One example can be seen in larger bodies where both teaching and lay elders once governed the church; they’re called “ruling” elders.  Today, some churches reduce the role of ruling elders to merely shepherding and have established a smaller group of men, including possibly non-ordained staff members, to govern and exercise authority over the church.  One of these unbiblical innovations is called a “Governance Commission.” 

The term “deep state” is ubiquitous in today’s parlance and used by many to signify political control and power in the United States.  While driving my car just a while ago listening to the program, Issues, Etc., on the Lutheran Missouri Synod radio station KFUO, reference to the “deep state” occurred several times.  It was explained as the bureaucratic control and secret manipulation of government policy behind the scenes by certain influential members of government agencies.  When I finally heard a clear definition of what it is, I couldn’t help wondering if something similar is taking place in some churches and denominations throughout Christendom?  In other words, is there a “deep church” in the body of Christ?
Many would probably recognize or perceive its existence especially in the hierarchal churches or denominations.  But what about Protestant, Evangelical, or Reformed Faith churches?  The more I thought about it, the more I recognized its increasing presence, even in Reformed Faith churches.  However, it’s important to first attempt to recognize the source, that is, is it biblical or something else?  The early Church led by the apostles did not represent bureaucracy or hierarchy as so many churches do today.  The apostles did not represent highly educated men who were paid based on their levels of education or their degrees attained.  Some of the early leaders continued to support themselves by their trades.  Others were modestly supported by other believers, as they traveled evangelizing wherever they went.  Requests for donations appeared to focus not on support for leaders or an institution, but for the poor and persecuted believers.
The Western Church—whether hierarchal, Evangelical, or Reformed—today does not closely resemble that early church.  In many respects, today’s churches, denominations, and branches are a far cry from the early Church.  In fact, most forms seem to be distanced from the biblical image and norms given to us. With the increasing bureaucracies in most church bodies, is it possible that the world’s ways and means have invaded Christ’s Bride, surreptitiously?
Unfortunately, as a Reformed Faith Christian, I admit I can’t ignore that something close to the “deep state” in politics is evident in Reformed Faith churches.  I am reluctant to admit this, but truth requires that we acknowledge facts, history, and reality.  Below are just a few indications that some Reformed Faith churches have acquiesced and embraced the world in polity and practices.
One example can be seen in larger bodies where both teaching and lay elders once governed the church; they’re called “ruling” elders.  Today, some churches reduce the role of ruling elders to merely shepherding and have established a smaller group of men, including possibly non-ordained staff members, to govern and exercise authority over the church.  One of these unbiblical innovations is called a “Governance Commission.”  Placing so much power over a particular church in the hands of a few select individuals is always questionable and risky.  Smaller groups can become elitist and political, exercising unchecked power and possibly abuse or manipulate their authority that would not happen with the larger group of ruling elders or overseers.
As organizations receiving charitable and voluntary contributions, year-end in-depth financial statements of income and expenditures were once provided to all members.  This transparency included staff salaries, additional perks, and individual expenditures or overhead expenses that were easily understood.  Some churches no longer provide such detailed statements to their memberships.  Today, financial transparency is essentially absent to the congregation. Of all institutions and organizations, Christian churches and organizations should be the most transparent.
In bygone days, pastors were paid for the work they did for the church–as most pastors carried the same burdens and duties regardless of level of education.  Today in many churches, pastoral salaries relate to level of education and degrees received.  Pastors with more degrees are paid more than pastors with a seminary only degree.  In other words, remuneration appears to be based on what has been received rather than what is given, and many pastors’ seminary expenses were either supported or paid for by their churches. It must be recognized some are simply more privileged than others.  Even in the world, remuneration based on work performed, rather than privilege received, is more just and fair.
Churches previously relied heavily on voluntarism to perform many duties in the church, as opposed to a large paid staff.   Many of our contemporary Evangelical churches have large paid staffs and even pay people for services that were once volunteered freely as service unto God.  Both natural and spiritual gifts voluntarily bolstered churches ministries; however, today many of those services are monetarily remunerated.  Paying staff for work that could be voluntarily performed by the laity consumes limited funds that could be directed to proclamation of the Gospel or needed charity.
It’s doubtful early Christian pastors or priests received housing allowances that were tax-exempt.  Today, pastors expect to receive salaries plus housing allowances.  This practice appears based upon indirect government assistance. Allegedly, one pastor requested a reduction in salary with an equivalent raise in housing allowance in order to pay less taxes.  This practice appears to be manipulative.
In the past, congregations nominated candidates for office in Reformed Faith churches.  This too appears to be diminishing, where committees of a few elites are authorized to select candidates for church office. This “central planning” or “deep state” model creates situations whereby candidates can be selected who are more controllable, rather than based upon their qualifications, character and experience to direct activities on behalf of the church.  In some instances, the pastor has final authority to approve or disapprove candidates, without giving explanation to the ordained lay overseers. Selecting officers or committee members without congregational responsibility gives inordinate power to the staff, and over time, and will lead to diminished participation of the congregants in the life of the church.
The above discussion shows, unfortunately, that the world and worldly practices as—opposed to biblical practices and principles—have entered the Church, and there appears to be a “deep church” as well as a “deep state.”  Are we willing to acknowledge and recognize how much the world has been allowed into the Church?  Are we even willing to address the issues biblically?  In the Reformed Faith, the laity once had the responsibility for oversight, which appears to be decreasing in many churches.
Isn’t it time for both leadership and laity to take control of their churches and denominations to ensure genuine transparency, doctrinal integrity, and biblical practices and principles?  God’s Word and Church History demand it.   “Deep church,” as “deep state,” is unhealthy and merits addressing.
This is written by a former missionary.  Missionaries in general make great sacrifices to serve Christ, to proclaim the Gospel, and to disciple others out of great love for the Lord.  Remuneration is generally a pittance of what could be earned in other fields.  This writer has also served her church in many areas using both natural and spiritual gifts with no expectation of remuneration.  Today, she writes this monograph seeking no remuneration because serving God is a joy and a privilege.
Helen Louise Herndon is a member of Central Presbyterian Church (EPC) in St. Louis, Missouri. She is freelance writer and served as a missionary to the Arab/Muslim world in France and North Africa; this article originally appeared in October 1991 in her church newsletter.
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Written by Mark J. Larson |
Sunday, May 12, 2024
The Jews, steeped in the mentality of legalism, once asked Jesus, “What shall we do, so that we may work the works of God?” (John 6:28). This is the typical question of the unsaved person who does not know the gospel: What work of righteousness shall I do? How can I be good enough to  enter heaven? Jesus’ response is crucially instructive: “This is the work of God, that you believe in Him whom He has sent” (John 6:29). Luther properly maintained, “The first, highest, and most precious of all good works is faith in Christ” (Treatise on Good Works). 

Legalism holds its grip upon the minds and hearts of countless numbers of people in our time. It was no different in the sixteenth century when Martin Luther drew a radical distinction between the gospel of grace and the legalism of all other religions outside of biblical Christianity. As Luther contemplated religions of works in his time, he immediately thought of Judaism, Islam as exemplified by the Ottoman Turks, late-medieval Roman Catholicism, and various heretical splinter groups. He declared in his Commentary on Galatians: “If the article of justification be once lost, then is all true Christian doctrine lost. And as many as are in the world that hold not this doctrine, are either Jews, Turks, Papists or heretics.”
Sad to say, the ancient Jewish leaven of legalism even infected the church in the first century. Let us reflect upon this phenomenon and then draw out some practical applications.
The Legalism of the Pharisees
The Pharisaic movement of the first century demonstrates the tendency of legalism to slide into fanatical excess. Even as Jesus pronounced woe upon the Pharisees, he reflected upon their lack of balance: “You tithe mint and dill and cummin, and have neglected the weightier provisions of the law: justice and mercy and faithfulness” (Matthew 23:23). As we read the Gospels, we are continually astounded. We are presented with blind, nitpicking fanatics who could not see the glory of the divine Messiah Jesus who ministered in their very midst. Jesus, for example, was “grieved by the hardness of their hearts” when “they kept silent” after he asked them a simple question, “Is it lawful on the Sabbath to do good or to do evil, to save life or to kill?” (Mark 3:4–5). Their response to Jesus healing a man with a withered hand was diabolical: “Then the Pharisees went out and immediately plotted with the Herodians against him, how they might destroy him” (Mark 3:6).
Paul acknowledges that he too had been an angry man, a violent aggressor, even while clothed with the garments of outward religiosity. His assessment was an insider’s perspective, for he himself had been a Pharisee, and “as to the righteousness which is in the Law, found blameless” (Philippians 3:6). He had excelled at dotting every letter i and crossing every letter t in the Pharisaic rule book of man-made religion. His heart, nevertheless, was far from God. He makes a startling admission for one who was “advanced in Judaism” beyond many of his contemporaries, “being more exceedingly zealous for the traditions” of the fathers (Galatians 1:14). He felt that he needed to make this confession: “I was formerly a blasphemer, a persecutor, and an insolent man” (1 Timothy 1:13). Indeed, he had consented to the murder of Stephen (Acts 8:1). He is presented as “breathing threats and murder against the disciples of the Lord” (Acts 9:1). He “persecuted the church of God beyond measure and tried to destroy it” (Galatians 1:13).
Grace, though, brought radical change. Paul became a new man. He came to embrace a truly Christian perspective regarding law righteousness, the righteousness that a person seeks to build up by meticulous keeping of the law of God and the tradition of the elders. This was a righteousness that tended to lead to pride and a spirit of self-congratulation. Jesus, in fact, spoke a parable in which he described a Pharisee who trusted in himself that he was righteous and viewed others with contempt: “The Pharisee stood and prayed thus with himself, ‘God, I thank you thatI am not like other men.” “I fast twice a week; I give tithes of all that I possess” (Luke 18:9–12).
He came to regard his past religious achievements as dung—as the King James Version of 1611 translates the Greek skubalon in Philippians 3:8. Everything that he did by way of outward religious observance was tainted due to his unbelief. As he himself said, “Whatever is not from faith is sin” (Romans 14:23). He would have concurred with Jesus’ woe of judgment which rested upon hypocrites who outwardly appeared to be righteous before men, but inwardly were full of hypocrisy and lawlessness (Matthew 23:28). He knew that the way of salvation came by faith appealing for mercy.
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Here are three simple steps, but they take time and effort. Understand the passage in its original context, understand how the passage fits into the biblical storyline and is fulfilled in the person and work of Christ, and apply the passage to yourself in your circumstances in a way that is faithful to steps 1 and 2.  And we’re not keen on spending time and effort on this. The tragedy is that this is causing great harm within the church. Christians are hurting other Christians because they don’t know how to interpret and apply Scripture faithfully. 

I know, it’s a strange title for an article, but it’s coming from a place of great concern, and the title expresses the sentiment I want to convey. I’ve had a growing frustration about something happening in the church. Let me put it bleakly: vast tracts of Christians don’t actually know how to apply Scripture in popular forms of argument and everyday conversations. They have Scripture memorized; they can quote chapter and verse numbers; they even have an accurate understanding of the central message of Scripture, but they don’t know how to apply it. They don’t know how to use it with faithfulness to what the text really means and how it’s been fulfilled in Christ.
Come to think of it, what I just said is gracious. It’s not that they don’t know how to apply it; it’s that they think they do, but they don’t. They’re confident and they’re ignorant. And that’s far more dangerous. When confidence marries ignorance, the offspring are hideous.
What’s the result? Miscommunication, polarization, and a horrendous witness to the gospel of Jesus Christ, not just outside the church but within it. To be “allowed” to apply Scripture, you have to understand its context. If you don’t, your interpretive privilege is revoked. I’ll say it again: If you don’t know the context for a passage of Scripture, you don’t get to apply it to a popular argument or casual conversation. You and I are allowed to apply to Scripture in an argument or conversation only if we know its context (more on that below) and can match that context to the area in question.
Why the Problem?
We’ll work through an example together, but before that, let’s think about why this is such a problem for contemporary Christians. My working theory has two forms, one less offensive and the other more offensive. Here’s the less offensive form: We live in a culture that encourages fragmentation and discards depth. Fragmentation means that our minds aren’t often putting together threads of coherent thought. Much of the time, we’re pigeons grabbing bread crumbs of information and entertainment. And that crumb-picking habit carries over into our understanding and application of Scripture. We’re not asking questions of a text, working through context in widening circles, or even using our God-given reason to reach understanding. Instead, we’re crumb-picking. We grab a friend’s complaint here, a Facebook comment there, and a Scripture passage we found through a Google search, and boom: we’ve got an “argument,” an arrow to shoot in conversation. And because we’re quoting Scripture, it appears to be biblical. But let’s be clear: Quoting a Bible verse doesn’t mean you’ve made a biblical argument. In fact, it doesn’t even reflect your faith. Satan, remember, dropped Scripture references more than once (see Matt. 4), and he’s pure evil.
Here’s the more offensive form of my working theory: We’re lazy. Looking up a biblical passage in its context, trying to prayerfully discern meaning within the biblical storyline and how the passage is fulfilled in Christ, takes work and time. And we don’t really want to give time to this. We just want to reinforce our perspective and pass off some judgment on “weaker” Christians before we grab our next cup of coffee. Again, what I’m claiming in this article is blunt: We don’t get to do that. We’re not allowed to apply Scripture to something without knowing where a passage is coming from, what its context is. We’re not given a free-pass on laziness just because we grew up in the church and are familiar with Scripture.
What Does Context Involve?
When I say “context,” I’m actually suggesting that you and I have a process for interpreting a passage of Scripture, what we call a hermeneutic. It doesn’t have to be fancy. A simple one is set out by Vern Poythress in God-Centered Biblical Interpretation (p. 116):

Understand the passage in its original context.
Understand how the passage fits into the biblical storyline and is fulfilled in the person and work of Christ.
Apply the passage to yourself in your circumstances in a way that is faithful to steps 1 and 2.

Three simple steps, but they take time and effort (see also chapter 4 in Poythress’s Reading the Word of God in the Presence of God). And we’re not keen on spending time and effort on this. The tragedy is that this is causing great harm within the church. Christians are hurting other Christians because they don’t know how to interpret and apply Scripture faithfully. Let’s flesh this out with an example.
An Example Passage
Take a text that’s often abused in our cultural moment: 2 Timothy 1:7, “For God gave us a spirit not of fear but of power and love and self-control.” How is the text abused? Since people “cherry pick” this verse and don’t understand what it means in context, they take it as a blanket statement that addresses human emotion in general. The popular usage might look something like this:
If you seem to be afraid of something, you’re not being a true Christian, since God has not given us the spirit of fear.
This has the harmful, unbiblical consequence of making people feel guilty for having feelings. It can encourage a form of Stoicism, a rejection of the place and weight of human emotion. In our cultural moment, I’ve seen Christians use this passage to bully other Christians. If another Christian appears (and I say “appears” intentionally, because we can’t see the motives and inner workings of others) to be afraid of something—Covid exposure, judgment of others, performance at work, physical illness, anxiety—that believer gets slapped in the face with 2 Timothy 1:7. 
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