Re: Pastoral Authority....where did it come from?
 

Uh... leave that one be.

And I don't think Bryan is the type who "abused" anyone as their pastor. And there are plenty of cases where "saints" or parishioners abused the preacher. Plenty of blame to go around when you're dealing with human beings.

But the "bitterness" charge is used as a code far too often to deflect valid criticism of inappropriate behavior on the part of church leadership. Hebrews 12:15 is quoted all the time while verses like Ezekiel 34:1-10; 2 Peter 2:12-22; Jude 1:11-16 and many others are ignored.

Re: Pastoral Authority....where did it come from?
 

Honestly, I don't see the bitterness in this thread. And who mentioned the UPC? I thought we were going along having a very good discussion.

Re: Pastoral Authority....where did it come from?
 

The UPC is mentioned more often than not because it is what most of us are most familiar with. My wife spent her entire life in the AoG and has her stories as well. The most traumatic have to do with her mother dying and the way the AoG bible college in Springfield MO dealt with it (as if her mother dying wasn't traumatic enough).

Re: Pastoral Authority....where did it come from?
 

No organization was mentioned in my posts. I only mentioned that I had been reading on other apostolic forums and read about this teaching. I don't think God sees organizations. I would like to know what is considered bitterness here. This is one of the things that confuses me when I read.

Re: Pastoral Authority....where did it come from?
 

I would be interested in knowing more about this.

Re: Pastoral Authority....where did it come from?
 

Agreed.

Re: Pastoral Authority....where did it come from?
 

The two/three sentence version. The whole story is much longer and detailed.

Her mother was sick with cancer for over a year while she was in bible college, and when she died they gave her a week off (total) to come home for the funeral and deal with it. Over the next couple of weeks, she got called into the office and told through the course of the conversation that her mother had unrepentant sin in her life (as her reason for dying) and that she (my wife) needed to trust God, get over it, and get back to her studies.

This is why I react somewhat harshly to the no-doctors-allowed people among us who blame all of life's losses, sickness, and hardships on unrepentant sin. Even those who blame a woman's CUT hair.............

Re: Pastoral Authority....where did it come from?
 

If God has given you the grace and the brain to move on to another place, more power to ya.
If you don't like where you're at and you stay put... that's your stupidity...

And the blame goes in both directions. I can tell ya some stories, but I will not. Not in a public setting.
Anyway, I wasn't exactly a saint. I'd imagine I was rather difficult to pastor.

Re: Pastoral Authority....where did it come from?
 

If we don't give forgiveness to those who have done us wrong we will never be able to move on with life. Yes, those in our past owed us something different than what we got and yes, there are many innocent people who are hurt but until we can forgive we will allow those pastors that we escaped from many years ago to rule our lives.

I never really experienced my Pastor being abusive or controlling my life. Moreover, it was the culture of my church and the ignorance of the church that I was raised in that contributed to more "issues" than anything else. I wanted to please my pastor and my family but just couldn't seem to "fake" the pentecostal experience good enough to be accepted.

I just thank God that he has brought me out. I don't blame or hold any grudges towards the folks that I once was a part. For 27 years it was like I was in a weird dream and the last year and half has been true happiness and fulfillment.

Re: Pastoral Authority....where did it come from?
 

I must apologize. I was the first to bring up the UPC. I only have experience with the UPC so it stems from that. Before the UPC I was "unchurched".

And you are right - this is NOT exclusive to the UPC.

Please forgive me!