Quote:
Originally Posted by Terry
My thoughts was primarily based on:
the teaching of deputy authority
the fear of being marked as divisive for responding
to take abuse is to take the cross
Going off topic for a moment based on the premise all elders are deputy authority. How did they get to be elders? As I've stated on other threads my oberservation of a local church elder is not much different than an elder from a non-local church. That being they embrace responsibility and it takes endurance and commitment to that particular assembly before being chosen as an elder. Differences I see for example in a non-lc church you don't know who the elders are until their oversight is required. Whereas in the local church, for the most part they are easily identified.
Where I see the local church elder being different than any non-local church elder is in the ability to move their eldership from city to city. For example from Los Angeles to Detroit or from Anaheim to Denver.
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I found it very interesting that the story of Nabal and Abigail seems to be quite applicable to this, in which case it isn't off topic since it was the example used in the first post.
Nabal is of Caleb's house, no doubt a very highly respected name at the time. He was also quite wealthy. He rebukes David and his men saying "there are many men that break away from their masters", clearly in contrast to the teaching on deputy authority. No doubt for someone churlish like Nabal the teaching of "Deputy authority" was a great comfort, it justified his being someone that, as his own servants said "is such a son of belial that no man can talk to him". That is one version of the teaching of deputy authority and it is clearly a despicable teaching.
Another version is that of Abigail, who said " the LORD will certainly make my lord a sure house; because my lord fighteth the battles of the LORD, and evil hath not been found in thee all thy days." Fighting the battles of the Lord supersedes any "deputy authority" likewise, having "evil found within thee" would void any so called service to the Lord. So with this, those who claim deputy authority can do so, not based on their lineage going back to Caleb, but to actually fighting the Lord's battles themselves. However, if you find evil within them, say false accusations, or a false measure, or a deceitful way, etc. then that would void any claim they would have to "fighting the Lord's battles" much like Saul's claim was voided by the bleating of the sheep.