This series will be looking at the concepts a church leadership and then what many people consider to be the “offices” that comprise that leadership structure. But the glaring question we need to ask is “Are these offices or simply people using their god given gifts?”
Today’s leadership structures in the church are based on the contemporary hierarchical and positional mindset. By contrast we would believe that the New Testament vision is that of a functional mindset. Positional thinking is hung up on nouns, while functional thinking stresses verbs.
Jesus on Hierarchy and Positional Authority
Matt 20:25-28; Luke 22:25-26; Matt 23:8-12
Jesus comes against both the worldly view of hierarchical power and the religious view of positional authority. Why? Because they stunt the organic nature of his body. They impede the functioning of the gifts when just the “professionals” do all the “kingdom work”. And they create a 2-class system in the church.
No King but Christ
1 Sam 8
The text is about Israel rejecting God and wanting to be like the world. There can be applications in this for both the world and the church. Originally the people of Israel were called to be a kingdom of priests with Yahweh as their king. The church is given this same calling- a kingdom of priests with God as their king, Israel is a type and shadow of the church today. It was never God’s plan for humans to rule over other humans. We often want early rulers in the forms of government leaders and also in the church in the forms of “church leadership/pastors/bishops/etc. The placement of a human positional authority over God’s people is equal to a rejection of God and worship of other gods according to the text (v7-8).
Submission
Eph 5:21
Biblical submission has nothing to do with hierarchy, control, or power. It is simply a voluntary yielding to one another.
The biblical word to submit is hypotasso. It does not mean to obey. Hypakouo is the word for obey and it is never used in the NT for any leader in the church or even of the government. The only one we obey is God.
Authority (exousia) has to do with the communication of power. Scripture teaches that God is the sole source of all authority (Rom. 13:1). And this authority has been vested in His Son (Matt. 28:18; John 3:30–36; 17:2). All authority belongs to Jesus.
Authority is organic and based on character, spiritual gifts, and maturity.
1 Cor 16:15-18; Phil 2:29-30; 1 Thes 5:12-13; 1 Tim 5:17; Heb 13:7; 1 Pet 5:5
Spiritual Covering
Covering is only mentioned one time in the NT and is grossly misinterpreted.
1 Cor 11:10-12
An important linguistic note is that “a symbol of” is not in the text. It’s not saying that a veil is a sign of being under someone’s “covering”. The Greek is specific here that a women has authority over her own head. “Authority” is in the grammatical feminine as well as “head”. Meaning the authority belongs to the one whose head the are talking about (the women). It’s saying that the women are on equal standing in the church. Verses 11-12 confirm this… women and man are dependent on each other and all things are under God. God is the only authority
The bible consistently consigns accountability to God (Matt. 12:36; 18:23; Luke 16:2; Rom. 3:19; 14:12; 1 Cor. 4:5; Heb. 4:13; 13:17; 1 Peter 4:5).
So if the laymen is “covered” by the pastor who is “covered” by the denomination, mother church, or higher-ranking Christian leader. They are protected as the theory goes… but can you see where it falls apart? We need to ask who covers the mother church, denomination, or the influential leader? Some will say God covers them.
Now do you see the bigger problem if we are the priesthood of believers? We’ve put a middleman and mediator between us and God.
A better view of Leadership and Authority
These are usually described in verbs and not nouns in the NT. It’s about gifting not offices. So, when someone is using their gift of “elder-ing”, “pastor-ing”, “teach-ing” they are d
