TIMES THAT ARE TIMELESS

(A History of today's Bible-believing Churches of the Cape)

- by Dr. Marc S. Blackwell, 

Times that are 'timeless' may refer to histories that are 

focused on uniquely valuable contributions.

The 1980s and 1990s Evangelists, just as those Evangelists in the 1880s &1890s, were Church Planters and had a clear goal, mandate and vision. 

Their goal was to evangelize by sharing the Gospel in such a way that they were imploring men and women to come to a place of making peace with God through a personal decision to accept Christ as their Savior. 

Their mandate was to plant indigenous, autonomous and independent congregations. 

Their mandate called for  a church planting movement that would return South Africans to Biblically sound teaching. A re-anchoring of Christianity in the literal interpretation of truth. Calling for a genuine faith in the message that God had created the world, according to the Scripture. South Africa had had these types of ministries long before, back between 1880 /1890s and up to the 1940s.  Biblically distinctive truths were, to a great degree, overturned after World War II and Christianity  returned to liberal Christianity or Vatican 1 & II liberalized Catholic doctrines. These newer Ecumenical ideas were being re-stated in S.A. among the Reformed Church denominations. Neo-orthodoxy would make its inroads and further confuse churches and lead to a  social good works-based theology. The peculiar challenges of an apartheid culture had also led the churches into accepting the 'social gospel' and further away from any Biblical Gospel message  or evangelistic mission or outreach.  

The literal and dispensational interpretation of Scripture and the Pre-Millennial message once proclaimed by Baptists and some few others but was lost to the conscious memory of South Africans. The Biblical message of the simple gospel of salvation by faith alone and the Dispensational Hope of Christ's literal return to eastablish His literal Millennial Kingdom was rejected & forgotten. These truths had been taught since 1880 in Cape Town's Wales Street Baptist Church (The Cape's oldest Baptist Church) and in the Cape Bible Institute and amongst the Afrikaans Baptiste Kerk and others. 

Their vision was one of creating churches that were known for their love of Christ, love for each other and love for all others. Their vision further sought to create churches that taught on a spiritual level and that would lead and prepare believers to live lives that are separated from sin and from compromise with the world. The Biblical Church-Planters had back then and have now - today a vision centered around on-going adult education,to assist believers toward spiritual maturity and leadership. This 1880s vision was returned to the Cape by the Church Planters of the 1980s but there is still so much work to do. Pray for these Bible-believing churches that are now spread across the Western Cape Province. Pray that they will remain faithful and continue to teach the Truth and offer salvation to all men and women of every race.

Times that are timeless, is my reference to history from its eternal, perspective.

Timelessness speaks (at least to me) of historical events that hold a value above normal. Just as faithfulness speaks of lives lived on values above, over, through and beyond time's limitations. So too, timelessness focuses on "uniquely valuable times." Times that are timeless, may then, refer to histories viewed from their greater, even eternal, perspective.

Real Reform? 

Few seem to be taking the time to understand time itself - time as real history and as important influencing historical culture. One important theme and example is the history of the early Centuries of Christianity which would influence in a timeless sense the rest of time. The value of an accurate history of theology or "Historical Theology" - as I am using it - is its goal of seeking to address the reasons for the early church’s ‘drift’ away from its anchorage in the person and work of Christ, in Biblical truth, and in the faithful apostolic witness and interpretation of the New Testament. 

The history of the development of a Christianity sourced in dogma (in the name of defending the church against heresy) is a limited and often confused form of history since it is often written by those most interested in presenting their own false presuppositions and some very biased viewpoints. I am sorry to say that Church History (in general) and certainly most Evangelical and Fundamentalist history books were developed under the influence of earlier Reformed Church historians, who to a great degree accepted the Early Catholic and Middle-Ages Catholicism as the only church. The Reformations earliest leaders such as Luther, Zwingli and others originally thought they could reform the Roman Catholic Church [from which they came

In addition the rejection of any real attention to the history of the earliest Eastern churches gives a convoluted picture of the history of “the church.” The Reformation influenced churches, accepted Roman Catholic history as its own history and then ...of course, joined the Roman Catholic church in rejecting all the so-called sects and break-off groups from Catholicism. All independent congregations had been condemned as erroneous and dangerous or as "heretical." But failed Catholicism and the often mis-directed and incomplete Reformation leadership were rejecting the actual Biblically-based churches over the centuries, in an effort to defend their own theological and ecclesiastical errors. All of this needs serious attention and a re-balancing of history is needed.

We should carefully discuss the rise of Ecclesiastical hierarchal religion and rethink the early errors of Traditionalist Christianity and its ‘strange lack of understanding’ of the deeper teachings of Paul, John, James, Peter and the other writers. To fail to study the historic church's understandings of the Scripture is to fail to do any real history.