Speaker 1 0:21

How was the first Century church led? This will be our study today, And the central question will be what leadership pattern does the New Testament actually show? And which parts are description, prescription, or later adoption? The main passage is going to be X20, verse 17, and then also 28 through 35.

Speaker 0:38

Now from Miletus he sent to Ephesus and called the elders of the church to come to him. Verse 28, pay careful attention to yourselves and to all the flock in which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers to care for the church of God which he obtained with his own blood. I know that after my departure, fierce wolves will come in among you, not sparing the flock, and from among your own selves will arise men speaking twisted things to draw away the disciples after them. Therefore be alert, remembering that for three years I did not cease night or day to admonish everyone with tears. And now I commend you to God and to the word of his grace, which is able to build you up and to give you the inheritance among all those who are sanctified. You yourselves know that these hands ministered to all my necessities and to those who were with me. In all things I have shown you that by working hard in this way we must help the weak and remember the words of the Lord Jesus, how he himself said, It is more blessed to give than to receive.

Speaker 1 1:52

One leading pastor or a group of elders? Did you guys fall asleep when Melissa was reading?

unknown 2:00

Elders.

Speaker 1 2:02

Huh?

Speaker 2:02

Elders.

Speaker 1 2:03

He yeah, he called a group of elders, right? In verse 17, he called the elders. So the whole context was elders, overseers, there was a group, right? Do elder, overseer, and shepherd appear to name separate ranks or different descriptions of the same people and work? And what in the passage supports the answer? That's a great question. To me, the context is that they're very similar. Yeah. And I talked about that in a message about pastors. I know Jack's talked about the subject on the Grace Vine podcast too, just kind of breaking down what is a pastor. But you see elders, overseers, deacons. I mean, what's the difference? What are they doing? What's the purpose?

Speaker 2 2:46

That's exactly right. That's still a question that's being asked today in the new covenant community. We're still sort of learning what that is because I can tell you what is not. We see what it's not on a daily basis and Sunday mornings all over the place. I know that would offend some people, but in text here, now we're seeing that Paul is writing to a group of individuals that he's obviously very concerned about the welfare and the well-being of the flock, which is a like a stack of blocks type of thing. If you look at the meaning of the word, the little flock. It's like a stack of blocks inside a bigger stack of blocks. So he was concerned about that little stack of blocks or that that local body because of what he said later on his concern was. He knew what was going to happen because it always happens. The projection of Christianity is always the same in that we receive the truth and then we're tempted to be drawn aside by air. It's the learning to live in the truth, standing against the air that matures us. There's no other way to do it. We have to have tension in our life. Isn't that great? We we have to have tension. We have to have it. It's not part of something that we wish we couldn't have. I always like it when somebody says, Oh man, the neighbor's house burned down. Boy, thank God it wasn't mine. What do you say? What do we think? Right, right. Honestly, you know, with an elephant in the room is, we all think it. But in the depth of who we are, if we sat back and realized that those trials that we enter into are part of our building, a part of us becoming what Jesus would have us to be, then when our house burns down, it makes it something that we can see in reality instead of something that we just think, why is God doing this to me? That's the grace perspective from my view. You know, I'm talking about something here. I I you know I would never wish anything like that on anyone, but all of us have been through those trials in our life when we've stepped back and said our initial response was, why me? And your friends all crowd around you and say, you don't deserve that, you know, oh, that's too bad. All those things all patch you, you know, and and and make you feel like you're such a victim, when in reality, the grace of God bears us up and says to us, You are my child, and you're living as I would have you live, and you can bear all things because of me. That's a whole different view on those things.

Speaker 1 5:35

So, what is the danger then in the top-down structure? Today in church, what we see is, and I think most churches' response would be like, no, we're doing it that way. We have a group of deacons, elders, and such keeping their pastor accountable. We have this. This is how the structure works, and then we have our head pastor speaking. Is that really what you saw? Was there a presidential pastor nominated among the groups in the early church? And if not, what's the dangers of that? And what's the difference, in my opinion? Another good question is we have apostolic leadership in the first century. Some people think there's some apostles today, but that you know, we that's a whole nother topic. There's not. That's my blunt statement. There's not. If there was, it would be a very different world. But we don't have apostolic leadership, so if you subtract that out, what's the top-down structure today in the body of Christ that's come to maturity and has been sanctified by Christ? Where's the where does this top-down leadership come from today? Even if you said there was one that the apostles had some authority, okay, great, but they're not there, so now what?

Speaker 2 6:47

Let's start there, as we originally were starting, and that is what happened. So let's envision this. Uh we gotta have some context, and the context is this. Remember, there's a bunch of Jewish people who have been living by sacraments and laws for generations. Jesus shows up on the scene and explains that he's the fulfillment of the law and that there is now peace with God because of what his action is going to be. They observe his action, which is sacrifice, resurrection, and from that they are taught by him that he's the resurrection and life, and if anyone who believes on him won't perish, but will have everlasting life. So Jesus spends this time with his now the apostles before he ascends, and now we have the birth of the new covenant church. We have the birth of the assembly of the beloved.

Speaker 1 7:48

Yep, the birth was at Pentecost. Right, yeah. The apostle definitions, those sent out. They were sent out with a message of grace.

Speaker 2 7:57

From the Master. From the Master. They had contact with the Master, with Jesus, and they took what he said and they shared it with others. That's so vital because now we have people gathering to hear new news. This is new to them, even though they could see it in a Judeo way, in a Jewish way from the past by what they talked about. But this was new because the worship, the sacrifices stopped. All those things stopped now, and the individuals were sitting there looking at Peter, or they're looking at John, and they were thinking, This is new news to me. This is all news. Jesus rose, he died, he wrote all new. And that was the bootstrap of what was going to happen in the church from that point on.

Speaker 1 8:51

To further complicate the situation, you have that whole transition period where the sacrifices continued in the temple, and the destruction of the temple didn't happen until after our apostolic writings. And so we have a lot that took place afterward that changed history forever of the church, but it was an interesting period because you had Jewish Christians not knowing what to do now. Almost like the I'm so used to this legalistic way. What am I supposed to believe now? I still go to the temple with my friends and preach Christ and this and that, and we still do this stuff and we still like our traditions. Now this is weird. Do we have to do them? These Gentiles should be doing of them. You have the Jerusalem Council getting together, and they all come together, and Peter stands up and James affirms it's like, no, we can't expect the Gentiles to carry a burden that we couldn't even carry. The church structure carries on, but that was a big dilemma. I remember reading Acts and thinking, why is Paul meeting with these people? He's not confused, but they were trying to come together to be one heart and mind. It wasn't just, well, I'm Paul, I'm pushing my beliefs on you guys, you're wrong, I'm right. Well, they actually got together and talked about it.

Speaker 2 10:04

It's pretty cool. Yes, yes. And Paul was still learning at that time, even though he had all those things, he had had the experience, but he was taught the realities of Christ by Christ. But then when he got together with man, he realized, wow, it's a whole different thing than talking with the one who has everything figured out. Now we've got to figure it out through flesh and bone, and that's a little different thing. So he did make some compromises in his life. You can read about those things. It's pretty cool.

Speaker 1 10:35

The scripture is honest about the people that are God's holy people, like we were reading about David. It's honest about our saints, you know, and it doesn't hold back.

Speaker 2 10:45

And that's the beauty of it.

Speaker 1 10:46

You had Peter who's like, I will never deny you Christ, and then he does, but it's not to make Peter a wimp because he chopped off a soldier's ear with his sword. He was ready, he was ready to fight to his death for Christ, just not in the way that Christ taught him. It took a lot more discipline to fight the way Christ said, I'm healing this guy's ear. No, Peter, put away the sword, you're gonna fight a different way, and it's gonna be a humble way of fighting, and that had to have been a lot more difficult. I picture as a man, like I'd rather be the guy with the sword, probably. It's more instinctive to take the sword to the ear than to actually be humble and take a beating for what you believe.

Speaker 2 11:23

Right. And and Peter, in his nature, he was all in. If you don't think that's the case, Peter was all in. And he was so all in, you remember when he was praying on the roof and the sheet comes down. Pete's all in. He says, Hey, I ain't touching that. I know. Yeah, I know what I know what's right. I'm not you can't make me, you can't make me eat that. That was still the transformational process in his life. So I'm sure he shared that with those around him. But remember, the environment was much different than now. The environment was all close quarters, people live together, they work together, and they edified one another on a continual basis. That's so important. Today we have churches that people drive a half hour, 40 minutes, whatever, an hour to go to church on Sunday morning and mix with a group of people and then they disperse. But back then, when the church was born, when the body of Christ was initially born, the people walked together, they lived next to each other, or they lived with them. And they went and experienced this time together in someone's home.

Speaker 1 12:33

So I think that you just answered the question about what are the dangers of top-down church, is that you lose a lot of the depth of relationship that the churches had in those days.

Speaker 2 12:44

Oh my.

Speaker 1 12:45

You lose the depth of true church, a true gathering in Christ. You just lose it so much of it. It just becomes so watered down.

Speaker 2 12:54

You know, Lenny, that is so that is so good because we find ourselves immersed in this conversation about the church, and many times we need to back up because we lose the reason for the church. We lose it. We don't want to talk about the reason, God's reason for this. We want to talk about the mechanics or you know, whatever, the reflection. Well, what's the reason for the church? The reason for the assembly, the reason that we get together is so that we can just Zach's sort of definition, but it's so we can see a clearer portrait of what's available to us by the grace of God.

Speaker 1 13:35

Paul's example in the passage we read about his tears, his work, his generosity, care for the weak. And you know, what does that mean about authority? How do you put that into authority? Paul's genuine tears and concerns, and he worked manually, manual labor. Instead of relying on people's donations and money, he worked hard among them and joined them as a shepherd. And I remember listening to one of your recent podcasts where you made an excellent point, Jack. The shepherds are sheep too. They're among the flock. They live among the flock, not above it. They're not above the flock, they're among the flock. And that's what you see in the first century. They lived among them, not as superiors.

Speaker 2 14:21

This is a point for me and my life from what I've lived. Uh I think personally, more damage has been done to individuals' lives in Christ by leadership than anything else. And I think that's why Paul was so adamant against Judaism and legalism because he knew the damage it would do. It definitely, without a question, throttles our spiritual abilities when we follow, quote unquote, or submit ourselves, quote unquote, to any form of leadership that's not Christ. That's a hard thing for some people to follow. But remember what you have. You have the mind of Christ, you're a new creation, you have a new heart, you've been called, and Ephesians 2 10 tells us that he's got things for you to do that he's already pre-planned. The Spirit of Truth has come, so we're living in that. Now we have to learn how to live in that structure that God has built so that we can learn and glean from each other, because there's a place for that in our lives.

Speaker 1 15:30

Melissa, just hit these supporting passages and then we'll continue our conversation. Because there's some good supporting passages to the one that we just read. There's several of them.

Speaker 15:38

Acts 14 23. And when they had appointed elders for them in every church with prayer and fasting, they committed them to the Lord in whom they had believed. Titus 1 5. This is why I left you in Crete, so that you might put what remained into order and appoint elders in every town as I directed you. First Peter 5 1 through 4. So I exhort the elders among you as a fellow elder, and a witness of the sufferings of Christ, as well as a partaker in the glory that's going to be revealed. Shepherd the flock of God that is among you, exercising oversight, not under compulsion, but willingly, as God would have you, not for shameful gain, but eagerly, not domineering over those in your charge, but being examples to the flock. And when the chief shepherd appears, you will receive the unfading crown of glory. Philippians 1 1. Paul and Timothy, servants of Christ Jesus, to all the saints in Christ Jesus who are at Philippi, with the overseers and deacons. Mark ten forty two through forty-five. And Jesus called them to him and said to them, You know that those who are considered rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their great ones exercise authority over them. But it shall not be so among you. But whoever would be great among you must be your servant, and whoever would be first among you must be slave of all. For even the Son of Man came not to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.

Speaker 1 17:18

Okay. I had some resources that are really interesting on early church structure. If you guys ever want to look into them, I'll probably have them linked to this episode. Um Tom Wadsworth is one, he describes the first century norm as a plurality of elders, not just one pastor, as is common today. And he argues that elder, overseer, and shepherd describe as one function. Yeah. And I think that is pretty plain to see. I think he's spot on. My friend Dan had told me about him as a resource, and I haven't dug in deep because he's on YouTube. I don't watch as much as I listen, but his information is excellent. I know that. And then there's this guy Lenny from Waking Up to Grace and this Jack guy from the Grace Vine podcast that speak on this constantly. We can't shut him up.

Speaker 18:07

I think the Jack guy, if I'm not mistaken, I think I heard him say in one of his episodes that this topic is what really spurred him to start his You heard it through the Grace Vine is how I saw it.

Speaker 2 18:21

Oh Melissa, that's so true. Thank you for bringing that up. That's because of that script I was talking about. The experience within that very skirt that I was talking about earlier.

Speaker 1 18:29

Yes, very good. So what kind of guidance and teaching and protection and accountability does a healthy group still need? What are we supposed to take from all this? What does a healthy church group look like? What kind of guidance do we need? If we're gonna just break down today's churches and say this is wrong, what's right? What does it look like? Who can paint a picture of what they think first century church looks like?

Speaker 18:56

Well the Bible would be our handbook, right?

Speaker 1 18:59

That's where all of our We're gonna want to see that a true scripture from scripture holds to it, right? Yeah. And there's gonna be a lot of love and compassion and prayer and discussion and And women not talking. Being silent. Wait a minute. That's another topic.

Speaker 2 19:20

That's another topic. But remember the the remember the first churches had no all they had was old covenant. They didn't have letters till later on.

Speaker 1 19:29

Yeah, they had the scriptures.

Speaker 2 19:31

So the original churches were gleaning from the prophets and from the old covenant writing.

Speaker 1 19:38

And probably often meeting in synagogues. That was where they could find the scriptures. One thing that I thought was cool was that Peter referred to Paul's letters as scripture in his writings. I was like, that's pretty neat.

Speaker 2 19:52

Yeah.

Speaker 1 19:52

He said that the people were manipulating those like they do all scripture. He had the foresight to see that this was part of scripture. Yeah. But as you said, Jack, that would have been select groups having those. They didn't have copy machines and scanning and forwarding. Right.

Speaker 2 20:08

I think that one of the occurrences, the major occurrences that happened was each person that was shared the gospel with was reinforced with this fact. You are a person of value. You have value. You have something to give, and you have people around you that you can give it to. I think that was the basis for the new covenant church. The birth of the church was for the benefit of all, by service and servanthood of all.

Speaker 1 20:39

Then you have people trying to help organize, just like you would any. Now you have people over, let's organize our gathering, you know, let's take turns speaking and be orderly, you know, and it's just you have people helping out to make that happen.

Speaker 2 20:51

Exactly right. And it's not because they're anything more than a shepherd organizing the chief administrator, organizing the event. There's nothing wrong with that. It's needed because that's the beauty of the body of Christ, all members. But what happened was that person who would organize the event all of a sudden became something when he really was no more than anyone else. You know, I think today in today's churches, you know, we go to um what Paul talked about an orderly church service, you know, it would be really funny to go into a church service where people say, We believe the Bible and all that, and the pastor starts to talk, and then uh let's say me, I get up and I walk up front and I start to talk. And he says, Well, hey, wait, wait, who, you know, calls the ushers and all that stuff. I say, Well, you know, the scripture says that if you're talking and I have I have something to say, I can talk. And then it says that you can't talk anymore. Right? I mean, read it. It's in there. So Yeah, but boy, that would not fly in today's corporate church. Would not, would it? No, no. Not one bit. No, it's because they always have more to say.

Speaker 1 22:05

Blessed, I used to always kid about that when we started understanding scripture better. Be like, what do you think would happen if I walked up to the podium and asked the pastor for the microphone for a minute? She's like, you'd get ushered out.

Speaker 2 22:17

Oh yeah. Exactly right. Back to my point about value. That's what's so important. And that's what is building through the grace message. Individual value. Like when we get together, we all have value. We all have something to contribute. We don't know what it is. We don't have to know what it is. Because the Bible says that the Spirit of Truth is in us. And he takes care of those things. So when we're together and we're impressed, we should share. Because we need it. We need to need your input.

Speaker 1 22:52

That's so true. If we just rule out that the Spirit of God is guiding us as individuals, every one of us, you know, that's just a shame. Because we often rule that out. Like, no, I need somebody who has an education to explain this to me. It's like, well, have you ever considered maybe just prayer? I think that was one of the most pivotal points for me was when I met with a group of guys and they kept insisting, said, if you don't understand it, pray about it. And pray for the understanding. Read and just continue and pray. They never said to go to a commentary, they never recommended. I'm sure there was books they recommended, but whenever it was, I'm not seeing what you guys are seeing, it was pray about it and read. That changed my life because I started believing that I could actually understand scripture, and when I believed it, it started actually happening. Now people might argue with that that don't like our podcast. You don't understand anything. You're crazy. But when you see it, you see it and you know it for yourself. You know when you see truth. And nobody can take that away from you. That advice changed my life. I started reading the Bible that day and never looked back. I was like, I can understand this. This is so cool. Yeah. Yeah. It wasn't immediate. Just to be clear, it wasn't immediate. There was moments where I felt like I had to beat my head against the table because God doesn't always answer you right away. But he always did. It was like a gift, like bing, the light goes on.

Speaker 24:19

Eventually, huh?

Speaker 1 24:20

Yeah.

Speaker 24:21

It's making me think of the passage I think it applies here, right? Where it's saying uh the eye can't say to the foot, you're not as important as me.

unknown 24:30

Right?

Speaker 1 24:31

Yeah, we're getting into that in spiritual gifts.

Speaker 24:33

All the members of the body are important.

Speaker 1 24:35

Yes.

Speaker 24:36

And like Jack said, we need to realize that.

Speaker 2 24:39

Yes. If there was a secret to this whole thing, it would be to develop an environment where that is encouraged and people are comfortable in it. You know what I'm saying? If we go into a room, let's say, and we're in our room, and we see value in everyone and everyone else sees value in everyone, then everyone will contribute. We're trained to think that you know there are those who lead and they know so much. But those who lead or those who seem to lead, or those who seem to be more uh obvious, they need to learn too. Guess who they learn from? They learn from those around them.

Speaker 1 25:25

That's so true. When I started putting together the podcast stuff, I was just like, wow, I cannot believe I set out to try to share something, and I got something in return almost every time.

Speaker 2 25:37

Oh man, people have capabilities that are far beyond what they can imagine. A couple words, an observation, a thought, uh, a reflection. All those things, maybe just a few words, they can transform an individual's life. It's not the one who has spent so much time scrafting oration. That's not what the body of Christ is. But traditionally we've been immersed in it for so long we don't know how to operate. It's very difficult for us to learn how to operate in this new area of grace where we all are on the same playing field, we're all level, and we're all vital in the body of Christ.

Speaker 1 26:17

I need to take a moment to explain what orthodox means so that you understand here. Yeah. I'm saying that in a facetious way. But I looked it up on Wikipedia. Orthodox is an adherence to a purported correct or otherwise mainstream or classically accepted creed. And I'm hearing certain people often say that if you're unorthodox, you probably are not faithful to the church and the mission. I don't think what you're saying is very orthodox.

Speaker 2 26:47

It's not. I'm going on Wikipedia as soon as we're done, and I'm gonna do some typing.

Speaker 1 26:53

I heard that in a message more recently, and I made a note of it because I was just so taken because I'm just listening to this podcast, and it's pretty good. All of a sudden, in this interview with this person, they start talking about orthodox. They need to be orthodox and faithful, and they combine those two things, and I was just like, you just ruined my experience. Yeah.

unknown 27:13

Yeah.

Speaker 1 27:14

Whatever you said that was good, just went out the window. I'm having a hard time listening all of a sudden.

Speaker 2 27:18

Funny how that can happen. One, and like I said, just a few words can change everything.

unknown 27:23

Yeah.

Speaker 2 27:23

Just a few words as we share together, those few words build. This might be a little off course. I'll try and come back around many, but um I've been thinking a lot about Ephesians 4 and uh one thing that Paul said, till we all come to the unity of faith. Are you familiar with that verse? Paul says we've given apostles and prophets and teachers and pastors and evangelists for the edification of the body, till we all come to the unity of faith. And I was thinking of that in terms of, well, at the beginning there was just the way, the followers of the way are Christian. And I said, How's that working out? That ministry thing to give us that unity of the faith. And now we have over what, 18,000 different denominations, different viewpoints, divisions. Doesn't sound to me like it's working out too well.

Speaker 1 28:15

That passage is kind of opening up some eschatology too, because he talks about seeing face to face and he's talking about the maturity of the church, and there's a lot of different ways to see that. And the way that I've come to see it is that maturity of church happened at the fulfillment, at the return. And that's obviously not orthodox. But no, but I believe the fulfillment there was directly talking about the maturity of the church when the full mouth gentiles came in, and the church was presented as a bride to Christ, consummated, and established for the new covenant age, from that view happened in AD 70 at the final judgment. So that would have been fulfilled, but it doesn't really take away from what you're saying because you're just like, well, this is what the mature church looks like today. Exactly right. It's still the same outlook.

Speaker 29:09

Maybe this is encouraging, because when Jack mentioned about just a few words that really struck me, I've said before that um I'm going through the hardest time of my life, and it's been going on for almost a year now. And um throughout that time, I mean, it just to make a lot just to keep it brief, like I mean, I could barely get through my days some days. Um but my routine is to wake up in the morning and look at scripture. That's been my routine for years now. I'm so thankful for that. And I'm still doing that, struggling, but I still do it. I still sit down with my coffee first thing, get up, look at the scripture, and I feel like I'm not taking anything in. Sometimes I just pray, sometimes I read the same verse over and over. And I'm like just thinking to myself, man, you know, Lord, you deliver and you will deliver. I believe it. I know it's true, but I wish you'd do it a little quicker. You know, I feel pretty, I feel pretty useless. I feel like I can't really learn anything, I can't really help anyone. But I have that conversation with him a lot. Anyway, what's been happening so often is that we'll start making our breakfast together in the morning and we both do our Bible reading separately, but together at the table. And so what'd you learn? And I kind of sheepishly say, Well, I read the same verse over and over. I'm not sure it's really anything much to share, but then I'll just utter a few words and Lenny will be like, No kidding. I was reading the same thing, and you just helped me answer that. And it's like all of a sudden it's the topic he wants to cover on a podcast. I mean, it's crazy, and I'm just like, I have to smile. Like, wow, Lord.

Speaker 1 30:49

Wow, that's awesome.

Speaker 30:52

Even in this time when I feel so useless, just a few words. That's just incredible. And I think that everybody should. I hope that's helpful because I know we often feel like, oh, I just I don't have enough time to devote anything. You can always find some kind of time, even if you just meditate on one little verse, boy, you could really help someone.