***Help me understand why someone would want to "hang their hat on a succession of elders"?
[snip]
Because it is God who make unclean men clean - not church ritual.
Let's say a church was entirely apostate. What I hear you saying is that it would be impossible for God to raise up a man who truly know Him in such circumstances?***
Would you mind doing me a favor. Please read the article. At least until you see how what we are discussing is addressed in the article.
It is McMahon who has rejected his Baptist ordination as sin and schismatic and embraced Presbyterianism because Presbyterianism claims a succession of elders.
Please read the article to see what I mean.
Thanks,
Christian.
***Would you mind doing me a favor. Please read the article. At least until you see how what we are discussing is addressed in the article.***
I thought I understood the issues at hand. I read the article and now I KNOW I understood them.
My issue is basically with this....
"With that said, I reject my own Baptist ordination as invalid, and unlawful, and repent of having committed sin before God as previously exercising the rights and privileges of an ordained minister when I was not lawfully ordained, though I thought so at the time. I may have been gifted and graced with the abilities, but only Scripturally ordained elders could lawfully ordain other elders. "
...Which is utter hogwash. This man is saying that every Baptist minister's ordaination is unlawful, invalid and sinful.
Hence my points.
1. No one should "hang their hat on a succession of elders". God often circumvents the "system".
2. God who make unclean men clean and fit for His use - not "legal" church ritual.
3. The real calling and ordination comes from God, not from men (read elders).
***It is McMahon who has rejected his Baptist ordination as sin and schismatic and embraced Presbyterianism because Presbyterianism claims a succession of elders***
I understand this and am persuaded that he is wrong and several of his basic assumptions are wrong.