Written by R.C. Sproul |
Thursday, May 19, 2022
It’s the New Testament that says, “There is no other name under heaven through which men may be saved, except that of Christ.” It’s the New Testament that says, “To whom shall we go? Thou alone hast the words of eternal life.” It’s God who says, “This is My only begotten son.” And again, and again, and again, the New Testament reiterates either through the lips of Christ or through the writings of the Apostles this theme that Jesus is uniquely the Redeemer of mankind.

I was taking a course in English literature. I was a second-semester freshman at the time, and I had become a Christian the first semester of my freshman year. And I did not keep my Christian commitment a secret on the campus. And there were some faculty members at the college where I attended that were very hostile towards Christianity. And the person who at least manifests the greatest amount of hostility of all the faculty happened to be the professor of this English literature course I was taking. The teacher was a woman. She had distinguished herself as a journalist and as a war correspondent during World War II prior to taking on the task of collegiate teaching. I think out of her background in the war effort, she was kind of a hardened person, and she had a very great ability to intimidate students.
In the middle of a class one day, she called on me, and she said in front of the whole class, “Mr. Sproul, do you believe that Jesus Christ is the only way to God?” I thought, Of all the questions to be asked in front of the whole class, she had to ask me that one. And I went through a very severe moral crisis at that point because I knew if I answered what I believed that that would be very unpopular. But if I knew also that if I denied what I believed, I would be guilty of committing treason to Christ. So very weakly and very meekly I said to her, “Yes, ma’am. I do believe that Jesus is the only way to God.” But when I said that in that classroom, she absolutely exploded. And she started to dress me down right in front of the whole class. And she said, “That’s the most conceited, that’s the most arrogant statement I’ve ever heard from the mouth of a student.” And I offered no defense; I offered no rebuttal. I just tried to sneak down in my chair as far as I could go while she carried on in front of the whole class about how narrow-minded, conceited, and arrogant that that was.
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The public reading of Scripture is not a light thing, but a grave exercise of Christ’s authority. Those who read Scripture publicly function as God’s very voice, directly addressing his people through his Word. To say that the reading of Scriptures is not an exercise of the church’s authority would be to suggest that worshipers in the congregation do not need to submit to the Word of God when it is read.

Within the PCA, there is a broad range of practices regarding who is permitted to read Scripture publicly within a worship service.[1] Some PCA churches restrict the public reading of the Word to the minister alone while others permit Christian men to read the Word. Still others allow even women and children to conduct the public reading of Scripture.
The causes for such diverse practices and opinions are not difficult to understand. The indirect answer in WLC #156 (“all are not permitted to read the Word publicly to the congregation”), and the non-binding, unclear statement of BCO 50-2 (“The reading of the Holy Scriptures in the congregation…should be done by the minister or some other person”), have opened the door to wide divergences in the PCA.[2] It is a mistake, however, to act as though Larger Catechism #156 and BCO 50-2 are the only relevant sections for giving our congregations direction about who may read the Word publicly.
In this article, then, I want to plead with fellow presbyters in the PCA to reclaim the biblical and historically Presbyterian understanding that the public reading of Scripture is an exercise of church authority. Accordingly, I will argue that the Scriptures and our constitution give us sufficient clarity about who is, and who is not, permitted to read the Word publicly.
Is the Public Reading of Scripture an Exercise of Authority?
Thankfully, the disagreement in the PCA about reading the Word publicly is not about whether women may exercise authority in the church (1 Tim. 2:12). Instead, the disagreement is about whether we should understand the reading of Scripture as an exercise of church authority. So, the Sessions who authorize women to read the Scriptures publicly may justify their actions by stating that simply to read the Bible publicly is not authoritative in the way that preaching is.
It is somewhat surprising, though, that we often do not consider this question of the public reading of Scripture in the light of a wider understanding of the biblical nature of authority in the church, as set down in the Preliminary Principles of the BCO. Preliminary Principle #7 is especially clarifying: “All church power…is only ministerial and declarative.” That is, within the church, there are only two lawful ways to exercise authority: (1) by ministering God’s word, or (2) by declaring God’s word.
Regarding the declarative aspect of church authority, we believe that the authority of the church does not consist in the power to legislate a new word from the Lord, but that we exercise authority whenever we declare the (old) word of God, as contained in the Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments (WSC #2). According to this definition, is the public reading of Scriptures an authoritative declaration of God’s word?
The answer to this question must be a resounding yes. Any time someone reads the Word of God publicly, that person is declaring, “Thus saith the Lord.” Indeed, we should notice the often overlooked (and, to my knowledge, uncontroversial) explanation of the nature of the public reading of Scripture in BCO 50-1: “Through [the public reading of the Holy Scriptures] God speaks most directly to the congregation, even more directly than through the sermon.” To read the Scriptures is to stand as God’s authoritative herald, declaring the word of God—even more directly than during the sermon.
So, Paul exhorts Timothy to devote himself to exhortation and teaching, and also “to the public reading of Scripture” (1 Tim. 4:13). Then, Paul explains that these things (including the public reading of Scripture) were entrusted to him as a gift at his ordination, “when the council of elders laid their hands on you” (1 Tim. 4:14). Ordination is therefore a conferring of authority for a man to read the Scriptures publicly, among his other duties.
Our authority, then, is only a stewardship of God’s authority, in his Word.
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Matthew 18 is not speaking of abusers and oppressors. Jesus is speaking of “brothers,” not wolves. Would we ask Christ’s most tender and trodden upon lambs to go alone, and speak alone, with a predator before we can properly confront his sin?

A strange thing happens from time to time when speaking to someone about God’s sovereignty in man’s salvation. Your conversation partner refers to John 3:16, over and over again. “But it says ‘whosoever.’” It is as though this is the single verse that the whole theological enterprise hinges upon! If one could only overcome that lone verse, then perhaps, the discussion may continue.
While I am using a bit of playful hyperbole in the above illustration, a similar oddity happens when disagreements and conflict within the body of Christ arise—Matthew 18 seems to become the solitary text of scripture able to be discussed. It is as though the whole enterprise hinges upon that single verse!
I am of course overstating things for the sake of drawing out the point, but let us consider some of the many ways Matthew 18 gets overused or abused within the Christian community.
Note how the passage in question begins: “If your brother sins against you.” At the outset, we see what Jesus is regulating—what Jesus is speaking to—is personal offenses. A sin from one brother against another brother. In other words, personal grievances, person-to-person. There are many interactions in life, Christian-to-Christian, not governed by this passage, because interpersonal sin is not involved. And yet, seemingly every interpersonal interaction gets filtered through the lens of these verses. While we must never defend or excuse gossip, any whiff of disagreement mentioned to a third party, and you will likely hear the question: “yes, but have you followed Matthew 18?”
Secondly, we must note that the passage explicitly states “if your brother sins against you.” In this context, we are speaking of actual sin—clear violations of God’s law against a fellow brother, not mere disagreement. If every variation of opinion between brothers had to be adjudicated according to Matthew 18, what a litigious church we would become!
I recall in a public meeting of the church, where a public speech was made by a brother, and in response, I publicly disagreed with what was just said. Shortly after the meeting, I received an email from him stating that if I had such a disagreement with my brother’s position, I had to first confront him privately before mentioning it in a public setting. Laying aside the sheer impossibility of knowing my brother’s opinion prior to him stating it openly in the meeting, if this is what Matthew 18 means, that every point of disagreement must be privately dealt with first, our lives would be nothing but continual one-on-one disagreements.
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