Practical Questions

Review of Previous Studies on Minors in the New Covenant Community

0:05 This adult Sunday school class was held on April 1st, 1984 at the Trinity Baptist Church in Montville, New Jersey. Now for the benefit of those who are visiting with us, let me take just a few minutes to review what we have been doing in this adult class for the last three Lord's Days and what we will be considering for the last time this morning and then God willing, as most of you know, next Lord's Day morning, Professor Robert Martin will begin leading the class in the study of the book of Hebrews. In the light of that, may I suggest that you make an effort to read through, not trying to get a lot of detail,

0:49 but to feel the overall thrust of the epistle to the Hebrews sometime between now and next Lord's Day morning. After Pastor Nichols completed a 32-part study on the subject of infant baptism under the searchlight of the Word of God, a series which concluded with a positive declaration of how we are to regard our precious but unbaptized children, your elders deemed it wise to round out this area of study by addressing the question, should minor children be admitted to the New Covenant community with all of its duties, privileges, and liabilities?

1:31 Now again, particularly for the sake of visitors who are with us, I want to end by saying that I would like to thank the Lord for the opportunity to be here with us today. I would like to thank the Lord for the opportunity to be here with us today. I would like to emphasize that the question we have been wrestling with is not, can children be saved? Are some children indeed saved?

1:47 Should children be urged to repent and believe the gospel? Concerning those questions, there is no discussion. We believe the Bible's answer to those questions is clear and consistent. Yes, minor children can be saved.

2:05 Yes, minor children can be saved. Minor children are saved. Minor children should be urged to repent and flee to Christ. But the question is, should minor children be admitted to the community of the visible people of God?

2:23 Should they be admitted to the church with all of its privileges, duties, and its liabilities? And in seeking to answer the question, we examine together the constitutions, the constitution of the new covenant community, as it began under John the Baptist, expanded under the ministry of our Lord, and then comes to its full expression under the ministry of the apostles. And as we looked at the data of the gospels and of the book of Acts, we came to the conclusion that there is no clear precept or example to warrant the inclusion of minors,

3:06 as members of the church, that is, the new covenant community. Now, if you're visiting with us and that conclusion sounds strange, I only urge you to obtain the tapes of the class in which the exegetical, that is, the plain biblical materials, are set forth in an orderly fashion. Now, last week we took up two very vital questions that grow out of that previous study. Question number one, why?

3:35 Why? Was there no inclusion of minors in the new covenant community? And my answer had two prongs to it. Number one, because of the radically different basis for inclusion in the new covenant community, no longer will the covenant community be perpetuated primarily by birth and natural procreation, but it will be perpetuated by God's saving, redemptive activity in the heart.

4:05 And that's why I said, And secondly, because of the realistic recognition of both the nature and the position of a minor, which precludes such inclusion. And then we went to the scriptures and examined from the scriptures what the Bible says about the nature of the child and the position of the child. And then we concluded with the question, what will be the results of including minors in the new covenant community? And I set before you five tragic, which follow some or all of them when the inclusion of minors in the new covenant community becomes a pattern in church life.

Historical Precedent and the Problem of the Second Generation

4:48 Now, as I was preparing these materials originally for discussion within the eldership, I scoured my own personal library and could find so little, if anything, that explicitly addressed this subject. But I did come across something, and I hope eventually to follow this, through by obtaining the source which is quoted. But this is a very interesting statement from a paper delivered at a Cary conference some years ago by Pastor David Kingdon, who is presently in Wales. And it was dealing with the whole Anabaptist concept of the church.

5:24 And in opening up that concept and their concept of church life, David Kingdon wrote as follows. Secondly, there is the problem of what can be called, the second generation. G.H. Williams, who has argued that between 1540 and 1557,

5:44 the Anabaptists were using the ban, that's what we would call excommunication, and the formalized solemn reinstatement to membership as the ethical and constitutional equivalent of believer's baptism for the increasing number of birthright members. Who were routinely baptized in adolescence, but were no longer undergoing the great formative experience of public re-baptism in the heroic days of the first apostles of the new evangel, end quote. Now what does that mean when you sort it all out? Simply this.

6:25 That back in the days when the Anabaptists, in the 1500s, when they were declaring that what happened to them as little babies that brought them into the church, that is infant christening, was not baptism. They were baptized upon profession of their faith and they were called Anabaptists. Those who were baptized again. Now they didn't give themselves that term.

6:51 They believed they were baptized for the first time. This was a nullity. The water placed on their forehead they did not regard as biblical baptism. Now what happened is this.

7:01 When they made that step, many of them were severely persecuted. Many lost everything. They lost their lives. So to declare yourself a part of a gathered church, coming into it with all of its privilege, duties, and liabilities was a serious matter in the first generation.

7:21 Many were persecuted. Many were actually killed. Now what this author said, G.H. Williams, is

7:26 that the second generation, the children of these who paid a price to reject this and take this, were routinely baptized in adolescence. And frequently what happened is they were excommunicated for one reason or another and it was in their reinstatement and their second baptism that they got the equivalent of this. In other words, formalism took over. Even in the second generation of the Anabaptists.

7:56 And that's the only thread of historical precedent that I've been able to pick up. I'm sure there's a lot more, but that's the only one I was able to find. Now, Kingdon goes on to comment on, William's statement. Even if Williams is overstating the problem for the period of 1540 to 1557, he is nonetheless right in identifying the major problem which faces gathered churches, namely, that of staying gathered.

8:27 Routinized baptism in adolescence is not peculiar to Anabaptist congregations. We recognize the same phenomenon among Welsh Baptists and at a much...

8:38 much earlier age in the Southern Baptist churches of the United States. With an increasing number of, quote, birthright members, those brought up in the church, when they are admitted, there is a tendency to make discipline more rigorous in an attempt to maintain a high level of discipleship or is a point soon reached when discipline begins to fall into disuse because the birthright outlook becomes predominant. How can the problem of the second generation be dealt with unless by continuous splits caused by ardent spirit whose answer to laxity is to form new and purer churches which in a generation or two

9:22 exhibit the same features as the bodies from which they've seceded? This is not an academic question, but a severely practical one which has to be faced by today's separatists if they do not wish to be called out. If they do not wish to be called out, if they do not wish to be called out, if they do not wish to be called out, if they do not wish to be called out, they will become tomorrow's conformists. And I say amen to that.

Question 1: When Does a Minor Become an Adult?

9:42 And that's why we said last week there is perhaps no question that is of more practical concern to Trinity Church than this question with our 171 18-years-old and under kids in this congregation. Now I promised you that we'd take up several more practical questions and then hopefully have time for you to ask questions. I now begin to fulfill that promise. In this final study, I want to address some of the most obvious and I'm sure frequently raised questions in the light of our study.

10:15 And the questions are these. Number one, if we are not to receive minors into the ranks of the New Covenant community, when do we know that a minor has ceased to be a minor and has become an adult? Have you asked that question in the course of this study, at least in your mind? Well, I've had some of you ask it of me directly, so I know that it's not a question.

10:37 I've had some of you ask it of me directly, so I know it's not a theoretical question. If we are not to receive minors into the New Covenant community, how do we know when a minor has ceased to become a minor and has become a young adult? Well, as we turn to one of the pivotal passages that we study together, 1 Corinthians 13, 11, we would get the impression that the passage from one to the other is a rather radical and defining passage. is a rather radical and defining passage.

11:10 1 Corinthians 13, 11. You have an adverb of time when I was a child. 1 Corinthians 13, 11. I spoke as a child.

11:27 I felt as a child. I thought as a child. Now that I have become a man, I have put away, and you remember we emphasized how strong is that word put away. I have abolished.

11:40 I have put behind me childish things. Now, if we only had this passage to guide us, it would seem that what Paul is saying is that you're a child and a certain crisis comes or a certain point is reached in which you put away being a child and you become a man. You become an adult, no longer in a minor, but someone of full age. I say a quick reading and a very truncated perspective might give that impression.

12:10 However, Paul and all of us know, that Paul knew and we all know that it doesn't happen that way. Rather, it is more like this.

12:21 We take the two circles.

12:27 You say, how do you draw such nice round circles? Well, someone taught me a secret once. I don't know where it was. You use your elbow as sort of the point of a compass and you go this way and then the other way.

12:37 So, it doesn't take a lot of practice, really. All right, now, there are certain people who bear certain characteristics that anyone looking upon them without any question would say, that is a child. There are other people that bear certain characteristics and manifest certain properties that any ordinary person making an accurate judgment would say of that person, that's a man, that's a woman. However, the circles overlap.

13:10 And in the process of becoming, coming from here to here, there is this area, often called what?

13:19 Adolescence. Where someone is coming out of childhood and into manhood, out of childhood into womanhood. Now, in the very beginning of that threshold, it's still quite evident that they are children. However, they are beginning to manifest some of the characteristics of manhood and of womanhood.

13:40 And, of course, this generally begins to happen with some very definable external factors at puberty. The young man is talking long and the voice is going to stay up or go down and it's so embarrassing because he's trying to feel like a man and his voice is up and down and it's terrible. Some of us can't remember that very well. Remember that?

14:03 Yes. Okay. Makes me wonder what's happening.

14:10 All right. And then the fellow is, you know, almost goes up to the mirror once a week with a magnifying glass to see if a little stubble is coming in on his chin or on his lip. You say, Pastor, did you do that too? Sure I did.

14:23 Sure you did. Because that's an indication to you that you're beginning, to come into manhood. And then, of course, with young women, the physiological changes that go on and generally become very visible in terms of the whole broadening of the pelvic area and they begin to no longer look like little girls but have hips like women and begin to develop breasts that are discernible and begin to develop other characteristics. So, some of those are very evident.

14:50 Now, some of the others are not so evident but they begin to emerge and these are the vital ones that we've been concerned. The problem that parents often have is they think that this very natural process which involves a more and more consciousness of independent identity and the use of the rational and volitional faculties as an independent entity before God and that's where some of the struggles come in. Decisions that were once made for the child and the child felt safe and comfortable with them no longer. They say, look, I'm not a child.

15:26 Why don't you let me think this through? What's happening? They're beginning to come into adulthood, into manhood, into womanhood. But in this period, of course, they're neither one nor the other and that's why they have such problems with their own identity.

15:41 That's why we have such problems in relating to them. We say, well, I'm going to treat them like an adult here and they retreat into being a little kid. And we say, I'll treat them like a little kid and then we find at that point they're trying to be adults. So, we have to be patient with our children and tell your children to be patient with you.

15:56 This is the first time you've ever gone through that. That's one of the mysteries of parenthood. If you could only go through it once or twice and then go back and do it all over again with all the wealth of wisdom that you had, it would be much easier. But there's that state of adolescence.

Indications of Adulthood and Cultural/Providential Factors

16:11 And then there comes a time when most of the characteristics are over here but they still have some of the lingering characteristics of this. And there's our problem in the passage from childhood into manhood. Now, there are circumstances certain things that do indicate that this stage is being reached. What are some of them?

16:34 How can you, what are some of the things? You may want to state it in terms of a characteristic here or there that you still know that a person is basically a child or things which indicate that the person is basically becoming or has become a man or a woman. Some very obvious things.

16:52 Am I a child or a man? You say, sometimes I wonder. All right, granted.

16:59 What are some of the indications? Don't look for anything mysterious. Jesus grew in wisdom and in stature. All right, so what's one of the very obvious ones?

17:08 Physical growth. Has the person reached basically his mature height? Physical growth. He has stopped growing.

17:18 Can we use that term? All right, so there's a very obvious one. All right, what else? Certainly a very obvious one.

17:24 They have come into puberty. They have developed basically sexually. All right, what else?

17:37 What are some of the other indications? Someone's at least close to here. Some measure of what?

17:46 Raise a hand and then speak up. Yes, Steve? Mature decisions. All right, the ability to make mature decisions.

17:54 You can lay some given data before them and as they view that data, they make a decision that is responsible and wise rather than merely impulsive and unwise as the pattern, as many of us still hear, fall into that at times, but as a pattern. All right, some other indications. Yes, Charlie? Responsibility.

18:17 All right, accepts responsibility. How about the matter of emotional and economic independence? Manifesting some characteristics of emotional and economic independence. If you find a 19-year-old who is still content to have his parents make all his decisions for him, to provide all of his security, to provide all of his emotional input, that 19-year-old is still a child.

18:47 If he doesn't begin to want to transfer some of that emotional, emotional identification from his parents to someone of the opposite sex and begin to think in terms of what it would be like to have a wife and a family and to find his deepest fulfillment, his true manhood has not yet emerged out of the child. Now, granted, in some cases, that's short-circuited because of bad role models. We're only talking in terms of generalities. Don't absolutize any of these things.

19:17 All right? And then likewise with the matter of economic independence, that the person manifests some ability to care for himself or herself economically. Well, these are some of the indications that are quite obvious. But the problem is the overlap.

19:36 We generally know when we see a man or a woman, when we see a child, so what do we say? Well, I think the only thing we can safely say is that we would have no grounds to believe that anyone fit the biblical description of a gune or an aner, the two Greek words to describe man and woman that we saw again and again in Acts, prior to puberty. All right? So, if Trinity Church ever starts baptizing and receiving into membership pre-puberty kids, we have leaped the traces of what is clear in the Word of God.

20:11 All right? But what about post-puberty? What do we look for? Well, we're going to look for a combination of these and other factors that give us some room for a new generation.

20:21 We have some reason to believe that though the individual may still be partially in the period of overlap, they're far enough along here to be called a young man and a young woman rather than an immature teenager. You see? We use that terminology all the time for someone who is still primarily over here. Now, what does that mean?

20:46 It means we're shut up to the broad principles of the Word of God. We're shut up to the broad principles of the Word of God. We're shut up to the broad principles of the Word of God. shut up to a prayerful, careful, discerning assessment of those who are still in this transition period who may apply for church membership.

21:02 God has not given us any specific age. He's not given us six characteristics we're to look for. It would be legalism to set the age at 13 or even to set it at 20. It would be legalism.

21:16 It would be setting up rules where God has not given us rules. And you see, the flesh hates to be in the posture of dependence upon God and His Spirit and heavenly wisdom. All of us, by nature, are good Roman Catholics. We want everything spelled out for us, and all we need to do is turn to the right page in the manual and see that we're doing it properly.

21:40 All right? So beyond that, I cannot say anything about the specific time. Now, we must also recognize that the general age where this happens will differ from culture to culture, from providential factors and the sovereign supplies of the grace of God. Now, those dynamics will change.

22:06 In some cultures, young men are men assuming full adult male responsibilities by the time they're 16. And young women, by the time they're 16. And young women, by the time they're 16. And young women, by the time they're 16.

22:17 They are wives and mothers and keepers of homes by the time they're 14 in certain cultures. So there are cultural factors. Right in our own country, there are certain rural areas where by the time a girl is 15 and she's not married and the mother of a child or so, people wonder what's wrong with her. It's the fully accepted cultural pattern a girl is conditioned from the time of consciousness to identify herself in the role of a wife, a mother, and a housekeeper.

22:47 And by the time she's in her mid-teens, she has assumed those responsibilities. Then, of course, there are providential factors. Some children are surrounded with wiser parental nurture that helps them to come to maturity quicker. They have parents who know how to back off and let them begin to exercise independent judgment, even if it means they got to fall and scrape their knees and make some mistakes.

23:14 Others have been surrounded by well-meaning... but overly fawning parents who have impeded their development from childhood into manhood.

23:24 Now, there are many parents who think they're doing the best thing in the world for their children to protect, protect, protect, regulate, regulate, regulate. But you know what happens? They come to adulthood absolutely crippled to make independent judgments. That's why I tell some of the young couples, my wife and I are spending more time now in the work of parenting than at any other time in our lives.

23:46 When our kids were eight... and nine and twelve, and they said, Dad, shall I do this or that?

23:53 You run it through your own computer, weigh all the factors and say no or yes. Now what do you do? They ask a question, you say, All right, what are the issues involved? Well, this, this and this.

24:04 Is that all? Well, I think so. Are you sure? What about this?

24:08 Oh, I didn't think of that. What about that? Okay. All right.

24:11 Those are all the factors. All right. Now, as you look at those, which one should take precedent?

24:18 And you're beginning to teach them. How to make responsible decisions and therefore a question which 10 years ago may have taken you 30 seconds to run through your own computer and answer responsibly. You may now be sitting down for 15 minutes or half an hour teaching them how to go through that process.

24:36 And there are times when to see if they've got the message, you back off and you got to let them scrape their knees, just like when your kids start walking. Some kids would forever be hanging onto your hand. And there comes a time when you take your hand off and you stand three feet away and say, come to daddy. And the little kid is even like they're glued.

24:54 You can't get them off the floor. Once he finds you, get one off the floor and then the other. It didn't long before the little critter is running all over the place. And those of us who are parents can remember that process.

Discussion on the Lengthening Period of Adolescence

25:05 All right. So that's all I want to say on that question. Do you have questions on my response to that question or further contributions that someone wants to make? Yes, Pastor Clark.

25:17 I'd like to say this. The problem that we are facing today.

25:24 Is that this area is getting bigger and bigger. It starts sooner and it ends much later. This area here. Yes.

25:34 Very valid point that the overlap is larger and larger because childhood innocence is being robbed. Our kids are being robbed of it. And you should get downright angry when you see some of the advertising that tries to put little seven and eight year olds in a seductive sexy look with designer jeans. You ought to get angry.

25:59 Ruin a generation of kids and try to make sex pots out of kids that are in pre-puberty.

26:09 Tragic thing. Pastor Clark is right when he says that this is being pushed on them. And yet at the same time, the whole structure of society and the whole sick mentality of what parents are supposed to be and do extends into here. So that it's more and more difficult to see real children who do.

26:29 Think and act and speak as children. Childhood is a beautiful stage, but it's tragic when they ought to be men and women and still acting like little kids. And that's where the whole climate of our society with its permissiveness, with the feeling oriented culture and the drugs and the whole business just cut so many off at the knees. Right when they ought to be emerging into manhood and womanhood.

26:53 And it delays that process for so long a time. Very vital point. Pastor Clark, thank you for making that. All right.

Question 2: Responding to Minors Professing Faith and Desiring Baptism

26:59 Any other contribution on that question? All right. Let me hasten to the second one then. What should we do with our minor children who profess to be the Lord's and may desire baptism and church membership?

27:15 What should we do with our minor children who profess to be the Lord's and who desire baptism and church membership? Professing to be the Lord's. They give much evidence in terms of reading their Bible. And one day they come and they say to you as a parent or they come and speak to one of the older members or one of the elders and say, I believe God has drawn me to himself.

27:43 I believe I am the Lord's. I don't know when I became his, but I believe I am his. And with all my heart, I want to serve him and follow him. And in my Bible, I notice how the pattern that comes forward again and again is that one who believes ought to be baptized.

27:58 And I want to be obedient to the Lord. What shall I do? Well, negatively, my answer. Is don't discourage them.

28:05 Don't belittle them. Remember my illustrations about the kid who at 14 thinks he's in love and wants to get married and the 12 year old who wants to go to war because he has patriotism burning in his breast. Don't discourage what may indeed be the fruits of grace. A real attachment to Christ, a real desire to obey Christ.

28:27 Positively, what do you do? Encourage them to obey the word of God. To do their duty. And what is their primary duty under which all other duties are subsumed as long as they are minors?

28:39 Children, obey your parents. It is their duty to keep the law of God, to walk in his ways. But then you need to instruct them. And now listen carefully.

28:51 You need to teach them that though the general pattern set forth in the word of God is belief followed by profession of that faith in baptism. God does not require. Baptism of them now in their minority. And let me use an illustration.

29:11 Here's a young man who comes into puberty, say, at age 12. And by the time he's 14 years old, he knows that his identity as a man with its sexuality and with his sexual drives is a very real part of him. And he feels that old Cadillac engine. I think the biggest stock engine made in the States was back some years ago.

29:36 Cadillac made. I think. I think the 450 inch, 450 cubic inch V8. And the young man feels that that's what he's got in him in terms of sex drive and appetite.

29:48 He's been brought up in a wholesome climate. He believes sex to be a gift of God, his sexual identity to be a gift of God. But by the time he's age 14, he also knows he's got this tremendous raging torrent of appetite and capacity within him. And by the time.

30:07 By the time he's 15, he's come to discover that to keep his mind pure and his body pure is no easy thing in an age in which there is constant pressure in the area of sexual innuendo, etc. Now, he's reading in his devotions one morning when he's 15, 1 Corinthians chapter 7. And he sees, now to avoid fornications, let each man have his own wife. He says, ha!

30:34 That's it. And he goes to his dad and he says, ha! What would I have discovered this morning? You know how we've been praying about this matter of keeping a pure mind and not indulging in self-abuse?

30:46 I see God's answer. Here's the means of grace. God says I've got to get a wife. Well, that's what the Bible says.

30:53 To avoid fornication, let each man have his own wife. If he cannot contain, let him marry. It is better to marry than to burn. He says, dad, there it is.

31:04 There's the means of grace. It's right in the Bible. And what's the father say?

31:12 What's he tell him? He says, yes, son, that's right. That's in the Bible. However, marriage is not a duty simply because you have the burning of sexual passion.

31:24 Until you are competent to assume the responsibilities of that institution, you dare not enter it. Until you're prepared to live in the light of Ephesians chapter 5, to nourish and to cherish a wife, and to take upon yourself the responsibility. The responsibility of fathering and molding children, be fruitful and multiply. Lo, children, our inheritance of the Lord and the fruit of the womb is his reward.

31:51 Blessed is the man who has his quiver full of them. You say to that son, yes, son, marriage is a means of grace, but in its own time in relationship to other biblical responsibilities. And it's exactly the same with baptism and church membership. Until the child has developed, into at least the threshold of manhood and womanhood, so that these other factors that we studied last week can be soberly assessed, and the cost is counted, and we have reason to believe that we have the choice of the child, not just the good molding influence of its parents,

32:32 but its own independent choice to follow Christ and his people and his ways in the community of the saints. We tell them that God does not hold them. We tell them that God does not hold them accountable as though they were being disobedient. And in that sense, they are providentially hindered from the ordinance, the same way someone in prison might be hindered, the same way someone who's converted on a hospital bed and who is bedridden is precluded from the ordinance.

32:59 We do not believe that there's any grace in the ordinance, and in the ordinary course of events, the faith and the profession of it should be joined. But there are these exceptional cases, and we need to instruct. We need to instruct them and relieve their conscience of any sense that they are being disobedient, or that their elders are forcing them to be disobedient. We need to show them that it is not their duty at that time, any more than it's the duty of the 15-year-old at that time to take to himself a wife, though that may well be the means of grace for him five years hence.

Question 3: The Dangers of Waiting Too Long

33:37 Okay? Then question number three, what will result, if we wait too long? If we are overly cautious,

33:48 and we wait too long,

33:52 instead of making sure that people are at least well over here, we say, well, we're going to make sure they're way over here. What will we do? Well, it seems to me there are several things we'll do. We'll keep people in a no-man's land where they don't know how to regard themselves.

34:08 They know and regard themselves to be independent, responsible young adults, and yet they are that not thus regarded, and by the community of God's people. Should they be looked upon as willful unbelievers who refuse baptism in church membership? Well, if not, why are they not, as young adults included, in the community of God's people if they profess His name? We put them in an awkward position with such things as going off to college, marriage.

34:38 When they get to this age, if we wait too long, get up into the some late teens, early twenties, it's only proper. That they should begin to think in terms of marriage. Then we have the awkward position where they begin to be drawn to someone who is within the community and they're without. Well, is it right for me to even think of that young man?

35:02 Is it right for him to think of that young lady? We create all kinds of problems where then you'd have people, and we know of churches where this is so, where their main reason for becoming church members is so they can get a marriage part. So you have all kinds of problems when you take God's principles and try to absolutize them into rigid categories, and you try to fight the flesh with flesh. Flesh can never be fought with flesh.

35:28 Flesh can only be fought by the Spirit. And the Spirit always works in conjunction with the Word of God. All right? Well, those are the three questions that have been most frequently raised in my mind and to my mind by others.

Q&A: Assurance and the Credibility of a Minor's Profession

35:42 And now we have a good 17, 18 minutes for further questions that you may have as we look back, over this whole block of material. All right? Yes, Louise? Well, I was with this same child when he was reading the Bible and he talked about being members of one another.

36:07 They know that Christ has redeemed them in their own spirit, and yet they don't have that concern of the body looking over their spirits or their souls, or they don't feel that they're a member of a visible church as they know they're a member of the invisible church. Well, first of all, Louise, the question assumes that their assurance is infallible, and we must, as we did take this question up, we take a position of agnosticism. I've seen many a child, I shouldn't say many, but I've seen enough to know that it's one thing for a child to say very sincerely, I know I belong to Jesus, and he thinks that he really does.

36:49 But it's the fruit of the grace of God working in a common sphere through the instruction of his parents and all these other factors, and time proves that that child never did. He was never regenerate. When his own independent will begins to develop, it's quite evident that he was never savingly joined to Christ. So we must not mistake the sincere expression of a child's confidence and take that at face value.

37:14 Now, we must not demean it. We take a gracious, sanctified, agnostic spirit. We'll see, and then we simply say to the child, and certainly, Louise, in this situation it's evident, any child who would say, but I don't feel I belong. I don't belong.

37:29 But I would simply ask him, do all the adults show an interest and concern for you? Do they pray for you? Do they greet you? Do they pick you up in their arms?

37:39 Do they show it? And around here, the answer's very obvious. They lack nothing of gracious, loving concern and interaction so that the idea that they are cut off from something really, I think, is invalid. And what we say to them is we want to protect you from the tragedy of doing something that you would regret later.

38:00 And that was one of the things we brought up last week. The kind of pressure this puts upon a child when he does begin to develop his own independent will and identity and if he's already been received into the church, now he can't be honest because he knows if he expresses his doubts and questions, he'll be disappointing his elders, the church members, his mother, his father. That puts tremendous psychological and emotional pressure upon the child. So we dealt with that in greater detail in the previous section.

38:30 Yes, Mr. Bischoff.

39:22 And how old is he now, Paul? All right, so it was at about age 26, 27 that the Lord really got hold of him and did a real work of grace. Thank you for sharing that personal testimony of some of the principles we've been dealing with.

40:06 All right, other questions or contributions? Yes, Rich.

41:01 Yes, you're stating it clearly. All right, here the child says, I belong to the Lord. My conduct, my patterns of life are in the realm of one who belongs to the Lord. So what do we do as a parent?

41:27 Well, I may stand to be corrected, but I know what I did. Oops, and my wife did. That's my wife. When I draw those automatically, that just shows how much she's in my mind all the time.

41:40 A couple of my steps on that. All right. What we would say to our kids was this. Now look, you say you love the Lord Jesus.

41:51 If you love him, you will want to obey him. And he says that this is what you did was wrong. Now, if they make no such profession, we just bring the naked law of God upon them and say this is contrary to the word of God. You have sinned against God.

42:06 You must now ask God to forgive you. And as we saw last week, we enforce both the language and insofar as is possible, even an expression of the spirit of repentance in our children. And that's our duty. Now, if they say they know the Lord, then we take them for what they are saying.

42:23 We are neither discounting it nor accepting it at face value. If you belong to the Lord Jesus and say you want to please him, then surely you can't do this. Your body belongs to him. This displeases him, if you are the Lord's thus and thus.

42:38 That's the way we've handled it. And as far as I can see, that's a consistent extension of the whole principle we're taking a position of sanctified agnosticism. We don't know. We would have no right to say, how can you be a Christian and do that?

42:53 Because if that's so, somebody can say that to us any given day of the week. If someone were to see us right after we showed a spirit of impatience or spoke a harsh word, someone could say, how can you be a Christian and do that? So we want to be careful that we don't just beat them down into utter discouragement. But neither do we want naively to think that because the child really believes he's the Lord's, that we encourage them in a path of presumption by putting our unqualified imprimatur upon their assessment of themselves.

43:26 That's a tragic thing. If you belong to the Lord, if you truly love and desire to serve the Lord Jesus, then thus and thus. Someone else want to add to that out of parental experience or further light on the Word of God that maybe I don't have on that matter? Okay, Rich?

Q&A: Bar Mitzvah and the Nature of a Valid Profession

43:45 Good. All right, further questions. Someone else had a hand raised. Yes, Michael?

43:51 Is there any biblical basis for the Jewish custom of the Bar Mitzvah at the age of 13? No, no. There's nothing in the Word of God. All we read about in the Gospels concerning Jesus was that it was a custom that at age 12 the sun would go up, but there's nothing, the sun would go up with his parents to the feast where the males went.

44:12 But to my knowledge, there's nothing in the Old Testament directives about anything significant at age 12 or 13. I've never come across any. Pastor Nichols? No.

44:26 All right. Yes, Jim? If you take the basis of salvation, for example, man sets his faith and repentance from the doctrine of by their fruits you shall know them, and they shall not be concerned by how they act and behave. The question is, is it possible to concern a valid possession of faith in the minor?

44:53 Well, that's the great problem. What we're saying is that the Bible recognizes that since the outstanding characteristics of a minor are credulity, it believes everything, and instability, it's up and down, it is unwise to assume that we can make a valid assessment. Now, we never make an infallible one. Maybe a 30-year-old person who gives all of the marks of having passed from death unto life.

45:22 However, it's not credulity and instability which produce that profession as it is in the case of a child. So that's the very point we're making. It is unwise, it is not sound psychology, biblical psychology, to assume that we can make a valid judgment on an unformed psyche of a child. That that profession, is indeed the expression of a matured, solid, intelligent commitment to assume the liabilities and responsibilities of visible discipleship.

46:00 Now, it may be the real thing, and time will tell. If the real thing is there, then all the way through even the kooky period of the overlap, though there may be problems, it will be evident that the grace of God is at work and they will emerge into a man and a woman who evidently manifest the grace of God in their lives.

46:30 I mean, have I answered the question, Jim?

46:44 Where have I not answered the question? You ask, can we make a judgment, make a valid judgment of a credible profession in a minor? I think I've responded to that question. Why we cannot believe that a judgment we make is a valid in some.

46:59 Have I responded to that question? To the rest of the satisfaction of the rest of you? I think I've responded to the question, Jim. Am I saying no or yes?

47:09 No. Saying no. I think the answer is very clear, Jim. No.

47:14 Okay? Yes. Frank? Mr. Barker?

47:20 To address the point that Jim made, I think the issue is we cannot assume that what the children are saying is sound and mature. That's it. But we can receive what they say with gratefulness to God that He has apparently worked in their hearts in prayer. And we can encourage them to say, yes, we believe it.

47:46 We trust that it is real. But that doesn't mean to say that we can then go as a whole believing congregation and say because we believe it or because we want to believe it. You should all believe it. Yeah.

48:02 Good point. We go back to the analogy. If the 14-year-old comes and says, I believe I'm in love, are you going to tell him, you're a 14-year-old and know what love is? Of course not.

48:13 You're not going to tell him that. But neither are you about to go down and sign a consent statement and let him get married. I think that analogy is unanswerable. And I think it rings in all of our consciousness.

48:24 And our problem is the emotional one. I think the problem is the emotional one. As though we're robbing our kids of something. We're not robbing them of anything.

48:32 We're protecting them and surrounding them with a perspective that is in their best interest as well as the best interest of the Church of Christ. All right. Someone else had a hand raised. Then we'll come back, Louise.

Q&A: Confirmation and Parental Pressure

48:44 Let's see. Someone over here. Yes, sir.

48:52 None whatsoever. Basically what that practice is is an attempt to make up what was lacking when they held the passive baby in arms and a sponsor spoke for it. You see? Confirmation gives an opportunity now for the child who's confident to come to puberty to speak for himself and to confirm, see, confirm what his sponsor said for him.

49:16 At the front of a Catholic church when the priest says, do you renounce the devil in all of his works? The little baby doesn't look up from the mother's arm and say, yeah. It's the sponsor that says, I do. Right?

49:28 And if you've seen the ritual, it's the sponsor. Now in confirmation, that person confirms what the sponsor said for him. Well, the Bible knows nothing of a proxy confession of faith. Absolutely nothing.

49:40 Okay? Good. All right. Now, Louise, and then we'll slip over to Bob and then back to Steve.

49:46 What you're saying is we don't allow for any need-free in the spiritual realm. Of course, you know, like with the, when they're coming into maturity and making decisions and stuff and they have to strengthen their needs and learn from that, we can't allow that in the spiritual realm because if they weren't the true thing, we'd bring this on to God's kingdom like having that community. Well, there'll be, you know, that's right. What it does is it's not that we don't allow for knee scraping.

50:15 They'll have plenty of that even if they have the real thing in learning to apply their faith to their emerging manhood and womanhood. What we're saying is that we have no biblical warrant to bring them into the church and then expose them to the rigors of excommunication. Exactly. The rigors of excommunication.

50:31 That's why I keep using the term the privileges, duties, and liabilities of being members of that new covenant community. Very good. Yes, Bob? Yes.

51:01 Because the average parent, and I hope I can speak as a parent who has a heart, the very pressure that leads to the practice of infant baptism leads parents to want their kids to make public profession, go under the water and come into the church because then we feel we can breathe a little easier. And I'm convinced it's that pressure which in no little measure perpetuates this practice of minority baptism and church membership because as we've seen, we have scoured the New Testament and we have not found any warrant for the practice. And yet it's practiced over and over again all over the place.

51:46 Well, no little pressure on that is parents. And you see, the lovely thing with the biblical perspective, and we just hinted at this last week, we don't keep pummeling our kids with that perspective of the fundamentalist. Have you made your decision? Have you made your decision?

52:01 Have you made your decision? Have you made your decision? That puts tremendous pressure on the kids. And what happens is they're questioning when they begin to come into this period, well, I made one decision there, I made another one there, and I made another one here.

52:16 Which one was right? Were any of them right? And it puts all the concentration on was my decision sincere? Well, if I've never done it, I'm going to do it now.

52:24 And I tell you, for some of us, and this is not theoretical, I was brought up in the Salvation Army where once every quarter you had what was called Decision Sunday. And many a time I'd go down and they'd call in the Salvation Army the penitent form. And I would weep and sing into my heart, into my heart, come into my heart, Lord Jesus, come in today, come in to stay. But then nothing much would happen and I'd go through that again and to wonder I'm not a basket case.

52:51 I mean that because I lived under the terrors of hell continually and always wondering, well, was that decision genuine? Was that? I thought it was. And the whole question was have you decided?

53:01 Have you decided? We don't put that kind of pressure on our kids. And we bring up in a climate in which they nor we will probably not be able to mark the precise time when they pass from death unto life. We know from God's standpoint there's a time.

53:15 But when they're surrounded with proper nurture and preaching and instruction many of them will not know when they pass from death unto life. So we don't put that pressure on them nor do we put the pressure on them that by the time they're 13 or 14 all of their social peers have been baptized in their church membership and right when they most need peer acceptance they fear peer ostracization because they're not part of the in-group. So we don't put that pressure on them that comes in circles where you have confirmation somewhere in the beginning or toward the end of puberty. We want to spare our children that kind of pressure and let them develop in God's way and in God's time and hopefully by His grace become marvelous trophies of His grace and leaders in His church in years to come.

Q&A: Visible vs. Invisible Church and Biblical Warrant

53:56 That's what we want. That's what we're committed to. Steve, we've got time for your question. Because of the peculiar characteristics there is a key factor I can assure difference between the visible and the invisible church as the circle between the last and the invisible church.

54:23 What we said last week is that the true people of God all that God knows are His. The foundation of God stand its sure. Having this seal the Lord knows them that are His. The true people of God in the visible church are not con or co-terminants.

54:42 They do not occupy the same circle. Right? And the fact though that's true is that many times we have people included who are not to be and many people who are included who ought to be. Yep.

54:54 The fact though is everything that is in the case of our life is there a difference? I think what we're saying is that we should receive none here until we have biblical warrant to receive them. To me that's the issue. We must come back to that issue again and again.

55:11 Whom do we have warrant to receive into the visible church? Is there any example of that? Yeah. See that to me is a theological distinction Steve and I think at that point you need to rein in your theological extension of it and say I'll simply stick with biblical perspectives and terminology.

55:29 It's perfectly proper to have a theological perspective and attempt to express it. But I bring it back and this is what I had to do when I was wrestling with this. Put all the apparent logical deductions and consequences aside and say when I go to my Bible what does the Bible say is the complexion of the visible church? Is it on air gune and pice paideia technon technia or is it simply on air and gune period?

56:01 That's what I was about to do that though. Yeah. Yeah. Maybe just live with that tension.

56:12 We just live with that tension. If God's not embarrassed by it we shouldn't be. Alright? And I can feel that with you Steve all the time I was going through the scriptures on this thing.

56:23 I could say yes but and my mind was I said no. Now come back to one thing. Do we have biblical warrant precept precedent in the word of God to see the new covenant community composed of any other than those who have passed out of minority into the place where they can intelligently assume the responsibilities privileges and liabilities of membership in the community. I was willing to live with that tension but I just wanted to hear if God lived with it.

56:57 Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's another one of those.

Closing Prayer

57:02 Yeah. Well our time is gone. If you do have further questions I would appreciate it if you'd voice them to one of the elders and if it appears that it would warrant public discussion hopefully when I get back from England maybe Mr. Martin would be kind enough to address those questions if they seem to be of general concern.

57:23 Well let's pray together. Our Father we thank you for your holy word. We thank you that it is sufficient as well as the only rule for our faith and practice. We pray that you would give us not only increasing light from your word but increasing grace to be determined that every tradition every perspective every emotional destination will be brought subject to the word of God.

57:56 Oh Lord may every thought be brought captive to the obedience of Christ. Seal your word to our hearts blow upon the chaff of anything that has been the mixture of the thought and mind of man and may your word and your word alone be riveted to our understanding and to our affections and above all to our wills. We pray Lord Amen.