December 13, 2006
Controlling Output
Next week my church will hold its election for elders. The currently seated elders sent a letter to the membership saying, “…[we are] giving you the opportunity to affirm through a ballot vote the men we have chosen to join the team of elders in the coming year, as well as individuals who will fill the roles of Treasurer, Assistant Treasurer, and Secretary.” The letter continues, “We welcome your input in regards to any or all of these individuals.” If I imagined a comparable scenario to this situation, it would go something like this: ‘My daughter informs me she was getting married in two weeks and that the preparations are already made. She expects my blessing and, if I have any comments about her betrothed, she’d welcome my thoughts.’ Perhaps I will just keep my ‘input’ to myself.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
4 comments:
Gail;
----The Scriptures do not accomodate the idea of membership election of elders, nor do they even support membership approval of new elders chosen by the current elders. Paul told Titus to appoint elders in every town on crete (Titus 1:1). Paul and Barnabas appointed elders in each church of Lystra, Iconium, and Antioch (Acts 14:22-23). There is no reference in the New Testament about election of elders, at least not that I am aware of.
These elders at your church are really acting more scripturally without congregational approval of their selections than with it.
----So also the elders are to be temporate, not quarrelsome, gentle and respectful. I know of only two amongst the current elders of your church who fit that definition. But even those two have failed to rightly divide the word of truth. That charge is evidenced by the continuing division at the church over ways the elders have chosen that are not commanded by Scriptures. In contradiction to the definition of love Paul made in I Corinthians 13, they are using their position as elders to demand their own ways. In an important meeting over whether or not the church was going to acknowledge all of God's people or only those who participate in the chosen culture, one of the elders stated, "...but I figured, you know what, if I have been singing hymns for 75% of my life up to a point and then within the last 10 years I can start playing guitars, start playing bass drums on the stage, and it goes on along with what the leadership is doing and enjoying myself to boot, imagine that." Ya, imagine that! An elder during a time when consciences in the church are divided over the issue of music culture using his position to assure his own way rules over the division. Yes, imagine that, elders who rule by their own way!
----OK guys, let's take a deep and fearful breathe will we let these unscriptural men Scripturally choose elders. Ya, right. If we are going to allow departure from the Scripture in respect to the most important position of eldership, I think I agree with you, Gail, let's be unscriptural by electing elders.
Hey Steve,
You’re always thought provoking.
As to the ‘appointment’ of elders, I’ve always thought this ‘appointment’ fulfilled a need for evangelism and planting new churches.
However in an established church, there’s other Scripture that’s also applicable to the conversation. The Twelve gathered the disciples together and said, “Brothers, choose seven men from among you who are known to be full of the Spirit and wisdom. We will turn this responsibility over to them and will give our attention to prayer and the ministry of the word. This proposal pleased the whole group…” (Acts 6:3-5a NIV)
The established church was (and is today) discerning and capable of choosing men who are known to be full of the Spirit and wisdom.
Of course the argument then becomes, ‘who’ is the church? Is it the leadership or the membership?
Gail;
----The leadership and the membership are both the church. Clergy/laity is an invention of man. The perception given by Scripture is that who we call clergy are merely those so full of faith and obedience that they can not help but naturally fall into the roles of teacher, preacher, evangelist, deacon, elder, etc. Thay have just what Paul says they have - gifts from the Spirit, having been given a large measure of faith by God (I Cor 12:3). They also have ordinantion because other godly men have recognized their spirituality.
----There is no indication in Acts 6:3-5 that the twelve were addressing just elders and/or leaders. They gathered the disciples together and told them to choose those to serve as deacons. But there is the distinction. This was the choosing of deacons, not elders. These men were chosen to assure fair distribution of goods among the brethren. Elders are chosen to facilitate and assure the spiritual health of the body. I can not find indication of any democratic activity what-so-ever involved in chosing elders.
----However, I also tremble in my boots at the thought of elders selecting their replacements without a Democratic process. I believe it is unscriptural, but the fact that it is a better alternative than having spiritually hard-of-seeing elders make the selections shows to what level the spirituality of the church has sunk.
----I also admit that I do not see anything in the Scripture that in itself precludes congregational selection of elders. I note a logical progression in New Testament discourse regarding the subject which indicates to me the reasonable conclusion that election of elders was unheard-of in the Early Church. But I expect no-one to accept some logical progression just on my account.
Gail;
----Last night I re-stumbled across an interesting tidbit of church history that I forgot many years ago (this will indicate how important memory is to drawing intelligent conclusions.) Concurrently with the penning of I, II, and III John and the Revelations to John (AD 90ish), the church at Corinth fell into a worse condition of partisan division than it had fallen into at the time Paul addressed his epistles to them. As I believe you already know, the Corinthian church requested the advice of the church at Rome, where Clement was the influential elder. The response to the Corinthian church, creditted to Clement by most scholars, comments that after the passing of the apostles, selection of elders indeed involved consent of the whole church. This evidences either some skittishness on the part of all to subjecting the church to elders selecting elders, or it evidences a possible verbal, but not written, principle left by the apostles that the whole church needed to be involved in elder appointment. Or maybe it was just spiritually understood from Scriptural equtions, and it needed no address. One way or another, I am draggin out my dolly blocks, fender hammers, files, and bondo to give my ideas on this topic a reshaping.
----Meanwhile, I think you will be very interested to read what Alfred H. Newmann wrote about this Corinthian affair in A Manuel of Church History (27th printing, 1972) Vol. I page 124. Quote:
----The Corinthian church had fallen into discord, which the writer declares to be worse than that in Paul's time. The main trouble seems to have been that ambitious men of the younger generation had gained such ascendaency in the church as to be able to supplant the elders that had been appointed by the apostles, or, as the writer says, "...the worthless rose up against the honored, those of no reputation against such as were renowned, the foolish against the wise, the young against those advanced in years." (chap. 3). The opinion is expressed that those appointed by the apostles "or afterward by other iminent men, with the consent of the whole church, and who have served the flock of Christ, in a humble, peaceable, and disinterested spirit, and have for a long time possessed the good opinion of all, cannot be justly dismissed from the ministry" (chap 44).
----end quote
----I take it that Newmann's quotes are of Clement of Rome. Is it not interesting how quickly Rick Warrenish treachery stepped into the church, and how it has remained so unchanged in twenty centuries?
Post a Comment