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A
REVIEW OF CHARLES "CHUCK" MARTIN’S
"LESSONS FROM A FORMER PHARISEE--MY STORY"
By
Jack Evans, Sr.
The current apostasy in the church, led by men who went out from us, because they were not really of us, did not catch us, the church of God, by surprise. We have been expecting and experiencing it for two thousand years. When it was in its embryonic stage two thousand years ago, the venerable apostle John described the seeds of it in these words:
Dear children, this is the last hour; and as you have heard that the antichrist is coming, even now many antichrists have come. This is how we know it is the last hour. They went out from us, but they did not really belong to us. For if they had belonged to us, they would have remained with us; but their going showed that none of them belonged to us. But you have an anointing from the Holy One, and all of you know the truth. I do not write to you because you do not know the truth, but because you do know it and because no lie comes from the truth (1 John 2:18-21 NIV).
Thank God for that anointing--"unction"--of God’s truth.
But before John wrote this warning against Gnostic teachers to the faithful Christians in and around Asia and, ultimately, to us today, Paul and Peter had already given warnings about some who were once faithful to Christ by preaching his doctrine, but falling away at a later time. A few references will suffice. Paul identified the church as the "church of God" in Miletus (Acts 20:28), which anyone with a cursory knowledge of the New Testament knows the fact that "church of God" is not the name of the church, which I will explain later. In his speech to the elders of the congregation in Ephesus, Paul told them about the coming "falling away" from the faith, and that the apostasy would be led by some of them (Acts 20:29-30). Paul continued to warn the churches in his epistles about the impending digression of some of the members of the Lord’s church in such passages as 1 Timothy 4:1-3; 2 Thessalonians 2:2-5; and 2 Timothy 4:1-4. Paul even calls the names of some of the apostates who were involved--i.e.--Hymenaeus, Alexander, and Philetus (1 Tim. 1:19-20; 2:17-18), to name a few. He identified "perverters" and "subverters" of the truth of God as "heretics" (Gal. 1:6-8; Titus 3:8-11). The apostle Peter, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, joined these apostles, John and Paul, by saying that there would be false teachers among faithful Christians (2 Peter 2:1-3). He more explicitly shows the underhanded tactics that the heretics would use in their satanic efforts of deceiving the elect of God, by saying that they would "wrest" even the scriptures written by Paul (2 Peter 3:15-16). This Petrine passage also substantiates what Paul had already said about the heretics in that they would "handle the word of God deceitfully" (2 Cor. 4:1-3; 11:3-4).
With all of this God-inspired, apostolic warning, it comes as no surprise or shock that a once faithful Christian--so I thought--in Atlanta, Georgia, by the name of Charles "Chuck" Martin has written a satirical paper entitled, "Lessons from a Former Pharisee--My Story," which is meant to be his exposé of his early experiences in the church of Christ. But this would-be satire, which is poorly written in the areas of syntax, spelling, punctuation, paragraph transition, logic, historical factoring, consistency, scriptural application, and over-all cogency, tells the reader more about the author’s deficiencies in writing composition, consistency of thought, idea originality, and understanding of the holy scriptures, than it does about the church, which is in the "wisdom and knowledge of God" (Rom. 11:33-34), although we are cognizant of the fact that the human element of the church on earth does have numerous weaknesses and/or deficiencies. But the paper, "Lessons from a Former Pharisee--My Story," is so poorly written that the reader has problems in ascertaining the writer’s message. Were he writing this paper in one of my remedial English classes, which I used to teach at Southwestern Christian College, he would receive an "F" based on composition alone. Were he writing it in one of my Bible classes at Southwestern Christian College, he would receive an "F" on the basis of Bible knowledge and understanding, as well as the other criteria above. But in this context, let us now look at the contents of this confessional paper. The title, "Lessons from a Former Pharisee--My Story," begs the question. Good "lessons" are given by good teachers. And the writer of this paper is, obviously, not a well-prepared teacher. Therefore, his "lessons" are suspect. The partial title of the paper, "Lessons from a Former Pharisee," would be better titled as, "Lessons from a Former Pharisee...Who is now a Sadducee." To explain why this would be a better and more truthful title, it is necessary for me to give you a short history of the Pharisees and Sadducees in the Bible, showing their true analogy with the modern day "liberals" and "conservatives" of the churches of Christ.
The Pharisees and the Sadducees were two religious sects that were woefully divided about some religious doctrine in the first century. To be precise, the Pharisees believed in the resurrection, in angels, and in spirits, while the Sadducees denied belief in all three of these items of doctrine (Acts 23:6-8 NIV). Making them analogous to our situation in the church today, the Pharisees would be identified as the "conservatives," because they believed the truth of the Law of Moses on resurrection, angels and spirits. But it was in their superior, "holier than thou" attitude that they were deficient. On the other hand, the Sadducees would, today, be identified as the "liberals," because they rejected all truth about resurrection, angels and spirits. In Paul’s preaching to the Jews of these two sects, a violent dispute broke out when he affirmed the resurrection of Jesus, thus supporting the truth of what the Pharisees believed. The Sadducees became so enraged at Paul for preaching this truth that they formed a plot of more than forty men to kill him. Yes, these "church folk" said in their anger toward Paul, "We are ready to kill him..." (Acts 23:15). This is usually the attitudinal thought of some of today’s "church folk" toward any man or woman who does not agree with their "position" on a given biblical issue.
In his "Lessons...," Charles Martin is, scripturally and analogously identified today as being a "Sadducee," though he admits that he was a "Pharisee," satirically. This designation is given to him because he, like the biblical Sadducees, now denies and rejects obvious truth of the scripture. In his paper, after giving a brief history about himself in the church of Christ, including his attendance at Southwestern Christian College and Abilene Christian University, and revealing that he has been withdrawn from by some other churches of Christ in Atlanta, Georgia, Charles Martin summarizes his current beliefs in the Introduction to his paper in the following way:
All of these developments are in reaction to several convictions and teachings that I have come to advocate. You see, I have come to believe that there are Christians ‘in other churches’ outside of the fellowship of the Churches of Christ. I believe that women are able to teach doctrine and preach the gospel in the presence of male believers. I believe that worship is fundamentally a heart issue and has little to do with the form of worship. I believe these things because God has led me to these conclusions. I realize these differences in conviction represent a departure from several traditional teachings of the Church of Christ. As I go into details about these convictions please allow me to share with you how all this came into being (page 2).
The remainder of Charles’ paper reflects the glaring weakness in his understanding of the holistic teaching of the Bible regarding the "name" of the church; the scope of the saved; the role of women in the church; and the work and worship of the New Testament church. He also shows in giving his early history among the churches of Christ, which he satirically calls the "Pharisees," that he was not taught properly in his early years in the church of Christ, or woefully misunderstood what he was taught while in the church of Christ in those days. Were he taught properly, and understood what he was taught, he would now be identified with the apostle Paul, who had been a real Pharisee in his early life (Acts 23:6-7; Gal. 1:13-17), in which religion he did have some truth--i.e.--"the resurrection, angels and spirits"--but in his (Paul’s) attitude he was deficient (Acts 26:9-11). But when Paul, called Saul in the Hebrew, was taught properly by a gospel preacher, Ananias, he obeyed the gospel of Christ and became a member of the church of God, Christ or the Lord (Acts 20:28), and left the sect of the Pharisees forever. He was never a Sadducee; he was no longer a Pharisee, he was now a "Let’s see." Listen to his defensive argument before Felix, the governor:
And they cannot prove to you the charges they are now making against me. However, I admit that I worship the God of our fathers as a follower of THE WAY, which they called a sect. I BELIEVE EVERYTHING THAT IS WRITTEN IN THE PROPHETS... (Acts 24:13-14).
Here is reflected in his own words that he, Paul, was a "Let’s see" Christian, meaning anything that he believed and preached he had to "See" in the scripture of his day or be given it directly by Jesus Christ (Gal. 1:11-12). And then in his epistle to the Corinthians, Paul told them not to even think of men ABOVE THAT WHICH IS WRITTEN (1 Cor. 4:6). In other words, Paul was saying, on whatever matter it may be, "Let’s see" what is written that comes to us from the Lord. Yes, Paul was a "Let’s see" man of God. And because Charles Martin, by his own admission, was a "Pharisee," and not a "Let’s see" man, he has made numerous, grievous mistakes in the scriptures as reflected in his "Lessons...."
The first remarkable error in his paper is that he thought that we in churches of Christ taught that the name of the church is "Church of Christ." I can assure you that he was not taught that at Southwestern Christian College. The Bible does not teach that, so I would not permit that to be taught in our Bible department at Southwestern Christian College. The term church of Christ is not the name of God’s church, it is only a descriptive phrase that reflects the relationship of Christ to the church. There are numerous phrases in the New Testament that are used to describe our relationship to Christ, using metaphors in different ways. Here are a few examples: church of God (Acts 20:28); church of the living God (1 Tim. 3:15); church of the first-born ones (Heb. 12:23); temple of the living God (2 Cor. 6:16); household of faith (Gal. 6:10; Eph. 2:19); kingdom of God’s dear son (Col. 1:13); the body of Christ (Col. 1:8, 24); the saints of God (Eph. 1:15, 18); the bride of the lamb (Rev. 21:9); and churches of Christ (Rom. 16:16), just to name a few. The preposition "of" in the phrase shows the relationship between Christ and His church, but "church of Christ" is not the church’s name. For another example: "the Son’s house," or "house of the Son" (Heb. 3:6) is not the name of the house. Personally, I live in "the house of the president," but that is not the name of my family. The Bible teaches that the brethren of Christ (Heb. 2:11-12) are called by a "worthy name" (James 2:7). Charles says that the name Christian (Acts 11:26) "was not used first by the believers in Christ...but by non-Christians in a derogatory way" (page 3). But since I am a "Let’s see" Christian, I have not seen in Charles’ paper anything "written" that would support his interpretation of Acts 11:26. "Let’s see" the scriptural documentation. And then Charles "reveals" more about Peter’s internal thoughts than Peter revealed, by his (Charles’) saying, "Perhaps this is why Peter told the new Christians not to be ashamed if they suffered for being a Christian" (page 3, 1 Peter 4:16). Charles seems to have some inside or unreported information. For his conclusion about these passages is nowhere in the Bible.
Brother Charles has unknowingly confirmed that the name Christian is that "worthy name" by which the followers of Christ are called. He says, "The closest thing I did find in scripture as a clear name for the church was found in Acts. Here’s what Paul said in that passage:
‘However, I admit that I worship the God of our fathers as A FOLLOWER OF THE WAY, which they call a sect’ (pp. 3-4, Acts 24:14 NIV)."
Now brother "Chuck" should know, from home or from his attending Southwestern Christian College, that the name Christian literally means "a follower of Christ." So, if Paul says, by Charles’ own admission, that he was a "follower of THE WAY," a rational-thinking person would just find out who is The Way! And the answer to that question is found in John 14:6, where Jesus says, "I AM THE WAY." Thus, a follower of THE WAY is a follower of Christ--simply a Christian. What the unbelieving Jews called the church in Charles’ scripture--"a sect"--is immaterial, unless Charles, as a "former Pharisee," gets his authority from "Sadducees" or unbelievers. "Follower of the Way" is a descriptive phrase of the individual, not the name of the church.
Following this unwittingly embarrassing blunder, brother "Chuck" attempted to take on the role of a semanticist, one who defines the meaning of words. Brother Charles says on page four of his paper,
God led me to continue to study His word. I learned that there was a difference in preaching and teaching. I came to understand that one may teach the doctrine of the church but preaching is always reserved for the gospel. The gospel is the ‘good news of Jesus Christ.’
He goes on to say on this subject:
As you look at Monica Kaufman on Action 2 News, you’ll notice that she never teaches the news; she simply announces or proclaims (reports) the news. Often this news is bad. The gospel, in contrast, is always the good news! It may be presented in contrast to the bad news of living for the world or self but it is always good news. Yet there were many times when I would go to ‘gospel meetings’ and never hear ‘the good news’ (page 4).
In response to this poorly constructed semantical argument, a freshman student at Southwestern Christian College, let alone a semanticist, would know that teaching and preaching are synonymous terms. If they are different, Jesus, the apostles, and other gospel writers did not know it. In recording the Great Commission given by Jesus, Matthew says that Jesus said, "Go ye, therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them...teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have said to you..." (Matt. 28:19-20). In recording the same event, Mark says that Jesus said, "Go ye into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature..." (Mark 16:15). According to the cohesion between these two words, teaching is preaching and preaching is teaching. Now, which order did Jesus give, to teach or to preach? And which gospel writer was right when Matthew says "teach" and Mark says "preach" about the same declaration of Jesus? Maybe "Chuck" can tell us. Mark says that Jesus preached the gospel of the kingdom of God (Mark 1:14), yet Jesus was called "teacher" (John 3:2). And Luke says that Jesus began to "do and to teach" (Acts 1:1). Did Jesus preach or teach? Maybe "Chuck" can tell us.
Charles also said that "...the gospel is always the good news." His weakness in this statement is that he did not say to whom. In reference to obedience, Jesus said, "...preach the gospel...he that believeth not shall be damned" (Mark 16:16). Is being lost "good news" to the unbeliever, or even to the believer? But Charles says that the gospel is always good news. Luke says that Paul and Barnabas were teaching and preaching the word of God (Acts 15:35). Paul told Timothy to charge (teach) and preach, meaning the same thing (1 Tim. 1:3; 2 Tim. 4:1). Paul told Titus to "speak and exhort..." (Titus 2:15). How was this done, through "teaching" or "preaching," according to Charles’ criteria? Incidentally, what do sinners and Christians obey, doctrine or gospel, according to Charles’ theory? Matthew says, "teach them and baptize them" (Matt. 28:19). Mark says, "Preach to them and baptize them," (Mark 16:15). Paul says that sinners must "obey the doctrine" (Rom. 6:17), which "Chuck" says can only be taught, not preached; Paul also said that men must "obey the gospel" (Rom. 10:16; 2 Thess. 1:8; 1 Peter 4:17). It is obvious that teaching and preaching are the same thing in the total process of spreading the gospel of Christ. Maybe "Chuck" will learn this "lesson" as he studies this response. I pray that he will.
Because the remainder of Charles Martin’s paper is so surface-oriented and inconsequential, I shall make responses to these "Lessons," learned by him when he was a "Pharisee," as concise as possible. His next glaring blunder is in his trying to extrapolate the history of the church that is in the "manifold wisdom of God" (Eph. 3:10) from a history of the Reformation Movement of 1517 and the "Restoration Movement" of the 1830s, known as the "Stone-Campbell Movement" (page 5). It is sad to note that a graduate of Southwestern Christian College does not know the history of the true church of Christ, which predates Alexander Campbell and Barton W. Stone by over 1800 years, and that its date of origin on earth is found in His-story (history), the Bible, and not in the Religious Census Records of the U.S. Government. It was this agency from which Charles "learned" that the church of Christ was recognized as a separate organization from the Disciples of Christ and the Christian Church in 1906 (page 5). But nineteen hundred and six years before that so-called determination was made by the U.S. Government, in the U.S. Religious Census book, God’s book says that God was "adding to the church daily such as should be saved" (Acts 2:47). What church was that, offering salvation to people over 1,500 years before Martin Luther was born, and approximately 1,800 years before Alexander Campbell or Barton W. Stone was born? If Charles did not learn his "lesson" on this matter from the Bible, His-story, in his younger days, he needs to "repeat the class," for he has "failed" biblical history, and his grade is "F."
Charles next admits that he, himself, became a "false teacher" while a "Pharisee"--a member of the New Testament church. I thank him for identifying himself, for Peter said long ago that there would be "false teachers among you" (2 Peter 2:1). Charles recounts some of his personal experiences with certain individuals in the church of Christ who, apparently, needed more sound teaching about the church of the Lord, and he extrapolates and deduces from those personal experiences with individuals and arrived at a false conclusion about the Bible church of Christ from those human "contacts" (page 6).
After stumbling and blundering over God’s "grace" in the book of Galatians, Charles says, "We must never teach salvation by anything or anyone except Jesus the Christ. This even includes the church" (page 8). He is correct in this statement, only if we separate Christ from the church, which all heretics do, not understanding that Christ’s body on earth today is the church (1 Cor. 12:27), and that "...we are members of his body, of his flesh and of his bones" (Eph. 5:29-30). Charles’ lack of knowledge of these conclusive scriptures about Christ’s church is embarrassing to the Bible department at Southwestern Christian College. He then contradicted himself again, on page 9, by using the term "fully Christian," which he had already said was a derogatory term used by non-believers. "Consistency, thou art a jewel!"
Charles makes so many biblical errors in this paper that I am forced to ignore some of them because of their superficiality. For instance, he says that the church "...is never a building" (page 10), while Paul says to the church at Corinth, "...you are God’s building" (1 Cor. 3:9). And this is confirmed by Peter in 1 Peter 2:5. Charles must to have missed a lot of his Bible classes while at Southwestern Christian College. And I do not recall if he even majored in Bible as a student at Southwestern Christian College.
Charles then says that "nonessential issues should make no difference" in denominational fellowship (page 11), without revealing who determines the "essential" matters. He also says that believers in Jesus must have faith and be baptized (page 11) which, evidently, he believes are "essentials." If so, then what about the denominational churches that do not believe that baptism is "essential to salvation," which, for example, the Baptist church states emphatically in their most recent Church Manual? Charles implies that "his church" fellowships the Baptist church.
Charles then tries to explain, in a rambling, disconcerted way, the role of women in the work and worship of the church. And on this subject, he reveals his total misunderstanding of the teaching of the Bible regarding the role of women in the church. After wresting a number of misunderstood (by him) New Testament passages such as 1 Corinthians 11-14 and 1 Timothy 2:8-15, and misusing a few Greek words, "Chuck" references Floyd E. Rose who wrote a little book on the role of women in the church entitled, An Idea Whose Time Has Come, and Robert Rowland, who wrote a book on the same subject entitled, "I Permit not a Woman"... To Remain Shackled, as his authorities. Both of these authors and their books are giving nothing but heretical jargon on their man-made philosophies about the woman’s role in the church. Floyd Rose’s book, An Idea Whose Time Has Come, reflects that he got the "idea" from Robert Rowland’s heretical book which states, in being journalistically honest, that Paul did not say "...To remain shackled." That phrase is Rowland’s invention (Ecc. 7:29). In reference to Rowland, I questioned him, personally, on his teaching about the role of the woman in the church in an open forum, sponsored by Floyd Rose in Valdosta, Georgia, about two years ago. In answer to my oral question of may a woman, with God’s approval, fill any role in the church that God has assigned to the man, Rowland said, "She may do anything that God has assigned a man to do, but be an elder." He said that a woman’s being an elder is prohibited by God because a woman cannot be "the husband of one wife," based on a qualification found in 1 Timothy 3:2. But his teaching, in saying this, is flawed and self-contradictory. For the same passage that says that the elder must be the "husband of one wife" says that the deacon must be the "husband of one wife" (1 Tim. 3:12). Yet Rowland and Floyd Rose, including "Chuck" Martin, believe that women can be deacons in the church, because, as all heretics claim, "Phoebe" was a deaconness (Rom. 16:1). "Consistency, thou art a jewel!"
As to Floyd Rose’s book, An Idea Whose Time Has Come, which "Chuck" Martin also quotes from for "authority," I have just completed a refutation of Floyd’s false doctrine in that book on the role of women in the church, and it will be ready for distribution within a few weeks. Since Floyd’s title is An Idea Whose Time Has Come, I have entitled my response to his book as Whose Idea Is It? God’s or Floyd’s? In my book, I am explaining all of the pertinent passages used by Rowland, Rose and Martin to substantiate their false position on the role of the woman in the work and worship of the church.
In conclusion, Charles Martin tries to use and explain the time-worn phrase of "Unity in Diversity," as all change agents in the church try to do today. A better description of this philosophy would be "Union in Diversion," which is exactly what denominationalism is. These heretics try to use the "race card" by invoking the memories of the African-American slavery system in America and equating it to the "condition" of women in God’s church today. This tactic, too, is explained and demolished in my forthcoming book, Whose Idea Is It? God’s or Floyd’s?
It is my prayer that this young man, Charles "Chuck" Martin, whom I love as one of my "sons of Southwestern," will read and consider the thoughts in this response, as well as my refutation of Floyd Rose’s and Robert Rowland’s false teaching, and find his way back to the true teaching of the Bible and to the true church, which is the "body of Christ" (Col. 1:24), that is revealed therein. I am hopeful that he will turn from trying to write "My Story" about his life to "His-Story" about Jesus and His followers--Christians--and how they relate to the work and worship of God.
The End
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