Anarchy sounds like a great idea at first. If if feels good, just do it. We are all adults, aren’t we? God is the only one who can tell me what to do. That is my own personal, private business. Who are you to tell me what to do? Worry about yourself, buddy. All these thoughts and mindsets have been replaying themselves in my head for what seems like my whole life. I can honestly say that I am often a rebel without a clue. I usually love sitting in the back of a classroom. (being married, my wife loves the front, so we sit in the middle so neither of us can be happy…) At 13 years old, both my mother and teachers were ready to launch me into space to do some experiments for NASA. So, no, I have not always appreciated having accountability and leaders at church.
Our individualistic, Western oriented church has demanded our independence, especially since the 60’s and 70’s movements. Reading through much of the “why the church must change or die” literature, I feel often like I am at a Occupy Seattle rally. I am not sure who the “man” is, but I am not going to swallow that pill and fall trap to the “system”. Stop trying to get me to join your church’s small groups, where I am sure that someone will ask me how my spiritual life is going and want me to set and stick to any kind of goal for my growth in Jesus. However, once again, that pesky New Testament will be hard to deal with carrying around this kind of attitude.
God has placed leadership in the church to provide accountability as well as make decisions that will determine the vision and programs of the body. We can’t even make it past Acts 6 without seeing the early church’s leadership engaging in both functions (there are many more things that church leaders do, but these are the ones I believe we struggle with). In Acts 5, God uses Peter to hold Ananias and Sapphira accountable. Thankfully, most cases of church discipline are NOT this extreme. In the very next chapter, the church leadership has to settle a dispute between the Hebrews and Hellenists over the widow list. The resulting decision created a whole new role in the church that today we call deacons (servants). If either side was displeased with the decision that the apostles made, Acts doesn’t mention it but it is hard to believe at least one person wasn’t still grouchy.
1 and 2 Corinthians are full of examples on how Paul expected church leadership to deal with problems that he had heard reported on. From division and disunity (chapters 1 -4), sexual immorality and lawsuits (chapter 5 – 6), divorce (chapter 7), and all the way to issues with the resurrection (chapter 15), Paul was disturbed that church leaders in Corinth were either not addressing the issues, or were actually causing them! Sometimes today, we are so worried about not being “judgmental”, that our tolerance is then taken as moral indifference or relativism. Of course, all believers are ultimately accountable to God, then to each fellow believer (Matthew 18:15-17), but He places responsibility on elders in the church to deal with members who refuse to repent.
This is one of the reasons that God places such high expectations and qualifications on church leaders as we saw in Titus 1:5-9 and 1 Timothy 3:1-13. We can’t expect them to be perfect and without their own sin that needs accountability, but Jesus sure expects that they aren’t new believers or people with habitual sin in their lifestyles. As we stated before also, it is a group leadership, yet they have to make very important decisions at times. In Acts 15, the early church leaders met together in a council to determine the requirements on Gentiles when they became Christians. This decision easily was one of the most important ones they made, yet I don’t see them having all church members vote on this. The majority ruling doesn’t always lead to godliness (once again, thank you America for the example).
Thankfully, in addition to accountability and decision making, God has given the church leaders for things we usually do like: pastoral care and teaching to name two. I must stress though that just like with accountability, it is not solely the leaders’ role. Just as we hold each other accountable as fellow believers, God uses gifts of pastoral care and teaching through the whole body. In our next post, we will start to discuss the role of teaching in the church. In order to do that however, we will have to dive into the fun world of what should our church meetings (often called the worship service) look like. That should be fun. Until then, let us search our own hearts for attitudes of individualism, pride, or rebelliousness that have no place in Christ. I need to be reminded that my unwillingness to trust leaders as well as not being open to correction is often most detrimental to me. And I care about me after all.
The Bible Nerd 