For the Love of the Church

Pastors come and go and congregants can't be trusted to make good decisions, so the deacons should be in charge of the church and be able to make all decisions. This is the philosophy of some people in churches, but is it the right philosophy? What responsibility should the deacons have in the church? Do they tell the pastor to preach and they will run everything else?

Two important words that need to be considered in the discussion of polity are the words, plurality and parity. Plurality means more than one and parity means equality. How do these two words play out in a healthy church model?

Should your church be led by a group of qualified men? How should they engage with the congregation and the deacons when it comes to decision-making? Should they lead or should the congregation or deacons lead the church? What does this model look like?

Should a group of qualified guys run the church? In other words should they have all the power without accountability by the congregation? If so, what does that look like? How do we ensure that these men do not abuse their authority? What does the Bible say about this?

So what happens if your church has a group of elders and one or more are paid by the church and one or more are not? What happens if some of the men think their only job is to show up and make decisions and the actual role of pastoring should be done by other people, namely the paid guys? Is this a problem? Is this healthy? Is this what the Bible teaches?

An overview of a biblical guide to choosing God's shepherds.

Even though this series will explore the hypothetical differences and realities if the local church did not exist, we will establish that there are at least five things that will be unaffected by this: The gospel, preaching, evangelism, discipleship, and the future gathering of believers for eternity. These five essential realities are unchanged even if the local church does not exist.

How are the ordinances affected if the local church does not exist? We know that the Great Commission is given which includes baptizing people in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, but are there any other realities of baptism that are affected? How about Communion? Is that only to be done within the context of the local church? Would believers be taking communion if the local church did not exist?

Since, in this hypothetical scenario, there is no local church, the offices of pastor and deacon would drastically be affected. This episode will examine just exactly how that would be different. Would there be pastor? Would there be deacons? How would all of that be affected?

Many of the New Testament letters were written by Paul to various churches. Letters such as Romans, Corinthians, Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, and Thessalonians. Would these letters have been written if the local church did not exist? How would this all impact the local church and the canon of Scripture?