Posted on 04/27/2016 8:41:02 AM PDT by Salvation
But which you fail to establish, and which is contrary to the evidence otherwise which you hardly interact with, as your argumentation is much that of assertions and arguments that the texts do not teach.
And, applying the Granville Sharp Rule, the pastors are a separate group from the teachers (the διδασκαλοι didaskaloi), and that doesn't leave much room for them.
They are a separate group, as are apostles from teachers, and we see in Acts 13:1 that there were "certain prophets and teachers; as Barnabas, and Simeon that was called Niger, and Lucius of Cyrene, and Manaen," but (applying the rule against a false dilemma) pastors being listed separate from teachers does not mean pastors do not teach and do not have much "room" for ministry any more than apostles being separate from pastors and teachers means they do not engage in both. Nor does it mean that the persons in each office could not have more than one gift.
But as per the term, the main function of pastors is to shepherd the flock: "Let the elders that rule well be counted worthy of double honour, especially they who labour in the word and doctrine" (1 Timothy 5:17) They need not have the gift of teaching, but they still must be able to. For while apostles were the chief pastors, and deacons in some sense also pastured, yet the apostles appointed presbuteros/episkopos to "take care of the church of God" (1Tim. 3:5) thus requiring them being "apt to teach" and threby "feed the flock" with the word of God as its overseers, (Acts 20:28,32) and to "reprove, rebuke, exhort with all longsuffering and doctrine," (2 Timothy 4:2) and to whom obedience is enjoined. (Heb. 13:17) This is incontrovertible, and which pastoring is not said of deacons, while you have not shown why presbuteros/episkopos does not refer to the same persons, as Scripture shows they did.
Now, the literal pastors of the first local church, the prototype at Jerusalem, were the seven deacons.
Which assertion can only mean that they help the head pastors in ministering to temporal needs, though as with Phillip, such could also function as evangelists. But it is clear that besides apostles, presbuteros/episkopos are the ones charged with teaching and functioning as pastors of the flock.
That ministry was separated so that the twelve could give themselves continually over to the ministry of the Word and prayer, which would be the figurative "feeding" of the spiritual needs of the "flock" of the assembly (as well as each other), which is--now guess, eh?--teaching. Thus, this asrrangement defined who the pastors and teachers were, and what they did.
For the moment leaving the issue of episkopoi and presbuteroi aside,
You left them aside for sure, only to later leap to asserting that episkopos, and presbuteros are not truly interchangeable, equivalent, synonomous despite the fact that this is what the Holy Spirit describes them as being.
So who are the pastors in Eph. 4:11? If the office of deacon is not comprised by "pastor" there is no place for the deacon, is there?
No, as again, besides apostles it is clear that presbuteros/episkopos are described and charged with functioning as pastors. The best you can say is that the term pastors no more excludes presbuteros than it excludes deacons, but the latter are not the ones shown or described spiritually pastoring the flock.
[Peter] is commanded to "feed" the lambs of the flock (1 Pet. 2:2,3) while the Shepherd is away. Here, he is given the task of getting little new lambs to suckle on their mother ewes, getting the "milk" of the Gospel, which is sustaining the saving faith until full assurance is a real felt experience, and the stronger food of discernment is in the offing (Heb. 5:13-14). You see the analogy, do you not? There is only one Spiritual Pastor, One Shepherd (Jn. 10:16). A teacher is just a nurse for the little spiritual babes, a mower who distributes hay for the weak ones, and shows the stronger where to graze.
Wrong, as presbuteros/episkopos are clearly described as shepherding the flock, as its overseers. And which includes rebuking rebellious souls sharply, (Titus 1:13) as well as leaders who sin. (1Tim. 5:20)
As a presbuteros Peter would not forsake the needs of the assembly and "go a-fishing." He woyuld be present as a didaslalos as they gather together to teach everything whatsoever he had heard Jesus command,
But presbuteros are the ones charged with teaching and spiritually pastoring under the apostles, and nowhere are deacons charged with teaching, but they minister, and the word is even used for a female who ministered, (Rm. 16:1) but not by teaching men.
The functions of pastor, episkopos, and presbuteros are not truly interchangeable, and most certainly are not equivalent, nor are they at all synonomous. To think so is dramatically wrong.
Which is just as baseless and absurd as it was the first time someone said it, and your laborious description of Peter or the preceding utterly fails to teach what you assert. Titus is charged by Paul to ordain presbuteros in every city, and which are called episkopos, (Titus 1:5,7) and gives Timothy the requirements for episkopos, taking care of the church, as he did in keeping his own children in subjection, (1Tim, 3:1-7) and goes on state that presbuteros who rule well are to be counted worthy of double honour. (1Tim. 5:17) Paul calls all the Ephesian presbuteros together and charges them with feeding the flock as its episkopos, (Acts 20;17,32) never inferring any distinction btwn the two, but showing that episkopos are presbuteros and presbuteros are episkopos.
Please read 1 Peter 5:1-11, and come to terms with the fact that the common current church manifestation of rule is so way out of balance, Catholic, Orthodox, Protestant, or Baptist, that none of such congregations are any longer effective of prospering in their worldly-oriented polities. They need to be restored to the New Testament model.
It is aberrant teaching as yours that gives Rome ammunition. While all the above have problems, with Catholicism being in its own class, esp. Rome, the main theme in your ecclesiology is that of rejection of authority. However, as said, Paul charges pastors to "Preach the word; be instant in season, out of season; reprove, rebuke, exhort with all longsuffering and doctrine," (2 Timothy 4:2) "These things speak, and exhort, and rebuke with all authority. Let no man despise thee," (Titus 2:15) and the writer of Hebrews charges, "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." (Hebrews 13:17)
The deacons diakonoi, when functioning scripturally, are the pastors literally serving and managing the physical needs of the constituents of the assembly, exclusively.
Which is simply not what they are charged with or described as as doing, as instead the only description of their duties was to take care of the physical feeding, though some as Philip also functioned as evangelists. You whole eisegesis seems driven by an animus against authority.
The episkopos is the business manager and ruler of the physical plant, the personnel relationships, and interactions with the worldly community.
Which simply more reading into the text what is not there, as while they are to have a good testimony, their active functions are to care for the church, and be "apt to teach," and "feed the flock," rebuke, exhort," etc. as shown.
A bishop [episkopos] then must be blameless, the husband of one wife, vigilant, sober, of good behaviour, given to hospitality, apt to teach; Not given to wine, no striker, not greedy of filthy lucre; but patient, not a brawler, not covetous; One that ruleth well his own house, having his children in subjection with all gravity; (For if a man know not how to rule his own house, how shall he take care of the church of God?) (1 Timothy 3:2-5)
The presbuteroi, the elders, have responsibility for the teaching of the assembly, especially as directed toward one-on-one or one-on- or -very few disciple-making and training in the never-ending process of bringing constituents to full stature in the Lord, following the Great Commission in detail, and making the recruitment of new disciples the overruling concern for even having an assembly.
As shown, presbuteroi are charged with feeding the flock as its episkopos, (Acts 20:28,32) and the terms are elsewhere shown to be synonymous, and never in any manifest distinction, despite the desire of some to see such.
Each local assembly is scripturally meant to be autonomous, not "catholic" in polity nor engaging in attempts to rule beyond the local church.
And how do you get this out of Acts 15? Granted, the limited unity of the NT church was under clearly abundantly manifest men of God, (2Co. 6:4-10; 12:12) of Scriptural substantiation in word and in power, and Rome's so-called apostolic successors even fail of the qualifications and credentials of manifest Biblical apostles. (Acts 1:21,22; 1Cor. 9:1; Gal. 1:11,12) but the principal of consensual centralized leadership, in scope as far as practical, with the veracity of its judgments resting upon the degree of Scriptural substantiation, is certainly what is Scriptural and a goal to be sought, despite the Roman abomination of it. A lot of autonomous churches of variegated variant beliefs, and so that heretics can jump from one to another, is not.
You went to a Catholic high school and didn't have a Bible??????I graduated from a Catholic high school in 1957 and by the time that I graduated, I had read through the Bible twice....have done so several times since.
Your concept of Christianity is totally skewed...Catholicism IS Christianity, fully and completely. The various "denominations" which sprang up as the result of the revolution, are all either in error or at best incomplete.. Catholics are not Christians because they believe in the Sacraments and Baptism, but believe in those things because they are TOTALLY Christian.....to deny the Sacraments and still claim Christianity is in error and incomplete.
No wonder that seminary-trained young men are handed the key role in a local church, and tries to be all three with no relief. Then is physically, mentally, and spiritually worn out and burned out before the age of fifty.
Peter called himself an elder, not a pastor. Peter didn't identify himself as a theologian, either, but instead pointed to Paul.
Your argument goes on and on continually misidentifying function with title and titles with other titles until none has any meaning except that which you assign to them. You need to unravel in a systematic way until you get back to basics. Then you will have a New Testament Church.
If you want to get an idea of how one operates, attend a "Plymouth"-brethren-type church, where there are no pastors of the kind found in the Reformed descendants of the Roman episcopacy. In the Romanist-modeled military-type episcopacy, you have the commissioned officers, then you have other ranks. Just like the armies of thew world. That's not the kind of church that Paul gave to the Gentile world. He didn't set them up as a two-class, clergy-run vs subjugated lay people hierarchies. They were assemblies governed by a plurality of spiritually mature elders.
=============
Just a couple of comments on a typical volume, "Reimagining Church," by Frank Viola which treats this issue:
The body of Christ has been stifled by human traditions for far too long. Reimagining Church charts a fresh course for the church that recovers the simplicity of Christ and listens seriously to what the voice of the Great Shepherd is saying to His people.”
Jon Zens,
editor of Searching Together
and author of A Church Building Every ½ Mile: What Makes American Christianity Tick?
----
“If Pagan Christianity exposes the reality that much of our current church practice has little basis in the Bible, Reimagining Church takes the next step to establish what truly biblical church life looks like. With the inner life of the Trinity as the starting point, Viola paints an amazing picture of organic church life.”
John White, community facilitator at LK10:
A Community of Practice for Church Planters
==========
What I have written, though different than your preferred model, is not aberrant to scripture, nor does it give ammunition to the Romanists. Rather, it does fatally undercut the paganicity with which the Roman model and its poor Protestant models are shot through. The Protestants had a good start on reforming the catholic faith, but failed to carry it through to completion and wound up with several dividing flaws, one being keeping the two-class culture, were the Protestant pastor/elder/bishop is roughly equivalent to a Catholic priest.
No wonder that seminary-trained young men are handed the key role in a local church, and tries to be all three with no relief. Then is physically, mentally, and spiritually worn out and burned out before the age of fifty.
Peter called himself an elder, not a pastor. Peter didn't identify himself as a theologian, either, but instead pointed to Paul.
Your argument goes on and on continually misidentifying function with title and titles with other titles until none has any meaning except that which you assign to them. You need to unravel in a systematic way until you get back to basics. Then you will have a New Testament Church.
If you want to get an idea of how one operates, attend a "Plymouth"-brethren-type church, where there are no pastors of the kind found in the Reformed descendants of the Roman episcopacy. In the Romanist-modeled military-type episcopacy, you have the commissioned officers, then you have other ranks. Just like the armies of thew world. That's not the kind of church that Paul gave to the Gentile world. He didn't set them up as a two-class, clergy-run vs subjugated lay people hierarchies. They were assemblies governed by a plurality of spiritually mature elders.
=============
Just a couple of comments on a typical volume, "Reimagining Church," by Frank Viola which treats this issue:
The body of Christ has been stifled by human traditions for far too long. Reimagining Church charts a fresh course for the church that recovers the simplicity of Christ and listens seriously to what the voice of the Great Shepherd is saying to His people.”
Jon Zens,
editor of Searching Together
and author of A Church Building Every ½ Mile: What Makes American Christianity Tick?
----
“If Pagan Christianity exposes the reality that much of our current church practice has little basis in the Bible, Reimagining Church takes the next step to establish what truly biblical church life looks like. With the inner life of the Trinity as the starting point, Viola paints an amazing picture of organic church life.”
John White, community facilitator at LK10:
A Community of Practice for Church Planters
==========
What I have written, though different than your preferred model, is not aberrant to scripture, nor does it give ammunition to the Romanists. Rather, it does fatally undercut the paganicity with which the Roman model and its poor Protestant models are shot through. The Protestants had a good start on reforming the catholic faith, but failed to carry it through to completion and wound up with several dividing flaws, one being keeping the two-class culture, were the Protestant pastor/elder/bishop is roughly equivalent to a Catholic priest.
We never had a Bible in our house nor did I ever see one in the Catholic school I attended for almost five years.
Holy moly TC, you graduated high school in 1957? Man, you are older than dirt, but that's ok.
No, I didn't have a Bible, and we did not study it. We did have to listen to the priest in religion class, because we were told we could not read the Bible, unless the priest told us what it meant. We did get catechism, but I was not really interested in ANY religion, so I didn't pay much attention. I was a man of the world, so to speak to speak. I couldn't be bothered with any kind of "religion."
Then, the Navigator dudes came along. What impressed me about them, is they were not hypocrites. They talked the talk, and walked the walk. No one in that "other religion" I was in, ever did that. They GAVE me a ASV, and said read it. I did, that I is why I am no longer in that "other religion."
If others want to remain in "other religions," that's on them. I just want to know how they plan to bluff their way into Heaven, cuz if "religious people" go to Hell, what difference does it all make?
Now, I have Bible studies, and I ONLY invite my Catholic friends, and yes, I have many catholic friends. We have some good discussions. It's ok, I guess. 😄😀😇
I suppose a lot of Catholics can't understand anyone coming away from Catholicism
I too never had a bible, just a Baltimore Catechism ...
Still remember #1 ...
Who is God ?
God is the creator of heaven and earth and all things
it served us little kids but Catholicism never much planned for little kids to grow up to be adults and have a healthy curiosity about "What's it all about, Alfie ?"
I met Jesus in '81 and HE had all the answers I needed for every question
I suppose not. Such is life, as they say. Anyway, I was a pretty rough sinner, and I enjoyed sinning. A true man of the world was I.
I do remember, however, telling my science teacher nun, that I wanted to go to Heaven. She looked at me, and her facial expression told me, that the concept of Heaven was a total shock to her psyche. My opinion is, she didn't think anyone was going to Heaven, least of all, me.
Now, I don't like sin much, but there is one sin I enjoy committing, the sin of presumption, since I have assurance of salvation. If some people don't have it, that's on them.
We had two bibles in our house. My Dad’s Catholic bible and Mom’s King James Bible.
My S-I-L's house was damaged by one blowing up just a street over from her's.
I'd have to agree.
With a LOT of other, unneeded, stuff tossed in.
If others want to remain in "other religions," that's on them.
True.
After we've TOLD them; over and over again; their choice is theirs alone.
They can choose to be reconciled to GOD, or reconciled to an organization.
It worked; didn't it; for a while: "..the pleasures of sin for a season..."
It appears that many of our Catholic FRiends here feel the same way about us Prots.
Which edition was your dad using?
Really? My impression is the opposite. Protestantism -- at least as represented on these threads -- looks like little kids playing house. They mimic the grown-ups without grasping the reality they mimic. Like 10-year olds, they're given to schoolyard taunts, they're literal minded (when it suits them), they have a flat, one-dimensional, linear view of reality, they ridicule what they don't understand, and resist anything that doesn't fit their childish perceptions.
It worked; didn't it; for a while: "..the pleasures of sin for a season..."
Yes it did, but now that I am an ex Catholic, I hate sin, except for the sin of presumption. I kind of like that one. Care to join me?
By the way Elsmeister, do you think that a lot of problems go all the way back to Nimrod? 😇😎
I protest nothing
Those whacko's outside the Trump rally in California are protestants
(English is a fine language if people would learn it and use it correctly)
I am a Christian by the scriptural definition of having searched the Scriptures and learning .. without being dogmatically coerced or forced ... for myself what I must do to go to heaven
I don't care about baptism or priests or denominations or ANYTHING like that ...
I want to go to Heaven and I don't want to go to Hell
I got the answer out of a book the Catholics never gave me nor encouraged me to read for myself .. and I will not consider any modern treatise about how Catholics do TOO read the bible .... NOT IN THE 1950'S OF MY YOUTH ! ! !
I was born again after a friend witnessed to me about Jesus and I asked Jesus to save me in 1981
Something happened immediately that night, up Fallen Timber Rd ... and that something was the direct result of my prayer to ask Jesus to save me
Those words
Jesus ... save me
They were never in Catholic conversation in MY life
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