Derek Prince - May Churches Establish Their Own Rules?
Does the local church have the right to establish rules for membership, such as refraining from alcohol, et cetera? This is a very good and important question. We've got to distinguish between rules in two ways. Rules as a means of achieving righteousness with God have been ruled out. No one achieves righteousness with God by keeping rules. It's only by faith in Jesus Christ, His atoning death, His resurrection.
On the other hand, once you have been made righteous, you're going to keep the appropriate rules. And that will be the expression of your righteousness. Do you understand? God's righteousness doesn't make rebels; it makes people who obey the appropriate rules. And there have to be rules in life. A family has to have rules. Otherwise it falls apart.
And a lot of families in this generation have fallen apart precisely because there are no rules. And the fathers abdicated from their responsibility. And the local church has to have rules. People have to know their boundaries. What am I permitted to do? What am I not permitted to do? And they have to be arrived, in essence, by a consensus of the people. This is what we stand for; this is the way we commit ourselves to live. But, keeping those rules doesn't make you righteous.
See the problem is church after church, and denomination after denomination, has established its rules and then people have slipped into the impression that keeping those rules makes them righteous. It doesn't. Actually, the rules then become a barrier because the Baptists say, Well, we keep our rules, they're right. So, Roman Catholics don't keep the same rules, they're not right. We can't fellowship with them. However, I would recommend that the rules be kept as simple, as basic and as few as possible.
One evidence of insecurity in leadership is that it multiplies rules. Well, we don't get results by twenty rules so let's have forty rules. And forty isn't doing it so let's have a hundred. When you get that syndrome, you know there's something wrong. I think a church has got a right to say, We expect our members to abstain from alcohol.
I wouldn't recommend it, because I think it's really right against the New Testament. But I mean, if people feel that way, that's their privilege. You'd have to exclude both Jesus and Paul and Timothy from those congregations. But I mean, if that's what you want! I do think there should be regulations about dress, but keep it simple, stupid I've already quoted that. Let's not make life unnecessarily complicated. And let's bear in mind the primary rule is love one another. Amen!