Rubbing Salt in the Wounds
While “rubbing salt in the wound” often refers to needlessly adding pain, the origins of the phrase come from rubbing salt into a wound to prevent infection. It hurts, but it protects. Such is my desire with what follows.
The aftermath of Steve Lawson’s fall is proving an excellent opportunity for edification, particularly edification related to public/parachurch ministries interested in serving local churches. Indeed, unbiblical ecclesiology allowed Lawson to act as a functional apostle rather than a pastor, microwaving an egg that exploded all over the faces of those who platformed him.
Protestia recently reported allegations that Lawson was not an elder/pastor nor a member of Trinity Bible Church but a hired preacher with special permission to preach on Sunday while avoiding inconvenient stuff like pastoring. This information was reported by other outlets, confirmed by our sources, and fit in with the small amount of public information released by the church – for instance, the church listing Lawson as the “Lead Preacher” rather than “Lead Pastor,” “Preaching Elder,” or something more analogous to the biblical office assigned to the other men in church leadership. An additional red flag was the With All Wisdom podcast (quoted in Protestia’s reporting) learning from TBC staff that the church was not handling the Matthew 18 discipline of Lawson – one of the primary components of actual church membership.
G3 Statement
It took similar information being clumsily reported nearly a week later (with requisite MacArthur smearing) by Julie Roys writer Ann Marie Shambaugh to draw the ire of G3 Ministries president Josh Buice, who condemned the Roys article on X with a provided link to a longer statement and accompanying YouTube video and transcript responding to the claim that Lawson was not a member of TBC.
Buice’s statement describes, “various reports, articles, and podcasts were released that purported the idea that Steven Lawson was not a member of Trinity Bible Church” that “add[ed] salt to already open and very sensitive wounds” before taking issue with reporters who had “openly critiqued [G3 Ministries] for [their] willingness to platform someone who was not a member of a local church.” For Protestia’s part, we did not critique G3 for not vetting the relationship between Lawson and his church. This oversight was entirely understandable, and upon learning about Lawson’s sin, G3 took swift and appropriate action. We expressed our confidence that G3 and other trustworthy ministries would similarly reiterate that church membership was a requirement of public Christian ministry and apologize for the (again, understandable) assumption that a church would never platform a preacher who was not an ordained elder and part of the covenanted membership of the church.:
Buice’s statement indicates that G3 confirmed through “two sources within Trinity Bible Church” that Lawson and his wife were indeed members of the church, describing reporting done to the contrary as “rumors” and “false accusations” that “spread like a destructive wildfire.” The “podcasts and polemics websites” remained unnamed in the statement despite Protestia being the primary “polemics” site that reported the information. While not naming Protestia in the video, Buice responded to several social media commenters linking our article, waving it off as “false information.”
The ensuing exchanges brought about a wave of accusations not dissimilar to what G3 unfairly faced for not knowing about Lawson’s lack of eldership and membership.
The “false information” is apparently our determination that Lawson was not a church member, as no attempt was made to dispute the (more serious) claim that TBC had a non-pastor or non-elder preaching their Sunday sermons. Given the various definitions of “membership” employed by evangelical churches (and TBS’s elders being the determiners of “membership”), whether or not Lawson was a member is entirely subjective. Most tellingly, the reporting that TBC is not disciplining Lawson is defacto proof that he is not a member in any real sense, no matter what anyone calls it.
Is it plausible that a church would employ one of its members as the primary Bible teacher apart from the requisite spiritual authority of biblical eldership? Can G3 or any other ministry point to another biblical church with a similar ongoing arrangement? More importantly, can any of us defend such an arrangement from scripture?
The chance that Dr. Steven J. Lawson willingly agreed to operate beneath the authority of other men – particularly other men willing to exempt him from actual pastoral ministry – doesn’t even begin to pass the proverbial smell test. Yet Buice seems willing to accept that a church that farmed out its elders’ biblical duty to a non-pastor celebrity preacher is a reliable source on the preacher’s status as a church member.
Why would G3 stick its neck out to defend TBC? First, churches should be defended. Lawson’s sin was no doubt devastating to the church, and the headline “he wasn’t even a member” casts both on the church’s eldership and the polity that permitted such a lack of accountability. Second, it could be a simple case of reputation management. Yet certainly they had nothing to fear from Protestia, who cast no shade at all towards G3 or other faithful ministries that platformed Lawson. The answer lies in several public statements from G3 and the statement of faith from Trinity Bible Church.
“Sub-Church” is Sub-Biblical
Josh Buice consistently refers to G3 Ministries as a “sub-church ministry” rather than a “parachurch” ministry. A parachurch ministry (Protestia, for example) is a ministry that exists alongside local churches and is made up of members of local churches and the universal Body of Christ. In the spirit of the priesthood of all believers and the Reformation conviction that all believers have an equal right and responsibility to minister in the name of Christ, parachurch ministries/ministers are the church. Like all good Baptists, G3 understands that there is no such thing as “clergy” and “laity,” biblically speaking. Yet, they insist on a similar categorical divide by describing “the church” (read: pastors/elders) to which all other believers must submit.
Yet aside from the mutual submission believers owe to one another (Eph. 5:21) and the trust we demonstrate for our local church elders (Heb. 13:17), the idea that individual believers engaged in parachurch ministry are called to submit to “the church” as a mediator is a magisterial holdover that strikes at the heart of the Reformation itself. Within a proper understanding of the priesthood of all believers, “sub-church” could better be understood as “sub-pastors,” as Buice and others insist that all “sub-church” ministers submit to elders categorically as spiritual leaders over them. Yet just as the biblical requirement for wives to submit to husbands doesn’t mean every wife must submit to every husband, believers are not required to submit to every elder – only the elders they have agreed to submit to, and only in the context of the elder’s ministry of the Word and overseeing of the gathering.
TBC’s Ecclesiology
Trinity’s statement of faith and vision & mission assign broad authority to the elders, describing them as serving “under Christ and over the assembly,” stating that they “have Christ’s authority in directing the church,” with the congregation being required “respect and obey” them. to submit to their leadership. Church discipline is “exercised by the elders” against “sinning members of the congregation.” The elders “determine all other matters of membership, policy, discipline, benevolence, and government.” Although they list “mutual accountability of all believers to each other,” elders are described as “subject to Christ” in a reinforcement of their position “over the assembly.”
By this ecclesiology, TBC elders would be entirely permitted to hire a “lead preacher” who had no responsibilities as a pastor/elder and modify any component of “membership” they see fit, including (quite possibly) having different standards of accountability for Lawson and the rest of the church if they saw fit.
Was Protestia (and many other outlets) right that Lawson was not a member? Or is G3 right that he was and that suggesting he wasn’t is sinfully damaging? Since Lawson was not an elder, TBC is not disciplining him, and their polity allows “member” to be redefined at any time, what difference does it even make?
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