The NXR Podcast - THE INTERVIEW - How To Identify An Abusive Church

00:00:00.000 All right, welcome back to another episode of Theology Applied. I am your host, Pastor Joel

00:00:04.020 Webin, here with Right Response Ministries. In this episode, I am welcoming back to the show

00:00:09.020 Mr. David Rees. He is a man of many talents. He has many irons in the fire. One of them

00:00:15.200 is that he is the CEO of Armored Republic. He is also a local pastor of a Presbyterian church,

00:00:21.280 and he is fantastic on covenant theology, applying God's Word, theonomy, a general equity theonomy,

00:00:29.100 applying the principles of God's word and his law to every single sphere of life. And that's what

00:00:34.600 we've been talking about multiple weeks now. So I encourage you to go back, watch some of the prior

00:00:38.960 episodes with me and David Reese. But this one, we're going to be focusing on church polity. Now,

00:00:46.220 I know that sounds exceedingly boring, but listen, we're going to be talking about how to guard

00:00:50.480 against abuse. Abuse within the ecclesiastical sphere, not just abuse in the home with a marriage

00:00:57.140 or parenting or abuse with the state, tyranny, but abuse in the church. Churches are notorious,

00:01:03.660 sadly, for ecclesiastical abuse. And one of the primary reasons why is because churches are

00:01:10.300 ignorant, pastors are ignorant about God's design for church governance, church polity. 0.97

00:01:15.980 How does God's law word apply in this realm? Tune in now. 1.00

00:01:21.320 Applying God's word to every aspect of life. This is Theology Applied.

00:01:27.140 All right. Welcome back to another episode of Theology Applied. I am your host,

00:01:35.880 Pastor Joel Webin with Right Response Ministries, and I am joined once again with Mr. Reese. He is

00:01:41.360 the CEO of Armored Republic. He is also a local pastor in a Presbyterian church. The name of it,

00:01:48.240 Mr. Reese, remind me. Puritan Reformed Church in Phoenix, Arizona.

00:01:50.580 Puritan Reformed Church, Phoenix, Arizona. If you're looking for a solid church, go and check

00:01:54.760 them out we're having him back on the show we've been talking about a lot of things but really the

00:01:59.360 broad big idea is christian power that power is not icky um that uh we need to utilize power it's

00:02:07.360 not inherently good or inherently evil um power is as good as it is wielded righteously according

00:02:12.460 to the word of god and it's as evil as it is used um in a wicked manner um against the word of god

00:02:18.520 so uh today we're going to take that further uh we've talked a lot about the household but i think

00:02:23.300 we're going to talk a little bit now about the ecclesiastical realm and perhaps even setting

00:02:27.300 ourselves up for future episodes in the civic realm. Mr. Reese, go ahead and take us off.

00:02:33.560 Brother, thanks for having me on. I'm excited to be here. So what I want people to think about is

00:02:38.160 in America, we believe that the church is a voluntary association. We sort of treat the

00:02:43.460 church like a social club. So what I want to do is I want to reframe people's perspective on the

00:02:49.580 church. When we think about the relationship of God and the individual, we need to understand

00:02:54.980 that there's a covenantal relationship. We are guilty before God, not because of some

00:03:00.120 voluntary agreement where we said, okay, I'll agree to your set of rules, and now you're allowed

00:03:04.560 to judge me. Instead, no, he imposes his law word on us, and we are responsible as breakers of the

00:03:11.060 law through the mediation of Adam as a covenant representative. And then we are also guilty

00:03:18.900 because we have a corrupt nature, and we're also guilty because we commit particular sins

00:03:23.600 ourselves, right? So there's this covenantal institution between God and the individual.

00:03:30.940 Now, we also think about the household. You're born into a household, and you don't get to vote

00:03:37.600 on whether or not you're a member of the household when you're born into it. It's imposed on you.

00:03:41.760 um and and so in marriage uh what you have is people leaving the institutions underneath their

00:03:48.640 parents and there's exceptions obviously in certain cases of abuse and all that kind of stuff

00:03:52.360 you can have people being uh you know liberated emancipated out of a household before then but

00:03:56.980 the ordinary pattern is to leave the authority of the parents and to you secede from your parents

00:04:03.360 household there's a declaration of independence and a charter of a new government in the marriage

00:04:08.800 covenant. And so God's the definer of marriage. It's between one man and one woman, and we know

00:04:13.660 how to define man, and we know how to define woman, and that's very good. Let's clap for all 0.99

00:04:16.800 of us. So we get that. That's wonderful. Some people don't. And so this idea that the household

00:04:22.340 is a covenant institution, when you join into a marriage, you don't just get to leave whenever

00:04:26.480 you want. There are only certain conditions under which it is permissible to leave. And so we have

00:04:32.680 this idea that it's a covenant institution. And so then you think about the church, it's a covenant

00:04:37.240 institution as well. And baptism is a covenantal sign that's given there for entry into the

00:04:43.340 visible church. And then the Lord's Supper is a covenantal sign for the renewal of covenant.

00:04:47.980 Now, it's not only covenant with the other people in the church, but also with the king of the

00:04:51.880 church, the Lord Jesus Christ. And so we think about this. And as we move into the idea of the

00:04:57.900 state, the state is also a covenantal institution. It's not a voluntary contract. We don't get to

00:05:03.320 decide whether or not we are going to be under the laws of a nation that we're born into,

00:05:08.000 we are born under an authority. So these four institutions, the individual, the household,

00:05:12.460 the church, and the state, the individual for God, the household as an institution with delegated

00:05:17.680 human authority, the church as an institution, and the state, these are the centers of power.

00:05:22.900 These are the loci of dominion. And this is where God gives us authority to exercise power

00:05:30.220 to get stuff done. And so we've been talking about Christian power, and this is how Christian

00:05:35.240 power is exercised as an individual doing dominion, as a household doing dominion and

00:05:39.620 discipling and leaving a heritage of wealth and wisdom. In the church, we see the concern for

00:05:44.780 the teaching of right doctrine, the maintenance of the right worship of God, and the having a

00:05:49.860 right government to preserve the doctrine and to preserve the worship of God and to prevent them

00:05:54.820 from being profaned.

00:05:57.200 And so then we think about the state and the state, the civil magistracy is given the sword

00:06:03.380 as an avenger, right?

00:06:04.620 So these institutions, we have the individual has the word of God and his conscience brings

00:06:10.460 suffering on him when he sends.

00:06:12.100 We have the household has the word of God and the rod is used to bring discipline on

00:06:16.820 children and servants.

00:06:18.240 That's not a popular opinion.

00:06:19.580 But anyways, we don't beat people at Armored Republic, but, you know, if we could.

00:06:24.820 So anyway, so then there's this idea in the church of you have the word of God and you have the keys.

00:06:31.580 And in the state, you have the word of God and you have the sword, right?

00:06:35.160 So we're focusing now on the loci of power with the word and keys.

00:06:39.300 And those are the things that I think we need to get a sense of.

00:06:43.720 And so the word and keys implies that the church is not a voluntary association society.

00:06:49.040 It's not a social club.

00:06:50.740 it's a covenantal institution with real authority. And pastors have an exercise of authority. They

00:06:57.280 have a duty to, as stewards of the Lord Jesus Christ, choose who to let in with the sacraments

00:07:04.140 and who to keep out from the sacraments. And that includes in terms of admission,

00:07:10.520 and that also includes in terms of who to remove by the process of excommunication or

00:07:15.300 casting out of the assembly and calling for the scourging of their flesh by Satan

00:07:19.460 for the salvation of their souls right so those are those are real exercises of power and people

00:07:24.280 we also you even hear that and you go like what is this like this idea that like there's a power

00:07:29.040 to bless and curse from from ministers of the gospel and that there's a real power to call on

00:07:34.000 on curse on people and for this idea that the curse can bring actual demonic harm to people's

00:07:40.980 bodies like all that sounds kind of crazy to the modern american ear but i would like to suggest

00:07:45.080 to you that this is just plain old vanilla church polity yep yep um so let's address that real quick

00:07:51.640 because there would be some differences between us um on church polity on saying so baptist yeah

00:07:57.660 it's unfortunately um but that said you know i think that you will be pleasantly uh surprised

00:08:03.580 um that you'll say hey you know what i don't agree but for a baptist not too shabby so let me let me

00:08:10.640 tell you where i'm at so um you know i have held for a long time to you know an elder-led

00:08:15.860 congregationalism elder-led congregationalism i like adding you know that preface you know elder

00:08:21.060 led because it's not a raw congregationalism what i mean by that is that the congregation the

00:08:26.520 membership of the church is not voting on every matter they're not voting on the color of the

00:08:31.300 carpet which would be you know your your typical um stereotype uh reason for the baptist church

00:08:38.180 splitting um you know baptists uh when they disagree they have church splits presbyterians

00:08:42.780 when they disagree uh they form a study committee and then the entire presbytery you know splits off

00:08:48.460 so uh you guys split presbyteries we split churches um there are problems if we're honest

00:08:53.700 there are problems on both sides but the the question isn't um a pragmatic question of you

00:08:58.080 know which one the problems of people principally right exactly and so there's all that's

00:09:02.500 inescapable but ultimately in determining what's right we're not seeing well which one is free of

00:09:07.000 problems we're saying well which one does the bible actually prescribe there's always going to

00:09:10.640 be problems but that doesn't necessarily mean that the problems are due to the system it could

00:09:16.260 just be because you have imperfect people who are trying to carry the system out so all that being

00:09:20.180 said you know as a baptist the congregation as a reformed baptist and prescribed you know

00:09:25.620 subscribing to the 1689 that the congregation would not have a vote on every matter but we

00:09:30.160 would consider it to be you know for lack of a better phrase top tier issues the who and the

00:09:34.280 what of the gospel, things that are under the banner of theological triage, it would be in that

00:09:39.120 top tier. It would be those things which a Christian must believe. You could say three

00:09:43.420 tiers, must believe, should believe, may believe. And so may believe, I would put there, is

00:09:49.000 Nephilim. I think you may believe it, as opposed to the Sethite view. Should believe would be,

00:09:57.100 for instance, I would say, well, baptism. You could say should believe infant baptism or should 0.61

00:10:05.800 believe believers only. Baptism. Must believe would be Trinity. Salvation by grace alone, 0.78

00:10:12.220 through faith alone, and Christ alone. I would put the solas, the five solas in that top tier

00:10:16.940 category. So all that being said, the Baptist would say the congregation has a vote, the

00:10:21.580 membership, not just the eldership, but the membership on those top tier issues, matters

00:10:26.400 of you know soteriology salvation uh the trinity uh you know doctrine of god theology proper

00:10:32.020 these kinds of things and so that the congregation itself becomes a hedge guardrails against heresy

00:10:38.120 but the congregation is not dictating uh secondary and tertiary issues uh the congregation doesn't

00:10:42.860 determine uh what you know what the pastor which book of the bible he's going to preach through

00:10:46.880 next sunday those kinds of things that said um one of the one of the main things that baptists

00:10:52.480 historically have held is as maybe one more issue that would fall underneath this congregational

00:10:59.300 vote category would be church discipline. Matthew 18, there's this process. You go to your brother

00:11:04.600 privately. If he listens, you've won him over. If not, take one or two others with you so that

00:11:08.740 the testimony may be established in the presence of two or three witnesses. But if the brother

00:11:13.940 continues to harden his heart and he's stubborn and he's not repentant, then you would eventually

00:11:18.340 tell it to the church. And the Baptist at this point wants to say, tell it to the church.

00:11:22.480 not the presbytery, not the council, not the elders, you know, the church and church means,

00:11:26.940 you know, it's ecclesia and that means the gathering. And so it's, it's not just the

00:11:30.220 leadership as representative of the church, but it's the church itself, the gathering of

00:11:34.340 the believers, the members of the church. And, and then, you know, I would want to kind of a

00:11:39.640 general, you know, general equity theonomy kind of cross-reference. I would want to say, you know,

00:11:45.700 when Israel was executing discipline as a theocracy, I do think that it's noteworthy 0.94

00:11:53.100 that the way that they would apply capital punishment, they applied it. And I don't 0.74

00:11:58.780 think it's random or arbitrary, you know, shocker, God does things for reasons. But the way they

00:12:04.840 would apply it is stoning. I think of, you know, in our modern day, firing squad, right? Little

00:12:09.320 stones, I would be fine with that. Those are high velocity stones. Yeah, high velocity stones. You

00:12:14.220 guys are in the business of that and so so that that being said my my uh thought is you know one

00:12:19.720 general equity application for why um stoning as opposed to the electric chair is um it's not just

00:12:28.040 the type of death and the way that that physically would uh would end a person's life but the electric

00:12:32.980 chair um people could be spectating but one person pulls the lever even with hanging for instance i

00:12:37.900 know that there's you know there's a rich uh heritage of hanging you know um throughout

00:12:42.460 christian countries and i and i understand um uh some of the reasons why and it still can be a

00:12:47.120 public event um that the whole public is giving their consent there's a participation in this not

00:12:51.880 just spectating but in the physical apparatus one person is pulling the lever whereas in stoning

00:12:56.840 um it's uh it's that the the whole ecclesia the whole congregation of israel saying

00:13:02.500 we all have a responsibility um to protect the purity of the people of god uh to see to it uh

00:13:10.320 that this evil is purged from the camp.

00:13:13.440 And so I think there's reasons there is my point.

00:13:15.820 And so I've taken that, landing the plane here,

00:13:18.460 I've taken that and said, well, you know,

00:13:19.840 with church discipline,

00:13:21.120 I believe that every member of the church,

00:13:23.440 that this is a congregational matter,

00:13:24.920 that the elders will tell it to the church,

00:13:27.140 but they're not telling the decision

00:13:28.780 that's already been rendered by the elders to the church

00:13:31.040 so that the church can now carry it out,

00:13:32.860 but they're rather telling the matter to the church

00:13:35.020 and the church now,

00:13:36.100 each individual member must exercise gospel courage

00:13:38.700 and actually giving their consent uh they're actually throwing the ecclesiastical church

00:13:44.500 discipline stone which just for the record for the youtube overlords this is a metaphorical stone so

00:13:49.180 that it's not totally literal we're just killing people all over the place in our churches with

00:13:54.020 stones they're very sharp stones sarcasm yeah so that was sarcasm but uh so it's we're not the

00:13:59.900 civil magistrate we don't have the sword but we do have a sword of the spirit and so we are

00:14:03.020 executing that discipline but the more i think about it so and this is where you might be pleasantly

00:14:07.400 surprised. The more I think about it, even if the elders did render that decision to hand this man

00:14:15.780 over to Satan for the destruction of his flesh, that his soul might be saved, even this is love,

00:14:19.720 it's simply tough love, but it is with the desire not just to protect the purity of the church,

00:14:24.660 but that the impenitent sinner might come to repentance. You know, like I think of Paul says

00:14:29.580 that they might be ashamed, but because shame is a grace and it's a powerful form of grace,

00:14:36.020 It brings people around, not always, but many times.

00:14:40.740 And so my thought is, what if it is possible that the elders actually rendered the decision,

00:14:45.640 not merely telling the matter to the church, but that the elders are standing in representative

00:14:50.620 of the church and they're telling the decision.

00:14:53.360 They've actually executed the keys themselves by handing the person over.

00:14:57.320 And then the church, because I was thinking about back to Israel, I was thinking, it's

00:15:01.340 not that the congregation, that Israel would be assembled to determine whether or not to

00:15:05.340 stone the individual that decision would have already been made by its leadership but israel

00:15:09.740 would be assembled to carry out the stoning and that would apply to a congregation to say the

00:15:15.880 elders say we're handing them over but then the congregation relationally and organically each

00:15:21.040 member is is executing that decision by by not choosing to have that person in their home by

00:15:27.720 not fellowshipping with them any longer by their only interaction with that person from here on

00:15:32.820 out would be merely for the purpose of a call to repentance. So the congregation is still acting

00:15:39.060 corporately, but not acting corporately as a court, an ecclesiastical court of opinion to render a

00:15:44.760 decision, but to carry out the decision that has already been made. I know that's not particularly

00:15:49.060 Baptist, and I'm not even saying that I've concluded that. I'm just saying I can see the

00:15:53.900 validity. And you know, part of the, I'll leave it here. Part of the thing that's making me see

00:15:57.940 some of this validity is uh in real time getting to have a front row seat and watching our sacred

00:16:03.520 democracy on the american landscape fail miserably and uh some of my baptist democracy you know kind

00:16:11.640 of stuff um lately i'm like you know i'm cringing left and right so what do you think about everything

00:16:17.360 that i just said so what i would say is what you just described is is kind of actually the

00:16:22.420 the classic reformed congregational or Baptist position that is typically

00:16:27.080 Presbyterians referred to as independency.

00:16:29.440 Yeah.

00:16:29.700 And so independency would essentially be Presbyterian government,

00:16:32.800 but it is without a belief in connectional courts.

00:16:38.060 Right.

00:16:38.200 And so,

00:16:39.280 and so what you've described is sort of the Presbyterian polity at a local

00:16:43.700 level,

00:16:44.120 but,

00:16:44.920 but not connected to other churches by having a shared regional court or

00:16:48.680 court where there's representatives sent from multiple local churches.

00:16:51.720 John Owen would fit that bill right exactly and I think you'd find I think you'd find if you were

00:16:57.740 if you were reading most the reformed baptists that that were sort of the the guys associated

00:17:02.260 with 1689 and stuff like that I think you'd find agreement there I think if you look at Gil and

00:17:06.920 stuff like that you're going to find you're going to find agreement there so I think that my Cox

00:17:10.480 right so so I think when you look at this idea of of the the church take it to the church you know

00:17:16.840 It's sort of like it does a nation decide a thing if it's legislators or if it's chief executive acts.

00:17:23.500 Can you say that their acts are representative of the whole of the nation or of the state?

00:17:27.960 Can 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?

00:17:34.500 Can you say that their actions apply to the household?

00:17:36.640 So this, I think you find scripturally the idea that covenant representatives act on behalf of the whole group.

00:17:42.220 On 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.

00:17:50.020 And what I mean by that is, although, and you'll find this in the Westminster directory or the Westminster form of government.

00:17:55.280 It's called the Westminster, the Presbyterial form of government.

00:17:57.820 So you can read that document.

00:17:59.300 One of the things it has is it talks about this idea of the power of the officers.

00:18:04.340 It talks about the powers of the officers to rebuke and to admonish.

00:18:08.060 So it's sort of like you can hear a case.

00:18:10.340 you can determine if it's right if the person's right or wrong and you can issue a censure that

00:18:15.500 is called a rebuke or called an admonition where you're publicly saying this person's in the wrong

00:18:20.440 they need to repent but you're not yet cutting them off from the table then the officers could

00:18:25.280 also suspend from the table and that's that's another type of church discipline and so those

00:18:31.520 are things that the officers can do that the elders can do without the consent of the people

00:18:37.280 But then, lastly, the act of excommunication or casting out from the midst of the church,

00:18:43.280 where you're removing a person from the church, handing them over for the scourging of the flesh by Satan.

00:18:47.080 You're calling upon God to remove angelic protection and to allow demonic harm to the person's body for the sake of discipline, chastisement.

00:18:55.860 That last act, the historic Presbyterian position, is to require a vote of the people,

00:19:03.280 and specifically the heads of house that the the male heads of house that are 20 years old and

00:19:07.960 above and so you have you have sort of the the men in israel voting on that as well and so the idea

00:19:13.720 is that even though the officers can rebuke and admonish and can suspend from the table without

00:19:18.620 the consent of the people to see a person removed from the rules requires you know two keys right to

00:19:24.200 to cause the nukes to launch right it requires both the officers and the people and so and i

00:19:30.220 would say that that the matthew 18 is not the principal proof text for that but rather i would

00:19:34.220 say that uh in first and second corinthians uh when paul is talking about the discipline of the

00:19:38.820 man who's five and two yeah right so is it chapter five in first corinthians and chapter two in second

00:19:44.780 corinthians is that what it is okay great yeah that sounds that sounds right so i think five

00:19:48.600 is the one where they're saying you know this guy is is you know is committing sexual sin with his

00:19:52.860 his stepmother and so that's that's a violation of the laws of of affinity um and from from

00:19:58.840 Leviticus 17 and 18. And so then this idea that there's a need to excommunicate the guy,

00:20:04.920 and then they do, and then they don't let him back in. And so I think in chapter two is what

00:20:10.060 you're saying, it's one where it talks about how the let him back in since he's repentant,

00:20:14.520 the punishment that was given to him by the majority is sufficient. And so that majority

00:20:19.380 is the majority of the people he's talking to, the saints. So he's talking about the church.

00:20:23.220 So even there, it's not literally all of those who are visible saints, because it's not the men

00:20:28.340 under 20. It's not the women who are voting. It's still representational in that it's the heads of

00:20:32.620 house, right? So the congregational vote is by still representatives of the congregation

00:20:38.200 in the forms of the male heads of house over the age of 20.

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00:23:01.520 today with that real quick so but could that back to my you know uh using an illustration of stoning

00:23:08.580 uh the the punishment by the majority um so i've always read that also as like um the decision

00:23:15.020 to punish made by the majority um but it would this be a fair interpretation maybe it's not you

00:23:24.140 know it's not a necessary inference but but a plausible way of of reading the text to say well

00:23:31.340 the punishment by the majority was uh what it must indicate minimally is that the majority of the

00:23:38.840 congregation actually carried it out uh that they actually meaning they uh they carried out the

00:23:44.120 disfellowshipping they carried out the call to repentance they carried out um the removal of

00:23:49.820 this person from the gathering and, and those things, but the decision itself still could have

00:23:55.260 been made by, uh, ecclesiastical, uh, officers, uh, uh, you know, without, without meriting a

00:24:02.100 congregational vote. And I'm, I'm the congregational Baptist guy, but I'm still throwing that out as a

00:24:06.940 possibility. Yeah. So I think high Presbyterians and Episcopalians would typically argue what you

00:24:11.780 just said. Okay. So as a, as a low Presbyterian, I'm going to say it was both. Okay. I'm going to

00:24:16.400 say it was both a vote of the heads of house and that it was their participation in it. And I think

00:24:22.740 in the context of 2 Corinthians, he's got a group that he's commending. He's got a group he's

00:24:27.480 rebuking, right? There's the guys that are supporting the super apostles, which I love

00:24:31.120 that translation. That's an amazing mockery name, super apostles. You can just see the t-shirts,

00:24:35.940 right? So anyway, so the super apostles and the minority of the church at Corinth that's

00:24:40.640 not carrying through properly the discipline. And then there's the majority, and I think the

00:24:45.760 majority voted so as to formally acknowledge, to give consent in a formal way to this judgment

00:24:54.280 and to participate in the casting of the stones.

00:24:57.920 And then they're in an ongoing way, you know, not having casual fellowship.

00:25:03.260 When they're seeing this guy, they're either doing business or it's some necessary family

00:25:07.920 duty or it is a calling to repent.

00:25:14.200 Those are the kinds of actions that would be done towards this person after their excommunication.

00:25:19.860 And so that's how you love them.

00:25:21.360 And by encouraging that sense of shame and dishonor, you are encouraging them to repent.

00:25:26.720 And that's how you're seeking their good.

00:25:28.320 So anyway, so I think I've touched on all the points you were saying there.

00:25:32.000 So it sounds like there's a ton of agreement about it.

00:25:34.140 And then you're considering kind of is there this need for a formal vote or not?

00:25:37.600 So I would say yes, because I think that it's an act of government as well as the carrying out.

00:25:45.040 So 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.

00:25:57.560 Yep. And just for the record, yes, is where I have been and where I still currently reside.

00:26:03.280 I am. That's part of our bylaws.

00:26:05.500 that's uh not something that i would change um lightly and in fact ironically if i was to change

00:26:12.280 that uh it would require a congregational vote and yeah and so so that that right there so we

00:26:20.680 think about this we think about the forms of government what are the decisions i would suggest

00:26:25.300 when we think about the local church that biblically what we can find is there's some

00:26:30.100 body of people that have to elect officers right there's there's then the officers and we have to

00:26:37.760 look scripturally what are the offices that continue and so scripturally we can find the

00:26:43.520 office of apostle and i would suggest that anybody who claims to be an apostle now if they mean that

00:26:48.700 they have a revelatory office they're a heretic there's the office of evangelist which if evangelist

00:26:54.540 is a revelatory office and the person claims it for themselves they're a heretic and there's the

00:26:58.720 office of prophet, same thing. And so what are the things that are left? And what we're going

00:27:03.420 to find is titles like bishop, teacher slash doctor, pastor. We're going to find, we're going

00:27:11.620 to find presbyter. Yeah. Yes. Thank you. And then we're going to find deacon, which can be

00:27:19.000 translated minister or servant. And so what are those titles? And so, so I'm going to, I'm going

00:27:24.360 to say that the four titles that we just listed there that are after prophet, we're going

00:27:29.040 to say a teacher, an elder, a bishop slash overseer, and now I'm dropping one of the

00:27:37.420 other ones.

00:27:37.840 Deacon.

00:27:38.960 Deacon, but then there's another one for pastor.

00:27:41.320 Elder.

00:27:41.600 Sorry.

00:27:42.060 Oh, shepherd.

00:27:42.940 Elder, pastor, teacher, bishop.

00:27:45.840 Those are all one position.

00:27:47.520 And you can demonstrate that by going through a bunch of different texts and showing the

00:27:51.880 relationship of those of those titles you know there's the ephesians 5 one that says you know

00:27:56.660 the pastor teacher uh you know being grouped together you can look at the grammar of that

00:28:01.560 and it becomes obvious those are being grouped together titus relates the title of bishop and

00:28:06.880 elder together um we can find the these various ways in which all these off those those titles

00:28:13.040 those four titles are all one are all one office so as a baptist you're speaking my language right

00:28:18.820 now but for you being a presbyterian i'm curious uh it sounds like you are rejecting um what not

00:28:25.520 all but some presbyterians would hold as um you know two different kinds of elders a teaching

00:28:30.460 elder and a ruling elder uh do you just see elder as elder yes and so i do think there's a right to

00:28:38.220 divide the labor yes you have some elders focusing on different things yep but but there's not a

00:28:43.100 separate ordination and that's one of the things that you're a baptist welcome no i'm just kidding

00:28:47.400 I'm just kidding.

00:28:49.120 So I would say that some people, like you read John Calvin,

00:28:53.420 and John Calvin wants to have four offices.

00:28:55.740 He wants to have a deacon.

00:28:56.880 He wants to have a ruling elder.

00:28:58.100 He wants to have a teaching pastor.

00:29:00.160 And he wants to have a doctor of the church.

00:29:02.340 And you're going to find that the Belgic Confession ends up with three of them,

00:29:06.940 and they sort of make the pastor and the doctor into one.

00:29:11.120 You're going to find that there's these various disputes amongst the Reformed documents that do that.

00:29:16.320 The Scots historically had a four-office view that was held.

00:29:20.440 The Westminster Standards brought it to a kind of three-office view as we're going to find in the Presbyterian form of government.

00:29:27.000 And 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.

00:29:39.840 But it's not a separate ordination.

00:29:41.400 It's not like you have to be ordained to elder and then ordained to pastor and then you're ordained to doctor.

00:29:46.460 And 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.

00:30:01.260 Whereas 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.

00:30:09.940 the nature of the office is different as opposed to just a division of the labor.

00:30:14.700 So I think a lot of Presbyterians, when they're pushed on this, that's where the brass tacks are.

00:30:19.520 Yep. I agree with you 100%. But the OPC and PCA, they would have, correct me if I'm wrong,

00:30:24.680 but they would have separate ordinations for a teaching elder versus a ruling elder. Correct?

00:30:29.520 I think the OP definitely does. The PCA has more of a blended two office view.

00:30:36.160 and you're going to find the RPCNA also has more of this like two office type of view.

00:30:42.800 So I think the OPC has published a book called Order in the Offices.

00:30:47.600 It's a rather disorderly and chaotic book that contradicts itself all over the place

00:30:51.060 where it tries to defend this idea of the different types of elders.

00:30:56.700 And it has mutually exclusive and differing views of how to interpret the same text just presented.

00:31:01.280 It's like throwing spaghetti at the wall or whatever.

00:31:03.300 They're just trying to be like, look, if one of these is persuasive to you, that's great.

00:31:06.160 Just go along with this.

00:31:07.500 Just pick one of the ones that you find to be persuasive.

00:31:10.840 So anyway, so that view.

00:31:13.420 So I think that that view creates a tendency towards a hierarchical kind of clerical distinction that is unhelpful.

00:31:22.140 And a lot of the time the argument goes to the idea that the priests were different from the ecclesiastical elders in the Old Covenant.

00:31:30.420 Well, that's interesting because the priesthood of all believers would eliminate that distinction.

00:31:34.080 right um and so the eldership is not eliminated but the idea of a separate priest class is um and

00:31:40.960 so i think it's very important uh the the arguments in favor of a three strict three office view i

00:31:47.060 think are very dangerous and tend towards a clericalism and tend towards episcopacy and a

00:31:52.780 high presbyterianism that ends up removing the special rights of the people and what you also

00:31:57.920 find is these people also tend to believe that that the that the teaching elder is not a member

00:32:03.400 of the local church that's what i hate as a baptist i'm to be a member of the presbytery

00:32:08.200 and not be a member of the church that you're pastoring just makes no sense to me right which

00:32:12.920 totally removes the capacity of the people to hold that preacher accountable right and it makes it so

00:32:17.160 the elders can't hold their preacher accountable and and so you you end up with you end up with

00:32:21.800 this removal of the guy into a system of special courts where his court of original jurisdiction

00:32:27.800 is always the presbytery at the regional level and never is going to be dealt with at the local level

00:32:34.080 And so there are all sorts of problems there.

00:32:37.640 The argument is supposed to be like a jury of peers,

00:32:40.200 which is the principle of English common law,

00:32:42.260 not a principle you're going to find in the Bible.

00:32:44.420 And so anyways, as far as peers go, we are all Kleros.

00:32:48.740 We are all brothers.

00:32:50.340 And so we are all peers in the sense of being church members.

00:32:54.580 And so, yeah, that gets me a little hot under the collar,

00:32:58.880 This separation out of the pastorate from the people and from the local church.

00:33:06.020 Yep, I'm with you. 0.98

00:33:08.340 So, okay.

00:33:09.140 So 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.

00:33:21.180 The congregational assembly is made up of all of the men of 20 and above.

00:33:28.880 who are communicant members in good standing.

00:33:31.960 And so those are the men in Israel, and they have the capacity to vote,

00:33:36.580 and they have three specific powers that I could prove to you from Scripture.

00:33:41.860 And so what I would say is, for example, in Acts 6,

00:33:44.400 you have the apostles having the people nominate from themselves, test, and elect deacons.

00:33:54.200 And if that power exists for the office of deacon,

00:33:57.100 than those who exercise even greater power, elders, that would also be a principle for

00:34:02.140 considering the rule over the people. So the process of nomination, testing, and electing.

00:34:08.480 And a lot of times people drop the ball in the testing where they make the testing private or

00:34:12.000 they make the testing only done by the officers and the people can't ask questions. These are

00:34:15.740 the control mechanisms. I think it's very important that we allow for those things to occur

00:34:20.020 for the congregation, that the men be allowed to ask questions and to test there. So the

00:34:26.160 nomination requires essentially you have two or three witnesses saying we see the positive

00:34:29.620 qualifications in this guy the testing is this period of time where you're able to ask things

00:34:34.420 or whatever and i would suggest that testing you have the biblical example of 40 days for jesus i

00:34:38.400 would suggest that's a it's a prudent time period to have as a kind of a minimum for the testing

00:34:42.240 period they're not making drag on past a year because you know a man is is able to be qualified

00:34:47.320 to go from his marriage into entering into public service after a year of marriage so there's sort

00:34:52.380 of this idea that's a long enough time to see something before a man could go into public

00:34:55.820 office anyways so all i'm trying to say is there's this range for the testing and then you get to

00:35:01.540 this idea of of of the the vote there's an election there's a vote by the men and so there's a last

00:35:07.400 step so we talked about how there's two keys to kick somebody out of the church and those keys

00:35:11.280 are the vote of the officers and the vote of the men there's also two keys to get into office right

00:35:16.200 and so it's the existing officers ordain it's the other thing we see so so this idea that there's

00:35:21.320 election and ordination. And ordination, the essence of ordination is to set a man apart for

00:35:25.780 public service. And so, you know, in the absence of officers, you know, for example, you would

00:35:31.400 simply set a man apart by the laying on of hands of the men. But in the presence of existing

00:35:36.020 officers, you would have the existing officers lay hands on. But it's important that a man not

00:35:40.400 take office to himself. And so this idea that there's a, the church is setting the man apart

00:35:45.660 and the ordinary and mature form is the election by the men and the laying on of hands by the

00:35:51.680 existing officers and when we're in a devolved state our goal always has to be to stay as close

00:35:56.500 to the mature form and order that we conveniently can and convenience isn't just like well like

00:36:04.440 like microwave it's it's this idea of like can you do it without hurting the church can you can

00:36:09.240 you can you uh can you keep the order that's ordinary there without causing harm to the church

00:36:15.400 And 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.

00:36:21.660 You know, ordination, man doesn't exist for ordination, ordination exists for man.

00:36:25.420 And so you're thinking about the process of order for the sake of the church.

00:36:28.940 So this is the power.

00:36:30.240 So the powers of the Congregational Assembly are to elect officers, to vote to remove officers.

00:36:38.100 So it's two keys to get in, one key to get out.

00:36:40.420 The officers can boot an officer and the people can boot an officer.

00:36:43.100 and that's so that you you're able to remove people who are oppressors uh quickly and and then

00:36:49.780 there's also this vote the final vote on excommunication so i think those are the three

00:36:54.540 specific powers of of the congregational assembly and so that would be where perhaps you and i differ

00:37:01.220 there is you had kind of a broader set of things that seemed like you thought the congregation

00:37:05.080 might be empowered to do not not really slightly uh but in in function in practice and this is

00:37:11.340 etched out in our bylaws what it really comes down to um you know because we'll say you know

00:37:16.460 the who and the what of the gospel top tier you know primary theology and you know in that ladder

00:37:21.840 of theological triage um but then we actually spell out um what merits a congregational vote

00:37:27.740 and it's exactly what you just said it's ordination uh so receiving officers and ordaining

00:37:33.380 them installing them uh and then also the removal of officers so it's the receiving

00:37:37.720 and the removing of elders the receiving and the removing of deacons doesn't require a

00:37:44.740 congregational vote for the receiving of members the elders are receiving members in as representative

00:37:51.320 of the church and the way that the church can guard the membership so that the church doesn't

00:37:55.760 have a like an invasion like we currently have as a country with illegal immigration so that you

00:38:00.740 don't have a bunch of people coming into membership that are illegal in the ecclesiastical sense 0.61

00:38:05.780 they're not Christian. The way that the congregation would have authority over that

00:38:10.140 is by having authority over the elders. If the elders are, you know, so if you're elected

00:38:14.380 officials in your country are setting the stage for an invasion, what you do is the people don't

00:38:22.040 go rogue as vigilantes and get down on the border and by force keep people out. What they do is they

00:38:27.700 overthrow their elected officials and put better ones in place that would actually hold the line.

00:38:32.420 So receiving and releasing of elders, receiving and releasing of deacons, and then just releasing

00:38:38.140 or not, I shouldn't say releasing, removing, receiving and removing of elders, receiving

00:38:43.060 and removing of deacons.

00:38:44.600 And then in a, by default, in an informal way, the congregation does have authority over

00:38:51.560 receiving members, but that's by electing elders who make that decision.

00:38:55.580 But then the congregation would be involved in the removing of members that that would

00:39:01.280 actually involve a congregational vote and then the only other thing uh that we uh well actually

00:39:06.680 two things the only other two things that our congregation has a vote over would be um what we

00:39:12.280 call our three primary documents so the three primary offices elders deacons and members then

00:39:18.500 the three primary documents so it's the who of the church elders deacons members the what of the

00:39:23.200 church is um that's going to be our bylaws so the church's constitution our general statement of

00:39:28.660 faith um and then also our membership covenant um so so that the elders couldn't for instance with

00:39:34.880 the membership covenant uh raise the bar um to where uh to where you know people who are already

00:39:40.820 members in the church are now out of step um and we're like i'm sorry you're not meeting the

00:39:45.240 membership covenant but but i i did adhere to the membership covenant when i was brought in and then

00:39:50.340 you you bait it was a bait and switch you you you moved it on me so the uh the membership of the

00:39:55.800 church. The congregation itself, the leaders could not amend or revise or change, alter in any way

00:40:03.340 our church's constitution bylaws. Our general statement of faith, we have a specific statement

00:40:09.020 of doctrine, which is the 1689 London Baptist Confession of Faith, but we have a general

00:40:13.420 statement of faith that members have, not just elders and deacons, but even members have to

00:40:17.960 subscribe to, and that can't be altered except by a congregational vote. And then lastly, the

00:40:23.840 membership covenant so bylaws and then general statement of faith and then membership covenant

00:40:28.900 those would be the three primary documents the what of the gospel and then the who of the gospel

00:40:32.400 is elders receiving or removing deacons receiving or removing and then just removing as it comes to

00:40:38.860 members and then the only other thing would be we do do an annual vote on the budget and that one

00:40:45.780 i don't see as being required by scripture we do it as an act of prudence we think it's permissible

00:40:50.140 uh in scripture but i i wouldn't i would never preach you know um to i would never command to

00:40:55.940 other officers of another congregation and say that the bible binds you to this yeah and so i

00:41:02.200 would argue that as far as so it sounds like you know broad agreement between us and i would say

00:41:07.160 that two little caveats i think that as far as budget goes the money that's given to the church

00:41:12.560 is laid at the feet of the officers and so if there were a dispute between the church uh broadly

00:41:19.180 in terms of the congregation and the officers about how the money should be used,

00:41:23.480 but the authority that Christ has given goes to the officers about how the money should be used.

00:41:30.280 And so that's what the diaconate is.

00:41:33.000 They're not just money counters.

00:41:35.080 They're capital allocators.

00:41:37.600 The deacons are responsible for governing the money, the capital goods of the church.

00:41:42.220 That includes in the distribution for mercy ministry.

00:41:44.660 that includes in the work for remunerating officers

00:41:48.600 and for providing equipment like a place to meet for the church.

00:41:53.640 And so I think that to do otherwise removes distinctive power from the deacons.

00:42:01.840 And it's often the case that I find that deacons are turned into sort of glorified

00:42:06.340 like busboys for elders.

00:42:10.220 And I think that that's not the case.

00:42:11.980 to have a specific set of powers. And I think that all elders are deacons. All deacons are

00:42:21.680 communicant voting members. All communicant voting members are communicant members, right?

00:42:27.160 All communicant members are baptized members, right? So you have this sort of this like chain

00:42:30.620 of higher offices containing lower offices. So anyway, so that's the one thing of the budget.

00:42:35.580 The other thing is you talked about the letting people in. One of the things that's been kind of

00:42:39.780 historic Reformed as a practice for admitting people is you have the public admission of

00:42:45.800 persons in terms of baptized membership, and you have kind of a lower bar for what it takes

00:42:54.080 to become baptized, and you have an examination to come to the Lord's table. I know that's been

00:43:01.420 a mixed position even amongst Reformed Baptists and even amongst Presbyterians, whether or not

00:43:06.860 you should have adult baptisms that occur without sufficient evidence to come to a large table or

00:43:11.600 whatever. But anyway, so there's sort of this, this, this idea of, of where do you, where do

00:43:15.660 you examine a person for entry? Um, and the idea that where you're going to admit a person to the

00:43:20.580 table, you then you announce it ahead of time. Um, and you allow sort of a two, you have like

00:43:26.780 two or three public announcements on the principle of two or three witnesses, the idea of like,

00:43:30.600 you know, having two or three times. And there's this idea that there's an ability, if there's a

00:43:33.960 thing if you know about some secret sin or you know this person's a part of a coven or you know

00:43:37.960 whatever the thing is and you have the opportunity to come forward and raise the objection you can

00:43:42.300 bring it to them to let them repent of it first or you can if the person doesn't repent then you

00:43:46.600 can bring it to to the elders as they're dealing with the admission of the person so i think all

00:43:51.300 these things that we think of as sort of like is weird formalities or whatever they all have

00:43:55.360 when you actually take church membership and discipline seriously these stuff these things

00:43:59.600 also have to really matter for how the government works because it's about retaining it's about

00:44:04.260 maintaining the holy profession of the faith and the holiness of the sacraments so you somebody

00:44:09.300 could listen to this and start to hear these things and we're going what is all this this is

00:44:12.560 all these details about how we administer things and blah blah it's just like well if you care

00:44:18.560 about christian power christian power comes down to polity comes down to how do you organize things

00:44:23.460 like in the household we all think patriarchy matters a lot that's a matter of polity right

00:44:27.420 Right. 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?

00:44:41.520 And so the details of government are important for rule because they restrain men's evil,

00:44:48.700 they encourage the activities that need to occur, and they really help us to know how to avoid 0.58

00:44:53.880 dissipation. One of the problems in the American church is the dissipation of our resources into

00:44:59.360 all sorts of things for false worship and all sorts of things that are the things the church

00:45:03.660 shouldn't be functioning in. And so we spend our budgets and spend our time in silly ways,

00:45:08.440 and we don't focus on the big things,

00:45:10.520 a lot of times the big things, people go, this seems boring.

00:45:13.020 It's like, that sounds like a you problem.

00:45:14.860 And if you think that the doctrine, worship, and government

00:45:17.160 of Christ's church is boring, perhaps that's a you problem.

00:45:21.680 And what you need to do is to care more about those things

00:45:24.680 and see that they are important and realize that there's a fog, 1.00

00:45:28.480 there's a stupidity, there's a laziness of thought 0.99

00:45:30.980 that makes it so that you don't think these things matter. 1.00

00:45:33.540 And so if you want to see good government 0.89

00:45:35.720 and if you want to see Christian power

00:45:37.120 and you want the church to thrive,

00:45:39.220 caring about these things matters a lot.

00:45:41.700 So I would say that-

00:45:43.200 Real quick, I just want to add to that.

00:45:44.280 I think it was Matthew Henry.

00:45:45.580 I could be wrong.

00:45:47.640 But I think it was Matthew Henry who said that,

00:45:49.680 speaking of Matthew 18 and 1 Corinthians 5

00:45:52.900 and 2 Corinthians 2,

00:45:54.640 in the matter of church discipline,

00:45:56.160 he said, church discipline,

00:45:57.540 Christ instituted church discipline,

00:45:59.700 and he did not do so merely

00:46:01.220 in order to protect the whole, the church,

00:46:04.080 from the impurity of the sinner,

00:46:06.700 but also to protect the alleged sinner from the potential of an abusive, abusive church.

00:46:14.120 And, you know, because, because the system requires, it's not just a punitive system,

00:46:18.900 but it's a system that requires examination and questioning and, and, and counters.

00:46:24.760 And so even the two or three step two of, of church discipline in Matthew 18, to bring

00:46:30.600 the one or two others with you is not just to bring the one or two others to agree with

00:46:34.880 the one who has the offense, who is saying, see what this guy did, and you guys agree with me,

00:46:38.720 now we have three guys telling him he's wrong instead of just one. No, the one or two are

00:46:43.040 coming in, they should be at least initially coming in as unbiased judges. Any believer,

00:46:50.520 any mature believer, you who are mature should restore such a person in the spirit of gentleness.

00:46:57.000 So any mature believer, I don't think it necessitates, I don't think the Bible prescribes

00:47:01.660 it must be an elder although i do think as a matter of prudence elders you should be able to

00:47:06.980 assume are mature and therefore they're often your best bet for the one or two to bring in there but

00:47:11.060 it doesn't have to be an elder but those one or two are coming in not just to join the person who

00:47:16.640 has who has taken up the initial offense and and as an echo chamber and just agreeing with him that

00:47:21.680 this person has done wrong but they're coming in as unbiased impartial judges to say okay this is

00:47:28.340 the offense that the one person says and then to ask questions is this true and what did you and

00:47:32.260 what is your counter and they might actually at the second stage of church discipline you might

00:47:37.420 actually have the one or two that are brought in as witnesses actually shift and say actually

00:47:42.360 you're in sin brother for bringing a false charge against this person you've taken up a wrongful

00:47:46.400 offense and you actually are the one who needs to repent and if those one or two aren't sufficient

00:47:51.340 to settle the matter in that smaller court then it would elevate uh to a higher courts you know

00:47:57.200 and telling it to the church.

00:47:58.640 And now all the officers are involved.

00:48:00.200 And then we also are involving the congregation.

00:48:03.040 And so all that being said, my point back to what you're saying, guys who would say,

00:48:07.280 what made me think of it as guys who would say, this is boring, you know, church polity.

00:48:11.660 I remember when I first started getting to church, I, you know, I avoided it for a very

00:48:15.680 long time because I thought it would be boring.

00:48:17.580 And then I started to care an awful lot.

00:48:19.960 And it was around the same point of my life of just growing up and becoming a man, the

00:48:24.720 same, it's pretty much started caring about church polity right at the same time. It's no coincidence

00:48:29.200 that I started caring about politics in general and the civil realm, because I started seeing

00:48:34.380 that, you know, power is inevitable. Power is inevitable. It's not whether or which someone

00:48:39.940 is going to wield power and they're going to wield it in a particular way. So I would like to have

00:48:44.660 good men with power, wielding power in good ways. And the only way we can determine whether or not

00:48:50.780 we have good men and whether or not power is being wielded in good ways is if we have an

00:48:54.560 immutable universal transcendent standard namely the word of god that tells us how to use power

00:49:00.060 and who should use power and and this is what i realized i realized that the whole you know

00:49:04.520 congregational uh congregationalism and and a vote of you know excommunication the whole

00:49:09.680 conversation about excommunication at first i thought man everybody if i teach these things

00:49:13.240 and especially if we practice them as a church everybody's going to think that we're mean people

00:49:17.400 are going to it's going to be jarring it's going to feel for exactly in a cult they're going to

00:49:22.180 they're going to think it's foreign. They're going to think it's jarring. They're going to

00:49:24.660 think it's mean. And one of the best ways, I think the Lord just gave me some practical wisdom on how

00:49:29.320 to convey these things to people. And I want the listener to hear this. If they're thinking these

00:49:32.900 things, that's mean, that's cultish. This is how I started when I would teach on these things with

00:49:38.660 my congregation. I started saying it like this. Every church kicks people out. The only question

00:49:45.420 is how? Did you know that mega churches that never take a congregational vote and don't actually

00:49:51.680 They have true biblically ecclesiastical officers that are elected by the party.

00:49:56.980 They don't have any of those things going on.

00:49:58.980 But if you think that they're not kicking people out, then I've got some oceanfront

00:50:05.180 property in Kansas that I'd love to sell you.

00:50:08.080 These megachurches are kicking people out left and right, but they do it like a casino.

00:50:13.200 They catch someone that they think is counting cards.

00:50:15.440 They take him in a back room.

00:50:16.460 They break his kneecaps and they send him away and nobody ever hears from him again.

00:50:20.500 that person never gets to actually defend themselves in a court. They never actually

00:50:27.100 get a fair representation. So the question is not whether or not a church is going to be mean,

00:50:33.500 whether it's going to be cultish. Every church is kicking people out. The question is,

00:50:38.680 are they doing so lawfully? That's what we're talking about. So we're not talking about whether

00:50:43.420 or not churches should kick people out because your sweet and nice church with your prosperity,

00:50:49.240 gospel preaching heretical pastor who's smiling and he doesn't just pace back and forth, but he's

00:50:54.120 almost floating on air because his loafers are so light. That guy is actually, believe it or not,

00:50:59.740 kicking people out probably by the dozens. And the difference is that those people never get

00:51:07.700 to tell their side of the story and you never hear about it. So we're not being mean. We're

00:51:12.080 not being cultish. We're doing something that every church, and not just every church, every

00:51:15.540 organization, whether it's the Lions Club or the HOA, or that there is no organization on earth

00:51:22.760 that doesn't have a process for taking people in and removing people, getting them out. And so

00:51:29.920 everything that we're talking about is to ensure that those things are done well and that people

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00:52:33.220 Absolutely. And so that right there, if a church silently removes people,

00:52:38.440 it is behaving cultishly. It is behaving with tyranny and secrecy. If a church publicly

00:52:46.400 announces the removal of people but does not allow for a public forum for that person to

00:52:52.140 receive charges publicly, receive the witnesses and the evidence publicly, to bring their own

00:52:59.480 evidence and witnesses, to be able to cross-examine witnesses, to be able to give their own defense

00:53:05.960 and provide a pleading, if that doesn't happen and then there's not a public decision on

00:53:10.660 the basis of the publicly available evidence, and then there's not a public sentencing based

00:53:16.420 upon the publicly available evidence, then there's bad government there.

00:53:20.060 Now, some churches are going to do those things to a more mature form, and some people are

00:53:27.040 going to do that to a less mature form.

00:53:30.860 And 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.

00:53:49.860 So 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.

00:53:59.900 And so what we need to do is we need to judge churches based upon their government.

00:54:05.620 And churches can have failures of form and be valid churches.

00:54:10.780 But 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.

00:54:24.960 um so so i would say that we do want to have the perfect rule of government that christ has

00:54:31.220 established but there's there's a difference between being mature in the proper form versus

00:54:37.180 becoming invalid right so so you can be immature you could have some failures but still be valid

00:54:42.620 as a form of government right there's a difference between a bad church and a false church yes in the

00:54:47.800 same way that there's a difference between a good church and a true church so there are lots of

00:54:52.300 churches that I would consider to be true churches, but I wouldn't attend. I'm not saying

00:54:57.820 that they're heretical. I'm not saying it's a false church. There's a true church made up of

00:55:01.180 true believers. It really is Christ's church, and Christ is actually, in the formal ecclesiastical

00:55:07.660 objective sense, Christ is the head of that church, and yet that church is immature, teaching

00:55:14.280 certain things that I believe are bad doctrines. They're unbiblical doctrines, but they're not

00:55:18.640 uh to the level of heresy um so yeah i'm with you so when we think about this and we're talking

00:55:26.760 about the elements of government we've talked about the the congregational assembly the next

00:55:30.860 thing above that is the diaconate the diaconate is dealing with money we talked about the three

00:55:34.080 purposes of money i think this is really helpful for people to think about talking about the

00:55:37.260 regulated principle of government right the government of the church doesn't have the right

00:55:40.740 to do anything and everything at once it must obey christ and if it's going to obey christ

00:55:46.020 then what it needs to do is it needs to seek to do the positive commissioning that's been given

00:55:51.280 by the king of the church and also so to not fail to do that but also to not do a bunch of extra

00:55:56.240 stuff and so the spending of the money is also a major point of power right and so you talk about

00:56:02.080 the idea that your your people of your assembly the voting members get to vote on a budget and

00:56:07.520 so you have this idea of is there transparency of the money and and i i posited that there are

00:56:11.680 three legal uses of the money. It's remuneration of officers, the mercy ministry to care for the

00:56:16.540 orphans and widows, the permanently disabled, the temporary disabled, the people with temporary

00:56:21.080 hardship you're coming alongside, people suffering persecution, you're helping to give them the

00:56:24.720 money, right? So there's this idea of the remuneration of officers, the mercy ministry,

00:56:28.500 and there's the equipping of the saints in terms of a place to meet, the bread you're going to

00:56:32.300 break, the wine you're going to drink, the stuff, you know, giving Bibles, giving books, catechesis,

00:56:36.980 stuff like that. So those kinds of things. Do you think there's any other legal uses of the money

00:56:41.460 that you can find in scripture i don't know i mean it's such an exhaustive question you let's

00:56:46.060 let's uh cut to the chase you tell me so i don't think there's anything else i think that's i think

00:56:52.780 that's it i think that i just i'm thinking there's a million different options that not not saying

00:56:57.400 that they're all you know that any of them are good but i that's for me to run through all of

00:57:01.960 them it's pretty pretty tough to run through them on the spot i can't think of any right so i think

00:57:07.040 you find that the old testament lists out the uses of the tithe and those are the three uses

00:57:11.560 you end up with you end up with the stuff to maintain the temple or the you know the the

00:57:16.120 stuff that the operations do stuff right right and then and then you've got you've got the mercy

00:57:21.280 ministry and then you've got the remuneration of the officers and right and anything else i'm going

00:57:25.700 to say we're throwing the money away so you know if you want to go there's all there's these things

00:57:29.880 like you know hospitality is a private thing and then the idea that the church has its own

00:57:35.740 operations. There's a difference. You don't want to just be paying for this big kind of meal all

00:57:40.640 the time where you're feeding everybody. There's the eating at home versus the eating that occurs

00:57:44.060 at the church and the public sacramental meal. You find that distinction in 1 Corinthians.

00:57:47.960 These kinds of details make it so that you see the church government having good administration

00:57:52.440 of government comes down to managing the money well. People talk about this in civil government

00:57:56.720 a lot. You talk about like, you know, what are you doing with the taxpayer's dollar? What are

00:58:01.060 doing with the tithe payers dollar right right so so this idea of do we care about the expenditure

00:58:06.700 of of the funds that are given and are laid at the feet of the officers that are for that are

00:58:11.640 under christ government right so we talked about the courts and sorry real quick our budget breaks

00:58:16.560 down to four categories but i bet you that two of them are actually could be conflated to one i'm

00:58:21.320 curious to hear your thoughts so we have operations as a category so um the the rent the lights that

00:58:27.260 those kinds of things, what you described as your first category. Then we have staff. And so

00:58:32.780 remuneration of the offices of the church and receiving a wage for good work being done.

00:58:40.000 And then we also have missions. So we have operations staff, and then we have missions,

00:58:45.240 and then we have, we call it ministry, missions and ministry. And the missions would be underneath

00:58:52.540 that we would have you know certain other christian churches and christian organizations

00:58:58.760 outside of our church that we would be willing to support on an ongoing basis and then for ministry

00:59:04.220 the primary ministry being benevolence a ministry of mercy so what do you think about that missions

00:59:11.120 category how would you think through that yeah so i think missions right we missions are supposed

00:59:17.000 to be sent out by the church right you're supposed to commission men to go and plant churches right

00:59:22.340 So you send out two or three witnesses to go and plant.

00:59:25.520 And so that's essentially the remuneration of officers.

00:59:28.220 You're supporting, you're just supporting the universal church.

00:59:31.420 It's very Presbyterian of you that you're seeing the money given to other local churches.

00:59:37.740 And 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.

00:59:45.600 But I think all the things you just described there are essentially things that just fit into those categories.

00:59:50.340 And because of ease for your own thinking about it in terms of the tasks, you've broken it down differently.

00:59:56.460 But, 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.

01:00:04.700 Okay.

01:00:05.320 So I don't know how we are in time.

01:00:08.300 I don't even know what time it is.

01:00:09.300 We've got a few more minutes.

01:00:11.080 Let's say maybe five more minutes.

01:00:14.200 We're coming up on an hour.

01:00:15.940 Okay.

01:00:16.160 So 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.

01:00:33.000 And they are also dealing with the public courts to deal with all the discipline stuff we just talked about.

01:00:39.780 So with the doctrine, you're going to deal with confessional standard.

01:00:44.000 You're going to deal with the fact that there's actually public teaching that has to be dealt with.

01:00:47.320 Who is the guy that's teaching and what are they teaching?

01:00:50.880 So they're assigning the teaching assignments.

01:00:53.460 And that's a true thing for the public worship itself.

01:00:56.680 But it's also be like church-sponsored teaching events when you're handing off the football.

01:01:03.700 And I would say that those should always be men that are either already elders or that are being trained for the eldership.

01:01:10.960 there's a difference between private hospitality like we talked about previously where there's

01:01:17.000 you know women can teach and there's all that kind of stuff versus the public ministry of the

01:01:22.080 church i don't mean that you can't have a conference the conference is either a privately

01:01:26.140 run conference or it's the church run conference and when you assign stuff as a church you're

01:01:30.960 always giving out a public commissioning and so that public commissioning by the church should

01:01:35.660 always be for for men who are are fit for teaching yeah um and so that's going to be officers or it's

01:01:41.820 going to be the idea of of a man who's training for office and and so so that that's the public

01:01:47.700 teaching element and then there's there's this this idea like i said of the worship so you're

01:01:53.380 carefully saying what elements exist in worship and what things are we using in it so like what

01:01:58.460 are we singing i guess is singing element of worship yes what are we to sing um you know are

01:02:04.340 there covenantal meals in worship? Yes. What covenantal meal are we to have? And in the old

01:02:09.080 covenant, there would have been a bunch of different types of covenantal meals. Whereas in the new

01:02:12.720 covenant, there's one. And so this idea of what are the elements and what do we do? What's the

01:02:19.180 matter that's being used in those? And so the tale of guarding that, when you issue some sort

01:02:28.100 of element of worship to be done, you are commanding the people to participate in that element.

01:02:34.340 And 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.

01:02:43.240 And so when we get to the last part of the government, we've talked about all the details of government there.

01:02:48.740 And so that's where you're managing things.

01:02:51.200 And 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.

01:03:01.280 We've talked about the things with the elders.

01:03:02.900 we've talked about how the congregation's role exists there. So the last part we move into is

01:03:08.420 we move into this idea of if there are disputes where you're saying that there's maladministration

01:03:13.500 in the local church, is there a court of appeal? If the dispute is between two churches, is there

01:03:19.120 a court of original jurisdiction to deal with those things? And so-

01:03:22.940 Or between two families, but that belong to two separate churches.

01:03:27.920 Right. And so there might be a case where you have something that needs to be taken

01:03:32.540 because of that to some shared court or where you have this idea of the issue is so grievous,

01:03:40.220 such a big deal or so complicated that you're taking it to a court where you've selected for

01:03:45.480 a higher degree of discernment. And so when you look at Exodus 18, Exodus 18 has this laying out

01:03:52.260 of graded courts where there's the local court has one elder per 10 households. The next court

01:03:58.420 has one elder per 50, the next is one per 100, and then there's one per 1,000. This idea of the

01:04:04.240 courts where you have officers that are elected, and then the officers, the one in 10, they choose

01:04:09.100 men, and then go to the one in 50. So you're constantly, you're selecting people that are

01:04:13.800 viewed as wise, and then the people that the wise people think are wise are selected to go to that

01:04:17.640 next level. And so, and Moses says there, in Exodus 18, there's this idea that the difficult

01:04:25.220 cases don't start at the lowest courts. They move up. And so you see this sometimes in law,

01:04:31.140 like for example, you'll have like a murder case in the civil polity. It doesn't start with like

01:04:35.520 a justice of the peace. You take it to some court of record or something like that where you've got

01:04:40.100 a judge that's at a higher level. And at the same time, you also have disputes between states and

01:04:45.560 those get dealt with in a federal court, right? So you see this being dealt with in civil polity.

01:04:50.980 In the church, we seem to have abandoned concern about those types of things.

01:04:55.320 And we kind of view church courts as, you know, we don't take minor sins to church courts,

01:05:00.000 and we don't take really big things to church courts.

01:05:02.200 We only take middle things to church courts.

01:05:04.820 And it's because we've kind of viewed the church as not competent to deal with most things.

01:05:09.700 And we don't take seriously the judgment of it.

01:05:12.820 And if we don't like a church, we just kind of run away.

01:05:15.220 As opposed to the idea of bringing the conflict, going through the courts of the church,

01:05:18.820 and trying to resolve things. So I think that when we start to realize that there's these

01:05:24.280 idea of a graded court system, that creates a context where you can deal with more serious

01:05:30.480 matters and you can start to deal with disputes between churches and to try to have a way of

01:05:36.440 trying to heal rifts. Now, you can also just turn these into like administrative nightmares that are

01:05:41.680 constantly trying to bury issues and that never want to hear them out and never want to solve

01:05:45.620 them. And frankly, most of the time when I hear about Presbyterians doing stuff, they turn them, 0.50

01:05:50.080 they turn into these bureaucratic messes. They don't make things more public. They don't resolve

01:05:54.260 things. And so it's, it's exasperating that they turn into these sort of bureaucratic machines for

01:05:59.240 handling people. And they typically seem to be defenders of the pastors rather than administers

01:06:04.680 of administrating justice. Right. And so that's an exasperating thing there. So if I were making

01:06:09.220 a case against Presbyterianism, I would point to the practical realities of the incompetency

01:06:13.280 of Presbyterian systems over the last century.

01:06:16.160 But that's my understanding of how it's supposed to be built out,

01:06:18.880 and that's kind of some of the key scriptures there.

01:06:20.540 So I don't know if you have any thoughts.

01:06:21.920 No, that's very helpful.

01:06:22.920 I was just thinking, yeah, very helpful.

01:06:24.780 I was just going to say that that's one of the most common questions

01:06:27.080 that I get as a pastor is people, and it's usually a family member,

01:06:31.220 maybe a close friend, long-time, lifelong friend.

01:06:35.900 But in most cases, it's a family member,

01:06:37.880 but a family member who does not belong to the same local church.

01:06:41.460 And so the question is, how do I follow Matthew 18 with this person who doesn't go to our church?

01:06:49.060 So it's a pastor.

01:06:50.220 I have conflict.

01:06:51.000 That's most, most pastoral questions deal with, you know, conflict.

01:06:55.480 And so it's, you know, pastor, I'm having a conflict.

01:06:58.340 I need to resolve this conflict.

01:07:00.680 I want to do so according to the scripture. 0.86

01:07:02.920 I want to do so biblically.

01:07:05.080 Like for instance, I have a meeting scheduled this week with someone who, and it's the same thing.

01:07:09.280 It's a family member.

01:07:10.100 uh the family member is in uh impenitent sin is uh they've they've tried to you know reason with

01:07:16.460 this person and call them to repentance and they're exasperated because there's no uh you

01:07:21.520 know it's just it's a a stalemate you know they say you're uh you're in sin and the person's you

01:07:26.700 know profound response is nuh-uh and that's it you know and because um they're in a biblical church

01:07:34.340 namely by the grace of god ours um but that family member is not and in some cases you know

01:07:41.360 it may be uh an unregenerate uh non-christian family member who doesn't go to church at all

01:07:45.760 but in many cases um it's even worse not better but worse because they are a part of a church but

01:07:51.100 they're part of a particularly uh bad church in some cases a false church it's heretical in some

01:07:56.780 cases a true church you know it is technically true but very immature as we were talking earlier

01:08:01.900 that doesn't practice biblical church polity and these kinds of things.

01:08:04.980 And so, you know, they say, I think you're wrong.

01:08:08.580 And they talk to me as their pastor and I hear the case and I say, okay, you know, I

01:08:14.680 think that you're actually right in this matter.

01:08:16.240 I think that you've taken the right stance.

01:08:18.360 But then their family member talks to their pastors and their pastors simply affirm them

01:08:22.320 and say, oh, you didn't do anything wrong.

01:08:24.460 And they're being legalistic, right?

01:08:26.440 That's your most common response.

01:08:27.940 they're being legalistic right because they go to a antinomian church with antinomian pastors who

01:08:33.420 you know think that the law of god is just a bunch of hogwash and uh right then then you're you're in

01:08:39.460 trouble now the reality is you know me trying to be fair as a baptist the reality is that uh for

01:08:43.940 presbyterians this happens all the time all the time oh yeah um but the question is not um pragmatically

01:08:49.820 practically uh what does occur uh the question should be in theory um in terms of the the system

01:08:55.860 itself what would occur because um because insofar as you know we're in this current uh state of

01:09:03.060 you know where the church thinking the church you know capital c you know 2 000 years into church

01:09:08.280 history at this point since uh since the time of christ and his finished work at calvary

01:09:11.920 the church uh on the whole is at a certain uh level of maturity um if let's say things continue

01:09:20.280 to progress as i believe that they will if things continue to progress in maturity and the church

01:09:24.640 sharpens and sharpens and hones and hones and matures and matures further and further would

01:09:29.340 a congregational baptist system autonomy of the local church better accommodate so there's plenty

01:09:37.320 of problems now whether you're presbyterian or baptist but in a perfected system which system

01:09:44.020 would better be able to accommodate these interpersonal conflicts that spread between

01:09:49.900 two churches and not just in one local church. And I am willing to concede and say that on face

01:09:57.320 value, the Presbyterian system has a system for dealing with that in a way that the Baptist system,

01:10:03.120 it becomes much more difficult. I appreciate that. I guess what I want to lay out for people

01:10:09.000 also is this idea that what's the goal? And if the goal is to see the church be unified in some

01:10:15.860 sort of visible way, right? That visible form, you know, you can say it's a shared government

01:10:22.520 or not. And I think the question, what I want to say is, whether you're Baptist or whether

01:10:28.140 you're Presbyterian, you need to say that the visible form of unity that manifests the invisible

01:10:34.900 unity, and the invisible unity is going to be that we have the same Holy Spirit causing us to have

01:10:40.180 the same faith so that we can achieve, we can pursue the same goal of the glory of God filling

01:10:45.080 the earth and that's going to result in a shared methodology externally of applying the law of god

01:10:51.400 toward that goal so we're going to have the same the same goal with the same methodology

01:10:56.920 right and so what's that methodology and on the corporate level um you know what you find in in

01:11:03.400 ephesians 4 is this idea that the officers work to mature the church so the church can then minister

01:11:10.440 to itself. So each of the members can. And the officers are trying to see the church matured

01:11:19.720 to the fullness of Christ. In Philippians 3, you find this idea that Paul says, look,

01:11:25.080 I haven't reached the fullness of maturity yet, but I'm striving towards greater maturity to fill

01:11:30.760 the earth with the knowledge of God. And in addition to that, those of us that are mature,

01:11:36.580 And he talks about maturity that's kind of like this ideal maturity, the fullness of Christ.

01:11:41.140 There's the maturity the church is at.

01:11:43.400 And there's some people who are there.

01:11:45.560 And then there's other people who are less mature.

01:11:47.720 And the goal is to take the less mature people and move them up to the maturity of the mature people.

01:11:54.120 And the goal is to take the mature people and see their maturity advance towards the maturity of Christ.

01:11:59.480 And so if we're seeing that, if we go, do we have any way of measuring our current levels of maturity?

01:12:06.580 And what I would posit is that we have this idea of church courts that exist to deal with

01:12:13.160 the formal external forms that are adopted by the church.

01:12:17.240 And the formal external forms include a confession of faith, which captures the maturity of

01:12:22.220 our doctrine, that we have the idea of a directory for worship to capture the maturity

01:12:29.720 of the understanding of the worship as appointed by Christ, a constitution or form of government

01:12:34.920 to know the maturity for the forms that we're supposed to have for governmental exercise.

01:12:39.820 And then you have cases of conscience that get dealt with through trials and through decisions

01:12:44.160 about how things are going to be dealt with, what's going to be considered sin or not.

01:12:48.620 So the directory of worship, the form of government, and the cases of conscience,

01:12:54.920 historically the church is talked about as canon law.

01:12:59.040 And so this idea that you're going to have ecclesiastical law where you're making determinations.

01:13:04.660 Now, the problem comes in when a confession of faith has stuff that's not in the Bible.

01:13:10.600 And the problem comes in when the canon law has stuff that's not in the Bible.

01:13:15.100 And 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.

01:13:26.760 But when there is an accurate judgment, it's sort of like when a parent makes an accurate judgment.

01:13:32.940 There's the authority of Scripture, and children need to obey Scripture.

01:13:36.120 But there's also the judgment of the parent, and children need to obey the parent.

01:13:40.380 And so the idea that the church can make determinations, there's the judgment of Scripture,

01:13:44.980 and the church has no right to judge contrary to Scripture or in addition to Scripture.

01:13:48.440 But there is still an authority of the church to make determinations, and it's a ministerial authority.

01:13:53.740 It's subordinate to the Word of God.

01:13:55.840 And so what we want to do is we want to have these outward forms,

01:13:59.300 And there's outward forms of confession, of directory for worship, of form of government,

01:14:04.140 and then cases of conscience being dealt with so we can organize it in a systematic way

01:14:08.100 and make it easier to be able to move along.

01:14:10.380 Ecclesiastes 12 deals with this idea that, look, reading books is wearisome.

01:14:14.560 There's so many books to read.

01:14:16.320 And so what the elders do in part is they consolidate down and you give something like,

01:14:21.220 you might look at the Westminster Confession or the London Baptist Confession and go,

01:14:23.600 nobody ever accused that thing of being concise.

01:14:26.220 But yeah, it is.

01:14:27.580 When you think about the amount of doctrine there, it's amazingly concise.

01:14:32.640 And if instead you wanted to go back and read, you know, you go to like chapter two of the confession and it's on God and the Trinity.

01:14:39.920 And you go, how about this?

01:14:41.360 Why 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?

01:14:50.080 Go to Nicaea.

01:14:50.940 Nicaea is concise.

01:14:52.080 It's a nice grabbing of the doctrine.

01:14:53.900 And 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.

01:15:01.120 And you do that over and over again.

01:15:02.460 The church is working to make it more concise.

01:15:06.440 So reading is wearisome if you have to read everything.

01:15:10.840 And 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.

01:15:23.900 And so this idea that there are masters of assemblies, there's moderators of church courts that help to organize that work.

01:15:30.980 And it's not just the moderator, the moderator is working to represent the whole of the court.

01:15:35.040 But you capture that into this document that becomes more efficient.

01:15:39.360 And so that's the external forms.

01:15:41.140 And so what I want to put forward is this idea that the way we capture maturation is through these external forms.

01:15:48.660 and and so a baptist is going to say that's through voluntary associations and a presbyterian

01:15:54.160 is going to say this through a church court and so i think the problem that i want to put forward

01:15:59.100 is if we both believe that acts 15 is a teaching of church councils that exist in the new covenant

01:16:06.920 era that is the work of not only apostles but elders then what we have is how do we determine

01:16:12.680 which elders get to go or do we invite td jakes or not and and so and so if we're if we're going

01:16:19.620 to have that uh that there's some determination of membership i want to posit that it's in it's

01:16:25.680 unavoidably a court that we have some way of making judicial decision as to who is in the

01:16:32.140 membership of that court and that delegated authority either comes from the local churches

01:16:37.720 or it doesn't. If it comes from the local churches, it's a function of the church.

01:16:42.220 If it's a function of the church corporately, then those things end up being courts that make

01:16:47.120 determinations. And so I want to posit that the advance of the church that's laid out for us,

01:16:52.420 that the example we have, the apostolic example, is the Presbyterian model. It's what Acts 15 gives

01:16:57.040 to us, which is a continuation of the Exodus 18 methodology of the delegation of authority to

01:17:03.060 to courts the representation all right well said uh mr reese thank you so much for coming on the

01:17:09.780 show and i'm very excited about our next conversation getting to talk about uh civil

01:17:15.240 politics taking this idea god's idea from the word and applying it beyond just the ecclesiastical

01:17:20.860 realm but saying you know as we say many times saying it once more uh jesus is um he is head

01:17:26.440 of the church but he is not merely head of the church um god has appointed him ephesians one

01:17:30.880 as ahead of all things, that Caesar in the civil realm has a God above him. And so these same kinds

01:17:38.280 of principles that we've been discussing in the church realm, God has something to say about the

01:17:42.920 civic realm as well. So for the listener, stay tuned. And in a few weeks here, you'll see us

01:17:48.760 release a next part of this continued series. Anything that you want to leave us with, Mr.

01:17:53.580 Reese, at the end of this episode? What I want people to remember is the fact that when we talk

01:18:00.080 about conflict resolution, it really matters in the details of life. If you're trying to get

01:18:04.300 anything done, it's going to result in conflict. And as you deal with conflict seriously, unless

01:18:09.200 you just throw people away as disposable, you want to go through conflict carefully. And caring

01:18:13.580 about church polity is about seeing that people are not oppressed and also seeing that conflict

01:18:17.980 isn't just left unresolved. The church government has to have the power to actually resolve conflicts.

01:18:23.120 It has to actually have also checks on it to prevent the abuse of power. And so those things

01:18:28.320 those things absolutely matter and if we if we think we're going to actually accomplish anything

01:18:33.360 for the glory of god here what we need is we need to see a methodology that we can see the advance

01:18:39.800 of it and that if there's actually going to be a greater glorifying of god in the earth across time

01:18:45.820 and there needs to be a way in which that becomes more and more visible and so i posit all that

01:18:50.800 forward and the scripture provides the answers for all those things amen that's a great way to

01:18:55.100 ended a good final word because really what we're talking about is not boring pencil pushing

01:18:59.460 and just you know ecclesiastical politics really the way that we could say it is everything we've

01:19:05.460 been talking about is about relationships it's about sustaining relations we're talking about

01:19:10.860 people we're talking about friendships how do you ensure best ensure the highest likelihood

01:19:15.600 of thriving healthy sustainable friendships that that don't fracture and dissolve easily

01:19:24.860 We're talking about covenant with people in relationship that's durable

01:19:30.000 so that we have friends that last.

01:19:32.240 We're talking about how to love, how to love people.

01:19:35.240 Amen.

01:19:36.100 All right.

01:19:36.580 Thank you so much.

01:19:37.360 And thank you, listener, for tuning in.

The NXR Podcast - May 13, 2024

THE INTERVIEW - How To Identify An Abusive Church

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