One In Jesus

We’re working our way through Leroy Garrett’s book: What Must the Church of Christ Do to Be Saved? The paperback is $7.95, but it’s also available in Kindle edition for $0.99. For $0.99, it’s really an offer you can’t refuse!

Now, by “saved” Garrett doesn’t mean that he questions the salvation of the individual members of the Churches of Christ. Rather, he is concerned to save the Churches of Christ as a “viable witness to the Christian faith. What must it do to escape extinction in the decades ahead …?”

Chapter is called “Resurrect the spirit of J. W. McGarvey (Redivivus!)”

Readers familiar with the history of McGarvey will recognize him as one of the greatest scholars of his generation who built much of the 20th Century case for a cappella singing. If you argue for a cappella music, you likely are using an argument borrowed from his work. And yet McGarvey refused to separate himself from his instrumental brothers in Christ — even preaching in their churches, provided only that they not use an instrument while he was worshiping there.

(If you ever wonder why Church of Christ theology is so centered on Acts, you can also thank McGarvey for that, due to his popular commentary on Acts.)

Continue reading →

We’re working our way through Leroy Garrett’s book: What Must the Church of Christ Do to Be Saved? The paperback is $7.95, but it’s also available in Kindle edition for $0.99. For $0.99, it’s really an offer you can’t refuse!

Now, by “saved” Garrett doesn’t mean that he questions the salvation of the individual members of the Churches of Christ. Rather, he is concerned to save the Churches of Christ as a “viable witness to the Christian faith. What must it do to escape extinction in the decades ahead …?”

Garrett’s next chapter is captioned “Find out who the real enemy is”

One only needs to read our church papers to see that for the most part we are fighting each other. Or if one listens to a lot of our sermons and reads our tracts he may conclude that “the denominations” are the enemy. Or if our argumentative spirit is not satisfied in any other way it is some “straw man” that is the enemy. Then there is the long history of our debates. We started out debating “the sects.” When they would no longer debate us we started debating one another. (p. 69). Continue reading →

Can the presence of the Spirit be discerned by observation?

A reader asked whether the ultimate test of Christian fellowship isn’t in fact the presence of the Spirit. That’s exactly the view of Barton W. Stone, and his opinion is built on a lot of scripture.

It’s clear from the scriptures, I’m persuaded, that the presence of the Spirit is supposed to be visible — not necessarily by miracles (as we tend to use the term) but by the changes the Spirit makes to our hearts. And the scriptures plainly teach that those with the Spirit are saved, and those without the Spirit are not. Continue reading →

Alexander Campbell wrote an article in his periodical, The Millennial Harbinger, approving cooperation with Christians outside the Restoration Movement. In that article, he said: “For we find in all Protestant parties Christians as exemplary as ourselves according to their and our relative knowledge and opportunities.”

This led to a letter from a woman in Lunenburg, Virginia, quoted below. She asked, “Does the name of Christ or Christian belong to any but those who believe the gospel, repent, and are buried by baptism into the death of Christ?” It’s recently been theorized that she may have written this letter to embarrass Campbell, but as you can see, he’d already declared his view that many outside the Restoration Movement are saved.

Campbell replied with an extensive discussion of his views on the effect of a flawed baptism. Campbell’s defense of his views requires no commentary from me.

The readers might note that my views are very similar to Campbell’s, which does not make me right, but perhaps his defense of his views will help explain my own. Continue reading →

We’re working our way through Leroy Garrett’s book: What Must the Church of Christ Do to Be Saved? The paperback is $7.95, but it’s also available in Kindle edition for $0.99. For $0.99, it’s really an offer you can’t refuse!

Now, by “saved” Garrett doesn’t mean that he questions the salvation of the individual members of the Churches of Christ. Rather, he is concerned to save the Churches of Christ as a “viable witness to the Christian faith. What must it do to escape extinction in the decades ahead …?”

Garrett’s next chapter is captioned “Have Our Own Vatican II.” Continue reading →

We’re working our way through Leroy Garrett’s book: What Must the Church of Christ Do to Be Saved? The paperback is $7.95, but it’s also available in Kindle edition for $0.99. For $0.99, it’s really an offer you can’t refuse!

Now, by “saved” Garrett doesn’t mean that he questions the salvation of the individual members of the Churches of Christ. Rather, he is concerned to save the Churches of Christ as a “viable witness to the Christian faith. What must it do to escape extinction in the decades ahead …?”

In the preceding post, we began a discussion of how a Christian can fall away. We considered falling away for a loss of faith in Jesus or for a loss of repentance, that is, for rebellion by continually deliberately sinning against the known will of God. We didn’t have room to get to the loss of trust in God, that is, a loss of hope. How might a loss of trust damn? Continue reading →