Watch Out for the Wolves Within -John Piper

Take heed to yourselves and to all the flock, in which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers, to care for the church of God which he obtained with the blood of his own Son. I know that after my departure fierce wolves will come in among you, not sparing the flock; and from among your own selves will arise men speaking perverse things, to draw away the disciples after them. Therefore be alert, remembering that for three years I did not cease night or day to admonish every one with tears.

One way to summarize the first part of Paul's message to the Ephesian elders is this: he is emphasizing that he has done all he can do for their salvation. He has lived a life of lowliness and labor and tears and trials and utter dedication. And he has taught them the whole counsel of God. He didn't shrink back from any demand or any danger or any doctrine. He has done all he can do to deliver them from the destruction of unbelief and disobedience and lead them to everlasting life and joy.

Perseverance and the Role of Elders 

But Paul knows well that in order to be saved in the end—in order to inherit the kingdom and enter life—a believer has to persevere. For example, in 1 Corinthians 15:1–2 Paul said, "I preached to you the gospel, which you received, in which you stand, by which you are saved, if you hold it fast—unless you believed in vain." Paul knew that there was such a thing as believing in vain—false starts in the Christian life.

That means very practically that once you've poured part of your life into a ministry—into a group of people—you can't ever walk away and glibly say, "Well, I've taught them all they need to know. They accepted it. So they are now safe and secure. Onto a new work."

The reason you can't say that is because God has ordained that his people persevere to the end through the faithful ministry of teaching, prayer, and care. And so when Paul is done with his three-year investment in the church of Ephesus—teaching, praying, caring day and night with tears—he does NOT say, "So long, hope you make it." He makes sure that there are elders who will stay behind and who will pick up where he left off and teach and pray and care the way he did. Because if they don't, the church will not survive. And many would-be saints will perish. (See Revelation 2:5–7.)

So in this next section of his message to the elders of Ephesus (verses 28–31) Paul tells them how utterly crucial their role is in the survival and health of the church when he is gone. He gives them a general command. Then he applies the command to themselves and to the flock. Then he gives them four incentives to throw themselves into this work with the same dedication he did.

As far as I can tell, virtually nothing has changed between the day this was written and today that would change the teaching at all for our own elders. So let's listen very carefully to what this means for Bethlehem.

The General Command for Vigilance

First, let's notice the general command.

Verse 28 starts, "Take heed . . . " Or: "Be on guard . . . " Then verse 31 (at the end of this paragraph) starts, "Therefore, be alert . . . " Or: "Be on your guard . . . " So the paragraph begins and ends with a call to vigilance. Elders must be alert, awake, open-eyed, watchful.

This is Paul's way of saying that the church is always a threatened church. Satan never takes vacations. Sin lurks at the door waiting for the moment of doctrinal or moral carelessness. The command for the elders, therefore, is: Stay awake. Be alert. Watch.

But watch what? Paul applies our vigilance in two ways: Elders must watch themselves; and the elders must watch the church.

Verse 28 starts, "Take heed to yourselves." Now that could mean two things. It could mean, "Elders, take head of each other's needs and weaknesses and faults." Or it could mean, "Elders, each of you take heed to his own heart and doctrine and behavior." Probably it means both.

It's not surprising that Paul says this first, is it? He spent half his message talking about his own life and work. The point was: it matters what kind of person the elder is, not just what he believes. So the first command to the elders is to watch over themselves. Robert Murray McCheyne said, "What my people need most from me is my personal holiness." I think Paul agrees. That's why it comes first: "Elders, take heed to yourselves. Your first duty to the church is to be a certain kind of person."

Application to the Elders' Oversight of the Flock 

Then Paul applies the command for vigilance to the elders' oversight of the flock. Verse 28 goes on, "Take heed to yourselves and to all the flock." Notice three things here that are very important for our life as a church.

1. First, the church is like a flock of sheep in need of shepherds.
2. Second, the elders are the shepherds.
3. Third, it is the duty of shepherds to care for the sheep.

All of this is set out in verse 28: "Take heed to yourselves and to all the flock [so the church is like a flock], in which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers [so the elders are the overseers or shepherds of the flock], to care for the church of God [so it is the duty of the overseers or shepherds to care for, or tend, the sheep—to see that they have food, like Jesus said: "Feed my sheep," and to see that they are protected from wolves, as we will see in a moment]."

If we had the time we could show from other passages (e.g., 1 Peter 5:1–3; Titus 1:5, 7; and 1 Timothy 3:1; 5:17; Philippians 1:1; Acts 15:22; etc.) that this was not just the way things were organized at Ephesus but in virtually all the New Testament churches.

Pastors/Elders in the New Testament 

If you ask, Where does the title "pastor" fit into this, the answer is that the word "pastor" is based on a Latin word that simply means shepherd. Pastors are the shepherds being spoken of here. The New Testament does not distinguish between elders and pastors and overseers—they are all the same. The term "Elder" highlights their maturity and respect in the church. The term "Shepherd" or "Pastor" highlights the responsibility to the church as a flock. And the term "Overseer" makes that same role even clearer without using the image of sheep and shepherd. In summary then, "elder," "pastor," "shepherd," and "overseer" (sometimes translated "bishop," 1 Timothy 3:1) all refer to the same person in the New Testament church. They aren't separate people or separate rolls.

And in the New Testament, churches always had more than one elder or pastor or overseer. A one-pastor church is unknown in the New Testament. This is true whether the churches are small and new or older and large. In Acts 14:23, as Paul and Barnabas returned from their first missionary journey, it says, "And when they had appointed elders [plural] for them in every church, with prayer and fasting, they committed them to the Lord in whom they believed."

The Duty of Caring for All the Flock 

I point this out because the duty of elders is to "take heed to all the flock." Notice: ALL the flock. Not just the healthy sheep, but also the sick. Not just the strong, but also the weak. Not just the responsive, but also the unresponsive. Not just the faithful, but also the wayward.

If you want to feel how overwhelming that is, listen to Richard Baxter, in his book on this text entitled The Reformed Pastor (1656):

It is you see, all the flock, or every individual member of our charge. To this end it is necessary, that we should know every person that belongs to our charge; for how can we take heed to them, if we do not know them? . . . Doth not a careful shepherd look after every individual sheep? a good schoolmaster after every individual [student]? a good physician after every particular patient? . . . Paul taught his hearers not only "publicly but from house to house": and in another place he tells us, that he "warned every one, and taught every one, in all wisdom, that he might present every one perfect in Christ Jesus." Many other passages of Scripture make it evident that it is our duty to take heed to every individual of our flock. (pp. 90f.)

What would he say of Bethlehem? And of my ministry? You can see perhaps why a text like this, along with the struggle to think through the future staffing configuration of the church, has caused a great deal of heart searching for Noël and me.

The Number of Elders Proportionate to the Flock

Of course, one answer in a church this size is to have enough elders (that is, overseers or pastors) so that every single church member is known by name and is fed and helped and disciplined according to his or her own particular need.

Baxter says, rightly I think,

O happy Church of Christ, were the laborers . . . proportioned in number to the number of the souls; so that the pastors were so many, or the particular churches so small, that we might be able to "take heed to all the flock." (p. 90)

So we have seen so far that Paul gives the elders a general command to be alert and awake and on guard—to be vigilant in their spiritual life and ministry. Then he applies that general command specifically to the elders themselves—they should take heed to themselves, their doctrine and their life—and then to the flock of God—ALL the flock.

Four Incentives for Shepherding the Flock

Now what Paul does is to give four incentives, or motivations or encouragements to the elders to do their work with great diligence and seriousness. It is not merely a job. It is not a profession among other professions like lawyer, doctor, engineer, etc. There is laid upon the elders of the church of Christ a responsibility unique in all the world. And Paul really stresses how high the stakes are in this work.

1. The Flock Purchased by the Blood of God's Son

The first incentive for the elders is that the flock they are to serve cost God the blood of his Son. Notice the end of verse 28: "to care for the church of God which he obtained with the blood of his own Son."

It's clear that Paul wants the elders to be shocked by this. The argument is plain: if God almighty—sinless and free and high above all things—was willing to shed the blood of his Son for a sinful, messed up, unworthy church, then the shepherds must be willing to pour out blood, sweat, and tears in season and out of season for the flock of God.

Suppose I am a single dad with four sons. And you and your spouse and my family are deep-sea fishing off the Florida coast. My youngest son gets too close to the edge, and when a wave tilts the boat, he loses his balance and falls into the water and disappears beneath the surface. In a split second I dive in after him. After about ten seconds of breathless suspense I burst out of the water and I've got him. I hand him up over the side and just as I am getting into the boat a shark cuts out of nowhere and hits me from behind and takes away half my side. You pull me into the boat and just before I bleed to death I look up into your face and say, "Take care of the boy for me."

That's a pretty strong incentive. Jesus "loved the church and gave himself for her" (Ephesians 5:25). An elder who is not willing to pour out blood, sweat, and tears for the faith and holiness of the church of Christ does not know the worth of the blood of the Son of God.

2. Shepherds Chosen by God for This Work

The second incentive Paul gives to the elders is that they have been chosen for this work by God not themselves. Verse 28 says, "Take heed to yourselves and to all the flock in which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers." The Holy Spirit chooses who should be the elders in the church.

It's hard to imagine incentives that are more gigantic, more powerful, and more awesome in scope than these two. The sheep are gathered by the blood of God's Son. And the shepherds are given by the call of God's Spirit. How can they not pour themselves out with every ounce of energy and life that they have for the faith and holiness of the church!

3. Great Danger Always Awaits the Church

The third incentive Paul gives to the elders is that great danger always awaits the church. Verse 29–30, "I know that after my departure fierce wolves will come in among you, not sparing the flock; and from among your own selves will arise men speaking perverse things, to draw away the disciples after them."

The incentive for vigilance here is the danger that inside the church men will aspire to the Eldership who are wolves in sheep's clothing (Matthew 7:15). They will slowly begin to speak twisted and distorted things about Scripture. And unless the elders are spiritually alert and thoroughly biblical in their vigilance, the wolves may decimate the flock.

Let me just mention one feature to watch out for in the recognition of wolves. As I have watched the movement from biblical faithfulness to liberalism in persons and institutions that I have known over the years, this feature stands out: An emotional disenchantment with faithfulness to what is old and fixed, and an emotional preoccupation with what is new or fashionable or relevant in the eyes of the world.

Let's try to say it another way: when this feature is prevalent, you don't get the impression that a person really longs to bring his mind and heart into conformity to fixed biblical truth. Instead you see the desire to picture biblical truth as unfixed, fluid, indefinable, distant, inaccessible, and so open to the trends of the day.

So what marks a possible wolf-in-the-making is not simply that he rejects or accepts any particular biblical truth, but that he isn't deeply oriented on the Bible. He is more oriented on experience. He isn't captured by the great old faith once for all delivered to the saints. Instead he's enamored by what is new and innovative.

A good elder can be creative. But the indispensable mark when it comes to doctrinal fitness is faithfulness to what is fixed in Scripture—disciplined, humble submission to the particular affirmations of the Bible—carefully and reverently studied and explained and cherished. When that spirit begins to go, there's a wolf-in-the-making.

So the third incentive for elders is the ever-present danger of wolves in sheep's clothing who twist the truth and lead the people away to destruction.

4. Paul's Personal Example

The last incentive for elders to be vigilant is Paul's personal example. Verse 31: "Therefore, be alert, remembering that for three years I did not cease night or day to admonish everyone with tears."

If the great apostle worked night and day; if he worked with everyone; if he worked with tears; then how much more should little peons like me and the other elders of Bethlehem pour out our lives day and night with tears for this church!



John Piper (@JohnPiper) is founder and teacher of desiringGod.org and chancellor of Bethlehem College & Seminary. For 33 years, he served as pastor of Bethlehem Baptist Church, Minneapolis, Minnesota. He is author of more than 50 books, including Desiring God: Meditations of a Christian Hedonist and most recently Why I Love the Apostle Paul: 30 Reasons.

Further Dangers of Attractionalism - Dave DeVries

Dr. Dave DeVries 

This is a continuation from a previous post entitled: The Danger of Attractionalism

Attractionalism is the belief that creating an appealing church service and programs will attract unbelievers to come to church.

A second danger of attractionalism is that it misdirects the focus of church gatherings. When the church comes together, the purpose is not primarily to evangelize lost people. Rather, believers gather together to worship Jesus corporately and to be equipped for mission and ministry. It is not about “what the church service does for unbelievers as much as how well the service equips believers to ‘be’ in the world.” (Tim Willard, “Brilliant Irrelevance”)

A third danger is that people are attracted and won to the church instead of to Jesus
It’s possible for us to witness to our friends and get them all fired up and started to church without ever mentioning Jesus. The result is that they’re won to the church rather than to the Lord. They come into the body with all kinds of false assumptions and unrealistic expectations. They begin their faith experience with their hopes and dreams pinned on a group of imperfect people rather than the Lord of the universe. How can they help but be disappointed? (see Atteberry’s The 10 Dumbest Things Christians Do, p25)

A fourth danger is that this strategy often grows a local church without enlarging the kingdom. Ed Stetzer points out: “Advertising claims of ‘programs for the whole family,’ ‘quality Bible teaching,’ and ‘full-featured choirs’ seem designed to attract members from other churches. But Jesus claimed that he had come to call outcasts rather than the righteous.” (Planting Missional Churches, p 43)

To truly be missionaries in their neighborhoods, Christians must not focus on attracting people to church. Instead, efforts must focus on incarnationally displaying the gospel to everyone everywhere. “It can never be sufficient to constantly construct programmes designed to pull people into sacred space, we have to also consider how we might invade secular space.” (Invading Secular Space, p 29)

A fifth danger in the attractional-invitational strategy is that when believers try to “invite, entice, coerce, or otherwise lure the unchurched to become involved in church life,” it requires an unbeliever to “take the first step and cross a cultural boundary in order to connect with God.” (Ortlip, “The 7 Languages of Culture”)

Jesus did not seek the lost in this way; Jesus always took the initiative to cross cultural barriers in order to reach people. He entered their world. He did not require them to enter His world.

Churches should not focus all the energies on marketing and making church attractive to lost people. Frost and Hirsch believe that “the attractional mode is so pervasive and so entrenched in the Western church that those who have grown up in it sometimes have a kind of default program in their imaginations.” (p 67)

However, imagine if the energies focused on getting lost people to come to church were invested in training and equipping every believer to be a missionary in their neighborhoods, schools and workplaces. Imagine if church services were intentionally focused every weekend on equipping believers as missionary disciplemakers. What would happen if churches stopped trying to attract “unchurched” people to come and hear the gospel in church and started equipping believers to go and proclaim the gospel and make disciples?

Disciplemaking has the potential to reach many more people for Christ. As Len Sweet observes, “The time for getting people to come to church is over. It is time now to get people to come to Christ.” (Faithquakes, p 28)

Attractionalism (the belief that creating an appealing church service and programs will attract unbelievers to come to church) needs to be abandoned!

Dr. Dave DeVries is a coach, trainer, author and founder of Missional Challenge. He is passionate about coaching and training church planters and missional leaders. With 30+ years of church planting and leadership development experience, Dave brings his passion and encouragement to those he trains and coaches.

The danger of Attractionalism - Dave DeVries

Dr. Dave DeVries

Attractionalism is the belief that creating an appealing church service and programs will attract unbelievers to come to church.

I begin here with an important distinction: Attractionalism is not the same thing as being attractive or seeking to attract people to Christ. Some members of “attractional” churches are adopting missional behaviors and practices. However, the majority of members in these churches have abandoned personal responsibility for showing and sharing the truth of the gospel. Instead, they expect the church services and the paid professionals to accomplish the evangelistic ministry of the church. This abdication of personal responsibility to join Jesus in His mission, coupled with churches that design church services to attract unbelievers to church, are significant obstacles to missional activity.

Many churches in America have adopted an approach to church services that seeks to remove any and all barriers that keep unbelievers from coming on Sunday. Yet in the first century, the “fellowship meetings of the Christians were not at all meant to be attractive for outsiders, because they were not designed for them.” (Simson, Houses the Change the World, p 45)

This strategy of designing worship services for unbelievers has been described in Rick Warren’s The Purpose Driven Church. In Part Four: Bringing In a Crowd, Warren explains how to design seeker-sensitive services, select your music, and preach to the unchurched. Since Jesus attracted enormous crowds (multitudes), it is suggested that a Christlike ministry will attract crowds. All you have to do is to minister the way that Jesus did.

Certainly, if Christians loved unbelievers like Jesus did and started meeting genuine needs in the community beyond the walls of the church (physical, emotional, relational, and financial), then many more churches would be truly missional. I agree with Warren that it is both right and necessary to emphasize the need for churches/Christians to meet genuine needs.

Look behind the hype of every growing church and you will find a common denominator: They have figured out a way to meet the real needs of people. A church will never grow beyond its capacity to meet needs. If your church is genuinely meting needs, then attendance will be the least of your problems—you’ll have to lock the doors to keep people out. (p 221)

However, many Christian leaders think this “attraction evangelism” is in conflict with Jesus command to “Go therefore and make disciples” (Matt 28:19). The argument is stated in Invading Secular Space by Robinson and Smith: “The world is asked to come and see, rather than the church going, living, and telling in and through all of its normal daily activities and relationships. What had been designed by God, and empowered by the Spirit to be in the world, becomes locked away in place and programme.” (p 99)

While Warren argues that “both ‘Go and tell’ and ‘Come and see’ are found in the New Testament” (p 235), Frost and Hirsch insist that “the Come-To-Us stance taken by the attractional church is unbiblical. It’s not found in the Gospels or the Epistles. Jesus, Paul, the disciples, the early church leaders all had a Go-To-Them mentality.” (The Shaping of Things to Come, p 19)

The issue is not that unbelievers should never come to a worship service. Paul instructed the church in Corinth to be aware that unbelievers may enter when the church is assembled together (1 Cor 14:23–24). It is often natural for Christians to invite their unbelieving friends to attend with them. Certainly many Christians in America first heard the message of the gospel in a church service. The issue is, as Ed Stetzer states, “attraction is not enough.” (Planting Missional Churches, p 17)

In American Christianity, there is a growing tendency among churches to believe that if they change the worship service to be more appealing or attractive to the unchurched, then unbelievers will start coming to church. Making changes because you believe it will get unbelievers to go to church is attractionalism and it is an obstacle to missional activity.

Under the banner of reaching the unchurched, we spend much time thinking up ways to make this sacred hour on Sundays relevant to them so that they will want to come Do we really think that they will actually be impressed by our performance and that this will lead them to want to be among the church? Is making them churched a sufficient objective? (Cole, Organic Church, p xxiv-xxv)

Attractionalism is dangerous for several reasons. First, it falsely assumes that non-Christians are simply turned off to church; that people do not come because church is boring or irrelevant. If we can convince them that our church is not like the church they do not want to go to, then we might just convince them to come.

Frost and Hirsch observe:

By anticipating that if they get their internal features right, people will flock to the services, the church betrays its belief in attractionalism. It’s like the Kevin Costner character in the film Field of Dreams being told by a disembodied voice, “If you build it, they will come.” How much of the traditional church’s energy goes into adjusting their programs and their public meetings to cater to an unseen constituency? If we get our seating, our parking, our children’s program, our preaching, and our music right, they will come. This assumes that we have a place in our society and that people don’t join our churches because, though they want to be Christians, they’re unhappy with the product. (p 19)

When I started Lake Hills Church in Castaic, California, we went door to door and asked the question, “Why do you think most people don’t go to church?” We thought this question was a clever way of asking, “Why don’t you go to church?

We compiled a list of answers and concluded that we could reach the people in our community and get them to go to church if we started a church that removed these barriers. Our focus was to create an environment that would welcome unchurched people and hopefully provide a place where they would meet Jesus and choose to follow Him.

We mailed several flyers to the community with this underlying message: come to our church because we’re not like the church you don’t want to go to.” We saw ourselves as a church for unchurched people. We consciously made decisions to change the way we did church, believing it would enable more people to enter the kingdom. And to some extent, it worked. Unchurched people came and some became followers of Jesus. But I wonder if we created the wrong expectation that church is all about you.

The more we attracted people, the more we needed to keep doing the things that attracted them. Our energies were consumed with preparing an attractional event on Sunday, which left less time and energy to devote to disciplemaking. Neil Cole observers, “Do we really think that our great programs will impress the non-Christians in our community to such an extent that they will say, ‘Hey, that’s a nice sign. And check out the parking lot. Wow, I want to be a Christian, too.’” (p 95)

Here is the reality: your neighbor or boss is not likely to get excited about coming to your church because you have a great worship band with beautiful back-up singers and video announcements and practical teaching and excellent children’s programs and an offering box in the back instead of an offering plate that is passed down the aisle. And the checker at the grocery store is not going to suddenly want to come to your church when you tell her you have rugs and candles and dim lighting and stations for journaling and reflection and prayer.

There is nothing wrong with changing the way you “do church.” Quite frankly, many changes are necessary. The problem is when someone thinks that changing the worship service will actually make going to church more compelling or attractive to non-believers. Designing worship services to appeal to spiritual seekers misses the entire point of the Great Commission. Jesus did not send His followers to invite everyone to a church service to hear about the cross and the resurrection. He sent them to go and proclaim the good news of the cross and the resurrection.

I am not against Christians inviting their friends to church. I have invited my friends to come to our church to see what it is about. I have encouraged believers to bring friends with them. I have attempted to warmly welcome visitors and to explain the Bible, the gospel, and what it means to follow Jesus. It would be rude to be unfriendly or to assume that what we do makes sense to unbelievers. Much about the way we do church needs to be explained to unbelievers when they come.

However, changing the way we do church to attract non-Christians is a slippery slope. How far will you go to accommodate non-believers? How many barriers are you willing to remove? Will you choose not to confront sin in order to get them to come back? I was amazed when one large church in Southern California changed the words to the song Amazing Grace, removing the word “wretch” from the third line. Many churches have compromised the truth in order to attract people to their church. They have paid too great a cost

People don’t need to go to church to find Jesus, grace, forgiveness and transformation. They need to repent after embracing the gospel of the cross.

Changing the way you do church will not necessarily get people to come. The mission of the church is not to get more people to go to church; the mission is to “go and make disciples.” Let’s learn to incarnationally display the gospel to those around us. That’s attractive!



Dr. Dave DeVries is a coach, trainer, author and founder of Missional Challenge. He is passionate about coaching and training church planters and missional leaders. With 30+ years of church planting and leadership development experience, Dave brings his passion and encouragement to those he trains and coaches.

The Importance of the Local Church - Todd McCauley

Hey there my fellow Bible readers. I hope that your DAILY time in God’s word is blessing your socks off, I know my socks are lying on the floor. WOW!!! I am loving the book of Acts. The connections that are being made are fascinating. In the Text that I read the other day, Acts 18:24-28, I learned about a man named Apollos (No, not Apollo Creed). Apollos was a mean, lean Scripture machine, which is what I hope we ALL become. My take away from this passage was not just a character study of the man Apollos, but a character study of the Church. You’ve heard the old adage, “Behind every good man is a good woman”. Well, Behind every good believer is a good Church. This passage gives us three reasons why the local church is important. Before I explore those reasons, let me define what is meant by “local Church”. First off let me tell you what the local church is NOT: A. The local church is NOT a brick and mortar BUILDING on the corner. B. The local Church is NOT a DENOMINATION. C. The local Church is NOT a political ORGANIZATION. D. The local church is NOT an INDIVIDUAL. So, what IS the local church? The New Testament is clear, the local church is a GROUP of Christians (i.e., a BODY of believers) who regularly gather in Christ’s name to accomplish His purposes (cf, Heb 10:25; Eph 1:22-23; Col 1:18; 1 Cor 12:12-31). Okay, So why is the local church important? Like I stated at the outset, Acts 18:24-28 gives three reasons why the local church is important to the follower of Christ. From here on out I will refer to the local church as the “Body of Christ”. Reason number one: The Body of Christ DISCIPLES us. Acts 18:24 states that Apollos, “...knew the Scriptures well….” Well, HOW did He know the Scriptures well? Verse 25 states that, “He had been TAUGHT the way of the Lord….”. When he arrives in Ephesus, he meets Priscilla and Aquila who after hearing him preach take him aside in order to explain the way of God even more accurately. Priscilla and Aquila notice some gaps in His theology and they lovingly bring him up to speed (Gang, we call this discipleship).
Reason number two: The Body of Christ ENCOURAGES us. Verse 27 states that Apollos had been thinking about going to Corinth for ministry. Well guess what? The brothers and Sisters in the Ephesian Church ENCOURAGED him to go. They saw Apollos’ vision for ministry and they gave him enthusiastic support.
Reason number three: The Body of Christ COMMENDS us. Verse 27 states that not only did the Ephesian Believers encourage Apollos but they also COMMENDED him. How did they commend Him? They wrote a letter to the Corinthian believers asking them to welcome him. “Hey, Corinthian brothers and sisters, accept our brother Apollos, embrace him, he’s a good faithful brother in the Lord, we hold him in the highest regard”. If you recall Acts chapter 6 there was a need to choose some men to fill the role of Deacons. It was the CONGREGATION that did the commending (Acts 6:3-6). If you’re not part and parcel of a local body of believers. I encourage you to start the journey of finding one today. Why? Because apart from the local Church you will not experience the Discipleship, Encouragement and Commendation that you need and deserve as a follower of Christ. Blessings, Rev. Todd

When does human life begin? - Dr. Tommy Mitchell

When does human life begin? This question has confounded individuals and divided our society.

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Update: June 29, 2016

43 years ago, the US Supreme Court’s decision in the infamous Roe v. Wade case struck down state laws prohibiting abortion, thus making the killing of an unborn child legal in all 50 states. Since that fateful day, more than 59 million babies have been legally slain in the womb. Today’s article shows what the vast majority of people, including doctors, already know to be true—life begins at the moment of fertilization. Sadly, this fact has not deterred those who, for whatever reason, think a woman’s “right” to an abortion is more important than the child’s right to live.

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When does human life begin? This question has confounded individuals and divided our society. Opinions have come from the right and the left, from pro-life advocates and those in favor of abortion on demand, from physicians and lawyers, from the pulpit and the courtroom.

When did I begin to be me? Is this a scientific question or a theological one?1 Would this question be best left to scientists or to preachers and philosophers? Information and viewpoints from secular scientific sources and from theologians will be examined in this chapter, but the ultimate answer can have no authority unless that answer is based squarely on the Word of God. The Bible, because it is true, will not disagree with genuine science. Furthermore, the Bible is the only valid and consistent basis for making moral judgments, since it comes from the Creator of the whole world and all people in it. Any other basis for judgment would be a useless clamor of divergent, man-made opinions.

Who Is More Human?

Life is a continuum. From the season of growing in the womb to being born, from playing as a child to growing older, each stage of life seems to blend gracefully (or not so gracefully in my case) into the next. Life progresses and time passes, culminating in death. Death, a very visible end point, is more easily defined than the point at which the continuum of human life begins.

Where is the starting point? If life is indeed a continual process, can we not just work backward to its beginning? There are a variety of opinions about life’s beginnings. Many say life begins at fertilization. Others argue strongly that life does not start until implantation in the womb. Still others say that human life begins only when the umbilical cord is cut, making the newborn child an independent agent. How is fact separated from opinion?

Perhaps another way to ask the question is, When do we become human? Certainly a child sitting on grandpa’s knee or a fully grown adult would be considered human. Is the adult more human than the child? Of course not. No reasonable person would consider the child to be less human. At what point along the journey did this child become human? Was it at fertilization, somewhere during his development, or at birth?

The Process

The initial event along the road of human development is fertilization. Twenty-three chromosomes from the mother and 23 chromosomes from the father are combined at the time of fertilization. At this point, the genetic makeup of the individual is determined. At this time, a unique individual, known as a zygote, begins to exist. But is this zygote human?

This zygote then divides again and again. Some cells develop into the placenta and are essential for implantation. Other cells develop into the anatomical parts of the baby.2 The number of cells increases rapidly, and the name changes as the number increases. By the time this rapidly dividing ball of cells arrives in the uterus, it is called a blastocyst. Implantation in the uterine wall normally occurs about six days after fertilization.3

For reasons unclear to medical science, the mass of cells sometimes splits to produce identical twins. These twins are called identical because their sets of chromosomes are identical. Depending upon the stage of development when the split occurs, the twins may share certain placental parts, but the twins produced are distinct individuals. If the split occurs between the 13th and 15th days, the twins will actually share body parts, a condition known as conjoined twins, commonly called Siamese twins. (After that time, development and differentiation are too far along to allow successful splitting.)

Even though the names arbitrarily change throughout this process and certain milestones in development are evident, the process set in motion at the moment of fertilization is a continuous chain of events. In this sequence, groups of cells multiply and develop into specific body parts with amazing precision and a remarkably low rate of error, considering the complexity of changes that must occur. However, at no time in this process is there a scientific point at which the developing individual clearly “becomes a person,” any more than a baby becomes more human when it walks, talks, or is weaned. These milestones in zygote, blastocyst, embryonic, and fetal development are simply descriptions of anatomy, not hurdles met in the test of humanness. From a scientific point of view, the words are arbitrary and purely descriptive.

Can Science Help?

Scientists have studied the marvelous process previously described for decades. The changes in the form of the embryo through each stage are well documented. The question still remains, at what point does human life begin? There are numerous positions on this. Some of these will be reviewed here.

A Genetic Position

The simplest view is based on genetics. Those who hold this position argue that since a genetically unique individual is created at the time of fertilization, each human life begins at fertilization. The zygote formed at fertilization is different from all others and, if it survives, will grow into a person with his or her own unique set of genes. In this view, the terms fertilization and conception are interchangeable. Thus, in this view, life would be said to begin at conception.

The phenomenon of twinning is sometimes used to argue against this position. Until about day 14, there is the possibility that the zygote will split, producing twins. Those who oppose a genetic view say that there is no uniqueness to the zygote, no humanness or person-hood, until the potential for twinning has passed. They ask, if the zygote is an individual “person” at fertilization, then what is the nature of that “person-hood” if the zygote should split into two individuals?

Another objection to this view is the fact that many fertilized eggs never successfully implant. An estimated 20–50 percent of fertilizations die or are spontaneously aborted.4 Thus, those who raise this objection hold that, since there are such a large number of zygotes that never fully develop, those zygotes are not truly human.

However, neither of the objections can be so easily supported. The twinning objection falls short when one considers the problem presented by the existence of so-called Siamese twins. In these cases, the zygote does not completely split, and the children are born joined together, often sharing certain body organs. Nonetheless, both twins have distinct personalities and are distinct individuals. Here the “person-hood” obviously could not be granted after twinning since the process was never completed.

The second objection, the high loss rate of zygotes, is also not logical. The occurrence of spontaneous abortions does not mean that the lost were not fully human, any more than the development of some deadly disease in a child makes the child suddenly nonhuman.

The Implantation View

An increasingly heard viewpoint today is related to the implantation of the blastocyst into the uterine lining. This implantation process begins on day six following fertilization and can continue until around day nine. Some now suggest that it is not until this time that the zygote can be called human life. However, achieving implantation does not make the individual more human; rather, implantation makes the individual more likely to survive.

Interestingly enough, the popularity of this view has led to some changes in how some define conception. Until recently, conception was synonymous with fertilization. In fact, in the 26th edition of Stedman’s Medical Dictionary, conception was defined as the “act of conceiving, or becoming pregnant; fertilization of the oocyte (ovum) by a spermatozoon to form a viable zygote.”5 Conception was defined as the time of fertilization.

However, something interesting happened in the next five years. In the 27th edition of Stedman’s Medical Dictionary, conception is defined as follows: “Act of conceiving; the implantation of the blastocyte in the endometrium.”6 Note here that implantation is now the defining point in conception. The scientific community arbitrarily, without any scientific justification, redefined the starting point of life.

According to the redefined view, a zygote less than nine or so days old, having not yet completed implantation, would not be considered alive. If it is not alive, it certainly cannot be human. This change was completely arbitrary, for there was no basic change in the understanding of the developmental process that would make this redefinition necessary.

The new definition would, however, have great implications in the political, ethical, and moral arenas. Personal and governmental decision-making on such issues as embryonic stem cell research, cloning, and the so-called “morning-after pill” directly depends on the validity of this definition. If preimplantation blastocysts were not really alive, they could be guiltlessly harvested or destroyed prior to the six-to-nine day mark because “conception” had not yet occurred.

The Embryological View

The embryological view holds that human life begins 12–14 days after fertilization, the time period after which identical twins would not occur. (Embryo can refer to the developing baby at two to three weeks after fertilization or more loosely to all the stages from zygote to fetus.) No individuality and therefore no humanness is considered to exist until it is not possible for twinning to happen. Here, the initial zygote is not human and possesses no aspect of “person-hood.” As stated previously, this line of reasoning fails because of the shortcoming of the twinning argument itself. Specifically, the fact that conjoined (Siamese) twins are distinct persons is undeniable; their humanity is not obviated by the fact that they share body parts.

The Neurologic View

In this view, human life begins when the brain of the fetus has developed enough to generate a recognizable pattern on an electroencephalogram (EEG). Here, it is proposed that humanness is attained when the brain has matured to the point that the appropriate neural pathways have developed.7 This point is reached at about 26 weeks after fertilization. After this level of maturation has been achieved, the fetus is presumably able to engage in mental activity consistent with being human.

Others take a different view of neurological maturation and propose that human life begins at around 20 weeks gestation. This is the time when the thalamus, a portion of the brain that is centrally located, is formed. The thalamus is involved in processing information before the information reaches the cerebral cortex and also is a part of a complex system of neural connections that play a role in consciousness.

These distinctions are arbitrary. The developing brain does display some electrical activity before the 26-week mark. It could just as easily be argued that any brain activity would constitute humanness.

The Ecological View

Proponents of the ecological view hold that the fetus is human when it reaches a level of maturation when it can exist outside the mother’s womb.8 In other words, a fetus is human when it can live separated from its mother. Here the limiting factor is usually not neurological development, but rather the degree of maturation of the lungs.

This view of humanness presents a very interesting problem. The problem is that, over the last century, we have been becoming human earlier and earlier. Here the issue is not the actual stage of development of the fetus. The limiting factor rather is the current state of medical technology. For example, some 20 years ago the age of viability of a prematurely born fetus was about 28 weeks; today it is around 24 weeks. Thus, in this view, man himself, through his advances in technology, can grant humanness where it did not previously exist!

The Birthday View

Some hold the position that human life begins only at the point when the baby is born. Here the baby is human when the umbilical cord is cut, and the child survives based on the adequate functioning of its own lungs, circulatory system, etc.

The shortcoming of this reasoning is that even after birth, the child is not truly independent of its mother. Without care from someone, an infant would die very shortly after birth. This supposed “independence” is very much an arbitrary concept.

Other Views

There are still other points of view as to the question of when human life begins. Some suggest that a fetus is human when the mother can feel it move in the womb. Others say that humanness begins when the child takes its first breath on its own. Francis Crick, one of the co-discoverers of the structure of DNA, says that a child should not be declared “human” until three days after birth.9

There are clearly significant differences in the way that the scientific community views the beginning of life. There is no obvious consensus among scientists about when human life begins. So, can science really help us answer this question? Perhaps science, by its nature, is not capable of dealing directly with this problem. Scott Gilbert, PhD, professor of biology at Swarthmore College, notes, “If one does not believe in a ‘soul,’ then one need not believe in a moment of ensoulment. The moments of fertilization, gastrulation, neurulation, and birth, are then milestones in the gradual acquisition of what it is to be human. While one may have a particular belief in when the embryo becomes human, it is difficult to justify such a belief solely by science.”10

If Not Science, Then What?

If science cannot give us the answer, then is there another place we can turn? As Christians, we should turn to the Bible, God’s Word, to see if there is a solution to this dilemma.

Psalm 139:13–16

Perhaps the most often quoted portion of Scripture on this subject is Psalm 139:13–16.

For You formed my inward parts:
You covered me in my mother’s womb.
I will praise You, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made;
Marvelous are Your works,
And that my soul knows very well.
My frame was not hidden from You,
When I was made in secret,
And skillfully wrought in the lowest parts of the earth.
Your eyes saw my substance, being yet unformed.
And in Your book they all were written,
The days fashioned for me,
When as yet there were none of them.

Here we read about God knowing the Psalmist while he was “yet unformed,” while he was being “made in secret,” in a place invisible to human eyes. The uses of the personal pronouns in these verses indicate that there was, indeed, a person present before birth. R.C. Sproul notes, “Scripture does assume a continuity of life from before the time of birth to after the time of birth. The same language and the same personal pronouns are used indiscriminately for both stages.”11

Jeremiah 1:4–5

Then the word of the Lord came to me, saying:
“Before I formed you in the womb I knew you;
Before you were born I sanctified you;
I ordained you a prophet to the nations.”

Here God tells Jeremiah that he was set apart before he was born. This would indicate that there was person-hood present before Jeremiah’s birth. The verse even indicates that God considered Jeremiah a person and that he was known before he was formed. Sproul indicates, “Even those who do not agree that life begins before birth grant that there is continuity between a child that is conceived and a child that is born. Every child has a past before birth. The issue is this: Was that past personal, or was it impersonal with person-hood beginning only at birth?”12

Psalm 51:5

This verse is frequently used to make the case for human life beginning at fertilization. It reads:

Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity,
And in sin my mother conceived me.

The most often heard interpretation of this passage is that the author, David, sees that he was sinful even at the time he was conceived. If he was not a person, then it follows that he could not have a sinful human nature at that time. A prehuman mass of cells could not have any basis for morality. Only the “humanness” occurring at the time of fertilization would allow David to possess a sinful nature at that time.

Life Before Birth

These Scriptures reveal that there is person-hood before birth. The personal nature of the references in the Bible shows how God views the unborn child. Another text frequently used to prove the humanness of the fetus is found in the first chapter of Luke:

Now Mary arose in those days and went into the hill country with haste, to a city of Judah, and entered the house of Zacharias and greeted Elizabeth. And it happened, when Elizabeth heard the greeting of Mary, that the babe leaped in her womb; and Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit. Then she spoke out with a loud voice and said, “Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb! But why is this granted to me, that the mother of my Lord should come to me? For indeed, as soon as the voice of your greeting sounded in my ears, the babe leaped in my womb for joy” (Luke 1:39-44).

We read in this passage of a meeting between Mary the mother of Jesus and Elizabeth, her cousin, the mother of John the Baptist. Here Elizabeth describes the life in her womb as “the babe.” God’s inspired Word reports Elizabeth’s assessment that John “leaped” in the womb because of the presence of Jesus. Some try to discount this episode as a miracle, claiming it does not relate to the person-hood of the unborn. Nonetheless, God’s Word describes this unborn child as capable of exhibiting joy in the presence of his Savior.

Are the Unborn of Less Worth?

Exodus 21 has been put forth by some to suggest the God himself holds that the life of an unborn is less valuable than the life of an adult.

If men fight, and hurt a woman with child, so that she gives birth prematurely, yet no harm follows, he shall surely be punished accordingly as the woman’s husband imposes on him; and he shall pay as the judges determine. But if any harm follows, then you shall give life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot . . . (Exodus 21:22–24).

This verse gives directions for dealing with a situation in which two men are fighting and they accidentally harm a pregnant woman. Two circumstances are noted here. The first situation is when the woman gives birth prematurely and “no harm follows.” The common interpretation states that here the child is lost due to a premature birth, and the woman herself does not suffer a serious injury. Here the penalty is a fine of some type to compensate for the loss of the child.

The second circumstance is “if any harm follows.” Here the common interpretation is that the woman gives birth prematurely, the child dies, and the woman herself dies. Here the penalty is life for life. It is argued that since there is only a fine imposed in the first circumstance for the loss of only the premature child while the death penalty is imposed for the loss of the mother, the unborn is less valuable than an adult. Thus, the unborn need not be considered to have achieved full humanness before birth.

However, upon closer examination, this type of interpretation may not be valid. The “harm” indicated in these verses may refer to the child and not to the mother. In the first circumstance, the injured mother gives birth prematurely and no “harm” comes to the child. In other words, the premature child lives. Thus, a fine is levied for causing the premature birth and the potential danger involved. In the second situation, there is a premature birth and the “harm” that follows is the death of the child. Here the penalty is life for life. Therefore, the Bible does not hold that the life of the unborn is less valuable than the life of an adult.

John Frame, in the book Medical Ethics, says this, “There is nothing in Scripture that even remotely suggests that the unborn child is anything less than a human person from the moment of conception”13 (emphasis his). Here, conception is meant to imply the time of fertilization.

So Where Are We?

A purely scientific examination of human development from the moment of fertilization until birth provides no experimental method that can gauge humanness. Stages of maturation have been described and cataloged. Chemical processes and changes in size and shape have been analyzed. Electrical activity has been monitored. However, even with this vast amount of knowledge, there is no consensus among scientists as to where along this marvelous chain of events an embryo (or zygote or fetus or baby, depending upon who is being asked) becomes human.

Science has, however, revealed the intricate developmental continuum from fertilization, through maturation, to the birth of the child. Each stage flows seamlessly into the next with a myriad of detailed embryological changes followed by organ growth and finely tuned development choreographed with precision. The more we learn about the process, the more amazingly complex we find it to be.

Life Begins at Fertilization

Although science has shown us the wonderful continuity of the development of life throughout all its stages, science has been unable to define the onset of humanness. However, there is ample information in Scripture for us to determine the answer to this problem.

The Bible contains numerous references to the unborn.14 Each time the Bible speaks of the unborn, there is reference to an actual person, a living human being already in existence. These Scriptures, taken in context, all indicate that God considers the unborn to be people. The language of the text continually describes them in personal terms.

Since the Bible treats those persons yet unborn as real persons, and since the development of a person is a continuum with a definite beginning at the moment of fertilization, the logical point at which a person begins to be human is at that beginning. The answer is that life begins at fertilization. Frankly, no other conclusion is possible from Scripture or science.

What are the implications of this conclusion? Why is this important? Quite simply, the status of the zygote/embryo/fetus is central to many issues facing our society. The most obvious issue in this regard is abortion. If the zygote is a human life, then abortion is murder. The same can be said of issues surrounding the embryonic stem cell debate. If the embryo is human, then destroying it is murder, no matter what supposedly altruistic reason is given as justification. The ethics of cloning require consideration of the concept of humanness and the timing of its onset. A person’s acceptance or rejection of the controversial morning-after pill is based upon the determination of when human life begins.15

Complex issues may not have simple solutions, but when examined objectively in light of God’s Word, without biases introduced by other motivations, God’s truth will reveal the correct answers. Science can give us better understanding of the world God created, and what we see in God’s world will agree with the truth we read in God’s Word. We dare not play word games with human life to justify personal agendas. Scripture provides no real loopholes or escape clauses to excuse us from the principle that God created human beings in His own image, designed them to reproduce after their kind, and sent Jesus Christ into the world as a human being to die for us all, thus demonstrating the inestimable love our Creator has for each human life.

Footnotes

1. The answer to the question “What is life?” is beyond the scope of this article. There are several excellent resources dealing with this topic: James Stambaugh, “ ‘Life’ According to the Bible, and the Scientific Evidence,” TJ 6, no. 2 (1992): 98–121, online at www.answersingenesis.org/tj/v6/i2/life.asp; and Jonathan Sarfati, “The Fall: A Cosmic Catastrophe,” https://creation.com/images/pdfs/tj/j19_3/j19_3_60-64.pdf.

2. This process, called differentiation, is the process by which the dividing cells gradually become different from one another.

3. The name of the rapidly diving ball of cells continues to change as size and shape changes, with the name embryo being assigned at about three weeks after fertilization. The term fetus is used from about the eighth week of development.

4. Christian Answers Net, “Does Life Begin Only When the Embryo Implants?” www.christiananswers.net/q-sum/q-life014.html.

5. Stedman’s Medical Dictionary, 26th edition (Baltimore: Williams & Wilkins, 1995), p. 377.

6. Stedman’s Medical Dictionary, 27th edition (Baltimore: Williams & Wilkins, 2000), p. 394.

7. H.J. Morowitz and J.S. Trefil, The Facts of Life: Science and the Abortion Controversy (New York: Oxford University Press, 1992).

8. Scott Gilbert, “When Does Human Life Begin?” Developmental Biology 11e Online, http://11e.devbio.com/wt0101.html.

9. Mark Blocher, Vital Signs (Chicago, IL: Moody Press, 1992), p. 91.

10. Gilbert, “When Does Human Life Begin?”

11. R.C. Sproul, Abortion: A Rational Look at an Emotional Issue (Colorado Springs, CO: NavPress, 1990), p. 53–54.

12. Ibid., p. 55.

13. John Frame, Medical Ethics (Phillipsburg, NJ: Presbyterian and Reformed Publishing Company, 1988), p. 95.

14. See also Genesis 25:21–23; Isaiah 45.

15. David Menton, “Plan B: Over-the-Counter Abortion?” Answers in Genesis, www.answersingenesis.org/articles/am/v2/n1/plan-b.