Was it wrong for Paul and Barnabas to argue with the Judaizers(Acts 15:2)? For that matter, was it wrong for the church to debate the question in council (v.7)? What would have happened had Paul and Barnabas and the rest of the church kept silent because they thought public disagreement and dispute were improper? At a minimum, many individual believers would have been led astray and placed under the curse of the Law rather than the grace of Christ (Gal. 3:10; 5:1-4); and the Jews making up a large part of the church at that time, it may have fundamentally altered the nature of the church and made it an outgrowth of Judaism.

A recent correspondent remonstrates with the present author over the proper duty and topics of discussion for a Christian writer. He maintains that it is God’s business to look after the church’s peace and purity, and that one only ought to write about one’s own progress in sanctification, one’s efforts in fulfilling the Great Commission, and more generally about the excellence of Christ and His word. Surely those are fine topics and ones which ought to take up the great bulk of Christian literature. For every word that goes forth in controversial argument there ought to be many more that go forth to extol God’s mercies in Christ and to bring to repentance and edification both unbelievers and the faithful. An exception might be made in the case of talking about one’s own progress in sanctification, as that is apt to bore readers if discussed with anything more than occasional frequency. But on the whole, the gentleman is correct that controversy ought to be foregone in favor of other topics and modes of literature.

Nonetheless, the gentleman is wrong insofar as he makes this an absolute rather than a general rule. I wrote before that polemics is a special activity that is properly engaged only by certain people and in certain circumstances; that it is of limited effectiveness; and that it must be carefully abetted with larger amounts of devotional, edifying activities and reading by both its practitioners and readers. I reiterate that now. Call it our ‘terms of use agreement,’ but if you read this or any other of my writings, I expect you, dear reader, to abet it with plenty of devotional scripture reading, prayer, fellowship, and the like. A failure to do so is to act contrary to my intentions and to not uphold your duties under our (admittedly informal) writer-reader compact. Such breeches of honor, even in secret, are no small matter (Lk. 12:2), so I implore you to not be derelict in that respect.

But, to return to the point, polemics has a right to exist within the church, and you have the right to read it, reader, just as I and many others have the right to publish it. If this be doubted, consider the testimony of Acts about Paul and Barnabas’s conduct with the Judaizers, those early false teachers who would have buried the grace of Christ under Mosaic law and required Gentiles to become Jews in order to be saved (Acts 15:1-2). Was it wrong for Paul and Barnabas to argue with the Judaizers(v. 2)? For that matter, was it wrong for the church to debate the question in council (v.7)? What would have happened had Paul and Barnabas and the rest of the church kept silent because they thought public disagreement and dispute were improper? At a minimum, many individual believers would have been led astray and placed under the curse of the Law rather than the grace of Christ (Gal. 3:10; 5:1-4); and the Jews making up a large part of the church at that time, it may have fundamentally altered the nature of the church and made it an outgrowth of Judaism. Either way, the gospel would have been obscured, whether for many or all.

Ah, but perhaps you will say that contemporary disputants are not apostles. True indeed, but if the right of dispute was limited to them, why then did Jude tell his audience to “contend for the faith that has been once for all delivered to the saints” (v.3)? That epistle is general, to the church as a whole. And we know that the scripture cannot be broken and the word of God stands forever (Jn. 10:35); what Jude told his first readers applies to us now. If “contending” does not include verbal or written argument, then what does it entail? Physical violence? Surely not! For we do not serve Christ in that way. But what other contention is left then, if not of argument and debate? And what is polemics, if not argument and debate?

Or again, Paul says it is the duty of an overseer to rebuke those that depart from sound doctrine (Ti. 1:10-14; 2:15). Though they are to be conspicuous for gentleness and are not to be quarrelsome, yet they are commanded to rebuke the wayward. To do so requires that evil be recognized and publicly exposed and denounced. While a certain form of polemics is improper – that which engages foolish controversies and disputes (1 Tim. 1:3-7) – yet it is appropriate when sound doctrine is threatened. Hence I often do not content myself with an analysis of a given, mistaken opinion, but abet it with a call to action, especially for readers to avoid the error or for the mistaken to retract or repent. And hence why I do not take up matters that I deem to be matters of opinion or preference, especially things to do with worship style or many things liturgical.[1]

If it be rejoined that many of those who engage in polemics are not elders, and further, that such rebuke is often done in person and not via literary dispute, I answer: the Proverbs are not given only to elders, but to all, and yet they lay down as an eternal truth that “like a muddied spring or a polluted fountain is a righteous man who gives way before the wicked” (Proverbs 25:26); and further that there are many men who spread falsehood by means like the published word that prevent a personal rebuke and necessitate a response in kind, which response is by its very nature polemical. And let us never forget the instruction of John to test the spirits because antichrist is coming (1 Jn. 2:18) and how he commends all his hearers for successfully resisting the false teachers that had troubled them (vv. 13-14). In our day, too, the wicked come and must be tested and resisted by hard words, the faithful who err also being opposed, that they may not fall (Gal. 2:11-14).

None of this is enjoyable, nor does it meet with near so much success as we could wish. Yet it is too much to say that it may never be done, or that we ought to leave the purity of the church to God and forswear arguing with the errant. For he works through human agents to “destroy arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God, and take every thought captive to obey Christ” (2 Cor. 10:5). And if we grant my remonstrant’s premise that God will handle the church’s purity, why not also the growth? If we leave the former to him, why not also evangelism, discipleship, and all the rest?

Tom Hervey is a member of Friendship Presbyterian Church in Laurens County, SC. The opinions expressed in this article are solely those of the author and do not of necessity reflect those of his church or its leadership or other members. He welcomes comments at the email address provided with his name. He is also author of Reflections on the Word: Essays in Protestant Scriptural Contemplation, and helped modernize Volume I of James Hervey’s classic dialogue on evangelical faith, Theron and Aspasio, available now at Monergism.

[1] To be sure, not all questions of worship or liturgy are merely matters of aesthetics. I have routinely opposed image worship, for it entails the sin of idolatry, and there are types of contemporary worship in Protestant churches which can be justly accused of descending to irreverence and mere entertainment.