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jeafl -> RE: Are independent churches Biblical? (8/6/2008 5:09:04 PM)
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ORIGINAL: jayvance
The only thing is, there's no Biblical support for the idea of "pastors" getting paid to be "professional ministers." The concept is totally foreign to the New Testament.
How so? Does the NT ever expressly say that pastors should not be paid? If not what is wrong with them being paid?
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As far as not being able to be an effective shepherd of a congregation if you have to worry about making a living, let's think about that for a moment. Number one, do you think the average joe on the street feels the average professional pastor can truly relate to what it's like in the "real world?" The net result of a professional clergy is to isolate them from the common man, which is totally the opposite of what the NT church practiced.
I think this would depend on each individual situation. Some, if not most, pastors live like kings and couldn’t care less about the well-being of their congregation, but just because this may be the norm it doesn’t mean that it is right and it doesn’t mean that all pastors do not care about their congregation. If a pastor is willing to devote his life to serving a congregation, then why shouldn’t he be compensated by the congregation?
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Paul clearly instructs these elders NOT to TAKE from the flock but rather to work with their own hands so that they would have the wherewithal to GIVE to the flock.
What happens if the elders get so busy working for their own upkeep that they neglect to look after their flock the way Paul told them to?
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Paul himself, an apostle no less, somehow managed to work for a living while still spreading the Gospel across the nations.
If Paul spent 3 years ceaselessly warning the Ephesians night and day, how did he have time to work for a living?
And how do you explain that when Jesus sent out His Apostles on missionary trips He told them to not take any money because the people the Apostles were going to minister to were expected to look after the Apostles’ basic needs?
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Fourth, the reason we think a pastor needs a full-time patoral salary is because the body isn't ministering to one another the way Jesus intended.
True, but I don’t think eliminating pastoral pay will raise any congregation’s volunteerism. The truth is that all congregations of every denomination and without denomination are so far removed from what God wanted that they should all be scrapped.
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There are no professional "ministers" to be found in the NT. Rather, those who are gifted as apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors and teachers are supposed to "equip...the saints for the work of ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ, till we all come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a perfect man, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ; that we should no longer be children, tossed to and fro and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the trickery of men, in the cunning craftiness of deceitful plotting, but, speaking the truth in love, may grow up in all things into Him who is the head—Christ—from whom the whole body, joined and knit together by what every joint supplies, according to the effective working by which every part does its share, causes growth of the body for the edifying of itself in love. (Eph. 4:12-16, NKJV)
But Paul was something of a professional since he had studied Judaism under Gemaliel. He didn’t have to rely solely on inspiration when he taught because he had his education to draw on.
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But none of those realities argues for a professional clergy.
Why not? If a Bible teacher is going to use something about Greek or Hebrew to explain the Bible to people that don’t know Greek or Hebrew, shouldn’t that Bible teacher have some training in Greek and Hebrew? And if someone is going to look after a church’s business affairs, shouldn’t he have some training in bookkeeping or business administration?
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It's interesting to read Acts 15 to see how this whole episode actually played out. What happened was that the Gentile believers in Antioch NEVER DID practice circumcision. It was only because "certain men from Judea" came down to Antioch and tried to IMPOSE circumcision on the Gentile Christians WITHOUT THE BACKING OF THE APOSTLES that this issue even came up in the first place. The apostles and elders in Jerusalem never tried to exercise authority over the Gentile Christians in Antioch.
They did too.
Acts 15:25-32 It seemed good unto us, being assembled with one accord, to
send chosen men unto you with our beloved Barnabas and Paul, Men that have hazarded their lives for the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. We have sent therefore Judas and Silas, who shall also tell you the same things by mouth.
For it seemed good to the Holy Ghost, and to us, to lay upon you no greater burden than these necessary things; That ye abstain from meats offered to idols, and from blood, and from things strangled, and from fornication: from which if ye keep yourselves, ye shall do well. Fare ye well. So when they were dismissed, they came to Antioch: and when they had gathered the multitude together, they delivered the epistle: Which when they had read, they rejoiced for the consolation. And Judas and Silas, being prophets also themselves, exhorted the brethren with many words, and confirmed them.
There would have been no point in holding the Jerusalem conference if Paul, the Apostles and the Elders there did not intend to exercise authority over the Jews of Antioch (that is the people most likely to be preaching circumcision to the Gentiles). I don’t think the issue was an attempt to launch a full scale heresy so much as it was just an honest dispute over a doctrinal issue that Paul and the Apostles had yet to address.
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Yes, the Antioch church did send Paul and Barnabas to Jerusalem to discuss the issue with the leaders there, but still there's no formal hierarchy of authority in view. Even the letter the Jerusalem leaders sent back to Antioch was very low-key; there was no heavy-handedness evident in that letter at all.
If there were no church buildings to seize or pastoral pay to withhold, the Jerusalem council had no real power to use against the would-be heretics that were preaching circumcision. But my point is that when a dispute over doctrine arose the congregation in Antioch was not willing to settle the matter themselves; they submitted to Paul, the Apostles and the elders.
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The reason Paul was qualified to provide leadership to the Ephesian church was because he planted it in the first place. So I don't see that as a basis for bringing in PERMANENT outside leadership. Certainly there will always be a role for itinerant ministers who go from city to city to build up the body of Christ in some particular area of ministry, but that's not the same as bringing in someone to be a paid pastor.
How can an outside planter be OK if outside leadership is not? If everything is supposed to be localized, why didn’t God raise up a church planter from within Ephesus?
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The purpose of leadership in the church is as stated above in Ephesians 4. They were to serve as examples to the body and provide leadership in their particular areas of giftings. But "binding authority" in a local church is vested in the ENTIRE body, not in one person or even a handful of people. A good example of this is when Paul wrote to the Corinthian church about the incest that was taking place in their midst. He didn't instruct the pastor or the elders to disfellowship that person, he put that responsibility on the entire body. Again, our view of church structure has been so skewed by manmade traditions that it's hard to step back and recognize that many of the assumptions we've made about Biblical authority don't really have any Scriptural basis.
But what happens if the entire body of a congregation refuses to act? The founding pastor of one of the largest churches where I live spent decades molesting the children in his church while the leaders of the church covered up for him. He died a few years ago after the victims came forward and he had been indicted, but before he could go to trial.
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The apostles shared the heart of God with the body, but you just don't find NT examples of apostles (or local elders) actually ENFORCING their will on other believers.
Again, there would have been little that they could have done to impose their will on wayward congregations in the 1st century, but they still exercised the authority to settle doctrinal disputes.
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The reason for that is because Jesus did not ever intend to set up that kind of top-down hierarchy.
Then what is Jesus the top of? And why did He say that He would build His church on Peter and what did He mean when told the Apostles that they had the power to bind and loose on earth? (BTW: I am not a Catholic in any form whatsoever).
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"We, however, will not boast beyond measure, but within the limits of the sphere which God appointed us—a sphere which especially includes you.
So Paul did claim that he had God’s authority to supervise certain congregations; he was part of a hierarchy.
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As far as dealing with heresy within the local congregation, if every member is walking in the Spirit as Christ intended, heresy would have much less opportunity to take root.
You are assuming too much. It would the height of folly to think that there are congregations anywhere on earth that Satan has not tried to infiltrate.
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As far as abusive pastors, if we held to a Scriptural model of church life there would BE no abusive pastors.
But not every pastor and congregation holds to the Scriptural model so the issue of how to deal with abusive pastors remains.
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