IPC Messenger
A W eekly P ublication of T he I ndependent P resbyterian C hurch
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Volume 18 • No 18
Slighting the Church
What does the Bible have to say
to those who purposefully remove
themselves from the fellowship of the
visible church, perhaps claiming of
orthodox churches their insufficient
purity or some other inadequacy? What
Reformed Protestants have taught
about neglecting what they would call
“public ordinances” isn’t pretty. Those
today who absent themselves from
the assembly, who content themselves
with the electronic “church,” or with
a coffee-shop Bible study, or home-
church, or no church, take heed.
Let’s let Calvin be our guide. He warns
that “God’s fatherly favor and especial
witness of spiritual life are limited to
his flock.” Looking for God’s blessings
outside of the church? Don’t. “It is
always disastrous to leave the (visible)
church.” He expounds Ephesians 4:10ff,
noting that God has entrusted both the
means of grace and gifted individuals
to equip and mature the saints and
build up the body of Christ. God could
“perfect his own” immediately without
means. “Nevertheless (He) desires
them to grow up into manhood solely
under the direction of the church.”
Consequently, “It follows that all
those who spurn the spiritual food,
divinely extended to them through the
hand of the church, deserve to perish
in famine and hunger.” “Recognize,”
he urges us, “it is his will to teach us
through human means.” He laments
the “unholy separation” of those who
“are led either by pride, dislike, or
rivalry to the conviction that they can
profit enough from private reading
and meditation; hence they despise
public assemblies and deem preaching
superfluous.”
Slighting the church, we see, is not
a new problem! “Woe to their pride,”
Calvin warns those “who think that for
them the private reading is enough, and
that they have no need of the common
ministry of the Church.” Realize,
he urges, “Believers have no greater
help than public worship.” Whenever
the true gospel is preached and the
sacraments are rightly administered,
there the true church exists, “even if it
otherwise swarms with many faults.”
Where it exists, “No one is permitted to
spurn its authority, flout its warnings,
resist its counsels, or make light of its
chastisements—much less to desert it
and break its unity.”
For the Lord esteems the
communion of his church so
highly that he counts as traitor
and apostate from Christianity
anyone who arrogantly leaves
any Christian society, provided
it cherishes the true ministry of
Word and sacraments.
Stronger still: “Separation from the
church is the denial of Christ and God.”
Continued Page 2
MAY 2018
IPC Messenger
CONTENTS
2 Music Ministry
3 Family Corner
4 Student Ministry
5 Intern Corner
6 Women’s Ministry
7 Moral Concerns
8 Children’s Ministry
10 Announcements
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