The way to deal with differences within the church!

[carlos123]

This morning, as I read through some of Acts asking the Lord to speak to me whatever He might want to say, I was particularly struck by something that I wanted to bring up for discussion.

I am not saying that what I say next is of the Lord necessarily...only that I want to discuss it so that I can discern what the Lord's heart on the matter is better than I could by myself. That presupposes that I may not be seeing things entirely correct so bear that in mind as you read the rest of this post.

The Lord seemed to speak to me about how disputes within the church should be handled. Doctrinal disputes.

Before I share what He seemed to lay on my heart let me digress just a bit to lay out what I believe is the modern way of handling such disputes for contrast with what I read in the New Testament.

Modern churches believe certain doctrines. Many times those doctrines define what the church is about in part if not in whole and the core doctrines are often found in doctrinal statements put out by the church. Statements of faith if you will.

The church leaders teach those doctrines. Any deviation from those doctrines is discouraged if not outright frowned upon or not allowed. Anyone who comes along and starts teaching something contrary to those doctrines without the blessing of the church leaders is considered rebellious and one who causes division.

Challenges to such doctrinal beliefs cannot happen publicly but must be brought to leadership in private. For their careful consideration. If they decide that the challenge has no biblical basis the challenge is not allowed to make it past them and ends right there.

It is a very rare thing for challenges to established church doctrine to go anywhere within established leadership. Established leadership rarely if ever changes their mind about established church doctrine.

Today's churches tend to relegate the teaching task to one man. Mostly if not entirely the Head Pastor. Though many churches do have other Pastors such as an assistant Pastor who teaches sometimes or may even bring in an outside speaker, such is not the norm. Usually the Head Pastor handles most of the teaching.

Any such teaching from anyone other than the Head Pastor must conform to established church doctrine or it is not allowed. Only men who can confidently be counted on to teach that which lines up with church doctrine are allowed to teach.

Churches that have home groups do have home group leaders that teach there too but most such leaders only teach what is in line with what was preached on the previous Sunday or use an outline that has been pre-approved by church leadership in line with their goals for the flock. The home group usually just cements or expands upon what has been taught on the previous Sunday. Deviation from established church doctrine is not allowed.

That has been my experience of church throughout the years and I believe it accurately reflects the norm within churches as to how they handle doctrinal purity and doctrinal differences and disputes.

Let's look at some of the fruit of this modern way of handling doctrinal differences and disputes.

Conformity - there is conformity to doctrine within the local church. Any non-conformity does not rise up to cause a problem. This is NOT to say that there is unity of belief! Only conformity (even if just outward in some) to established church doctrine as taught by church leadership.

Division - at first glance one might conclude that conformity should lead to less division and not more but the approach I have briefly described above actually leads to more. Why? Because anyone coming along and being led of the Spirit to believe differently than established church doctrine has one of two choices. Suppress what the Spirit has laid on their heart or go find another church. If they can't find another church that lines up with what the Spirit has led them to believe they go start their own (which new church will almost invariably revolve around the doctrines of the person who starts it in turn).

Pride - the above approach to doctrinal differences can (NOT will) lead to pride on the part of church leaders whose beliefs go unchallenged. Some become very set in their ways and cease to have a teachable spirit before the Lord. A humble spirit that will learn even from a donkey (remember Balaam's donkey who spoke to the prophet) if God should want to speak through such.

That is just some of the fruit that comes to mind which leads me to ask...is the modern approach biblical?

I'll continue in another post later as time permits but if anyone has anything to say about what I said above I am eager to hear it.

Carlos

[xero]

If anyone is averse to the testing of spirits then they arent worth listening to especially if they espouse false doctrines. Ive never seen anyone concede that a doctrine they preach is false even with a mountain of scripture that proves otherwise.

Pride is a strange beast that prefers to maintain a lie rather than actually be right.

[Zemke]

What begins in the Spirit many times continues on in the flesh. One of the more dificult things to face is good intensions. We try to play it safe, or protect what the Lord is doing, and we set teachings in place to do so. The lack of further understanding is many times the reason for our blunders. The teaching of the gifts of the Spirit not being for today is one of these doctrinal teachings. This came out of the reformation and we could only imagine what those guys were up against. A huge state church so they formed their own state church, mistake, but would we have done any diferent?. And to protect or react against the spiritual claims of the Roman church they simply said we have the bible, it's complete and perfect so we do not need the gifts, they were obviously only for the early church. (simply stated)

With all the crazy Benny Hynn and others, Toronto blessing, Pennsycola etc. many churches today do the same thing only they do not want to deny the gifts as a whole so they say something like "Well what we can see is Pastor teacher so lets just go with that." A semi gifts type teaching. And if you were to try and explain the gifts past this you would be watched closely. Something like this could cause a dispute and as Carlos has mentioned would bring a hammer down from the top man and the church is back to square one.

Good intensions, I wonder if Adam was simply well intended when he added "or touch it". Then build a fence then a mote but someone would eventually swim and climb and eat. Hard to discern when caught up in religion what the Lord really says. What begins in the Spirit continues in the flesh.

.

[Guest]

Good intensions, I wonder if Adam was simply well intended when he added "or touch it".

.

I wonder if it was simply good intentions to assume that Adam added anything, and not eve:

2The woman said to the serpent, “From the fruit of the trees of the garden we may eat; 3but from the fruit of the tree which is in the middle of the garden, God has said, ‘You shall not eat from it or touch it, or you will die.’”

Just teasing!

[enoob57]

This morning, as I read through some of Acts asking the Lord to speak to me whatever He might want to say, I was particularly struck by something that I wanted to bring up for discussion.

I am not saying that what I say next is of the Lord necessarily...only that I want to discuss it so that I can discern what the Lord's heart on the matter is better than I could by myself. That presupposes that I may not be seeing things entirely correct so bear that in mind as you read the rest of this post.

The Lord seemed to speak to me about how disputes within the church should be handled. Doctrinal disputes.

Before I share what He seemed to lay on my heart let me digress just a bit to lay out what I believe is the modern way of handling such disputes for contrast with what I read in the New Testament.

Modern churches believe certain doctrines. Many times those doctrines define what the church is about in part if not in whole and the core doctrines are often found in doctrinal statements put out by the church. Statements of faith if you will.

The church leaders teach those doctrines. Any deviation from those doctrines is discouraged if not outright frowned upon or not allowed. Anyone who comes along and starts teaching something contrary to those doctrines without the blessing of the church leaders is considered rebellious and one who causes division.

Challenges to such doctrinal beliefs cannot happen publicly but must be brought to leadership in private. For their careful consideration. If they decide that the challenge has no biblical basis the challenge is not allowed to make it past them and ends right there.

It is a very rare thing for challenges to established church doctrine to go anywhere within established leadership. Established leadership rarely if ever changes their mind about established church doctrine.

Today's churches tend to relegate the teaching task to one man. Mostly if not entirely the Head Pastor. Though many churches do have other Pastors such as an assistant Pastor who teaches sometimes or may even bring in an outside speaker, such is not the norm. Usually the Head Pastor handles most of the teaching.

Any such teaching from anyone other than the Head Pastor must conform to established church doctrine or it is not allowed. Only men who can confidently be counted on to teach that which lines up with church doctrine are allowed to teach.

Churches that have home groups do have home group leaders that teach there too but most such leaders only teach what is in line with what was preached on the previous Sunday or use an outline that has been pre-approved by church leadership in line with their goals for the flock. The home group usually just cements or expands upon what has been taught on the previous Sunday. Deviation from established church doctrine is not allowed.

That has been my experience of church throughout the years and I believe it accurately reflects the norm within churches as to how they handle doctrinal purity and doctrinal differences and disputes.

Let's look at some of the fruit of this modern way of handling doctrinal differences and disputes.

Conformity - there is conformity to doctrine within the local church. Any non-conformity does not rise up to cause a problem. This is NOT to say that there is unity of belief! Only conformity (even if just outward in some) to established church doctrine as taught by church leadership.

Division - at first glance one might conclude that conformity should lead to less division and not more but the approach I have briefly described above actually leads to more. Why? Because anyone coming along and being led of the Spirit to believe differently than established church doctrine has one of two choices. Suppress what the Spirit has laid on their heart or go find another church. If they can't find another church that lines up with what the Spirit has led them to believe they go start their own (which new church will almost invariably revolve around the doctrines of the person who starts it in turn).

Pride - the above approach to doctrinal differences can (NOT will) lead to pride on the part of church leaders whose beliefs go unchallenged. Some become very set in their ways and cease to have a teachable spirit before the Lord. A humble spirit that will learn even from a donkey (remember Balaam's donkey who spoke to the prophet) if God should want to speak through such.

That is just some of the fruit that comes to mind which leads me to ask...is the modern approach biblical?

I'll continue in another post later as time permits but if anyone has anything to say about what I said above I am eager to hear it.

Carlos

The paths are in the Ancient, both of path and 'The Ancient of days'....

Da 7:9-10

9 "I watched till thrones were put in place,

And the Ancient of Days was seated;

His garment was white as snow,

And the hair of His head was like pure wool.

His throne was a fiery flame,

Its wheels a burning fire;

10 A fiery stream issued

And came forth from before Him.

A thousand thousands ministered to Him;

Ten thousand times ten thousand stood before Him.

The court was seated,

And the books were opened.

NKJV

Jer 18:15

15 "Because My people have forgotten Me,

They have burned incense to worthless idols.

And they have caused themselves to stumble in their ways,

From the ancient paths,

To walk in pathways and not on a highway,

NKJV

Ecc 1:9

9 That which has been is what will be,

That which is done is what will be done,

And there is nothing new under the sun.

NKJV

By God's explanation of things God does not encourage us to seek the new and improved but that which is now ancient in established truth

Genesis - Revelation and as the great seal says Rev 22 nothing added and nothing taken away ...

Love, Steven

[Zemke]

Good intensions, I wonder if Adam was simply well intended when he added "or touch it".

.

I wonder if it was simply good intentions to assume that Adam added anything, and not eve:

2The woman said to the serpent, “From the fruit of the trees of the garden we may eat; 3but from the fruit of the tree which is in the middle of the garden, God has said, ‘You shall not eat from it or touch it, or you will die.’”

Just teasing!

lol, Ya I thought of that when I wrote it. You see how easy we slide.

[Guest]

Modern churches believe certain doctrines. Many times those doctrines define what the church is about in part if not in whole and the core doctrines are often found in doctrinal statements put out by the church. Statements of faith if you will.

The church leaders teach those doctrines. Any deviation from those doctrines is discouraged if not outright frowned upon or not allowed. Anyone who comes along and starts teaching something contrary to those doctrines without the blessing of the church leaders is considered rebellious and one who causes division.

Challenges to such doctrinal beliefs cannot happen publicly but must be brought to leadership in private. For their careful consideration. If they decide that the challenge has no biblical basis the challenge is not allowed to make it past them and ends right there.

It is a very rare thing for challenges to established church doctrine to go anywhere within established leadership. Established leadership rarely if ever changes their mind about established church doctrine.

That has been my experience of church throughout the years and I believe it accurately reflects the norm within churches as to how they handle doctrinal purity and doctrinal differences and disputes.

Carlos

Hi Carlos,

I just wanted to comment on the quotes above. I have been a Christian for only 33 years, and in that time I have attached myself to only 3 local fellowships. In the first one, I was too new to know enough to challenge or question church doctrine, so I never did. At the second one, I challenged the head pastor's understanding and teaching three times, each time, I wrote a letter. The letter approach, has the advantage that you suggested, of doing this in private, not public. When you keep it private, there little or no embarrassment, and less tendency to get defensive. Also, there is the advantage of being able to put all of your thoughts together, with the appropriate bible verses, to present your case without interruption. This same advantage is then given to the pastor, who can respond in kind. Writing, gives a person the time he/she needs to consider what has been said, better than having to respond verbally in real time. By presenting your case in writing, you force your reader to be a Berean (Acts 17:11). If your case is a good case, and well exegeted, and your pastor is truly interested in what God has to say, you create a good learning opportunity for your pastor, and likely he will appreciate your efforts and thoughts if you present your case according the guidlines of 1 Pet 3:15, with gentleness and reverance.

In the third church (my current church), I have also challenged or made comments on points of doctrine, twice. In these two cases, I went to the pastor personally, and told him I had a different take, and if he would care to see why, I offered my written exposition.

The results? In that second church, all three times, the pastor changed his view. In one of those cases, he mentioned in the next weeks' sermon: "Thanks to a certain watchdog in the congregation, I have to report that I taught in error last Sunday, and my new understanding is . . . . "

I don't know what you think about that, but my reaction was, that if a man is humble and teachable, he will learn much, and if he will learn much, he will be a bettter teacher, and someone I can trust to value God's word above an agenda or preconceived notions.

In that third church, the pastor has not (yet, lol) changed his mind regarding one my doctrinal challenges. That is okay, it was not a critical issue. If it were, I would likely find a new church, RATHER than cause division. We need to recognize, that God may have a hand in puting a pastor where he is, and God can remove him as well. No matter how convinced we are in our own minds, that we are scripturally correct on a point, there is always the possibility that the other person is likewise convinved on scriptural grounds of another conclusion. How do we know that we are the correct one? Both can claim study and understanding and leading of the Spirit etc, so we need to tread carefully, especially on critical doctrines.

In the other instance where I challenged the pastor, the result was that he modified the statement of faith of the church, again, demonstrating an openess to hear, and a teachability.

As you can see, my limited experiences differ from yours, so I do not know if it is "a very rare thing for challenges to established church doctrine to go anywhere within established leadership".

However, it is my opinion, that IT SHOULD BE A RARE THING. I would hate to attend a church where the leadership is tossed here and there by waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine (Eph 4:14). Hopefully, a pastor has studied the word of God a long time, and has come to a stable sense of what proper church doctrine should be, if not, what business does he have in the pulpit? BTW, that whole chapter 4 of Ephesians is a good read.

Some of the issues involved in this topic, I have previously written about in my blog, here if you care to see it. Thanks for the interesting topic.

[amor]

Come to a Quaker meeting we, at least in traditional meetings, have no hierachy of pastors. We come together as equals and all regardless of age or gender have to minister if they feel called to do so.

[gdemoss]

Come to a Quaker meeting we, at least in traditional meetings, have no hierachy of pastors. We come together as equals and all regardless of age or gender have to minister if they feel called to do so.

Not so here to the Quaker church I went to. I had no idea that structure was in the Quaker church.

Gary

[carlos123]

Gosh...I came here to say some things and wow! I didn't know so many had responded. I have to figure out how to get notice of replies again as I am not getting any.

Anyway I wanted to add a bit more to what I said now that I have a bit more free time today.

The last couple of days I have been reading 1 Samuel and the Lord seemed to speak to me both days in line with this topic. Here is what I got in my reading.

Eli (I think he was the High Priest back then...though I am not sure of that) was a priest before God at the beginning of 1 Samuel. I would like to point out a couple of things about this man. Outwardly he was seemingly right with God.

Note the following verses...

1 Samuel 1:17

Then Eli answered and said, “ Go in peace; and may the God of Israel grant your petition that you have asked of Him.”

1 Samuel 2:20

Then Eli would bless Elkanah and his wife and say, “May the Lord give you children from this woman in place of the one she dedicated to the Lord.”

1 Samuel 3:8

Then Eli discerned that the Lord was calling the boy. ⁹ And Eli said to Samuel, “Go lie down, and it shall be if He calls you, that you shall say, ‘Speak, Lord, for Your servant is listening.’”

1 Samuel 3:18

And he said, “ It is the Lord; let Him do what seems good to Him.”

1 Samuel 4:13

When he came, behold, Eli was sitting on his seat by the road eagerly watching, because his heart was trembling for the ark of God.

Here was a man who was presumably surrendered to the sovereign will of God. Who blessed others in the name of God. Who was concerned about the Ark of God as a priest should be. Who instructed others regarding how to listen to God (i.e. instructed Samuel). Outwardly Eli was a good "church" leader you could say.

But...there was something wrong.

1 Samuel 2:29

Why do you kick at My sacrifice and at My offering which I have commanded in My dwelling, and honor your sons above Me, by making yourselves fat with the choicest of every offering of My people Israel?’

Eli did not restrain his sons who did evil in the sight of the Lord. As such he participated with them in sinning against the Lord.

The result was that God said...

1 Samuel 2:35

But I will raise up for Myself a faithful priest who will do according to what is in My heart and in My soul; and I will build him an enduring house, and he will walk before My anointed always.

I say all that to say this. Church leaders may be wonderful on the outside. They may appear to be righteous and many may indeed be so but what is most important is not what they appear to be but whether they have a heart to do according to all that is on God's heart and in His soul!!

The problem today I think is that many church leaders do not have such a heart at all!

This is not a post meant to knock down church leaders. Rather it is important to lay out the truth that in regard to dealing with church conflicts how it is done today is not nearly as relevant or important as how God wants it done is!

We MUST desire what the Lord desires in regarding to this or any other issue above ANY church traditions that we live under!

That is the NUMBER ONE thing to get right in our hearts before we even look at this issue further.

Do we want what God wants in this? Are we willing to change? To have our understanding of how to properly deal with differences of doctrine be turned topsy turvy if God wills that it be so?

If you are a church leader are you willing to even lose church members to stand on what God wants done? To lose jobs as Pastors if churches chose to kick you out for standing on truth?

THAT is where church leaders MUST be in attitude if what God wants done in this is to be implemented.

Another thing I got from my reading...

1 Samuel 8:4-8

Then all the elders of Israel gathered together and came to Samuel at Ramah; ⁵ and they said to him, “Behold, you have grown old, and your sons do not walk in your ways. Nowappoint a king for us to judge us like all the nations.” ⁶ But the thing was displeasing in the sight of Samuel when they said, “Give us a king to judge us.” And Samuel prayed to the Lord.⁷ The Lord said to Samuel, “Listen to the voice of the people in regard to all that they say to you, for they have not rejected you, but they have rejected Me from being king over them.⁸ Like all the deeds which they have done since the day that I brought them up from Egypt even to this day—in that they have forsaken Me and served other gods—so they are doing to you also.

1 Samuel 8:19

Nevertheless, the people refused to listen to the voice of Samuel, and they said, “No, but there shall be a king over us, ²⁰ that we also may be like all the nations, that our king may judge us and go out before us and fight our battles.”

I don't know why it is but in our human nature we have a tendency to exalt man above God. With respect to church leaders we have a tendency I think to exalt them above God too. I mean in the sense that we look to them to set right doctrine for us, to fight out fight of faith, to do the work of God, to go before us and work for God...while we sit and watch in the pews.

The WORD is our authority for right doctrine!! Not church leaders!

Oh I know we all give lip service to that but in practice we look to leaders for right doctrine instead of to the Word I think. I am talking about most church goers today and not any one of you in particular.

Doctrine has become the domain of church leaders. They have became gate keepers for right doctrine.

Yet I ask where in the Word (chapter and verse if you please) does it say that church leaders are to act as gate keepers for truth? Where?

Protectors of truth. Absolutely! Defenders of truth. You bet! But gatekeepers? Nope! I know not such a verse.

When I say gatekeepers I mean one's who only let in (before the sheep) what they think is right doctrine and keep out what they think is not.

Church leaders today are many things but among the things they have become is gatekeepers of truth.

Primarily through what is commonly referred to as the Head Pastor. One man!

As a side note do you realize that there is no such thing as a Head Pastor biblically speaking? There was to be sure a High Priest but that was over an entire nation and it was under the Old Covenant before the priesthood of every believer came into play under the New Covenant.

So today...ONE MAN primarily acts as the gatekeeper to truth.

ONE MAN!

Do you see a problem with that?

Where are the checks and balances to that one man pertaining to truth that he lets in or does not?

Oh yes...as someone pointed out some men are open to truth. Wonderful! But such men are very rare indeed in my experience.

The system of government in the US has checks and balances. Why? BECAUSE of the realization of fallen human nature where too much control in the hands of ONE MAN or one branch of government leads to tyranny!

Where is the balance and check on the ONE Head Pastor respecting doctrine?

Oh...but you say the Board of Elders for one. Do you realize that a Board of Elders has NO authority from God AT ALL?!

Elders who sit on Boards of Elders are not biblical Elders whose qualifications are laid out in Titus and Timothy.

Today's elders inside Boards of Elders have NO AUTHORITY at all to tell a Head Pastor how to do his job. At least not by God's Word.

They may advise him or give him emotional support but if a Head Pastor gets it into his head that doctrine Z is the way to go and starts teaching that there is very little a Board of Elders can do about it short of initiating to remove the Pastor.

Short of doctrine Z being far out in left field I seriously doubt they will do that. Especially not if the Head Pastor is teaching good otherwise and being enjoyed by the flock.

The result of all this is that truth suffers! Under the influence of ONE MAN who acts as a gatekeeper for truth.

Is that God's way for the church?

I daresay that it is NOT!

More later.

Carlos