Mark Dever on Cooperating With Acts 29
This is awesome... from his Acts 29 Boot Camp lecture "Church Planting Evangelism" yesterday:
Our differences are enough to separate some of my friends—your brothers and sisters in Christ—from you. And perhaps to separate them from me, now that I’m publicly speaking to you. And I don’t want to minimize either the sincerity or the seriousness of some of their concerns (things like: humor, worldliness, pragmatism, authority).
But I perceive some things in common which outweigh our differences—which the Lord Jesus shall soon enough compose between us, either by our maturing, or by His bringing us home. I long to work with those, and count it a privilege to work with those whom My Savior has purchased with His blood, and with whom I share the gospel of Jesus Christ. I perceive that we have in common the knowledge that God is glorified in sinners being reconciled to Him through Christ. This is not taught by other religions, nor clearly by the ancient Christian churches of the East, or by Rome, by liberal Protestant churches, by Mormons, the churches of Christ, or by groups of self-righteous, legalistic, moralistic Christians. And not only do we together affirm the exclusivity of salvation through faith alone in Christ alone—we agree on the sovereignty of God in life and salvation, the regenerate nature of church members, the importance of church membership and discipline, the baptism of believers alone, the priorities of expositional preaching, and evangelism, the importance of authority and a growing appreciation for the significance of complementarianism. These are not slight matters. And they only fire my desire to encourage you and cheer you on, until you cross that finish line that the Lord lays down for us.
Update 2/1/08: The original draft contained the words "the baptism of believers alone". Since Acts 29 doesn't make that a condition for participation in their network, that phrase was omitted in the actual address given to the church planters. My mistake. -- MM
This warms my heart. As someone who looks both to 9Marks and to Acts29 for encouragement and instruction, I am blessed to see this kind of cooperation. Reading what Mark Dever said makes me all the more eager to attend both T4G and Dwell this April.
Posted by: Justin Keller | Jan 31, 2008 9:50:16 AM
I appreciate what Dever said and also appreciate the work that he and Acts29 are doing but I am distressed that he would lump the churches of Christ into such a list as this. I am a church of Christ minister and actually agree with Mark on those things he mentioned. I know of many others who feel as I do and are preaching the whole counsel of God. It is interesting to me that Mark has such an intimate knowledge of the churches of Christ especially when we are autonomous and do not have a body of teaching, nor a denominational head that stipulates what we teach and believe. I and many of my dear friends have the freedom to teach the entirety of scripture without any oversight from some denominational headquarters. Maybe Mark should be more careful before popping off on a subject that is more convoluted that he makes it out to be. Deriding whole groups of people and name calling greatly undermines everything else he said. I think that if he were to actually talk with those of us reforming the cofC from within, he would come to a different conclusion. Sadly, instead of focusing on what brings scriptural unity between he and Acts 29, he focused on those to whom they both are opposed. Having shared enemies is not the most stable ground to stand on. In this it sounds like the pot is calling the kettle black.
Respectfully yours,
Posted by: Kevin | Jan 31, 2008 4:24:47 PM
Thank you Mark for the clarification of your support of Acts 29. I also appreciate the sober word of not taking lightly the seriousness and sincerity of some of the concerns...
With that said, it does beg the question, "which side is in most need of maturity?"
Posted by: Ross | Jan 31, 2008 5:59:28 PM
Dear Kevin,
I rejoice in hearing of any churches of Christ that are being led to reject the false teaching of Alexander Campbell and embrace the biblical Gospel of salvation by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone. May God bless you in His work.
Posted by: Mark Dever | Feb 1, 2008 1:25:53 AM
Kevin.....you mean there is somebody else other than me out there in RM land who feels the same way? Praise God.
Posted by: Brian | Feb 3, 2008 6:42:05 AM