Eldership

[KSA]

Originally Posted by YP0534

I wish to know what the Bible says about it.

For instance, the word "eldership" is not in the Bible although clearly many people feel it is so natural to think and act as if it is something prescribed or described by the scriptures.

http://cf.blueletterbible.org/search...ldership&t=KJV

The Bible speaks of "elders" but not "eldership" so I think this is meaningful.

(The term as appears in some translations of 1 Tim 4:14 refers to a group of elders, not an office of elder.)

I would rather stick to what we can learn from the actual scriptures.

It seems that your main objection is with the term "office" (by the way, I always use "eldership" meaning "group of elders"). However, the Word talks about office as well.

It is a trustworthy statement: if any man aspires to the office of overseer, it is fine work he desires to do. (1 Tim. 3:1. NASB)

(And we know that elders and overseers are the same in NT).

"The office of overseer" in Greek is episkope. Greek dictionary says: episkope; fem., a purely biblical and patristic word. The office of an overseer or bishop in Christ's Church...

It is interesting that the same word is translated office in Acts. 1:20 where it talks about the office of an apostle - his office let another man take. If you check Ps. 109:8, where this quote was lifted from, then you'll see that the same Hebrew word is used as in 2 Chron. 23:18, where the offices in the house of the Lord are discussed.

So I think that this "there is no word eldership in the Bible talk" is just hair splitting. What really matters is that the church was a community with leadership, and that this leadership was to be obeyed and given honor to. There is no such a thing as the church without authority in the Bible. A person who does not know how to place himself under authority cannot progress spiritually.

What is the biblical authority is quite another matter, but that there is authority in the church goes without doubt.

[aron]

Originally Posted by KSA

What really matters is that the church was a community with leadership, and that this leadership was to be obeyed and given honor to. There is no such a thing as the church without authority in the Bible. A person who does not know how to place himself under authority cannot progress spiritually.

What is the biblical authority is quite another matter, but that there is authority in the church goes without doubt.

Yes, what is biblical authority? Anyone who "jumps rank" and declares themselves to be in charge is disqualified, in my view. Remember the case of Alexander Haig? He was Secretary of State when President Ronald Reagan was shot in 1981, and famously asserted, "I'm in control here." He later said he was misunderstood, he just meant he was in control of the room with the press asking questions, not the country. But it was a breach in appearance, anyway, and he was censured for it.

Likewise, any christians who assert, "I'm in control here", either individually or collectively, have left thier biblical standing. The Lord said to take the last place at the table, and then let the Master of the feast call you up higher. In this case, the church age, the stand-in for the Master of the feast is the believers. If they get fed and watered and shepherded and encouraged and strengthened and enlightened by you, they are going to invite you up higher, to the place of honor at the table. But if you "impose" your "authority" on them it is unbiblical.

I agree with the statements "There is no such thing as a church without authority in the Bible.", and "A person who does not place himself under authority cannot progress spiritually." But at the same time, I am wary of being bullied, intimidated, and oppressed by someone's twisted apprehension of the term "authority".

[KSA]

Biblical authority is determined by our subjection to the authority of the Lord. There is no authority in the church apart from the Lord.

There are abuses of the authority in the church. But to deny authority itself because of the abuses is to go way too far. It is the same as denying parenthood just because some parents abuse their children.

[Peter Debelak]

Originally Posted by KSA

Biblical authority is determined by our subjection to the authority of the Lord. There is no authority in the church apart from the Lord.

There are abuses of the authority in the church. But to deny authority itself because of the abuses is to go way too far. It is the same as denying parenthood just because some parents abuse their children.

Does the bible treat submission/obedience to spiritual authorities the same as it treats submission/obedience to human authorities?

When I saw "human authorities" - I am speaking of parents, governments, teachers, etc...

Authority for human authorities is static - it resides in the office and is not contingent on the person's acts being right or righteous. Does the Bible treat spiritual authority the same way?

If you say spritual authority resides in "offices", then I think the notion that "There is no authority in the church apart from the Lord" is difficult to maintain. That is, unless you propose that once someone holds a particular "office," then it is impossible for them to do other than the Lord's will. But we know this is impossible and thus, it is hard to maintain both propositions:

1) spiritual authority resides in an "office"
2) there is no spiritual authority apart from the Lord

Finally, do not take arguments here (at least not my arguments) as attempting to debunk spiritual authority. There is always spiritual authority and often it manifests through other believers. I am just discussing whether that authority is always static, in an office, and in a set structure. I wonder whether that view would have prohibited Paul from submitting to Ananias - or any of us being open to the fact that the Lord can speak to us through others, even those who don't hold any "office."

Also, I am not sure what you mean when you say meeting "in some kind of small groups that are detached from the rest of the body in our city." Really, I have no idea what this means - especially not in relation to whether eldership is prescribed. Could you elaborate?

Peter

[YP0534]

Originally Posted by KSA

(And we know that elders and overseers are the same in NT).

I do know know this.

How do you know this?

[aron]

YP's insertion of the 'widow's roll' into the discussion of elders provides some helpful context for me. It got me thinking about the 'cultural relics' we often unknowingly insert into our practices, religious and otherwise. Hopefully my comments here serve as an adjunct rather than an impediment to the discussion.

--short hair. Paul prescribes women not to have short hair. That is not followed in the church, even in the Local Churches today. Some women have short hair, most don't.

--head coverings. Same as above. Most LC women don't cover thier heads, some do.

--women being 'silent' in the church. Not followed much in any fellowship of believers. I did meet with one non-LC group that had strict adherence to the above 3 points.

--Paul & Silas getting the right hand of fellowship to go forth, and being told to "remember the widows and orphans, which we assured them we were eager to do". Not much in record follows concerning widows and orphans being helped by them. Today, helping widows and orphans seems to be optional in Christianity. In the LC's, we looked for "good materials", which meant young college students. Widows and orphans were looked after privately, by some. But it certainly was not stressed. It seems to be more stressed in the NT, in places like this, and in the Gospels.

--the widow's roll, mentioned by YP. Again, optional, it seems. To me, inserting a widows roll, or some such practice, in the early assembly is not so much a cultural artifact as it is an attempt by the adherents of the faith to follow the Master's teachings. He said, "It is better to give than to receive", and some of the disciples looked for ways to give, and latched on to this as a way to help others. So they weren't being "Jewish" as much as trying to be "good". The cultural element might have been irrelevant.

--slaves obeying the masters. This is clearly cultural. It did get rehashed in the U.S. prior to the Civil War, with pro-slavery/states' rights groups citing this verse and abolitionists citing the "there is not any free man or slave in Christ" verses. Actually, some of the NT verses on slavery might be called anti-cultural, because they fly in the face of prevailing sentiment by asserting the equality of all men, and women, in the household of faith. That is the opposite of a 'nod' to culture, and also it follows Christ, to some degree, who could be quite iconoclastic in his speaking. Overturning the established order, and such.

--wives obeying husbands. In the LC's, at least on paper, this is adhered to, but in many Christian groups it is downplayed or ignored. As society changed, so did the attention to admonitions such as this. Today women can divorce husbands, can own property, vote, run for president, run companies, perform open heart surgery; they are in most cases equal. And in many Christian groups, even strict 'Bible-based' groups, women have equal status. In the homes also.

--"I do not permit a woman to teach". Same as above.

--children obeying/honoring parents. This seems to transcend culture. Children lack experience, and those children who are not obedient eventually learn, sometimes with a steep price, that the things Mom & Dad lectured on had at least a modicum of reality attached to it. The price to pay, learning from Mom & Dad, usually is less steep than learing from 'the world'.

--elders/leading ones in the assembly not being lovers of money, not vain, not striking others, not having multiple wives, not drunkards. Partly cultural. Interpersonal violence may have been more common back then, thus the need for an admonition. But most of it is common sense, really. Pretty obvious, and as such, to me, mostly irrelevant. There is a cultural element here. Paul would not have to write such words today, just like "Slaves, obey your masters." It is clearly a cultural artifact from now-departed times.

My point in this little list (which came to me "off the top of my head" as I was writing; surely there are other examples also), is to suggest that there are things which the christian community has ignored and/or abandoned as unworkable or outmoded or irrelevant by the changing times. And some things which some have abandoned and some other ones hold to, even tightly. So it seems to be okay to give ourselves some latitude as we attempt to determine what is "biblical" and what is "cultural".

Lastly, the trump card is Jesus Christ, not letters to Timothy or Titus. Paul said "Imitate me as I imitate Christ". We ought to determine where Paul was imitating Christ, and where he was nodding to the prevailing culture. Just because God gave Paul latitude to be a Greek among the Greeks, that doesn't mean we all have to strictly adhere to Greek customs and culture in order to follow Jesus the Galilean. We can be American among the Americans, and so forth. America is a much more decentralized place. If we collectively prefer a more decentralized or ad-hoc form of group leadership, I don't think God's throne will shake.

[YP0534]

Originally Posted by aron

Lastly, the trump card is Jesus Christ, not letters to Timothy or Titus. Paul said "Imitate me as I imitate Christ". We ought to determine where Paul was imitating Christ, and where he was nodding to the prevailing culture.

Yes.

Do you believe that the Bible is the Word of God?

Thank you.

[aron]

Originally Posted by YP0534

Yes.

Do you believe that the Bible is the Word of God?

Yes, I do.

Do you believe that when Job's wife advised him to "Curse God and die", she was speaking for God? Or was that merely her opinion?

[YP0534]

Originally Posted by aron

Yes, I do.

Do you believe that when Job's wife advised him to "Curse God and die", she was speaking for God? Or was that merely her opinion?

aron, surely you do not compare Paul's practical instructions to Timothy on how to maintain a widows' roll with Job's wife's advice!

What you have written concerning Paul's letters seems to fly in the face of holding those works sacred. If these letters may be picked apart as, Oh, this part is just Paul's culture and we may ignore it, how can we, on the positive side, have the practice of "elders" with the confidence that the Bible is God's word to us?

I would go one step further to illustrate the problem.

In Hebrews, we are exhorted to not forsake the assembling of ourselves together as the custom of some was. Doesn't that pretty much declare that it was a matter of custom to assemble? And wasn't this, just coincidentally, the very practice of the synagogue and the Temple?

Brother Nee in one place wrote

The Bible gives explicit commandments as well as clear examples of people meeting together.

Watchman Nee - Messages for Building Up New Believers

Is the Christian meeting a matter of culture or commandment? We generally accept that assembling is something that we must do, but is that so? Is it so just because it was Paul's opinion that it was a good thing to do?

But I don't want to get off track. I am not asking if we should meet or not. That's purely rhetorical.

I am asking whether we can parse Paul's letters to Timothy as you have suggested and whether such parsing properly respects the Bible as the Holy Word. I think it might be possible to discern Paul's culture in a way that has been neglected for 2000 years, but I think many, most, nearly all, will tell you that you must do what Paul says to do regarding all the things he discusses or you are rejecting the Bible and counting yourself higher than it is.

[Suannehill]

It is also possible that later translators injected "opinion" and "customs" into later translations.
Sue

[aron]

Originally Posted by YP0534

aron, surely you do not compare Paul's practical instructions to Timothy on how to maintain a widows' roll with Job's wife's advice!

Why not? They are both humans who are speaking/writing in God's Holy Word. Or did Paul get a special dispensation of inerrancy by holding the office of "Apostle of the Age"?

When Peter said, "Not so, Lord, this shall never happen to you" in Matthew 16, was he speaking for God, or injecting his fallen human thought? Jesus said, "Get behind me, Satan." So obviously it was not the former.

Later, after the resurrection, Peter said, "I am going fishing." The rest said, "We are going with you." Here they seem to be in some error, judging by the Lord's gentle rebuke later ("Peter, do you love Me?"); did they get a special "inerrancy pill" on the day of Pentecost, so that their deeds and speaking cannot be scrutinized afterwards? I think not. They obviously had different opinions at times -- see the record in Galatians on Paul's confrontation with Peter when some came "from James".

I am not holding my opinion as capable of setting Paul's opinion at naught (Except in the case of wine: he told Timothy to take a little wine for his stomach; I would have to say, "Sorry brother, can't do that. The stuff makes me crazy"). I apologize if I gave that impression. I have the bad habit of leaving unstated several "connecting dots" in my thinking. My point of Timothy and Titus not being the "last word" was more do to my annoyance at people seeming to imply with their citations of scriptures that it was now and henceforth "case closed", and any further questionings rank of foolish impiety. "God has spoken; we have the cases of eldership cited in Timothy and Titus. It is clear. Cease your nettlesome questionings."

(Forgive me, Toledo, if I am picking on you here specifically. I am just trying to simplify my sense of the arguments I have heard over the past umpteen years of my christian discussions. Sometimes simplification involves distortion. I apologize if my characterization in any way distorts your argument).

What I am setting against Paul's writing in Timothy and Titus is not my opinion. It is the speakings of Jesus the Galilean. Sometimes Paul's writings smack of "exigencies", i.e. dealing with particular cases which no longer are so relevant (slavery, women's place in the assembly) due to changes in culture over time.

What I am also setting against Paul's writing in Timothy and Titus is the writings of others in the Bible. I am specifically thinking of John. Where is John's opinion on this matter? It is never discussed in my hearing or reading, and I think this is due to two reasons.

First, people go "case closed" when they read the verses in question. This is a problem with the "concordance" school of systematic theology. We just look up all verses saying "eldership" or "elder" or "office" and think we have it. I am actually picking on Lee here. He was too quick to say "case closed".

Secondly, John's writings are more elliptical, more inscrutable, more veiled, which I think was done purposefully by him. John picked up Jesus' trick of hiding in plain sight. "He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit is speaking to the churches" is a direct echo of Jesus' word in the face of the Pharisees, after He threw a parable at them: "He who has an ear to hear, let him hear." John was deliberately playing "games" with his readers; he was setting a puzzle before them. What does John say about the appointment of elders in the assemblies of those who are called out?

[YP0534]

Originally Posted by aron

--the widow's roll, mentioned by YP. Again, optional, it seems. To me, inserting a widows roll, or some such practice, in the early assembly is not so much a cultural artifact as it is an attempt by the adherents of the faith to follow the Master's teachings. He said, "It is better to give than to receive", and some of the disciples looked for ways to give, and latched on to this as a way to help others. So they weren't being "Jewish" as much as trying to be "good". The cultural element might have been irrelevant.

aron, if the "elders" of the synagogue were responsible for handling the "widows' roll," I think that might be a significant insight

my point wasn't about the care for others in general - absolutely we should and must - the point was Paul's finely detailed description of the practice of maintaining the list of widows

many take the position that this practice reflects a highly developed state of "church affairs" indicating a late date for the authorship of the epistle and, perhaps, less ability to understand the epistle through a prism of cultural interpretation

in fact, many go a further step and deny Pauline authorship based upon how advanced the practice seems and how culturally-based it appears to be

but my inquiry is whether perhaps it was actually a quite early practice such that it might be understood in that fashion

because, truly, if Paul wore pants, he would don them just as you or I do...