Church Governance (28)
A common teaching is that the ascension ministries are travelling consultants.
However the tasks described in the previous posts are basic stuff like building relationships and helping new Christians to grow. That is why they had to be of good character and proved themselves in running their households. Surely, these tasks have to be done by local leadership.
A travelling consultant cannot be effective in helping Christians grow in the Lord. City-wide leaders cannot teach difficult people to work together. A visiting prophet cannot teach people to get their lives in order. Only an elder with a close relationship can do these tasks. Equipping the saints for service must be done by elders who are local.
The problem is that many Christian leaders have gone into a regional or itinerant ministry and need a biblical justification for it. Rather than taking the plain meaning of Paul's letter, the word is twisted to fit their ministry. They look at their ministries, and assume that Ephesians 4 describes it, but if they read the passage carefully, they would see that it does not describe their ministry. A justification for non-local ministry just does not exist in Ephesians 4.
2 comments:
Hi Ron,
true, especially considering the institutional church situation.
However, genuine apostles do travel and they still exist today.
Blessings, David
Apostles operate locally. The difference is that they are sent from locality to locality. When they become intinerant travellers, they often lose touch with their role, and transform into "bishops".
Ture apostles do exist, but there are not near enough of them.
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