E.B. wrote in the conclusion portion of his last post to Rico…
My general reaction to the spirit of this quoted portion is AMEN, wise counsels.
The odd part that seems to contradict itself is that E.B. has identified PASTOR as the wheel in the middle of the wheel. I feel confident to say (subject of course to any clarification from him), E.B. is advancing a view that a PASTOR is a SINGLE person in somebody’s life. This despite his eloquent and thoughtful acknowledgement that very little is prosperous in God when constrained within one singular VESSEL.
How did PASTOR make it to such a singular preeminent spiritual gifting when certainly everyone can acknowledge Apostles, prophets, evangelists and teachers as also being the wisdom of God for the edification of his own body?
My vision for the body of Christ is this:
Note: To set up the scene I ask you consider (get in your mind’s eye) three things:
1. The neighborhood you live in
2. The original construct of the UPCI in 1948.
3. The US Constitution (A Federal government established to protect individual and State’s rights)
Shared experiences and desired outcomes unite us in a willingness to forego individual liberties and submit ourselves to joining together to achieve something that could not be experienced separately. That is good because it is good when men do not strive, but instead, submit themselves one to another so that the whole can exceed its parts. That is what a neighborhood does. Public water, public roads, public air, public civility, is served by the common needs having a vast plurality of resources contributing to establish and maintain these ‘quality of life’ issues.
That is what God has provided his church.
Every member of God’s Kingdom should experience life in Christ as a member-minister joining the UPCI in 1948. We are vastly different in the specifics of our callings and elections, but we share in those things established in the principles of the doctrine of Christ. An assembly of priests; everyone called to fellowship with God on his Holy Mountain. No one with a preeminent seat because the diversity of the body is established in service to the body not in RULE. Let he that is greatest among all of these, be servant to all.
God has provided this to the members of his body.
Our constitution was established to protect the liberties of the individual while seeking to provide a means to serve the COMMON needs that a nation of states would face.
The preamble:
We the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.
How many words will go into amendments for a TV advertisement resolution today? In such few words the agreement for the common/shared realm is enumerated in the above quote that will inherently embody the securing of the blessings of liberty to ourselves.
That is what God has intended for the fellowship of his Saints.
Our present delivery system of men who declare themselves to be “pastors by call from God” does not insure and protect individual liberties.
But if we, AS INDIVIDUALS, are empowered to make the decision to forego (submit) our own liberty for the greater common cause, then individual liberty is fully maintained while the common cause is served.
Ephesians 4:11 is about God-supplied gifts to serve the shared experience, to administer God’s counsels for the constitution (so to speak) of his own body. His Spirit will do the work and when his Spirit is working in these areas their will be a manifestation of 1 or more of those ministrations.
We need to decide what WE AS INDIVIDUALS share as common goals. When we leave our private or individual lives and enter into the common/shared realm, we need to have agreement about how the giftings provided by God for such matters operate.
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I included E.B.’s PeeWee Herman reference above. If it is possible that we could be receiving counsels to OBEY the PeeWee Herman that God has placed OVER us, there is a foundational error in the premise of the delivery system.
At this point everyone seems to have their own image of what a PASTOR is (and should be) based on experience with a system of member-ministers in an organization of men. I DO NOT believe that the SUPERMAJORITY of men who call themselves PASTOR have a PASTOR in their life that operates in the quantity and specificity that the local guy does with what he thinks are HIS SHEEP. If they did, we are truly a denomination. The dynamic unfolding at Tampa as I type this is pretty much, proof-positive, that at least 50% of the voting members there do not believe they joined a denomination.
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