Dr. Barnhouse and the Bible

Guest (Male): The Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals presents the timeless teaching of Dr. Donald Grey Barnhouse.

Dr. Donald Grey Barnhouse: Another great principle involved in our text is in the statement that the one who has been given a gift from the Holy Spirit is to use it. Phillips paraphrases this paragraph as follows: "Through the grace of God we have different gifts. If our gift is preaching, let us preach to the limit of our vision. If it is serving others, let us concentrate on our service. If it is teaching, let us give all that we have to our teaching. And if our gift be in the stimulating of the faith of others, let us set ourselves to it. Let the man who is called to give, give freely. Let the man who wields authority, think of his responsibility. And let the visitor to the sick, do his job cheerfully."

The underlying thought is that we must put our capital of gifts out on loan, that the capital may be increased and that there may be many dividends. We have been given these gifts on loan. We are trustees for them. We are responsible. We will be called to account.

Guest (Male): Over a half a century ago, the late Dr. Donald Grey Barnhouse, then pastor of Tenth Presbyterian Church in Philadelphia, saw the need to spread God's word beyond the hearing of his local congregation. He started the radio outreach which has become known as Dr. Barnhouse and the Bible. The application of God's word as taught by Dr. Barnhouse is as relevant today as when he first taught over the radio airwaves decades ago.

The message we'll be featuring on today's edition of Dr. Barnhouse and the Bible is entitled, "Church Leadership and Teaching." Alexander the Great was so named because of his extraordinary military and political leadership as he conquered and dominated much of the known world. Even today, we tend to associate greatness with power, wealth, influence, and worldly success.

But Jesus points us to a much different path to greatness in the spiritual life and in church leadership. Effective spiritual leaders must lay aside personal ambition, self-serving agendas, and the desire to rule over others, and serve others in love, humility, and complete reliance upon the grace of God. The scripture text for this edition of Dr. Barnhouse and the Bible is Romans chapter 12. We're looking at verses 6 through 8. Here again is Dr. Donald Grey Barnhouse with a message entitled, "Church Leadership and Teaching."

Dr. Donald Grey Barnhouse: Through the Lord Jesus Christ, we come unto thee, our Father and our God, and in the Holy Spirit. There is no one else to whom we can go. Thou alone art God. There is none like unto thee. We give thee our worship and acknowledge thy worth. In this hour, we pray that thou shalt speak to us through thy word.

If any listen who are not yet saved, give them a deeper knowledge of the sinfulness of sin and of their need of Christ as Savior. For those who listen and who know thee, may there be that food which shall cause us all to grow spiritually in thy truth. We ask it in the name and for the sake of our Lord Jesus Christ, Amen.

In our study of Romans 12:7, I want to go back again to the phrase "the gifts". "Let him who has the gift of teaching wait on teaching." Accustomed as we are to churches in the United States during the latter half of the 20th century, we find it difficult to visualize the churches of the first century. It is necessary to remind ourselves of the great contrast between these two centuries and to recall also the vast difference between the true church and the churches.

The churches are modern things, bearing names that were not given to them by the Holy Spirit. No historian would risk his reputation by declaring that any church in the world today has outward similarity to the church of the first century. It is true that all who are saved are brought to Christ in the same way in all centuries. The same Holy Spirit animates each individual believer. It is the same Christ whom we love and serve.

But there the likenesses end. The disciples would not recognize the forms, ceremonies, liturgies, buildings, order of service, programs, and other features of the churches of the 20th century. All these changes grew out of a far more serious change, namely, a change in the method of administration of the church.

In the beginning, as our text clearly shows, the church was governed and led by men who were given gifts by the Holy Spirit. Many were ignorant and unlettered. They had no training as we know it today. They heard the word of God with gladness and were transformed by the message. They went about their ordinary tasks, but with a fire and a flame that would not be stopped. Spontaneously, the number of believers spread as the truth winged from heart to heart.

The tendency for individuals to grasp at power was early manifested in the churches. Peter warned against ministerial domination. As we read in his first epistle, chapter 5, verses 1 to 3: "So I exhort the elders among you as a fellow elder and a witness of the sufferings of Christ, as well as a partaker in the glory that is to be revealed. Tend the flock of God that is your charge, not by constraint but willingly, not for shameful gain but eagerly, not as domineering over those in your charge, but being examples to the flock."

The tendency in the heart of any man who is not controlled fully by the Holy Spirit is to seek a place of dominance. The old version translated it, "lord it over God's heritage." The principal effect of such domineering was to give rise to a group of men who presumed to dictate to others in matters that were the province of the Holy Spirit.

If such guidance had been no more than spiritual, there would have been no difficulty. But the time came when men put forth their own desires as the will of God for others and demanded that others submit to their personal rule. There is no basis for this in the word of God, and it has produced disastrous results within the organization that surrounds the body of Christ.

By the close of the first century, there was a party within the church organization which had secured a victory over the laity by exalting itself to a place of dominance. Even though Peter had warned against it, the reality had come to pass. In the letters to the seven churches in Asia, in the early chapters of the book of Revelation, there was already a party, the Nicolaitans, who, as their name in the original Greek shows, had won a victory over the laity.

It is flatly stated that God Almighty hates the works of these who advocate and enforce rule over others within the body of Christ. Now, in the course of time, the organization became more important than the organism. The organization became more important than faith, more important than the Holy Spirit, more important than Christ, more important than God. This was inevitable since the essence of sin is rebellion against God and the capture of his throne by the sinner.

"I will be like the Most High," Satan said in the first instant of his fall. Adam refused the one sign of dependence and declared his own sovereignty. The rulers of the usurping organization followed in the footsteps of these, their two fathers, Satan and Adam, and the pattern was set. Now, we must understand that it is possible for a pattern of sin to be firmly set for so long a period that it gains respectability, honor, and finally, approbation.

In a few generations, good people, true believers even, will accept long-established wrong as right. It takes special anointing with the eyesalve of grace and continuing enlightenment by the Holy Spirit to break the bonds and free us from the cultural pattern into which we have been born, and to teach us to be humble before God and to be led by him each step of our way.

All of this is pertinent to a proper understanding of our text. What we are leading up to is the great and important fact that the churches of this 20th century are led for the most part by men who have their gifts from long academic training and not from the Holy Spirit.

The president of one of our foremost theological seminaries once told me that he was disappointed in many students who came to his seminary. He knew that they were not spiritually called, and he could only thrust the blame back upon the local bodies who took the candidates under their care. These bodies, in turn, depended upon their committees, and the committees rarely refused a candidate who was presented to them by a pastor of some church in that denomination.

In many churches that are governed locally with no authority above the congregation, the matter is sometimes worse. A man may be chosen who has no aptitudes at all. The claim that he has a "call" is taken as evidence of the Holy Spirit's work, and the congregation hastens to ordain him. The mistake does not belong to our century alone.

Paul instructed Timothy that no recent convert was to be ordained, lest he be puffed up with his own conceit and fall into the condemnation of the devil. Also, Paul wrote Timothy that an ordination was not to be performed in haste. Another great error in our modern way of doing things is to expect that one man is to possess all the necessary gifts for leadership.

Thus, a church may have several hundred members and only one pastor. He is supposed to be able to preach, teach, administer, pastor, comfort, and so on. In fact, of the eight gifts mentioned in our text, seven are usually considered to be the functions of the ordained minister, while the eighth is the function of the congregation. And what one gift is left to the congregation? It is that of paying the bills. Something is entirely out of order here.

Now, someone may ask if I am suggesting that laymen should preach. Without question, when a layman has a grasp of the scriptures, he should exercise his gift and preach at every possible opportunity. The growth of laymen's movements is significant and is a step in the right direction, back to the New Testament way of doing things.

In our last study, we discussed the first of these gifts, which I insist are distributed throughout the entire membership of the true church. And we go down again to the third in this series, which is the gift of teaching. I said something about it at the close of the previous chapter, but I return to it because I am convinced that it is so very important.

The man who has this gift of teaching is to stick to it and exercise it. Many a time I have said to an audience, "I am not a preacher, I am a teacher." Once indeed, a lady asked me if I meant that I was not an ordained minister. I replied that I was indeed ordained and that I was installed as the pastor of a congregation, but I depend not on my human ordination, but on the fact that the Lord Jesus Christ called me.

And I have spent my life in preparing to teach and in actually teaching. I still teach, and I hope also I am still preparing. A man with a voice that enables him to sing major roles in the Metropolitan Opera would be a fool if he did not recognize that he has the gift of singing. I would be a fool if I did not recognize that the Lord has given me the gift of teaching.

I am not saying that I have the gift of infallibility in teaching, but that I am enabled to present truth as I see it. I know that many thousands of people have come through the years to listen to me preach and teach, and have testified that they have been blessed by this teaching. Again, I repeat, this does not guarantee that everything I teach is final truth.

I believe that the Bible teaches that God will hold me responsible for my spiritual attitude toward him. Have I been willing to listen to his voice? Have I been willing to lay my own reason in the dust before him in order to take it again for use in my work? Have I been willing to remain spiritually alive and dependent upon the Holy Spirit?

Have I been willing to go again and again to the word of God to refresh my own soul before speaking to others? Have I tried to live what I preached? Have I acknowledged my sins when the Lord showed them to me and repented of them? Have I recognized moment by moment my utter dependence upon the Lord?

Have I been lazy? Have I been diligent? Have I insulted the Lord by feeding his lambs with food ill-prepared? Oh, believe me, these questions and a thousand others are constantly before the man who knows that he has been called by God and that he is answerable to the Lord in the day of the judgment of the believer.

Some of the answers to these questions were found early in my life and have been firmly accepted as divine principles on which life must be lived and work done. These answers, sometimes arrived at through long study and hard wrestling with the Lord, become a part of one so that they seldom have to be restudied.

Just as one does not have to think of the breathing process unless one has a cold, even so there are divine principles that do not have to be thought of because they are so much a part of life. Any who wish to be teachers will find some of these answers only after wrestling matches like that which engaged Jacob and the angel of God.

The reason that the teacher will never forget the answer is that some sinew has been shrunken and the thigh put out of joint, so that in his heart he walks before God with a limp that recalls the wrestling. Another great principle involved in our text is in the statement that the one who has been given a gift from the Holy Spirit is to use it.

Phillips paraphrases this paragraph as follows: "Through the grace of God we have different gifts. If our gift is preaching, let us preach to the limit of our vision. If it is serving others, let us concentrate on our service. If it is teaching, let us give all that we have to our teaching. And if our gift be in the stimulating of the faith of others, let us set ourselves to it. Let the man who is called to give, give freely. Let the man who wields authority, think of his responsibility. And let the visitor to the sick, do his job cheerfully."

Now, anyone who has read this passage in the Greek knows that there are no verbs describing the use of the gifts. A literal translation of our text might read: "Whether prophecy according to the proportion of faith, or service in service, or he that teaches in teaching, or he that exhorts in exhortation, he that gives in simplicity, he that takes the lead with diligence, he that shows mercy with cheerfulness."

But in spite of the choppy style of the original, the underlying thought demands expansion as Phillips has given it. For the thought is that we must put our capital of gifts out on loan, that the capital may be increased and that there may be many dividends. We have been given these gifts on loan. We are trustees for them. We are responsible. We will be called to account.

I have learned how necessary it is to obey to the full the injunction: "If your gift is teaching, let us give all that we have to our teaching." It would be impossible for me to count the number of times diversions have been presented that would have taken me off on tangents away from my main gift.

In the providence of God, I have had close fellowship with other believers who understood their partnership in the administration of the gifts. How well my congregation understands that I am not to spend my time in sick calls. How faithfully my elders have lightened my burden so that I may use all my time in studying and teaching, and be free to go wherever doors are opened.

How many thousands are bearing the burden of the financing of the teaching ministry so that it can continually expand, and thus the glory all belongs to God. Finally, I would like to emphasize that every believer should teach. Remember the Holy Spirit's reproof in the epistle to the Hebrews?

In the section about the work of Christ as our eternal high priest, we read in Hebrews 5:12: "There is a great deal that we should like to say about this, but it's not easy to explain to you since you seem so slow to grasp spiritual truth. At a time when you should be teaching others, you need teachers yourselves, to repeat to you the ABC of God's revelation to man."

Let that phrase ring in your ears: "You ought to be teachers." "You ought to be teachers." "You ought to be teachers." And I believe that every member of the body of Christ is called on to tell someone else every fresh bit of truth learned, every new knowledge of Christ received, every pitfall seen and avoided, every distant glory brought near, every lesson learned that will help us to be more like Christ.

This is the nature of the Christian life. Each believer must be a teacher in the measure of the proportion of faith given to him. We are to tell others. We are to be living witnesses to the truth and living examples of the blessing of truth. And may God bless to us this study from his word.

Our dear Heavenly Father, we pray thee that as the word goes forth, that it shall be in the power of the Holy Spirit and in much assurance and come beyond the ears of men to their very hearts. Hear us, we pray thee, in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, Amen.

Guest (Male): Jesus himself is our perfect model for effective church leadership and teaching. The leaders in his church must imitate him in laying aside personal ambition and agendas and seeking to serve and uplift others.

You have been listening to Dr. Barnhouse and the Bible, a ministry of the Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals. We hope you have benefited from today's message entitled, "Church Leadership and Teaching." To listen to additional Bible teachings by Dr. Barnhouse, you can tune in anytime, anywhere around the globe via the internet by visiting us online at www.alliancenet.org. Again, our website address: it's www.alliancenet.org.

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