Altared States

Posted on October 19, 2011 by Paula Fether

Yep, I spelled that word wrong intentionally. But in my browsing this morning I came across some articles that mention “coming forward to the altar” at typical church services, and though I’ve written about this before, it bears repeating.

Why do churches have altars?

Jesus died on the cross and rose again, offering His literal, physical blood on the real altar in the real temple in heaven. In various scriptures we are told that we who have been reconciled to God through Jesus alone are the temple and the priesthood, and our sacrifice— Jesus Himself— is already offered, once for all. The writer of Hebrews states:

9:12 And it was not the blood of goats and calves but his very own blood that he carried into the Holiest Place, once for all eternity, obtaining our redemption.

10:8–10:14 So when he said God didn’t want sacrifices and offerings, and then that he came to do God’s will, he was saying he takes away the first in order to establish the second. And we are made holy by means of the offering of Jesus’ body, once for all. Every priest performs the sacred service day after day and offers the same sacrifices, which can never take away our failures. But this One, after making one final sacrifice, is seated at God’s right hand, waiting for his enemies to be made his footstool. For by one offering he has finally completed the holy ones.

13:9–13:15 Don’t let yourselves be carried away by various strange teachings. It is best to confirm your heart by gratitude toward God instead of by certain foods that did nothing to help those who ate them. We have an Altar at which those who offer divine service in the Tent of Meeting have no right to eat. The bodies of animals, whose blood the ruling priest carries into the holy places for failures, are burned up outside the camp. Likewise, Jesus suffered outside the city gate in order to make people holy by means of his own blood. So then, let us come out to him, outside of the camp, and take up his disgrace. For we do not have a permanent city here, but we search for the one to come. Through him, then, let us offer up a continual sacrifice of praise to God, that is, the “produce” of our mouths, publicly acknowledging his Name.

Likewise, Paul states in his letter to the Romans:

12:1-2 So I am encouraging you, brothers and sisters, through the compassion of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and very pleasing to God— which is your logical divine service. And do not be conformed to this age but be transformed by renewing your minds, for the purpose of testing what the will of God is, which is good, very pleasing, and perfect.

So what do we mean by building physical altars and placing (cash!) sacrifices upon them? Even in the OT, cash was never a sacrifice, so by erecting these altars and placing “tithes and offerings” upon them, we symbolize at best the worship of a god who assigns great worth and value to money. And what do we mean by any “sacred furniture” at all, including pulpits and vestments? By elevating a few donning priestly robes and giving lectures on a raised platform from behind a pulpit, we symbolize that Jesus changed nothing at all in this life; we mock Him by continuing to practice a hybridized Judaism/paganism while telling ourselves “It’s a relationship, not a religion”. Yet the cognitive dissonance is lost on many believers; here is an example (emphasis mine):

One thing that I think about is how in the Old Testament God had the people make altars, pile stones, build a Tabernacle, and ultimately build the Temple. There was an environment and a place to meet with God. Stephen deconstructed this in Acts 7 because he said that the significance of the Temple was now found in Christ Himself, laying the groundwork for the argumentation found in Hebrews, but that doesn’t mean that we do not create environments for people to meet with God. We engage the senses that God gave us and we set aside times and places to meet with God, not because He is limited to such places, but because we need the focus and we need to engage our whole beings in worship to God. I think that Communion and Baptism should be seen in this light.

Knowing very well that the old religious rituals and practices were “deconstructed”, this commenter nonetheless negates it with an appeal to those rituals and practices “because we need the focus and we need to engage our whole beings in worship to God.” We can’t do those things without all that religious baggage? Where is the Holy Spirit then, not in our hearts? Either we need these things or we don’t, and the practice of them speaks louder than the admission that they were “deconstructed”. It would be like saying people no longer need to register in a blog to use all its features, but “bonus” features are not enabled unless you do. Either these “environments” are necessary or they are not; they can’t be both. And as I’ve written often, anything deemed necessary, binding, or vital must be clearly and expressly stated, such that anything not so stated must not be necessary, binding, or vital.

There is nothing wrong with being emotional in our worship of God, but there is something wrong with getting that emotion from what even the world recognizes as manipulation. Our emotions as Christians must come from our relationship with God through Jesus and the Holy Spirit within. It is the mind that is “renewed” as Paul put it, and what we know about Jesus is where love for Him should come from.

Certainly we can enjoy music and other art forms to make us feel good, but calling it a “need” is a failure to discern between the “cake” and the “icing”. It is just as unhealthy to only feel an emotional connection to God when we’re in an environment whose sole purpose is to manipulate emotion (though it is loudly denied and excused as only a desire to worship) as it is to to eat only the icing on a cake. Icing of either kind is addictive, and if you don’t believe it, try taking these advocates of “worship services” away from that environment for an extended period of time and see how spiritual they feel. When anyone is convicted about something, spiritual or not, it will have an emotional effect of some kind. But emotions we get only as reactions to stimuli have to be continually replenished, just like addictive drugs.

It’s time for believers to be honest with themselves and to really think about what message they send to the lost and to God when they practice religion but deny it. And here is the key: Do the emotions come from the environment, or does the environment come from the emotions? Do we sing and praise because we love, or do we love because we sing and praise? Is music an expression of what’s already in the heart, or is the heart only reacting to the music? The same goes also for hearing a rousing and polished speech (aka “sermon”) or following rituals; which comes first?

If you attend “services” to get an emotion rather than to express an emotion, there is a serious and fundamental problem with your relationship with God. This is no different in essence from the “altered states” of consciousness people can get from drugs or meditation practices. We get our spiritual life from God alone, and our hearts respond to His love and presence in our own lives. But if we have no or little spiritual life without the “environment” and feel the need for a weekly “fix”, we have it all backwards. Is Jesus really “everything” to us, or does spirituality only come in sacred buildings through sacred music delivered by sacred professionals?

And to clarify: I am not saying that a believer must have an extensive theological education in order to be spiritual! I’m only saying that salvation is a deliberate and cognitive choice to accept the Biblical Jesus and thereby receive the Holy Spirit, from whom our spiritual life comes. We cannot manufacture it with music or rituals or special environments. If it isn’t coming from the Spirit and heart within, we need to seriously question whether we understand what our faith is about at all. Is it really a relationship and not a religion? Then don’t tell me so while you’re in a sanctuary with an altar and an exalted priest; don’t tell me so while you can’t wait for your weekly fix of “environment”.

How Not to Critique a Book

Posted on October 4, 2011 by Paula Fether

I cover a lot of topics here, primarily women’s issues. That topic is part of the larger issue of what the “church” is and how it should function. Another is prophecy, which has been the center of my attention lately (whether I write about it or not). But in my reading today I came across a prophecy teacher critiquing an “out of church” teacher: Don Koenig against Jon Zens. In either private email or blog comments, I’ve had issues with both of them, and feel that when they are off their specialty they exhibit not only faulty logic/hermeneutics but also a bad attitude toward those who disagree with them. I disagree with Zens on eschatology and with Koenig on the church, so this isn’t either a slam or an endorsement of either teacher but a study in bad argumentation and inconsistency in interpretation of scripture.

I don’t have the book being critiqued but have read others Zens and Viola have authored, so I am familiar with the arguments against “the pastorate” and am fairly confident that the points Koenig brings up have all been discussed elsewhere (which makes me wonder why this book was needed, but that’s not important right now). But when the critique starts off with a judgment of Zens’ motives (“seems to me to be deliberately padded to add more pages so that it would be more acceptable as a book”), it’s already on shaky ground, aiming at the person instead of the argument.

Koenig agrees with Zens that the early church was gift-based, but questions the claim that the “head pastor” is necessarily incompatible with the Body model in scripture. I’ve written much in detailing exactly why it is incompatible and even opposed to it, so I won’t repeat that here. But Koenig quickly moves on to another point, that being the Zens argument that “head pastors” are conspicuous by their absence, yet before he actually responds to it he has to snicker to “church pastors” about “turning blue” over Zens’ point. I’m pretty sure that if Zens used the same condescending tone about Koenig, he’d not find it so entertaining.

Then Koenig states that while he agrees in principle, he thinks Zens “takes it too far”. But instead of arguing from what scripture says, Koenig appeals to popularity and claims that the lip service most “church pastors” give to the equality of all believers is proof against Zens’ argument. This is, for the umpteenth time, an example from Orwell’s Animal Farm: some believers are more equal than others. We’re equal but you must do as I say. We’re equal but you must follow my lead. We’re equal but you must submit to my vision. The point still remains that if we’re all equal then the very concept of one above others in whatever capacity is a contradiction of equality.

Koenig goes on to argue that since we live in a different time from the early church (an argument not allowed on women’s topics because it “bows to culture”), then we can do whatever we want and call it being faithful to the Body model seen clearly in the NT. There is little consistency in how and when people decide that the NT examples are meant to be normative and when they’re optional. The same people who say the practices of the early church are cultural/optional when the topic is church hierarchy will quickly and forcefully impose those practices when the topic is the subservient “role” of women.

He adds the excuse that the early church had only the teachings of prophets and traveling evangelists to go by, so they could go without hierarchy until the rules were put on paper. But there is no “you have done this before, but now…” in regards to the alleged hierarchy of members of the Body of Christ; in fact, that very model, put to paper as it is, defies any sort of hierarchy. Rather than supply the missing hierarchy Koenig admits is absent in the early church practices, the later writings would cement that lack of hierarchy and make it “official”. His argument from silence is not redeemed by Paul or anyone else.

Then Koenig wishes that instead of merely stating his case Zens would have chosen to take issue with popular teachers and authors, apparently from the presumption that these teachers would put Zens in his place. But many have challenged those people and shown their teachings to be as faulty and inconsistent as any others’. Yet such citations would be irrelevant to the strength of Zens’ arguments anyway; if Koenig can’t muster his own arguments against Zens, then why is he writing a critique? Why call in “air support” if you’re already convinced you know the enemy’s weakness and have overcome it?

It’s commendable that Koenig wants to hear both sides of an argument, but there are very few people on any topic who can actually achieve true balance. Whether Zens did an adequate job of this is of course a matter of opinion, and one I cannot examine without reading this particular book. But the purpose of debate is to get two very biased extremes to point out each other’s faults for the benefit of the observers; the debaters are the most motivated to expose each other’s poor logic. So by reading the biased and unbalanced views of both sides, we can make a much more informed decision than we would if writers and teachers try to argue both sides themselves. And is the criterion for hearing the other side a matter of whether Koenig has heard of them? Doesn’t everybody use “self-selected excerpts” and “stack the deck”? It seems to me that Koenig is not exempt from such practices, but here again, this is an attack on Zens’ motives rather than his arguments from scripture.

Next Koenig takes issue with the use of 1 Cor. 14:26 as evidence to support what Koenig terms the “Christ-Centered Ekklesia model”, a curious choice of words for a view he believes is in error. But while I would agree that Paul is teaching against the chaotic free-for-all of the Corinthians, he is not thereby instituting hierarchy! This is a false dilemma, the familiar slippery slope that fears equality as a gateway to the complete breakdown of the Body. All Paul is saying there is that the people should take turns rather than everyone talking at once. He never hints at one person taking charge of the meetings or even a group of elders dictating some modern “order of worship”. The point Zens was making is that everyone participated, but Koenig ignores this. And what that has to do with cessationism, I don’t know. Yet Koenig still appeals to popularity and authority in citing two of his personal favorite teachers who both (not surprisingly) believe in “head pastors”.

But this statement is particularly telling and serves as evidence of something I’ve said for a long time about false humility:

Most pastors are not going to give up their leadership position when they believe they were called by God into the pastoral ministry. So are we to believe that they are wrong? Try telling your pastor that and see how it flies.

I can almost see him, and these pastors, beating their chests and grunting: “Me pastor, you not! Hands off my office!” And would this statement work for women who have been called by God to pastoral ministry? They truly and sincerely “believe they were called” just as much as men, so who are men to tell them they weren’t? Yet as I’ve said, the problem is not allowing women to be “head pastors”, but getting men out of that authoritative mindset. And of course, God never called anyone to what tradition and popular culture has turned the humble spiritual gift of pastoring into. Nobody is called to “lord over”; no part of the Body is “more equal” than another part. Such “pastors” are the last people to ask about whether their contrived “office” is Biblical.

Now we see spiritual gifts mentioned again, and apparently Zens pointed out that these gifts are hindered by overbearing “pastoral authority”. Yet like many others, Koenig believes this is merely a problem of degree rather than kind; he sees no contradiction in principle between the priesthood of all believers and the “more equal” priesthood of a few. Yet it cannot be denied that if one part of the Body takes authority over others, it is usurping the place of the Body’s one and only Head. The eye does not ask permission of the foot to talk to the brain. It is the human body which Paul chose to illustrate the structure of the ekklesia, not a chain, an army, a club, or a business. Whether “most Church leaders would disagree” or not is, again, irrelevant, and is like asking the wolves whether they should guard the hen house. God would not give such contradictory instructions or inspire the apostles to write them.

Then comes the offering of crumbs to appease the restless: let the laity be happy in their proper place and let off steam in small groups. Koenig acknowledges the benefit and even necessity of such groups, but completely misses the fact that since the church is quite capable of functioning without formal services and hierarchies, this shoots his whole argument in the foot. He recognizes the movement and power of the Holy Spirit in these small groups, yet still believes that there is some magical essence provided only by an over-arching authority structure. He even agrees that if the old mainline churches don’t do something they will continue to lose members. But his solution is to merely reduce its size, much the way Luther actually only wanted to reduce the excesses of Rome.

Ironically, Koenig accuses Zens of being the one who would limit the power of the Holy Spirit by eliminating hierarchical church structure. But in view of what Koenig just said about small groups, how is Zens’ view at all limiting? Koenig is arguing against his own observations here; if the Spirit moves in small groups, then how is the Spirit constrained by the lack of large organizations? Of course Koenig is trying to argue that it must be limiting to disallow those traditional models, since God can work through them. But they do limit the Spirit by imposing human control over who exercises what gifts in which places. God can, as I’ve said, turn a toy wagon into a dragster, but He shouldn’t have to; we make Him work around us more than through us when we erect our own models.

Koenig then appeals to time as his ally: look at how long tradition has held sway, how can it be wrong? But time, like popularity, is still not an argument but merely an excuse. It’s as absurd as the embezzler saying that since he’d been at it for decades, then he should be allowed to continue. Similarly, to argue that so many people can’t be wrong is like saying there was no reason for the Reformation; look at the millions of Roman Catholics, or people of any other religion; can they all be wrong for so long? Clearly the answer is a resounding “yes”; lots of people can be very wrong for a very long time.

And again Koenig admits that “the Holy Spirit has been working in the true Church in spite of the clergy and church buildings”, but he still wants to keep them! Why? What purpose do they serve? What necessary thing do they provide that the small groups or house churches lack? Such clergy and buildings certainly do get in the way of the Spirit, and burden people with needless expenses and guilt, so no one can say they do no harm; the hierarchy is far from benign. And if we appeal to the good that can be done by large organizations, does this excuse work for such entities as breweries that give to charity?

Koenig then asks rhetorically, “Who says that there is only one model for the Church anyway?” But the answer is “God” through the NT. Where is another model to be found besides the Body of many equal parts? Are we allowed to make up our own models and call them Biblical? How about if we model churches after ant colonies (Prov. 6:6-8 and note that they have no commander) or locust swarms? The letters to the seven churches in Revelation, which Koenig appeals to as support for a variety of models, support no such thing; they are about spiritual problems and warnings, not church hierarchy. His false analogies are multiplying.

He continues to drop crumbs for the laity to be content with, essentially telling them to “ignore the man behind the curtain” as we say in reference to the movie The Wizard of Oz. He admits again that structured, formal services do stifle the free exchange of spiritual gifts, yet continues to fight for their perpetuation. Then he adds the appeal to paid clergy, which I and others have thoroughly refuted by pointing out that Paul refused to “be robbed of this boast” of discharging his duties voluntarily. He also appeals to the military model or that of ancient Israel, but ignores the “new creation” we Christians are. As I always respond to any sort of legalism, has nothing changed at all since Jesus came? Can we ignore His teachings about new wine in old wineskins?

Next the illustrations of sheep and shepherds are turned into chains of command, a very common ploy. Shepherds are guides, not owners (see this article), and as the Greek text of the last chapter of Hebrews shows, leaders are not bosses but examples. Then angels and their ranks are appealed to as more support for hierarchy in the “new creation” that he keeps ignoring.

Finally, Koenig relegates Zen’s and Viola’s books to minor hiccups in the history of the churches. But as we know, history is written by the victors, who will always preserve their version of events. The Anabaptists and others were largely forgotten by both the Roman Catholics and Protestants, but God remembers their names and their faithfulness. And that is the crux of this whole debate: not who has the upper hand, but who is faithful. Perhaps the house church movement will be forgotten by “the churches”, but never by God. Koenig can hope for the former and seems confident his view will remain on top. But so what, Mr. Koenig? You even say this:

No doubt that Zens is correct that the clergy laity concept does not come from the Bible. We are all a nation of priests and everyone in Christ should have a ministry. We definitely need to get away from the concept of churches being a spectator sport and I definitely think more town hall type meetings in the Church should be highly encouraged rather than having everything head pastor focused for local church direction.

So how can he still justify everything that stands in such stark contrast? How can it not be obvious that the only difference between the “old mainline denomination” and the less massive one is only size and nothing else? He says that the concept is wrong but then somehow only applies this concept on the basis of size. Once again, principle clashes with practice; kind crosses swords with degree. Either the problem is merely of excess or it is a matter of the “office” itself.

I found nothing in Koenig’s article to show from scripture that Zens is wrong, or that there is nothing wrong with the chain of command model. Many people do love to be under authority or to wield it over others, and this is nothing new (Jer. 5:31). But unless one wishes to argue that murder is okay because it’s been with us since Cain and Abel, one cannot appeal to time, culture, popularity, inertia, fear of chaos (i.e. loss of control), or anything else besides our being a “new creation” for how this Body should function. Any model that contradicts this Biblical one is thus against the will of God and hindering the work of the Holy Spirit. Either the power is in us and our institutions or it is solely in God; we cannot have it both ways. I long for the day when all people stand on that “level ground at the foot of the cross” and stop trying to form a pecking order of their own choosing.

I am highly critical of Zens on eschatology and so-called Christian Mysticism, but Koenig’s article is the one I read today so that’s the one that got picked on. I so wish they’d all be consistent in their hermeneutics and learn to argue logically instead of resorting to fallacies, and to be especially careful when they step outside their areas of focus.

The Reason For The Season

Posted on December 21, 2010 by Paula Fether

Most people are aware that Christmas has something to do with Christ, but even many Christians seem unsure of some important details about His purpose in coming to earth. What follows is an attempt to pinpoint and summarize the essential facts about Jesus’ first coming, in the hope that Christians will re-focus on the reason for being His followers, and the lost can see the gospel message more clearly.

1. To redeem us from sin

This is the most familiar aspect of Jesus’ purpose, but it never hurts to clarify such an important thing. What exactly does it mean to be saved from sin? Obviously, the world is still filled with sin and few claiming to follow Christ would dare to claim they never sin anymore. 1 John 2:1 says, “If anybody does sin, we have an advocate with the Father— Jesus Christ, the Righteous One”. But it also says that we believers will stand before God and give an account of all we ever did (Rom. 14:10, 2 Cor. 5:10). Are we held accountable for our sins or not?

Many believe that being saved means having “a license to sin”, because Jesus paid the full price for them. But then in addition to the passages mentioned above, we see the apostle Paul’s rebuttal to such an idea: “We are those who have died to sin; how can we live in it any longer?” (Rom. 6:2). Yet again, only eight verses later Paul says, “The death He died, He died to sin once for all…” We can reconcile these seemingly conflicting concepts by understanding that though a single drop of Jesus’ blood would have been enough to pay for all sin for all time, there is no sacrifice to cover sins that we refuse to give up (Heb. 10:26). As that whole chapter tells us, the purpose of the old Jewish sacrifices were not to pay for sin but to remind people of it, so they could turn from it and walk with God. In the New Covenant, we too must keep turning from our sins so we can walk closely with God. The sacrifice of Jesus reminds us of the price that was paid.

But what does it mean to be “redeemed”? When He confronted Adam, Eve, and the serpent, God promised redemption for mankind through “the seed of the woman”. Redemption from what or whom? To redeem is to buy back, to regain someone or something in exchange for payment, to make restitution, to save or rescue. This is the heart and soul of the gospel message. But there must be three parties to any such redemption: the captive, the buyer, and the seller. Who is the captive? Mankind. Who is the buyer? Jesus. But who is the seller?

The only third party mentioned in Genesis is the serpent. And while no connection is made between the serpent and Satan in Genesis, other passages do make it, and add that he is “the god of this age”, he is “the prince of the power of the air”, he has “taken them captive to do his will”, and he had the right to offer the cities of the world to Jesus during His temptation in the wilderness.

Could the third party be sin itself? No, sin is not a sentient being or entity. Some would cite various passages to say otherwise, but we have to remember that inanimate things can be personified as a figure of speech, as is often the case throughout scripture. So could it be this corrupt world and our own mortality, where the “seller” is like a pit we fell into and we simply need to be lifted out of it? Possibly, but only partially, since we have to consider that not only rescue is made, but also payment. There is just no other candidate fitting all the criteria for the “seller” but Satan. (Mt. 4:8–9, 2 Cor. 4:4, 11:3, Eph. 2:2, Rev. 12:9,14–15, 20:2)

Why was it that only God in human flesh could redeem us? Because only Jesus could represent both parties in the dispute: God and mankind. It really is that simple, and explains why no other Way to God is possible. This is not God being arbitrarily narrow but God being compassionate because only He could pay this price, though He was under no obligation. There truly was no other way. And in redeeming us, Jesus also canceled the legal document of debt that stood against us and displayed it publicly by nailing it where all could see; that is the sense of the Greek.

In so doing, Jesus paid every last penny of our alienation from God and our committed sins. So again, why are we still held accountable for sins? Why are we to be judged according to what we did in this life, if Jesus paid it all? And the answer is: because salvation is a gift and rewards are payments for earned wages. We could not begin to pay the price for our reconciliation to God, but we are individually responsible for our actions. Reconciliation must be voluntary, and that means God could only do His part; He could not force us to agree to it or it would not be genuine, and nothing less would be worthy of the honor of God. So when we agree to be reconciled, we are simply accepting a gift, not earning a wage, and the price for our freedom was paid to make that possible. Our actions, good or bad, are earning us spiritual wages, and that is the whole purpose of judgment for both the saved and the lost.

Think about it: what other reason could there be for judgment, since our entry into either heaven or hell is decided by faith alone? Our deeds cannot have anything to do with our eternal destination, or salvation would not be a gift at all. People will be sent one place or the other simply on the basis of whether or not their names are written in the book of life.

2. To free the Jews from the Law and enact the Promise

We Gentiles often forget that we were never under the Laws of Moses. As Paul said in Eph. 2:12, “Remember that at that time you were separate from Christ, excluded from citizenship in Israel and foreigners to the covenants of the promise, without hope and without God in the world.” Forgetting this fact has been the cause of many divisions in the Body of Christ, for there are those among us who, like the Judaizers of first century, would “try to test God by putting on the necks of Gentiles a yoke that neither we nor our ancestors have been able to bear” (Acts 15:10). So the debates over what part of Jewish law Christians may be under are all a waste of time and a needless source of conflict.

For Jews who become Christians, the writer of Hebrews teaches in no uncertain terms that “with a change of priesthood comes a change of law” (Heb. 7:12), and that the old law was replaced by the new (Heb. 7:18). Since Jesus is the permanent High Priest of the new order of Melchizedek, then no part of the law attached to the priesthood of Levi can remain. Jesus reinforced this fact in His parable of the wineskins (Mat. 9:17, Mark 2:22, Luke 5:37).

As Paul explained in Gal. 3:24, the purpose of the old Law was never to be a permanent “religion” but to act as a custodian or mentor to guide Israel until it “came of age” so to speak. As that chapter explains further, we must not confuse the Law and the Promise; they are mutually exclusive and follow two different paths. The Law is concerned with the physical descendants of Abraham through Isaac and Jacob, while the Promise is concerned with those having the faith of Abraham. So are Jewish Christians still under the old Law?

3. To make a New Creation and a New Kingdom

No, in Christ both Jew and Gentile become a third, new entity: adopted children of God without distinction by ethnicity, class, or even gender (Gal. 3:26-28). The Jew in Christ cannot look down upon the Gentile, the free cannot look down upon the enslaved, and the man cannot look down upon the woman as somehow less close to God, less worthy of His blessings, or less an heir of the Promise to Abraham. The “middle wall” between each of these pairings has been torn down by the blood of Christ (Eph. 2:11-22).

Jesus’ immediate mission was first and only to the Jews (Mt. 15:24), to fulfill the law and the prophecies (Mt. 5:18); this is why He selected twelve Jewish males for His inner group of disciples instead of also some Gentiles or women or slaves. But after the Cross, those who follow Him are a “new creation” that is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, neither male nor female (Gal. 3:28). Many interpret this instead as being something like “a new person”, but the context of all this is about a change of position or legal standing with God, not individual transformation. Now it should go without saying that individuals do change; as we’ve already seen, we have “died to sin”. But our unity as the Body of Christ is not to be divided, for “you are all one”, and “each part belongs to all the others” (1 Cor. 12:12-27).

Jesus also said that the order of things in His kingdom is upside-down to that of the world (Mt. 20:20-28, Luke 22:24-28). When two of His disciples applied for top positions in that kingdom, Jesus told them that the “lording over” of the world is to be “not so among you”, and no amount of sugar-coating can make benevolent “lording over” the same as no “lording over”. Jesus said that we are all on the same level (Mt. 23:8), but that those who will be called greatest in His kingdom would be found not at the top in authority, but at the bottom serving all the others. Jesus’ example and teaching never came with fine print or loopholes to allow some to usurp authority over others or to redefine what “lording over” means, so to teach otherwise is to cause “division” in the Body of Christ (Rom. 16:17).

Jesus taught and modeled unity and humility (John 13:1-17, Phil. 2:5-11) for all of His followers, not just some, and not just in certain situations or relationships. This over-arching principle is not to be undone or overturned by imaginative interpretations of other parts of scripture, as if God contradicts Himself or Jesus only came to free a few prisoners or lift the burdens from a privileged class (Luke 4:18:19). This One who said “the first shall be last” (Mt. 19:30), and the apostle who said that God chose the lowly and despised things of this world to shame the high and wise (1 Cor. 1:26-31), were sending a radical message to us all: we are all one, and all equal before God and in His kingdom.

Sadly, our “churches” and even some of our marriages are modeled after the world’s ways. We still fight over “who is the greatest” and cling tightly to privilege. We wrestle for the first place in line as if we are selfish children, instead of humbly deferring to others and seeking their honor instead of our own. We are as fleshly and carnal as the people of Corinth in Paul’s day, following mere humans and celebrating popular sins. We want to bring heaven down to our level instead of allowing the Holy Spirit to lift us up, because we love this world too much. Are we citizens of the heavenly kingdom or not? Are we willing to lay it all down for Him or not?

Conclusion

Jesus came not to add a new verse to an old song, but to write a completely new song that only the redeemed can sing (Rev. 5:9). It is my sincere hope that we as Christians will re-examine our lives and ask ourselves why we do what we do, and whether we have taken our eyes off of Jesus and begun to sink into the waves of worldly pride, as Peter did after he began to walk toward Jesus on the stormy lake (Mt. 14:22-33). We need to remember that we are not a collection of random machine parts but vital organs in the Body of Christ, and citizens of a Kingdom that must not be divided. As you celebrate Christmas this year, consider all the reasons Jesus came, and be resolved to live as a true disciple of our Savior.

Yet Another Round of “Me Tarzan, You Jane”

Posted on December 18, 2010 by Paula Fether

I was asked to comment on a conversation in another blog, focusing on those by someone using the initials “R.C.”. It’s more on the greatest obsession to grip the Christian community in recent decades: not Islam, not apostasy, not prophecy, but flesh-based roles. It’s just pathetic that we’re still having to even discuss such a thing, but God did say He put hostility between the serpent and the woman. But I wonder who is still causing the men to keep arguing over who is the greatest?

The comment I’ll be examining today is number 79. From the start he (I’ll assume for convenience) declares that a person’s destiny is either A or B, depending completely on genitalia. Now as I’ve said a gazillion times, nobody disputes the fact that male and female are, by definition, complementary versions of the same class of beings, whether human or animal. But the destiny RC has in mind will be deemed much deeper than physical reproduction. I’ve talked about this “bait and switch” (equivocation) technique before, most recently in the “Escher Theology” article as I recall.

RC’s contention is that the reason God made us is not to merely create beings who could freely return His love, but the reproduction of eternal souls. That is, God’s focus was and is alleged to be not on the quality of the individual but the act of reproduction. It is obvious that this is the groundwork necessary to hold up the argument to follow, that being God’s alleged sharing of men’s obsession with sex. The language RC chooses smells eerily of Mormonism’s teaching of men becoming gods whose wives will spend eternity cranking out spirit babies. But as any mother would tell them, that ain’t heaven for the women. RC appeals to emotion to sell the product: surely sex “must prefigure something astoundingly important at the spiritual level”, but of course no such analogy is ever drawn in scripture.

Then RC switches abruptly to “church pastors”, and brazenly promotes them as being like the Holy Spirit to other believers! This is the same blasphemous error the “ravenous wolves” Paul warned about were busy teaching not long after he died. RC even calls them “fathers” to the congregations, though scripture never does. I have long contended that if God wants us to know that something is required, He makes it very plain. Yet for these roles and hierarchies we are left to pure inference, a fact RC reinforces in this comment devoid of scriptural support. Many paragraphs have already passed without a single scripture citation. In short, RC is setting up a second priesthood that usurps the rightful and exclusive place of Christ. Has he never read Hebrews?

Next comes the predictable appeal to the alleged maleness of God, which RC considers a “role” that no woman can play because we must, for some unspoken reason, “portray” maleness above all. The crumb of sugar for women (“the feminine genius which God has created in every woman”) is supposed to appease us so we won’t pay attention to the man behind the curtain, but thinking Christians aren’t falling for that one anymore. RC, like all male supremacists, wants to use assertion as the foundation of all consequent scripture interpretation; that is, the conclusion he hopes to prove is used as the foundational premise.

And predictably, this is followed by all the “fine print”, the excuses and qualifications and loopholes that are supposed to cover the emperor’s nakedness. Though, he reasons, men represent the all-important maleness of God, this pseudo- or wannabe- Holy Spirit/father figure is only for certain men. But he has unwittingly shot the foundation out from his male-centric base: if it isn’t just maleness that represents God to the mere mortals, then why exclude all women? No matter how often or loudly male supremacists try this, “special pleading” will always remain a logical fallacy.

Before going on to further extol the semi-divinity of the cleric, RC uses the pop-psychological cliché of initiator/responder: as the divine cleric (playing God) initiates and the laity responds, this signifies roles played in the sex act, which apparently is always true of every man and every woman without exception– or it wouldn’t be a picture of anything. Then it’s back to the “daddy” terminology, which of course must be played by males only. So RC has gone full circle: God is obsessed with reproduction, and every Christian relationship must reflect that. I suspect RC is getting more ideas from Freud than the Bible.

At this point RC claims that anyone who disagrees with all this is really disagreeing with God, which of course is designed to stop any debate before it starts. This very assertion is the question on the table, so for RC to keep insisting on using it as a premise is a sophomoric attempt to “win” by tying his opponent’s shoelaces together. He then proceeds to use familiar appeals to the Twelve being male while ignoring all other qualities they shared, such as being Jews and not speaking English. Haven’t any of these apologists for flesh-based roles ever read any egalitarian literature besides the straw men quoted by other male supremacists? This is all very introductory material that has been refuted a thousand times.

Yet RC makes this astounding self-contradiction: “Jesus had only Jews about Him, so it is reasonable to say that non-Jews could be selected as Christian church pastors even though the Apostles were only Jewish.” What? So he goes on to try and make sense of it anyway: “But it is not as if Jesus lacked female options to include among the Apostles… It is not as if the Apostles couldn’t have ordained women”. Well, Einstein, couldn’t we ask why Jesus never included Gentiles though He could have? Why is one instance of not doing what He could have a significant example, but not the other? It’s that familiar double standard I’ve written about so many times: the same argument works for one gender but not the other. RC even mentions some of the leading women of the NT such as Priscilla and Lydia, but is apparently ignorant of the case made that these very women were co-workers of Paul and that Lydia, Chloe, etc. were church leaders– yes, “pastors”!

RC may consider the “historical argument closed”, but it’s easy to close a circle. Yet instead of singing the old “all those people couldn’t be wrong” song, where is scripture? Paul had to battle legalists and control freaks his whole saved life, so history must be judged by what the NT teaches, and it fails miserably. As I showed in my Reconciled book, Jesus did not come to simply add Verse Two to the same religious song; He came to lift burdens, to free prisoners, to turn the kingdoms of the world upside down. And no amount of “slippery slope” fearmongering can help turn “lording over” into the NT’s mutuality.

Neither does it help RC to burn the straw man that egal wants men and women to be indistinguishable. The fact is that there is much more diversity and individuality among men and among women than between them, but male supremacism wants to homogenize all men into one thing and all women into another, practically rendering them two different species– and it doesn’t take a PhD to guess which one has privileges over the other. This, again, is a theme male supremacism keeps repeating no matter how many times it’s been refuted. We can tell male and female apart at birth, but we cannot tell whether the male will be what society deems “masculine” or that the female will be what it deems to be “feminine”. I’ve observed many times online that unless people identify their gender, it is impossible to tell a male brain from a female one. There is simply too much evidence against RC’s claims.

RC then presents the equally familiar charge that egal arguments are somehow not based on scripture but on emotion. Yet it is RC who has been continually appealing to that very thing while citing no scripture at all. And he, like all the others, ignores the fact that the cultural norm has been patriarchy– which, as I pointed out in my previous post, magically makes culture a good thing in only that case. I’ve been charitable in the past to call it a double standard, but it really is blatant hypocrisy since there is no excuse for ignorance anymore. These people who want male rule so badly need to stop with the ridiculous fallacies and start reading egal literature from egal sources. This endless parroting of the same errors is wearing very thin. RC’s argumentation, attitude, and ignorance are sadly typical.

We egalitarians need to stop wasting our time on these control freaks. Let us simply model the Body of Christ– all of it instead of only half. Let’s display to the world what being saved is all about: freedom from heavy burdens, being dead to sin and alive to God, and having a hope and a future– one that does NOT include being barefoot and pregnant for all eternity! Let patriarchy have its Mormon-esque religion; I’m following Jesus.

Fiddling While Rome Burns, Part 2 of 2

Posted on September 20, 2010 by Paula Fether

In Part 1 we saw the record of someone’s journey out of Islam into atheism. They made many excellent points about the spiritual void in people, the willingness to be brainwashed, and the escape from such brainwashing by means of acknowledging that reason is not the enemy of enlightenment and freedom, but its defender. Facts are what they are, and they cannot be wished away or dismissed– objections from religious and scientific zealots to the contrary notwithstanding.

But what would you say to this person now? What facts could you present to convince them that they have only jumped from the frying pan into the fire? Experience? Good behavior? A testimony of your own journey? Community acceptance? Fire insurance? A better “imaginary friend”? A set of rules that makes this person a little king or god over others?

All of those things are what religions do, whether theistic or not. Even atheism has its community, its good deeds, its sense of fulfillment in helping others or achieving some lofty goal. And most of what passes for Christianity is no different. I’ve said before that if the Christian faith is nothing more than community service and love and peace, then there is no need to become one. And if its a cold legalism fronting for the same sins as one finds in the world, then again, there is no need to become one. In fact, I think most professing Christians would be hard-pressed to present anything at all to this atheist that would tip the scales.

That’s why it is so vital for us to know what Jesus came to do, and how to spot errors in logic that lead to faulty conclusions. For example, atheism has its scapegoats and rules and blind faith (in matter to create and order itself), its infallible prophets (philosophers, evolutionist scientists), its sacred texts, its denial of facts which cast doubt on its tenets. This person’s testimony included a brief practice of Buddhism, a non-theistic religion but not really much different from atheism. About the only thing atheism has really given up is the pretense of the supernatural and strict adherence to a particular individual’s teachings.

Remember this last paragraph from Part 1?

But I’m not as arrogant to claim I possess “The Truth”, with a capital tee. In conclusion, for the Muslims in the audience, a quotation from Stephen F. Roberts who eloquently said it best: “I contend that we are both atheists. I just believe in one fewer god than you do. When you understand why you dismiss all the other possible gods, you will understand why I dismiss yours.”

The irony of the last sentence is profound, for the atheist has only renamed God instead of rejecting Him: the atheist’s ultimate god or authority is really magic. They can claim to be free of the illusion of the supernatural and the magical, but this claim can only be sustained by denial– of how anything physical ever came into existence, how it became ordered, or where the concept of a god ever came from if people are incapable of imagining anything that didn’t already exist in the natural world. Whatever the First Cause may be, they conclude, it just can’t be a god. Yet that is no more rational or less taken on blind faith than any theistic religion’s god.

And I can’t help but notice that the first sentence contradicts the most foundational premise of the whole testimony: that fact is what it is and cannot be altered or denied just because we wish it. How can atheists say they do not have the truth without saying truth is unknowable– a very Zen Buddhist belief in itself? Isn’t truth absolute by definition, or it wouldn’t be truth at all? And if all truth is relative, then how can anything be called false?

When asked all these questions, the atheist must face the fact that their belief system is no more free of internal contradiction, blind faith, and denial than any religious philosophy. Atheism simply cannot make exclusive or primary claim to rationality, “free thought”, or non-reliance upon make-believe forces that created the universe. The very arrogance this particular atheist mentions finds its ultimate expression in the fact that in spite of being just like all the other religions and philosophies, it nonetheless claims superiority over them all; it has only moved the line in the sand.

So how does one find Truth through rational inquiry? I think the atheist has overlooked a critical clue: a copy implies an original. That is, if there are many false beliefs in the world, all laying claim to Truth yet all suffering from the same fatal flaws, does this not point to an underlying truth that has simply been overlooked? The rational person would then concentrate their efforts on finding not the similarities among belief systems, but critical differences. And that is the point at which I believe the Bible and its teachings shows itself to be that Original.

Now I have other articles here and more I link to on the Resources page that go into the reasons for my belief about the Bible. But the important issue here is that Christians, sincere though most may be, have probably chased more people away from the Truth than they claim to have attracted. Lame arguments, bad personal examples, failure to do one’s own study instead of allowing paid clergy to think for them… there are many factors.

What we need to do as a group is go back to the simple foundation of the gospel: that Jesus rose from the dead. Many implications flow from that point, but this is the one thing that stands out among all the religions and philosophies in the world. We only undermine this uniqueness when we say everyone worships the same God, or that “doctrine” is hateful, or that the most important thing about salvation is knowing your place in a chain of command. Ecumenism tries to blur all the lines and bring “peace” through outward conformity to those qualities that even atheists can exhibit. But standing on a legally verifiable fact of history, the resurrection of Jesus from the dead, is that very Rock of Truth against which all other “isms” are smashed.

Rome is burning, Christians… are we going to keep fiddling or are we going to be the rescue squad and fire department that puts the fire out?

Fiddling While Rome Burns, Part 1 of 2

Posted on September 20, 2010 by Paula Fether

As any student of Bible prophecy would expect, there is much upheaval in the world today, politically, spiritually, and commercially. As a longtime “churchian” and Bible student, I am keenly aware of both the rapid changes occurring now and the deep, long-term roots of those changes. But while the Christian community has been dissecting the Body of Christ with cold and clinical detachment, both the “church” and the world have been spiraling downward to destruction. This must stop.

How is it possible that so many want to nitpick over who exactly can pray out loud, or lead a study, or exercise any other spiritual gift– all on the basis of their genes and not their spirit or education– while the plight of the lost and the backslidden is forgotten? We excuse this by saying (a) we can nitpick while also spreading the gospel and (b) it is natural for people of a religion or philosophy to focus on the details of their faith. But the truth is that it isn’t what Jesus set up that we are focused on, but our own rules and systems.

Now I’m as much a studier of minutiae as anyone, and I love plumbing the depths of scripture and language. But if such study leads us to deny the essentials– freedom from the burden of religious practice, freedom from the control of sin, restored relationship with God through Jesus alone– it has become an idol and a distraction.

The illustration is given of a farmer plowing a field. If the farmer looks down at the ground or off to the side, the rows will be crooked. But if the farmer stays focused on a distant point, the rows will be straight. The plowing still happens, but it must remember its goal. In the same way, we need to remember why we study and why Jesus came.

That focus is the purpose of my book Reconciled, and I would encourage you to read it. But now I’d like to show you what happens when we fail in this charge to be salt and light to the world. This long quote is from someone who made a journey from agnosticism to Islam to atheism, and only highlights points that either show the ways in which Christians are so easily fooled or how we utterly fail to preach the gospel accurately.

The second part will raise questions from the first, and address the reasons people reject God and specifically Christianity.

(source)

Then, I was given a prayer mat, many Islaamic books and Syed Abu-Ala Maududi’s Arabic-English Qur’aan with his famous commentary. This was a totally different ideology given to me before they knew I was “with them” and not simply interested in studying the religion as a kaafir (unbeliever).

Once the Christian had encountered inconsistencies in the substructure of his faith, he became more open to the possibility of Biblical errancy. Faced with numerous contradictions, the keen recipient would be guided to a more agreeable theology found within the Qur’aan. They knew not Arabic, so we provided selected material to them.

Once the non-Muslim was eagerly reading the Qur’aan and Islaamic material, I would present Muhammad as a prophet of God no different from the accepted Hebrew prophets. Guilt and fear were common tactics used to pressure the conversion process.

Without equivocation, the notorious “Yusuf Ali” Qur’aan was a translation that pandered to Western liberal values attempting to lure non-Muslims to Islaam.

Everyone adopted an Islaamic first name, shunned music, and only ate halaal. We new Muslims delightfully welcomed a “brainwashing” since years in kufr (disbelief, ungratefulness to Allaah) left us feeling filthy. An unadulterated Islaam was difficult for the kuffaar (unbelievers) to digest so deviants evidently had a higher success rate in their propagation of Islaam (da’wah) as they modified principles to suit the nafs (carnal self) of recipients. The moderate and sanitized version of Islaam that initially brought me to conversion had to be reassessed.

The ideal of freedom was vehemently rejected as implausible, even in a democracy; the latter we ridiculed as “democrazy.” The plan we envisioned was a homologous Islaamic ummah comprised of compliant Muslim nations willing to accept this nostalgic ideology, followed by a pan-Islaamic government. Funded by Arab petroleum sales, this jihaad could be sustained because Muslim countries held approximately 80% of the world’s readily accessible reserves of crude oil.

With hindsight, I perceive the quintessential factor sustaining my Islaamic faith to be fear. I had buckled under the coercion.

This erroneous and biased wager sought the necessity of considering God for personal convenience, without considering the necessity of truth for the sake of truth itself. There lies Pascal’s Flaw. When emotions took precedence, in dire desperation, I abandoned my most cherished opinions and chose to surrender voluntarily as Allaah’s slave.

Truthfully, I found nothing “revealed” by Prophet Muhammad that couldn’t be influenced by or plagiarized from existing sources, especially from the Judeo-Christian tradition (Tanakh, Talmud, New testament, apocryphal works). Everything Islaamic could be traced to pre-Islaamic origins, from theology to pilgrimage rites.

The god of Islaam, likely just Muhammad’s alter-ego, displayed masculinity, anger, indecision, misogyny, and other moral weaknesses unbefitting of a majestic deity. Between Muhammad and Allaah, there was an uncanny resemblance in personality. Similar to the 1939 musical fantasy film, ‘The Wizard of Oz’, I realized that the Wizard (Allaah) was a fabrication concocted by the man (Muhammad) behind the curtain.

My mind clustered with doubts and objections as I raged with discontent. The deity was fictitious and cruel, the founder deplorably barbaric and sinful, the scripture mediocre and uninspired, the laws primitive and unjust. I perceived Muhammad as a fraud and Allaah as his imaginary friend.

Reverts from a Christian upbringing, because of their dire hatred for Christianity, were blinded to the core principles as taught by Jesus. The grass seemed greener on the other side. But the reality is, where Christians sought forgiveness for sinners, Muslims sought punishment. Muslims prayed towards an inanimate object (i.e., the Ka’bah at Makkah), while Christians prayed towards the heavens. Ahl us-Sunnah proudly ate on the floor with their hands like animals, while the kuffar used chairs and utensils like rightly guided people. As for the corpus of Islaam, unable to find a shred of originality, I concluded the Qur’aan as the most unoriginal composition in religion.

For Christians, Jesus was the Word of God made flesh, while Muslims held the Qur’aan as the Word of God made text.

The Qur’aan says to make no distinction between the Prophets, yet, the hadeeth-inspired Islaam with “Allaah and His Messenger” was awfully similar to the “Father and His Son” in Christianity. Islaam has elevated the Prophet Muhammad to an infallible hero with almost godlike status. However, when Allaah commanded fifty prayers a day in the night of al-Israa’ and Mi’raaj, Muhammad could not “submit” and disobediently sought to reduce the amount repeatedly until it was down to five. Women could legally have no more than one husband, while the Prophet Muhammad could and did have several in one day.

Arrogantly speaking, we Muslims were “the best of peoples ever raised up for mankind.” (3:110) So when an atrocity occurred that was obviously committed by Muslims in the name of Allaah, my fellow brothers and sisters were complacent. We obsequiously forsook the human rights violations in Muslim countries, even when the victims were Muslims. The conspiracy theories widespread in my Muslim society were outright delusion. Not even the moderate Muslims, who neglected salaat and committed zinaa (illegal sex; fornication, adultery, etc.), could accept the Muslim identities of the 9/11 pilots. As my Afghani classmate remarked, “It was the Jews!” When the opportunity arose for self-criticism, inevitably, we instead blamed the Jews, our favourite scapegoat.

We proudly acknowledged the jihaad, yet acted stupid if questioned by a kaafir and responded to their accusations with, for example, “How do you know it was done by Muslims? Where is the evidence?” Although they were not blind to the videotaped confessions by boasting Muslim terrorists, they chose to be. Not all Muslims were terrorists, although it was unequivocally but agonizingly true that most terrorists were Muslims. Sunni Muslims, to be exact. If some Americans or Jews died, there was sympathetic joy and I observed this particular behaviour genially absorbed by one Muslimah just five years old.

The greatest threat to dogmatism is doubt because thinking leads to kufr (disbelief). Islaam thought for us. My classmate Mohammed once said, “You know what your problem is? You think too much!” Ironically, freethinking and open-mindedness brought me to tolerate their da’wah and convert. I embraced Islaam and gave Allaah my undivided worship. But because I now kindly disagree, Islaamic scholars say I should be killed. Even moderate Muslims living in the West concede with my death sentence.

I found it deplorable that Muhammad, a man over fifty years of age, married six year-old ‘Aishah and then consummated the marriage when she was nine. His hatred for the Jews rivaled the antisemitism of Adolf Hitler. The Prophet, supposedly guided by God, did not abolish slavery but actually possessed slaves. He waged systematic campaigns to exterminate opponents. I came from a civilization where murder was considered, believe it or not, wrong?

We had to agree with the inferiority of women, the amputation of the hand for thieves, and antisemitic hatred of the Jews. There was stoning of women and animal sacrifices. Even the incentives of Islaam were ignoble. Paradise, an apparent Club Med in the sky, contained earthly sensuality and materialism catering to primitive man, such as numerous women, wine, and couches. A married Muslimah would spend eternity attending her husband as he titillated with numerous women in bed. A sensible man should expect better treatment for his wife (i.e., an equal human being that is someone’s daughter, sister, or mother). No progressive interpretation of such scripture could hide the ignominiousness.

But I’m not as arrogant to claim I possess “The Truth”, with a capital tee. In conclusion, for the Muslims in the audience, a quotation from Stephen F. Roberts who eloquently said it best: “I contend that we are both atheists. I just believe in one fewer god than you do. When you understand why you dismiss all the other possible gods, you will understand why I dismiss yours.”

Part 2 to come…

Imperfect Churches and Clean Shoes

Posted on June 3, 2010 by Paula Fether

When those of us who no longer attend The Institution try to explain our convictions to those who still do, we often hear the catchphrase, “Well, if you ever find the perfect church, don’t join it or it won’t be perfect anymore.” This implies that the out-of-church are only out because they’re looking for perfection, or they’ve been hurt, or some other cause. After all, there just can’t be any valid theological or spiritual reason to leave a “church”. They quote Heb. 10:25, consider the case closed, and walk away muttering about backsliders.

Yet while these things may be true of some who have left church, they are not true of all. Instead, the reasons I and many others I know have stopped “going to church” have nothing to do with seeking perfection or being intolerant, but with the principle established by Jesus when He sent out the Twelve concerning shaking the dust from their feet as a testimony against those who reject true teachings (Mark 6:11), which includes the very structure of the institutional church itself.

There is an appalling lack of discernment in church leadership today. They tolerate almost any sin and sometimes even encourage them. But the subtle and deadly teachings of demons involve more than embracing unholiness, more than accepting everything that sounds spiritual; they also include “the teachings of the Nicolaitans” (see the Books of a Fether link in the sidebar), which is that there must be a chain of command in the Christian community, a divide between “clergy” and “laity”, an elevating of one spiritual gift over others.

What I’m saying is that even if a traditional church has all of their doctrinal ducks in a row, there is still a major problem of hierarchy and the wrong model of the Christian community. Jesus’ statements about “where two or three are gathered” (Mt. 18:20) and “neither here nor on this mountain” (John 4:21–24) demolish what Frank Viola* has termed “the edifice complex”, and Jesus’ and the apostles’ statements against “lording over” (Mt. 20:24–27, 1 Peter 5:3) put an end to class distinction among the parts of this one Body (Mt. 23:8, 1 Cor. 12).

But most cannot hear this message because they see it as an attack upon them and their character. To criticize the traditional model is to shake the very foundations of their religious practice, and they are indignant at being told that this system, this model, bears no resemblance to that which Jesus and the apostles began, and in fact works against it. They simply cannot question, much less abandon, The Way It Has Always Been.

Back in 1964 Leonard Verduin wrote a book called The Reformers and Their Stepchildren, in which he supplied important details about church history that have been all but forgotten, and I suspect deliberately so. As the saying goes, “history is written by the victors”, and this is no less true in religion than in politics. If one accepts his well-documented record, The Way It Has Always Been is a sham. What we presume to be the true and faithful model of the Christian community is an impostor, and one that inhibits real spiritual life.

Yes, God can and has worked around human frailty, including this institutional tradition. But if we strive to be closer to Jesus and all that He came to establish, we must study the scriptures. And when we do, we see nothing of sacred buildings or privileged classes, nothing of lords and rulers, nothing of the old ways, as Jesus pointed out in His parable of the wineskins (Mt. 9:17). Our very bodies are the temple of the Holy Spirit (1 Cor. 3:16, 6:19); we are all priests (1 Peter 2:4–5, 9). And I challenge anyone to show me in the New Testament any directives on what Christian worship services are supposed to be. All I see is Christians living (Rom. 12:1), building each other up (Heb. 10:24), everyone contributing to the other (1 Cor. 14:26). I see no liturgy, no establishment of one person to direct the group, no officials or sacraments (see Verduin’s book, ch. 4; if you think for example that “the Lord’s Supper” is a required rite, then show me the detailed instructions and requirements on how, when, and where it is to be observed. What kind of requirement has no instructions?). There is no “the Pastor”, no “go to church”, anywhere in the New Testament.

For myself and many others, staying out of traditional churches is a testimony and a personal conviction every bit as strong as those held by churchgoers— which all of us once were. I attended faithfully and participated actively for the first 47 years of my life, and in several different denominations; no one can tell me I don’t know what I’m talking about. I believe that if my faith cannot stand alone, it isn’t my faith at all. I also believe that if the average Christian cannot be trusted to stay faithful without the mystical, unbiblical “covering” of clergy, the fault lies with said clergy, who know they haven’t adequately instructed their followers.

Now don’t jump to conclusions; I ache for real Christian fellowship. But not even the deepest and most painful solitude can compromise my convictions on this matter. I will stay true to it no matter what it costs me, and will continue to encourage others to breathe the air of freedom from man-made micromanagement. Christianity is not something to practice or visit but something to be; please see my booklet Reconciled for more.

* Author of Pagan Christianity; the phrase is the title of a chapter in that book. But please note that while I agree with him on this topic, I strongly disagree with him on the matter of Contemplative Prayer. We must be diligent to separate wheat from weeds (Mt. 13:24–30).

Synthesis

Posted on August 12, 2009 by Paula Fether

I just wanted to highlight a link I just added, called What Is the Hegelian Dialectic?. I see this tactic played out constantly, in all spheres of modern life, especially in the churches. Many think it’s the Holy Spirit behind movements such as the Purpose Driven courses, but holy has nothing to do with it. It is a diabolical plan toward an evil goal, and its power lies in its chameleon-like ability to blend in with any and every philosophy. It has saturated all the world’s governments, schools, and religions. Read the article there and then keep it in mind as you read the news or listen to sermons, and especially in the internet dialogs.

Know your enemy.

They Have Received Their Reward

Posted on July 19, 2009 by Paula Fether

In Jesus’ “sermon on the mount” in Matthew, particularly chapter 6, He speaks of those who have traded the approval of God and His wages for those of mere humans. We normally think first of those who “give to charity” for show, or to reduce their taxes, or like Ananias and Sapphira (Acts 5:1-11), to give a false impression of piety. Others are told that they should give to get something back from God, which is not giving at all but investing. All of those people have forfeited the rewards they could have gotten in eternity for that which “moth and rust destroy, and thieves break in and steal” (Mt. 6:19).

But probably the biggest group of those who have received all the reward they will ever get are the paid clergy. They are already being compensated for their careers, and I don’t hesitate to call them careers either. What else is it when you go to seminary, put out resumes, and apply for a management position like any other job? While missionaries have no guarantee of support and trust God for provision, these clerics expect a regular salary and benefits. They see this as fair and necessary because of all their business responsibilities: overseeing committees, preparing speeches, performing rituals and ceremonies, etc. It is an executive position in a corporate entity or nonprofit club.

Sure, they do “spiritual” things too, but what true believer doesn’t? Do other believers get pay or recognition for visiting the sick, giving their time and talents to community service, spreading the gospel, studying the Bible, or anything else every believer is to do? How about the Sunday School teachers, are they paid? Are the nursery workers paid? Why is it that most believers are expected to support themselves, support others, and exercise their spiritual gifts as well, while “shepherds” are supported by the “sheep” and think their particular spiritual activities are somehow superior or more demanding?

As an egalitarian I have long recognized the inherent flaw in hierarchy, but many who recognize this between male and female still do not see the inconsistency of accepting the clergy/laity class distinction. They argue for allowing female clergy, but a better argument would be to disallow male clergy; no believer is to rule over other believers.

In the NT’s head/body analogies for the community of believers, never is any individual likened to the head. Jesus is the Head and we are His Body. Just as the OT says that a husband joins to his wife, so also Jesus joined to His Bride. And no body part is superior to another (1 Cor. 12:4-29). Although in this analogy the Head does not represent rule but unity, the point I’m making here is that there is no believer through whom all other believers must go; there is no spiritual gift above other spiritual gifts, for they are all on the same level. Paul does mention “the greater gifts” (1 Cor. 12:31) but defines them as whatever builds up the Body (1 Cor. 14:1-12). Of course those whose gift is to teach truth and guard against error are building up the body, but so also are those who heal, who prophesy (which clearly includes women), and who encourage (Rom. 12:3-8). And who would deny that those we refer to as “prayer warriors” build up the Body?

It is these lowly volunteers who have the greater reward; in fact, only volunteers will get a heavenly reward at all, for those who have been compensated in this life have already received theirs.

If any of you reading this are currently employed as “pastors”, let me strongly encourage you to find some other means of employment and put yourself on the same level as your spiritual equals, who serve voluntarily. Give up your office, figuratively and literally. Give up your privileges and your title. If you truly are gifted to lead, others will see Jesus in you and follow naturally, without any external cues. True believers know who resembles the Chief Shepherd, but they will run from the “hired hand” (John 10:12-13).

Consequences

Posted on July 13, 2009 by Paula Fether

Surfing the net today I came across a very sad testimony from an atheist claiming to have been a Christian until not long ago. I hope that in commenting on this article that the author and others in similar circumstances may rethink all of this, because eternity is a long time to have regrets.

I did truly believe in God for most of my life and worshiped and prayed to him daily. I believed he was at work in my life at all times and using me to touch other people’s lives.

Believing in God is not salvation (James 2:19). The Jews of Jesus’ day believed in the God of the Old Testament, yet they too needed to be saved. They worshiped God, they prayed, they felt as the Greeks did (Acts 17:28) that they lived and moved in God’s presence. But they were required, when Jesus came, to accept Him as Messiah; to have one was to have the other, and to lack one was to lack the other (1 John 2:22-23).

Last fall, I finally moved past guilt and admitted to myself that I no longer believe in Jesus or the god of the Bible. Surprisingly it was a relief. Not because I wanted to run wild and sin freely, but because I no longer felt the weight a Christian carries. The weight of guilt, unworthiness and fear of god’s judgement.

Jesus said that His burden was light, so anyone carrying a heavy burden is not following Jesus. This rejection of the gospel is what happens when evangelists, preachers, etc. dangle sinners over the fires of hell and try to scare them into heaven. Instead, as I’ve written often, we should emphasize the fact that God wants us to be reconciled to Him (2 Cor. 5:16-21). Sin is certainly the reason we were alienated from God, and Jesus paid the ultimate price to rob sin of its power and purchase the gift of salvation for any and all who would accept it. A person who understands this and accepts it is a person who carries the lightest burden, who lives in gratitude and love, who rejoices like a child finally adopted. “Perfect love drives away fear” (1 John 4:18), so we know that someone who lives in fear of God’s punishment is out of relationship with Him.

The list of 20 grievances against God are typical atheistic fare, but I’ll comment on just a few.

Throughout history, Christians have justified horrific actions by the Bible and its teaching.

Professing Christians have done that. And they did it in clear violation of the Bible’s teachings, especially the New Testament. Yet atheists never seem to focus this accusation on Islam, whose Quran teaches it explicitly (and I would be willing to bet it has a tiny bit to do with death threats, but that’s just me).

The only reason I was a Christian was because I was indoctrinated into the religion as a child as a result of the culture and region of the world in which I was born.

Being raised as a Christian does not make one a Christian. Being indoctrinated is not being saved. Yet this is what happens all too often in Christian homes. The parents either take or send the children to “church services” or “Sunday school” and then wonder why this externally-imposed “faith” is rejected when the kids leave home. The churches are filled with these cultural “Christians”.

Christians are not at all ethically or morally different from non-Christians.

Mark Driscoll, are you paying attention?

Today, powerful church leaders steal, lie and molest young children. The church repeatedly attempts to cover up these atrocities, only to reluctantly apologize as a last resort.

Southern Baptist Convention, are you listening?

What we’re seeing in this sad report are the consequences of a fear-based evangelism, a very ironic term since the Greek word means “good message”. What’s good about telling people what low, worthless scum they are? And if they are such, why would Jesus have died for them? Did Jesus not die for beloved creatures, for those made in His own image? They are lost and estranged, not vile and literally dead.

Please refer to my article Go To Heaven! and its links for details on all this. We are responsible for telling the world about the GOOD thing Jesus did for us all, not focusing on the BAD things people do. A man-centered message is only that; let’s make it Jesus-centered. Lives are at stake.

The Least of These

Posted on June 14, 2009 by Paula Fether

I think the most telling sign of whether or not a person is truly saved is how they treat those under their power or control. Jesus made it clear in many statements that God values the weak and oppressed, and it is they He came to rescue.

Can a real Christian think any others are beneath them in any way? Can they consider their friends, spouse, or children as mere appendages that exist only to serve their master? Is a good parent a selfish despot? Is a good spouse a self-centered baby?

The Biblical model is leading by example, to “practice what we preach”. If humility is a Christian virtue, then the leader must exhibit this humble life at all times. People will follow such a person because they are producing the “fruit of the Spirit” (Gal. 5:22-23). But anyone who is lacking such fruit yet demanding to be followed is a liar and conceited, a wolf in sheep’s clothing, a fake and a usurper.

There are men who mock and belittle women, “pastors” who call it sin for anyone to question them, “scholars” who are not above altering scripture itself to suit them, and women who embrace this opportunity to shirk personal accountability to God, to the point of devouring their own sisters like cannibals. There are too many “good ole boys” and the women who love them, too many “Caesars” demanding that the sheep support the shepherd.

I wish such people were in the minority but they have infested the entire Christian community. The dross always rises to the surface, but there is little left of the pure. The seminaries and bookstores are saturated with prideful, flesh-based teachings that dissect the Body of Christ. The blogs and message boards are like open sewers spewing their toxic stench into every Christian church and home. As I wrote earlier, they send their assassins out to hunt down and destroy all dissent. And they think themselves pure and Christlike!

Out of a scene from Lord of the Rings, we might be tempted to say “Let [them] rot!”, but we should instead strike at the heart of the enemy and destroy it. The enemy I speak of is what I wrote about in my Nicolaitan book: hierarchy, the desire to control, no matter which form it takes, and no matter how benevolent it may claim to be. Pride is never benevolent; conceit is never kind and godly.

This is no time for reform or revival, but revolution. We can no longer afford to sacrifice so many precious souls on the altar of compromise, in the name of a false “peace”, by remaining silent or “agree to disagree”. Light and darkness can never coexist. Domination in any form is evil and must be strongly opposed. I don’t care how long this sin has been practiced, or how deeply embedded it is, or who will take offense. It is time to stand up in the “churches” and say “Enough!”

The truly humble, those who actually are serving and not bossing, will have no objection to giving up the titles, offices, privileges, and paychecks. The truly gifted will not demand others follow their “vision” or intimidate people into fearing the flames of hell should they stop blindly following them. The truly Christlike will not whine about lost book sales or prestige, or call their jets and buildings “God’s work”.

Who will stand?

First Principles

Posted on February 27, 2009 by Paula Fether

Whenever a professional athlete gets into a slump, the typical remedy is to go back to basics, to reinforce forgotten lessons and correct deviations that have slowly cropped up over time. Likewise, when Christianity in general has gotten into a major spiritual slump as no one can deny today, it is because we have forgotten “the height from which [we] have fallen” (Rev. 2:4-5). We have lost sight of the basics of salvation.

What are those principles?

Sin – Rom. 3:23, 5:12, 1 Cor. 15:17, 2 Cor. 5:21, Heb. 10:26, James 4:17, 1 John 1:8, 3:4, 5:17

Sin– rebellion against God and injustice against each other– entered the world through the rebellion of Adam, causing mortality and separation from God, as well as a cursed earth. In the thinking of the Hebrews, mankind was then “dead” to God (see Eph. 2), that is, the relationship between God and mankind was broken.

Redemption – Mt. 20:28, Acts 13:38-39, John 1:29, Rom. 4:25, 5:16, 6:7, 8:2-3, 1 Cor. 15:21, Eph. 2:8-9, Col. 1:14, 1 Tim. 1:15, Heb. 1:3, 2:17, 10:12, 1 Peter 2:24, 1 John 1:9, 2:2, 4:10

Reconciliation – Rom. 5:10-15, 2 Cor. 5:18-20, Eph. 2:13-16, Col. 1:20-22

Adoption – John 1:12-13, Rom. 8:14-23, Gal. 3:26, 4:5-7, Eph. 1:5, 5:1, Heb. 2:13, 12:7, 1 John 3:1-2

We can deduce that Adam’s sin also handed over the title deed of earth to Satan (Mt. 4:8-9), such that we were no longer God’s children and were “owned” by Satan. Why else would we have needed to be redeemed or bought back? This is the reason for blood atonement. It is not, as the critics allege, proof of God being bloodthirsty, but of the great and terrible price that had to be paid in order to rescue us from the power and ownership of Satan. This of course caused Satan no end of wrath and rage, because that which he had acquired by trickery could now be forfeited because God had out-smarted him.

So the sacrifice of Jesus was to pay for our redemption and our “adoption fee”. Any and all who willingly accept this freely offered gift– not wage we had to earn or force we couldn’t resist– is then reconciled or “made alive” to God and “made dead” to sin. It is a complete reversal of relationships: between us and God, and with each other. Yet since God did not force this on anyone, those who freely accept it are urged throughout the scriptures to live like we truly grasp what has been done for us, like we really do serve a risen Lord and not a dead philosophy.

Jesus’ blood also paid for all sin, for all time. But contrary to the universalist view, this does not negate justice by ignoring the wrongs people have done to each other and to God. What it does mean is that God has the legal right to grant forgiveness. And this in turn does not mean Jesus’ sacrifice was wasted on all those who reject Him, as Calvinism’s concept of “limited atonement” asserts. If Jesus’ blood had to be spilled at all, then the amount is irrelevant; the important thing is the quality. How could Jesus’ blood be limited in its power or scope? How could it have been possible for Him to pay anything less than an infinite amount? I consider it insulting to think that Jesus’ blood, even just one drop of it, would not be enough to secure the salvation of every person that ever lived. I defy any proponent of “limited atonement” to show how Jesus could have paid a higher price!

And we must not forget that we are not slaves but children, a status not enjoyed even by the angels in heaven. We are family, not employees, soldiers, or slaves, and Jesus in His humanity is our Brother. In His divinity He is indeed our Master, Savior, God, King, and Owner, but as a human, He has become our Brother and will change us to be like Him. But even that change is not forced upon us, or there’d have been no need for all the urging to strive for the prize, to exhibit the fruit of the Spirit, to be at peace, etc.

Faith and Hope – Rom. 5:1-2, 1 Cor. 13:13, Gal. 5:5, Col. 1:5, 1 Thes. 5:8, Titus 2:13, Heb. 11:1, 1 Peter 1:3

What is Christianity without hope? What is it without a longing to see our Savior? Yet today’s Christians seem not only oblivious to this but even hostile to it. They do not seem in any hurry to meet Jesus and instead think they should work to build a kingdom on earth by their own efforts. They want to earn a place in the kingdom! They prefer to work for that which they could have had for free, because they have no faith or hope.

Love – John 3:16, Rom. 5:8, 1 Cor. 13, 1 John 4:7-11, 20

This is the litmus test of it all. How can anyone claiming reconciliation and adoption with God harbor bitterness and hatred toward others, especially fellow believers? Yet we see it all the time, and it seems to be worse the higher up one goes on the worldly chain of command the “churches” have always craved. Anger, rage, and bitterness (Col. 3:8) are not Christian virtues! And how can love wish to flatten the emotions of God and believers by attributing only love to God and forbidding righteous indignation in people? Those who demand only pleasant and conciliatory speech from other believers, who expect never to be offended, are in violation of 1 Cor. 13:5 which says that love is not quick to take offense and does not keep a record of hurts.

To love is to serve, as Jesus showed us. And there is no way to twist “lording over” others into a kind of service! Protecting, nurturing, lifting up– those are attitudes all believers should have toward each other, and there is no authority attached to any of them.

New life – John 10:10, 14:6, Rom. 6:4, 14-23, Gal. 5:24

For having a new life, a lot of Christians sure seem determined to make it look like the old one, the “dead” one. We are in “jars of clay” of course, but they shouldn’t be so thick that no light can escape them and no “salt” can be shaken out of them. We want to look like the world with our sacred objects and buildings. We want nice stuff and fancy titles. We want grand projects that glorify only ourselves because they are the fruit of our own labor and not the working of the Spirit. God is glorified when things happen that clearly were not of our own power. But when we substitute faith and trust in the Spirit with plans and strategies learned from the world, all we get are institutions. Sure, some good comes from them, but that hardly amounts to an endorsement from God.

Conclusion

We need to keep focused on these basic principles, because everything else flows from them. They are the foundation, but even the most ornate building is worthless if the foundation is flawed. If we are hateful, easily offended, chained to traditions that the NT never endorsed, have worldly ambitions within the Body of Christ, or exhibit any other such behavior, we can be sure we have forgotten the first principles and have a very tenuous connection to the Vine. It’s about Jesus, not us, and whatever does not glorify Him is glorifying ourselves. We all need to keep looking in the mirror of scripture and measure our lives against this foundation.

A Bad Experience

Posted on January 10, 2009 by Paula Fether

I have noticed that whenever you disagree with someone, one of the most common assumptions they jump to is that “you had a bad experience”; that there must be some trauma you suffered that makes you crazy enough to disagree with them.

For example, anyone who disagrees with male supremacy is presumed to have been abused or had a bad marriage. Anyone who questions the “churchianity” paradigm is presumed to have had some kind of problem “at church”, or is only whining about not finding the perfect church. Anyone who is politically conservative is presumed to be either uneducated or a “fundy”. Anyone who believes in the Rapture is presumed to be escapist or elitist.

Notice to the presumptuous: it ain’t necessarily so.

In fact, I’d be so bold to say that a lot of disagreements happen just because we’re not all clones or robots. Two people can be equally intelligent, equally educated, equally willing to see the other side, and yet still disagree in the end. It isn’t that one is proud or blind, but that people sometimes (frequently) just disagree. It’s a human thing.

Bad experiences can affect people, some temporarily and some permanently. But one should never presume that a bad experience is at the root of every disagreement. My readers know my stance on a lot of controversial issues, such as women in the church and home, church organization, security of salvation, and so on. But I have a good marriage, never had a big problem in any church, and am not looking for the Rapture out of fear or pride but because I so ache to see my Savior and for the long history of human suffering on earth to end.

So next time you find your self in a disagreement with someone, be alert for this presumption and make sure it isn’t being used as a reason for an argument to be dismissed.

Another One Bites the Dust

Posted on November 20, 2007 by Paula Fether

Today brought us news of yet another scandal: a self-important “Pastor” had a child by his brother’s wife, other affairs as well, and lied under oath. And what’s the “solution” according to the “love child”? “‘It was a necessary evil to bring us back to a God-consciousness,’ said the younger Paulk, explaining that the church had become too personality-driven and prone to pastor worship.”

Not only are wolves guarding the sheep-pen, they’re also setting up housekeeping with the sheep and making little, uh, ‘sheeves’, and the sheeves are feeding on Hinduism. But at least some of them recognize the problem of personality and pastor worship, which is more than I can say for most “Pastors” and teachers today. One has to wonder why there is deafening silence from Christian leadership nationwide when one of their own is caught in great sin, and probably unbelief.

Why indeed the silence. You don’t suppose it’s got anything to do with possible skeletons in the closets of said leadership, do you?

As each scandal breaks, the name of Jesus is further maligned, and rest assured that we’re only seeing the tip of the iceberg. Instead of disciples of deep character and solid doctrine, we have “Pastors Gone Wild”. Churchianity surely deserves the bad reputation it has earned among unbelievers. We cannot give anyone a position of power among believers, not only because it is a direct violation of Jesus’ “not so among you”, but because power still corrupts “even the elect”. But for two thousand years the lesson remains unlearned.

When will pastor worship stop? When will The Club disband? When will people read the Bible for themselves and see Christianity as it was designed to be, a family instead of a corporation? When will The Clergy swallow their pride, and the misogynists give up their lust for power? When will the “sheeple” stop listening to these “hired hands” and follow the True Shepherd?

Acts 20:28-31
Keep watch over yourselves and all the flock of which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers. Be shepherds of the church of God, which he bought with his own blood. I know that after I leave, savage wolves will come in among you and will not spare the flock. Even from your own number some will arise and distort the truth in order to draw away disciples after them. So be on your guard! Remember that for three years I never stopped warning each of you night and day with tears.

Jeremiah 51:45
Come out of her, my people! Run for your lives! Run from the fierce anger of the LORD.

Revelation 18:4
Come out of her, my people, so that you will not share in her sins, so that you will not receive any of her plagues…

Show Me

Posted on January 1, 2007 by Paula Fether

Sometimes we just take too much for granted. We no longer critically examine what we hold to be true, being content with skipping merrily along on yesterday's convictions and beliefs. Having been a card-carrying member of Churchianity for over 47 years, I can tell you that what I'm about to list is true and typical. By bringing it to light, I hope to free anyone still resting on these fragile points.

So I ask the following: Show me where the Bible says:

there are "offices" or "positions" of head pastor, youth pastor, music minister, etc.
pastors are not to be questioned
pastors are to be the only speaker in most cases
pastors are the only ones qualified to deliver prepared sermons
there must be prepared sermons, and they must be delivered at least weekly
believers must be under a pastor's "covering"
joining an assembly of believers requires a formal membership
it is disobedient to God to refuse water baptism
believers must "tithe"
the church is the New Testament (NT) equivalent of the Jewish Temple
the church replaced Israel (how else can they claim to be the "storehouse"?)
the people must all be actively attending every class, small group, worship service, carry-in dinner, and every other conceivable activity the "church" dictates
the church can use pledges or charters or fund-raisers to pay for church activities and possessions
that a church should collectively own property
that a church must have a building with an altar, pews, pulpit
that there are any such things as altars, pews, or pulpits
that the "laity" exist to follow the pastor's "vision"
that there's any such things as "clergy" and "laity"
that people who don't "go to church" and do all these things are lost or backslidden or apostate
that any particular style of music or method of producing it is wrong or right
that people have to dress up to meet together in Jesus' name
that church meetings are to cater to unbelievers ("seekers") and must not offend or frighten the lost

I could go on and on, but you get the idea. The vast majority of rules and assumptions burdening the churches today are fabrications of tradition. They have no grounding in scripture at all, and in fact violate what the NT teaches for believers. They are clubs really, making people feel religious and pious.

Yes, real believers participate in this, as I did for most of my life. But God never intended any of that; he wanted to set us free from legalism and outward religion, replacing it with freedom and a Relationship. You can have both salvation and legalism— but why?

Why carry this extra burden, one which fosters many shallow or false conversions, one which keeps most people in a perpetual parent/child relationship with the "clergy" or the teachers? Why pay all that money to buildings and programs that largely benefit the comfortable, instead of giving directly to the poor? Why not just be the NT church the way Jesus and Paul told us?

And why put off leaving The Institution another day?

Bad is the new Good

Posted on September 1, 2006 by Paula Fether

I saw that phrase in an email newsletter today. It was about how poor quality “YouTube”-type videos are all the rage, throwing out all the old formulas for TV and video advertising. But it is a good way to describe what’s happening in the arena of morality and society, and even in the churches.

Everything is being turned upside down. The “old” virtures are now the vices and, uh, vice versa.

It used to be that self-centeredness, all kinds of perversions, profanity, etc. were bad and humility, justice, freedom of conscience, and honesty were good. Now it’s all backwards. Holding to convictions is considered intolerant; speaking out against evil is called hate speech; it’s okay to trash Christianity publicly but not homosexuality; you can read The Exorcist but not the Bible; the children of crack addicts are made to stay with their “parents” but homeschooled kids are considered “abused”; etc. etc.

People whine about others being “insensitive” to them, but don’t hesitate to dish it out in revenge. They want you to accommodate their every whim, but God forbid that they should be asked to do the same for you. It’s narcissism/hedonism, and it’s the new “good”. (I like the Fox Online terms “oblivions” and “obliviots”.)

Even among churchians, tolerance is the new intolerance. They’ll let any heresy in the door, but scream if you try to quote the Bible. They sing about peace but quickly whip out the guns if you try to tell them something is wrong with their beliefs. They embrace false teachings such as the old Hindu practices like yoga, emptying the mind, chanting, etc., but reject repentance, sound doctrine, and purity. Anyone who raises a warning is called a “heresy hunter” or worse, and preachers only speak of the pleasant and flattering, not about sin or judgment.

To the churchians God says:

“Woe to those who call evil good and good evil, who put darkness for light and light for darkness, who put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter.” (Isaiah 5:20)

“You say, ‘I am rich; I have acquired wealth and do not need a thing.’ But you do not realize that you are wretched, pitiful, poor, blind and naked.” (Revelation 3:17)

And to the world, God says:

“For it is time for judgment to begin with the family of God; and if it begins with us, what will the outcome be for those who do not obey the gospel of God?” (1 Peter 4:17)

The Spirit of Churchianity: Conform or Die

Posted on August 1, 2006 by Paula Fether

3 John 1:9-11 I wrote to the church, but Diotrephes, who loves to be first, will have nothing to do with us. So when I come, I will call attention to what he is doing, spreading malicious nonsense about us. Not satisfied with that, he refuses to welcome other believers. He also stops those who want to do so and puts them out of the church. (TNIV)

You’ve all heard it– “There are no lone-ranger Christians”; “a solitary log won’t burn as bright or as long as when all the logs are in one pile”; “you must be accountable to other believers”; “hierarchy prevents heresy”, etc. But look at scripture: who are some of the most respected prophets and apostles? They were alone, despised and hounded, standing in the face of “organized religion”. And who are exposed as the biggest heretics and enemies of God? The Pharisees, the proud self-appointed ‘apostles’, the control freaks.

That is Churchianity Today. There is no tolerance for any who stand on the Bible (remember the children’s song, The B.I.B.L.E. ?). The almighty Pastor has been so elevated as to be considered above reproach, and any who dare to level even the most mild reprimand are vilified and expelled. Contracts must be signed pledging loyalty, not to God but to man, to the Institution– to the PLAN. There is no room for the individual in this “brave new world”. Such are a cancer that must be cut out if they can’t be irradiated or poisoned. The churches have truly fallen to this:

Isaiah 5:20

Woe to those who call evil good and good evil, who put darkness for light and light for darkness, who put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter.

It’s been a matter of historical record that persecution of true believers is never worse than when The Church turns against them. Soon accurate Bibles will be burned and banned; soon true believers will be jailed and then executed, to the thunderous applause of the religious. Soon the World will have so assimilated the Church that they will be one, just as they planned it.

“Even so come, Lord Jesus!” (Rev. 22:20)

**P.S.

One of the most jaw-dropping developments in this Brave New Church is the return to the subjugation and suppression of women. There is a wave of hatred for women that defies all reason, that seeks to put all women in bondage to the whims and fury of men. Gone and forgotten is Jesus’ salvation for all people; despised and rejected is Paul’s declaration that “In Christ there is no Jew or Greek, no slave or free, no male or female”. Men have put themselves in the place of the true Head which is Christ and invented a human Priesthood that worships the old Gnostic heresy of maleness being more god-like and women as being subhuman and evil.

Back, back, back they go, back to the Law, back to the Curse, away from the Light. All I can say is, “There condemnation is deserved.” (Romans 3:8)

The Nicodemus Paradox

Posted on August 1, 2006 by Paula Fether

John 3 (TNIV)

1 Now there was a Pharisee, a man named Nicodemus who was a member of the Jewish ruling council. 2 He came to Jesus at night and said, “Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher who has come from God. For no one could perform the signs you are doing if God were not with him.”

3 Jesus replied, “Very truly I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God without being born again.”

4 “How can anyone be born when they are old?” Nicodemus asked. “Surely they cannot enter a second time into their mother’s womb to be born!”

5 Jesus answered, “Very truly I tell you, no one can enter the kingdom of God without being born of water and the Spirit. 6 Flesh gives birth to flesh, but the Spirit gives birth to spirit. 7 You should not be surprised at my saying, ‘You must be born again.’ 8 The wind blows wherever it pleases. You hear its sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going. So it is with everyone born of the Spirit.”

9 “How can this be?” Nicodemus asked.

10 “You are Israel’s teacher,” said Jesus, “and do you not understand these things? 11 Very truly I tell you, we speak of what we know, and we testify to what we have seen, but still you people do not accept our testimony. 12 I have spoken to you of earthly things and you do not believe; how then will you believe if I speak of heavenly things? 13 No one has ever gone into heaven except the one who came from heaven— the Son of Man. 14 Just as Moses lifted up the snake in the wilderness, so the Son of Man must be lifted up, 15 that everyone who believes may have eternal life in him.”

16 For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. 17 For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him. 18 Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because they have not believed in the name of God’s one and only Son. 19 This is the verdict: Light has come into the world, but people loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil. 20 All those who do evil hate the light, and will not come into the light for fear that their deeds will be exposed. 21 But those who live by the truth come into the light, so that it may be seen plainly that what they have done has been done in the sight of God.

The bolded text above was really quite insulting to a Pharisee. But of course, it wasn’t the first time Jesus insulted a Pharisee. Yet this was not spoken in response to a challenge, but to a display of ignorance— a shocking thing to say to the educated elite!

The Pharisees prided themselves on their great learning, on their command of the scriptures. Jesus never questioned their expertise on the letter of the law or their human intelligence. Yet they were blind to the spirit of the law; they couldn’t see the forest for the trees. A scientist can learn boatloads of facts about the human body by studying its various components under a microscope, yet this knowledge alone can never give a practical understanding of what the body is capable of or the person inside the body. Likewise, a person can know the scriptures inside and out, recite them in their sleep, and foil theological opponents with one arm tied behind their back, yet completely miss the whole point. This was Nicodemus’ problem, the same problem suffered by many today.

Jesus said, “What good will it be for you to gain the whole world, yet forfeit your soul? Or what can you give in exchange for your soul?” (Matthew 16:26) and “”Woe to you Pharisees, because you give God a tenth of your mint, rue and all other kinds of garden herbs, but you neglect justice and the love of God. You should have practiced the latter without leaving the former undone.” (Luke 11:42). Paul said, ” If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing.” (1 Cor. 13:2)

It’s all about balance. We should throw out neither theology and doctrine nor the Spirit. They work together. The “letter” keeps us from heresy, while the “spirit” keeps us from becoming cold-blooded.

Laws, contracts, tax forms, etc. are necessary in the world because people want to get away with things. So I have to wonder about the motivation of those who take such an approach to the scriptures. The Christian should not be striving to see what can be gotten away with and still get to heaven. And the scriptures should never be used as a club with which to beat others over the head. Yet at the same time, the letter cannot be completely ignored. The scriptures were written for a reason, and we would do well to study them. Without “the letter”, we would not know we are sinners, why and how Jesus could save us, and the way to salvation through faith in Him. The words are vital, but they must be used properly.

On the other hand, many approach the scriptures as a collection of inspirational tales, mere suggestions or guidelines. They ignore the context of the words and treat them as some kind of mystical chant by which the reader can get an ‘experience’. They view the Bible as not the inerrant Word of God but a giant allegory to be treated however one chooses. They are typically the ones who suddenly become anything but gentle when encountering the legalists. Yet they do see what the legalists do not: the heart of God and his reaching out to people in spite of their hatred.

There are people on each extreme who are closed to the other extreme and cannot budge. It really doesn’t make any sense to try and reason with such. The challenge is to find people who are open, who will at least listen to the other extreme and consider the good and bad about it.

So the Nicodemus Paradox entails both extremes: looking at the Bible under a microscope but missing the big picture, and having a very vague and blurry view of the Bible as being only about love and not truth. Yet it seems that there are more open-minded (open-hearted?) people among the uneducated. Is it because education tends to fill us with pride? Does it make us feel self-sufficient? Surely education is a good thing overall, but it comes with a price. We must always strive for better understanding, but beware of the pitfalls.

And there’s probably no bigger pitfall than Power and Position. Romans 12:16 says, “Live in harmony with one another. Do not be proud, but be willing to associate with people of low position. Do not think you are superior.” To the Pharisees Jesus said, “The Son of Man came eating and drinking, and you say, ‘Here is a glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners” (Luke 7:34). We see that the elite, the powerful and respected with positions and titles, looked down on Jesus because he hung around with ordinary people. Jesus said it was these elite, who tended to also be rich, who would have the most difficult time entering the kindgom of heaven. The poor and lowly have nothing to lose, no reputation to guard, no collegues to impress, nothing to boast about.

This is exactly what the Institutional Church (IC) is all about. In a typical denomination, there are national presidents or bishops; then regional middle managers of one title or another; then The Head Pastor of each local congregation; under The Pastor are sub-pastors, deacons, and last of all: the lowly “laity”.

This is wrong on so many levels. We are all spiritual siblings under one Shepherd, members of one Body with only one Head. Jesus is the Vine and we are all the braches. This is the structural model of the church as seen in the New Testament. In contrast, the IC is very much ordered after the corporate organizational chart, with a CEO, middle bureaucracy, and common workers. In the IC, there are positions of power, and the people holding these positions are almost guaranteed to fall to the pressure of prestige. It’s a sad fact of life. No matter how humble they may start out, it is almost inevitable that these people will become comfortable with the respect and sometimes paycheck that goes with their positions, not only in the churches but in society as well.

What to do?

Let’s first of all respect the Bible as the infallible written Word of God. Then let’s never forget to step back and keep the big picture in view, that Jesus died for sinners and rose so that we could spend eternity with him by faith alone. And then, let’s just go out and live the relationship.

Jesus had no office, no library, no formal training, no salary, not even a home. He talked with the Father as He would to a respected human father, not as a distant “old man in the sky”. He kept company with blue-collar workers and railed against the religious elite. His “congregation” included former hookers, the demon-possessed he had freed, the sick and lame he had healed, the uneducated masses. The early church grew rapidly without buildings, walls, pews, pulpits, choirs, programs, committees, bureaucrats, seminars, or collection plates.

Don’t do church, be it.

If churchianity is bad, what is good?

Posted on March 1, 2006 by Paula Fether

A “church” isn’t someplace to visit, it’s a body you are born into.

The Body of Christ is not an organization, it’s an organism.

It’s not what I do, it’s who I am.

Our worship of God isn’t to be kept in a box that’s only opened on Sundays, it’s our life, our every breath.

I’m looking for a body of believers who:

teach salvation by faith ALONE in Christ ALONE
follow the NT model of structure and meetings for the body of believers
have more than one overseer (protector, shepherd)
are led by the Spirit, not the majority vote or most vocal leader
revere the Bible as God’s authoritative Word
teach people to grow in spiritual strength and maturity, not to warm pews
have qualified teachers who aren’t dependent upon “quarterlies”
are more concerned with substance than style

DON’T

teach legalism in any form (tithing, baptism, attendance, Sabbath/Law keeping, etc.)
have an unBiblical “membership” or “club” mentality
have a building or any other corporate property
support occult/New Age deceptions such as Alpha, Purpose-Driven, Promise Keepers, Jabez, 12 Steps, occult prayer techniques like centering, silence, labyrinth, visualization
require signed pledges, contracts, commitments, or other legalistic oppression
promote only one Bible version as “authorized”
teach Replacement Theology, Calvinism, Prosperity, Manifest Sons, Latter Rain, ecumenism, universalism, etc.
forbid women to teach adult men (cultural/gender bias)
allow unqualified men or women to teach anyone
teach that our freedom in Christ is a “license to sin”
have a domineering “pastor” who seeks to put others under his “authority”

The following “gleanings” from some other websites explain more:

In stating these convictions, we do not intend to imply elitism, spiritual superiority, nor arrogance. We love and appreciate all those who belong to Christ, regardless of how they live out their church life (Baptist, Methodist, Presbyterian, etc.). Yet these are deeply held convictions with us, and we humbly present them to the church at large in hopes of persuading our brothers and sisters to enjoy the benefits of New Testament church practice along with us!

The Lord’s Supper celebrated weekly as a full, fellowship meal and as the main reason for the weekly church meeting (Ac 2:42 , 20:7, 1Co 11:18 -20, 11:33 ). In the center of the feast there is to be the one cup and the one loaf (1Co 10:16 -17), both symbolizing and creating unity. The mood of the meal is to be joy, not solemn reflection, because the focus of the Lord’s Supper is the excitement of the Second Coming. It is a rehearsal dinner for the future Wedding Banquet of the Lamb (Re 19:6-9)!

Church meetings that are interactive and spontaneous, per 1 Corinthians 14, rather than performances by professionals. Every one of the believers is to be free to contribute to the meetings (via a teaching, a song, a testimony, a prayer, etc.). Open participation is to be the norm, not the exception. The over arching directive for anything said in the meeting is that it must edify the church (1Co 14:26 ).

Home-sized and home-based churches (thus, smaller rather than larger fellowships) that are linked together into networks of autonomous house churches (Ro 16:5, 1Co 1:27-29, Col 4:15, Phlm 2).

Church as more of a family than a business. Meeting in homes helps foster community, accountability and intimacy among the members of the body. Further, churches are to be family friendly. The church and the family are to be integrated, not segregated. Age-graded Sunday School and Children’s Church only serves to further divide families. Children belong in church meetings and Bible studies with their parents.

Generous giving to support church workers (such as missionaries and qualified elders) and those in need. Without the overhead of such expenses as the construction and upkeep of a sanctuary, more money is free to be directed to where needed most.

More web comments:

Many, if not most, who attend today’s institutional churches suffer from a deep spiritual dryness that has settled into their very bones. It seems to manifest itself as a hunger that penetrates the very soul. Because they have not followed God’s blueprint many, aware of their need, go about like blind men groping in the darkness seeking what they sense they do not have. Many actually find the truth they hunger for and the joy that comes with the quickening of God’s spirit within. For a season this new light from God illuminates their heart and beckons them to follow but, afraid to leave familiar surroundings or endure the rebuke of their loved ones, they remain captive in a religious system that has grown cold…

Can we truly say today, as we look at today’s church that it bears any resemblance to the church of Acts? Indeed, outside of God’s word can we say that it exists anywhere but in our hearts? Perhaps it does if we’ll open our eyes, take the blinders off and look outside the mainstream institutional church to the unnoticed fringe; to the ridiculed, persecuted and discarded. Look close; you won’t be able to identify them by their clothes, education or speech. The only way you’ll be able to recognize them is by their love and the fruit of their lives. They most likely won’t be meeting in rented or purchased buildings. They won’t be teaching or preaching from elevated platforms and they won’t acknowledge any difference between layman and clergy. They will recognize all who truly follow Christ as co-laborers, joint heirs of salvation and fellow priests in the service of the kingdom. They will be a peculiar people, a chosen generation, a royal priesthood called to build God’s kingdom according to His specifications. They will follow His blueprint with the integrity of a master builder…

Allowing believers to receive new light could result in biblical unity with others who are trying to come out of division and darkness. Who knows, if we found unity with others, the only thing that would divide us would be the brand names we’ve adopted. We might then be tempted to drop those also. Can you image what that would mean? It would be the end of denominationalism and the beginning of the simple loving church that Jesus built. We might then catch a glimpse of home. Have you ever dared to dream of a church like this, a church that feels like home? One that expects no fancy “go to meeting” Sunday clothes or pews arranged like theatre seats. I’m speaking of a church where you don’t go to watch a performance put on by professional singers, musicians, and preachers; where the show is a carefully orchestrated program of religious rituals, but one whose worship is simple, unprofessional and from the heart.

Gone are the props, the gowns… Gone are the altars, pews and stained glass. Gone are the bulletins, steeples and pulpits. Gone is the unspoken belief that worship music must be old and composed by those long dead to truly be of God…

To take a step toward early church worship is to invoke Satan’ anger like nothing else. Against this church he can’t win. (Matthew16:18) But if he can keep you from becoming part of the true church he can keep you spiritually impotent for a lifetime. The church began with Peter’s first sermon just as Jesus said it would (Matthew 16:18) and though the enemy has tried to destroy it, it still stands. (Acts 2:38-42)

There will be those who seek to hold you back; those from your family, your church and those among your friends. They will accuse you of heresy, of joining a cult, of abandoning your friends and family. It will get plenty rough before it gets better. Your choice to live by God’s Word will reveal enemies and persecution from source’ you never dreamed of. ..

The final decision rests with you; follow God or follow man… Hold on, don’t let go, don’t give up! Remember, God understands and will reward you for your faithfulness if you continue steadfast in the faith.

A good link on “church bondage” can be found Here. (Note: I strongly disagree with their belief in “old earth creationism” and over-reliance on the KJV, but this is an excellent article.)

Churchianity

Posted on September 1, 2005 by Paula Fether

Let’s start by taking a look at the NT references for gatherings of believers:

John 4:21-24
“Jesus declared, ‘Believe me, woman, a time is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. You Samaritans worship what you do not know; we worship what we do know, for salvation is from the Jews. Yet a time is coming, and has now come, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks. God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in spirit and in truth.’”

1 Cor. 6:19
“Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own;”

1 Cor. 14:22-33
“Tongues, then, are a sign, not for believers but for unbelievers; prophecy, however, is for believers, not for unbelievers. So if the whole church comes together and everyone speaks in tongues, and some who do not understand or some unbelievers come in, will they not say that you are out of your mind? But if an unbeliever or someone who does not understand comes in while everybody is prophesying, he will be convinced by all that he is a sinner and will be judged by all, and the secrets of his heart will be laid bare. So he will fall down and worship God, exclaiming, “God is really among you!”

What then shall we say, brothers? When you come together, everyone has a hymn, or a word of instruction, a revelation, a tongue or an interpretation. All of these must be done for the strengthening of the church. If anyone speaks in a tongue, two— or at the most three— should speak, one at a time, and someone must interpret. If there is no interpreter, the speaker should keep quiet in the church and speak to himself and God. Two or three prophets should speak, and the others should weigh carefully what is said. And if a revelation comes to someone who is sitting down, the first speaker should stop. For you can all prophesy in turn so that everyone may be instructed and encouraged. The spirits of prophets are subject to the control of prophets. For God is not a God of disorder but of peace.”

1 Cor. 11:17-33
“In the following directives I have no praise for you, for your meetings do more harm than good… When you come together, it is not the Lord’s Supper you eat, for as you eat, each of you goes ahead without waiting for anybody else. One remains hungry, another gets drunk… That is why many among you are weak and sick, and a number of you have fallen asleep. But if we judged ourselves, we would not come under judgment. When we are judged by the Lord, we are being disciplined so that we will not be condemned with the world. So then, my brothers, when you come together to eat, wait for each other.”

Acts 17:11
“Now the Bereans were of more noble character than the Thessalonians, for they received the message with great eagerness and examined the Scriptures every day to see if what Paul said was true.”

We can deduce several things from these passages.

First, the Church is not a building but the believers themselves. Our physical bodies are called the “temple”, and the physical buildings we’ve all come to associate with Christianity are not prescribed for the church at all. Jesus made a point of saying that the old way of a physical building would be replaced by worship that is done “in spirit and in truth” without regard for any certain location. Paul concurred by saying that our bodies are the temple of the Holy Spirit, who indwells each believer.

According to the church historian Unger, there were no church buildings for at least the first 200 years of Christianity. It wasn’t due to poverty necessarily, but to the fact that neither Jesus nor any of the Apostles even hinted at construction of a special sanctuary or house of worship. So where did the idea of special buildings come from? That’s right, the Roman Catholic Church, founded and designed by the Roman emperor Constantine. His goal was to blend Christian and pagan religions (sound familiar?) so that everyone would get along. The same people who filled the pagan shrines on one day would fill the “churches” on another, being in the familiar company of the gods they knew who were represented in the statues and icons– which were given “saint” names for the Christians. It was a shrewd political maneuver which turned out to be wildly successful.

Second, the model of a single “head pastor” lecturing a group of pew-warmers is unknown to the NT. There were to be several elders in each church (local group of believers), and any number of prophets (those who give a divine message, not necessarily of the future) and teachers. All the people were to consider what was said and make sure it lined up with the scriptures (both OT writings and the apostles’ teachings, aka NT). The pastors were not necessarily prophets/preachers either.

Third, these gatherings of believers were not noisy free-for-alls but more like what we would call a Bible study, where people would teach and learn. This was not really what we’d call a “worship service”. Did the early believers worship? Yes, at first in the Jewish Temple, but as they scattered this was not practiced, especially among Gentiles. Worship in the NT for believers is not really specified, except in brief side notes. The passage above mentions the inclusion of hymns, but I don’t have documentation on what exactly that meant to the people of the first century. We should not automatically assume the somber, quite ones of 1800s America.

In Revelation we get a few glimpses of goings-on in heaven, and what I see there is everyone falling down and shouting and singing. No quiet reverence there! It’s loud and nonstop, filled with expressions of praise to God. There is a time and place for introspection here and now, but as Jesus put it, “How can the guests of the bridegroom fast while he is with them? They cannot, so long as they have him with them.” (Mark 2:19). Heaven will be a place of celebration, so why should we be somber and serious in our worship here?

So what should we do? We can’t just suddenly overthrow centuries of tradition, can we? Hmm… There is a growing home church movement. We can slowly change the paradigm without overthrowing the old ways. We must be patient and considerate of those who have not been fed the meat of the Word and think “churchianity” is what the Bible teaches. But we can change it one person at a time.

It is important to keep the NT model in mind when discussing issues that affect the church body, such as how elders and deacons function and the responsibilities of all believers. It’s easy to get off-track if you think in terms of churchianity and not Christianity. We are all “priests”, all “parts of the body”, and all of equal rank or status. Elders have “authority” over the others only inasmuch as those others are not yet spiritually mature. Like good parents, they are to train up the “children” to be parents themselves someday. In contrast, most churches simply expect the children to remain so forever, always dependent upon (“covered” by) the almighty Pastor. This is nothing short of blasphemy, to put a human between any believer and Jesus.

On the “offices” of overseer and deacon:

What offices? Although many English translations use the phrase “office of an elder” in 1 Timothy 3:1, the Greek literally says “… if anyone aspires to exercise oversight, he desires a good work”, and in verse 8, “Likewise, deacons must…”. If we want to know the full NT teaching on these servants of the church (deacon is from the Greek word for “bond servant”), we must consult many references, beginning with the Gospels. Jesus made it clear to his disciples that to lead is to serve, not dominate (Matthew 20:25-28, John 13:13-17).

In passages such as 1 Timothy 3 we read of the qualifications for overseers and deacons, including not only a high moral standard and good reputation within and without the church, but spiritual maturity and proper handling of the scriptures. One might conclude so far that these two groups are almost identical, yet we see them treated as separate in various passages such as Philippians 1:1, which actually lists three groups as composing the entire church: overseers, deacons, and saints. (Saints refers to all believers, with overseers, deacons, and the rest of the believers as subgroups).

Both overseers and deacons serve the church, but only overseers are charged with guarding it. Formerly I had always equated the commission of the Seven in Acts 6:1-6 with the formation of the “office of deacon”, but now I hold to the position that this was no more the establishment of a church office than any other commissioning of specific believers for specific missions. Looking at the context here, it seems obvious that this was not a universal sanction but the solution of a local food distribution problem that the apostles could not be distracted with. At any rate, it is never referenced in any of the (surprisingly few) NT texts dealing specifically with church service.

And it’s entirely possible that the reason the functions of deacons are not spelled out is because they were simply “elders in training”, that is, those who were being evaluated as future elders. That would explain the need for their nearly identical qualifications.

And our attitude toward gender issues in the church can be heavily influenced by our perception of church structure. If we keep the NT model in view, many of these problematic areas become much less so. After all, it could be argued that throughout church history more women than men have been servants of the church, and we see glimpses of this even in the NT when the idea of the equal woman was unheard of in almost all societies.

But the point I want to make here is that the NT church knows nothing of hierarchy, domination, or centralized rule. The authority of the church is Jesus, whose words are recorded in the Gospels, and whose teachings were given to the church through hand-picked apostles (the NT epistles). Those who know the teachings and live them are called to lead and protect those who are new in the faith or have not yet grown to the point where they can stand alone. Those who do not know the Word are to learn from those who do (and therefore are expected to grow!). This is the ONLY kind of hierarchy the NT knows for the church.

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