Updated August 29, 2006 (first published August 13, 2002) (David Cloud, Fundamental Baptist Information Service, P.O. Box 610368, Port Huron, MI 48061, 866-295-4143, fbns@wayoflife.org; for instructions about subscribing and unsubscribing or changing addresses, see the information paragraph at the end of the article) –

I receive a lot of correspondence from readers, and sometimes, after I read an e-mail or letter, I am left thinking that I must not be getting across the right message. The following are some of the messages that I do NOT want my readers to receive from my ministry:

1. I do not want my readers to think that an independent Baptist or fundamentalist Bible-believing church is apostate just because it has some things with which I do not agree. Let me make this very clear: I do not support those who separate themselves from all churches today. While I believe that God’s people must be discerning and cautious and not overlook error, at the same time we are to be patient and faithful to God’s ordained institution, the church, and to God-ordained pastoral authority, and I believe we should strive as much as possible for unity and not disunity among true believers. Both things are emphasized in Scripture, though it is not always a simple matter to obey both of them at one time. This is why I have been a faithful church member ever since I was saved 33 years ago, even though I have never been in a church that I considered anything like ideal! My article “Keys to Fruitful Church Membership” deals with this issue. If you think that you are justified to separate from all churches today because of David Cloud’s writings, you are mistaken. I do not preach that and I am not pleased when people do that.

2. SIMILARILY, I DO NOT WANT MY READERS TO THINK THAT THEY SHOULD HAVE A BAD ATTTIUDE TOWARD PASTORS AND CAUSE A LOT OF TROUBLE IN THEIR CHURCHES. If you have to leave a church, and there are many times when that becomes necessary because of sin and error, do so in a godly manner and leave a good testimony “as much as lieth in you.” I believe anything less is not the will of God. I realize that compromised Christians can be quite vicious and can tell lies about men and women who try to correct error, but we must be careful that we do not give occasion to the flesh and fight error in an ungodly manner. There is definitely a time to approach a pastor about problems, but this needs to be done in a godly and wise manner. God has given pastors great authority (Heb. 13:7, 17). Some of them, like Diotrephes of old, have abused their authority, it is true; but pastoral authority is of God, nonetheless. Not everyone in the church has the same authority. This does not mean that we overlook things that we believe are wrong. Pastor are not popes and they do not have unlimited authority (their authority is limited by the Bible) and have no right to demand unquestioning loyalty, and churches must not follow pastors in error; but as a church member, I must always remember that the pastor has authority that I do not have and that he, not me, will give an answer to God for pastoral decisions.

Recently I heard from a man who is in a church in which the pastor, a Bob Jones man, has apparently labeled him a troublemaker because of his defense of the King James Bible. He said there is not a good alternative church in his area and that his family is being blessed there. Some of you might strongly disagree with me, which is your privilege, but I instructed him as follows: “I understand the difficulty of your situation. Just stay there and pray much for the Lord’s will to be done in the church and in your family and be a fruitful church member who is a credit and honor to his Lord. You are not the pastor and you will not give an account for the decisions the pastor makes. Your presence and prayers just might keep the church from going over to the modern versions. Be gracious and patient in all of your dealings, and the Lord will use you. P.S. If the church actually goes over to the modern versions, I would strongly recommend that you get out. It would be good to be praying for God to send a man to your community who will take a stand for the preserved Scriptures and who understands the destructive character of modern textual criticism and to pray that if the time comes for a move, that your family will want to follow you. Be the kind of Christian husband and father that will make your wife and children want to follow your teaching and leadership.”

3. I do not want my readers to think that just because I warn about something in a man’s ministry or about an institution, IT meanS that I necessarily think that he or it is apostate. Dave Hunt is an example. I love Dave Hunt and am thankful for his ministry, but that does not mean I will close my eyes to what I believe are his errors. I disagree strongly with his relationship with the Calvary Chapels and with some other matters, and I feel so strongly about it that I have warned our readers, but at the same time I am thankful for all of the good things in his life and ministry. The same is true (to various degrees) for Peter Ruckman, Jack Hyles, Curtis Hutson, Jerry Falwell, the Baptist Bible Fellowship, Bob Jones University, Bill Gothard, the Fundamental Baptist Fellowship, and many others. I have given some type of warning about all of these people and institutions, but I do not consider them enemies of the faith. Unless an individual or institution is indeed apostate (to turn from the faith), meaning that it has gone off into a false gospel, a false christ, a false spirit, and other such cardinal matters, I believe we can mark error (public men and ministries require public judging) and still have a godly attitude toward those who err, meaning that we can still count them brethren and be thankful for them, even if we feel forced to point out things that are wrong and even if we feel that we must separate from them in some cases (2 Thess. 3:14-15). (By the way, if any of my readers happens to count some of these as truly apostate, that is your privilege, but I don’t.)

4. I DO NOT WANT MY READERS TO THINK THAT THEIR CHURCH SHOULD BE LIKE WAY OF LIFE LITERATURE. Some parts of my ministry, the warning part, is somewhat unbalanced of necessity. That is the nature of the Fundamental Baptist Information Service and even of O Timothy magazine, to a lesser degree. I have no intention of trying to be completely “balanced” with that part of my ministry. Those are voices of warning and exhortation. There are plenty of “positive, encouraging” ministries out there; that part of the equation is very well taken care of today. But there is little by way of serious and pointed warning. The name of Way of Life Literature came from my Bible reading one day about 28 years ago, when I read the words in Proverbs 6:23: “For the commandment is a lamp; and the law is light; and reproofs of instruction are the way of life.” I thought, that is what we need more of today; we need more reproofs of instruction, and, praise God, such reproofs are the way of life. If done in a godly manner, instructive reproof is not destructive but is edifying and life giving. To warn people of danger is to help them, if they will receive the warning. Thus, some parts of my ministry are quite “negative” on the whole and focus on pointing out heresy, exhorting to separation, and such things. At the same time, I would not want to be in a church that focused on these things. And I would not want to see anyone try to make the Fundamental Baptist Information Service their “church.” A church should most definitely preach against error plainly and warn about things. Most churches today fall very short of doing what they should in this area, but that is certainly not all that a church should be doing or even mostly what it should be doing. Separation is crucial, but separation in and of itself is nothing. Separation is merely the wall of protection that we put around the Lord’s work, but having separated, we must busy ourselves with that great work, which is described in Matt. 28:18-20.

When I preach in the churches we started in South Asia, I do not preach strictly about the type of things that appear in the Fundamental Baptist Information Service. Only rarely do I preach about “issue” type things, such as the charismatic movement. The overwhelming majority of my messages are about  prayer, holiness, separation from the world, evangelism and missions, love for Christ, faithfulness to the Lord’s work, Bible doctrine, and such.

The 15 Bible college courses I have developed for training preachers and church members do not focus on the type of things that appear in the Fundamental Baptist Information Service. They deal with such things as “How to Study the Bible,” “Bible Prophecy,” “Church History,” and “Bible History.” Only one of the courses deals exclusively with warning of error.

Even in my writing ministry, I do not focus exclusively on warning. The Way of Life Encyclopedia of the Bible & Christianity and Things Hard to Be Understood, for example, took more time to produce than probably all of the other things I have written combined, and they are tools for Bible study and general Christian living. Thus, even my ministry is by no means strictly a warning ministry.

Do you see what I am saying? Every church should warn plainly about error, but a church is not merely a warning station. Please don’t measure your church by the Fundamental Baptist Information Service or O Timothy magazine in the sense of thinking that your pastor should be like Brother Cloud. In that aspect of my ministry I am not a pastor; rather, I am exercising, I believe, a unique “prophetic” type ministry (not referring to prophecy as fore-telling, of course, but as forth-telling). My aim and desire is to be a help and blessing to pastors in providing them well-researched information to assist their ministries, knowing at the same time that there is much more to their ministries than warning about error.

5. LASTLY, I do not want my readers to think that I am anything. I have no desire to create a following of any sort. I do not consider myself better than anyone. I am confident that some of the people that I warn about are better Christians than I am in some areas of their lives and ministries. I am a big failure in many ways. I own no Christian perfection of any sort. I am just a man who was saved by God’s undeserving grace and called to preach His Word. I am convinced that God called me to this difficult ministry and I intend to accomplish it by His grace and I do think that I have exercised some zeal for it and am biblically qualified for it, but I was a nobody when he called me and I am a nobody today. I do not preach myself and I have no intention of doing so; I preach God’s Word. I do not measure things by my puny standard, but by that of God’s Word. At least that is my desire and intention. I want to measure myself by the same standard, and I invite my readers to measure me and other men by that same rule. “Prove all things; hold fast that which is good” (1 Thess. 5:21). John the Baptist was wise and godly when he said, “I must decrease.” That is what every preacher needs to say. The Apostle Paul said, “Follow me as I also follow Christ,” and we can and should say that; but we must also acknowledge that we are not apostles today. The only infallible authority is the Scriptures. There is no infallible preacher, none that are even close.