Thoughts on Christian Living Book #2 by Dr. W. A. Dillard - HTML preview

THE CHURCH COVENANT WHAT IS IT?

“ For finding fault with them, he saith, Behold, the days come, saith the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah:” Hebrews 8:8.

The New Testament of our Lord and Savior, Christ Jesus is the covenant in detail and totality that governs His churches. It is seldom referred to as the church covenant, but that is exactly what it is.

However, it is not unusual to find a large, framed document hanging on the sanctuary wall of many Baptist churches that is entitled, “The Church Covenant.” is an encapsulation of a number of principles found in the New Testament together with practices and lifestyles generally agreed to by sincere church members. The document is rightfully not given the respect or attention given to the New Testament, and many church members may not know much about it anymore, but it tells an interesting story.

In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, there arose a significant Temperance Movement before prohibition days. The Women's Temperance Movement played a large role in anti-alcohol demonstrations. A noted leader of that was a woman named Carrie Amelia Moore Nation. She filled the national spotlight with her extreme, and radical ploys to close taverns.

Of course, Carrie Nation had nothing at all to do with the formulation of the document still widely recognized as the church covenant, but it was formulated in the environment of those times. In the document, a dedicated church member will find little to nothing with which he disagrees, but it leaves one to wonder why it continues to exist. In those early days, copies of the Bible were not so plentiful, and meager incomes had, of necessity, to be spent on very basic necessities. So, one could reason that the document was an attempt to place important principles before the eyes of those who may not own a Bible. However, that argument is clearly weak.

The argument against it today is largely that people tend to accept as holy that which is put before them with consistency over the years. It appears that for some people the framed document is a holy, inspired document. But it is not!

The covenant that God has with His people is clearly the New Testament and the Psalms. It involves much more fundamentally important information for which account must be given than the common, framed document . Although well-meaning, it is the New Testament

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