Stoned-Campbell Disciple

“Therefore every scribe who has become a disciple in the kingdom of heaven is like the master of a household who brings out of his treasure what is new and what is old.” (Matthew 13.52)

Many within Churches of Christ seem to think church history is a wasteland. Nothing of consequence has happened. Some think the word “progressive” is evil. How either of these ideas have arisen and anyone with a self-aware mind can accept these notions is beyond me. This is not what our fathers and mothers in the faith have taught us.

“They {average Christians} read the originals {Old & NT} through the spectacles of their vernacular versions, and, superadded to this, through a ready-made theology, imparted to them by early education and high authority – parental or ministerial or both. It has become part and parcel of their individuality. Few can ever divest themselves of it. It is harder, far, to unlearn than to learn.” (Alexander Campbell, Address to the Bible Union Convention, April 2, 1852 in Popular Lectures and Addresses, pp. 568-569).

Isaac Errett put it this way, way back in 1858:

“Though in completeness of its revelations, Christianity is not progressive, yet in the understanding and appreciation of it, and in the development of the divine life to which it calls us, there is necessarily a progressive work. We inherit the wisdom, grace, faith, patience, and toils of eighteen hundred years. We stand where we can overlook all this vast inheritance, and gather in the fruits of the Past.” (Millennial Harbinger, March 1858, p. 142).

We are debtors. We have “inherited wisdom, grace, faith … and toils of eighteen hundred years.” It takes a good deal of blindness to be unaware of the magnitude of the riches we have inherited from the “toils of eighteen hundred years.” The very “bible” we hold in our hands is literally an inheritance. The vast majority of the hymns we sing are an inheritance (in my case every last one of them are because, I don’t know about you, but I have never written a hymn!).

The faith was indeed “once delivered.” But our understanding, our perception, is indeed progressive. Progressive comes from “progress.” Antonyms for progress are not evil, faithless, etc. The antonyms for “progress” include regress, stagnation, failure, decline and retrogression. Synonyms for “progress” are growth, improvement, forward, movement, increase.

Among the debts we have is the progress of understanding the depths of God’s wisdom. Progress in appreciating the faith. We wonder if we are making progress in humility, progress in sacrifice, progress in love.

I’ve been called a “progressive.” And in the sense of Errett, I say YES! And confessing an inheritance of grace and wisdom from those (now) twenty centuries. I am progressive in understanding the revelation of God because I am growing, moving forward, increasing in gratitude for the debt I have, becoming more like Jesus whom I see in the lives of countless saints in those 2000 years.

If we are not progressive then we are in reality regressive in our understanding of that revelation and therefore shriveling on the vine.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, January 27th, 2026 at 7:47 am and is filed under Alexander Campbell, Church, Church History, Restoration History. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.