I have been going to church for about twenty years.  I have been around several churches and have noticed something about my current church of about three years.  I noticed the pastor is very transparent.  The church size is around 150 total and has never went over that size in the last twenty-five years.  When I first went there, a lot of growth was taking place after they brought on a new staff member.  The church grew from 85 to 200 in about 4 months, but I noticed the pastor kept doing things that offended people.  He would call people out in the middle of service, discipline them, make fun of something that had happened to them, etc.  The church has had over 325 visitors in the last three years, and only two families remain from those who visited.  Here's my question: why does it seem my pastor has a self-destructive spirit?  It's almost as if he does not want to succeed or is afraid to grow.  He is very grounded biblically (although says a lot of things personally that offend people) and is very evangelistic.  I don't know how to encourage him.  He justifies everyone leaving because he is speaking "solid biblical" truth, and they don't like it.  He does speak truth, but at the same time, will point people out and make fun of them.  It is as if you can see a switch click when there are visitors.  He will be going along preaching, then stop, and then looking right at the visitors, make an "off-the-wall” comment.  They don't come back.  We don't have a deacon, elder, or leadership group that can help walk with the pastor… any suggestions?

Sincerely,
Put Off By The Pastor

Dear Put Off By The Pastor,

One man leading a church without any checks or balances can create lots of problems… and that is exactly why God didn’t design the church to be run by a head pastor.  God intended for the church to be lead by a multiplicity of elders (Acts 14:23) – never by one person.  The qualifications for elders can be found in 1 Tim 3:1-7 and Tit 1:5-9.  Many, many churches are suffering from the exact same problems as your congregation because they don’t use the Bible’s pattern for church leadership.

No single individual should be left alone to guide the Lord’s church.  Even an honest person would be bound to make major mistakes without other faithful leaders to rely upon.  It is only in a multiplicity of faithful elders that we can have safety (Pr 24:6).  When churches aren’t arranged according to the Bible pattern, things don’t work.

When can a preacher revoke your church membership?

Sincerely,
Benched

Dear Benched,

A preacher doesn’t have the right to revoke someone’s church membership.  Withdrawing from a christian is a last-ditch effort and is the collective decision of a congregation.  Jesus said that when a brother or sister was living a sinful life, they should be approached individually before the church got involved (Matt 18:15-17).  The church should only withdraw from someone after they have proven themselves unwilling to repent and listen to the Scriptures (2 Thess 3:6).  The textbook example of church discipline can be found in 1 Corinthians 5 where Paul instructed the church to withdraw from a man who had an illicit relationship with his father’s wife.  There is a time for discipline, but it is always a last resort for the church to save the soul of a wayward saint (2 Thess 3:14-15).  There are no Bible examples of a preacher individually revoking a christian’s membership.

If apostolic authority was meant to end with the last apostle, how are autonomous local congregations meant to settle doctrinal disputes?  The sheer number of differing Protestant denominations only proves that leaving the church with the Scriptures alone only leads to division and fragmentation.  Calvinists believe in predestination, Lutherans believe in baptismal regeneration, Baptists believe in symbolic adult full-immersion baptism, Pentecostals believe in speaking in tongues, the church of Christ believes in no musical instruments, and Seventh Day Adventists worship on Saturday.  All of these local congregations are interpreting the same Scriptures, and yet, all are divided on any one of a number of important doctrinal positions. They can’t agree on the nature of baptism, the causes of salvation, the gifts of the Spirit, the study of eschatology, and so on.  The differences are endless.  Why would Christ leave His church with a set of Scriptures but no authority to properly interpret them?

Sincerely,
Needing More

Dear Needing More,

Religious confusion isn’t because of the Scriptures.  The Scriptures aren’t the weak link; people are.  If you look at the vast majority of religious organizations, they don’t take the Scriptures as their only guide.  They allow religious tradition, personal whims, various creeds, etc. to sway them from basic Bible teachings.  It is when people warp and pervert the Scriptures that they get the divisions and fragmentations that we see today (Gal 1:6-8).  False teachers disguised as ministers of righteousness infiltrate churches and lead many astray (2 Cor 11:13-15).  False teachers are described as “wolves in sheep’s clothing” (Matt. 7:15) because they pretend to teach Bible, but instead, they teach their own devices.  False religions spring up when people are tired of the pure and simple Bible pattern and itch for a more comfortable message (2 Tim 4:3-5). The problem isn’t that we have too much emphasis on Scripture – it is the exact opposite!  If you want to remove division and chaos, return to simply studying Scripture and expel all creeds, traditions, and personal preferences from religious discussion.

Your assertion assumes that the Scriptures alone aren’t powerful enough to teach and prepare people to meet their God.  The Bible teaches that the Scriptures are the power of God for salvation (Rom 1:16).  2 Pet 1:3 says that the Scriptures provide every answer to life and godliness.  Peter said that the apostles wrote down the wisdom God had given them so that long after they departed, we would still have it (2 Pet 1:12-15).  When Jesus rebuked the Pharisees, He condemned them for their lack of Bible knowledge (Matt 22:29).  Jesus believed the Scriptures were plain enough for anyone to understand if they had an honest heart and applied some effort… He believed it enough to be angry with the Pharisees when they didn’t know their Bibles.  When Paul taught the people, he reasoned with them using only the Scriptures (Acts 17:2).  The Berean converts were praised as being noble-minded for not accepting the apostle Paul’s teachings without first examining the Scriptures for themselves (Acts 17:10-11).  The Bible is sufficient for our salvation, and there is no need for anyone to have modern abilities to “interpret” the Bible for us (2 Pet 1:20-21).

If churches are meant to be local and autonomous, why did the apostles have a regional council in Acts 15 (Council of Jerusalem) to resolve a doctrinal issue?  If a local church interpreted the Bible and concluded Gentile members needed to be circumcised, why should they have been corrected by other church leaders?

Sincerely,
Can’t We All Just Work Together?

Dear Can’t We All Just Work Together,

The apostles held a council in Jerusalem because the false teachers came from Jerusalem.  The men that were falsely teaching that you had to be circumcised to be saved were from Judea (Acts 15:1).  They had traveled up to a Gentile congregation, and Paul and Barnabas were debating them (Acts 15:2).  The council was held in Jerusalem to decide whether these teachers that were from the Jerusalem congregation were right to be spreading the doctrine of circumcision (Acts 15:4-6).  The apostles were involved in the issue because they were in charge of all the teaching for the church (Rom 1:5), and the Jerusalem elders were involved (Acts 15:4) because they had a responsibility to dictate the teaching that was emanating from their congregation.

Ultimately, as long as the church had the apostles, there was a physical unifying leadership over all congregations, but the apostles knew they wouldn’t be around forever and tried to prepare every congregation to function independently without them (Acts 14:23).

Last week in Sunday school, we were discussing how it seemed like the nature of God in the Old Testament seemed different than the nature of God in the New Testament.  (The New Testament nature of God seemed more forgiving and less wrathful).  My pastor mentioned there was a second century heretical movement called “Marcionism” that actually taught there was a difference.  Supposedly, this man named Marcion actually broke away from the church and began his own movement.  My pastor said the early church fought against this early heresy, and it eventually died out.  I’m not good with history, so I didn’t want to ask my pastor to explain this further in front of the Sunday school class.  Could you explain this a bit further?  How were these early christians able to keep the true biblical teachings on track and avoid these early heresies?

Sincerely,
Mad At Marcion

Dear Mad At Marcion,

Marcionism was a real movement, and it was combated by the early christians the same way all false teaching is – by comparing the teaching to the Bible.  The Bible teaches that God is the same today, forever, and always (Heb 13:8).  It teaches that the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob (who were all Old Testament people) is the same God of the New Testament (Acts 3:13).  New Testament christians compared the Scriptures to what Marcion was teaching… and found Marcion to be wrong.

We are told to do the same thing today.  There are lots of people who say they believe in Christ but teach a different gospel (Matt 7:21-23).  Paul said that such false teachers distort the Scriptures and are bound for hell (Gal 1:8).  Our job is to test all preaching against the Bible (1 Jn 4:1).  There are lots of churches, but only one Bible.  God never intended for all the religious confusion we see today (Eph 4:4-6).  If we want to be confident of our salvation, it is important that we never accept what people say unless it matches the Bible.  The Bible is the ultimate standard of faith (Rom 10:17); accept no substitute.