Truth Magazine

By George T. Eldridge

Mothers do not realize the power they have in their hands, or the influence they exercise over children. All students of the Word of God know as they study the women of the Bible that nations and even the church (1) cannot have any more spirituality, (2) cannot be any more godly or (3) be any more righteous, good, and kind than the quality and character of mothers. All these qualities start in the home. We must have women who fear the Lord.

When we find women fearing God, we find homes, as the home ought to be. Unless that quality is in mothers and wives, the church (1) cannot rise to her militant battle cry, (2) cannot grow spiritually, and (3) cannot baptize people. As you study the Bible and read history, you recognize truly the hand that rocks the cradle ultimately influences the world. Her influence can be for good or it can be for bad.

Murder

Every individual that was involved in an assassination in my lifetime came from a bad home. Examine the assassin of John F. Kennedy, Robert F. Kennedy, and Martin Luther King. Every murderer came from a broken home. Every one had a mother who did not fear God. Look what happened and what was brought upon our nation. In each home, we could not find mothers who feared the Lord. Because of that home, the teachings from those mothers, and the examples those mothers imprinted upon their children of the church not being important and righteousness being secondary, each child grew into manhood and became an assassin. Godliness was unknown. The Bible was not read by those mothers nor was it encouraged.

For Good

Unless the mothers in the church fear God, the church will not be what she ought to be. Women have always been and will always be an integral part of humanity because she came from the side of man. If humanity is to be purified, if humanity is to be brought to greater heights of godliness and righteousness and if men and women, boys and girls are going to be brought to the Lamb of God that taketh away the sins of the world, it is imperative that we have mothers in the church who are enlightened spiritually. Women who fear God shall be praised.

With godly mothers, this sin-sick world of ours and this sin-sick community of ours can be brought closer to God. The answer is up to women seated in the pews of churches today. Why? It is in mothers’ hands where we have so much influence; so much teaching, which is important to the children, and so much needed encouragement needed by husbands. Because of “higher education” and because of every evil mentionable flowing freely in our land, which are not condemned wholeheartedly by churches today, chaos is in the world.

Man’s Rib

Genesis 2 records where woman came from and why she is here. That scripture teaches a lesson needed today. Unless we get back to its depth, its purity, and its holiness, man will never be brought closer to God and the church will never be, as she ought to be spiritually. When you read of man being the head of the woman, you have to realize the woman is the crown. As Solomon said: “A woman is a good crown to her husband,” in everything which is holy and godly (Prov. 12:4). Man came from the dust, but the woman was doubly made.

The woman is of the dust, too, but she came also from man’s rib!! Look where the rib is on the man’s body. The rib is not in man’s head so that man might be ruled by the woman or be bossed. The woman was made out of man’s rib. The rib is not from man’s foot so that he might trample upon her and for him to mistreat her.

There is no lower specimen of human life than a man who would abuse a woman. I knew an individual, and thanks be to God that I was not there when such occurred, who defended wife “beating.” He was in the church. There were some sisters who condoned it. That low specimen of a man placed black and blue marks on his wife. He “spanked” her. He “beat” her. The woman was not made from man’s rib for him to beat her or for him to use her as a punching bag. Regardless of what a woman might be, man has no justification to beat her as he would “beat” an animal. Woman came from man’s side, his rib. Woman is equal with man.

She is equal in standing beside him in times of trouble, in times of fear and in providing a home. That home is one of comfort, of godliness, and a home where God is first and this old sin-sick world cannot penetrate. Woman came from man’s rib. The rib is under man’s arm. A woman is to be protected, even to the man giving his life for her. The woman is to be cared for and honored. The rib is close to man’s heart so that woman might be loved. We men need to awaken to that truth and show our love more everyday.

Social Favor

Regardless of how much favor and social grace your daughter might possess and regardless of her beauty, your daughter is lost in sin unless she serves God according to the Bible (Prov. 31:30).

Without God

Life is empty without God. Morals become laxed. Society generates into all types of filth and perversion. The woman, therefore, is not respected when she does not demand godliness first in what she thinks, says, and practices. Nothing is more heart tearing and tear bringing than to see a mother permitting her children to grow up without spiritual values being first. Mothers: unless the church and all that God stands for is your first requirement (your first desire), everything, even life, is without any value!

Child Rearing

When your child reaches the step in life where he starts exercising freedom, the power of decision making, and the power to stand on his or her own feet, will your child be interested first of all in godliness and in God’s church?

Concerning her child’s behavior, mothers come to preachers with the request that he speak to her child about godly living. They do not see where they have failed. An elder

provided the answer once, when a sister got mad at me due to her children’s living. This godly elder said, “We know what Sister did wrong. She permitted her daughter to go to the dance. She permitted her daughter to go to mixed swimming. She permitted her daughter to parade around in what God condemned Eve for wearing. That is what is wrong with Sisters children. She did not emphasize Bible things like she did worldly living.”

Raise a child in God ‘s way and the odds are with you that when he is old he will not depart from godliness. Many mothers in Churches of Christ today do not recognize that. Mothers in Roman Catholicism willingly permit their children to be trained in early, early life in Roman Catholicism. Because of pre-teen and teenage training, we know the difficulty of converting them out of Roman Catholicism. You have many children supposedly raised in homes of parents who are members of the Church of Christ, yet too many of the children grow cold in the faith or become lukewarm. Why? In the formative years, which are the pre- teen years, the mother did not instill into those children the fear of God, letting the church be first, letting the Bible ride their lives and guiding the relationship.

Final Word

Mothers: Awaken. Rise to the teaching of God. Continue in Biblical living. Your influence must not be underestimated. Rise to the level and plane, which God requires of all fine mothers. Through your influence, man passes to either useful service now in the church and to humanity or indifference to God and to little benefit to mankind. Which will it be? You must make the decision.

TRUTH MAGAZINE XVII: 21, pp. 7-8
March 29, 1973

By Bennard R. Wiese and Urban G. Steinmetz.

According to the U.S. Bureau of the Census in 1967 one marriage in four is broken up by divorce. There are other marital troubles where the marriage may be legally intact but internally wrecked. The problem of marriage is really a problem of staying married. This book is presented by its authors as a manual to accomplish just that and to “like it.”

We live in a “high tension” society that is tuned to high living, fast ways and so-called “personal freedoms.” We are gorging ourselves to the gagging point on fun and frivolity. The laws of neither God nor Washington amount to very much for so many people in our land. All of this adds to a frantic problem of trying to keep the base of our society solid, viz., keeping the home what it should be.

As I read through this book I observed at least two very good features it has. First, the authors present the real problems that plague so many marriages. It can be ground down basically to the unhappiness that exists in far too many marriages that, although not in legal battles yet, are fraught with constant domestic fights, quarrels and arguments. The authors analyze why such things go on between two human beings who once promised God they would love each other till death and accept one another “for better or for worse.” Second, the book offers many constructive answers that serve to remedy such ugly situations. There is a constant effort throughout this book to make the reader aware of the fact that marriage is real-it is not the Hollywood type of fantasy or a mere physical arrangement. Marriage is presented in this book in Biblical terms where two human beings become “one flesh” with all that implies.

Quite well is there an analysis of the various “stages” through which the average marriage passes. From the “dream world state” to the “time of disillusionment” to the “time of misery” to the “time of awakening” to the “time of love” stage is a long way for two people, and many marriages never make it all the way through these precarious stages. Some marriages, of course, never encounter all of the problems and dangers the authors discuss, but for those that do, there are many things worth considering presented in this manual.

How do you build love in a home? Is there any way that it can be done? The formula that is offered by the authors of this book is “Communicate-Work-Pray which is to equal Mature Love.” Each of these elements is elaborated upon in a very readable and intelligent manner. It is amazing to realize after considering what these men have to say that it is quite possible that married people may have lived together for a long, long time without really knowing one another.

The treatment given to the problems surrounding the sexual relationship in marriage are done frankly and with good taste. The authors point out very clearly that in this “sex oriented” society where the movies and books are drenched in the sordid, perverted and licentious display of sex that real life is not at all that way. The place of sex in the marriage relationship is put into its Biblical connotation and shown to be something beautiful and normal between two married people.

There may be a point or two where the reader will disagree with the view of the authors on such things as birth control. I suppose I am mentioning this for self preservation, but while I agree with them in a married couple’s privilege to use birth control methods, others may consider this heretical. However, to those who agree with the authors you will find their discussion one that is done in good taste and yet very practical.

I recommend the book to every elder or preacher who has to deal with marriage problems from time to time. It also is a good book to use in the family. I rate it a good solid “G”. At the end of each chapter are several points for discussion based on what has been presented in the text. Of course, like any book, it should be taken only insofar as it is right and proper and to that extent I recommend it to you.

TRUTH MAGAZINE XVII: 21, pp. 5-6
March 29, 1973

By James W. Adams

Religious movements are begun, perpetuated, and consummated by men. We refer to movements purely human in character. Such movements, like rivers, never rise above their sources; their course is ever downward unless elevated by alien elements. They degenerate. Since movements do not rise above their sources in character, but manifest instead the nature of their origin, it is important in reviewing a movement that one observes carefully the sources from whence it springs.

This means that one cannot separate men and their movements. It also means that one cannot deal adequately with movements without paying his respects to the men whom gave them birth. It is idealistic, unrealistic, impractical, and often dangerous simply to address oneself to the principles of a movement and ignore its principals. This is my reason for noting the sources among “conservative” brethren from whence springs the neo-Calvinistic, “unity-fellowship” movement or cult, which is the occasion of this series of articles.

Conceived by Extremists

Ernest Renan remarked concerning the Pharisees of our Lord’s time, “Religious zeal is always an innovator, even when it pretends to be in the highest degree conservative” (The Life of Jesus, p. 238, Dolphin Book). In a sense, this is but the adaptation of an old proverb to the effect, “One extreme begets another.” While I have no sympathy with the skepticism of Renan, I judge his analysis of Pharisaic character to be eminently correct. Fanatical, religious zeal is rarely, if ever, constant. It rebounds from one extreme to another heedless of consistency. In the field of Biblical exegesis, it often combines crass meticulosity with the grossest kind of loose constructionism with never a care regarding incongruity or equivocation. Therefore, movements generated by extremists are always suspect.

Our current “unity-fellowship” movement has at its very roots a number of well known, ultra-extremists, though men of unusual ability, who became so obnoxious to brethren generally, over a long period of time, that their influence was all but dead. According to their own testimony (and I heard them give it recently), they took a good, long look at themselves and were appalled by what they saw. As a result (according to their own testimony l, they thereby and therewith experienced a complete spiritual metamorphosis. Whereas they had been the slaves of a Diotrophesian exclusiveness (3 John 9, 10), which was the product of a Pharisaical self-righteousness (Lk. 18:9-14) and an untenable concept of the demands of Divine authority, they indentured themselves to a Pergamosian or Thyatiran type of permissiveness (Rev. 2:14-16; 18-23). Whereas they formerly could include in their fellowship almost no one; they now can include in their fellowship almost anyone. With no feeling of personal animosity whatsoever and with no desire to wound needlessly the feelings of errant brethren, honesty and the necessity for clarity demand that I identify brethren W. Carl Ketcherside, Leroy Garrett, and Ervin Waters among this number. In fact, in my candid judgment, they are classic examples.

A Qualification

In the use of Pergamos and Thyatira as examples, I do not imply that the brethren to whom reference is made believe in or practice the immorality characteristic of the false teachers of those places. I emphasize only the permissiveness of their fellowship. However, I am thoroughly convinced that their concept of salvation by grace with its resultant allpervasive fellowship will lead ultimately and inevitably to a compromise of moral principles. It has done so among Calvinistic bodies. The doctrine of “the impossibility of apostasy” which is inseparably linked with their concept of “salvation by grace” has spawned licentiousness. As far as I am able to determine, the Nicolaitan doctrine of New Testament times (Rev. 2:15) differed little from Calvinistic theology in this respect.

Libertarianism in Morals vs. Libertarianism in Doctrine and Service

Libertarianism in the realm of morals is certainly no worse than the same spirit when it manifests itself in the realm of doctrine or religious service. In fact, Uzzah of Old Testament notoriety died at the hands of God for merely taking hold of the Ark of the Covenant in an effort to save it from falling and possibly breaking (2 Sam. 6:1-7). On the other hand, David was allowed to live despite the sin of adultery with Bathsheba and the consequent murder of her husband, Uriah the Hittite (2 Sam. 11: 1 to 12: 24). Furthermore, David and Bathsheba were permitted to continue as husband and wife, and Bathsheba became the mother of Solomon, heir to the throne of Israel and divinely honored builder of the temple of God.

Does It Make a Difference?

It may be asked, “Does it make a difference in one’s consideration of the current ‘unity fellowship’ movement that its originators and primary promoters have been for many years noted extremists?” It does, indeed! Any movement emanating from men who have spent the major part of their lives building systems of religious faith and practice on the bases of distorted concepts of the teaching of Scripture, the fundamental teachings of which carry within their bosoms the germs of their own destruction, and which are in fact in the final throes of their demise, is not likely to be possessed of a high degree of validity.

W. Carl Ketcherside has spent most of his life with an ultra-radical wing of the all but dead, so-called “Sommer Movement, of the Midwest. (More about this later.) Leroy Garrett came up as a sort of proteg4 of G. A. Dunn Sr. in his later years. In those years, G. A. Dunn (and I knew and loved him) all but destroyed his usefulness through preoccupation with opposition to what he called “the pastor system” and other equally extreme concepts. Garrett’s early years as a preacher were spent in obtaining a succession of academic degrees and theological degrees from sectarian seminaries while he himself was opposing and rabidly denouncing educational institutions operated by brethren in which the Bible was taught daily in an effort to achieve the development of the “whole man —physically, intellectually, and spiritually.” Ervin Waters has spent his whole life in the advocacy of the non-Bible class position and the one container on the Lord’s Table position.

Had these men been more balanced, moderate students and teachers of the Word, had that which they were affiliated with been meeting with a higher degree of success and growth, had they, in the midst of their labors and at the peak of their influence, forged their views on “unity” and “fellowship,” and out of pure philanthropy, at the risk of place and position, in a thriving religious community, committed their reputations, their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor to their cause, it would have made a difference! At least, it would have liberated the minds of all from lingering doubts and haunting suspicions based on the well-known fact that “necessity is the mother of invention.”

The Acid Test

Despite the fact that the “unity-fellowship” movement does not recommend itself by reason of the men who have conceived and launched it, this does not mean that it shall be judged solely on this basis. It will stand or fall on the basis of its Scriptural merit or lack of it. In articles to follow, a thorough review will be made of the men, the movement, and the teaching and practices, which are associated with them and it. Truth is the issue. Where it lies is of paramount importance.

There are valleys of sophistry to be filled. There are mountains of spurious piety to be leveled. There are rivers of inconsistencies to be dammed and bridged. There are multitudes of evasions of consequences, which must be exposed to light and truth. We promise you, it will be done!

TRUTH MAGAZINE XVII: 21, pp.3-5
March 29, 1973

By Norman E. Fultz

Like most other preaching brethren, each week I receive a large number of bulletins from churches throughout several states. Some of these I requested, others I just happened to be receiving. They serve a useful purpose to one who is interested in knowing something about how the Lord’s work is progressing in various sectors, and many of the articles are very stimulating and helpful. Some of the articles prove to be of inestimable value when I, having myself edited a bulletin for many years, need a “selected” article. And I am not adverse to using the articles of others, especially when they say so well something that I want to say, though I do prefer to use articles which bear the author’s names. Since these little publications come in all sizes, colors, and forms, I have tried to do some evaluating which it is hoped will be helpful.

When I sit down to go through a large pile of bulletins, and they do sometimes arrive in piles, many of them I glance at hurriedly and lay aside for more careful reading at a later time; many of them I glance at and file away in “No. 13.” Some of them I read closely, some of them scarcely, some of them not at all. Now what makes the difference? Several things enter into it, and since these reactions might also be true of the readership, for which the bulletin is primarily intended, let me offer these thoughts.

One of the overriding determinants in the readability of a bulletin is its overall neatness- neatness of layout and neatness of mechanical production. And since the preacher’s (generally) time and the Lord’s money are both expended in the publishing of a bulletin, we should aim at having a readable paper in order to accomplish that for which it is intended.

While it is the discretion of the editor, which determines layout, I venture a few personal observations. Many of the bulletins received have very fine material, but in some instances, even though the mechanical part of the bulletin may otherwise be very good, there is a serious overcrowding of the material. There is very simply an effort to include more in the little paper than it ought to have to bear. This results in a lack of “white space” in the margins, between paragraphs or between different articles, but a fair degree of that “white space” aids readability. In trying to crowd in too much material, one may defeat his own purpose by “turning off” the readers. Better to have less material read than much material unread.

The type style and size are also important considerations affecting the readability of a paper. A few of the bulletins I receive are beautifully printed in fine quality, but the print is so small (even with 20-20 vision unaided) it is laborious to read. This may be prompted by the desire again to get more material in less space. Severely reduced type is difficult enough to read, but there are some who insist on the lines running the page width rather than using columns. That makes it even more tedious to read. To be sure, a little more effort is required to print in columns, but it is effort well expended. Not that all bulletins printed with single columns are like that … one lies before me now which is easily readable having been printed in normal size type with a space between each of the short paragraphs, resulting in neatness.

The mechanical production of a bulletin can seriously affect readership. This is not to say that one certain type of production must be used; but whatever is used, it should be good quality for ease of reading. Many mimeograph machines do a beautiful job and are well used by some churches. In recent years, more and more churches are making use of offset ‘reproduction. These are capable of doing a really fine job, but using offset does not assure neatness. Others have bulletins commercially printed and usually have good workmanship.

Publishing a bulletin is to a great extent a thankless time-consuming task for most. But bulletins have done, and can still do, much good as teaching mediums and as a medium for advertising the church and its services and work. Objectivity in evaluating one’s publication may be difficult, but it results in a more effective method of communication. So, look it over. Is it easily readable?

TRUTH MAGAZINE XVII: 21, p. 2
March 29, 1973