Churches without pastors.

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_thrombomodulin
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Joined: Sun May 01, 2005 2:32 pm
Location: Ypsilanti, MI, USA

Churches without pastors.

Post by _thrombomodulin » Wed Aug 20, 2008 9:24 pm

I am posting the following for a friend who attends the same church as I. Our church is small and has had declining attendance. The church members may no longer be able to support the pastor.

I believe that Steve has commented before that no churches in the NT were known to have elders, but I am not sure what lecture contains this discussion. A pointer to the right lecture, and/or any comments would be helpful.

Peter
Steve

A friend suggest I solicit your views on the topic of churches without pastors. It does not appear from the Bible that pastors are an indispensable element of a church. We have briefly discussed:

1) Gene Edwards who has addressed this generally in Revolution, Beyond Radical, and Going to Church in the First Century.
LINK

2) I also know that a comprehensive rethinking of the subject concerning the larger issue of the clergy and limitations on ecclesiastical authority has been published in draft form. I commend it to your review. It is an effort to recognize that the individual believer has yielded far too much of their authority to clergy and ministry and needs to reclaim that authority.
http://www.lonang.com/reclaimthechurch.htm

Sincerely yours,

Kerry Lee Morgan
http://www.revivetherepublic.com/
Last edited by Guest on Wed Dec 31, 1969 7:00 pm, edited 0 times in total.
Reason:
Index of scripture references on the bible forum.

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_mattrose
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Location: Western NY

Post by _mattrose » Wed Aug 20, 2008 9:44 pm

Steve commented, I believe, that no churches were known to have 'pastors' (you said 'elders' but I assume you meant 'pastors'). Steve was probably referring to pastors in the modern day sense of the term. Biblically, a 'pastor' (a term only used once in the Bible) may have been the same exact role as an elder/overseer. Many NT churches had elders/overseers.

To hear Steve on this issue, you could listen to

TOPICAL LECTURES
"SOME ASSEMBLY REQUIRED"
Part 5 & 6 'who will lead us'

Or listen to his verse by verse discussion of, for instance, 1 Timothy 3

There's also a lot of discussion on this in the 'pagan christianity' thread
Last edited by Guest on Wed Dec 31, 1969 7:00 pm, edited 0 times in total.
Reason:
Hemingway once said: 'The world is a fine place and worth fighting for'

I agree with the second part (se7en)

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