I will have to disagree with this statement.The church isn’t tempted, the church has already compromised.

Perhaps the reason a church isn’t growing is because instead of falling on its face before the Lord and crying out for your city, and the lost around you, you are spending time studying what the spirit is doing in those churches that are falling on their faces. I was shocked when I mentioned to my Pastor how I felt we needed to have a prayer meeting to call out to the Lord and was met with “You don’t understand, I have Pastored many churches and no one ever comes to prayer meetings” UGG, which is why matthew78 was born. God never EVER said my house will be a house of preaching, Or a house of a great mens fellowship, He did however say in Isaiah 56:7 “For My house will be called a house of prayer for all the peoples.” I cannot believe that His office is filled with all these books on organizing small groups, yet he fails to recognize the most important small group of them all, men and women of God, on their faces, calling out the the creator of all that His will be done in a community. So what if only 2 people show up, it is enough to start with two and grow from there.

Great question.

As you noted, Dr. MacArthur did not have any control over the use of his writings for the booklet in question.

Thomas Nelson, who publishes many of John’s books (and thus holds the copyright on much of John’s material), put those booklets together without our permission.

Our ministry has taken a strong stand against the ecumenism of the BGEA. We would not have allowed John’s material to be used in the booklet if we had been given a say in the matter.

Thanks,
NB

It was entitled ‘The Fundamentals for the Twenty-First Century’ and was edited by Mal Couch. It is published by Kregel and features authors such as Robert LIghtner, Gary Habermas and Arnold Fruchtenbaum.

God Bless

Matthew

1. It’s wise for us not to participate equally with pseudo-Christian organizations—not to be members of such churches, nor to partner with them for worship, evangelism or missions.

2. Separation, even from such organizations, needs to be used with wisdom. For example, I was once an active participant in a United Church of Christ, though I was not an official member. Through God’s grace, that church left the UCC and joined the Church of the Foursquare Gospel. The Foursquare denomination would not have been my first choice for them, but it’s much, much more biblical than the UCC. I like to think that my presence with them was a small factor in leading them away from the UCC.

3. There’s a difference between participating with a humble Christian who has bad theology, and participating with a false teacher. False teachers should know better. The more experienced, trained and polished they are, the more they should know. We must shun such people. On the other hand, individual believers may be in very odd places. I think of “Victor,” who was one of the most sincere Christians I’ve ever met. He was also a member of a cult in which he’d grown up: The Worldwide Church of God, in its old days. (It’s since left behind its false teachings.) Over a period of years, he came to realize that there really were Christians outside his group, and eventually came to realize that he could be part of a more mainstream church.

4. There’s a difference between being a temporary visitor with a group and participating as a full member of the group. I recently went to the Roman Catholic funeral of a friend. The friend had made it clear that his primary trust was in the Lord — not in his church, nor in his system. I participated in the worship, except for the parts which I believed were not right. On the other hand, I would not want to be a member of the Roman Catholic Church, for a number of theological reasons.

5. There are different kinds of cooperation with unsound groups that may or may not be permissible and wise. Consider the following list of kinds of cooperation. I believe each would require more agreement, as you go down the list:
–Working with other groups to influence legislation on a specific issue, with no implication that we agree on anything else.
–Cooperating on a food pantry
–Cooperating on evangelism
–Merging two congregations for a special worship service
–Merging two congregations permanently

I see no reason that we should not cooperate with pseudo-Christians in order to promote a piece of legislation. I see a very good reason not to cooperate with them in evangelism. (If they don’t have the right gospel, they are not really evangelizing, are they?)

Robert Millet’s paper in this book is “Walking in Newness of Life: Doctrinal Themes of the Apostle Paul.” I wonder if this is an updated version.

Millet utilizes MacArthur’s books, The Gospel According to Jesus and Faith Works.

Nathan, I believe you have given a public resonse to Millet before. Can you email me your past response? I had read it at one time and now misplaced it. I need to engage with those in my own community.

thanks