For Christ did not send me to baptize but to preach the gospel, and not with words of eloquent wisdom, lest the cross of Christ be emptied of its power. (1 Corinthians 1:17 ESV)1. Baptism is not required for salvation. Paul here distinguishes the gospel (which is the power for of God for salvation -Rom 1:16), and baptism. They are not one in his mind. In fact, Paul prioritizes the preaching of the gospel. If baptism was necessary to be saved, it would be quite mean for Paul to give them the gospel, but leave them short of being saved, by leaving baptizing to someone else.
2. This verse also seems to give credibility to Parachurch organizations. If one of the ways we distinguish the church and the parachurch is that the parachurch does not administer the Ordinances, then Paul here seems to be acting more as a parachurch guy, in the process of church planting.
These are not developed thoughts, but just some fresh, initial reactions.
I would be curious for comments from you on your thoughts on one or both of my thoughts on the text. I am open for push back!
4 comments:
I hate to be so agreeable again but I do agree with your first point.
On the second one, however, I will offer a challenge. I agree with the legitimacy of parachurch but this verse (1 Cor 1:17) only indicates that Paul (one person, who was a church planter) was not commisioned to baptize. So, a church planter is preaching the gospel but not baptizing which doesn't mean that we can then justify the division of a church and parachurch. The text is talking about a person's work, not institutions.
You recognized the church planting element to Paul's journey here but I think the jump to him acting more as a parachurch guy is unfounded since his preaching was meant to build the church and see churches planted.
I can see what you are saying on the one hand if you define parachurch as "along side the church" and it provides a pragmatic focus of evangelism all with the goal of serving the church, but as soon as you define it as an organization "which does not administer the ordinances," I think you've lost the intrinsic connection between Paul's focus and the church.
Hey Andrew,
Thanks for the response.
Would you say that we are saying the same thing? Or where would you think we are saying something different?
Paul seems to be going into cities, preaching the gospel, which result him getting kicked out of many cities, but also bears a lot of fruit along the way. After that, he seemingly appoints someone to lead the church in that city.
Along the way he does not baptise, and i cannot recall an instance of him leading in the Lord's Supper (that is recorded anyways, correct me if I am wrong).
How would you describe those actions? A church planter? Maybe. But if someone in our day went from town to town preaching the gospel and leaving others to follow up, that seems more like a Billy Graham.
Thoughts?
I'm not sure it makes him as much like Billy Graham as a frontier missions church planter. His context was too different from Graham's (a relatively Christianized culture).
I think that context (of frontier missions planting churches) is important as well. It's hard then to translate that into our Western culture (at least for now).
Overall we're close. I think we are both recognizing what Paul was doing and that he was not doing everything a church is supposed to do but should we expect that out of one person anyway? I think that your definition of parachurch skews your reading of Paul's work here resulting in a false legitimization of "parachurch." He did have people following up and he himself followed up the the churches on his return journeys but this was all service done specifically related to the winning of people to Christ with a direct result of their participation in the church. If you want to say that that is what the parachurch does, cool :)
Defining parachurch as an institution like the church but without the ordinances fails to recognize the central position of the church and places it on par with it. And there is no reason why a fellowship gathering with some tea that doesn't administer the ordinances shouldn't be called a parachurch either then.
I think the etymological sense of the term (para: alongside) gives us a more helpful model for what parachurches are and do. That preserves the central focus of the church in the NT while also allowing for specific pragmatic focuses that leave out the ordinances.
If that becomes the definition then 1 Cor. 1:17 no longer functions as a direct legitimizer of parachurch. We just need to start somewhere else in our justification of it (which we can). So, we end up in roughly the same place.
Now, to be fair, you said, "one of the ways we distinguish the church and the parachurch is that the parachurch does not administer the Ordinances," which left open the door for a more fullbodied definition. If you said more about its definition I suppose you could render my response mostly irrelevant.
If you come closer to my definition then we'll basically be on the same page and I can agree that we can set up parachurches to do something like what Paul was doing but I don't think that's what was in play here.
I wouldn't define the parachurch as "an institution like the church but without the ordinances". I did say that administering the ordinances was only one of the ways to distinguish the church and parachurch.
My understanding of church planting in our day would be starting a church in one place and doing the hard work of winning people to Christ, and building them in their faith. The people who are members of your church you would serve the Lord's supper. When someone comes to faith, you would baptize them. And this would be done in one local congregation.
There doesn't seem to be the type of person or church planting organization today that does what Paul did. Maybe that was for one person in a specific time in the church.
I would say that 1 cor 1:17 gives some, not full, justification for parachurch work simply because it gives a Biblical precedent for ministry that is specialized, and not doing the full work of a Local Church.
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