What’s the best church in your community, and how would you know if you found it? Is the best church necessarily the one with the soundest doctrine, the best preaching, and the highest percentage of members committed to attending worship services and midweek Bible studies?

Ever since I did an exegesis paper as a seminary student for Dr. Renwick Wright, I have been struck by the way the Apostle Paul prays for the church of Philippi (Phil. 1:9-11): This is my prayer: that your love may abound more and more in knowledge and depth of insight, so that you may be able to discern what is best [or approve those things that are excellent] so that you may be pure and blameless in the day of Christ, filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ—to the glory and praise of God.

Paul does not always pray exactly the same way for all the churches, and an in–depth study of Paul’s other prayers could provide much food for thought and encouragement. But for purposes of this article, I want to focus on this one prayer as we consider what makes a healthy church.

Knowledge and Depth of Insight

Paul first prays that the church would have abounding love that is informed by knowledge and depth of insight. Sound doctrine is a starting point for a good church. The church is called by God to be the pillar and ground of the truth. And in this postmodern world, we need to emphasize this. Knowledge is of fundamental importance. Sound theology and what we today call “distinctive principles” are essential.

But knowledge itself can be deadly. Paul says to the church in Corinth that knowledge, without the graces that are to flow from it, puffs up (1 Cor. 8:1). He also says that you can understand all mysteries, and have all knowledge; yet without love you are only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal (13:2). Think of the church in Ephesus, as described in Revelation 2. Jesus was ready to remove the candlestick from their midst—not because of false doctrine, poor preaching or lack of commitment, but because they had lost their first love.

Love

Doctrine is not the goal of our instruction. Love is. Notice again how Paul begins his prayer for the church in Philippi. He prays that their love would abound more and more in knowledge and depth of insight.

We Reformed Presbyterians know that love involves sacrifice and service. We also realize how closely the Bible associates love with giving. We understand that biblical love is directly linked to obedience. But genuine love also includes our emotions, our affections, and the deepest feelings of our soul. Love is not emotionalism, but it is emotional—and it is to our peril if we think otherwise. If you are happily married, you don’t need to be persuaded of this most obvious fact. To the extent to which the Reformed church today is correctly labeled the “frozen chosen,” it is a strong rebuke. We who understand the doctrines of grace should of all people be an emotional people.

J.C. Ryle, writing on the theme of holiness in his commentary on Luke 7, pens these words: The fear of punishment, the desire of reward, the sense of duty, are all useful arguments, in their way, to persuade men to holiness. But they are all weak and powerless until a man loves Christ….The heart must be engaged for Christ, or the hands will soon hang down. The affections must be enlisted into His service, or our obedience will soon stand still.

Discerning the Best

Paul prayed that the church in Philippi might abound more and more in love so that they would be able to discern what is best, or alternately, so that they might be able to approve what is excellent. Biblical knowledge and love must lead to wisdom. Even that which is good can be the enemy of the best. There are many things that can sidetrack us from the goal, and we need discernment to stay on track. We need excellent doctrine, excellent worship, excellent ethics, excellent love, excellent service, excellent relationships, excellent evangelism, excellent discipleship, excellent parenting, and excellence in every other area of life.

Pure and Blameless, Filled with the Fruit of Righteousness

Of course, the concern of the Apostle Paul was not just that the Philippians would be able in an academic or theoretical way to approve those things that are excellent. His concern for the Philippian church, and his concern for you and me, is not just that we would be knowledgeable, or even loving or discerning. Paul prayed for an abounding love rooted in knowledge and depth of insight so that we might be able to discern those things that are excellent so that we might be pure and blameless in the day of Christ.

When we think of being pure and blameless in the day of Christ, we may think first of all of putting off lust, greed, selfish ambition, deceit, and a host of other sins. And we should! As we live in union and communion with the resurrected and living Lord of glory, we must, by God’s grace, repent of our sins of commission so that we may reflect the image of God in our lives. But if we are to be pure and blameless on the day of Christ, then we are to repent of our sins of omission as well as our sins of commission and to fill our lives with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ.

Notice that this fruit is, indeed, through Jesus Christ. Paul is not praying for works righteousness. Rather, he is praying that the Philippian church will live according to what they already are. In Christ, we are declared to be righteous. This is our status. Through faith, Christ’s righteousness has become our righteousness.

Paul prays that the Philippians would reflect that righteousness, that they would fill their lives with the good works that God had ordained in advance for them to do. Paul’s desire is that the church be salt and light in a dark and depraved world so that men may see our good works and glorify our Father who is in heaven.

From my perspective, this is a great time to be a Reformed Presbyterian. There are many reasons to rejoice in the work the Lord is doing through our churches around the world. However, even with all the encouragements of recent years, I wonder if the Reformed Presbyterian Church today is as effective as we once were in our efforts to be salt and light in cultures that seem to be growing darker.

I remember reading that 150 years ago President Abraham Lincoln knew the Reformed Presbyterian (Covenanter) Church for two reasons: (1) our stand against slavery, and (2) our call for the nation to acknowledge Jesus Christ. Today, it seems, neither national leaders nor common citizens have been generally impacted by the witness of our small denomination. I wonder if any one of us has seriously considered and prayed about what it would take to reverse this.

Is the Reformed Presbyterian Church today actively seeking to do those good works that God ordained from all eternity for us to do? Do we demonstrate to a watching world the fruit of repentance? Does the Spirit of Christ so fill us that love, joy, peace, and patience mark our lives? Do we seek to preserve justice in our land for all people, including the unborn and the oppressed? Only 25 ago many Reformed Presbyterians were leaders in their communities in efforts to save the lives of unborn children, but even that stand for righteousness seems to be waning.

In the last couple of years I talked to a woman who was at Geneva College with me in the 1960s. Her father taught in the Bible department there during those years. She is no longer in our denomination. She expressed to me a concern her father had during his retirement years—that as the Reformed Presbyterian Church recommitted itself to historic confessional theology in the last century, it simultaneously lost its commitment to a full-orbed gospel ministry. I do wonder in the day of Christ if the Lord will commend the 21st Century church for extending a cup of cold water to the thirsty and loosening the chains of the oppressed.

If Jesus organized the church in such a way as to have not only ordained elders, but also ordained deacons, and if the primary responsibility of the deacons is to oversee mercy ministry, does not the health of your congregation—from God’s perspective—depend at least to some extent on how active you are as a church in ministries of mercy?

To the best of my memory, I have never seen a man seeking ordination queried about his commitment to ministering to the poor—until a couple of months ago on another continent. In contrast, Paul records, under divine inspiration, “They [his presbytery, or its equivalent] desired only that we remember the poor, the very thing which I also was eager to do” (Gal. 2:10). Clearly, mercy ministry should not just be a concern of the deacons.

How about hospitality? Might not hospitality be included in the fruit of righteousness for which Paul prays? Recently my wife said to me that she thought all college students and all lonely people consider hospitality to be one of the marks of a good church! I think she is right. And they are not the only ones to think so, either.

Even more basic: Does not the fruit of righteousness also include Spirit-filled worship? I increasingly fear that because we sing psalms a cappella in worship, some may believe that God receives our worship because we have the form right—and that He must not receive any other worship. But our worship is weak and imperfect at best, to use the language of chapter 16 of the Westminster Confession of Faith. Our worship is stained. It is acceptable to God only through the mediating work of our Savior. And it is through His mediating work that God also receives the worship of all of His elect.

The Glory and Praise of God

Paul prays for the church in Philippi to be pure and blameless in the day of Christ, filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ. What a grand objective! However, Paul is not yet through with his prayer. Notice the great goal for which Paul prays as he ends his prayer: the glory and praise of God. Hallelujah! The end of it all is not about us, but Him. That is the purpose of our existence—the glory and praise of God.

As I grow ever older, one thing strikes me more and more clearly. Man’s chief end is to glorify God and to enjoy Him forever. At the end of the day, that is all that matters. At the end of life, that is all that matters. At the end of this present evil age, that is all that matters. In the new heavens and new earth, that is all that matters. Life is not ultimately about the creation—it is about the Creator.

Yes, Paul wanted the church in Philippi to be knowledgeable and theologically sound. He wanted that knowledge to inform a growing love for Christ and those around them. He wanted such a love to lead to discerning those things that are best so that they could be pure and blameless on the day of Christ. But all of that was for the glory and praise of God. Only the glory and praise of God can be our overarching purpose in life.

Honest Assessment

So what is the best church in your community? Is it the one you attend? If so, on what basis do you make that evaluation? Are you known for solid doctrine that instructs a growing love for God and others, that leads to excellence in all you do, that includes a fervor for evangelism, and that positively impacts your community for the glory of God? Or does your church have solid doctrine but a reputation for being inward-focused, lacking compassion, and perhaps even being harsh, critical, or mean-spirited?

How do you evaluate other congregations in your community? They may have brothers and sisters who love the Lord Jesus Christ passionately, who show that love in every imaginable way, who would give their lives for Jesus without flinching in their loyalty to Him—but who don’t have their systematic theology as consistent or precise as ours, and who don’t yet have their worship as carefully regulated as ours. Do you appreciate them and consider them partners in kingdom ministry?

I don’t have all this figured out. Perhaps no one does this side of eternity. But I am confident that Herman Bavinck, the great Reformed theologian of another century, must be heard when he provocatively states in his book, The Certainty of Faith, that even the Roman Catholic doctrine of righteousness by good works is vastly preferable to a Protestant righteousness by good doctrine. He says that at least the Catholic doctrine produces works that profit humanity, while a doctrine of justification by good doctrine produces lovelessness and pride. May it never be that we in the Reformed Presbyterian Church fall into the trap of believing in righteousness by good doctrine!

Wherever you are in your desire to have a strong, vibrant, healthy church, my prayer for you is Paul’s prayer for the church in Philippi: that your love may abound more and more in knowledge and depth of insight, so that you may be able to discern what is best [or approve those things that are excellent] so that you may be pure and blameless in the day of Christ, filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ—to the glory and praise of God. Amen!

—Jerry O’Neill is president of the Reformed Presbyterian Theological Seminary in Pittsburgh, Pa.