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To: rzman21

Obey them that have the rule over you, and submit yourselves: for they watch for your souls, as they that must give account, that they may do it with joy, and not with grief: for that is unprofitable for you.

There’s nothing in that passage that demands that people’s pastors must be imposed on them by church hierarchy. Only that when people submit themselves to a pastor, they obey his godly leadership.
Many people understandably argue that grown up men and women should be allowed to participate in the management of their congregation like grown-ups.


69 posted on 12/28/2011 7:20:37 PM PST by WilliamIII
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To: WilliamIII

Chapter 8. Let nothing be done without the bishop

See that you all follow the bishop, even as Jesus Christ does the Father, and the presbytery as you would the apostles; and reverence the deacons, as being the institution of God. Let no man do anything connected with the Church without the bishop. Let that be deemed a proper Eucharist, which is [administered] either by the bishop, or by one to whom he has entrusted it. Wherever the bishop shall appear, there let the multitude [of the people] also be; even as, wherever Jesus Christ is, there is the Catholic Church. It is not lawful without the bishop either to baptize or to celebrate a love-feast; but whatsoever he shall approve of, that is also pleasing to God, so that everything that is done may be secure and valid.

St. Ignatius of Antioch Letter to the Smyrneans 105 A.D.


78 posted on 12/28/2011 7:27:06 PM PST by rzman21
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