The Ordinary Means of Grace

by Matthew Pinson | Nov 10, 2021

I often use the old General/Free Will Baptist phrase “ordinary means of grace” to describe the cherished methods of ministry the Spirit wants the church to use to bring a people to himself and fit them for His eternal kingdom. So I was elated when the recent 9Marks Journal was on the topic “The Ordinary Means of Grace—Or, Don’t Do Weird Stuff.”

The language of the ordinary means of grace is another way of saying that the methods God uses to build His church are those of the apostles, which are given by precept and example in Scripture, which is sufficient (enough, all we need) for the church’s doctrine (its theology, what it teaches) and practice (its methods, what it does).

General/Free Will Baptist Uses of the Term
Free Will Baptists in America, in the north and south, as well as their ancestors in England, who were called General Baptists, used the phrase “ordinary means of grace” over and over again. (It was used in the “practices” section of our Treatise, for example, until it was revised in the 1970s).

Again, it is another way of stating two other doctrines: the sufficiency of Scripture (the Bible gives us what the Spirit wants us to have to do church) and apostolicity (the doctrine and practice of the holy apostles is normative for the continuing church).

I discuss this doctrine, which appears in the second sentence of the Treatise (which says Scripture is “a sufficient and infallible rule and guide to salvation and all Christian worship and service”) in my booklet Free Will Baptists and the Sufficiency of Scripture. Randall House has published Rob Rienow’s defense of the sufficiency of Scripture in his book Reclaiming the Sufficiency of Scripture [1].

Early Puritans and Baptists
The language of the ordinary means of grace became famous when it appeared in the Westminster Shorter Catechism (WSC). Though this catechism was a Calvinist Puritan catechism, the answer to question 88 on the ordinary means of grace would have been answered similarly by any Puritan in the seventeenth century on either side of the Atlantic—whether they were Calvinist or Arminian or Paedobaptist or Baptist. Here it is:

Q: What are the outward means whereby Christ communicateth to us the benefits of redemption?
A: The outward and ordinary means whereby Christ communicateth to us the benefits of redemption are, his ordinances, especially the Word, sacraments, and prayer; all of which are made effectual to the elect for salvation.

Now of course, Baptists would define “sacraments” differently than the writers of the WSC did. But other than this, they all—again, whether Arminian or Calvinist—agreed wholeheartedly with this statement.

Ordinary Means and “Ordinances”
In fact, one of the particular reasons I like this statement is that it defines ordinances broadly, as I do in my book The Washing of the Saints’ Feet, simply as things God ordains [2]. Though some of us have thrown around the word, Baptists have not articulated a theology of the sacraments, though they have talked about ordinances, but most Calvinist Baptists eventually came to see only baptism and the Lord’s Supper as ordinances.

However, this is an unfortunate case of the evolution of language. “Ordinance” originally was used by everyone in the Puritan sense seen in the WSC, which said that all the ordinances of God were His outward and ordinary means of grace—especially the reading and preaching of the Word, private and public prayer, and the sacraments.

This is why Free Will Baptist forefathers like Thomas Helwys and Thomas Grantham, as well as American Free Will Baptists in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries—talked about doing only the things God “ordained” or “appointed” in the New Testament.

Renewal through Retrieving the Practice of the Apostles
This is the way of the apostles and their earliest followers after the New Testament era. Retrieving their approach to ministry will bring renewal to the evangelical church, large swaths of which have become addicted to the means and methods of modern secular industries (e.g., marketing, CEO leadership, entertainment).

Sometimes people are confused about this. Only a few people actually claim, “We shouldn’t adhere to the apostolic pattern. That’s not relevant for today.” Very few people veer this far from the doctrine of the sufficiency of Scripture. Instead, many say “But the apostles didn’t have what we have today. If they had had all the methods and techniques we have at our disposal, they would have used them!”

But the fact is that the apostles had the same things at their disposal, but they didn’t use them. They had all the riches of the multi-sensory, entertainment-dominated culture of the Greco-Roman urban centers at their disposal. On a given Sunday, a Christian would walk past the theaters and concert halls and coliseums and games where rich, lavish entertainment was on offer—as well as many street entertainers. The best painting and sculpture was at their disposal.

They had at their disposal the highly efficient organizational methods of the Roman imperial government. They were surrounded by the methods of a highly complex marketplace. Their “competition” in the Greco-Roman mystery religions relied on spine-tingling techniques to draw in crowds in urban centers.

Yet these early Christians relied on the ordinary means of grace. Their churches were simple and counter-cultural, based on the ordinary, unadorned teaching of doctrine in their songs, reading, and preaching, accompanied by compassion for the poor and hurting and an unmistakable, authentic ideal of koinonia and community.

Commending 9Marks
In short, as the 9Marks Journal says, they “didn’t do weird stuff.” I encourage my readers to go read this 9Marks Journal.

We’re not going to agree with everything 9Marks says. But what 9Marks shows us—and Capitol Hill Baptist Church in Washington D.C. and its pastor, Mark Dever, and the hundreds of churches that have been planted and revitalized as a result of this ministry—is that it’s possible to have vibrant, growing congregations that minister to diverse age groups and ethnicities in urban, suburban, small-town, and rural demographics that are firmly rooted in the ordinary means of grace, in the sufficiency of Scripture, and in the means and methods of the apostles.

[1] J. Matthew Pinson, Free Will Baptists and the Sufficiency of Scripture (Antioch, TN: Historical Commission, National Association of Free Will Baptists, 2014). It can be ordered here. Rob Rienow, Reclaiming the Sufficiency of Scripture (Nashville: Randall House, 2012). It can be ordered here.

[2] J. Matthew Pinson, The Washing of the Saints’ Feet (Nashville: Randall House, 2006). It can be ordered here