Truth Magazine

By Ronald D. Howes

As a child at my mothers knee I was accustomed to repeating little nursery rhymes. All of us can remember the one where by a proper manipulation of the fingers we could say and do “here is the church, heres the steeple, open the doors and heres the people.” A similar recitation, a slightly altered finger manipulation, and you come up with an empty building. Most of us, however, grew out of the habit of learning doctrine by nursery rhyme, and have since dedicated ourselves to a study of the revealed will of God for authority in practice. It seems though that some have not.

On a recent trip through the states, it was our pleasure to meet with old friends of college days and visit brethren in different parts of the country. One of the congregations I used to visit on occasion while in school had outgrown their old building and had moved a couple of miles away, and finding them required some map work. Eventually though, we were successful and soon rolled up to a magnificent piece of contemporary architecture with a 30 foot steeple adorning the crest of its majestic roof.

I said to myself, “This must be the wrong address!” Certainly, we had run across an edifice of the Baptists, Methodists, or perhaps Mormon persuasion where steeples were a mark of the church, meaning in their terminology the building, not the people.

Much to my sorrow, the large florescent billboard out front read “The Church of Christ meets here.” The traditional meeting times were listed, and in the distance I could see people I had known to be members of the sought after congregation entering the building. Nervously clutching my Bible, I began to run over in my mind the laws of authority which govern the expenditure of the Lords treasury for church buildings. Not finding one for steeples, I crossed the foyer and took my seat with the faithful. Phrases and snatches from a sermon by an old soldier of the cross on “Looking like the nations around us” and “Playing the denominational game” and “Wasting the Lords money,” came to mind.

The building was a good example of the progress of the Lords church. The floors were richly carpeted, the pews thickly padded, and the windows adorned with simulated stained glass. This congregations pulpit was self adjusting, raising and lowering itself at the push of a button. There I sat in the middle of all that, thinking about primitive Christianity, when the sight of the hand-carved Lords Table caught my eye. During the evening lesson, my mind continually strayed from the topic, “The Simplicity of the N. T. Church,” to trying to figure out just bow many gospel preachers could have been supported in the Philippines or Nigeria with the foolish waste and strain for comfort that lay before my eyes. There were two months of preaching in the padding on my pew alone.

After the lesson one of the brethren, a deacon if I remember correctly tried to point out to me the scripturality of the scene. We traded verses on following apostolic example, abiding in the doctrine of Christ, and not adding to or subtracting from the word of the Lord. Needless to say, our discussion quickly resolved itself to expedients. Not finding justification for such a building there, I soon found that the preachers who bad brought me up on 2 Tim. 3:16, Jude 3, and 2 John 9 had missed a rule of authority: The Law of Aesthetics.

Since that dreary day preachers and others have justified their -steeples, spires, and monuments to me on the basis of this Law. They say, “It adds to the good looks and symmetry of the building,” and makes it look Uke a church, building. No doubt they visualize the hall of Tyrannus with a steeple also.

My shock has since passed to sorrow to think that brethren who had fought so long and hard for the New Testament order would court disaster with wanting to be like the people about them. Our meeting houses do not really have to look like cathedrals in order for us to assemble,

And now a confession, the building described arose from an over-active imagination. But, each part of it now exists on one of our meeting houses across the land. It should not be lour before someone gets it all together. Really makes you wonder, doesnt it?

TRUTH MAGAZINE, XVI: 44, p. 9
September 14, 1972

By Jeffery Kingry

I read recently in Parade magazine, a supplement that comes with the local paper, an article entitled, “More Abortions Than Babies in Eastern Europe.” In Budapest, Hungary for every ten new babies, there are fifteen dead babies by abortion. In Poland the rate is thirteen dead to every ten brought into the world. In Belgrade, Yugoslavia for every child born, there are four killed by abortion. Incredible as it may sound, in Yugoslavia some women have aborted over forty of their own children. Admittedly, the average in that country is four abortions per woman.

One woman doctor in Yugoslavia is reported as saying, “More and more young women are coming to the cities to work or study. Soon these 15- or 16-year olds find themselves pregnant. In the villages at their age they would probably get married. In the cities they seek an abortion. It costs somewhere between five and ten dollars.

Many brethren in the Lord who do not see anything “wrong” with killing a baby for the convenience of the mother would do well to consider these words and statistics. The U.S.S.R. had a liberal abortion program, but had to severely limit abortions in the past years because of their shrinking population. Some eastern European countries have had to start importing foreign labor, because they no longer have a youthful work force coming of age each year. Japan, who has long b-en plagued with overpopulation, still is overpopulated, but with no new generation coming up to carry on as the present population passes away. This fact has moved the Japanese to tighten up some of their liberal abortion laws.

The problem runs much deeper than self-genocide. Where has the conscience of man gone when he can, without a tear, destroy literally millions of lives daily with nary a ripple of protest from any quarter? A plane may crash, a building may burn, a natural disaster will take tens, hundreds, maybe even thousands of lives, and people will shake their heads with sadness. A small handful of innocent people can be murdered in their homes by the Manson cult, and the headlines wilt scream for months with the sordid details in shocked and indignant tones. But who hears the cries for the murdered innocents taken by men for convenience or expediency? “In Rama was there a voice heard, lamentation and weeping, and great mourning, Rachel weeping for her children, and would not be comforted, because they are not.”

The door for every imaginable horror was originally opened by Satan with a very small and effective wedge: a wedge called “indifference to truth.” How many times have we seen it? “How will the orphans be taken care of, if we do not build orphanages? Are you anti-orphan?” With that wedge in the door the rest comes marching through, and the identity of the church and its function are trampled under foot. Satan has those firmly in his grip.

“What is wrong with dancing? It is merely a pleasurable exercise. Are you against fun and exercise?” The door is cracked and through the gap oozes the real Pandoras horde; lasciviousness, lust, fornication, adultery heartache, and death.

“A war is no different than a policeman protecting an innocent person. You are a coward, afraid to fight for your country.” Satan laughs derisively at the arm-chair generals as he gathers in all the suffering, pillage, destruction, deceit, sickness, and lingering death from a thousand wars.

“All abortion cannot be wrong. You can not be sure that an unborn baby has a soul or is even human. What about the cases in which the mothers life is endangered?” The door bursts open, and soon more babies are dying than are being born. Satan cannot claim those innocent lives taken from their mothers wombs, cheated of their chance to see the day God has made, but, with a greedy smile he pulls in all those that murder with an M.D. It was just a little wedge… but look at the results. For a fact, Satan is a hungry lion seeking whom he might devour.

Today, some in America would “update” our antiquated” abortion laws. The result tomorrow might be that all the unwanted and unuseful might pay the same penalty. The law of the land is not the law of God, and government and its laws (and wars) do not absolve us of our responsibility to love and honor God, and the man that He made in His image.

“O Lord, thou God of vengeance, thou God of vengeance, shine forth!

Rise up, O judge of the earth; render to the proud their deserts!

O Lord, how long shall the wicked, how long shall the wicked exult?

They pour out their arrogant words, they boast all the evildoers.

They crush thy people, O Lord, and afflict thy heritage.

They slay the widow and the sojourner, and murder the fatherless; and they say, The Lord does not see;

The God of Jacob does not perceive.

Who rises up for me against the wicked?

Who stands up for me against the evildoers?

If the Lord had not been my help, my soul would soon have dwelt in the land of silence.

Can wicked rulers be allied with thee, who frame mischief by statute?

They band together against the life of the righteous, and condemn the innocent to death.

But the Lord has become my stronghold, and my God the rock of my refuge.

He will bring back on them their iniquity and wipe them out for their wickedness;

The Lord our God will wipe them out.”

(Psalms 94:1-7, 16, 17, 20-23)

TRUTH MAGAZINE, XVI: 44, pp. 7-8
September 14, 1972

By Mike Willis

Archaeology in General Corroboration of Background and in Dating Books

The assortments of names used in the New Testament were names common to that period of history. Through diggings which have excavated the ossuaries of the first century, scholars are able to find the common names of that time period. “The names of the deceased were invariably carved upon the ossuaries in Hebrew, Aramaic, or Greek, and these inscriptions have contributed materially to an understanding of contemporary family and social organization. Such names as Jesus (Jeshua), son of Joseph, Simon or Simeon, Judas, Ananias, Saphira, Elizabeth and many others indicate that the names in the New Testament were in fact the common names of the day.”1

Also, the format of the letters in the New Testament was the format generally used in the letters of that day. Compare Pauls introduction to that of contemporary letters:

“Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, to the saints who are at Ephesus…” 2

“Theon to Heraclides his brother, many greetings and wishes for good health.

“Tays to the lord Apollonius, many greetings.” 3

Thus, I have shown that the general background in the New Testament is accurately depicted as confirmed by the spade of the archaeologists.

Dating of Books

Textual critics harangued at one another regarding the dates which should be assigned for the writings of most of the books of the New Testament for years. The battle raged during the last part of the 19th century with many books being “definitely” assigned to the second century. The consensus of liberal scholarship was that the gospels were written in this order: Mark, Matthew, Luke, and John. John was definitely assigned a second century date and the rest of the gospels, at the most, a late first Century date.

“.. . in 1935 a fragment of the gospel of John was discovered and deciphered in the John Rylands Library of England which contained five verses of John (18:31-32 and 37, 38). This fragment dates from the first quarter of the second century, and since it was found in Egypt, it means that the original gospel of John would have been composed some time before 125 A.D. in order for it to have circulated that far. Sir Frederick Kenyon says concerning the traditional date of Johns gospel: There is no longer any reason to question the traditional date of the book.” 4

The effect of this find completely revamped liberal scholars thinking regarding the dates for the writings of the gospels. If John were written last and it was written in the first century, then all the gospels were written years earlier than originally suspected. Most scholars now date all die gospels before 70 A.D.

Other books of the New Testament have also been re-dated since new finds in archaeology show that the vocabularies used were common to that period and that apostasies similar to those described actually did exist at that time. Particularly, do these facts bear true for the writings of Paul.

Thus, archaeology has done much to establish approximate dates for the writings of the New Testament.

Footnotes

1. R. K. Harrison, Archaeology of the New Testament. New York: Association Press. 19641, p. 6.

2. Eph. 1:1.

3. Op. Cit. Harrison, p. 12.

4. Arlie. J. Hoover, External Evidences of Christianity, la mimeographed booklet published in Tampa, p. 132.

TRUTH MAGAZINE, XVI: 44, p. 6
September 14, 1972

By Cecil Willis

One of my favorite writers of the Restoration period is Moses E. Lard. What he had to say, he said with “punch” in it. Whatever he felt, he felt strongly. And what he felt strongly, he said strongly. It has always been difficult for me to understand how one of the most brilliant minds produced during that glorious period could so strongly oppose instrumental music in worship, and yet so stoutly defend missionary societies. I guess he had a little of whatever makes Reuel Lemmons “tick” in him also.

A few nights ago, I was reading from Lard and ran across the following interesting quotations. I have put the captions on the quotes.

On Becoming an Apostate

“As a people we have from the first and continually to the present proclaimed that the New Testament and that alone is our only full and perfect rule of faith and practice. We have declared a thousand times and more that whatever it does not teach we must not hold, and whatever it does not sanction we must not practice. He who ignores or repudiates these principles, whether he be preacher or layman, has by the fact become an apostate from our ranks; and the sooner he lifts his hand high, avows the fact, and goes out from amongst us the better, yes, verily, the better for us.”

The Cure for Innovations

One of the issues of Lards day was that of injecting mechanical instrumental music into the worship. Lard said: “The day on which a church sets up an organ in its house, is the day on which it reaches the first station on the road to apostasy. From this it will soon proceed to other innovations; and the work of innovating once fairly commenced no stop can be put to it till ruin ensues.”

But some of the churches of Lards day were beginning to install organs in their meeting houses. Lard said: “But what shall be done with such churches? Of course nothing. If they see fit to mortify the feelings of their brethren, to forsake the example of the primitive churches, to condemn the authority of Christ by resorting to will worship, to excite dissension, and give rise to general scandal, they must do it. As a body we can do nothing. Still we have three partial remedies left us to which we should at once resort. 1. Let every preacher in our ranks resolve at once that he will never, under any circumstances or on any account, enter a meeting house belonging to our brethren in which an organ stands. We beg and entreat our preaching brethren to adopt this as an unalterable rule of conduct. This and like evils must be checked, and the very speediest way to effect it is the one here suggested. 2. Let no brother who takes a Letter from one church ever unite with another using an organ. Rather let him lives out of a church than go into such a den. 3. Let those brethren who oppose the introduction of an organ first remonstrate in gentle, kind, but decided terms. If their remonstrance is unheeded, and the organ brought in, then let them at once, and without even the formality of asking for a Letter, abandon the church so acting; and let ail such members unite elsewhere. Thus these organ grinding churches will in the lapse of time be broken down, or wholly apostatize, and the sooner they are in fragments the better for the cause of Christ. I have no sympathy with them, no fellowship for them, and so help me God never intend knowingly to put my foot into one of them.”

The March of Sin

Speaking regarding the progression of sin, Lard said: “Apostasies begin with things that have no harm in them and end in ruin. At first they creep, but in the end stride continents at a single step. Finally we say watch, beware!”

On Dancing “Christians”

Lard discussed dancing and instrumental music in the same article. Apparently it was true then, as now, that doctrinal defection inevitably led to moral compromise. Lard said:

“Let those who urge it first show that there is no harm in dancing before they ask us to acquiesce. Let them either show where it has the sanction of Christ or the apostles, or was practiced in some primitive church; or else let them forever cease to urge this plea, and abandon the practice. The church never parts from aught but trouble when it parts from such members. If they can be reclaimed and saved by all just means let this be done; but the church should not compromise, not for one day, with dancing. Let its action be kind but firm, and terribly prompt. This alone will save. Of all the unsanctioned acts a church has to deal with, none demands prompter treatment than dancing. It is one of those specious and insidious evils which must be cured in its very inception, or it is never cured. Tolerate it, and by and by those who advocate it will claim the right by prescription to engage in it. Remonstrance is vain then. Our churches should lift a unanimous voice against it, and proceed to rid themselves of it with energy and a promptitude which would leave not a vestige of it in Zion. Let the world know, but especially let professors know, that it must be completely and forever abandoned. A stand like this once taken and maintained with dignity and firmness, and the evil is soon cured. But as long as the shilly-shallying course of some of our churches is persisted in, dancing will increase in them until it ultimately becomes the rule; then the result is clear. Attempt to correct it now and dancing will exclude the church, and not the church dancing… I never knew a dancing Christian on his dying bed to send for a dancer to comfort him, nor a fiddle, called for in the chamber where death completes his work. Let no Christian think that he can scandalize the church of God with the evils of which we are speaking and stand approved in the judgment day…. The churches of Christ in the whole land owe it to themselves, and to the high and just ground they have taken, to guard with Sleepless vigilance against even the semblance of an innovation on the practice and usages of the apostolic churches.” (Lards Quarterly, 1864, Vol. 1, p. 330)

TRUTH MAGAZINE, XVI: 44, pp. 3-5
September 14, 1972