Last week we looked at God’s plan for leadership in the Body
of Messiah. And we saw that Jesus’ ideas
about leadership are completely different than the world’s ideas about
leadership. In fact, Jesus’ plan for
leadership in the Body of Messiah is just the opposite of the world’s way of
leading. He said that to be a leader in
the Body of Messiah, you must be a servant; and to be the first, you must be a
slave to all the others. Since he, the
Lord, acted this way, there is none of us that is above being a servant,
because none of us is above Jesus.
We got into this topic by talking about God’s plan for
leadership in the local church. So far,
we’ve seen that of the five ministry gifts, pastors and teachers were local
ministries, while the others were usually travelling ministries.
We also saw that there was no single pastor in Bible days
like there is in so many churches today.
Rather, the word “pastor” was used to refer to the elders, of which
there were several in each church. These
elders were involved in teaching, since one of the requirements for being an
elder was being “able to teach” (1 Tim. 3:2).
But not all the elders were equally involved in teaching and preaching.
As Paul said
to Timothy, “Let the elders who lead well
be considered worthy of double honor, especially those laboring in word and
doctrine” (1 Tim. 5:17). “Those
laboring in word and doctrine” means those who spent a lot of time
preaching and teaching. And since he
says “especially those laboring in word
and doctrine,” this tells us that not all the elders were intensively
involved in preaching and teaching. But
the ones who did were worthy of double honor, which in the context is talking
about providing financially for them (1 Tim. 5:18: “for
the Scripture says, ‘the threshing ox you will not muzzle [Deut. 25:4],’ and ‘the
laborer is worthy of his wages [Luke 10:7]’”).
So
shepherding the flock, taking care of the individuals in the body, was
recognized as a different gift than teaching and preaching. Pastoring is a more personal, one-on-one kind
of ministry. Teaching and preaching is more
often directed to the group as a whole.
There was some overlap between these, but different people had different
strengths in different areas.
But preaching
was done not just by the elders, but by whoever had a calling to preach, including
the traveling ministries of the apostles, prophets, and evangelists that came
through from time to time. This meant
that the teaching came from different sources.
Sometimes members of the church would teach, or even visitors, when God
had given them a message.
In the synagogue, one of the elders was elected to be the
president of the synagogue, as for example Jairus (“And one of the heads of the synagogue appeared, Jairus by name, and
seeing him, fell at his feet,” Mark 5:22).
There was also Crispus in Acts 18:8; and Sosthenes in Acts 18:17. The president of the synagogue usually served
for a year or two, though in some places it was a lifelong and even a hereditary
position. The head of the synagogue was
the CEO of the synagogue, he decided all practical daily affairs: upkeep, operation, order, and sanctity of the
service.
In the churches, when the president was also a preacher and
teacher, this position was similar to that of a modern pastor. But though he was the president, he still
remained one of the elders, all of which had equal authority. So there was still a plurality of
leadership. There was still
accountability.
It was only after the time of the New Testament that this head
elder came to be known as a bishop (a position similar to a head pastor today),
and claimed more and more control over the church and over the elders. Eventually these bishops claimed regional
authority. And this is when many of the
abuses of the Catholic and Orthodox churches began, because of too much power in
the hands of too few people. The leaders
were no longer accountable to the people.
And the further the churches went away from the Bible’s plan for
leadership, the worse it got.
This was the
whole reason for the Reformation in Europe.
The Western Church had made one man, the pope, leader over the entire
church. That was way too much power. And it corrupted so many of these men. Many popes had mistresses, with illegitimate
children, some of whom became popes themselves.
There was misuse of money. The
list of evils goes on and on, not only of the popes themselves but also of many
other high church leaders.
This is an
important part of the reason for the scandals going on in the Catholic Church
today. What’s the problem? Too much power, with too little
accountability. Without accountability,
there’s nothing to keep church leaders honest, there’s nothing to protect them
from being tempted.
The
Reformation rejected the authority of the pope.
But as the saying goes, in place of the pope in Rome, the Protestants
set up hundreds and thousands of “popes” everywhere: church leaders with lots of power but little
or no accountability. In other words, we
just reproduced the same problem on a smaller scale. This is especially true in newer churches
that give way too much authority to a single pastor, for whom there is often no
accountability to the congregation at all.
Some of
these leaders gain power through misuse of the Bible. Hebrews 13:17 is a great example. It’s often translated, “Obey your leaders, and submit to them.” Have you ever had this verse used against
you? Power-hungry leaders love to use
this verse to pressure their followers to do whatever they say. You can go on the internet and finds dozens
of testimonies about how leaders have used this verse to get people to do
something that wasn’t right. This is
called spiritual abuse. It’s a misuse
and twisting of the Word of God.
But let’s
look more closely at the language here:
First of all, it does not say to submit to a single individual. Remember, there was no single pastor or
senior pastor in Bible days of the kind we have today. Hebrews was written to a congregation with a
plurality of leaders: many elders, many
pastors, all of whom were equal in authority.
Also, the first verb here, peitho
has the root meaning “to persuade.” So a
more accurate translation is “Be
persuaded by your leaders and yield to them.” This verse doesn’t say you have to do whatever
a leader tells you to do. It’s talking
about having a teachable spirit, being open to the leadership of the church. It
is talking about an environment of teaching and learning.
One of the common teachings you hear these days is that
you have to come under the “covering” of the leadership in your local
church. Have you ever heard this
teaching? This teaching makes many
believers concerned or even frightened about being without a spiritual
“covering.” Some leaders use this to
make members afraid of leaving the church.
Others use it to make members afraid of questioning any decision made by
church leaders. Others use it to require
every personal decision of the member to be approved by the pastor. I have heard about churches like this here in
Taichung, where the pastor gets involved in the members’ personal
decisions. I’m not talking about
counseling, where someone asks for advice about what the Bible teaches. I’m talking about when the pastor pressures
people into getting all their personal decisions approved by the pastor, rather
than letting them make their own decisions themselves.
This is an abuse of spiritual power. It’s not Biblical. And it’s wrong. The idea of a church covering is not taught
anywhere in the Bible. It’s a doctrine
of men, not of God. If you’re a
believer, you’re already covered by the blood of Jesus. And there is no better covering than
that. Rom. 4:7 says, “Blessed
are those whose lawlessness is forgiven and whose sins are covered.” We’re also covered by the love of the Body as
a whole: “Above all, keep fervent in your love for one another, because love
covers a multitude of sins” (1 Pet. 4:8).
The Bible never says anything about being covered by the local church
leadership. This teaching is made up of
verses taken out of their original context.
If you have been deceived by this false teaching, I want you to be set
free today, in Jesus’ name!
One of the classic verses used by this false teaching is 1
Sam. 15:23: “for rebellion is as the sin of divination.” But this is talking about rebellion against
God, not against a human leader (1 Sam. 15:19).
Remember, Jesus said we have one leader:
Jesus himself. The rest of us are
all brothers. As we’ve seen before,
submitting to leaders is only one part of the Bible’s instruction for
leadership. There are far more verses
that talk about submitting to one another, and even more about leaders
submitting to and serving others.
In some
churches, the leader claims to be “God’s anointed.” He will often take this to
mean that you must submit and never question his authority. In some churches, if you even question why
decisions were made, you are considered out of line or rebellious. They will use verses like “Do not touch my anointed” to avoid
accountability (1 Chr. 16:22, Psa. 105:15).
But if you read the context, the “anointed
ones” the Bible is talking about are the whole people of God, not just the
leaders (Psa. 105:12-15).
Of course,
there are verses that talk about God’s anointed king, as when David refused
to hurt Saul because he was the Lord’s anointed (1 Sam. 24:6). But the only Biblical king over the church is
Messiah Jesus. All the rest of us are
brothers: we’re all equal before the
Lord. Remember, Jesus said we’re not
even supposed to call anyone on earth rabbi or leader.
The job of the eldership is to protect the church from false
teachings like this. This means that for
the eldership structure of the New Testament to work, it requires mature,
seasoned elders, who will not easily be swayed by the winds of doctrine. They are to take care of, protect, and
encourage the flock. They are to watch
over them, to make sure everything is going okay, and that they are safe and
protected.
The reason
the elders were called elders was that they were usually the older men in the
church or synagogue. They were the ones
who had been around a while, long enough to see different winds of doctrine
blow through, and not be shaken by them anymore. This is why Peter said, “In the same way, you younger ones, be subject to the elders; but all
being subject to one another, clothe yourselves with humility, for God resists
the proud, but he gives grace (favor) to the humble” (1 Pet. 5:5). The younger ones should submit to the elders because
of their longer experience in the Body of Messiah. But all of us should be subject to one
another, with humble spirits. There is
no room in the Body of Messiah for arrogance or pride. Only those who are humble receive the favor
of God. Paul teaches the same thing in
Ephesians 5:21: “Submit to one another in the fear of Messiah.”
But of
course it’s not only the job of the elders, the shepherds, but the job
of everyone to make sure that the teaching we receive is Biblical. We are all supposed to exercise discernment. As it says in 1 Cor. 14:29: “And
let two or three prophets speak, and let the others pass judgment.” This is talking about a worship service. The “prophets”
mentioned here do not necessarily foretell the future. They share a message from God, like a preacher
today. It might involve something in the
future, or it might not. The point is
that it was a message from God. And yes,
believe it or not, in those days they would have two or three sermons in one service!
But you weren’t
just supposed to believe everything you heard.
You were to discern (“pass
judgment”) whether the message was from God or not. We are never supposed to believe something
just because somebody says it—no matter who they are. Don’t believe things just because I say them,
either. Make sure everything you hear
lines up with the Bible. If you hear
something new—check it out. Make sure
it’s Biblical. Because actually there
should be no new doctrine in the Body of Messiah.
The faith
was delivered once for all to the saints (“…I
felt the necessity to write to you, encouraging you to contend for the faith
which was once for all delivered to the saints,” Jude 1:3). But the problem is that now we’ve got so far
away from the Bible in many areas, that the original faith sometimes sounds new
to us, even though it’s not. So we need
to check it out. Just because a teaching
is popular doesn’t mean it’s right—right?
There are plenty of foolish things that whole nations have
believed. But that didn’t make them
right. And there are a lot of foolish
things that large parts of the Body of Messiah believe today that are not at all
Biblical.
Sure, a
pastor can hold up a verse. But is he
using that verse the way the Bible uses that verse? For example, did you know you can use the
Bible to prove there is no God?
Yes. Psalm 14:1 clearly says “There is no God.” Did you know that? But if you read the whole verse, it says, “The fool has said in his heart, ‘There is
no God.’” This is why it’s so
important to check things out for yourself in the Bible.
As an
example of this, I’d like to take a look at a verse that is very popular in
some churches today. “With God, all things are possible”
(Matt. 19:26). (Actually, this same
phrase appears in a couple of other places too, but we’ll start with the one in
Matthew.) This verse is used to preach
all kinds of things.
It’s
especially popular with prosperity teachers who try to get you to believe that if
you give to their ministry, you’ll get rich.
Or that it’s God’s will for you to be a millionaire. Just confess and believe, right? Focus your faith on what you want, and it
will be yours! ‘All things are possible!’
Well, let’s
check it out. This verse appears in the
story often called the Rich Young Ruler.
This is when a wealthy young man came up to Jesus to see how he could
get eternal life. So he asked Jesus, “Teacher, what good thing can I do that I
may have eternal life?” (Matt. 19:16).
Now notice immediately what he’s asking.
It sounds like he’s asking how he can earn eternal life: ‘what should I do to get eternal life.’
Jesus saw
immediately that there was a problem here.
So he said to him, “Why are you
asking me about what is good? Only one is
good (in other words, only God is good).”
Why did Jesus say that? Because
the young man was not looking to God for the answer. He was looking to man. But you say, Jesus is God. Yes, of course, but this young man didn’t
believe that. Nobody knew it at the
time, not even Jesus’ disciples. He
probably just thought of Jesus as a famous teacher. But Jesus was trying to get him to look to
God, not man, for eternal life.
So he told
him something that any rabbi would have said at the time: “but if
you want to enter into life, keep the commandments” (Matt. 19:17b). Which ones, he asked? “And
Jesus said, ‘You will not commit murder, you will not commit adultery, you will
not steal, you will not bear false witness, honor your father and mother, and
you will love your neighbor as yourself’” (Matt. 19:18,19). Jesus gave him five of the ten commandments,
plus love your neighbor. These are all
things from the Law of Moses.
But notice that
Jesus doesn’t say that eternal life would come from obeying these things,
he just said “if you want to enter into life.” Why did he say that? He’s referring to Lev. 18:5, a very well
known verse at the time, “And you will
keep my statutes and my judgments which if a man will do, he will live by them;
I am the LORD.” The Law of Moses was
intended to bring life, as Paul says in another place (Rom. 7:10), but only if
you obeyed all of it (James 2:10).
But the
young man said, “All these things I have
kept; what am I still lacking?” (Matt. 19:20). This was a bright young man. He recognized that keeping the Law of Moses,
which he had done all his life, did not bring the promise of eternal life. The Law of Moses is only related to the
things of this life. He knew that
something more was needed for eternal life.
So Jesus
told him, "If you want to be perfect
(or complete, or mature; in other words, if you want to reach the goal of eternal
life), go, sell your possessions and give to the poor and you will have
treasure in the heavens, and come follow me” (Matt. 19:21). Reaching the goal of eternal life is only
possible through following Jesus. And to
do that, he would have to sell everything, give the money away which would
being an eternal reward, and then follow Jesus wherever he led.
This is one
of the hard sayings of Jesus. Some teach
that he only said it to this particular young man, because he was wealthy, and
this was what was hindering him from following Jesus. Have you heard that explanation? But actually, Jesus said it to all of his
disciples: “In the same way, then, any
of you that does not give up all his possessions cannot be my disciple”
(Luke 14:33). Whoa! Jesus, do you really mean that? Now, this is just about the opposite of the
prosperity gospel, I think you will agree.
Some people say, though, that this saying of Jesus only means that you must
turn over ownership of your possessions to Jesus: you still keep them, but you just do what
Jesus says with them. Have you ever
heard that one? It’s very clever, right? The problem is that the verb used here, apotasso in Greek, means “say goodbye
to” or “take leave of.” Jesus said you
have to say “goodbye” to your stuff.
Now maybe
some of you did sell all your possessions to come here to Taiwan. We did this when we went the second time to
the Philippines. Of course, we had the
problem that nobody wanted to buy some of our possessions—that was a little
tricky. “Okay, Lord, now what do we
do?” But this is what Jesus is talking
about. This is what the Bible is talking
about when it says to live by faith: trusting God to supply your needs.
So how did
the wealthy young man react? “But the young man, having heard this
saying, went away grieving, for he had many possessions” (Matt. 19:22). He was grieving, yes, but not enough to do
what Jesus said. He was not willing to do
what it takes to become a disciple of Jesus.
So Jesus
said to his disciples: “Amen I say to you that a rich man will
enter with difficulty into the kingdom of the heavens” (Matt. 19:23). This, too, is quite different than the
prosperity gospel. The prosperity gospel
says that if you are rich, you are blessed by God, that you are favored by God,
and the door to heaven is wide open to you.
But Jesus’ message is just the opposite.
He said it’s difficult for the rich to enter the kingdom.
How
difficult? “But again I say to you, it is easier for a camel to go through an eye
of a needle than for a rich person to enter into the kingdom of God” (Matt.
19:24). How difficult would you say that
is? Hmmm. You’d have to put the camel through a blender
first.
Some people
teach that the “eye of a needle” mentioned here refers to a small gate in
Jerusalem that was used at night after the main gates were shut. It was so small, that the camels had to kneel
down to enter, and so a rich man has to kneel down to enter the kingdom. Have you heard this one? Is it true?
First of all, in Greek it does not say “the eye of a needle,”
which is what it would say if this were a place name. Second, as my archeology teacher puts it, Gabi
Barkay, who is the most knowledgeable archeologist in the world about the
ancient city of Jerusalem: we know every
gate that ever existed in Jerusalem, and there was never a gate called “the Eye
of a Needle.” This is a Christian myth,
first invented in the Middle Ages.
So what did
Jesus mean? Camel. Needle.
You guessed it. It’s impossible, right? So what was Jesus saying? That for a rich person, it’s impossible to
give up everything to follow Jesus. For
us it was easy, we owned practically nothing.
Easy come, easy go. But it’s not
that way for a rich person.
The
disciples were shocked when they heard this teaching: “But
when they heard this, the disciples were very much astonished, saying, ‘Who
then can be saved?’” (Matt. 19:25).
If it’s that difficult for the rich, how can anyone be
saved?
That’s when
Jesus said, “For men, this is
impossible. But for God all things are
possible” (Matt. 19:26). What did Jesus
mean by this? Humanly speaking, it’s
impossible for a rich person to give up everything like this. But with God’s help, it’s even possible that
a rich person might sell everything, give to the poor, and follow Jesus. And it has happened, though rarely, in
history.
So does this
verse mean that God wants to make us rich, “With God, all things are possible”? Not at all.
It means that with God’s help, even rich people can sell everything,
give to the poor, and follow Jesus. In
other words, it means exactly the opposite of what many prosperity teachers
claim it to teach.
Now as I
said, this is not the only place this phrase appears in the Bible. But the other places it appears are also quite
different than preaching prosperity. In
Mark 9:22,23, Jesus uses it to talk about healing a boy with a demon
spirit. The boy’s father said, “‘And it has often thrown him both into the
fire and into the water to destroy him. But if you can do anything, take pity
on us and help us!’ And Jesus said to him, ‘If you can! All things are possible
to him who believes.’” Here, ‘all
things are possible’ is being used to talk about casting out evil spirits.
And in Mark
14:36, Jesus uses this phrase when praying in the Garden of Gethsemane, asking
if God would please take away the cup of suffering that he was about to
experience. “And he was saying, ‘Abba! Father! All things are possible for you;
remove this cup from me; yet not what I want, but what you want.” But if you remember, God did not take this
cup of suffering away from him. So yes,
all things are possible with God, but that doesn’t mean he always does what you
want him to do. In fact, sometimes he
calls you to do the difficult thing that you don’t want to do, the very thing you’re
asking him to take away.
Jesus
doesn’t make the gospel easy for people.
He makes it difficult. He draws a
line in the sand and dares people to cross it.
He isn’t looking for half-hearted converts, but for fully committed
disciples: people who know the gospel
and are willing to give their lives to share it with others.
So let’s quickly review what we’ve learned today:
1) All the elders in the New Testament were pastors. But not all were intensively involved in teaching
and preaching. Pastoring and teaching or
preaching were seen as different ministries, different gifts. Pastoring was more a one-on-one type of
ministry. Teaching and preaching were
done more to the group as a whole.
2) Messages were given not just by the elders, but by
others, too. But the elders led in
discerning whether the messages that were preached agreed with the Bible or
not.
3) One of the elders was elected as the president or head of
the church or synagogue. He would be in
charge of the day-to-day operation of the church or synagogue. But he was still an equal of the other elders.
4) The Bible does not teach a one-way submission of members
to elders in the church. Rather the
Bible teachers mutual submission of members to elders and elders to
members.
5) Jesus really wants us to give up everything to follow
him.
6) Camels do not fit through the eye of a needle.
7) “With God all things are possible” means that God can
help us give up everything to follow him, that he can even help us cast out
demons, but it doesn’t mean that he will always do everything we want him to do. All things are possible, yes, but sometimes
God puts us in difficult situations for his glory. And in times like that, real faith is
trusting God even when things are not wonderful and great and prosperous. Because God is faithful to deliver us from
those difficult things and lead us into his glory forever. Amen?
