How Jesus Runs the Church

How Jesus Runs the Church. Guy Prentiss Waters. Philipsburg: P&R, 2011, 178 pp., paper. ISBN 978-1-59638-252-7

Guy Waters is Associate Professor of New Testament at Reformed Theological Seminary, Jackson, MS., and a minister in the Presbyterian Church in America (PCA). In this book, he sets himself two goals: the first is to present a scriptural case for Presbyterianism which might be of use inside and outside the PCA; the second is to make such a case as accessible as possible.

Waters more than achieves his second goal. This book is a model of how to convey doctrine in the 21st century. The look, feel, and pitch of the book are reminiscent of the IVP Contours Series. The chapters and sections are well organized and clearly labeled. Here is a slim volume of Presbyterian ecclesiology which gives more than the basics and should whet the appetite for the further study encouraged by the annotated bibliography at its conclusion.

Chapter one answers the question: What is the Church? Here Waters uses the Westminster definitions of the visible and invisible church to define church membership and to reflect upon the meaning of baptism. Chapter two establishes that the church has a government distinct from the civil government and that Christ, as King and Head, is the source and definer of that government. Chapter three describes the nature and extent of church power. Chapters four and five deal with by whom and how the church power is administered: office-bearers and courts.

To answer the usual questions, Waters holds a two office view (elders and deacons) with the office of elder divided into two orders (teaching and ruling); and he argues against both women elders and deaconesses.

Given the general high standard of this book, it is disappointing that there is one rather glaring omission and two places where differences between the positions adopted by Waters and those of classical Presbyterianism are not noted. While Waters discusses whether Christ rules over nations as the Second Person of the Trinity or as Mediator (he argues for the former) and hints at further discussion, there is not a developed section on the relationship between the church and the state. He adopts a position of a separation of offices rather than the classical Presbyterian view that the functions of a lesser office are contained a higher. More significantly, he does not argue that presbytery is the radical court of the church, but that all church courts have inherently the same rights and powers.

Regarding his first goal, the author has written a book which describes Presbyterianism from a decidedly Southern and PCA perspective. His positions rely greatly on the work of Thomas Peck who was a colleague of R. L. Dabney at Union Theological Seminary, Virginia. They are supported and illustrated from the PCA’s Book of Common Order to such an extent that, in some sections of this book, the BCO is inextricable from its warp and weft. Waters cannot be faulted for this. Every author on this subject will write out of his own tradition and reflect his denomination’s distinctives. Alas, having done so to the degree that he has, he has limited the usefulness of his book to those outside of the PCA and, thus, not achieved part of his first goal.

This book, then, is an accessible conservative ecclesiology text for those in the PCA. For others, it will help them to understand their Southern trained neighbour; and, it is a pattern for how they might write a really useful ecclesiology text reflecting their own tradition and denominational distinctives.

This review first appeared here, on page 77: http://haddingtonhouse.org/.../Book-Reviews-and-Book...