Which model?

I would like to sum up my paper on “A history of the Reformed Baptist thinking in Malaysia.” In this summary I would like to show you two different models of the local church that emerged from all the discussion. One is a combination of a self defined image plus an image defined by others, and the other is an image defined by the factual teaching from the New Testament.  The Reformed Baptists have already established a model of the church by our belief and practice. The Reformed believers have already projected an outstanding image by our philosophy. The Christian public has also defined the Reformed believers, based on what they saw and heard, in a negative way. In the eyes of the Christian public, they have almost nothing good to say about the Reformed believers. It is a fact of life, if we do not define ourselves clearly and properly by a good philosophy and a healthy practice, others will define us in a way that will not make us happy. So, we do have a choice, either we define ourselves or be defined by others.

Let me show you the two distinctive images;

Firstly, this is the existing image of the Reformed Baptist church that has been projected by us as well as being perceived by the Christian public.

1.       We are reformed believers or Calvinists.

2.       We subscribe to the 1689 Baptist Confession of Faith as the rule of belief and practice and we interpret the Bible according to the doctrines found in the Confession.

3.       We believe that the “moral” Law of Moses still has a hold on the Christians and therefore our teaching of this Law is always preceding the gospel of Jesus Christ.

4.       We believe that the ultimate purpose of God giving the 4^th commandment is that it should be kept as a rite until the end of the world. Therefore, we observe a Christian Sabbath that is on the Sunday as an act of obedience to the 4^th commandment.

5.        We do not like to emphasize on the Holy Wind[i] and we also do not like the “sign seeking”[ii] theology. .

6.       We sing hymns and psalms only during the public worship[iii].

7.       We have a pastor to supervise the local church ministry.

Secondly, this is the image of the local church that emerged from the exegetical observation and study of the New Testament texts.

1.       We are an assembly of pneumatic[iv] people who have been saved by Christ Jesus and created anew in Christ Jesus and are being transformed into the His likeness by the Holy Wind.

2.       We have entered the Sabbatical rest of God and we are reminded that we no longer depending on our laboring for salvation. We are called to enjoy the Sabbath everyday and to worship the Lord of the Sabbath both in private and in public assembly for the rest of our lives or till the return of the Lord.

3.       We are called to wait in a peaceful and quiet manner for the return of the Lord Jesus by conducting our lives in a manner that is worthy of the gospel and the Holy Wind.

4.       We obey the glorious gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ that was preached since the days of Adam.

5.       We are called to carefully study the Bible and ensure that we understand what it says and not forcing it to say what we want it to say, and then we will put into practice all that we learn from it.

6.       We sing psalms, songs accompanied by string instruments, hymns and spiritual songs in the worship[v].

7.       We have a board of elders to supervise the life of the local church.

These two lists are definitely not exhaustive and more could be added to them. The point that I want to establish is that we are far from being perfect as an assembly of believers in Christ Jesus. We must not be fooled by anyone that we are the perfect model of the local church compare to other evangelical churches. We must not be fooled to think too highly of ourselves because in actual fact we share many short comings with the other evangelical churches.

We have a choice. We can either choose to remain at the same spot or we can redefine ourselves and move on. Remain would mean perpetuating the current condition and it might mean a dead end for the reformed work in Malaysia. Having surveyed our major doctrinal thinking, redefining and regrouping ourselves seems to be the only reasonable choice to make. We cannot move on with our old human philosophy. We can only move forward with the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ. Our old thinking and tradition are like the old wine skin and it cannot hold the gospel and it might burst anytime. So we must change into a new wine skin quickly so that we might be able to move forward with the gospel.

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[i] “Holy Spirit”

[ii] “Charismatic”

[iii] The hymns we use today are in no way identical to the hymns mentioned in the New Testament.

[iv] “spiritual people”

[v] See my article on “How to sing?”