[Cal]

Has anyone ever thought it is interesting that in all Paul's letters to city churches, and even Jesus's messages to city churches, that the names of the leaders are never specified? Paul surely knew who were leaders in the churches he planted. So why doesn't he ever address them directly by name? Even further, in all of Paul's writings to churches is to the whole church in general, he never writes in a way where he is talking to leaders. And unless you believe Hebrews (13:17) was written by Paul, there is no place where he instructs members to obey leaders, or really talks about them much at all. Outside of the pastoral epistles (Timothy I II, Titus), which were written to other apostles, he doesn't address leadership much, and even there he does not speak of obedience to leaders.

Peter writes about leaders, but he focuses on the humility and servant attitude of leaders. He doesn't instruct members about obedience to leaders. (1 Pet 5:2-3).

One would think that if city churches were in principle to be led by one group of leaders, in the model of the LCM, that this leadership aspect would be very crucial and that Paul would address it clearly in his letters to the city churches. But he doesn't. He never does. In fact, Paul talks more about obeying secular leaders (Rom 13) than he does about obeying church leaders!

The whole picture is something very different that what is painted by the LCM. In the LCM everything revolves around submitting to the leaders. Paul emphasizes unity, but he doesn't cast things in a way that suggest the unity is around the leaders. It's always around Christ. And leaders are always portrayed as servants, not lords.

Finally, why does Paul not address the book of Romans to the church in Rome? Why does he address it to "all who are in Rome." Why does he leave out reference to the church in Rome but then refers later to "the church that meets in their house" (16:5) obviously referring to a subset of all the Christians in Rome?