God. Heb. 13:17, “Obey them that have the rule over you, and submit yourselves: for they watch for your souls, as they that must give account, that they may do it with joy, and not with grief: for that is unprofitable for you.”

Second, they are responsible for the teaching and safeguarding of the truth. This is taught in the required qualifications for an elder; Titus 1:9, “Holding fast the faithful word as he hath been taught, that he maybe able by sound doctrine both to exhort and to convince the gainsayers.” Then again, Paul charged the Ephesian elders with the special responsibility of protecting the church — Christians for whom they were responsible — against false doctrine and every departure from the truth (Acts 20:28-32).

Third, they were to oversee the distribution of benevolence to the destitute of the congregation under their charge. When the disciples of Antioch sent relief to the “brethren in Judea,” they delivered it by the hands of Barnabas and Saul into the hands of the elders. This gave the elders the responsibility for its distribution or the oversight of its distribution. Of course, our institutional and liberal brethren like Guy Woods, Goodpasture, and others contend that the elders cannot oversee a program of “relieving” the destitute and that such work necessarily requires a “Board of Directors” or some other organization which they incorrectly and deceptively call a “home.” So they set themselves squarely against the divine pattern. In fact, they deny that there is one and thus invalidate, or attempt to do so, the plain teaching of the word of God. But do not other brethren do the same thing when they put the direction of the local church under a “committee,” “preacher rule” or in the hands of a majority? What would be the difference? If we can set aside the oversight of elders in “every church” in one matter, then by the same token we can set it aside in any other.

It is not difficult then, to see that the elders have the oversight of the work of the local church. To this fact we must add that the elders have the oversight of the edifying of the church. This is very definitely taught by Peter, in 1 Peter 5:1-4. They are to “shepherd,” “tend,” “feed,” or “pastor” the flock over which they are bishops. They are responsible, therefore, for the instruction, sustenance, growth, security and development of the flock under their care.

Moreover, the elders are to take the oversight of the disciplining of the flock. This is definitely implied in the demand that members must be subject to them, that they must watch for their souls, that they must be able to convince the gainsayer, etc. All of this has to do with preventive discipline and in the administering of corrective discipline, as at Corinth (I Cor. 5). The elders would be responsible for taking the lead and having the oversight of this public action of the church in withdrawing from the ungodly.

This gives, by scriptural authority, the oversight of the members, resources, worship, work, and discipline or fellowship of the local church into the hands of the elders of the local church. They can delegate none of these to another eldership for to do so would pervert the local nature of the organization God designed. By the same right that they could delegate one part of their oversight they would be able to delegate all of it and this would make elders or bishops over more than just one local church. It would likewise destroy the autonomy, equality, independence, and sufficiency of the local church. It takes “all of the parts to make a whole.” When any of the parts are given away, the “whole” does not remain-rather a “hole” is left and a deficiency created. Page the Fort Worth brain trust of Tom Warren and Roy Deaver! They must endorse this conclusion to their own argument!

Conclusion

The simple facts of New Testament Church organization are these: (1) Qualified men appointed as “elders” in every church. (2) These qualified men to have the “rule,” or have the oversight of all of the affairs of the local church. (3) Elders to have oversight of just one local church. (4) Elders to have the oversight of no other organization in their jurisdiction as elders. (5) Elders to have the oversight of no function that does not belong to the local church.

That is how simple God’s plan for the government of His Church is and He will countenance no perversion or corruption of it. To depart from it is to apostatize and denominationalize the church.

Truth Magazine XIX: 52, pp. 819-820
November 13, 1975

By Larry Ray Hafley

Question:

From Hawaii: `All the teaching I have heard concerning speaking in tongues seems to be that the apostles were given this gift to spread the gospel. If the tongues were languages in every instance, why were interpreters needed? If the tongue had to be interpreted why did not the apostles just speak in the language necessary? “

Reply:

By Way Of Introduction

First, the apostles (but not the apostles only) were given the ability to speak in tongues in order “to spread the gospel.” At least, that seems a fair implication from the events of Acts 2. Second, where the gift of tongues was employed and the hearers did not understand, interpreters were required, “But if there be no interpreter, let him keep silence in the church” (1 Cor. 14:28). As far as the record reveals, the apostles never spoke so as to necessitate an interpretation, but those on whom the apostles laid hands did so speak. Hopefully, this shall be clear from what follows.

Those Who Spoke In Tongues

The apostles were given the ability to speak in tongues or languages they had never learned (Acts 2:4, 6, 8, 11). Paul, an apostle, spoke “with tongues” (1 Cor. 14:18), but this ability was not restricted to the apostles as our querist’s remarks seem to imply. The gift was conferred to others by the laying on of the apostles’ hands (Acts 8:18; 19:6; 1 Cor. 14). There are no apostles today. Consequently, none today speak in tongues by the power of the Spirit as they did then.

“What about Cornelius?” someone asks. His was an extraordinary case. His was an exception, if you will, that sustains the general rule. Cornelius spoke in languages. He was not an apostle, nor had apostolic hands been laid upon him. However, the gift of the Holy Spirit upon Cornelius’ household fell “as” it had upon the apostles “at the beginning.” The purpose was specific, definitive. It occurred one time for all time. It is never to be repeated or duplicated (Acts 10:47, 48; 11:18; 15:7-11, 14-18).

Again, tongues speakers, those who spoke languages they had never learned or studied, were limited to the apostles and those upon whom the apostles laid their hands (Acts 2:4-11; 8:18; 19:6; 1 Cor. 14).

“The Language Necessary”

Unwittingly, our querist has made the assumption that the apostles did not speak “in the language necessary,” that is, the language of the hearer. Can one find a passage where an apostle ever spoke a language the hearer could not understand? When the apostles spoke in tongues, they always spoke the language of the hearer. “Yet in the church I had rather speak five words with my understanding (that is, being understood by my audience-LRH), that by my voice I might teach others also, than ten thousand words in an unknown tongue” (1 Cor. 14:19).

But if the Corinthians, or anyone with the gift of tongues, exercised their gift where the audience did not understand the language, an interpretation was required, else they were to “keep silence in the church” (1 Cor. 14:28).

Now, our questioner might rephrase his inquiry thusly: “If the tongue had to be interpreted, why did not the Corinthians just speak in the language necessary?” Because tongues were for a sign to unbelievers (1 Cor. 14:22), one need not speak the language of the hearer; however, there had to be an interpreter for the exercised gift to be a sign or indicator. The Corinthians were speaking in languages which were not understood, nor were they being interpreted. It was confusion!

Paul’s argument is that they were misusing their gift of tongues by speaking without understanding or comprehension on the part of their hearers. He says that all such utterance is without profit, speaking “into the air,” barbaric, unfruitful, void of edification, and madness (1 Cor. 14:6, 9, 11, 14, 17, 23). If there be not interpretation of the tongue, if none comprehend, then “keep silence.”

Consider A “For Instance”

For example, if a Corinthian could speak “in the speech (language) of Lycaonia,” he was to keep silence, “except he interpret.” What use was it to speak “ten thousand words in” a language no one understood? “It is pointless,” argues Paul in effect. This gift was given “for a sign” to unbelievers. So, why display it when it is of no benefit or profit? Why use it when none understand it? If no Lycaonians are present, or if there be no interpreter, “keep silence in the church.” The tongue was a sign to the unbeliever. One did not have to speak Lycaonian to see the miracle, but it failed its purpose if there was no interpretation. With interpretation, it could properly be used as a sign to the unbeliever. That is why the Corinthian did not “just speak in the language necessary.”

Truth Magazine XIX: 52, p. 818
November 13, 1975

By Larry Ray Hafley

It is surprising how many denominational commentators will freely, openly and casually set forth the truth of the Bible which contradicts the teaching of the denomination with which they are affiliated and associated. Certain ones state the New Testament preaching and practice with such emphasis and clarity that it seems hard to imagine they were members of a human church which just as clearly and emphatically contradicted the very word of God. But they were. The quotation below is by Augustus H. Strong. Mr. Strong was a scholar of note and renown. He was, at the time of this quotation, President Emeritus of the Rochester Theological Seminary. His religious credentials are impressive.

Concerning the organization of the local congregation, Mr. Strong, in reference to Philippians 1:1, said:

“In the very first verse you have recognized an organization of the Christian church that is noteworthy. He writes to those who recognize Christ, to the saints in Philippi, with the bishops and deacons; i.e., with the overseers and deacons. Only two orders are recognized, only two sorts of officers in the Christian church. First the pastors, or overseers, of the flock, and then the deacons of the church; and I suppose we have here the outline of church organization in the apostolic time. We do not anywhere find that there are more than these two ranks, or officers, in the Christian church” (A. H. Strong, Popular Lectures on the Books of the New Testament, pp. 242, 243).

By the term “Christian church,” Mr. Strong did not have reference to the modern day denomination known by that name. He simply meant the church of the Lord, the New Testament church. His comment is as plain as it is truthful. What a shame that the simple organization of local churches is not followed as faithfully as it is set forth!

Truth Magazine XIX: 51, p. 814
November 6, 1975