11: TEACHING IN THE PARACHURCH? 109were first written to churches. They don’t say, “First Corinthians was
written to a church, and we are not a church, so we don’t have to obey
First Corinthians.” These organizations obey many instructions that are
in parts of the Bible that were written to churches. For example, all of
these organizations would probably think it important to follow the pro-
cedures of Matthew 18:15-17 in dealing with cases where one person
sins against another. But these instructions assume they will be carried
out by a church: “If he refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church”
(Matt. 18:17).
The same is true of mission boards. If their missionaries baptize new
converts, they will think it important for the missionaries to obey the
New Testament teachings on baptism (and not baptize people indis-
criminately whether they profess faith or not, for example).^1 They do not
say, “We are not a church, so we don’t have to follow the New
Testament teachings about baptism, which were written to a church.”
All of the New Testament epistles were written to churches (or to
individuals such as Timothy and Titus and Philemon who were involved
in local churches). Therefore the argument that “we are not a church,
so we don’t need to follow the instructions written to churches,” taken
to its logical conclusion, would mean that parachurch organizations do
not have to obey anything written in the entire New Testament! Surely
that conclusion is wrong.
How then can we know when “we are not a church” is a valid rea-
son not to follow a New Testament command and when it is not?
The principle that allows us to distinguish between commands that
parachurch organizations should obey and those they do not need to
obey is a simple one. It is a general principle that Christians often use,
sometimes even instinctively, in the application of Scripture to all of life.
The principle, which we have already touched on in previous chapters,
is that we should obey the command when we are doing the same activ-
ity as, or an activity very similar to, what the command is talking about.
Therefore, Crossway Books should not “appoint elders in every
(^1) Missionaries who hold to believer’s baptism would baptize only those who make a profes-
sion of faith, while those who hold to infant baptism would also baptize the infant children of
those who make a profession of faith. In both cases they are seeking to follow what they think
the New Testament teaches. Neither is saying, “We are not a church, so what the New
Testament teaches about baptism does not apply to us.”