Dear BPCWA worshipper, We received a brochure mailed from a Bible College in Perth a few months ago. It was a leaflet promoting their Certificate Studies, “designed to be easily accessible to people from all walks of life with a desire to dig deeper into God’s Word.” This leaflet made me sit up and think a bit more about it. This trend, which certainly isn’t new to us, has become very popular and is intended to attract the casual Christian “from all walks of life”. How should we view it?

The church’s role in teaching. As we saw in last week’s pastoral, BPCWA is a local church, which is a gathering of saints. The church is not man’s invention, but God’s design.  Many epistles are written to the visible church. The last book of the New Testament was written to churches (Rev 1:11). It is by this God-ordained group that God designed to be used to perfect the saints and make them effectual thereunto (Westminster Confession of Faith, XXV:III). God did not just expect the lay people to do this by themselves, but He provided the means for His church to do this by gifting His church with “pastors and teachers; For the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ” (Eph 4:11-12). It is in the church that God instituted where elders should be ordained (Ac 14:23) and care for God’s sheep spiritually (Ac 20:28). The teaching elders in each church are placed accountable to “labour in the word and doctrine” to feed the flock which God puts under them. No pastor should fail in this aspect, and no persons or organisations should seek to take away from the teaching elders what God has designed for the church. Clearly, God intends for His sheep to be fed (both through teaching and being cared for spiritually) by men He ordains (1Pe 5:2). The Word of God is crucial to a Christian and we unequivocally teach that every Christian should be built up in the Word. To further equip the believer, God has provided His child with people He calls to the full-time preaching ministry in the church (Gal 1:15,16; Acts 20:24). The answer to Question 89 of the Westminster Shorter Catechism states, “The Spirit of God maketh the reading, but especially the preaching, of the Word, an effectual means of convincing and converting sinners, and of building them up in holiness”.  This preaching is undeniably what the pastor, i.e. the teaching elder, of the church, is called and gifted (Eph 4:11,12) to do. It is not the invention of man, since “God hath set some in the church. . . teachers” (1Co 12:28) “as it hath pleased him” (1Co 12:18). A pastor is not a superfluous nicety in the building up of the believer and the perfecting of the saint. This is why God’s Word is preached at least 3 days a week (and even more than 3 times since we have multiple teaching sessions on Sunday) in BPCWA. The Church is the Bride of Christ, and in this context, Paul expresses the aim of the pastor of the church to be one who is “jealous over you with godly jealousy: for I have espoused you to one husband, that I may present you as a chaste virgin to Christ” (2Co 11:2). As God’s Word reveals His will, the believer’s fundamental responsibility of learning His Word and growing in holiness is achieved through the local church. This is God’s design in the Scriptures. Sadly, many local churches are not fulfilling this duty, and individuals are left to forage for spiritual food to feed themselves and hope to grow rightly.

Bible Colleges are not churches. This area is perhaps less thought about in the present day of the murkiness of parachurches in Christendom. Parachurches are Christian organisations that operate alongside (para) churches. In many ways, a Bible College is similar to parachurch organisations, though some may contend that they do not fall neatly under this categorisation. For those less familiar with parachurches, you can refer to the 3 pastorals I wrote about parachurches from 21 August to 4 September 2022.  The very name of the Bible College or University reveals its mission, i.e. that it was not established to function as a church, but as an educational institution. True, some may hold daily or weekly chapel services. But just as parachurches may hold such services as well, they are not a church. We strongly oppose the doctrinal stance of many Bible colleges and Christian Universities but agree with them on one thing – they do rightly by having their students attend good churches outside the university. They do not consider themselves a church although they have ministerial students and hold chapel services. Similarly, many who have studied in Christian or Roman Catholic schools will know that these schools do hold services for their students. In a Catholic school, even if they offer the abominable Eucharist communion during these chapel services, the schools do not claim to be churches. Christian universities or Bible Colleges are run along the lines of whatever government regulations stipulate for educational institutions. They are obligated to take in or reject students based on these criteria. A church must focus on being a church. A Bible College should focus on its core role of training students for full-time ministry. No Bible college should blur this line and usurp the place God has designed for local churches. While there certainly are Christians to be found in the enrolment of Bible Colleges, they are not established fundamentally to fulfill the biblical purpose and hence bear the name of “church”, a body of called-out people. It would be a low view of God’s intent for a church to consider a Bible College as a church – God gifts His church with pastors (Eph 4:11), spiritual gifts (Rom 12:4-8; 1 Cor 12:4-11, 12:28-31), and the Great Commission (Mt 28:19-20). John Calvin, in his Institutes of the Christian Religion, differentiates true from false churches based on them preaching the true Gospel and rightly administering the Sacraments. What he says is true, but his discourse is not to “define” all aspects of a church. When one is baptised, he becomes a member of the local church he is baptised in. Merging a Bible College and the local church confuses things. There are of course other factors that differentiate a Bible College from a church, such as church polity (which in our case is the Presbyterian church government), but that is not the intent of this pastoral to delve further into that.

My point is that the Christian university and the Bible College are not churches, and we must be very clear on the distinction in roles. Though both are Christian organisations with some common areas of ministries such as evangelism, churches should function as churches and Bible Colleges should function as Bible Colleges.

“But if I tarry long, that thou mayest know how thou oughtest to behave thyself in the house of God, which is the church of the living God, the pillar and ground of the truth.” (1Ti 3:15)

Yours in our Lord’s service,
Pastor