For a few years now we have been hearing that the churches of Christ need a "new hermeneutic," that is, a new way of interpreting Scripture. The "old hermeneutic," interpreting Scripture basically by command, example,and inference, was to be abandoned in favor of the "new," although nobody seemed to know what the "new" was! Various attempts were made by those who embraced this idea to give it definition, but these attempts seemed to be ambiguous and disappointing. When I first heard of the "new hermeneutic" I thought I might know what it was and time has borne out what I thought: the "new hermeneutic" is a blatant disregard for the authority of Scripture. That's what it is. The advocates of the "new" could not accomplish what they desired by commandment (something clearly stated in Scripture which limits us to what is stated and to whatever action is necessary to accomplish what is stated), example (an action of the early church, behind which there is a background command), and inference (something necessarily implied by the information at hand, though not specifically stated), so they began to move away from biblical authority. Now, consider what has happened. A church in Tennessee has introduced instrumental music into worship and elders in a Texas church have stated in print that the New Testament does not prohibit the use of instrumental music. The New Testament says sing and that is a specific kind of music which eliminates other kinds of music. As a boy I knew when my mother sent me to the store for a loaf of bread that meant I was not to get milk even though she did not say I was not to get milk. When Scriptures tells us specifically what to do, that eliminates doing something else. Two churches in Texas have now taken the Lord's Supper on Tuesday and Thursday respectfully. A church i Texas announced that women can do anything in that church except be elders or preach. A church in Texas dropped the designation that distinguishes us from other religious groups because it did not want any longer to be identified with the churches of Christ. Others have been saying for awhile that the church of Christ is a denomination among denominations born in the 19th century and that all of us should acknowledge such to be true. I deny that I ever joined a denomination unless the disciples of the first century were members of a denomination because I did what they did and I became what they became. On and on we go and we can only wonder, what will be next?
Jay lives in Tyler, TX |