Newsflash: Personal Discipline Is Not Legalism

[AndyE]

dcbii wrote:On Rom. 14:21 that you quoted, I think putting something like an alcohol clause in a church covenant on the basis of that verse will depend on how that verse is taken — is it for each of us to make a personal (good) decision to restrict our liberty at certain times to not cause a brother to stumble, or does it mean that all Christians must not eat meat or drink wine at any time? Given that Paul mentions eating meat at other times, I would think the 2nd interpretation is out. Not to mention Rom. 14:22, which talks about keeping our faith (presumably on such liberty issues from the context) between ourselves and God rather than restricting others’ liberties in a church covenant.

I think Paul is saying that there are times when abstinence is necessary for the good of your brother. I think that also means that the “keep it to yourself” option in vs 22 is not always possible or practical, depending on the situation. But regardless, if it is good for an individual to abstain in certain situations, why would it not be proper for the entire church to do the same?

Such a covenant, as usually phrased, prohibits a “strong” believer from having his faith to himself before God, which was Paul’s advice.

[Dan Miller] Such a covenant, as usually phrased, prohibits a “strong” believer from having his faith to himself before God, which was Paul’s advice.

[T Howard]…

1. Developing the personal disciplines discussed in the article is less about spiritual matters and more about being successful academically and personally. If you’re pursuing an advanced theological degree and called to pastoral ministry, you need to develop the discipline of time management as well as the others mentioned in the second paragraph above. That’s not legalism, that’s just the truth about pursuing any advanced degree. If you’re pursuing pastoral ministry to get out of these disciplines you have no business becoming a pastor. Period. …

I’m glad you posted this because I think all the alcohol and Romans 14 talk, while a topic I love, isn’t really what Mark was writing about.

And yet consider the command to pastor Timothy (and by extension to all pastors) to study to show himself approved, a Christian worker who doesn’t need to be ashamed, rightly dividing the Word. That is a Biblical command. Yes, the ease and inclination to follow it might be partly based in what you call a non-spiritual matter - diligence. But also it should be motivated by very spiritual matters: Biblical command, care for the flock, love of the Word,…

Further, the “work ethic” is misunderstood as simply a secular willingness and heartfelt duty to work hard. Properly, as understood by reformers, it should be an understanding that work well done is “good,” not just at providing a living, but as “good” service to others. So making shoes isn’t “secular” while serving as a pastor is spiritual. Both are spiritual, and good and Godly service to others.

And teaching you kids to work hard and serve others isn’t just preparing them for secular life. It is instilling good Godly character into them.

On the other hand, Paul says that to not work and provide is evidence of a lack of faith.

– Sanctification –

I think Mark has some work to do in thinking through exactly what he means by this and what place disciplines have in sanctification.

[AndyE]

Dan Miller wrote:Such a covenant, as usually phrased, prohibits a “strong” believer from having his faith to himself before God, which was Paul’s advice.

I’m not so sure. I you can keep your position to yourself, between you and God, without actually partaking.

I think you’re suggesting that Paul considered the strong (able to partake in meat and wine) to have a theoretical ability to eat/drink in good conscience.

I don’t think that’s consistent with the passage. v.3 says, “Let not the one who eats despise the one who abstains.” Paul considers the strong to be using their strength, not just having it. So the command to keep it to yourself should be thought of as not using it in ways that cause a brother to stumble into sin (of eating/drinking or of blasphemy).

[AndyE]…

I just happened to refer to this drinking issue in my SS class last week. I said it was a wisdom issue. That we need to acknowledge places in the Bible where wine is mentioned positively and where the dangers are mentioned. The classic danger passage in Prov 20:1 actually says if you are deceived by wine you are not wise. I mentioned that our church has in its covenant a prohibition against the use of alcohol as a beverage, explained why I thought that was in there (see comments to Dave above) and agreed that I thought it was wise to hold to an abstinence position. I don’t think I created any sort of extra-biblical command, but I did very briefly state my general agreement with the abstinence position. Am I a Pharisee?

That is the key question. If I make an logical application of a true Biblical principle, the result is a Biblical conviction. And if you don’t agree with my application, does that make it “extra-Biblical”? Well, in my opinion, it’s Biblical. But you don’t agree, so you’ll call it extra-Biblical.

You seem to believe that the abstinence position for alcohol is so obvious that it should be required for church membership and that if someone doesn’t agree, then you would take that as proof that they are not a believer? I don’t hold the abstinence position.

Phil 4:8 says to “think on these things.” And that means to treat the listed principles as rules for life. When we think and conclude that something isn’t good, lovely, etc., we should stop doing that thing, as a Biblical command. If our brother doesn’t agree with one of our conclusions, does that brother have the right to call our conclusion “extra-biblical”?

So often that is the case. Brothers agree on a principle (together declare it to be “biblical”) but they disagree on whether the principle applies to X. One says X is wrong and sees it as Biblical. The other says X is fine and sees his brother’s conclusion as extra-biblical.

[AndyE]

But we are not putting the things in the covenant on the same level as scripture. Maybe you don’t really like the idea of a covenant at all, which is fine. The covenant is not the doctrinal statement, but rather things the local body affirms with each other. Many things are directly from scripture to be sure (e.g., “to walk together in brotherly love”), but others are more practical applications (e.g., “engage to maintain personal and family devotions”) or highlight areas of special concern in the Christian life at the church engages with this present evil age (e.g., “maintain a clear line of separation from all religious apostasy and all worldly and sinful pleasures, practices, and associations”). This last category is where my church puts “to abstain from the sale of and/or use of intoxicating drink” and adds a couple things not found in Brown’s covenant (“and from the abuse of drugs, and from every appearance of evil”).

This is definitely a bit OT now, but actually, I am in favor of having a covenant (our church does, and I was on the team responsible for it), but only as much as possible putting things in there that can be directly tied to scripture or its logical implications. Our covenant mentions not being under the influence (i.e. strong enough to be similar to addiction or DUI) of anything that would inhibit a relationship with Jesus Christ and being filled with the Spirit. That was phrased that way to naturally include drugs, which most that mention alcohol do not mention at all, and to make the use of alcohol closer to drunkenness than simply having a drink.

We also have something similar to your clause about devotions that, IIRC, rather than using that specific word is more the idea of us studying the scriptures, and both personally and families having a relationship with God and Jesus Christ. Although I’m sure our implementation is less than perfect, the idea was to have what we are covenanting be tied as closely to the scriptures as possible. Our constitution specifies a committee that meets at least every 5 years to see if changes to the church documents are necessary, and interestingly, just like your old church, we read our covenant together at every regular business meeting, and sometimes at the impromptu ones.

I’m not actually sure if we would consider church discipline for the contents of our covenant either. Keeping it as close to scripture as possible was the goal, though thinking on it I’m fairly certain there are some things that might be closer to local body applications, even with the constraints we set for ourselves when writing it. It’s not an exact science, as I’m sure you know as you have done it as well.

If we go down that road, then what do we do with a host of ethical questions not addressed specifically in the Bible?

Well, I think we apply the Luther test to those as well. Why is recreational use of drugs wrong? Why is abortion wrong? The Bible and plain reason together can tell us. Wine and strong drink are tough to treat in the same way given the places where the Bible speaks of them positively, but anything related to drunkenness (like being stoned) is a pretty easy logical connection. If we treat alcohol and substance use based on the drunkenness standard, then it’s not really interesting if wine or hard liquor today are different from Bible times. Drunk is drunk, and it’s a sin whether it takes 8 glasses of “biblical wine,” or just one medium-sized drink of Everclear. And we can certainly still encourage either abstinence or being wise in its use.

Other issues can be dealt with the same way. I’m OK with the idea that we should read and apply the scriptures with wisdom, and that not everyone will do it the same way. I get leery when we say something like “no matter what the scriptures say about wine, wine today is different, so wisdom says use of it is a sin.” The biblical prescriptions on not being drunk or causing your brother to stumble are actually quite sufficient to help us figure out what to do. For some that may lead to abstinence, for others moderate use. To bring this back to impositions on others, I personally don’t think the Bible record should lead us to a position of prohibition on all.

[Dan Miller] I think you’re suggesting that Paul considered the strong (able to partake in meat and wine) to have a theoretical ability to eat/drink in good conscience.

I don’t think that’s consistent with the passage. v.3 says, “Let not the one who eats despise the one who abstains.” Paul considers the strong to be using their strength, not just having it. So the command to keep it to yourself should be thought of as not using it in ways that cause a brother to stumble into sin (of eating/drinking or of blasphemy).

[Dan Miller] You seem to believe that the abstinence position for alcohol is so obvious that it should be required for church membership and that if someone doesn’t agree, then you would take that as proof that they are not a believer? I don’t hold the abstinence position.

I would not call a Christian brother a Pharisee. (I should not have answered Andy’s question as I did.) However, I have identified pharisaical tendencies within myself over the years that needed to be corrected in the light of Scripture. I believe all Christians possess such tendencies, and we need to ask the Holy Spirit to show them to us so that we can root them out.

Romans 14 teaches us that we should curtail Christian liberties, such as drinking wine, if doing so would cause a weaker brother to stumble. This is an individual decision that each person must make before the Lord. To require that all Christians must practice abstinence to avoid the possibility of harming a weaker brother violates the teaching of Romans 14. We cannot prohibit others from practicing a legitimate Christian liberty simply because someone has decided that it should be avoided. I am free to abstain in the presence of a weaker brother, and as a mature believe, I am happy to do so. However, others may not require me to abstain in private. No one has that right. Christian liberties cannot be canceled by others. I must make these decisions personally before God.

Here’s the text of the Baptist Church Manual. Other doctrines of note therein are perserverance of the saints, and explicit Sabbatarianism. Just for reference.

Regarding inclusion of certain “fences” in church covenants, my take is, per brother Barkman’s comment, that it will tend to prohibit believers from engaging in behaviors which are explicitly permitted (and sometimes even encouraged) by Scripture, all while tending to undermine actual Biblical principles. If we’ve got a principle where we’re confident it’s the clear implication that we ought to separate from a brother because it’s real sin, but is implicit and not explicit in Scripture, let’s go ahead, but let’s not do so on the basis of disputable matters here. Our default position is liberty, not bondage, after all.

[AndyE]

Dan Miller wrote:I think you’re suggesting that Paul considered the strong (able to partake in meat and wine) to have a theoretical ability to eat/drink in good conscience.

I don’t think that’s consistent with the passage. v.3 says, “Let not the one who eats despise the one who abstains.” Paul considers the strong to be using their strength, not just having it. So the command to keep it to yourself should be thought of as not using it in ways that cause a brother to stumble into sin (of eating/drinking or of blasphemy).

Who is Paul referring to in verse 21 to abstain, if not the strong? What is he talking about in 15:1 (“We who are strong have an obligation to bear with the failings of the weak”) then? Doesn’t “not to please ourselves” mean that you might have to abstain in certain situations?

Certainly it is the strong who is called to abstain (sometimes) in v.21. But that doesn’t mean he must always abstain.
v.22 confirms that the one who believes he can eat (strong) can exercise his faith where it doesn’t offend the weak.
15:1-7 calls the strong to take on the weakness of the weak for the purpose of fellowship.

While Paul advised refraining in certain fellowship, he also advised eating and drinking in private.
Most abstinence covenants require abstinence period.

[AndyE]

Dan Miller wrote:You seem to believe that the abstinence position for alcohol is so obvious that it should be required for church membership and that if someone doesn’t agree, then you would take that as proof that they are not a believer? I don’t hold the abstinence position.

Proof that they are not a believer? Where did I say that?

Sorry - I think I made a couple assumptions here I shouldn’t have.

1 Corinthians 5 teaches us to exclude members who are living unrepentant in sin. Along with Matthew 18, it is (in my understanding) the basis for Church Discipline and for covenants that limit fellowship. Those passages teach us that sometimes we should break fellowship.

IOW, what a covenant is saying is, “X activity is so clearly sinful that if someone won’t repent of it, we can no longer consider him or her to have a credible profession of faith.”

Romans 14 commands us to fellowship with those that God has accepted (credible profession) in spite of clear knowledge that our brothers/sisters do what we consider sinful and refuse to do other things we think are good.

[Dan Miller] IOW, what a covenant is saying is, “X activity is so clearly sinful that if someone won’t repent of it, we can no longer consider him or her to have a credible profession of faith.”

Romans 14 commands us to fellowship with those that God has accepted (credible profession) in spite of clear knowledge that our brothers/sisters do what we consider sinful and refuse to do other things we think are good.

[Dan Miller] he also advised eating and drinking in private.

Lots of things to answer. One at a time.

[AndyE]

Dan Miller wrote:

he also advised eating and drinking in private.

Where does he actually do that? Verse 22, for example, says to keep your faith (regrading what is acceptable — i.e., it is faith because you believe the revelation from God that says the Jewish dietary restrictions have been removed) between you and God. It doesn’t actually say to partake. Where does Paul advise to eat and drink in private? I’m wondering if you are brining in thoughts from 1 Corinthians here?

Romans 14:3 Let not the one who eats despise the one who abstains, and let not the one who abstains pass judgment on the one who eats, for God has welcomed him.

Romans 14:6 The one who observes the day, observes it in honor of the Lord. The one who eats, eats in honor of the Lord, since he gives thanks to God, while the one who abstains, abstains in honor of the Lord and gives thanks to God.

It seems clear to me that Paul believed that meat eating was happening and should continue to happen in the Roman community of believers.

Romans 14:22 The faith that you have, keep between yourself and God.

You’re right this doesn’t explicitly say to eat meat. It does say to keep your faith private.

I think this means that the eating in faith should be done privately where public eating would cause a brother to stumble. You are saying(I think) that perhaps this means that the belief that you can eat should be private. But wouldn’t that make the whole passage a violation of that? Paul openly stated that many Christians (perhaps even himself) believed they can eat meat.

As far as 1 Corinthians, Ch. 8 and most of 10 deal with eating in the idol’s temple, which is a pretty public thing to do. The end of 10 deals with market-meat, which is similar to the Roman dispute. Again there, Paul expected and allowed for eating - unless it was an issue for the conscience of someone present.