The Church: Leadership (part 13)

This series will be looking at the concepts a church leadership
and then what many people consider to be the “offices” that
comprise that leadership structure. But the glaring question we
need to ask is “Are these offices or simply people using their god
given gifts?” Today’s leadership structures in the church are based
on the contemporary hierarchical and positional mindset. By
contrast we would believe that the New Testament vision is that of
a functional mindset. Positional thinking is hung up on nouns,
while functional thinking stresses verbs. Jesus on Hierarchy and
Positional Authority Matt 20:25-28; Luke 22:25-26; Matt 23:8-12
Jesus comes against both the worldly view of hierarchical power and
the religious view of positional authority. Why? Because they stunt
the organic nature of his body. They impede the functioning of the
gifts when just the “professionals” do all the “kingdom work”. And
they create a 2-class system in the church. No King but Christ 1
Sam 8 The text is about Israel rejecting God and wanting to be like
the world. There can be applications in this for both the world and
the church. Originally the people of Israel were called to be a
kingdom of priests with Yahweh as their king. The church is given
this same calling- a kingdom of priests with God as their king,
Israel is a type and shadow of the church today. It was never God’s
plan for humans to rule over other humans. We often want early
rulers in the forms of government leaders and also in the church in
the forms of “church leadership/pastors/bishops/etc. The placement
of a human positional authority over God’s people is equal to a
rejection of God and worship of other gods according to the text
(v7-8). Submission Eph 5:21 Biblical submission has nothing to do
with hierarchy, control, or power. It is simply a voluntary
yielding to one another. The biblical word to submit is hypotasso.
It does not mean to obey. Hypakouo is the word for obey and it is
never used in the NT for any leader in the church or even of the
government. The only one we obey is God. Authority (exousia) has to
do with the communication of power. Scripture teaches that God is
the sole source of all authority (Rom. 13:1). And this authority
has been vested in His Son (Matt. 28:18; John 3:30–36; 17:2). All
authority belongs to Jesus. Authority is organic and based on
character, spiritual gifts, and maturity. 1 Cor 16:15-18; Phil
2:29-30; 1 Thes 5:12-13; 1 Tim 5:17; Heb 13:7; 1 Pet 5:5 Spiritual
Covering Covering is only mentioned one time in the NT and is
grossly misinterpreted. 1 Cor 11:10-12 An important linguistic note
is that “a symbol of” is not in the text. It’s not saying that a
veil is a sign of being under someone’s “covering”. The Greek is
specific here that a women has authority over her own head.
“Authority” is in the grammatical feminine as well as “head”.
Meaning the authority belongs to the one whose head the are talking
about (the women). It’s saying that the women are on equal standing
in the church. Verses 11-12 confirm this… women and man are
dependent on each other and all things are under God. God is the
only authority The bible consistently consigns accountability to
God (Matt. 12:36; 18:23; Luke 16:2; Rom. 3:19; 14:12; 1 Cor. 4:5;
Heb. 4:13; 13:17; 1 Peter 4:5). So if the laymen is “covered” by
the pastor who is “covered” by the denomination, mother church, or
higher-ranking Christian leader. They are protected as the theory
goes… but can you see where it falls apart? We need to ask who
covers the mother church, denomination, or the influential leader?
Some will say God covers them. Now do you see the bigger problem if
we are the priesthood of believers? We’ve put a middleman and
mediator between us and God. A better view of Leadership and
Authority These are usually described in verbs and not nouns in the
NT. It’s about gifting not offices. So, when someone is using their
gift of “elder-ing”, “pastor-ing”, “teach-ing” they are d