Christian Unity

In the previous article I suggested that the combination of CENI and the principle of Silence of the Scriptures leads to almost inevitable divisions in the church, at least as these principles are traditionally understood and practiced in the churches of Christ. Any practice perceived in scripture as a command, an example, or as a necessary inference is treated as a mandate to be obeyed in the church today. And any practice on which the scriptures are silent is understood to be prohibited. Under that hermeneutic, without perfect agreement on the practices we see in scripture, we will inevitably differ in our practices, and will ultimately consider one another to be defying the commands of God. Restoration movement history has demonstrated this dilemma repeatedly over the past 200 years.

There is one principle that, on the surface, might seem to provide a way out of this difficulty: the principle of expedients. Thomas Campbell introduced this concept in his thirteenth proposition. There he said:

Lastly. That if any circumstantials indispensably necessary to the observance of divine ordinances be not found upon the page of express revelation, such, and such only, as are absolutely necessary for this purpose, should be adopted, under the title of human expedients, without any pretence to a more sacred origin–so that any subsequent alteration or difference in the observance of these things might produce no contention nor division in the church.

Campbell’s reluctance to concede this is evident in the qualifying phrases he uses: “indispensably necessary”, “such and only such”, “without any pretence to a more sacred origin”… He clearly sees these expedients as being a possible source of division and so attempts to minimize their impact from the beginning.

An example of an expedient that is universally accepted would be the time of day of a worship service. We have examples and inferences that the early church worshipped on the first day of the week. But the time of day for that worship is not specified. Yet, some time must be chosen. So it is implied that an expedient time may be chosen.

Another example that is often presented is the command to go and make disciples. We are told to go. We aren’t told to ride a camel, or to take a boat, or to walk. The choice of transportation is an expedient.

In the above examples, it is inescapable that some choice must be made. That is consistent with the scope of expedients that Thomas Campbell allowed in the thirteenth proposition (“indispensably necessary”). However, even the more conservative churches of Christ have not limited themselves to this narrow definition of expedients. For example, by far, most own church buildings. It is not disputed that there is no CENI support for owning a church building. Unlike the first two examples, there are alternatives (eg. meet in private homes or in some public facility). Yet they accept ownership of a building as an expedient. So it is conceded by even the conservatives that an expedient need not be essential to be allowable.

Another example of a less-than-essential expedient is song books. There is no CENI support for them, and worship could certainly be conducted without them. Yet they are generally considered acceptable even by the most conservative of churches of Christ, as an expediency.

In later years the concept of expedients was developed further. In order to be allowed, an expedient had to pass four tests. First, it had to be “lawful” (1 Cor 10:23). Second, it had to edify (1 Cor 10:23 again). Third, it had to support some practice that is taught (CENI) in scripture (from Campbell, “indispensably necessary to the observance of divine ordinances”). In other words, the expedient had to be derived from some CENI-supported practice. Fourth, it must not cause someone to stumble (1 Cor 10:32).

During the late 1800’s, the debates over instrumental music and missionary societies revolved around expediency. For conservatives, the silence of the scriptures trumped expediency on these two issues. They were deemed not “lawful” because there is no CENI for instruments in worship under the new covenant, nor for nonchurch organizations overseeing cooperative efforts of churches. The scriptures are silent on these topics, and that silence was deemed to prohibit.

To me this brings to light a contradiction. If one proposed expedient can be ruled not lawful because of silence of the scriptures (eg. musical instruments), why not every expedient (eg. owning a building)? There has been an apparent arbitrariness in deciding which expedients are allowable and which are prohibited by silence.

Adding expedients to the discussion just rephrases the same arguments. The same difficulties exist with or without expedients. CENI + silence + expedients = divisions + more divisions. The root of the problem IMO is in what we bind on others. It is one thing to bind CENI and the silence of the scriptures on yourself. It is quite another to bind them on others who haven’t reached the same depth of biblical understanding (Thomas Campbell’s sixth proposition).

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The hermeneutic known as Command, Example, and Necessary Inference (CENI) contains its own controversies and grey areas, but with a little discretion it can be a quite reasonable way to understand scripture. However, when the examples and inferences are considered binding, and when that is combined with a belief that the Silence of the Scriptures is binding, we have a volatile mix which has frequently resulted in divisions in the church.

The principle of Silence holds that we must have authorization in the scriptures for every practice of the church. From CENI, that authorization can be in the form of a direct command, an example approved by the apostles, or a necessary inference. Remember that the principle of CENI, as used in the churches of Christ, makes all those commands, examples, and necessary inferences binding. So we are caught in a vise. On one side we are prohibited from doing anything not authorized in scripture. On the other side we are mandated to do everything that is. There is no room for a grey area, no room for differences of opinion. Every practice is either mandatory or prohibited.

Unfortunately, as we discussed in previous articles, the principles of CENI are not cut and dried. There is room for difference of opinion regarding which grammatical commands are intended as mandates for us. We saw that the examples in scripture have not been applied consistently. And we saw that we have not been very rigorous in our determination of which inferences are truly necessary. Further, we noted that Thomas Campbell had argued against the binding of inferences on those who have not come to the same conclusion. Inferences are inherently based on human reasoning as well as scripture, and there will always be differences of opinion.

To illustrate, if we agree that there is no example nor inference of a kitchen in a church building in the scriptures, the rule of silence prohibits us from having a kitchen in ours today. (For now let’s ignore the absence of an example for the building itself!) But someone might reason that there is a “necessary inference” that there must have been a kitchen, since according to the examples of scripture there was a full meal with communion. So wouldn’t the kitchen become mandatory for those who reason like this? We have certainly made matters mandatory on less evidence than this. So if the kitchen is prohibited for one honest brother, and mandatory for another, does it follow that these two honest brothers cannot take communion together? Our hermeneutic has us trapped in a big sqeeze. If our hermeneutic leads to that conclusion, there must be a flaw in the hermeneutic itself.

If every practice is either mandatory or prohibited, and if we cannot agree on which practices are which, unity becomes impossible. Given the priority that the scriptures place on unity, the impossibility of unity is an untenable position. So there must be room for difference of opinion in the church. And we must not divide over every difference.

Save the strong lose the weak….Never turning the other cheek
Trust nobody don’t be no fool….Whatever happened to the golden rule
We got stranded….Caught in the crossfire
We got stranded….Caught in the crossfire
We got stranded….Caught in the crossfire
Stranded….Caught in the crossfire
Help me — Stevie Ray Vaughan

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We’ve been discussing Command, Example, and Necessary Inference (CENI), the hermeneutic on which much of the doctrine of churches of Christ is based. We took a closer look at command and example in earlier articles. Today we will consider the third plank in the CENI platform, Necessary Inference.

An inference is simply a conclusion one draws from scripture which is not explicitly stated, based on things that are stated. We infer an idea from what the passage says. For example, 1 Cor 16:1-2 says:

Now about the collection for God’s people: Do what I told the Galatian churches to do. On the first day of every week, each one of you should set aside a sum of money in keeping with his income, saving it up, so that when I come no collections will have to be made.

From this passage it might be inferred that it was customary in all the churches to take up a collection on the first day of the week. However, that is not a necessary inference. Notice that the passage only tells us that Paul had given this instruction to the Galatians previously, and now to the Corinthians. We don’t know, for example about the Ephesian church. This passage doesn’t tell us. But we might conclude that it is likely they did. That might be a reasonable inference but is not a necessary one.

Also in the above passage, one might infer that the money was collected from the individual members on the first day of each week. If instead each person had set aside the sum of money at home, there would still need to be a collection when Paul arrived. So perhaps this would be an example of a necessary inference.

And finally, some might infer from the above passage that the collection was taken up as a part of the public worship service on the first day of the week. Again, the passage does not rule out other methods of collection. So while it might be a reasonable inference that they collected it during a worship service, that is not a necessary inference.

Necessary inference is a valid way to reason from the scriptures. Jesus taught by necessary inference in Matt 22:23-33. In his answer to the Sadducees he said:

Jesus replied, “You are in error because you do not know the Scriptures or the power of God. At the resurrection people will neither marry nor be given in marriage; they will be like the angels in heaven. But about the resurrection of the dead–have you not read what God said to you, ‘I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob’? He is not the God of the dead but of the living.”

Here he uses two premises to infer a conclusion. The premises are:

1) God stated “I am” the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. (This was stated to Moses long after these three men had died).
2) He is not the God of the dead but of the living.

And the conclusion is that there is a resurrection from the dead. Based on the premises, it is necessary to conclude that Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, although dead from the perspective of this world, were yet alive from the perspective of God. Jesus presented this necessary inference as proof that there is a resurrection from the dead.

The danger of binding necessary inferences is twofold. First, as Thomas Campbell reasoned in his sixth proposition, if we bind inferences on those who have not understood the inference, we are calling on them to place their faith in the veracity of men rather than of God. Secondly, historically we have not been very rigorous about which inferences are truly necessary. Although the conclusion seems reasonable and likely to us, it might actually be incorrect. There is a substantial degree of fallible human reasoning involved in any inference.

It makes perfect sense to infer conclusions from scripture, and to follow what we believe to be true on that basis. The danger comes when we try to bind those inferences on others who have not come to the same conclusions.

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Today we will continue looking at the CENI hermeneutic. Earlier we considered the first principle in that approach, explicit commands in scripture. In this post we will take on the second principle, example (aka approved precedent). As we examine CENI we will continue collecting the Inventory of Doctrines which we will be examining later from the perspective of CENI.

There are two sides to the principle of examples. First, when we have an example in scripture of the early church holding to a certain practice, and it can be shown that the practice had the approval of an inspired apostle, it can be reasonably assumed that we can safely practice the same thing today. Second, some people take that a step farther, and hold that in this situation that we are obligated to practice the same thing. Let’s take a look at some examples in the scripture, and the conclusions drawn from them.

1. Weekly Communion

The practice of taking communion every Sunday is based on example. Acts 20:7 says:

On the first day of the week we came together to break bread. Paul spoke to the people and, because he intended to leave the next day, kept on talking until midnight.

It is not explicitly stated that this church (or any other church) actually did this every Sunday, but it is generally believed that they did. Justin Martyr’s Apology I describes the weekly Sunday service including weekly communion. In view of that, the Acts 20 passage is understood to be describing a weekly observance of the Lord’s Supper. Based on this example, the churches of Christ take communion every Sunday. The example is considered binding. That is, these churches believe that we are required to follow the example of taking communion every Sunday. Many in these churches would not consider being a member of a church where communion was taken less frequently.

2. Daily Assembly

The frequency with which the church meets together is understood somewhat differently. Acts 2:46a says:

Every day they continued to meet together in the temple courts.

This is an explicitly stated example with apostolic approval. These Christians assembled every day in the temple courts. Yet few if any churches of Christ today consider this practice binding on the modern day church. If there were counterexamples where the scriptures stated a different frequency of meeting, it would be understandable that the Acts 2:46a example would not be binding. But that is not the case. Apparently either there are more subtle clues that tell us which cases should be taken as binding and which should not, or else the principle of examples has not been applied consistently.

I think all would agree that it is at least permissible for a church to assemble every day, based on Acts 2:46a.

Heb 3:12-13 might suggest that daily assembly is not merely optional. This passage contains a command to encourage daily (not merely an example) but it does not indicate that the encouragement must be performed in an assembly of the church. Heb 10:25 does indicate that encouragement should happen in the assembly, but not that it only occurs there. So the Hebrews passages at most would provide a possibility to infer daily assembly (ie. not a “necessary” inference).

So a requirement for the church to meet daily would stand or fall based on the merits of Acts 2:46a alone, depending on whether or not examples with apostolic approval are binding.

Conclusion

Undoubtedly other instances could be shown to illustrate that the principle of examples in CENI is not consistently applied in the churches of Christ. It is used where the conclusion seems reasonable to us, and the result enforced as if with the authority of God. But when the result does not seem reasonable, do we quietly ignore the principle? The determining factor seems to be our fallible human judgment. When we bind only some approved examples, we might be binding human opinions.

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