Has anyone had any contact with this denomination? Are they Reformed? A friend of mine just began attending the local Gospel Hall.

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Bill Corbett
new attender
New Life Northeast (PCA)

The Plymouth Brethren are not Reformed. Here are some distinctives of the Plymouth Brethren:

1. They do not have pastors. The believe that the Holy Spirit mininsters through the male leadership. Women are expected to be silent at "meetings." Some meetings have elders or an informal leadership, but most do not.

3. John Darby joined the Brethern in its infancy. While not the founder of the Brethren, he is the name most associated with them.

4. Most Brethren meetings are Arminian. There are a few (very few) meetings that are Calvinist. I would suspect that your friend is attending an Arminian meeting.

5. Most Brethren are separatists. They do not vote or believe in military service. This is not true of all meetings, but is true of many.

6. The Brethren have open and closed meetings. This does not refer to their view of the Lord's table, rather it is a difference in ecclesiology. The closed (sometimes called "exclusive Brethren") Brethren hold to certain doctrines and are bound together in those beliefs. The open Brethren are not bound ecclesiastically to other meetings.

7. The Brethern are rather clanish. They would have a lot in common with Mennonites.

8. The Brethren are almost all dispensational. It is one of their hallmarks. They practice the "classical" dispensationalism as taught by Darby and later promulgated by Scofield.

Bottom line? Not a place for a Reformed Christian or even a Calvinistic dispensationaist to worship.

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Bill Brown
Elder
Grace Baptist Church
Anne Arundel County, Maryland

Click to get: Board Rules -- Signature Requirements -- Suggestions?
Visit my BLOG Theology for the Rest of Us

I pretty much concur with Bill above.

We worshipped with a Plymouth Bretheran assembly for several years. I have to say that they were extremely earnest in their Bible study and desire to apply scripture to their lives. It also was the first place I encountered the equivalent of the "regulative principle."

The weakness was preaching and doctrine. Heavy on premillenial dispensationalism, not bad on soteriology, orthodox on faith vs. works, but a mix of arminianism and Calvinism in the gospel preaching. There were some good preachers, but they were getting up in years and becoming tired.

The older members were much more Calvinistic, the younger members were heavily influenced by modern popular evangelicalism.

There is a fair amount of variation among the assemblies. We were part of a "closed" group. Splits were common, and over the most arcane issues. In our case, before our time, families themselves were split over an issue regarding an assembly judgment that occurred on the other side of the country. The dispute arose about 15 years ago. To this day the two groups avoid associating with each other.

What initially attracted us to their assembly was the simplicity of worship and the reverence for understanding scripture. They come across as humble, but I was put off by the idea that many had that they were the church of Philadelphia (the one true church) among the Laodecians.

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R.Vic Bottomly
Providence Reformed Baptist Church, Tacoma, WA

Click to get: Board Rules -- Signature Requirements -- Suggestions?

The New Testament scholar and author F. F. Bruce (1910-1990) was a lifelong member of the Plymouth Brethren.

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Richard T. Zuelch, M.Div
Ruling Elder, OPC (not currently serving)
Westminster Presbyterian Church, CA (OPC)
www.reiterations.wordpress.com
www.foft.wordpress.com

"When I cease to preach salvation by faith in Jesus, put me into a lunatic asylum, for you may be sure that my mind is gone." - Charles Spurgeon (1834-1892)

Yes and I enjoyed my time there. I left over their Arminian preaching and their policy of baptism. Personnally the latter was not a major issue for me but I was told they considered paedobaptism a heresy so...

Not on your nelly my friend.

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Richard
CofE
UK

As was Vine.

Writings by there 'leading brothers' can be found here: http://www.stempublishing.com/

Pink criticised them alot:

" deplorable example of what we have just mentioned is to be found in the comments made upon Romans 4 by Mr. J. N. Darby, the father of the Plymouth Brethren: "This was Abraham’s faith. He believed the promise that he should be the father of many nations, because God had spoken, counting on the power of God, thus glorifying Him, without calling in question anything that He had said by looking at circumstances; therefore this also was counted to him for righteousness. He glorified God according to what God was. Now this was not written for his sake alone: the same faith shall be imputed to us also for righteousness" ("Synopsis" vol. 4, p. 133--italics ours). The Christ-dishonoring error contained in those statements will be exposed later on in this chapter." http://www.pbministries.org/books/pi...on/just_08.htm

although a number would have held to TULIP.

http://www.raptureready.com/featured...tionalism.html

I began my ministry with the Brethren back in the early 1980's and in the 1990's spent almost a decade as an itinerant preacher. I met a lot of godly people who genuinely loved the Lord and had a heart for the lost. I had many solid mentors who taught me how to study Scripture for myself and how to do the work of a pastor.

That being said, I found myself growing ever more uncomfortable among the Brethren because my study of Scripture led me away from many of their accepted beliefs. As I came to a conviction concerning the Doctrines of Grace and as I became skeptical of dispensationalism, I found myself often the odd man out. There were a few others who shared my commitment to Reformed theology,but our views were not really accepted.

I understand that many of the early Brethren were at least Calvinistic in their soteriology, but today most would be at best "two-point Calvinists" if there even is such a thing.

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Dan Martin
Pastor
Calvary Bible Church
Myrtle Beach, South Carolina

"You are required to believe, to preach, and to teach what the Bible says is true, not what you want the Bible to say is true." R. C. Sproul

Just a web address for more information about the Plymouth Brethren. I don't know how to create a link.

www.brethrenonline.org

For what it's worth, I have never met a brethren who was anti-military service. Many of the older men I have known were WWII combat veterans. These men were affiliated with the "open brethren". The "closed brethren" might be different in that regard.

Do they use the KJV or Darby's translation?

What does everyone think of Darby's translation? My friend was given one this Sunday. I looked at it briefly and it seemed similar to the KJV except in the OT he uses Jehovah instead of Lord.

Bill - from what I understand the Darby translation was a one man project. That concerns me.

Darby is very similar to the ASV, in fact, the English translators from which the ASV was derived referred to it. Darby used a critical text, not the TR.

I have it and like it well enough, but I always want to double check against the original Greek or Hebrew.

Also, the Bretheren I knew used AV, NIV, NKJV, and a few used the Darby. It was not a big deal among them.

In my experience we all used the KJV and sang from The Believers' Hymnbook

I was brought up 'brethren.'

They do not like to call themselves a denomination just simply Christians who gather to the name of the Lord. All in brethren circles would hold to classic dispensationalism, most (at least in N. Ireland) are not Calvinistic but a few are. In fact as I was growing up Calvinism was viewed as completely against what the scriptures taught.
Having said that many of the founding members of brethrenism were calvinistic, e.g. JN Darby (who was also a peadobaptist).
They hold the KJV in high esteem, some as if it were an original manuscript. If you’re not premill they would almost view you as being unorthodox.

Having said all that, and although theologically I have nothing really in common with them, they are among the most godly people I know; who have a zeal for the gospel that puts me to shame. They also show each other Christian love and fellowship that is not at all common today.

Hope that helps.

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Stephen Spence

A Presbyterian attending a Baptist church

Open Brethren tend to be Credo-Baptists but yes, the Exclusives tend to be Paedo-Baptists.

Not where I come from.

Same here. All of the closed bretheren I knew (hundreds from all over the US) were uniformly credo-baptist.