What About Pastors, Elders and Deacons?

How can we know anything about anything

To try to explain truth to him who loves it not is but to give him more plentiful material for misinterpretation. George Macdonald

Do we have to make a choice between science and the Bible?

NO!

That is NOT where the problem is, but that is what everyone seems to want to talk about.

Take science as an example. How can we know anything about the created material world around us?

How can we know anything from what we can see using natural sciences?

We all see the same things in the material world, but we don't come to the same answers.

Why is that?

How can we know anything about the Bible and what it teaches? Every person believes different things about the Bible and how it should be read.

Why is that?

Same scientific facts. Different answers.

Same Bible. Different answers.

Why is that?

The true question is this: How do we come to our answers that we get from what we can see through science or what we can read in the Bible?

How do we think about what we see using science or what we read in the Bible?

How do we analyze what we have seen and read?

How do we interpret what we have seen and read?

We use logic, but logic always has a foundation. Jesus talked about building on the Rock. That Rock is Jesus Christ. He is the true foundation. There are also the false foundations of the ungodly.

An example might help.

Question: Why do believe in evolution?

Answer: Because my science teacher told me that evolution is scientific fact.

Question: Why do you believe your science teacher?

Answer: because he agrees with the textbook he assigned us to read.

Now, we have asked, "Why?" twice.

If we continued to ask, "Why?" we would come down to the foundation of this person's thoughts.

When we get down to the foundations, there are no more questions that can be answered. So where to the foundations come from?

There are three possibilities.

things that we make up, pulled from the air
demonic lies
divine revelation

Question: Why do believe in creation?

Answer: Because God revealed this to me. He spoke to me through the Bible and gave me His faith so that I could believe Him.

See how quickly we got to the foundation. This is a belief that has a foundation that is solid and that cannot be moved.

In reality, the things that we make up, that are pulled from the air, are actually from demons and all the lies of demons spring from the prince of demons, Satan. So these are one and the same.

Divine revelation comes from the Almighty, Creator, God, Jesus Christ. So there are only two choices, but how do we know there are only two choices? Because God has revealed this truth to us.

The question then is how do we tell the difference between the revelation that comes from God and the lies of Satan?

The answer is that everyone who sincerely wants to do the will of God will know.

Jesus said, "If you really want to obey God, you will know if what I teach comes from God or from me"

The rejection of the revelation that comes from God is not an intellectual problem. It is a moral problem.

Jesus said, "Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and you shall find; knock, and it shall be opened to you: For everyone who asks receives; and he who seeks finds; and to him who knocks it shall be opened. *

Or what man is there of you, whom if his son ask bread, will he give him a stone? Or if he ask a fish, will he give him a serpent? If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more shall your Father which is in heaven give good things to those who ask him? Matthew 7:7-11 *

You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make him drink. You can set the truth before someone, but you can't make anyone believe those things that they don't want to submit to. They have to want to obey God.

How frequently it is brought to our attention that nothing good can be done if the will is wrong! Reason alone fails to justify itself. Richard M. Weaver

Jesus said, "You will know the truth, and the truth will set you free" (John 8:32)

"If we are not prepared to buy the truth at the cost of our own humbling we shall not receive it"

Lies appear to have no price upon them. They seem cheap and they abound everywhere. But for the truth there is always an obvious price to pay.

[God] has set a day when He will judge all the world's people with fairness. And He has chosen the man Jesus to do the judging for Him. God has given proof of this to all of us by raising Jesus from death" (Acts 17:31).

"There is a judge for the one who rejects Me [Jesus] and does not accept My words; that very word which I spoke will condemn him at the last day" (John 12:48)

That also stands for every person who speaks the utterances of Jesus. When we hear them, we hear Jesus Christ, and we either accept or reject. Every person who follows Jesus Christ is commanded to only speak His utterances and not their own.

"When we love others, we know that we belong to the truth, and we feel at ease in the presence of God" (1 John 3:19)

Ravi Zacharias did two open forums in a university. On the second night, one man told him that he had brought two Atheists in the night before who said that the arguments presented were so strong that they could not contend with them, but they were going to remain Atheists because that is what they prefer to be true.

In listening to an unbeliever and drawing out his reasoning, the unbeliever finally came to his foundations.

They turned out to be assumptions that were pulled from the air. When asked why he believed his basic assumption, the unbeliever looked startled and blurted out, “I guess I’m making the whole thing up.” It was quite a revelation to him since he hadn't even known that he had any assumptions. However, he decided to remain an Atheist because he didn’t want God to rule over him.

The Bible doesn't really say much about pastors (as a noun). It talks about elders (plural) who are to pastor (a verb meaning to care for as a shepherd cares for sheep) the local church members. Pastors (as a noun) are only mentioned among the five traveling ministries/offices in Ephesians 11. Something happened during the dark ages to destroy the order of the church. New ideas were introduced by people who, I'm sure, were well-meaning. They changed the pattern of the Scripture into something else that has severe faults.

As with the local church of Scripture, so with the universal church of the Scripture, it is ruled by elders and deacons. The Bible has a lot to say about these universal elders and deacons, just as it has a lot to say about local elders and deacons. There are apostolic elders and apostolic deacons. There are elders (plural) and deacons (plural) in the local churches who are set by apostles and are in submission to the apostles.

If some churches choose to follow orders that are not scriptural, God will still bless those churches as much as is possible. Extra-biblical orders, forms, and rituals bind the Spirit of God and diminish the blessing that God is able to give. For instance, some churches try to function under laws and rules rather than allowing the grace of God to do God's works through the people of God. This frustrates the grace of God. Others make a law that there are no rules or laws, teaching lawlessness, and don't allow the grace of God to do God's works through the people of God. This also frustrates the grace of God.

The extra-biblical pastor system has done terrible damage to the Churches that are under that system. It is plain, in Scripture, that this is not God's order, yet the order is defended by many. Can God bless a church with a hired pastor or a head pastor instead of the order of elders who serve according to the pattern of Scripture? Can God bless a church when the pastor uses the Bible verses that were written about apostles (traveling elders) to justify a salary for himself (a person who is working in a local church--not an apostle)? Can God bless a church that is pastored by a man who has never been called by God to pastor a church? Of course God can. The blessing will be limited by the disorder. Disorders are sin. Sin has consequences. At the same time, God will bless to the extent that He can. And He calls to those people in disorder to come into His order.

What About Pastors, Elders and Deacons?

How can we know anything about anything

The Church, What Is It and What Is Its Purpose

God's Way

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