Bible Seminars and Right Beliefs

Dear Bro. Don

Bro. Ken Curry has hit the nail right on the head by observing that although people will attend seminars (and do correspondence courses and attend lectures, we might add), yet the majority aren’t converted. And he asks, “Why?” I would widen the question out. “Why is it that we who know God’s Truth likewise fail to be converted by it in many ways?” Pe­ter had been converted, and the Lord uses that word about him (Matt. 13:15,16). But later He had to tell Peter that his conversion was yet to come (Luke 22:32). We can know God’s truth on one level, even be bap­tized, and yet still need conversion.

I think the answer to Bro. Ken’s question lies in your editorial of the same issue. Doctrine must have a practical effect. You have shown how, for example, what we believe about life after death affects how we live now. But each doctrine of the Gospel should likewise affect us. The unity of God is an imperative to quit all forms of idolatry (I Cor. 8:3-6) and give ourselves to Him alone (Mark 12:29-33). That God sees and knows all things is an imperative to quit adulterous thoughts – so Job found (Job 31:1-3). If there is really going to be a judgment ahead, we better live as men and women who know they will reap eternally what they now briefly sow. And so we could go on.

If doctrine doesn’t have a practi­cal effect upon our lives, or if this isn’t explained, then I for one would agree that it doesn’t matter at all what we believe. Bible study would be merely a kind of hobby for those inclined that way. Behaviour wouldn’t matter, we’d just hope for the best as far as salvation is concerned, focusing on the grace of God, and doctrine would become just a fascination, an intellec­tual abstraction of the purest form. The right or wrong interpretation of Scripture isn’t at all important, if it has no practical outworking.

Here, it seems to me, we all fall down. We offer a highly structured form of propositional truth to our au­diences, encouraging them to read the Bible – whether it be by seminars, correspondence courses, Bible Basics or whatever. And if someone wants to be baptized, we interview them to make sure that their understanding equates with the propositions outlined in the Statement of Faith. We aren’t altogether wrong in working this way. But it’s a very different methodology compared to the less structured ap­proach of the Lord himself.

Christ’s teaching continually linked abstract truths (e.g. that he will return) with the practical living which belief in them demands (e.g. that we should live soberly). He was con­stantly seeking to elicit soul-search­ing and practical response from his hearers. And above all, he was his message! Paul taught among the Gen­tiles “the unsearchable riches of Christ” which motivate men to give up all that they might gain them – not just “Jesus is Son of God, not God the Son.”

If our preaching made the link between doctrine and practice more evident, the crucial importance of doctrine would be more apparent. If we would persuade ourselves, too, that doctrine matters, not so strong would be the tendency among our more liberal members to say that we’re just another Protestant group.

Our preaching would not just be a kind of service to our fellow man, which might or might not lead to their salvation. It would continually bring before us the dynamic power to change our lives which only the true Gospel holds.

The personality of the preacher is related to whether he makes converts:

• Paul so spoke that men were con­verted (Acts 14:1; 1 Cor. 15:11).
• The Samaritans believed not be­cause they heard the message from the woman, but when they heard the same message from the lips of the Lord (in. 4:42).
• The unity of Jew and Gentile in the early ecclesia made known the Gospel to the world (Eph. 3:10). This alludes to the Lord’s statement that the world would believe through a mixture of “their word” of preaching and the witness of their unity (Jn. 17:20,21).
• Paul begat children after his own spiritual likeness. Whether a man makes converts and what they are like is a reflection of his own spirituality.

These are perhaps reasons why very few children of Christadelphians in minority fellowships are baptized.

They see the unloving community in active contradiction to the Gospel it teaches. And it may be the same with our lack of success in converting people through our meetings. They hear the true doctrines, but they nei­ther see nor are even told the power of those doctrines in daily life. They see people who look and act like members of any other church.

Now I don’t think they are see­ing right, because you can’t have true spirituality without true doctrine; doc­trine believed affects how we live. But with no self-conscious display of works or spirituality, the powerful ef­fect of the Truth we have must some­how shine out more, so that each of us there at those meetings has and is “the witness in himself.” We must believe our message more strongly ourselves. This is why the vast ma­jority of genuinely fresh converts are converted by personal witness, often from new converts. Even in the mis­sion field this is the case; it is per­sonal witness rather than correspon­dence courses which are responsible for most baptisms. We can use our seminars, our bits of paper, our vid­eos, books, etc., as a crutch to excuse us from what we know we should do, from what statistically is so evidently the way the Lord chooses to convert His people: to simply, personally wit­ness to the man next to us

I am not in any way critical of the work we do in organized preaching. But by nature we would all rather give out 5,000 bills or run 5 seminars than swing a conversation round to the Truth with our apparently disinter­ested neighbour. Surely you know what I am saying.