Something struck me last week, and it's become a focal point of my thoughts about being a follower of Christ and joining in fellowship with other followers.

The Old Testament was a complete system. In order words, it contained a covenant between God and man, and all of the directions you needed to follow in order to fulfill your obligation within that covenant. The law was complete - nothing needed to be added to it (though the Jews continued to add to it anyway through their legalism). And nothing was to be taken away from it.

It has been apparent to me for years that the New Testament represented a new covenant. The veil was torn in two - we no longer require a priest, performing sacrifices, the Jewish celebration days... all of those specific instructions no longer apply.

But the modern church we grew up with looked nothing like the church described in Acts, and in the letters of the New Testament. Certainly nothing like what Christ Himself did while He was here. So the thought was that while this is a new covenant, the New Testament was not a complete description of it. It did not explain everything. The role of an apostle, so vivid in the New Testament, was explained away as only necessary during the founding of the church. Likewise with prophecy, miraculous healing, and speaking in tongues (the latter only if you're not Pentecostal, but I have my own opinions about how they're not using the gift as described in the New Testament).

I believe that the changes I have gone through in the last couple of years has led me to this point: that the New Testament is as complete a description of the new covenant as the Old Testament is a complete description of the old covenant.

In the Old Testament, God told them exactly how to build the temple. What types of materials to use. In what way to perform the sacrifices, and exactly who was qualified to do it. Everything was given to them, down to the letter, in terms of how they were to relate to each other and to God.

I now believe that the same is true of the New Testament. We are not told how to build our temple because we are not supposed to have one. Christ told the woman at the well that the structure can no longer be the focal point of worship - yet our churches still sing about how holy the sanctuary is.

Christ told us exactly how to relate to God - to love Him with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength. And how to relate to each other - to love our neighbors as ourselves. And the new commandment was that by loving each other, people will know that we are His followers.

Then Acts and the letters in the New Testament proceed to give us a full description of what that should look like. Meeting in each other's homes. Reaching out to people where they are. Doing miraculous works. Sharing the gospel with others. Helping out each other in every need.

Finally, I understand that we don't have to be creative, visionary, or strategic. I simply have to be obedient to the principles and directions laid out in the New Testament.

Britt had a series awhile back called Things I Can't Find in the Bible. It's a list of twenty things that are incredibly common in modern church that are simply not described in the New Testament:

Friendship Evangelism
Asking Jesus into Your Heart
Christian Entertainment (and the PS)
Seminary Education
Denominations
Dressing Up For Church
Priest Class Under the New Covenant
Ordination of Man
Political Action
Having a Building
Registered Membership
Christians as Sinners
Day of the Week
Specific Ministry Positions
Preparing for Sermons (and the intermission)
Order of Worship
Christian Tithing (and the addendum)
Material Wealth as a Sign of Faith
End of the Gifts of the Spirit
Changing the World

In his conclusion, Britt said:

Looking back, it seems like I have systematically questioned what many consider foundational Christianity. Maybe I have. But ultimately I only want to experience the complete freedom in Christ that results in great joy, power, authority and peace. I find that greatly lacking in most of the Christians I meet from day to day.

We've shrugged off much of the apostasy that the Catholic church introduced into Christianity. But there are still so many things that we cling to that are simply not described in the New Testament. As Wolfgang Simson said:

If it was possible for the very essence of the gospel - salvation by faith, justification by grace - to be buried under the sand of history, what about the rest? If we can gravely err in the very key and core issues, could we also have erred in other, lesser issues? The fact that the Bible was again given into the hands of common people started what I call the history of rediscovery: it was the turning point where the church started to climb again out of darkness, escape its own structural prison and rediscover, step by step, long-forgotten truth and long-forgotten practices, including the house church as an organic form of church.

I think the end result of adding things onto the New Testament has lessened the degree to which Christians experience joy, power, authority, and peace. I no longer think of these things as simply extra-biblical - I now think of them as a hindrance. Naturally, it takes time to shrug off traditions of the past, but I believe that this is where God is leading His church - to a point where where are reliant only upon Him, and not tradition. And the first step is to see what God intended for us, as described in a complete covenant, as distinct from where we find ourselves today.

Labels: church, house church