A Departure

The following is the letter my husband wrote to our friend, brother in Christ, and deacon at our previous church:

Dearest Brother,

Determining how to address you in this letter is the most difficult part. I love you as much as my own father, respect you as much as any man, and admire you to an unending degree.

I will contend to my death that our doctrine in Christ does not vary in Spirit. This conclusion is drawn in my own heart because my Spirit bears witness with yours and our lives match in sobriety and gravity concerning the things of God.

It has become difficult to argue the technical parts of doctrine because our variance is not in Spirit, but very much so in attitude. I do not have decades of “tradition” in Landmarkism, nor do I have any stock in a “genealogy” of churches, only a calm faith that God has preserved and called a remnant of people throughout the ages for His Name’s sake.

I believe whole heartedly in the obligation and work of the local New Testament Church. But this is born out in our “conversation” not in words. The definition of a church remains as it was at my ordination found in Ephesians 2:19-22. This “building” is the same as the “building” in 1 Corinthians 3:9, and the “house of God” in 1 Timothy 3:15, and the “Spiritual house” of 1 Peter 2:5. I am not at liberty to change it.

For eleven years I have searched the Word and the works of other doctors of language to find any excuse to insert one “kind” of body in Ephesians 4:4, and have found that I am not at liberty to do that either.

The church is the work of God, a monument of the truth. When the churches fall as they always have, the Truth, which is Christ, remains untainted, and the “gates of hell” have not and shall not prevail.

Please convey in any part our decision to the church. Only uphold your own doctrine and let it remain in the church.

These are the keys to the church house. By grace through faith we hold the keys to the Kingdom of Heaven.

Forever in Christ’s debt and yours,