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EP062 Why Baptist? Two Offices - Part 8 · The Immutable Word

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These men weren't just, oh, you know, we just need somebody that's a good plumber
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to clean our toilets in the church. That's not it.
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These men had to have legitimate, Holy Spirit-filled abilities and wisdom and
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understanding of the Word of God.
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I mean, you see in Acts chapter 7, Stephen, who was a deacon,
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okay, a servant, preached the entire, basically summarized the whole entire
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Old Testament leading up to his own stoning.
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Welcome back to The Immutable Word. We are running through our series of Why Baptists.
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If you've been joining us for the last several episodes, we've been covering the Baptist acrostic.
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We're almost done, and we've gone through seven of them so far, so I'm just going to...
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Briefly recap before we start rolling into this one here today that we're going to cover.
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Before I do, if you haven't listened to the introduction yet,
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I recommend folks go back and listen to that.
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It does explain what we're doing here and how Baptist, the framework Baptist's
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acrostics is a really good tool to have in your pocket, and it really does help
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root you and anchor you into the doctrines that are important to know.
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We had established the importance of this doctrine as the ultimate metric of
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truth and discussed Satan's strategy of ecumenicism, which promotes unity by
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diminishing God's word.
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We then moved on to the acrostic, the Bible as the sole authority,
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and this is where it was established that the principle of sola scriptura,
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which is scripture alone, asserts that the Bible is the supreme and final authority
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for all doctrine and practice.
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We then moved on to the autonomy of the local church, where it was covered that
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the local church is an independent, self-governing body accountable only to
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Jesus Christ, its direct head,
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and rejects any kind of external earthly hierarchy, like a pope, for example.
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Then we covered the priesthood of the believer, which is the P from Baptist,
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and in this episode is argued that the scriptures are a revelation given to
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every individual man, circumventing the need for human spiritual proxies, again, like a pope.
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And then lesson five is the two ordinances, which distinguished an ordinance
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as a symbolic right commanded by Christ. And it's not a sacrament.
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You'll hear sacraments in the Catholic Church, for example, but this is just symbolic.
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It is a recognition of the death, burial, and resurrection.
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It's a testimony to one's salvation. Then we covered individual soul liberty,
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and this is specific to the individual in this case, where every person has
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a right and responsibility to judge the scriptures for themselves,
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free from government or any other kind of influence.
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And this principle protects the conscience and rejects the idea that a state
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or church has the power to grant religious toleration.
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And then in the last episode, we covered, say, regenerated church membership.
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And this asserts that a local church is a called-out assembly consisting strictly
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of born-again baptized believers rejecting things like infant baptism or just
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being born into church membership, for example. It's not scriptural.
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So with that, this allows us to move into today's episode, which we're covering
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the doctrine of the two offices, which sounds like this will be pretty straightforward
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like the previous episode that we covered, the Save Virginia Church membership.
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So, there's only two offices and a New Testament local church,
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and this is the scriptural. It's not a hierarchy.
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If there is a hierarchy, obviously, that's unscriptural. We'll see that in other
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religious systems, but here it's just two offices, and that's what we're going to cover today.
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So, I think that's everything. Sorry, that took a minute to go through,
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but Robert, anything else to add there? No, I mean, I do want to clarify. So there is a hierarchy.
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I mean, there's obviously a hierarchy. We're fixing to talk about two offices.
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That's a hierarchy part of the polity.
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So probably, you know, maybe when we talk about there's no hierarchy as far
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as hierarchy when it comes to the spiritual walk and the individual believer
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between him and God or the hierarchy of the individual church answering to any other body.
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However, the highest position is
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of authority within a local church is an elder or a bishop. So, we'll talk about that.
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Sounds good. Yeah, sorry, and that's what I meant, is that I know there's a
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hierarchy, but I was thinking of the papacy and the church and,
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you know, the different levels of who's able to access God, you know,
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the throne of God and so forth.
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Which we covered in the priesthood of the believer.
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So, I mean, the priesthood of the believer, again, has to do with our individual
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walk with God and our individual.
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You know, know basically our daily sanctification and then of
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course the other piece would be the remember we talked about
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the what the personal the priest
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of the believer is is you know to the individual the
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individual church or i'm
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sorry the the autonomy of the local church is basically to
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the body of christ so you know i said it backwards but
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basically whatever the body of christ is i mean the local church individual
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autonomy of local churches that it doesn't answer to any other hierarchy as
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far as religious hierarchy or an organization like the Catholic Church or a
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diocese or a synod or anything like that.
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That's what the priesthood of the believer is to the individual Christian.
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So, that's kind of like the parallel, just to kind of clarify.
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All right, well, let's get down to business, the doctrine of the two offices.
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What's this all about? Yep. So, I mean, really this doctrine is when,
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you know, there's basically really simply stated there's only two scriptural
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ordained offices of the New Testament local church. That's pastor and deacon.
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Those are the only ones we see in scripture. Now, anytime you hear.
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Like, if you hear, for example, you might hear somebody use the title office of apostle.
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Well, apostle was a historical position, and there was a very specific requirement for that.
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We'll take a look at that in a bit here. But when you talk about senior pastor
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or elder pastor or bishop or archbishop, those positions didn't exist, at least in the Bible.
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Which means that they were inventions of men after the fact.
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So, when we look at the doctrine of the two offices, we're just simply stating
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that the scripture only identifies two legitimate offices for the New Testament local church,
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and that is the pastor and the deacon. Okay? So.
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A lot of people kind of argue about apostolic authority and so forth and so
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on, and you've got to remember there were so many apostles in the Bible.
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And the Bible will sit there and identify what the qualifications for those
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positions are, including the apostle.
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But when we talk about the two offices as far as the bishop and the deacon or
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the pastor and the deacon, the Bible gives you a very specific set of criteria. right?
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So, for example, the office of apostle required witnessing the resurrected Christ
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and performing apostolic sign gifts.
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And that was the criteria that was basically required for you to be a legitimate apostle.
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And that criteria ceased in the first century, and it can't be claimed today
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because nobody visibly saw the resurrection of Christ.
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So, what we do see is the Bible says, for example, in Philippians 1.1.
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He addresses the saints with bishops and deacons.
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So, two offices no more. And then in Acts 1.21-22, you see the apostolic qualifications
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are very specific and unrepeatable. That's when they were choosing Matthias.
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Or it was either they were casting lots, and Matthias is the one that got selected.
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But they give you a very specific list of criteria, which is they must have
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been eyewitnesses to the ministry of Christ all the way up to the resurrection. So—.
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Nobody has that qualifications. And then, of course, 2 Corinthians 12,
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verse 12, the signs of an apostle are identified as foundational and finished.
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Paul basically says he wrought those signs of an apostle, but those sign gifts
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are no longer applicable to the church today.
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Okay. So, really, when we look at these two offices, as far as the pastor and
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deacon, the Bible will be very specific.
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So, the first one is the pastor. Okay.
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Now, we call it, you You know, typically
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we say pastor, and that's usually interchangeable with elder and bishop.
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So it's one office, three titles. So there's a lot of confusion about this because
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sometimes people say, well, you know, I'm an elder, right?
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And they don't make any distinction between the age of a person versus the title of the person.
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Okay, so, but the Bible uses these terms interchangeably to describe the same
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role within a local church.
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So it's not as different ranks or external hierarchy. That's not what the Bible is doing.
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It's basically saying that you could be called a pastor. And if you're a pastor,
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you're also an elder. And if you're an elder, you're also a bishop.
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So the Bible distinguishes between an elder, an older man from a pastor.
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So 1 Timothy 5, for example, the Bible begins and it talks about,
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in verse 1, it says, rebuke not an elder.
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But entreat him as a father and the younger men as brethren.
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So the Bible's very specific.
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It's talking about elder, and then it used it in the same context as younger
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men. So you know he's talking about age there.
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Well, later on in that same, and of course later on in verse 11, it talks about,
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Well, actually, from verse 9 to 11, it's talking about elder women and younger women.
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Okay? So the Bible is very specific about that. And then, of course,
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you go down to verse 17 of 1 Timothy 5.
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It says, let the elders that rule be counted worthy of double honor.
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So you see that? You see the difference is that you have elder as in age of
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a person in the beginning of 1 Timothy 5.
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And then in verse 17, you have the pastor as the elder or the ruler. That's the title.
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So that's where confusion is. Somebody goes, oh, elder just means an older person.
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Well, no, not when you're using it in the context of a person that has a responsibility
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of running a church or running a ministry, if that makes sense.
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So, it's sort of like equivocation with the misunderstanding of the term elder.
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It's not generalized, like this person just by age is older,
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but you also have to distinguish with the title that that person's been given.
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Well, yeah, in the context, right?
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So, I think the context is the key to understanding what the title is.
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So, like I said in 1 Timothy 5, 1, it says, Rebuke not an elder,
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but entreat him as a father. and the younger men.
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So that's obviously talking about elder men and younger men.
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Then in verse 17, it says, let the elders that rule.
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See that? It doesn't say anything about younger men. It makes a distinction.
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Be counted worthy of double honor.
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For the scriptures say it, thou shalt not muzzle the ox. The ox is a type of the pastor.
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And then it says against an elder, verse 19, receive not an accusation,
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but before two or three witnesses.
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Right? Right. So again, it's not talking about in verse 17, it's talking about the pastor elder.
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In verse 1, it's talking about an older man that's an elder.
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Got it. That's what I'm saying. The context is what clarifies definition.
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And the Bible clarifies that with the context. Okay. Makes sense.
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So, three titles went off. So, pastor, you see in 1 Peter 5,
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verse 2, the Bible says, feed the flock of God which is among you.
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And this is the shepherd.
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He leads and protects the local flock. So, each title is indicative of kind
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of a role that the pastor serves. So, as a pastor, he's a shepherd.
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He's protecting the flock. He's feeding the flock. His responsibility is to
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edify them, right? And to teach them and train them.
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Then the bishop, the same office, but it's called bishop, that's an administer.
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You know, this is an administrative type of position where he oversees the church's
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function and the responsibility, right?
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So if a man desire the office of a bishop, he desires the good work, 1 Timothy 3.1.
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So bishop means overseer. And then elder is a mature leader as opposed to a novice.
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So it denotes spiritual maturity, you know, and they rule through preaching and godly example.
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The Bible says in Hebrews 13, verse 17, obey them that have the rule over you.
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So you can't separate those titles, right?
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Pastor, shepherd, I'm sorry, pastor, bishop, and elder into three different
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ranks of power, because then all of a sudden now you're creating a hierarchy
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of offices within the church and you're creating three,
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basically three positions that are not identified contextually in the Bible.
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You know, so when you look at pastor, bishop, and elder, that's why I'm saying
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they're all interchangeable.
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And once you separate those into ranks of power, which is an episcopal polity.
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Basically the government, polity just means how you run a church,
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the governance of a church, then it becomes an unbiblical invention.
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It has nothing to do with what's in scripture.
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So three titles, one office. And the pastor, as an under-shepherd,
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so while the pastor bears genuine authority as an overseer.
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He's not a dictator. It doesn't mean that, you know, Scripture is very explicit.
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He rules as a servant leader, never as one who lords authority over God's people.
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1 Peter 5.3, the Bible says, neither as being lords over God's heritage,
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but being in samples to the flock. So he's supposed to be an example, not a Lord.
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So Jesus Christ alone is the head of the church.
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Every pastor stands under his authority as an under-shepherd and accountable
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to the chief shepherd, not above him.
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So again, the pastor is in type, is an under-shepherd.
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And it's supposed to be a position that, yes, there is a level of authority,
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but his circle of authority ends with the church.
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He can't go into your house and start dictating how you're going to live and,
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you know, what you're going to do. Again, that falls back on the priesthood of the believer.
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But in the role of the church, he's solely responsible for how that church operates.
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He's responsible for the finances of that church. He's responsible for,
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you know, the leadership in that church.
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He's responsible for the direction and the goals of that church.
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He's responsible for at least heading up and identifying false doctrine and
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exposing that before the congregation.
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So, you know, in that respect, the pastor has a position of authority.
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You know, just don't confuse it with dictatorship. That's not the same thing.
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And of course, so that's the pastor.
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The pastor is an elder, you know, he's a bishop and, you know,
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he's going to be a pastor.
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So, the elder, the bishop, and the pastor, same position, same office,
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different names, which all kind of denote a different type of responsibility. Okay?
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Now, the second office is a deacon.
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And really, the word deacon just means servant. And the office was created to
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handle the congregation's physical and administrative needs,
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freeing the pastor to be devoted to the word and prayer, because that's what
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his job was, was he was supposed to be dedicated to the labor and doctrine of
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the word, according to Scripture.
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That's the responsibility of the pastor. He's supposed to be apt to teach and,
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you know, all the qualifications that you see in Timothy and Titus.
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So, the deacon is a little bit different role.
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And I think sometimes people traditionally have thought, well,
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the deacons can rule and run the pastor.
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Like they're just many, you know, a mini board of directors and they're going
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to dictate that. And that's not what scripture shows us.
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In Acts chapter six, this word deacon, and we use deacon because it's a transliteration,
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meaning it's a Greek word that was turned into to an English word like baptism.
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Baptism was baptismo or baptizo and deacon is decanos or decanos is how you
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say it, something like that.
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But that's a Greek word and it just literally means servant.
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But so in Acts chapter 6, this is where that word shows up.
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And it says, Jerusalem appointed seven men to manage the daily ministration,
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caring for the physical needs of the congregation. So this is what he says in Acts chapter 6, verse 3.
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They're speaking, Peter's talking, and he says, Look ye out among you seven
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men of honest report, full of the Holy Ghost and wisdom, whom we may appoint over this business.
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And of course, the context was, is that the apostles were getting tied up in
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all of this, you know, like the daily serving of the church.
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So I'll read just the verse for context. In Acts chapter 6, verse 1,
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the Bible says, In those days when the number of the disciples was multiplied,
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so the church was obviously growing,
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there arose a murmuring of the Grecians against the Hebrews because their widows
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were neglected in the daily ministration.
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So the Greek believers felt like their widows were being neglected. Okay.
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Then the twelve called the multitude of the disciples unto them and said,
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Is it not reason that we should leave the word of God and serve tables?
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It's not reasonable for us to do that. Because if we spent all of our time serving
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tables, who's going to feed you the word of God?
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Right? You see the problem. And then in verse 3, that's where he says,
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Wherefore, brethren, look ye.
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So, you notice that the men had to be selected from the congregation.
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They weren't hired as an external third-party vendor.
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Right? So, but he says, Wherefore, brethren, look ye out among you,
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seven men of honest report, notice the qualifications, full of the Holy Ghost
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and wisdom whom we may appoint over this business.
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Now, but we will give ourselves continually to prayer and to the ministry of
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the word, because that's the responsibility of the pastor, of the leadership.
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And the same pleased the whole multitude, and they chose, notice who they chose,
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Stephen, a man full of faith in the Holy Ghost, Philip, and Prochorus,
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and Nicanor, and Timon, and Parmenas, and Nicholas, a proselyte of Antioch.
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And whom they set before the apostles, and when they prayed,
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they laid their hands on them.
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And the word of God increased, and the number of the disciples multiplied in
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Jerusalem greatly, and great company of the priests were obedient to the faith.
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So, and then it goes on to, you know, the rest of Acts 6 and then into 7 is
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the story of Stephen, right?
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Stephen becomes a martyr. And then 8, Philip is an evangelist.
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He's called an evangelist in the book of Acts.
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And he preaches and leads the first Gentile believer to the Lord.
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So what's interesting when you see this is that these men, even though they
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were servants of tables, they had to have extremely high qualifications.
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You don't just pick anybody to be a deacon.
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Oh, I've been in this church for 17 years. I ought to be a deacon.
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That's not the way it works. It's not tenure related.
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It's character related, right? It's full of the Holy Ghost related.
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So they had to have honest report, proven blameless.
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They had to have a blameless reputation in the church and the community.
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Full of the Holy Spirit, they had to be spiritually mature and indwelt by the
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Holy Ghost and possessing wisdom.
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That means that they were capable of sound, practical, and theological judgment in the serving body.
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See, these men weren't just, oh, you know, we just need somebody that's a good
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plumber to clean our toilets in the church.
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That's not it. But these men had to have legitimate, Holy Spirit-filled abilities
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and wisdom and understanding of the Word of God.
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I mean, you see in Acts 7, Stephen, who was a deacon, okay, a servant—.
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Preached the entire, basically summarized the whole entire Old Testament,
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you know, leading up to his own stoning, right?
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You have Philip that was able to expound the book of Isaiah to the Ethiopian eunuch.
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So, guess what? These deacons had to have, you know, they had very high qualifications,
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so you can't be, they weren't just arbitrarily picked because they were good at serving, okay?
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So, that's the deacon, and the doctrine of the deacons, it's very short,
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It's very clear because most of the effort in the Bible is given to the pastor,
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which is the bishop and the elder, because he's responsible for leading the
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church in truth and guarding the church against false doctrine, okay?
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Now, the Bible does extend the ability to judge false doctrine throughout the
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entire membership of the church.
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You know, the Bible says, you know, even the least among you should be able
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to judge and make judgments, you know, because one day, you know,
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even the church, the simplest person in the church is going to judge angels,
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right? Paul talks about that in Corinthians.
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So what's the opposite of these two offices? Now, that's the only two offices
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the Bible identifies, by the way.
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We'll talk about the other position here in just a second, but well,
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actually, let's look at that for a second.
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So in Ephesians chapter 4, in Ephesians chapter 4, I'm going to pull that out.
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In Ephesians chapter 4, the Bible says in verse 10.
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Actually, let me start in verse 7 for context. But unto every one of us is given
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grace according to the measure of the gift of Christ.
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Wherefore he saith, when he ascended up on high, he led captivity captive and
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gave gifts unto men. Or what are those gifts?
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Those gifts are in verse 9. Now he that ascended, what is it that he also had
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descended into the lower parts of the earth? Verse 10.
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And he had descended as the same. Well, this is the parenthetical statement
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9 and 10, talking about when he went down into Abraham's bosom, led captivity captive.
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But in verse 11, he explains what the gifts are that he's talking about in verse
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8, which is, he gave some apostles, some prophets, some evangelists,
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some pastors and teachers.
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Now, if you notice, apostles, semicolon.
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Prophets, semicolon. Evangelists, semicolon.
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Each one of those is a separate function, and it's chronological,
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because you first had apostles, then you had prophets, and evangelists were
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what we would understand today as missionaries.
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They went about, you know, preaching the Word of God everywhere.
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It wasn't just going from church to church preaching revivals.
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It was them going out and starting churches abroad.
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Okay, that was the evangelical work. So in some form or fashion,
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evangelists still kind of exist.
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But if you notice, after the semicolon, it's pastors and teachers together, combined.
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Because that's what a pastor is supposed to be. He's supposed to be a teacher.
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He's not just a preacher. So sometimes there's that confusion that a pastor
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is just up there to hoop and holler and yell and scream at people and jump down
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their throat. But that's not what a pastor's role is.
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His role is to be, like we said, the bishop, the under-shepherd,
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or the shepherd, and an elder. So each one of those has a specific function, right?
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He's supposed to be, but he's supposed to labor in word and doctrine, apt to teach.
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If the pastor's not apt to teach, you know, you could try to disqualify a man.
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Some people disqualify him over a divorce, but you rarely hear anybody getting
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disqualified because they don't have an aptitude to teach the Bible.
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But that's just as equally as legitimate, you know, a criteria as the husband
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of one wife, however you look at that, you know. But the point is,
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is Paul lays out this chronological order that they were first apostles.
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Well, there's no apostles today because nobody has visibly seen the life and
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the ministry of Christ while he walked on earth and visibly seen the resurrection.
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Nobody's seen that from his baptism all the way until his resurrection.
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So there's no more apostles. But then you have prophets, and if you recall.
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The Bible says in Matthew 10 that John the Baptist, the Bible says there was
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not anybody in the kingdom of heaven that was greater than him.
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But he says he that is least in the kingdom of God is greater than him.
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That's you and I, because John the Baptist was the last Old Testament prophet.
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Well, so there's no Old Testament prophets anymore. Evangelists technically
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still kind of exist in the form of missionaries, but the last group to exist
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is pastors and teachers.
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So why do I say that? It's because an apostle is not a leader.
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It's not a position in the New Testament church.
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Evangelist isn't even a position that you hear explained in the New Testament
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church. But pastors and teachers are.
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And the only other position is in Acts 6, which are those servants,
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which are deacons. basically.
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So, the reason why I said all that is because the exact...
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Opposite of this doctrine is the Roman Catholic position, okay?
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So, the two localized offices, so the pastor and the deacon,
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they stand in direct contrast to the multi-tiered Catholic polity or hierarchy.
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So, a system that Baptists have identified as Nicolaitism, okay?
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And that's a word that's used in the book of Revelation chapter 2 and verses 6 and 15.
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It talks about, you know, that God hates that form, that doctrine of Nicolaitism.
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Well, the word Nicolaitism or Nicolaitin, it's two Greek words.
26:59
One is Nikeo, which is to conquer, and Laos is the people.
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So, Nicolaity, the laity. You conquer the laity.
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You have victory and rule over the laity, which God says he hates,
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according to Revelation 2, 6 and 15.
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So, what's interesting about that is God didn't expect to have that setup or
27:24
that polity or the hierarchy in the local church.
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But here's what the Roman Catholic position is.
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Here's their Catechism of the Catholic Church, number 882.
27:33
It says the Roman pontiff has full and supreme, and this is talking about the
27:38
Pope, and universal power over the whole church, a power which he can always exercise unhindered.
27:47
Unhindered. That means it can't be challenged. You can't push back on it, so forth and so on. Okay?
27:54
And then Pope Boniface VIII in his Unum Sanctum in 1302 said,
27:58
it is absolutely necessary for the salvation of every human creature to be subject to the pontiff.
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Notice he says, your salvation is dependent on your subjection to the Roman Pope.
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That means every pastor, every elder, every bishop, every archbishop,
28:18
every head of diocese, everybody, every single human being that's part of the
28:25
Roman Catholic Church is supposed to be under subjection to one man.
28:28
Now, please show me in the Bible where that's true.
28:32
Please show me where that pattern exists. So, a pope claiming unhindered and
28:36
universal authority over every local church, is precisely the ecclesiastical
28:41
machinery the New Testament never authorizes and Scripture explicitly condemns.
28:47
And God, according to Revelation 2, 6 and verse 15, God hates it. Hates it, period.
28:54
No ifs, ands, or buts. Can't get around it.
28:57
So, historically, Baptists have obviously been against this.
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They've vigorously defended the simplicity of the two offices against both Presbyterian,
29:07
which is a ruling of elders, and Episcopalian external bishops,
29:12
or the ecclesiastical setup of the Roman Catholic Church.
29:15
So B.H. Carroll, Baptist historian, he said this, he said, a board of deacons
29:19
is not a board of ruling elders.
29:23
There's not even a remote hint in the New Testament that the deacon's office was a ruling office.
29:28
So that's why we say it's just a servant. Now, I think the parallel today,
29:34
we may hear, you know, associate pastor, right?
29:38
And associate pastor, you know, maybe, you know, part of a training system that
29:43
the pastor is trying to train them up to be a pastor one day or lead.
29:46
But for all intents and purposes, the associate pastor is somebody that helps
29:51
in the practical side of the ministry, right?
29:54
You know, like in our church, we have several associate pastors, right?
29:57
And what do they do? They run the church or they run the Sunday schools.
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They run the bus ministries.
30:03
They, you know, they oversee some of the building capacity, plumbing,
30:09
the maintenance of the building, right? Things like that. That's what they do.
30:12
So they serve in that office of deacon. Now, pastor periodically lets them teach
30:18
and preach, right? but they never usurp his authority as far as the church is concerned.
30:25
It doesn't mean ontologically that the pastor is a greater person or a greater
30:31
Christian or on a different Christian level or plane.
30:34
It just means that the pastor has a greater responsibility when it comes to
30:39
the governance of that church.
30:41
It's very important to understand that distinction.
30:44
So that was B.H. Carroll. So he basically said, look, the Bible never even remotely
30:49
hints to a ruling board of elders or deacons or anything like that,
30:54
that usurps the authority or position or the office of a pastor.
30:58
Francis Whalen, another Baptist historian said, no minister has any authority
31:03
in any church except that which has called him to be its pastor,
31:09
defending the full independence of every local church of Christ.
31:12
So, basically, he's reinforcing the principle that the pastor is the highest
31:18
position of authority in any church,
31:20
and that pastor doesn't answer to a group of pastors or a group of churches
31:25
or an organization, you know, outside of his local church.
31:30
So, what it basically boils down to is we've actually covered five arguments for the two offices.
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So, the first one is interchangeable terminology, okay?
31:41
So, the doctrine of the pastor teaches that you have three titles,
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pastor, elder, bishop, and they describe the same localized role.
31:51
No external bishopric is oriented.
31:53
Bishopric is just an office. than apostolic finality.
31:57
The apostolic office required unrepeatable qualifications, and it permanently
32:02
ceased in the first century after the last apostle died.
32:04
That's why you read in the book of Revelation that, you know,
32:08
he talks about people that are false apostles and proven that they were liars.
32:14
That's important to understand, because that means that there's people going
32:17
around claiming to be an apostle.
32:18
Well, you got an entire church today organization whose leadership they call
32:23
apostles, which is the Mormon, you know, the Church of Latter-day Saints, the Mormon Church.
32:29
Their leadership, their hierarchy, you know, is led by what they call apostles.
32:34
And now there's some apostolic Pentecostals where they, you know,
32:38
they'll say, you know, their pastor is called an apostle.
32:41
Again, that's directly contrary. So the first argument is interchangeable terminology
32:46
between the pastor, elder, and bishop.
32:48
The second one is that there's no more apostles. That office ceased in the first century.
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And then the third argument is the distinct purpose.
32:57
Deacons were established to serve, not to rule. And elevating them to ruling
33:02
elders violates their biblical function.
33:05
So there's a distinct purpose for both offices. And then number four,
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the argument, the fourth argument is localized authority.
33:13
Both offices are chosen by and they serve within the autonomous local congregation.
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No external body has this authority. Okay.
33:22
Nobody else. There's not a, you know, a regional church that's going to select your deacons.
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It doesn't exist. And then the fifth argument is against Nicolaitism,
33:34
which is Nicolaitanism.
33:36
I can't speak. But scripture condemns the conquest of the laity, right?
33:40
A multi-tiered clergy class usurps the priest of every believer, violates scripture.
33:44
So that's the fifth argument, why we say there's only two offices.
33:48
So the first one is interchangeable terminology. The second one is the apostolic
33:52
office ceased in the first century.
33:55
And the third one is that there's a distinct purpose and definition for the
33:59
function and role and responsibility of a deacon versus a pastor.
34:03
It's a localized authority is the fourth argument that it only is contained
34:07
within a local body or congregation.
34:09
And then the fifth argument is God is against the Nicolaitan doctrine where
34:17
the ruling class rules over the local congregation or body of believers.
34:22
So, does that make sense, Alan? I know you're kind of quiet,
34:26
so I didn't know if— Oh, yeah.
34:27
No, it's clear as crystal.
34:32
So, really, you know, when we look at these two doctrines, or these two offices,
34:37
the simplicity is not weakness.
34:39
And I think that some people think, well, you know, that just seems too simple.
34:42
Just one pastor and then a deacon, office deacon.
34:45
What about, you know, who's going to run, you know, the Sunday school ministry?
34:49
Who's going to run the church? I mean, the pastor can dictate who's going to
34:53
run those ministries, but at the end of the day, the pastor ultimately has final
34:58
decision in how that church is run.
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Does it mean he's more spiritual than every Christian? No. It just means he
35:04
has a different set of responsibilities than you do.
35:07
So because this gloriously simple structure exists, and that simplicity was
35:15
given by God, according to Scripture, Christ alone is the one that governs his
35:19
church through the Word of God.
35:21
And this simple structure protects the church from anybody else trying to take
35:28
over, from anybody trying to usurp the authority of Christ over that church,
35:32
and that every church remains autonomous.
35:35
And this is why that structure is so important to understand.
35:39
Even though it's simple, doesn't mean it's a weak system.
35:42
This is exactly what God ordained and he designed.
35:46
So Mark 10, 45, the Bible says, for the Son of Man came to be ministered unto,
35:50
not to be ministered unto, but to minister and to give his life a ransom for many.
35:55
And really, that's the goal and the purpose and the structure of a pastor or
36:00
anybody that's going to lead a church, is that they're not going there to try
36:03
to rule it. They're there to minister to it.
36:06
Okay. So, the two offices, again, you mentioned the Baptist acrostic,
36:13
which is just the acrostic, but essentially these are distinctions, right?
36:17
These are distinctions that the Bible reveals belong only to a legitimate,
36:22
you know, biblically identified local New Testament church.
36:27
So these distinctions identify it as closest to being the biblically correct pattern that exists.
36:35
So if you go to a Presbyterian church, you go to a Methodist church,
36:38
you go to a, you know, a group of Pentecostal church that are run by different
36:42
regional, you know, a hierarchical structure that's greater than the local church, it's not biblical.
36:48
It's not biblical. Those are inventions of men outside of the Bible.
36:52
So that's the two offices. It's a simple structure.
36:56
I mean, simple, you know, it's a quick episode today, but really,
37:00
you know, it's clear and concise.
37:02
And so I'd rather, you know, you may not like it. People may disagree with it, but that's okay.
37:06
You know, I'm fond of the phrase, I'd rather have clarity than agreement.
37:13
So anyway, that's the two offices. Yeah, I like the simplicity behind it. In fact, it seems to be a,
37:20
It's a theme when it comes to things that are scriptural, the simple plan of
37:27
salvation, that's very simple.
37:29
The way a church is structured and how it's supposed to be run, that's simple.
37:33
There is no this hierarchy, like a pope, and that type of hierarchy doesn't exist.
37:40
And God's not the author of confusion. and man often comes in and tries to make
37:45
things complicated to position themselves for power and control.
37:53
There you have it. You have the Catholic Church and many of the other religious
37:57
systems that are out there.
37:58
When you examine those other church systems and their structures,
38:03
you cannot identify that system or structure in Scripture.
38:07
You know, that's another reason why I think the simplicity of this design is
38:13
so important, because God didn't conflate it with anything.
38:16
There's no confusion here. These offices are easy to identify in the context of Scripture, right?
38:23
And if you rightly divide, there's a difference between the New Testament church
38:26
and the nation of Israel.
38:27
So the problem with the Roman Catholic Church is they think they've replaced the Church,
38:32
thereby they have adopted all the Old Testament priesthood structure,
38:37
and they've amalgamized that into the Roman Catholic system today.
38:43
So again, that's why I think Baptist distinctives are so important,
38:48
because it is largely grounded in dispensational truth.
38:54
And that that spells out baptist so
38:57
we got one more left right so that's the separation separation
39:01
of church and state you know and this ties in like i'm yeah go
39:05
ahead oh yeah i was just going to say that ties into individual soul liberty
39:08
which is a couple lessons back yeah and yeah and honestly it brings a lot of
39:13
the distinctives together if you think about it individual soul liberty yes
39:18
right priest of the believer because separation church state the state can't
39:22
come in and tell a believer how to act and behave before their God,
39:25
how to preach, what to believe, right?
39:28
So it's not just individual sort of liberty. It's also the Bible is our final
39:32
authority because if the state can come in and dictate to you what you want
39:35
to believe, then the Bible is no longer the final authority. The state is.
39:39
See the problem? So you see how
39:41
the beginning of the distinctives was the Bible is our final authority.
39:46
That's what grounds and roots all these other distinctives.
39:50
The last distinctive that we're studying, the separation of church and state,
39:54
shows how these distinctions have to be protected within its proper division
40:01
of the church versus the state.
40:04
So, because if the state can come in, the state can dictate that a church is
40:09
not locally autonomous, right?
40:11
If it can come in, it can destroy priesthood and liberty of the believer,
40:16
individual soul liberty.
40:17
If the state can come in, they can dictate who can be members of your church.
40:21
Therefore, the safe, regenerated, you know, believing congregations out the door.
40:27
And then, of course, the two offices, if the state can come in and dictate how
40:31
the church can operate, then the pastor is not the highest physical authority of that church.
40:38
You see how that plays. All that's important to understand how they link and relate to each other.
40:44
Yeah, it ties in. It's consistent, and it is clarity when you run through each
40:53
of these very distinct doctrines.
40:57
And the Bible doesn't make it complex, it makes it very simple.
40:59
So, that's why it's important to get in there and study it, too, to get that clarity.
41:04
Yep, I agree. All right. If there's anybody out there, I've asked this before
41:10
that if any of these things have been helpful, we'd love to hear any kind of situations,
41:18
conversations, anything like that, just to get an idea of how effective that
41:24
this understanding this and knowing this has worked for you and has helped you.
41:29
And as I often say, it's a good framework.
41:32
It's a way to organize the—there's a lot of details, a lot of information,
41:39
but to help distill it and organize it in a way that you can articulate where you stand.
41:44
And again, know that answer to why Baptist and why you believe what you believe.
41:50
So we'd love to hear from you, anything that you've been able to experience,
41:54
or maybe you've leveraged some of this.
41:55
And if you want any show notes we are giving we do give those out upon request
42:02
and if anybody's interested in that let us know message us through our various mediums,
42:08
and or the email that we have theimmutableword at gmail.com with that we look
42:14
forward to seeing everybody on the last one of this series,
42:18
and again we hope you're edified and get help from it.