Club Membership

 I have never been a member of a club. I have known members of various clubs (the Lions, the Rotary, the Kiwanis, and even the Odd Fellows). I am told that these clubs offer enjoyable fellowship and that they engage in worthwhile service projects. But this week I learned something else. Most of the clubs have rules regarding attendance. If a member skips meetings he may have to make up for the missed meetings in some way. I never knew that; but Sinclair Ferguson included the rules of the Trenton, N.J. Rotary club in his latest book, Devoted to God’s Church.

Why did he do that?

Well, I am sure that it was not because he wanted us to join the local Rotary Club. He was making a point and making it rather well. People think that they are entitled to drift in and out of the church when and as they please. They want to be considered members and want to be granted all the benefits of membership, but they do not want to be held accountable to any standard of behavior. They certainly do not want to be told that they must attend meetings of the church, or that they will suffer any consequence if they are sporadic in their attendance.

Do you really believe that church membership is less a privilege and blessing than is membership in the Rotary Club? If Rotary members accept the premise that you must attend the meetings to continue as a member in good standing, why would anyone question the same principle in connection with the church? If a Rotary member moves from one local branch of the club to another, he accepts the fact that he must acknowledge this shift in the location of his membership. Why do so many Christians put up a fuss over a similar expectation in the church?

To drop the club illustration and use a more biblical one, Christ is the vine and we are the branches (John 15). Every branch must be firmly connected to thrive; and to be connected one must be connected at some given point along the length of the vine. It is possible to move a branch from one part of the vine to another. If a branch is cut loose from one part and carefully grafted in somewhere else on the vine, it may thrive in the new location. But a branch that is moved from one part of the vine to another but is never firmly connected in the new location, will not thrive and may well die.

We need to take our membership in the body of Christ more seriously. Christ died for the church (Acts 20:28). We are called to live for the church.

We Have a Choice

Frances Price Baxter has been described as a salesman and a visionary. At one time he served as an elder in the church, but he had a lot of grandiose ideas, most of which did not work out. Eventually he obtained a divorce from his wife and abandoned his family – going off to marry someone else and showing no further concern for his family. The family never spoke of him.

According to some, that should have doomed his descendants to failure, maybe even justified them in taking to a life of crime.

But the son of Price Baxter did not allow his father’s wrongdoing to ruin his life. He became a preacher and eventually a college president. In fact, that son of Price Baxter served as the president of three different colleges (Abilene, Lipscomb, and Pepperdine).

Yet Batsell Baxter is not best known for his preaching or his work with the colleges. Batsell Baxter is best remembered because he became the father of Batsell Barrett Baxter, the best-known preacher and educator among Churches of Christ during my youth. Batsell Barrett Baxter was the most effective television preacher I ever heard. B.B.B. could stand in an empty studio, look into the camera, and people watching at home would feel as if he truly cared about them. Unlike many who were both college teachers and preachers, Batsell Barrett Baxter was excellent in both occupations.

Yes, it is true, some of us had better home lives than others. But the point is that things can be turned around. Price Baxter abandoned his family. His son decided to do better. He had such a peaceful home that his only son would later say that his parents only had one major disagreement of which he was aware. That disagreement was settled by a brief walk in the garden.

In a single generation the Baxter family went from the tragedy of divorce, to a level of harmony rarely experienced in any home. And in the next generation the Baxter family produced one of the finest evangelists of all time.

We have a choice. We can use our family history as an excuse. Or we can learn from it and do better.

Why Did God Allow Sin?

It is a common question. If God knew that mankind would sin, and that sin would bring untold misery to the world, why did he create us to begin with? Why did God allow sin to happen? I have been asked the question, in one form or another, many times.

Brownlow North (1810-1875) was asked the question as well. He replied, “Because God chose to allow sin.” While at first glance that does not seem to be a very satisfactory response, it is really about all we know. God chose to create us, even though he knew we would be sinners, and that our sin would cause untold amounts of suffering. Yet he chose to do so, and he did not choose to explain his reasons to us. We can speculate on them if we choose to do so, but the reasons that we offer are reasons of our own making. God never tells us why. He, of his own free and sovereign will, chose to do so. If we are honest, we will admit that this is as far as we can get for certain.

Romans 9 teaches us that the created is not to ask the creator why he created. It is not our place to know God’s reasons. It is likely that if he told us we could not understand. He is free and sovereign, and he chose to create us. That is as far as we can speak with certainty.

But while thinking on the fact that God chose to create, even knowing that we would sin, we should also consider something else that he did of his own free and sovereign will. He sent Jesus.

Yes, he could see, as he created beings in his own image, that doing so would allow sin to occur. For making us in his image means that we have within a limited sphere a freedom and sovereignty like he has without limitation. He knew that allowing us this freedom allowed sin, and that sin would lead to suffering, often to innocent suffering. In particular, he knew that it would lead to extreme suffering for one completely innocent human.

Why did God allow sin? For the same reason that he sent Jesus, because he chose to do so. In creating us he knew that he would suffer for it. But he chose to create and he chose to suffer. He has the freedom to so choose; and he has accepted the consequences and the suffering entailed in those choices.

Now for a more answerable question. “What will we choose?”