Quote:
Originally Posted by Evang.Benincasa
Sometimes it is supported by good reasoning. Most of the time it has verses peppered throughout. Yet, it is group supported and group ENFORCED.
Going Biblical or Religious is not complex, it is elders introduced and it is group enforced. Whether it is sound or whether it is utter madness.
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I understand that. But pretend you are a young soon-to-be pastor-in-training. The elder(s) have taught you Scripture, and you have been helped along in developing your call to shepherd the flock. And they said to you "Now here is how you make rules and regulations and standards for the flock to follow that aren't written in the Word, and here is how you help to make sure you don't go off the rails." What exactly would you have been taught in that regard?
And the flock, how are they to judge these pastoral guidelines as being of God vs not of God? In such a way that their judgment is not mere personal opinion or rebellion?
I havent yet seen a church that took a vote on standards, it is always either the pastor preaches "XYZ" along with "As the pastor I am authorised to set XYZ in place and you are expected to submit." Or else XYZ was in place before the pastor showed up and anyone joining the church family just adapts to "the way we believe and do things here."
I have also encountered a wide spread belief that God ordains pastors to the specific function of making rules that God inspires him to deliver to that specific group of congregants, and failure to obey them is failure to obey God. The idea being essentially that "you need a pastor to be saved because that's his role, to make the decisions in your life about things like how long your sleeves are to be, skirt length, hair up or down, tv vs monitors vs internet vs whatever, no open toed shoes, whether you can move out of town or not, and to vet anything you studied on your own". Not everywhere, or to the same degree, but I have encountered that basic approach in a few places.
But how does a pastor discover he has that prerogative, and what regulates its exercise?
Are we all just flying by the seat of the pastor's pants?
Furthermore,
Did not God legislate Israel's law, and forbad the adding or subtraction to and from that law, and yet also ordained the appointment of elders and judges who were expected to wisely administer that law, and make applications to new circumstances as they arose? And was this function not transferred to the apostles, and beyond them to the presbytery and overseers of the churches?
As is often the case, it seems both sides of the debate might be missing something?