“What is a good way to answer?”

Sunday, May 28, 2017

During discussions about the church, people have occasionally told me that Alexander Campbell started the church of Christ in the 1800s. How do you answer this? This is a great question and with any good Bible question, we shall do our best to give it a Bible-based answer.

Before I get into the scriptures, let me give a brief history lesson about Alexander Campbell. Alexander’s father (Thomas) was a Presbyterian preacher. Thomas was dissatisfied with the Presbyterian beliefs and desired a more Biblically-oriented belief system. Alexander was also a Presbyterian and had similar concerns about the group’s teachings.

Alexander soon joined a local Baptist church. The longer he preached, the more convinced he became that there should not be any religious sects and that we should simply be Christians (Acts 11:26). This drove a wedge between him and the Baptists. Eventually, Campbell came across an independent group called the Disciples of Christ. Alexander Campbell’s plea was that of his father: “Where the scriptures speak, we speak, where the scriptures are silent, we are silent.”

I say all of this to point out that Alexander Campbell, like some before him and some after him, encouraged people to get back to the scriptures. Nobody alive in the last several hundred years can reinvent the wheel though. This is to say that no matter what Campbell did, he was not going to be able to start the church of Christ. Alexander Campbell could not have founded the church of Christ because Jesus did that roughly 1700 years before Alexander was born (Matt. 16:18; Acts 20:28; Eph. 1:22-23; Col. 1:18).

What is a good way to answer the accusation that Alexander Campbell started the church of Christ?  I would start by reading the verses that were listed in the previous paragraph and then consider the travels of Paul in the book of Acts. People should see that when Paul went into a city, he taught the gospel, converted people and helped establish local churches (Acts 15:41; 16:5; etc.).

Remember that when Paul traveled to these different cities, he went into the synagogues to teach. This indicates that these cities already contained religious people doing what they thought was right in the sight of God. Those who accepted the teachings Paul spoke were converted (Acts 18:8). What would people, who rejected what Paul taught, say about him? Could they accuse him of starting his own religious sect? They could, but they would be wrong.

I do not want to leave the impression that I am putting Alexander on par with Paul. What I am saying is that neither Paul nor Alexander Campbell could start the church of Christ. There were some in the first century that wanted to put Paul in a position of authority that only belonged to Christ (I Cor. 1:11-14). You cannot stop people from believing and teaching things that are wrong. I am no more a member of a church that was started by Alexander Campbell than I am of one started by the apostle Paul!

If some man establishes a religious organization rather than seeking only the one that was established by Christ, that organization is a religious sect ( a denomination, if you will). Whether you talk about the Presbyterian Church or the Baptist Church, neither one were started by Christ. The churches that follow Christ are of the church that belongs to Christ (Rom. 16:16). This question is important for all of us – do you belong to the church you read about in the Bible, or do you belong to one you read about in some history book that was created by some man?

Chuck

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