Everybody must have a pastor?

[votivesoul]

The trouble that has arisen in the movement is the conflation of the the pastoral gifting with the other four giftings. The "pastor" has become the catch-all term for the entire ministry.

Many of the instructions Paul gave to Timothy and Titus were not instructions telling those men how to be good pastors. Timothy and Titus were not pastors. They were apostles. They appointed bishops and elders (i.e. pastors) according to the qualifications Paul gave them.

But what we've done is, we've read the badly called "pastoral epistles" and have assumed that the local pastor or pastors of an assembly are supposed to be doing the very things Paul told Timothy and Titus to do. This isn't so. Those instructions are for Apostles.

There are many men in the movement with real invitations from the Lord to be Apostle or Prophets or Evangelists, and they keep trying to be "pastors" because they and much of the movement with them, don't know how to separate the gifts into their respective categories.

But, because of the conflation, much confusion has arisen, and now, sadly, many people, without realizing it, read Ephesians 2:20 to read like this:

20. And are built upon the foundation of the [pastors] and [district officials]...

I think it meet to say that those posting here that seem, in the minds of some, to be anti-pastor are not really anti-pastor. Rather, we want to keep the proper New Testament perspective. We want to see the foundation restored. Power, or authority, for lack of a better word, doesn't belong to the pastor, it belongs to Apostles and Prophets.

1 Corinthians 12:28,

28. And God hath set some in the church, first apostles, secondarily prophets, thirdly teachers, after that miracles, then gifts of healings, helps, governments, diversities of tongues.

Governments, or pilotage, is second to last on this list. And yet, the Apostolic Church gives great precedent to speaking in tongues and to governments. The system is backwards.

But there are those of us, having seen it, are trying by the grace of God to right the ship, before it's too late.