Christian Forums and Message Board

    Any principle or practice we introduce in our assemblies that either denies or interferes with the reciprocity of all believers, such as our “one another” exchanges or joint participation, as the scriptures define it, is a grave innovation.

    We ought to be reminded that if a congregation can import a religious “celebrity” and pay him a big salary to do all or most of the public speaking, the same congregation can import another man and pay him a healthy salary to do all of the singing, and still another to do all of the praying. Well, you get the idea. The principle that allows one allows the others.

    To state it more explicitly, if importing specialists to feed the flock is heaven’s way, all of our gifts can be performed by proxy. As a result, all we need do is warm a pew and wait till heaven arrives. For, after all, we’re paying others to do our ministries. The universal biblical principle, found throughout, is that in the assembly of the saints, all gifts are to be shared mutually. The “hired hand” interferes with and disrupts this principle.

    Do you suppose Paul had the professional minister or priest in mind when he told the Roman believers they were “able to instruct one another” [Rom. 15:14]? Surely he was not referring to a one-man instructor! And was Paul coming off the wall with a lot of nonsense when he told the believers at Colosse they were to “teach and admonish one another” [Col. 3:16]? The one-man admonisher was nowhere to be found. We have invented and devised a bogus function within the body of believers.

    In the early assemblies, there was a mutual exchange of praises, teaching, sharing, and singing. No one person did it all. The Thessalonians were told to “encourage one another and build each other up, just as in fact you are doing” [1 Thess. 5:11]. When we substitute this “one another” arrangement with a counterfeit “strategy” like the bigwig Protestant Pastor or the “Fatherly” Catholic Priest, we are guilty of disrupting heaven’s blueprint for spiritual growth. It would be difficult to avoid this conclusion.


    ENDNOTE— My hunch is that a few of you will not agree with a few of the precepts advocated here, but that will not, or at least should not, sever our relationship in Christ.—Buff.

Good points, Buff and Red.  I agree with you. 

I do strongly support whoever is leading a congregation (and biblically that is ALWAYS a plurality) getting well educated.  But as it says in Ephesians, those leaders are to EQUIP the congregants to do the WORK OF SERVICE, not do it for them. (Ephesians 4:12)

RB:

    "I will say this: if a person gives themselves totally to the ministry, then, in whatever capacity they do so, ( as far as teaching, preaching, watching over the flock of God )  they should be taken care of by the church/believers. Their needs should be the burden of other believers to supply, and if true believers, they would cheerfully do so."

    Yes, the scriptures teach that a man whose function is to lead and shepherd the flock - that is, he's an elder or overseer or shepherd, he should be financially supported, especially if he is giving all or most of his time to laboring in this area of leadership. This, of course, does not refer to the hired hand, the cleric, who is imported from the outside to oversee a body of believers he is not even akin to.

Thanks for your kindly remarks,

Buff

Texas Ranger:

    Mostly good remarks, but about Timothy, his function was an evangelist, someone who not only established congregations of saints, but who taught within and led them until men from within were qualified to lead and shepherd, at which time they were appointed to the position of formal leadership. Timothy was never a modern-day "hired hand," however.

Kindly,

Buff [Arizona Ranger]

RB:

I'm not personally acquainted with 4WD. Sorry.

Buff

As To Ranger-ism:

    Yep, that's what he tried to convince me of, too!! At least he was trying to be logical. 

"Arizona Ranger" - Middle name for Reformer