After 10 years as an earnest believer in Jesus Christ, the last six of those as a full-time staff member of a nation-wide,
campus organization through which I had met the Lord, I had begun to have serious questions about that organization.
Some of us on its staff had just discovered the full-on, unmitigated grace of God poured out on us at the cross. I was realizing that the constant pressure to witness by this organization, exerted on both staff and students, WAS NOT the wineskin to hold this “new wine of the gospel” I had discovered.
I had realized that the wineskin was the New Testament church, as revealed to us on the pages of the Bible. So, in 1968, the year Jill and I were married, we left the staff of this organization where we had met, and began a 57 year journey together. A major part of that journey has been the pursuit together of a New Testament church experience!
That New Testament church is one of the three institutions, along with the family and the civil government, pictured here in our “Ship of the Kingdom” diagram. These three institutions are the primary weapons we will use as we fulfill our eternal purpose to rule, right now, over God’s earth (Genesis 1:26-28), establishing “the Kingdom of God.” The three lines flowing from Jesus to the institutions represent the kingdom characteristics each will possess—Authority, Responsibility and Accountability. We have already investigated how each of those characteristics is biblically applied in the family; they are all applied to the church as well. However, they are applied very differently!
For example, in the biblical family, we saw all three lines run between God and the husband, as he has full authority, responsibility and accountability in the family. As we discussed, any family difficulties are all his fault (This does not include his wife’s personal sins before God – they are her’s alone). The husband is the family CEO. The buck stops with him alone!
In the church, however, that “final decision” authority is far different. It is never applied by an individual but always by a corporate body of ELDERS (Hebrews 13:17, 1 Thes 5:12, 13, 1 Timothy 5:17). Their church leadership decisions are always corporate; they each carry equal authority, responsibility and accountability.
Keep in mind that when we discuss church structure and function, that is only one edge of the sword of the Word of God, the Kingdom edge, and not the Gospel edge. We are discussing the wineskin, not the wine itself, but the wineskin is the naturally occurring result of the relentless preaching of the new wine of the Gospel of the Grace of God! This posting is a study of what I believe the Bible teaches will be the natural, spontaneous, unconscious result of God freely at work in His church (NSU)!
So, authority, responsibility and accountability all rest on the shoulders of a CORPORATE BODY OF ELDERS (bishops, overseers – all synonymous words), chosen by the church members they lead, who evaluate them to leadership based on a set of biblical standards: (1 Timothy 3:1-7; Titus 1:5-9).
This is “Kingdom stuff.” The elders set the stage (create the wineskin) to hold the new wine of the gospel! These elders have an authoritative, ADMINISTRATIVE OFFICE, given to them by men, and they may or may not be one of those who has been given one of the MINISTRY GIFTS, given by God alone! Let’s look at those.
Ephesians 4:11-13 lists these ministry-gifted men. They may or may not be called or mature enough to be elders, but their impact on the church is profound and is enunciated in the following verses:
“And He Himself gave some (to the church) to be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, and some pastors and teachers, for the EQUIPPING OF THE SAINTS for the work of ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ, till we all come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a perfect (mature) man, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ.“
These verses are earth-shaking and life-changing, yet they are generally not emphasized in the evangelical church today. They tell us that the primary mission of the institution of the structural church is not to preach the gospel to a lost world every Sunday morning from the church pulpit! No! Its primary task is to EQUIP ALL ITS MEMBERS TO DO SO, as they live their normal lives, going out into that lost world on Monday morning to work at their regular jobs. Wherever they go, with whomever they meet, they are “Kingdom hand-grenades!”
With this in mind, study those Ephesians 4 verses carefully and think about what they mean. Next week we will look at them in detail.
I have done so in my book entitled A Glorious Church – Attacking the Gates of Hell, and will send it to you in PDF form, free of charge, at your request. I wrote it in 2003, and revised it in 2011, to reflect all the changes occurring in my understanding. I will send you a copy of the revised book for $20.00 to cover printing and shipping.
