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What I Have Found
My introduction to "brethren" assemblies.*
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In the assemblies, the spiritual oversight of the flock is exercised by a group of mature, responsible brothers, and public ministry of the Word is shared among various gifted brethren. In addition, there is opportunity at the weekly breaking of bread meeting, as we will see, for any brother, including those who do not regularly minister in public, to share a thought from Scripture. While there are full-time workers among the assemblies--missionaries, evangelists, Bible teachers--the lion's share of the oversight of the assemblies and the public ministry each Lord's Day is in the hands of men who spend their weeks in secular vocations.
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What, then, is the quality of the public ministry in the assemblies, if handled primarily by men who have never had any formal training in theology or homiletics, and who have never been ordained by any church or denomination? I will give my opinion, and it is that the Bible teaching among the assemblies, while often lacking the polished style and spectator appeal (blessed lack!) of the professional, salaried ministry, is on the whole decidedly superior in content. After all, as another has put it, there is a vast difference between being "learned in the Scriptures" and being clever with the Bible. It is to be feared that the latter is the emphasis in many seminary classrooms and at the desks of many pastors, who are faced with preparing two or three "sermons" a week for audiences basically disinterested in the deep truths of the Word of God. In contrast, the average speaker in a "brethren" assembly may not know that the points in his outline should all begin with the same letter of the alphabet, or even that he is supposed to have an outline at all. He has never been taught that he must have a catchy title, enticing introduction, and forceful conclusion. Being pitifully informed about all this, he knows no better than to simply stand and unfold the Word of God, verse by verse, line by line. His poor listeners, being used to no better, do not seem to realize they have been deprived, perhaps because their ears have been trained by long practice to delight in the truth of Scripture, not the packaging in which it is presented.
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