| In
this article I would like to elaborate on what I see God doing in ‘the
time of discipline’; to understand this work of God we need to distinguish
between revival and reformation.
In the current
climate of anticipation most people probably think of revival in terms
of an intensification of present Christian experience. This would mean
more miracles, healings, conversions, deeper love and fellowship and so
on. No doubt this is true, but if a revival is to endure (and most do
not) then it must be a restoration not only of the intensity of New Testament
Christianity but of its form. Being part of a culture that is too individualistic
it is very easy for us to forget that God is interested in the re-formation
of the Church.
This comes
down to matters of ministry and authority. The Protestant Reformation
of the sixteenth century, of which all Pentecostal and Charismatic people
are heirs, moved beyond a concern for individual salvation to preach a
gospel that called for the renewal of the ordering of the church. To seek
a revival without a re-structuring of the church would be to slip into
the repeated pattern resulting from most past works of God - a time of
rapid growth follow by power struggles, authoritarian leadership and multiple
splintering. To avoid this we must apply consistently the New Testament
model of ministry, one point of which I would like to focus on here.
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In
the classic text of Ephesians 4:7-16 Paul makes the following points:
a) Christ gives certain men and women to be gifts to his people (v.7-11)
b) These
gifts are people who together exercise a ‘five-fold ministry’
i.e. apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors and teachers.
c) These
gifts are ‘to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for the
building of the body of Christ.
The important point to grasp is that here, as throughout the New Testament,
it is Christ who governs His body by appointing orders of ministry. Pastors,
prophets and so on are not given by the Father to rule over his household,
but given by the Bridegroom to equip his Bride. If this simple fact is
overlooked: that the Father in this age never rules the household of God
directly but has given all authority to the Son (Matt. 28:18; John 17:2;
1 Cor. 15:24-28), then the worst possible distortions of ministerial authority
inevitably emerge. Pastors and other church leaders begin to function
as ‘fathers’ of congregations believing, consciously or unconsciously,
that they represent the sovereign authority of God the Father. Where the
New Testament never identifies the rule of the Father over his household
with that of Christ over the body, the Church today often thinks of pastors
as men appointed to minister over the family of God. Signs of this confusion
are everywhere.
Despite the clear prohibition of Jesus against the use of titles (‘father’,
‘teacher’ Matt. 23:8-10) a ‘pastor culture’ abounds
where ‘pastor’ is exactly a title. Rather than being viewed
as a dynamic description of a gifting in operation the role of a pastor
often becomes as fixed and authoritarian as any medieval priesthood. Notions
of a ‘set man’, ‘covering’ and the pastor as ‘head’
abound. None of these models appeal to the clear teaching on the nature
of the equality of all believers before God in the New covenant community
in Christ, but resort to images, types and allegories, often drawn from
the Old Testament. We seem to have forgotten that as members of God’s
family we are all equally related to the Father (Gal. 4:4-6). Ministries
are not part of our family relationship to our Father at all, and so cannot
be mediatorial (1 Tim. 2:5) rather they are part of the diversity of the
body of Christ, the Church Whereas Christ as Husband draws His Bride-as-body
into His life (Acts 15:28; 1 Cor. 2:16) the image of a presiding elder
as ‘father’ necessarily moves in the direction of hierarchy
. Where pastors ‘father’ churches their view of authority
works against consultation with the body. Instead of believing that a
local vision can emerge from the local body as a community, the pastor
has vision which must be received by the people. (If this model were true
we should expect the letters of the New Testament to be written to the
pastor). The traditional clergy - laity division
is very visible here, and encourages either passivity or rebellion in
the people. Not only do these models of ministry choke off the ministry
of the whole body with its full range of creativity, but place an unbearable
burden upon the leadership itself.
Members of the ‘pastor
culture’ feel that they, like fathers, bear the overwhelming responsibility
for the success of ‘their’ churches. Where there is growth
pride comes in, or burn-out; where there is decline the disappointment
of the congregation at the pastor is felt deeply (often a projection of
hurt from their earthly fathers). Under these circumstances law is so
often substituted for grace in order to get things moving, control becomes
the order of the day (1 Pet. 5:3). None of this is biblical and much of
it reflects patterns of order as old as organised religion. It seriously
robs Christ of the fullness of His glory (Eh. 3:20) as the ministry of
the body becomes more institutionalised and less diverse.
As we pray for the
revival God wishes to send we need to be stripped of all those traditions
which cannot be supported by the Word of God. What is required is a far
more radical viewpoint about revival than that which at the present time
seems to be popular in the Australian church. ‘By the open statement
of the truth we commend ourselves to the conscience of everyone in the
sight of God.’ (2 Cor. 4:2). Before God let us ask the Holy Spirit
to apply the truth of God’s unbridled Word to our consciences, lest
on the day of God we realise we have either submitted passively to, or,
submitted others to, forms of authority other than those of our most gracious
Bridegroom.
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Dr
John Yates, BSc.(Hons) Dip. Ed. and Ph.D (thesis The Timelessness of
God)
email John Yates
