Handling Conflict - Part 3: Biblical Silence...

(note: this post is partially in response to a very well-considered comment left by Johnny C last Friday... so you may want to read his comment so this post makes better sense)

Let me say, first of all, that EVERY disagreement I have ever heard of in the churches of Christ - some very passionate - deal with 'how we do what we do' during a 2-hour period on Sunday morning. While it is important to discuss such matters, I am quite confident it is not worth the time we have spent on it... just once, I would love to see the same passionate attitude displayed when we talk about really important matters, like how to serve and love our neighbor... ok, rant over!

I appreciate learning new information from a variety of sources, and I try to respect the different beliefs which are held by those with whom I may disagree... and I especially accord due respect to the many writings and beliefs of those who are smarter and more studied than me (which is a very long list!). Also, I believe it is instructive to learn how believers have understood and applied scripture throughout the ages…

At the end of the day, however, it does not matter what I believe or what Dave Miller believes or what we may find in the "Syriac Didascalia" or the "Apostolic Constitution", all of which are uninspired writings… what matters is what the Bible has to say… and sometimes the Bible says little or nothing… so it becomes a question of what you make of that Biblical Silence… is it permissive or prohibitive?

(I will say, however, that citing Dave Miller as an authoritative source on any subject will invariably produce a 'church-of-Christ-party-line' response. I have read a lot of material written by Dr Miller, and I have rarely read any material from any source which carries such a pronounced bias. While I respect him for his educational experience and deep study, I have a hard time giving any weight whatsoever to his 'findings' on any subject dealing with the defense of 'church of Christ doctrine'... he is simply too biased. Dr Dave Miller is the author of 'Piloting the Strait', a volume which, in my estimation, set the Christian movement back 100 years! Also, if we are to place any importance on the uninspired words of men, I would tend to give more weight to those who were only a few generations removed from Jesus’ day – such as the author(s) of the Syriac Didascalia - rather than any modern-day author who is separated from apostolic times by 20 centuries.)

The 'preponderance-of-the-evidence' argument (which supposes that we may glean the overall direction which the Bible leads from how often something is or isn't referred to or mentioned) leads to a very important discussion. It is the argument which many of us use to justify (I mean that in a good way) the way we do things during our corporate worship. When there is not clear guidance or specific command with regard to some issue, we try to glean the 'overall direction' from the Bible... we try to discern God's will (usually with regard - again - to the way we do what we do for 2 hours on Sunday) from the 'overall tenor' of the scripture. (An example might be that since we do not read about any musical instruments being used in 'worship assembly' in the New Testament, we may assume that we should imitate that to be 'scriptural'.) This method, incidentally, is a second cousin to the 'better safe than sorry' method of Biblical interpretation...

Frankly, I believe this method is often used by those who look for ‘Biblical Authority’ for all they do (again, usually in our corporate worship)… then, in the absence of finding that ‘Biblical Authority’, move to the ‘preponderance’ method to ‘proof out’ our Sunday morning worship habits, most of which enjoy no Biblical attention whatsoever…

The reason this is dangerous - in my opinion - is because of my belief that God purposefully did NOT give specific new testament commands with regard to ‘how we do what we do’ on Sunday mornings… According to Galatians 3:24, the old law was a tutor, trainer, schoolmaster (depending upon your translation) to ‘lead us to Christ’, so we could then be justified by faith…

While God has always expected us to worship from the heart, He used the old law to ‘tutor’ and ‘train’ His followers to do so… and, as a tutor, the old law has some very specific commands as to how worshippers were to worship. These specific O.T. commands existed for the purpose of ‘training followers to worship with their hearts’… The danger (in my view) arises when we try to project Old Testament worship theology (specific instruction for worship) upon New Testament Christian worship…. I believe the reason there is virtually NO specific New Testament command with regard to HOW we worship is because God knew just how 'pharisaical' we humans could become… so His N.T. command boils down to ‘worshipping in spirit and in truth’ (Jn 4).

I heard a preacher this weekend talk about why we (church of Christ members) worship the way we do… his argument was offensive to me primarily because he spoke from the stance that we (the churches of Christ) are ‘doing it right’ while everyone else is ‘doing it wrong’… when I got beyond his rhetoric, I found that his argument was flimsy because of his dependence upon “speaking where the Bible speaks and being silent where the Bible is silent… to do Bible things in Bible ways, etc”…

I have a great deal of respect for anyone who practices what they preach… I respect them even if I believe their premise is wrong-headed… but when someone (usually from our fellowship) starts down the ‘speak-where-be-silent-where’ road (claiming specific Biblical command for ALL we do), I want to ask them why the women’s heads are uncovered…. and why nobody is lifting holy hands during worship…. and why we are even meeting IN a building the church owns… where is the ‘specific Biblical authority’ for any of those? When pressed, these folks invariably hide behind the ‘expedience’ rhetoric… and I cannot respect that… it doesn’t meet the smell test in any way. And (if we wish to quote modern-day-non-inspired authors), Brian Cobb has written a very well-considered article on Biblical silence… He is no more inspired than any of us, but he is very well-studied. http://www.manhattanmessenger.org/sounds-of-silence.pdf

When I think of the distinctive marks of Christ’s church, I no longer think of its identifying characteristics the way I used to… I encourage us all to think of what Jesus said about how 'all men' can identify His church… fill in the blank:

“By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you _____________.”

For decades, we have filled in the blank with “worship without a piano”, or “never miss a ‘church service’”, or (sadly, back in the middle of the last century) “have a separate church house for the black folks”… (yes, our tradition ended up being on the wrong side of the slavery and segregation issues)

What would happen if we simply tried to live up to Jesus' own description of the church He died to establish: “by this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another”?

Now, how does ANY of this apply to the woman’s role in the church? I’m not sure, frankly. I know we have few (if any) Biblical examples of women filling certain roles in 1st Century Christian worship assemblies… in fairness, however, we have very few (if any) Biblical examples of 1st Century Worship at all! Could it be we are assigning importance to something which was simply inherent to the culture of the day? (Women were very much 2nd class citizens in the 1st century culture)

If we are to completely discount the opinions or writings of uninspired men, we are left with only the Bible, which is, according to I Timothy 3:16: “sufficient for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness”…

However, what are we to do with Biblical Silence? I think we have to apply Paul's words from I Timothy to the ENTIRE Bible... including its divine silence! He calls the Bible sufficient... are we arrogant enough to presume we should fill in the blanks of that silence, then bind it as Holy Canon on our brothers and sisters? We had better be really, really careful...

May God continue to Bless us and send His Spirit to indwell us as we grow and learn.