1953 LEADERS/PASTORS AMONG MEN?
Saw Lincoln yesterday [actually
it was the movie].
I did like it- but to be honest-
it was a little too much like watching the news [or some politics show].
My daughter crashed out on the
seats.
I took Debbie- my youngest- she’s
20.
I’m trying to take them out at least
once a week- the mall- Golden Corral [buffet].
You know- dad and girls day.
Okay- I also have had some good
talks with the guys at the halfway house.
I spent about 2 hours ‘teaching’
an entire course on Ecclesiology [The doctrine of the church in the bible].
I haven’t taught this subject in
a few years- it can get in depth- and it takes a basic foundation of knowing
the bible before you can really teach it.
But Little Charlie really has the
bible down well- for a younger Christian he knows a lot.
So- I took him on a tour of the
mind.
The reason it’s not an easy
subject is because much of what you pick up in this teaching is by simply
reading the interaction of the biblical people.
For instance- Paul the apostle’s
letters make up most of the New Testament.
So we read how he is addressing
the churches he is writing to- and he seems to by-pass our normal ‘way’ of
doing church.
Much of church in our day is a
type of lecture hall format.
That is people go to ‘church’
[some sort of meeting place- from an old time Cathedral to a theatre].
And you listen to a lecture
[called a sermon].
Okay- all of this has a role.
But when Paul writes to the
churches in the bible- he is addressing communities of people living in a
location [which is the biblical definition of the church- Ecclesia].
He speaks directly to ‘the
brothers’.
That is- there does not seem to
be an office of Pastor on the sense many modern Evangelicals understand the
term.
How do you know this John?
Now you see why this study gets
hard.
We know this because if you had
the office functioning the way it functions today- Paul would be breaking
church protocol to speak directly to the brothers in these churches- he would
be violating the rule of going to the ‘authority’ office over the people commonly
called the Pastor.
Okay- doesn’t the bible speak
about Pastors?
Sure- actually one time in the
book of Ephesians [one time- yup].
One time in the English King
James version that is [Ephesians].
In the bible the word speaks
about a gift that God gives to certain believers- and it’s a sort of
shepherding gift.
It simply functions in the
community- that is if you a part of a church [a believing community] more than
likely you have a person like this who functions in the gift.
It was not a speaking gift- that
is a sort of professional speaker who preaches to you every week.
Now- I’m just showing you the difference
between the biblical word itself- and how we as believers have developed more ‘meaning’
to the word as time goes by.
So- this study does take a long
time- cant’ do it here- but pretty much covered most of it in my 2 hour talk.
Charlie really learned a lot that
day- it would take a long time to simply see these things yourself as time goes
by.
The main point of what I was showing
him was the important thing we are doing [as a new ministry- the halfway house
just stared a few weeks ago].
Is we are simply working-
helping- accepting people where they are at.
We are not starting a business- a
501 c3- that usually takes the description ‘local church’.
These things [non profit- etc.]
serve a purpose if needed- but the point is in the bible the churches are the people.
Some of the guys are getting worried
about all the money needed for the rent.
They are working- I also have
chipped in cash- and John David [my buddy who actually started it] gets panicky
at times.
So- I spend a few days a week
simply working with the guys.
But I wanted them to get their
eyes off of the idea that what they-we are doing is not simply attempting to
start a ‘ministry’.
In the sense of the whole
corporate thing.
But I wanted them to see that the
important thing is the people.
That’s the whole point of me
showing them that the apostle was writing the brothers [that’s how he mostly
addressed the churches he wrote to in the bible- I think he addresses the Philippian
church and does use the term Bishop- along with brothers- which means overseer-
but he mostly speaks directly to the brothers].
So- to sum it up.
The best biblical definition of Church
would be the communities of believers located in any given place at a set time.
That’s what we call ‘the Local
church’.
It’s not the place they meet each
Sunday- as fine as that might be- but it’s the family- the community.
And we also speak about the
universal church- all the believers- of all time- even those who have died and
are with the Lord right now.
Yes- these too are part of this
great communion.
The gifts that God gives to
people- pastors- teachers- etc.
These are for the purpose of
building up the people- and they are the ones who go out and do the ‘work of
the ministry’ [Ephesians].
So the job of leadership is to
build others up- and they do the work of God.
It’s not the job of leaders to be
the main [or only] functioning person among the people- and the people see
themselves as the financial supporters of the gift of their minister.
Often times that’s how modern
church expresses itself.
But that paradigm is very
limited- and it hinders the growth of the church [the believers].
Because we have relegated them to
a position where they see their main ‘job’ as simply giving money every Sunday-
and others will do the work.
Yeah- this takes long to teach-
and as you can see- I'm running out of time.
On the blog- I have written a few
little books on this over the years.
I think there is an entire
category in the February posts of the first couple of years that I stuck on the
blog.
So- for those who want to study
more on this- help yourself.
Okay- that’s it- maybe tomorrow
well’ do some more news- let’s see.
Note- Do me a favor, those who
read/like the posts- re-post them on other sites as well as the site you read
them on. Thanks- John. Don’t forget to scroll down on the timeline [Facebook] -
I have posted lots.
No comments:
Post a Comment