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jeafl -> RE: Are independent churches Biblical? (8/6/2008 10:18:50 PM)
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ORIGINAL: jayvance
There are many things the Scriptures don't expressly forbid which in actual practice are detrimental to the life of the church. In my opinion, a paid clergy class has had a devastating effect on the overall health and maturity of the body, mainly because it allows believers to abdicate their responsibility for ministry to paid surrogates.
But, as I’ve already said, a church without paid staff does not guarantee that volunteerism on the part of the congregation will go up. Not paying the clergy a salary will not make the rest of the congregation more willing to do the clergy’s work.
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Mainly because there is no NT basis for the office of "pastor" as we understand the term. The concept of one man being the "head" of a local assembly is absolutely foreign to the Scriptures.
Well then call the pastor an elder and put as many of them as you want in a congregation. The issue of salaries does not go away.
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That would be a problem for the elders alright, but it certainly wouldn't justify paying them a full-time salary.
The problem is not with salaries, but rather the people we have overseeing our churches. Paid or not, most pastors/elders are not worthy of their position.
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Paul's word to the elders at Ephesus: "Yes, you yourselves know that these hands have provided for my necessities, and for those who were with me.
So Paul was giving his helpers a salary for helping him. If Paul had to work for a living on top of doing his church work, why didn’t everybody else? And if Paul’s helpers were not working for their own sustenance, what were they doing- working for the church fulltime?
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I have shown you in every way, by laboring like this, that you must support the weak.
Your pastors/elders are weak? In what way?
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Again, this doesn't speak to a permanent pastoral office with a full-time salary.
I don’t care about permanent pastoral office at the moment. That is not the issue. Whether or not the people that work on God’s behalf should be paid for that work is the issue at hand.
And note that if someone like Peter had to work for a living on top of doing his work as an Apostle, then he would have had a very limited work area since, as a fisherman, he could never get too far from his boats and a body of water. He wasn’t like the tent-maker Paul who could find work no matter where he happened to be.
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I understand that the idea of a trained professional being willing to offer his or her services to the church for nothing goes against the grain of our ecclesiastical traditions, but that's how they did it in the NT church.
I am not at all convinced, by what you have presented as evidence, that this was actually true.
BTW: If a church isn’t supposed to have a paid staff and is supposed to meet in private houses rather than church buildings (another NT convention according to some), then why should a church ever need to take up a collection (what was the money that Judas carried around with him used for if not to pay the Apostles for their work)? When Jesus saw the widow throw her mite into the collection box that supported the Jewish priesthood, He did not object to the Jews having a paid priesthood. In fact, under Mosaic Law, everyone was obligated to pay 10% of whatever they grew or earned to pay the Levitical priests for their services because the priests worked for God full time. Why should Christian church leaders be any different?
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Again, we may simply have to disagree on the meaning of authority in this context. I do not see this incident as an example of top-down hierarchy and control, but rather of mutual submission and consensus building.{/quote]
Paul, the Apostles and the elders in Jerusalem submitted to the local congregations as the local congregations submitted to them? Where does the Bible say this?
But if there is not supposed to be any kind of inter-congregation hierarchy, how are doctrinal disputes supposed to be settled, and how is bad behavior supposed to be prevented? A congregation can easily develop a mutual admiration and cover-up society between the laity and clergy. Some authority from outside the congregation is needed.
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Not sure I understand the question.
The question is plain.
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Peter was not responsible to oversee Paul's church plants, or vice versa. Paul himself made that very clear in II Cor. 10.
That’s not the issue. If a church can be planted from someone who is not a local resident, but who becomes a local resident during the church’s formative years, why can a church not be supervised by pastors/elders that are not local residents until they assume responsibility for the church once the church is established?
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This question is moot in the context of our discussion because the whole point is that the institutional church structure as we practice it is unbiblical to begin with.
This depends on what you take as being unbiblical. I believe that a congregational polity is unbiblical and also dangerous because it can lead to corrupt congregations and abusive clergy. I don’t necessarily believe that an episcopalian polity is unbiblical and this option des give some safeguards against heresy and clergy abuse.
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Even so, if a local church body refuses to act, there's not much any outsider can do in any case.
If the outsider is an organization that owns an errant congregation’s building or pays an errant pastor’s salary, then there is a lot that the outsider can do to prevent heresy and clergy abuse.
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Jesus isn't "at the top of" anything. He's the HEAD of the church,
What’s the difference?
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Jesus didn't say He would build His church on Peter, He said He would build His church on the Peter's REVELATION of who Jesus was, i.e., the Christ.
Matthew 16:17-19 And Jesus answered and said unto him, Blessed art thou, Simon Barjona: for flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee, but my Father which is in heaven. And I say also unto thee, That thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. And I will give unto thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth shall be bound in heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.
Where is the word revelation in this passage?
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As to the power given to the apostles to bind and loose on earth, I can't give you a definitive answer, but that wouldn't speak to our discussion of leadership in the local church in any case.
What else could it mean to bind and loose something if not to exercise authority of some sort over what is bound and loosened? Could it be that you don’t recognize this delegation of authority to Peter because you don’t want to submit to that delegated authority?
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Which kind of church do you think would be most susceptible to heresy--a church where EVERYONE was spiritually mature and shared the responsibility for applying Biblical principles to church life, or a church which had to rely on the interpretations of one person?
Whichever church Satan decides to attack.
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Dealing with abusive pastors is well beyond the scope of this thread, I think.
How so? How a congregation is equipped to deal with abusive pastors depends on what kind of polity it has and how it vests authority and these are things that are part and parcel of this thread.
But the way to deal with abusive pastors is to go back to the NT model of not having pastors as we understand that term.
Then substitute the word elder for pastor and the issue remains. How are we to deal with and alder that teaches heresy? How are we to deal with an elder that absconds with the church’s bank account? How are we to deal with an elder that molests children?
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