As I’ve reminded you in the past, I’ve got several series going, which include the following:
The Moral Nature of God (part one, part two, part three, part four)
Crucial to a Gospel Presentation: Explain Belief (part one, part two, part three, part four, part five, part six)
Biblical Equality and the Societally Destructive Lie of Egalitarianism (part one, part two)
Answering the “Cultish” Wes Huff Podcast on King James Only (part one, part two)
Profaning the Name of the Lord: How Can or Do People Do It? (part one)
I also have some other things in the works, mostly in the idea stage. Maybe I’ll get to them soon. Here are two of those:
A List of Five Great Scriptural Arguments for Premillennialism (Maybe the Best)
The Greatest Causes Undermining the Faith of the Church
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The church is local only. It is not universal or mystical. I could end right there.
Childhood Understanding of Church
I don’t remember hearing about the nature of the church as I grew up in, well, church. It was not a controversy, what the church was. My dad was a factory worker and my parents started into church a couple of years before I was born. I was very into church. If you asked me what a church was, I could have given an easy, basic answer, I believe. I was a blank slate in my own desert island and completely sincere.
As a child, I knew the church was not a building. Not. The little, inside the church are all of the people, I knew was wrong. No, the people were the church. But were they? Nothing was so complicated to say that those people were a visible manifestation of the truth church, universal and invisible. That never occurred to me. If you read your Bible, or read it and just hear it taught week after week, you wouldn’t get a universal church. Somebody had to tell you that. You wouldn’t get it from just reading your Bible. It’s not in there.
Not Universal and Invisible
As few people as really understand the concept of a universal and invisible church, it has an amazing number of adverse effects on many. People barely to never question those effects. If you believe the church is only local, those effects shouldn’t exist. This is how that even people, who grew up never grasping a universal, invisible church concept, will accept things that proceeded from that thing they rarely to never consider.
Christ started only one church. It was not a dual natured church. It never reads even close to that complicated. From a plain reading, no one would get something other than local. Of the twenty-plus times Jesus uses the term “church,” all but one are plainly local. One could not get a universal church out of that one example. The twenty plain usages by Jesus should influence the interpretation of the one less plain. Some usages don’t clearly show the meaning of a word. It does with the word church in about a hundred of its one hundred eighteen uses.
Ekklesia
“Church” is an English word, which comes from a Greek one — ekklesia. Ekklesia means “assembly.” If someone would just consider the actual meaning of the word in the original languages, the few ambiguous usages in the English New Testament would become crystal clear.
An assembly is by nature local and visible. If you can’t see the assembly, then it isn’t assembled. An assembly also by nature must occur in one place, that is at least local.
Once someone knows what a church is, he can then get the right interpretation and application of the passages in the New Testament that use the word. In the utmost way, he will know the meaning of unity in a church. So many do not understand church unity, because a teacher messed up their understanding of the nature of the church. Also, an actual church can obey the passages on separation. For a church to practice true unity, it must also practice true separation.
Effects
Many bad effects come from perverting the nature of the church. The gospel is important. I would contend that the corruption or destruction of the gospel arose mainly from misconstruing the nature of the church.
People will find out in the end the highly detrimental effects on their lives and even their eternities, because they reject the true nature of church. We need a return of true teaching on and practice of the church.
I support the church.
Allow me to clarify – I support the local church, which is the only church.
Thanks.
Amen.
You wrote, “This is how that even people, who grew up never grasping a universal, invisible church concept, will accept things that proceeded from that thing they rarely to never consider.” I think one severe problem in this regard is that so much of the Christian literature available – even what might be considered generally good stuff – is produced by people who believe in a universal invisible church. They may not be writing on that subject, but it is foundational in the background of their thinking and what they write (e.g., just the way they use the word church). I don’t think the solution is to never read anything by those who disagree with us, but to be keenly aware of the problem – and to spend more time reading stuff by people who understand the true nature of the church, local and visible.
I have long remembered a story told by a preacher that I heard in a chapel service over forty years ago. It is a good illustration of one of the problems of “universal church.” He was contacted on the phone by a singing group that was trying to schedule singing in the various churches in his area. The man who called explained that were not charging for coming, only asking that the church take an offering. In the process of the conversation, the pastor asked the singer what church they were members of. The man answered, “Oh, we’re part of the universal invisible church.” The pastor replied, “Well, why don’t you just sing for them, and maybe they will take up an offering.” So ended the conversation.
I agree Robert with everything you wrote.
Robert and Kent,
I guess you like to hear yourselves talk to one another and when one proves you wrong, you just run around the scriptures that proves its visible existence.
I agree that it meets in local assemblies, but it is not bounded within four walls! No one seems to answer the verses below or those written in 2 Corinthians 8:20- 24 concerning the oversight of “a brother” sent to all the churches to collect funds.
Visible, universal church- Ephesians 3:9-10
Invisible, universal church- Ephesians 3:15 (whole family in heaven and earth)
This is bounded by Paul using church in v10 and using church in v21.
To believe that this is a reference to a “local” church shows that you ignore the context of the whole chapter.
Tom
Hi Tom,
I deal with Ephesians 3 and its usages in these posts:
https://kentbrandenburg.com/2022/01/23/the-phone-and-the-church/
https://kentbrandenburg.com/2013/11/25/the-use-of-singular-in-bible-and-church/
In this series, I answer the kind of argument you make: https://kentbrandenburg.com/2013/09/30/answering-david-cloud-on-church-pt-4/
You go outside the bounds of language itself. There is no mystical, universal, invisible, nebulous singular noun usage in the Bible or in language. There is a generic use of the singular noun, which is the usage in Ephesians in those examples. In the end, an assembly is still an assembly. Your neo-Platonic usage of “church” started with Augustine and Roman Catholicism.
Tom, greetings and salutations to you too! I do not recall having ever interacted with you before (although my memory sometime fails me), so I am unsure why the snarky comment was necessary.
Kent,
“Cloud implies that local-only proponents are false teachers”.
I just despise one who calls another brother a false teacher when at times he is right!
Again, I could care less what the Greek teaches or presumes to teach. I am not interested in just words, but more important in the context of those words and what is implied by “assembly”. It does not always imply a local church. I gave you the references.
Reading your grammatical interpretation of words in your articles sounds more like a game of grammatical chess than dealing with what Paul actually wrote in the context and purpose in which he wrote it.
You can play word games all day long, but if you have no answer for 2 Corinthians 8:20-24 concerning a brother who was ordained by “the church” and given authority to go to all the other churches to collect funds, you words become vain. The church that assembled was a visible manifestation of a bunch of local “church” elders that make up the church who had the power and authority to tell other local churches to prepare funds that are to be collected for the church (more than one assembly) in Jerusalem.
Deal with it honestly and quit doing the same thing Cloud did to you. Ignore you by calling you a false teacher. You have not said that about me, but you are getting close.
Tom
Tom,
I’m happy to let your comment stand without answer. I’ve written enough on it and you haven’t answered it.
Kent,
This is not for posting to this thread, but to make you aware of a Mark Ward journal article (if you are not already aware of it). I was not. Someone posted a link to it in a Facebook group I am in. It was quietly posted on Mark’s blog, but he made no announcement or mention of it being there, so I guess one has to know about it to find it.
“Does Psalm 12:6–7 Promise Perfect Manuscript Copies of the Bible? An Exegetical Examination and Multigenerational Interpretive Plebiscite.” By Mark Ward
https://byfaithweunderstand.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/WardMarkCanadianAmericanTheologicalReviewPsalm12.6-7Article.pdf
Thanks Robert! I downloaded it. The title of the article itself is a strawman, because no one that I know argues for a single perfect manuscript that makes its way into the printed edition phase. We says preservation of and availability of every Word. Thanks!
Right! He started with a wrong premise and proved it to be true — “None has ever seen in the verse a promise of perfect textual preservation of the Bible.” We all already knew that.
You are welcome.
Dear Bro Vaughn,
In that article, Ward states:
In my judgment, the masculine gender of these two pronouns leans the careful
interpreter toward the “poor” and “needy” as likely antecedents.
This shows a poor understanding of Hebrew. He should have renounced his many false affirmations like this that he has made over the years.
As I noted here:
https://kentbrandenburg.blogspot.com/2014/11/psalm-1267-and-gender-discordance-anti.html
A comprehensive search of the Old Testament reveals that the type of verb found in Psalm 12:7 for “keep” and “preserve”—a qal imperfect second masculine singular—never, I repeat, never even once has a third person feminine plural suffix in the entire Old
Testament. By way of contrast, qal imperfect second masculine singular verbs have
third person masculine plural suffixes in numerous passages, such as, in the
Psalter, Psa 2:9; 12:8; 21:10, 13; 31:21; 45:17; 59:12; 83:16; 144:6. For that
matter, there are only 19 examples in the entire Old Testament of third person
feminine plural suffixes on verbs of any kind (Gen 30:38; Ex 2:17; 2 Sam 20:3;
2 Kings 19:26; Is 34:16; 37:27; 48:7; Jer 8:7; Ezek 1:9, 12, 17; 42:12; Hab
2:17; Zech 11:5; Job 39:2; Ruth 1:19), while there are 1,403 masculine plural
suffixes. Note that not even a single solitary third person feminine plural suffix is found in the entire book of Psalms.
Ward’s statement is another example of his very sloppy scholarship, of which I documented many shocking examples at https://faithsaves.net/mark-ward/.
It speaks poorly of this journal that they would publish things like this by Ward that are sloppy.
I also note that another article in this same journal contains “a response to classical theism.” I guess Ward is fine publishing articles in journals that oppose classical theism–but he is going to take a stand against KJVO, making sloppy arguments and strawmen. You’ve got to have your priorities, after all.
Brother Ross,
Appreciate your comments. I felt similarly about the journal. I wondered about the journal as soon as I saw the article by Ward was in it, but just got around to looking it up. It is the journal of the Canadian-American Theological Association. They do not seem to require a specific theological stance, and membership is open to people who are in agreement with the Association’s purpose (and pay the membership dues, of course). The purpose statement indicates or suggests they are in agreement with “the historic ecumenical creeds of the Christian Church, particularly the Apostles Creed and the Nicene Creed.”
“From the beginning, CETA [original acronym] sought to be a genuinely ecumenical theological society, finding its identity in the broad understanding of British and Canadian evangelicalism which eschewed the infighting and exclusivism endemic to some forms of the evangelical church. CETA has therefore hosted papers and panels by theologians, students, and pastors from diverse Christian perspectives, including Roman Catholic, Orthodox, and a wide variety of Protestant traditions.”
The author of “Divine Joy…” in the journal is also author (on her website) of “A call for Catholics and Protestants to receive Communion—side by side,” explaining “…what I have in mind is the idea of Catholics and Protestants sharing the experience of partaking in the Eucharist each according to their tradition—that is, side by side in a shared space with a Catholic priest serving the consecrated Eucharist to Catholic believers alongside a Protestant minister serving the Communion elements to Protestant believers.”
This seems to be quite on the liberal/ecumenical edge of what they call “evangelicalism.”
I agree Thomas with you about Ward’s article. He is writing to his own bias on this subject. We’ve dealt with these exact issues and it is as if they just won’t listen. They can’t listen, because if they do, they’ll have to believe a different position. Of course, maybe he just doesn’t know what he’s doing either. I don’t know which is worse.
Thanks, Bros Brandenburg & Vaughn. Thanks for pointing out who Dr. Ward is fine being published with. He will “debate” a KJVO who denies Biblical repentance and preaches a false gospel; is fine being interviewed by a KJVO who agrees with Steven Anderson’s horrible blasphemy that Christ was tortured in hell after His death; he is fine publishing with extremely compromised people like you pointed out; but getting his facts straight before attacking what Scripture teaches about its own preservation is not, it seems, a high enough priority.
I really don’t know how to account for some of the issues that Mark has in mixing things up. As far as his readers, some apparently swallow whatever he says without applying critical thinking. In the Facebook thread where the link was posted, I pointed out his assertion: Ward: “This article will explore the novel theological idea of perfect biblical manuscripts preserved until the production of the KJV, as it has found support from this passage [Psalm 12:6-7]” and that “In this paper, I will first establish that leading figures who defend exclusive use of the KJV do use the Psalm in the way just described.” Then I pointed out that the leading figures he references (Ross, Brandenburg, Strouse, Van Kleeck Sr, and Riddle) say no such thing in the quotations that he supplies!
Mark seems to mix and God preserving all his words and God preserving perfect manuscripts as one and the same. Near the end of his article, Mark states, “This writer could not find a single interpreter before the advent of KJV-Onlyism who interpreted Psalm 12:6–7 to promise perfect manuscript copies of the Bible.” In fact, he never showed that ANYONE at ANY TIME has interpreted it that way.
Sorry that I derailed the thread topic with this, but I felt you all needed to be aware of this article, if you were not, which is saying you assert what you do not.