In this episode, Pastor Joel Webin is joined by David Reese, CEO of Armored Republic and a local pastor in a Presbyterian church in Phoenix, Arizona. They discuss how to protect ourselves from abuse in the home, in the family, and in the church.
00:16:44.920but not connected to other churches by having a shared regional court or
00:16:48.680court where there's representatives sent from multiple local churches.
00:16:51.720John Owen would fit that bill right exactly and I think you'd find I think you'd find if you were
00:16:57.740if you were reading most the reformed baptists that that were sort of the the guys associated
00:17:02.260with 1689 and stuff like that I think you'd find agreement there I think if you look at Gil and
00:17:06.920stuff like that you're going to find you're going to find agreement there so I think that my Cox
00:17:10.480right so so I think when you look at this idea of of the the church take it to the church you know
00:17:16.840It's sort of like it does a nation decide a thing if it's legislators or if it's chief executive acts.
00:17:23.500Can you say that their acts are representative of the whole of the nation or of the state?
00:17:27.960Can you say that the acts of the father apply to the household or the father and mother acting together as officers of the house act?
00:17:34.500Can you say that their actions apply to the household?
00:17:36.640So this, I think you find scripturally the idea that covenant representatives act on behalf of the whole group.
00:17:42.220On the other side, my view would, I think it's the classic Presbyterian view, but sometimes it would be referred to as a low Presbyterianism.
00:17:50.020And what I mean by that is, although, and you'll find this in the Westminster directory or the Westminster form of government.
00:17:55.280It's called the Westminster, the Presbyterial form of government.
00:17:59.300One of the things it has is it talks about this idea of the power of the officers.
00:18:04.340It talks about the powers of the officers to rebuke and to admonish.
00:18:08.060So it's sort of like you can hear a case.
00:18:10.340you can determine if it's right if the person's right or wrong and you can issue a censure that
00:18:15.500is called a rebuke or called an admonition where you're publicly saying this person's in the wrong
00:18:20.440they need to repent but you're not yet cutting them off from the table then the officers could
00:18:25.280also suspend from the table and that's that's another type of church discipline and so those
00:18:31.520are things that the officers can do that the elders can do without the consent of the people
00:18:37.280But then, lastly, the act of excommunication or casting out from the midst of the church,
00:18:43.280where you're removing a person from the church, handing them over for the scourging of the flesh by Satan.
00:18:47.080You're calling upon God to remove angelic protection and to allow demonic harm to the person's body for the sake of discipline, chastisement.
00:18:55.860That last act, the historic Presbyterian position, is to require a vote of the people,
00:19:03.280and specifically the heads of house that the the male heads of house that are 20 years old and
00:19:07.960above and so you have you have sort of the the men in israel voting on that as well and so the idea
00:19:13.720is that even though the officers can rebuke and admonish and can suspend from the table without
00:19:18.620the consent of the people to see a person removed from the rules requires you know two keys right to
00:19:24.200to cause the nukes to launch right it requires both the officers and the people and so and i
00:19:30.220would say that that the matthew 18 is not the principal proof text for that but rather i would
00:19:34.220say that uh in first and second corinthians uh when paul is talking about the discipline of the
00:19:38.820man who's five and two yeah right so is it chapter five in first corinthians and chapter two in second
00:19:44.780corinthians is that what it is okay great yeah that sounds that sounds right so i think five
00:19:48.600is the one where they're saying you know this guy is is you know is committing sexual sin with his
00:19:52.860his stepmother and so that's that's a violation of the laws of of affinity um and from from
00:19:58.840Leviticus 17 and 18. And so then this idea that there's a need to excommunicate the guy,
00:20:04.920and then they do, and then they don't let him back in. And so I think in chapter two is what
00:20:10.060you're saying, it's one where it talks about how the let him back in since he's repentant,
00:20:14.520the punishment that was given to him by the majority is sufficient. And so that majority
00:20:19.380is the majority of the people he's talking to, the saints. So he's talking about the church.
00:20:23.220So even there, it's not literally all of those who are visible saints, because it's not the men
00:20:28.340under 20. It's not the women who are voting. It's still representational in that it's the heads of
00:20:32.620house, right? So the congregational vote is by still representatives of the congregation
00:20:38.200in the forms of the male heads of house over the age of 20.
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00:23:01.520today with that real quick so but could that back to my you know uh using an illustration of stoning
00:23:08.580uh the the punishment by the majority um so i've always read that also as like um the decision
00:23:15.020to punish made by the majority um but it would this be a fair interpretation maybe it's not you
00:23:24.140know it's not a necessary inference but but a plausible way of of reading the text to say well
00:23:31.340the punishment by the majority was uh what it must indicate minimally is that the majority of the
00:23:38.840congregation actually carried it out uh that they actually meaning they uh they carried out the
00:23:44.120disfellowshipping they carried out the call to repentance they carried out um the removal of
00:23:49.820this person from the gathering and, and those things, but the decision itself still could have
00:23:55.260been made by, uh, ecclesiastical, uh, officers, uh, uh, you know, without, without meriting a
00:24:02.100congregational vote. And I'm, I'm the congregational Baptist guy, but I'm still throwing that out as a
00:24:06.940possibility. Yeah. So I think high Presbyterians and Episcopalians would typically argue what you
00:24:11.780just said. Okay. So as a, as a low Presbyterian, I'm going to say it was both. Okay. I'm going to
00:24:16.400say it was both a vote of the heads of house and that it was their participation in it. And I think
00:24:22.740in the context of 2 Corinthians, he's got a group that he's commending. He's got a group he's
00:24:27.480rebuking, right? There's the guys that are supporting the super apostles, which I love
00:24:31.120that translation. That's an amazing mockery name, super apostles. You can just see the t-shirts,
00:24:35.940right? So anyway, so the super apostles and the minority of the church at Corinth that's
00:24:40.640not carrying through properly the discipline. And then there's the majority, and I think the
00:24:45.760majority voted so as to formally acknowledge, to give consent in a formal way to this judgment
00:24:54.280and to participate in the casting of the stones.
00:24:57.920And then they're in an ongoing way, you know, not having casual fellowship.
00:25:03.260When they're seeing this guy, they're either doing business or it's some necessary family
00:25:21.360And by encouraging that sense of shame and dishonor, you are encouraging them to repent.
00:25:26.720And that's how you're seeking their good.
00:25:28.320So anyway, so I think I've touched on all the points you were saying there.
00:25:32.000So it sounds like there's a ton of agreement about it.
00:25:34.140And then you're considering kind of is there this need for a formal vote or not?
00:25:37.600So I would say yes, because I think that it's an act of government as well as the carrying out.
00:25:45.040So I think there's a sort of a judicial function as well as an executive function that is being shared by the congregation there on the final act of excommunication itself.
00:25:57.560Yep. And just for the record, yes, is where I have been and where I still currently reside.
00:29:00.160And he wants to have a doctor of the church.
00:29:02.340And you're going to find that the Belgic Confession ends up with three of them,
00:29:06.940and they sort of make the pastor and the doctor into one.
00:29:11.120You're going to find that there's these various disputes amongst the Reformed documents that do that.
00:29:16.320The Scots historically had a four-office view that was held.
00:29:20.440The Westminster Standards brought it to a kind of three-office view as we're going to find in the Presbyterian form of government.
00:29:27.000And so what I always list out is I'd say, well, if a doctor is just a type of pastor and a pastor is just a type of elder, then I would agree that those things, you can divide the labor in that way.
00:29:41.400It's not like you have to be ordained to elder and then ordained to pastor and then you're ordained to doctor.
00:29:46.460And I think that when you boil it down to is there a separate ordination, you end up finding that I think a lot of Presbyterians get real queasy about the idea of saying that you have to have a separate ordination as you rise to each office there.
00:30:01.260Whereas going from a deacon to being an elder, people are going to go, well, yeah, there should be a different ordination there because there's a transference of new powers and it's a different office.
00:30:09.940the nature of the office is different as opposed to just a division of the labor.
00:30:14.700So I think a lot of Presbyterians, when they're pushed on this, that's where the brass tacks are.
00:30:19.520Yep. I agree with you 100%. But the OPC and PCA, they would have, correct me if I'm wrong,
00:30:24.680but they would have separate ordinations for a teaching elder versus a ruling elder. Correct?
00:30:29.520I think the OP definitely does. The PCA has more of a blended two office view.
00:30:36.160and you're going to find the RPCNA also has more of this like two office type of view.
00:30:42.800So I think the OPC has published a book called Order in the Offices.
00:30:47.600It's a rather disorderly and chaotic book that contradicts itself all over the place
00:30:51.060where it tries to defend this idea of the different types of elders.
00:30:56.700And it has mutually exclusive and differing views of how to interpret the same text just presented.
00:31:01.280It's like throwing spaghetti at the wall or whatever.
00:31:03.300They're just trying to be like, look, if one of these is persuasive to you, that's great.
00:33:09.140So as we think about these things, I want to say at the local level, I want to say that one of the assemblies of the church is the congregational assembly.
00:33:21.180The congregational assembly is made up of all of the men of 20 and above.
00:33:28.880who are communicant members in good standing.
00:33:31.960And so those are the men in Israel, and they have the capacity to vote,
00:33:36.580and they have three specific powers that I could prove to you from Scripture.
00:33:41.860And so what I would say is, for example, in Acts 6,
00:33:44.400you have the apostles having the people nominate from themselves, test, and elect deacons.
00:33:54.200And if that power exists for the office of deacon,
00:33:57.100than those who exercise even greater power, elders, that would also be a principle for
00:34:02.140considering the rule over the people. So the process of nomination, testing, and electing.
00:34:08.480And a lot of times people drop the ball in the testing where they make the testing private or
00:34:12.000they make the testing only done by the officers and the people can't ask questions. These are
00:34:15.740the control mechanisms. I think it's very important that we allow for those things to occur
00:34:20.020for the congregation, that the men be allowed to ask questions and to test there. So the
00:34:26.160nomination requires essentially you have two or three witnesses saying we see the positive
00:34:29.620qualifications in this guy the testing is this period of time where you're able to ask things
00:34:34.420or whatever and i would suggest that testing you have the biblical example of 40 days for jesus i
00:34:38.400would suggest that's a it's a prudent time period to have as a kind of a minimum for the testing
00:34:42.240period they're not making drag on past a year because you know a man is is able to be qualified
00:34:47.320to go from his marriage into entering into public service after a year of marriage so there's sort
00:34:52.380of this idea that's a long enough time to see something before a man could go into public
00:34:55.820office anyways so all i'm trying to say is there's this range for the testing and then you get to
00:35:01.540this idea of of of the the vote there's an election there's a vote by the men and so there's a last
00:35:07.400step so we talked about how there's two keys to kick somebody out of the church and those keys
00:35:11.280are the vote of the officers and the vote of the men there's also two keys to get into office right
00:35:16.200and so it's the existing officers ordain it's the other thing we see so so this idea that there's
00:35:21.320election and ordination. And ordination, the essence of ordination is to set a man apart for
00:35:25.780public service. And so, you know, in the absence of officers, you know, for example, you would
00:35:31.400simply set a man apart by the laying on of hands of the men. But in the presence of existing
00:35:36.020officers, you would have the existing officers lay hands on. But it's important that a man not
00:35:40.400take office to himself. And so this idea that there's a, the church is setting the man apart
00:35:45.660and the ordinary and mature form is the election by the men and the laying on of hands by the
00:35:51.680existing officers and when we're in a devolved state our goal always has to be to stay as close
00:35:56.500to the mature form and order that we conveniently can and convenience isn't just like well like
00:36:04.440like microwave it's it's this idea of like can you do it without hurting the church can you can
00:36:09.240you can you uh can you keep the order that's ordinary there without causing harm to the church
00:36:15.400And if you have to, you know, ordination, just like, you know, the Sabbath, man doesn't exist for the Sabbath, the Sabbath exists for man.
00:36:21.660You know, ordination, man doesn't exist for ordination, ordination exists for man.
00:36:25.420And so you're thinking about the process of order for the sake of the church.
00:42:11.980to have a specific set of powers. And I think that all elders are deacons. All deacons are
00:42:21.680communicant voting members. All communicant voting members are communicant members, right?
00:42:27.160All communicant members are baptized members, right? So you have this sort of this like chain
00:42:30.620of higher offices containing lower offices. So anyway, so that's the one thing of the budget.
00:42:35.580The other thing is you talked about the letting people in. One of the things that's been kind of
00:42:39.780historic Reformed as a practice for admitting people is you have the public admission of
00:42:45.800persons in terms of baptized membership, and you have kind of a lower bar for what it takes
00:42:54.080to become baptized, and you have an examination to come to the Lord's table. I know that's been
00:43:01.420a mixed position even amongst Reformed Baptists and even amongst Presbyterians, whether or not
00:43:06.860you should have adult baptisms that occur without sufficient evidence to come to a large table or
00:43:11.600whatever. But anyway, so there's sort of this, this, this idea of, of where do you, where do
00:43:15.660you examine a person for entry? Um, and the idea that where you're going to admit a person to the
00:43:20.580table, you then you announce it ahead of time. Um, and you allow sort of a two, you have like
00:43:26.780two or three public announcements on the principle of two or three witnesses, the idea of like,
00:43:30.600you know, having two or three times. And there's this idea that there's an ability, if there's a
00:43:33.960thing if you know about some secret sin or you know this person's a part of a coven or you know
00:43:37.960whatever the thing is and you have the opportunity to come forward and raise the objection you can
00:43:42.300bring it to them to let them repent of it first or you can if the person doesn't repent then you
00:43:46.600can bring it to to the elders as they're dealing with the admission of the person so i think all
00:43:51.300these things that we think of as sort of like is weird formalities or whatever they all have
00:43:55.360when you actually take church membership and discipline seriously these stuff these things
00:43:59.600also have to really matter for how the government works because it's about retaining it's about
00:44:04.260maintaining the holy profession of the faith and the holiness of the sacraments so you somebody
00:44:09.300could listen to this and start to hear these things and we're going what is all this this is
00:44:12.560all these details about how we administer things and blah blah it's just like well if you care
00:44:18.560about christian power christian power comes down to polity comes down to how do you organize things
00:44:23.460like in the household we all think patriarchy matters a lot that's a matter of polity right
00:44:27.420Right. When we get to the church, all of a sudden it's like, oh, this doesn't really matter. It's like, well, I'm sorry. Is Jesus Christ the king of the church? Is he the head of the church or not? Is he the patriarch of the church or not? And if he is, then does his form of government matter?
00:44:41.520And so the details of government are important for rule because they restrain men's evil,
00:44:48.700they encourage the activities that need to occur, and they really help us to know how to avoid0.58
00:44:53.880dissipation. One of the problems in the American church is the dissipation of our resources into
00:44:59.360all sorts of things for false worship and all sorts of things that are the things the church
00:45:03.660shouldn't be functioning in. And so we spend our budgets and spend our time in silly ways,
00:50:16.460They break his kneecaps and they send him away and nobody ever hears from him again.
00:50:20.500that person never gets to actually defend themselves in a court. They never actually
00:50:27.100get a fair representation. So the question is not whether or not a church is going to be mean,
00:50:33.500whether it's going to be cultish. Every church is kicking people out. The question is,
00:50:38.680are they doing so lawfully? That's what we're talking about. So we're not talking about whether
00:50:43.420or not churches should kick people out because your sweet and nice church with your prosperity,
00:50:49.240gospel preaching heretical pastor who's smiling and he doesn't just pace back and forth, but he's
00:50:54.120almost floating on air because his loafers are so light. That guy is actually, believe it or not,
00:50:59.740kicking people out probably by the dozens. And the difference is that those people never get
00:51:07.700to tell their side of the story and you never hear about it. So we're not being mean. We're
00:51:12.080not being cultish. We're doing something that every church, and not just every church, every
00:51:15.540organization, whether it's the Lions Club or the HOA, or that there is no organization on earth
00:51:22.760that doesn't have a process for taking people in and removing people, getting them out. And so
00:51:29.920everything that we're talking about is to ensure that those things are done well and that people
00:51:33.980are protected. It's to not be a cult. Are you a Christian struggling to find companies that
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00:52:33.220Absolutely. And so that right there, if a church silently removes people,
00:52:38.440it is behaving cultishly. It is behaving with tyranny and secrecy. If a church publicly
00:52:46.400announces the removal of people but does not allow for a public forum for that person to
00:52:52.140receive charges publicly, receive the witnesses and the evidence publicly, to bring their own
00:52:59.480evidence and witnesses, to be able to cross-examine witnesses, to be able to give their own defense
00:53:05.960and provide a pleading, if that doesn't happen and then there's not a public decision on
00:53:10.660the basis of the publicly available evidence, and then there's not a public sentencing based
00:53:16.420upon the publicly available evidence, then there's bad government there.
00:53:20.060Now, some churches are going to do those things to a more mature form, and some people are
00:53:27.040going to do that to a less mature form.
00:53:30.860And if they – then if there's a tyrannical performance of those things where there's just a – there's non-publicity and there's no method for there to be a dealing with these issues where there's ability to argue back and where the congregation has access to that, what you start to have is secrecy and tyranny.
00:53:49.860So secrecy and tyranny in government are things that are indicating that this is a false church, that it's a cult, that there's a usurpation of the authority of Christ.
00:53:59.900And so what we need to do is we need to judge churches based upon their government.
00:54:05.620And churches can have failures of form and be valid churches.
00:54:10.780But once there's a prolonged and a hardened usurpation, and the prolonged and hardened usurpation especially takes the form of oppression, then what you've got is a loss of the mark of government.
00:54:24.960um so so i would say that we do want to have the perfect rule of government that christ has
00:54:31.220established but there's there's a difference between being mature in the proper form versus
00:54:37.180becoming invalid right so so you can be immature you could have some failures but still be valid
00:54:42.620as a form of government right there's a difference between a bad church and a false church yes in the
00:54:47.800same way that there's a difference between a good church and a true church so there are lots of
00:54:52.300churches that I would consider to be true churches, but I wouldn't attend. I'm not saying
00:54:57.820that they're heretical. I'm not saying it's a false church. There's a true church made up of
00:55:01.180true believers. It really is Christ's church, and Christ is actually, in the formal ecclesiastical
00:55:07.660objective sense, Christ is the head of that church, and yet that church is immature, teaching
00:55:14.280certain things that I believe are bad doctrines. They're unbiblical doctrines, but they're not
00:55:18.640uh to the level of heresy um so yeah i'm with you so when we think about this and we're talking
00:55:26.760about the elements of government we've talked about the the congregational assembly the next
00:55:30.860thing above that is the diaconate the diaconate is dealing with money we talked about the three
00:55:34.080purposes of money i think this is really helpful for people to think about talking about the
00:55:37.260regulated principle of government right the government of the church doesn't have the right
00:55:40.740to do anything and everything at once it must obey christ and if it's going to obey christ
00:55:46.020then what it needs to do is it needs to seek to do the positive commissioning that's been given
00:55:51.280by the king of the church and also so to not fail to do that but also to not do a bunch of extra
00:55:56.240stuff and so the spending of the money is also a major point of power right and so you talk about
00:56:02.080the idea that your your people of your assembly the voting members get to vote on a budget and
00:56:07.520so you have this idea of is there transparency of the money and and i i posited that there are
00:56:11.680three legal uses of the money. It's remuneration of officers, the mercy ministry to care for the
00:56:16.540orphans and widows, the permanently disabled, the temporary disabled, the people with temporary
00:56:21.080hardship you're coming alongside, people suffering persecution, you're helping to give them the
00:56:24.720money, right? So there's this idea of the remuneration of officers, the mercy ministry,
00:56:28.500and there's the equipping of the saints in terms of a place to meet, the bread you're going to
00:56:32.300break, the wine you're going to drink, the stuff, you know, giving Bibles, giving books, catechesis,
00:56:36.980stuff like that. So those kinds of things. Do you think there's any other legal uses of the money
00:56:41.460that you can find in scripture i don't know i mean it's such an exhaustive question you let's
00:56:46.060let's uh cut to the chase you tell me so i don't think there's anything else i think that's i think
00:56:52.780that's it i think that i just i'm thinking there's a million different options that not not saying
00:56:57.400that they're all you know that any of them are good but i that's for me to run through all of
00:57:01.960them it's pretty pretty tough to run through them on the spot i can't think of any right so i think
00:57:07.040you find that the old testament lists out the uses of the tithe and those are the three uses
00:57:11.560you end up with you end up with the stuff to maintain the temple or the you know the the
00:57:16.120stuff that the operations do stuff right right and then and then you've got you've got the mercy
00:57:21.280ministry and then you've got the remuneration of the officers and right and anything else i'm going
00:57:25.700to say we're throwing the money away so you know if you want to go there's all there's these things
00:57:29.880like you know hospitality is a private thing and then the idea that the church has its own
00:57:35.740operations. There's a difference. You don't want to just be paying for this big kind of meal all
00:57:40.640the time where you're feeding everybody. There's the eating at home versus the eating that occurs
00:57:44.060at the church and the public sacramental meal. You find that distinction in 1 Corinthians.
00:57:47.960These kinds of details make it so that you see the church government having good administration
00:57:52.440of government comes down to managing the money well. People talk about this in civil government
00:57:56.720a lot. You talk about like, you know, what are you doing with the taxpayer's dollar? What are
00:58:01.060doing with the tithe payers dollar right right so so this idea of do we care about the expenditure
00:58:06.700of of the funds that are given and are laid at the feet of the officers that are for that are
00:58:11.640under christ government right so we talked about the courts and sorry real quick our budget breaks
00:58:16.560down to four categories but i bet you that two of them are actually could be conflated to one i'm
00:58:21.320curious to hear your thoughts so we have operations as a category so um the the rent the lights that
00:58:27.260those kinds of things, what you described as your first category. Then we have staff. And so
00:58:32.780remuneration of the offices of the church and receiving a wage for good work being done.
00:58:40.000And then we also have missions. So we have operations staff, and then we have missions,
00:58:45.240and then we have, we call it ministry, missions and ministry. And the missions would be underneath
00:58:52.540that we would have you know certain other christian churches and christian organizations
00:58:58.760outside of our church that we would be willing to support on an ongoing basis and then for ministry
00:59:04.220the primary ministry being benevolence a ministry of mercy so what do you think about that missions
00:59:11.120category how would you think through that yeah so i think missions right we missions are supposed
00:59:17.000to be sent out by the church right you're supposed to commission men to go and plant churches right
00:59:22.340So you send out two or three witnesses to go and plant.
00:59:25.520And so that's essentially the remuneration of officers.
00:59:28.220You're supporting, you're just supporting the universal church.
00:59:31.420It's very Presbyterian of you that you're seeing the money given to other local churches.
00:59:37.740And so this idea that you're either supporting another church locally or what you're doing is you're giving money to other officers to pay them for their work.
00:59:45.600But I think all the things you just described there are essentially things that just fit into those categories.
00:59:50.340And because of ease for your own thinking about it in terms of the tasks, you've broken it down differently.
00:59:56.460But, yeah, I think we should always evaluate all these categories and see do they fit into the stuff that Christ has authorized for the use of the tithes.
01:00:16.160So I think if we think about the idea of now the eldership, the eldership very specifically has to deal with guarding the doctrine and then the idea of engaging on the idea of what worship, they guard the worship.
01:00:33.000And they are also dealing with the public courts to deal with all the discipline stuff we just talked about.
01:00:39.780So with the doctrine, you're going to deal with confessional standard.
01:00:44.000You're going to deal with the fact that there's actually public teaching that has to be dealt with.
01:00:47.320Who is the guy that's teaching and what are they teaching?
01:00:50.880So they're assigning the teaching assignments.
01:00:53.460And that's a true thing for the public worship itself.
01:00:56.680But it's also be like church-sponsored teaching events when you're handing off the football.
01:01:03.700And I would say that those should always be men that are either already elders or that are being trained for the eldership.
01:01:10.960there's a difference between private hospitality like we talked about previously where there's
01:01:17.000you know women can teach and there's all that kind of stuff versus the public ministry of the
01:01:22.080church i don't mean that you can't have a conference the conference is either a privately
01:01:26.140run conference or it's the church run conference and when you assign stuff as a church you're
01:01:30.960always giving out a public commissioning and so that public commissioning by the church should
01:01:35.660always be for for men who are are fit for teaching yeah um and so that's going to be officers or it's
01:01:41.820going to be the idea of of a man who's training for office and and so so that that's the public
01:01:47.700teaching element and then there's there's this this idea like i said of the worship so you're
01:01:53.380carefully saying what elements exist in worship and what things are we using in it so like what
01:01:58.460are we singing i guess is singing element of worship yes what are we to sing um you know are
01:02:04.340there covenantal meals in worship? Yes. What covenantal meal are we to have? And in the old
01:02:09.080covenant, there would have been a bunch of different types of covenantal meals. Whereas in the new
01:02:12.720covenant, there's one. And so this idea of what are the elements and what do we do? What's the
01:02:19.180matter that's being used in those? And so the tale of guarding that, when you issue some sort
01:02:28.100of element of worship to be done, you are commanding the people to participate in that element.
01:02:34.340And so we have to carefully guard that because it's a use of authority and we don't want to use our authority to command idolatry.
01:02:43.240And so when we get to the last part of the government, we've talked about all the details of government there.
01:02:48.740And so that's where you're managing things.
01:02:51.200And so the thing where you and I would disagree when we get to that last piece, the government, is you end up in this place where there's disputes in the local church.
01:03:01.280We've talked about the things with the elders.
01:03:02.900we've talked about how the congregation's role exists there. So the last part we move into is
01:03:08.420we move into this idea of if there are disputes where you're saying that there's maladministration
01:03:13.500in the local church, is there a court of appeal? If the dispute is between two churches, is there
01:03:19.120a court of original jurisdiction to deal with those things? And so-
01:03:22.940Or between two families, but that belong to two separate churches.
01:03:27.920Right. And so there might be a case where you have something that needs to be taken
01:03:32.540because of that to some shared court or where you have this idea of the issue is so grievous,
01:03:40.220such a big deal or so complicated that you're taking it to a court where you've selected for
01:03:45.480a higher degree of discernment. And so when you look at Exodus 18, Exodus 18 has this laying out
01:03:52.260of graded courts where there's the local court has one elder per 10 households. The next court
01:03:58.420has one elder per 50, the next is one per 100, and then there's one per 1,000. This idea of the
01:04:04.240courts where you have officers that are elected, and then the officers, the one in 10, they choose
01:04:09.100men, and then go to the one in 50. So you're constantly, you're selecting people that are
01:04:13.800viewed as wise, and then the people that the wise people think are wise are selected to go to that
01:04:17.640next level. And so, and Moses says there, in Exodus 18, there's this idea that the difficult
01:04:25.220cases don't start at the lowest courts. They move up. And so you see this sometimes in law,
01:04:31.140like for example, you'll have like a murder case in the civil polity. It doesn't start with like
01:04:35.520a justice of the peace. You take it to some court of record or something like that where you've got
01:04:40.100a judge that's at a higher level. And at the same time, you also have disputes between states and
01:04:45.560those get dealt with in a federal court, right? So you see this being dealt with in civil polity.
01:04:50.980In the church, we seem to have abandoned concern about those types of things.
01:04:55.320And we kind of view church courts as, you know, we don't take minor sins to church courts,
01:05:00.000and we don't take really big things to church courts.
01:05:02.200We only take middle things to church courts.
01:05:04.820And it's because we've kind of viewed the church as not competent to deal with most things.
01:05:09.700And we don't take seriously the judgment of it.
01:05:12.820And if we don't like a church, we just kind of run away.
01:05:15.220As opposed to the idea of bringing the conflict, going through the courts of the church,
01:05:18.820and trying to resolve things. So I think that when we start to realize that there's these
01:05:24.280idea of a graded court system, that creates a context where you can deal with more serious
01:05:30.480matters and you can start to deal with disputes between churches and to try to have a way of
01:05:36.440trying to heal rifts. Now, you can also just turn these into like administrative nightmares that are
01:05:41.680constantly trying to bury issues and that never want to hear them out and never want to solve
01:05:45.620them. And frankly, most of the time when I hear about Presbyterians doing stuff, they turn them,0.50
01:05:50.080they turn into these bureaucratic messes. They don't make things more public. They don't resolve
01:05:54.260things. And so it's, it's exasperating that they turn into these sort of bureaucratic machines for
01:05:59.240handling people. And they typically seem to be defenders of the pastors rather than administers
01:06:04.680of administrating justice. Right. And so that's an exasperating thing there. So if I were making
01:06:09.220a case against Presbyterianism, I would point to the practical realities of the incompetency
01:06:13.280of Presbyterian systems over the last century.
01:06:16.160But that's my understanding of how it's supposed to be built out,
01:06:18.880and that's kind of some of the key scriptures there.
01:06:20.540So I don't know if you have any thoughts.
01:08:27.940they're being legalistic right because they go to a antinomian church with antinomian pastors who
01:08:33.420you know think that the law of god is just a bunch of hogwash and uh right then then you're you're in
01:08:39.460trouble now the reality is you know me trying to be fair as a baptist the reality is that uh for
01:08:43.940presbyterians this happens all the time all the time oh yeah um but the question is not um pragmatically
01:08:49.820practically uh what does occur uh the question should be in theory um in terms of the the system
01:08:55.860itself what would occur because um because insofar as you know we're in this current uh state of
01:09:03.060you know where the church thinking the church you know capital c you know 2 000 years into church
01:09:08.280history at this point since uh since the time of christ and his finished work at calvary
01:09:11.920the church uh on the whole is at a certain uh level of maturity um if let's say things continue
01:09:20.280to progress as i believe that they will if things continue to progress in maturity and the church
01:09:24.640sharpens and sharpens and hones and hones and matures and matures further and further would
01:09:29.340a congregational baptist system autonomy of the local church better accommodate so there's plenty
01:09:37.320of problems now whether you're presbyterian or baptist but in a perfected system which system
01:09:44.020would better be able to accommodate these interpersonal conflicts that spread between
01:09:49.900two churches and not just in one local church. And I am willing to concede and say that on face
01:09:57.320value, the Presbyterian system has a system for dealing with that in a way that the Baptist system,
01:10:03.120it becomes much more difficult. I appreciate that. I guess what I want to lay out for people
01:10:09.000also is this idea that what's the goal? And if the goal is to see the church be unified in some
01:10:15.860sort of visible way, right? That visible form, you know, you can say it's a shared government
01:10:22.520or not. And I think the question, what I want to say is, whether you're Baptist or whether
01:10:28.140you're Presbyterian, you need to say that the visible form of unity that manifests the invisible
01:10:34.900unity, and the invisible unity is going to be that we have the same Holy Spirit causing us to have
01:10:40.180the same faith so that we can achieve, we can pursue the same goal of the glory of God filling
01:10:45.080the earth and that's going to result in a shared methodology externally of applying the law of god
01:10:51.400toward that goal so we're going to have the same the same goal with the same methodology
01:10:56.920right and so what's that methodology and on the corporate level um you know what you find in in
01:11:03.400ephesians 4 is this idea that the officers work to mature the church so the church can then minister
01:11:10.440to itself. So each of the members can. And the officers are trying to see the church matured
01:11:19.720to the fullness of Christ. In Philippians 3, you find this idea that Paul says, look,
01:11:25.080I haven't reached the fullness of maturity yet, but I'm striving towards greater maturity to fill
01:11:30.760the earth with the knowledge of God. And in addition to that, those of us that are mature,
01:11:36.580And he talks about maturity that's kind of like this ideal maturity, the fullness of Christ.
01:11:41.140There's the maturity the church is at.
01:11:43.400And there's some people who are there.
01:11:45.560And then there's other people who are less mature.
01:11:47.720And the goal is to take the less mature people and move them up to the maturity of the mature people.
01:11:54.120And the goal is to take the mature people and see their maturity advance towards the maturity of Christ.
01:11:59.480And so if we're seeing that, if we go, do we have any way of measuring our current levels of maturity?
01:12:06.580And what I would posit is that we have this idea of church courts that exist to deal with
01:12:13.160the formal external forms that are adopted by the church.
01:12:17.240And the formal external forms include a confession of faith, which captures the maturity of
01:12:22.220our doctrine, that we have the idea of a directory for worship to capture the maturity
01:12:29.720of the understanding of the worship as appointed by Christ, a constitution or form of government
01:12:34.920to know the maturity for the forms that we're supposed to have for governmental exercise.
01:12:39.820And then you have cases of conscience that get dealt with through trials and through decisions
01:12:44.160about how things are going to be dealt with, what's going to be considered sin or not.
01:12:48.620So the directory of worship, the form of government, and the cases of conscience,
01:12:54.920historically the church is talked about as canon law.
01:12:59.040And so this idea that you're going to have ecclesiastical law where you're making determinations.
01:13:04.660Now, the problem comes in when a confession of faith has stuff that's not in the Bible.
01:13:10.600And the problem comes in when the canon law has stuff that's not in the Bible.
01:13:15.100And that's why the London Baptist Confession and the Westminster Confession both start with this idea that Scripture is the authority and we have to judge the decrees of councils by Scripture.
01:13:26.760But when there is an accurate judgment, it's sort of like when a parent makes an accurate judgment.
01:13:32.940There's the authority of Scripture, and children need to obey Scripture.
01:13:36.120But there's also the judgment of the parent, and children need to obey the parent.
01:13:40.380And so the idea that the church can make determinations, there's the judgment of Scripture,
01:13:44.980and the church has no right to judge contrary to Scripture or in addition to Scripture.
01:13:48.440But there is still an authority of the church to make determinations, and it's a ministerial authority.
01:14:41.360Why don't you go back to the second and third century literature and go read all the junk being written about the Trinity there and then tell me that this isn't concise, right?
01:14:53.900And then you've got the second chapter of the London Baptist or of the Westminster Confession, and you've got this doctrine contained in a very concise way.
01:15:02.460The church is working to make it more concise.
01:15:06.440So reading is wearisome if you have to read everything.
01:15:10.840And so what we're told in Ecclesiastes 12 is that the words of the wise are like goads, and the words of the masters of assemblies are like well-driven nails given by one shepherd.
01:15:23.900And so this idea that there are masters of assemblies, there's moderators of church courts that help to organize that work.
01:15:30.980And it's not just the moderator, the moderator is working to represent the whole of the court.
01:15:35.040But you capture that into this document that becomes more efficient.