Primative or Landmark

Here some links for primitive baptist:

www.primitivebaptist.org
www.bibletruthforum.org

IMHO, and any Primitive Baptists on the BB can correct me if I am wrong, the views of the church historically are pretty close.

http://www.bibletruthforum.org/churchindex.htm
http://www.pb.org/pbwrite.html

The differences do not lie so much in the 'landmark' view but in the understanding of the 'great commission.'

Missionary Baptists accept this commission to have been given to the church (the apostles representing the church).

Primitive Baptists believe the commission was fulfilled as it was given to the Apostles. The view that this creates a low opinion of 'missionary' work is not altogether correct, IMHO. Rather it causes a different view of the purpose of missions. In the Primitive belief, missions are not performed necessarily that souls 'might' be saved, but they are carried out because God does have an elect. For this reason, I think from my readings, the Primitives reject modern mission societies etc.

The Black Rock Address provides a good statement of the differences.

As I said, I am in a missionary Baptist church, so I do not feel I am an able authority on the Primitive Baptists, but I personally believe the differences lay more in the approach to where the great commission was given.

Missionary baptists will usually accept the baptism of the Primitives, but this is not reciprocal.

Hope this helps. The best thing to do is to take a look at the links, or to have a PB to explain it and thus fill in any blanks I have left or errors I have put forth.

I don't know of any landmark site that I have seen that I agree with completely as being difinitive of the landmark position. All I can do here is to provide my belief and then let the brethren among us here sound off; I believe the landmark view teaches and believes the church perpetuity and succession is through the 'mother' church method. The strongest argument against this (it would seem, though not an argument at all) that this system scatters 'the body' of the local church from place to place and prevents its being able to gather at the Lord's Table. For example, opponents claim that a 'mother' church relationship extending to a missionary an authority to baptize would result in making members in the local 'mother' church. I don't agree with this because I believe that the moment the church is organized, then the newly organized church becomes autonomous. Others say the spiritual descent is more practical and is simply following in accordance to like doctrine, practice and faith, yet, my answer to this is can the doctrine be correct where the baptism is not?

That other side of the landmark view then, believes there are scriptural organized churches in line with Matt. 18.20. But I would maintain that this scripture to be used to prove self-constituted churches it must be separated from its context.

In my view, baptism becomes a door into the church, this then must be a baptism that has a link to an authorized source.

In the Matt. 18.20 view, a church can organize wherever two or more are gathered, and this group possesses of itself authority to baptize. I disagree with this first because of the strain it puts on the context, next because it would seem to be an easy out in time of difficulty rather than to seek for Grace and reconciliation within the church. The difficulty becomes the fact that I and my wife and one more believer would, if gathered together wherever we are would constitute 'a church' IMHO, all this is introduced in an effort to undermine the authority of the church to discipline members.

IMHO, here is a link to a good source on the historic landmark view:

http://www.pb.org/pbwrite.html

Currently I am discussing this issue with some men who are more able than myself and they are in opposition to my view (baptism is an entrance to the church), as are some here, this disagreement is caused from the reading of the greek eis in places such as I Cor. 12.13.

As I told you before, though I believe this for truth, I do not want to exert a strong influence over you, I would much rather provide a discussion of it and the scriptures I believe to support my belief and then let you study and come to your own conclusions. That is why I like the BB.

Hopefully many will gain an interest in this discussion, if only to show me wrong, I don't mind disagreement. What I think is sad is the thought that such discussion causes division. This is untrue, I believe it is a lack of discussion that causes trouble.

God Bless
Bro. Dallas Eaton

[ May 17, 2003, 11:02 AM: Message edited by: Frogman ]

 

Mark,

Here are a couple more links for landmarkism:

http://members.aol.com/brwoodbc/index.html

This is an article (short) written by Elder John Kohler of Morris Fork Baptist Church; this link is linked to the following:

www.pbministries.org

God Bless.
Bro. Dallas Eaton

 

I think Bro. Dallas summed up the difference rather well. As far as doctrine and practice, the Landmark church is about as close as you can get to Primitive Baptist without actually being one.

Of course, as with any denomination, there is no set rules that are true of every Primitive and every Landmark church. I think Bro. Dallas just lined out what one should expect to see from a true example of a Primitive or Landmark church.

Any other questions? I'll be happy to answer them, to the best of my ability.

God Bless. Bro. James