Section 1 of the Westminster Confession of Faith is titled, Holy Scripture. Statement 1 of Section 1 is a long opening statement that includes the following in Modern English:
Afterwards it pleased God to put this entire revelation into writing so that the truth might be better preserved and transmitted and that the church, confronted with the corruption of the flesh and the evil purposes of Satan and the world, might be more securely established and comforted (emphasis mine).
My interest, in this post, concerns this transmission of the truth. How is the truth to be transmitted and to whom? It seems to me that many pastors and church leaders equate transmission with preaching and that the recipient of this preaching is the congregation. When pressed regarding evangelism, these leaders claim that the simple Gospel is included in the preaching and that if any unbelievers are present to hear it, God will use that opportunity to move in their hearts and minds through the Holy Spirit to bring them to faith.
That seems reasonable, but there are at least three flaws in this perspective. First, my observation is that the simple Gospel of salvation is rarely presented in the preaching in this type of church. Driven by a desire to bring people to maturity in their faith, the preaching emphasis is more on deep teaching (didache) than on the salvation message (kerygma). And rather than emphasizing the obedience that the Great Commission mandates, the emphasis is on knowledge, so people become more mature in their knowledge but not necessarily in their faith or their Christian living.
Second, there is a belief in pastors and leaders of such churches that growing people to maturity in their knowledge will somehow result in their becoming effective witnesses, and that through this witnessing evangelism will result. If so, where is it? Why do churches of this type fail to see conversion growth? Why are so many in decline?
Third, this belief that unbelievers will be in the congregation and, therefore, will hear the Gospel proclaimed is delusional. They are simply not there, and even if they were, they would probably not hear the simple Gospel of salvation but would hear a “deeper” teaching that they would likely not grasp.
I suggest that, if we’re serious about the Westminster Confession of Faith, we need to rethink what it means to transmit the truth and what it means to establish the church securely.
