For the fetus, though enclosed in the womb of its mother, is already a human being, and it is a monstrous crime to rob it of the life which it has not yet begun to enjoy. If it seems more horrible to kill a man in his own house than in a field, because a man’s house is his place of most secure refuge, it ought surely to be deemed more atrocious to destroy a fetus in the womb before it has come to light.

John Calvin
Commentary, Exodus 21:22.

By Walter J. Chantry

There certainly is no Bible verse which tells us when children should begin attending worship services. The customary age at which parents begin to take their children into meetings varies from church to church. It may properly vary among members of the same church, though it tends to follow a pattern because of church decisions touching the nursery, etc. The practice of local churches in this matter comes under the statement made in our Confession of Faith: Chapter I, section 6, paragraph 2:

“We acknowledge that there are some circumstances concerning the worship of God and government of churches, common to human actions and societies, which are to be ordered by the light of nature and Christian prudence, according to the general rules of the Word, which are always to be observed..”

In our church, parents usually begin to bring their children into our services at the age of two. Our nursery offers to keep children only under two years of age. That policy is not without reasons; though again, it must be emphasized that it is a matter of judgment on the basis of general prudence and general rules of God’s Word.

It is our judgment that children who are two-years-old are usually mature enough to understand when their parents tell them to be quiet and to sit reasonably still for one hour. Furthermore, by the time a child is two, his parents should have progressed far enough in their training of children to be able to enforce such basic orders, which their child can understand. Though teaching this behavior to children may not be easy, it is not unreasonable. It has been done by parents of children with many different character make-ups. Your child is not that unique!

We do wish to provide a nursery for parents when it is really necessary. But, the operation of a nursery takes a number of adults and young people out of our worship service.  To extend the age of the children would demand that our women, who serve faithfully and cheerfully, would be absent from worship still more frequently. It is important for all Christians to benefit from the fellowship of the body of God’s people gathered for worship. We feel that regular attendance at worship is so important that we should not be urging others to be absent any more than is absolutely necessary. When it is not demanding too much of parents, thus reasonably to control their children, we do not feel that a nursery should be provided. Of course, exception should be made for all visitors who are not part of the congregation and used to our ways of doing things.

Furthermore, parents of young children are taking an important step by training their sons and daughters to be still and quiet. They are taking the steps necessary for a child to participate in the worship of God. Two and three year olds recognize some of the hymns they have heard in Sunday School and at home. They know a little about prayer. It is interesting to observe that when rare times of special solemnity come in worship, even the youngest children understand and sense something of the presence of God; for even they are unusually still and hushed. Admittedly, these times are few and the youngest children perceive little of the spoken word. Yet it is vital to forge the pattern of whole families coming before God regularly for worship. It is an important part of Christian family life, and it is important for young children to be part of the family.

Some parents seem to feel that when they have won the battles of stillness and silence, their task is done.  So long as Junior doesn’t squirm too much or speak out, all is well. But it will not be long before the child can participate in some things. He is taught the doxology in two and three-year-old Sunday School. The pastor may read Scriptures not unfamiliar. He may mention Daniel, David, or Peter – favorite characters already to young hearts. Surely a four-year-old can be taught to pay some attention.

And fathers should be sensitive to how Bible truths of the worship service apply to their young children. The pastor cannot often bring the application down to pre-school children. But, a father can recall the points and apply them at home later.

The Church At Large

If parents are expected to bring their young children into the assembly, there are going to be some times of speaking out and squirming. At the start, a wise parent will sit in the very back of the church where there will be a minimum number of folks disturbed by the process of training and necessary exits. For this reason, members of our church who insist on sitting in the very back seats are inconsiderate to young parents. When there is no need for you to sit in the last seats, you add to the embarrassment and anxiety of parents seeking to train their children and not wishing to have many eyes on them. You also force parents to sit further front at a time when they need to have the rear pews. Furthermore, you are placing yourself in a position in which your own participation in worship will be less than desirable for your personal edification and for the good of all.

Everyone in the congregation should be patient and understanding toward the squawks and thumps of new arrivals in the church. You can help by a kind welcome to the nervous parents, and by refusing to pay attention to the antics of the energetic child.

The Parents and This Training

Certainly any child who has never had to be still and quiet for an hour will make noise and movement when he first is brought into the church. But it is proper to expect that the major problems with speaking out, standing up and trying to get the attention  of  others will be largely  conquered  in a couple of  months. This is not to say that the child will never wiggle and whisper. But, after a number of weeks, there should be no noises frequently made to disturb the whole congregation. You must expect your child to be still and quiet. The pastor should not have to out- shout him nor people of God be regularly asked to put up with his distractions. This simply is not right on the part of any set of parents.

If significant progress is not made with the silence and stillness of your child in a few months, perhaps you should ask yourself if you are going about this training in the right way. If you are applying the same principles as you do when commands are given to your child at home, you might ask if you need further instruction from God’s Word on the matter of child discipline. Any elder of the church will welcome a request for discussing the training of children.

A Few Hints

By the time a child is two, parents should have established the fact that when Mom and Dad give a command, they mean what they say. The only way to establish obedience in a child is to punish each and every willful disobedience to a command. It begins when the parent says ‘no’ to touching an expensive lamp. If the child touches it, the fingers should be smacked hard enough that a few repeat punishments will bring obedience. Each time the child asserts his will against a command he must be made to obey. ‘No’ should not come to mean ‘maybe not’. In this matter, the rod cannot be spared or the child will be spoiled and parents will not have their children under control.

If this pattern of enforcing commands is established at home, then bringing a child to church is merely a new series of orders given. When the child has been told to be quiet, if he speaks out, a hasty exit to another room for a spanking will make the point. If there is consistency in doing this at the first few out-cries, these will not continue. But if a child has never been taught that punishment invariably follows broken commands, it will be hard for both parent and child to begin the process when the two-year-old is brought into church. This whole pattern of training is far more vital to the life of the child than simply in the area of church attendance. It will affect his entire life.

Gimmicks like trying to keep a child so distracted that he won’t move or make noise simply side-step the issue of discipline and guarantee either a cry of delight with a toy or fussing with tiredness. Two-year-olds are not old enough to understand why they must be still and quiet, so long lectures are futile. They are not able to appreciate their parents’ social embarrassment, so that pleading will not work. If you begin to sympathize with the child, thinking the discipline is too harsh for him, half the battle is lost. You need to keep the issues and priorities clear in your own mind.

It is indispensable to the parents’ good that they worship. It is important that a pattern of family worship be established. But the only issue with the child is that Mom and Dad have commanded submission. This is done with young children only the by the rod (by spanking). It is painful to a loving parent, but it is God’s ordained means of a child’s learning discipline and obedience. It is even the foundation of self-control in later life.

We do want parents of young children with us in church. We do want to be patient as they train their children. But one of the early lessons for Christians, one of the most practical lessons, is that you have a basic duty to labor to train your own child. Both the Pastors and the other elders will be glad  to help  you in any way that they can.  We do pray for God’s rich blessing on you and your children  as you seek to obey  Proverbs 23:13, 14:

“Withhold not correction from the child: if you punish him with the rod, he will not die. Punish him with the rod and save his soul from death”.

Richard Barcellos

Pastor of Grace Reformed Baptist Fellowship, Palmdale, CA

www.grbcav.org

In a recent discussion I had, a friend of mine opined that Reformed Christians are afraid of living in Acts 2 and, in fact, ignore it. My zealous friend desires that more people get saved, among other good things. We went back and forth with many others chiming in along the way. I ended up arguing that, though maybe some Reformed Christians are afraid of Acts 2 and ignore it, this is not the case with all Reformed Christians. I warned of the danger of reading the book of Acts as if it were the church’s cook-book, full of recipes for ministry and guidelines for determining success. In the end, my friend ended up agreeing, though with some reservations.

I bring this instance up because I think it is quite typical of the thinking of many in our day. We read the book of Acts. We see God doing great things and many getting saved and added to the church. We conclude that we ought to be seeing the same things in our day. If we are not, something is wrong with us. If we are, it is because we are being faithful.

Why do folks think this way? The book of Acts is the only book of the New Testament that describes at length some of the things some of the apostles and early Christians did after Jesus ascended into heaven. It displays for us how the apostles and early Christians took the gospel to the world of the first century. It illustrates missionary activity, which has as its goal church-planting for the glory of God. It shows us what the early believers did with the Great Commission. These things being so, why wouldn’t we use it like a cook-book? Anyone who refuses to, so the thinking goes, is afraid of what might happen and maybe even afraid that continuationism is right after all. Are we afraid of the Holy Spirit? This is how many think in our day.

Not only do I think this is wrong-headed, it can’t be applied to the latter parts of the book of Acts and the first century church after the book of Acts without Paul and the predominantly Gentile early Christians being deemed as utter failures. Let’s explore this a bit using Acts 2, assuming it to be a paradigm for ministry and success. We will examine Acts 2 then compare the rest of the book of Acts to it and predominantly Gentile early Christianity.

In Acts 2 Luke records the events of Pentecost (the Old Covenant’s Feast of Weeks) in Jerusalem which occurred after the ascension of our Lord (Acts 2:1ff.). Many Jews from throughout the ancient world would have been present in Jerusalem for this festival and the feast of Unleavened Bread or Passover which would have occurred 50 days before. Some claim that the population of Jerusalem swelled from about 100,000 to almost 1,000,000 at this time of year. Whether or not that’s the case, we do know that three times per year Jews from all over the ancient world converged upon the temple at Jerusalem in accordance with the Old Testament festival calendar (cf. Exod. 23:17; Deut. 16:16 and surrounding context; Luke 2:41; Acts 2:5-11).[1] Many who traveled from far and wide probably would have stayed in tents outside the city. But we must remind ourselves that there was much more happening than merely a Jewish festival. Peter understands this event as a fulfillment of what the prophet Joel spoke about (cf. Acts 2:16ff. citing Joel 2:28ff.). Not only was this a unique out-pouring of the Holy Spirit in fulfillment of Joel 2 but it occurred at a strategic moment on the Jewish calendar. In other words, there were unique circumstances, historical and redemptive-historical, in which this event took place. Peter’s sermon (Acts 2:14-36) was blessed by the Lord Jesus (Acts 2:41, “…that day there were added about three thousand souls.”). Later we are informed that these believers in Jerusalem witnessed “many wonders and signs [performed] through the apostles” (Acts. 2:43), “had all things in common” (Acts 2:44), “began selling their property and possessions[2] and were sharing them with all, as anyone might have need” (Acts 2:45; cf. 4:32), and “day by day [were] continuing with one mind in the temple, and breaking bread from house to house…” (Acts 2:46). Luke closes the description of what occurred with these words, “And the Lord was adding to their number day by day those who were being saved” (Acts 2:47). These were unique days, indeed. Three thousand souls were saved on one day and added to the church. In the days immediately following, scores of people were saved and added to the church day by day. They were in the temple together and in homes daily.

The question becomes: Is this normative? Is what Luke describes intended to be taken as a paradigm for ministry and a canon for success? Did Luke tell us what he did in Acts 2 in order to provide an apostolic mandate for all subsequent ministries? As noted above, if this is so, the apostle Paul and other early Christians would appear to be utter failures. I say this because, from what we know for certain (i.e., from the Bible itself), Paul’s ministry among the Gentiles never achieved the level of “success” that Acts 2 depicts. Granted, Paul preached, sinners believed and were baptized, and churches were formed. But we have no account of three thousand souls being saved in one day, or people being added to the Gentile churches day by day, or believers meeting in their homes day by day (though, of course, these things could have happened). In fact, there is good reason to believe that Paul’s ministry, though it enjoyed slow but sure success, produced churches that were small in comparison to Jerusalem, Ephesus being one possible exception.[3] When Paul writes his epistles, he mentions churches meeting in homes (cf. Rom. 16:5; 1 Cor. 16:19; Col. 4:15; Philemon 2). It is a well-known fact that many of the early congregations were what we call house-churches.[4] It is posited by some that some of these homes could have fit up to 200 people in the courtyard, but only very wealthy people had such homes. I. Howard Marshall, commenting on conditions at Corinth, asserts, “It has been convincingly shown that the groups would have met in the homes of the rich (since they alone could accommodate them).”[5] But most homes, by far, were quite small and could host 10-20 people.[6] Associations of various sorts could rent buildings in ancient Rome. There is archaeological evidence that early Christians met in both homes and rented buildings. However, the earliest evidence of this dates to 240.[7] Churches could also own property, but this did not occur until the third century, as far as we know.[8]

Now back to the questions posed above. Is Acts 2 normative? Is what Luke describes intended to be taken as a paradigm for ministry and a canon for success? Did Luke tell us what he did in Acts 2 in order to provide a mandate for all subsequent ministries? I think not. If we used Acts 2 as a paradigm for ministry and canon for success, then Paul and the early Gentile Christians were failures. In fact, most pastors and churches for 2,000 years would be considered utter failures using Acts 2 as a litmus test. King Jesus has built the inter-advental new covenant temple mostly through pastors of “small” churches.

As noted above, the book of Acts is not written in a command mode, but in the mode of narration. It tells us what happened. It does not tell us to do what happened. In fact, Paul himself did not “do” Acts 2. He did some of the things that occurred in Acts 2 but not all. Some of the things Paul did were unique because he was an apostle, but not all things. It is similar with Acts 2. There are some things that occurred there that we can and ought to do. We ought to preach. We ought to baptize. We ought to meet for worship and fellowship. We ought to receive new believers into our churches. We ought to meet the pressing needs of fellow believers. But to expect 3,000 to be saved in one day or to expect to add to the church day by day those who are being saved or to meet daily at the temple or in homes or to sell our property and possessions based on Acts 2 is wrong-headed. It betrays a faulty understanding of the unique features of Acts 2 and a faulty hermeneutic.

For any who might want to justify large congregations with small group Bible studies from this text (something I am not opposed to in principle), I think it important to be reminded that the new covenant church was in its infant stage of development at this point in redemptive history. The daily temple meetings in Acts 2 do not correspond to the first day meetings we see later in Paul’s predominantly Gentile churches and the daily home meetings in Acts 2 do not correspond to Paul’s “house-churches.”

The book of Acts records for us what Christ did through the apostles and early Christians upon his ascension into heaven. Pentecost is unique, a one-time event in redemptive history, and so are the immediate effects it produced in Jerusalem. For nineteen centuries, the Christian church understood this. It was not until the early twentieth century that Pentecostals started to read Acts prescriptively. Now it appears that others are falling into the same hermeneutical trap. Acts 2 is neither a paradigm for ministry nor a canon for success. It is the record of the power of Christ working in and through his apostles and fulfilling Old Testament prophecy. We should marvel in it and adore Christ for it, but expecting to reproduce its effects will lead us down a path of error and discouragement.