Theodore Beza once pointed out the strategic nature of good church government by considering it as Satan’s chief opposition: Satan “hopes that it is easier to overthrow it [i.e., the government of the church] than to overthrow the foundation which is doctrine.” Why, if Beza is correct, is church government vulnerable, and what makes it so necessary? Moreover, how has the history of church government pointed out that necessity? That is the focus of this introductory essay. Beza is surely correct in his contention that laxity in applying biblical principles of church government leads eventually to erosion of doctrine in the church. Therefore, we ought ever to be assiduously conforming church polity to biblical norms.

David W. Hall & Joseph H. Hall, Paradigms in Polity: Classic Readings in Reformed and Presbyterian Church Government, 3.

Amongst many who sought to deter me, was one dear old Christian gentleman, whose crowning argument always was, “The Cannibals! you will be eaten by Cannibals!” At last I replied, “Mr. Dickson, you are advanced in years now, and your own prospect is soon to be laid in the grave, there to be eaten by worms; I confess to you, that if I can but live and die serving and honoring the Lord Jesus, it will make no difference to me whether I am eaten by Cannibals or by worms; and in the Great Day my resurrection body will arise as fair as yours in the likeness of our risen Redeemer.” The old gentleman, raising his hands in a deprecating attitude, left the room exclaiming, “After that I have nothing more to say!”

John G. Paton, The Autobiography of the Pioneer Missionary to the New Hebrides (Vanuatu), 56.

Q. How do minsters murder other men’s souls?

A. By entering into the ministry without God’s call, which renders their labor unprofitable; by neglecting due pains for their people’s instruction and conversion; by preaching error, or truth in a wrong manner; by administration of the sacraments to the ignorant and profane; and by their loose and carnal example, Jer. 23.

Q. How do ministers murder men’s souls by a wrong way of preaching truth?

A. By preaching the law as a covenant, as it might and should be obeyed by us to render us welcome to Christ as a Savior; by insisting chiefly on circumstantial points; by preaching to a multitude as if they were all saints, or in such a manner as makes saints discredit their relation to Christ, or forget the duty of the present times, Ezek. 33. Jer. 23.

Q. How do magistrates murder other men’s souls?

A. By not providing their subjects with schools, and a pure gospel ministry; and by not punishing, but encouraging error, superstition, and gross immorality, Mic. 6:16.

John Brown of Haddington, Questions and Answers on the Shorter Catechism, 249-250.

Jesus is both the leader of our praise to God and the appropriate object of our worship and praise.

Kelly M. Kapic, Christian Life, 300.

No matter the denomination, tradition, or church polity, what we Christians do together in corporate worship shapes our understanding of God, ourselves, his world, and how we are to live.

Kelly M. Kapic, Christian Life, 285.