As a Pastor, it is no secret that I am always looking for good resources to enlighten my parishioners as to how we can become a better church. Thus, it should come as no surprise that I have wanted to read Mark Dever's Nine Marks of a Healthy Church for a long time now. It is a pleasure to finally have gotten to read.
Dever sets out to write a book that will address the nine most important factors impacting churches, specifically those in the American culture. For those who do not know, Dever is a Cambridge graduate that pastors Capitol Hill Baptist Church in Washington, DC., one of the larger Reformed Southern Baptist Churches in America. Through his work at IX Marks, as well as his connections with other large Reformed ministries such as Ligonier, Desiring God, and the Acts 29 Network, Dever is one of the figures in the Reformed movement that has maintained integrity whilst establishing admiration.
To begin, the book has a powerful foreword by David Platt, in which Platt claims that while "the nine marks contained here may not be the marks you would immediately identify as central to the church..." and "you may think some of them are questionable and others of them are controversial" they are nonetheless valuable to study and apply because "these nine marks are biblical."
Dever is clear to point out early that this is not an ecclesiastical guidebook, or even a Pastoral guidebook in the likeness of Hughes' Pastor's Book (my comparison, not Dever's). Rather, this book is an attempt to identify the nine most important factors, nothing more, nothing less. What are those factors?
Expositional Preaching
Biblical Theology
The Gospel
A Biblical Understanding of Conversion
A Biblical Understanding of Evangelism
A Biblical Understanding of Church Membership
Biblical Church Discipline
A Concern for Discipleship and Growth
Biblical Church Leadership
Dever starts by separating the book in two, with Marks 1-5 in the first category which addresses how to correctly preach the Word of God. Marks 6-9 are in the second category, which addresses how to rightly lead disciples.
Marks 1-5
One thing that I think is important for every preacher to understand, which I had never heard before reading Nine Marks, is that when God sends a person to speak to His people (or even His enemies), He does not simply "commission them to go and speak" as Dever says, but rather, He gives them a "particular message to deliver." Thus, modern preachers must be cognizant of the fact that we are not simply "called to preach" but are specifically "called to preach God's Word." A pastor has no more right to step behind the sacred desk in the place of God and call out his thoughts and beliefs without the Word of God as the groundwork than any other person on Earth has that right.
By developing a church that is founded and grounded on the expositional preaching of the Word of God, we will find that churches develop a Biblical Theology - which Dever defines as a theology that is in line with the "great story of the Bible." Rather than developing a systematic theology of how to interpret the Bible in particular passages through the lens of other passages, Dever seeks to interpret particular passages in light of the sum of the other passages cumulatively. For example, the Exodus should not be seen as a story of our God removing us from hardship because He doesn't want His people to suffer - although some may present that as the meaning of the story. Rather, the Exodus should be viewed as a story that shows God's faithfulness and sovereignty, and which prefigured what He would do through Christ in redeeming His people from slavery (in Egypt here, and in sin later). This view of the Bible as one interconnected story will force Christians to see the broader scale of God's work, rather than trying to individualize and isolate every passage.
In order to understand the broader scale of God's work, and how that He has accomplished His work, Dever leads us to develop an accurate (to the Biblical text) view of what the Gospel actually is. He points out first what the Gospel is not:
The Gospel is not simply that we are okay.
The Gospel is not simply that God is Love.
The Gospel is not simply that Jesus wants to be our friend.
The Gospel is not simply that God will Renew Creation.
He then gives one of the best definitions of the Gospel that you will find anywhere, and which I encourage people to memorize. "The Gospel is that the one and only God, who is holy, made us in his image to know him. But we sinned and cut ourselves off from him. In his great love, God became a man in Jesus, lived a perfect life, and died on the cross, thus fulfilling the law himself, and taking on himself the punishment for the sins of those who would ever turn and trust in him. He rose again from the dead, showing that God accepted Christ's sacrifice and that God's wrath against us had been exhausted. He ascended and presented his completed work to his heavenly Father. He now sends out his Spirit to call us through this message to repent of our sins and to trust in Christ alone for our forgiveness. If we repent of our sins and trust in Christ we are born again into a new life, an eternal life with God."
Next, Dever addresses a Biblical view of Conversion, which is an interesting chapter that I had to read a couple of times to get, in all honesty. He points out dual truths, which are often neglected in the Reformed Community: That it is not that we do something for our salvation; and, that it is not that we do nothing for our salvation. The truth, that Dever points out, is that God initiates and works the work of salvation in us. Yet, he says, "conversion certainly includes our own actions. We must make a sincere commitment. We must make a self-conscious decision." This second point is what is so often neglected from Reformed soteriology, and it is the point that leads to the jump into hyper-calvinism. Dever is wise but bold to point this out in a book that will likely only be used by the Reformed community, because it is not a popular point to make that we play a part in the salvific process.
Finally, Dever points out that the methods of Biblical Evangelism are not regularly practiced anymore because they do not measure up to the standard grading rubric of success in the modern Christian world. In evangelism, God's definition of success is not immediate, nor is it numerically representable. God's definition of success (which is the only one that matters), is graded through faithfulness, growth, and persistence across time.
Marks 6-9
While most Christians will be content with his first 5 marks if they can stomach a generally Reformed disposition, many will likely find his final four marks (6,7,8,9) unpalatable. The first is the Biblical understanding of Church Membership, which entirely discards the modern American concept of having a name on a church role for life, or until requested to be removed. He points out (in one of his many good points) that failure to understand church membership has led to an increase in "carnal Christians" going unaddressed in our churches, which leads to churches having a bad name and a bad reputation in the world - without any distinguishing marks as different from the secular world around us.
Things only become more Biblical (and therefore less familiar to the modern American Christian) in the next chapter on Church Discipline. After laying out the usual insights of church growth experts, Dever levels the reader with recommendations that were so unforeseen, they may as well have been spoken by Christ after feeding the multitudes. Dever writes, "If we want to see our churches grow, we need to make it harder to join, and we need to be better about excluding people." Wow! He goes on to examine the Biblical, broad historical, direct historical, and rational case for church discipline, and "cousin, let me tell ya" it's a wonderful, wonderful thing to see.
In his 8th Mark, Dever points out that there is an absence in modern churches in regards to growth and discipleship. He sums it up perfectly when he says, "some today seem to think that one can be a 'baby Christian' for a whole lifetime. Growth is seen to be an optional extra for particularly zealous disciples... But when something stops growing, it dies." He responds to this popular idea in a masterfully way, saying, "It's no wonder that the lives of many professing Christians are such messes, when the churches of which they're a part are so confused on such a basic manner."
Concluding the book, Dever speaks towards Biblical Church leadership, which in short, is half a defense against anti-authoritarianism, and half a defense of the Biblical requirements of Church leaders. There should be nothing surprising in this chapter, except for a commendation to return to the Biblical positions of Pastors, Elders, and Deacons, rather than the more common Pastor-Deacon dichotomy found in many Baptist churches.
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