What is the Proper Biblical Structure of the Church?

The Authority of Scripture Over Church Practice

Amen. You may be seated, and I want to invite you to take out your Bibles. Turn with me to 1 Corinthians chapter 14 and verse 40. Last week, we began a new series entitled, A Biblically Functioning Church Revisited.

And the subject, of course, is one that we dealt with some six or seven years ago when we first decided, well a little longer than that, when we first decided we wanted to move toward being a more biblically functioning church and how we govern the church, how we understood the purpose and role in the ministry of the church.

And now we have, last week, and I thank everyone who was here last week and had the opportunity to affirm the few small changes we had in the Constitution. And again, I thought this was the perfect time to re-present some ideas that are important for us to understand.

It's important for us to understand what the church is, how it's supposed to work, and the function of not only the leaders of the church, but the function of the church in general as the members working together as the body of Christ and what they are supposed to do.

The first sermon last week was, A Biblically Functioning Church. Why is it important? And the answer is simple. If we believe that the Bible is the Word of God, then we would be fools to believe that we should govern our lives, or for that matter, the life of the church in any way that would be unbiblical.

To do life as the author of life intended life to be done is obviously the best way to do life. And likewise, to do church as the author of the church intended church to be done is obviously the best way to do church.

I mean, it's such a simple idea, and yet the profundity of it, because when you look out at the churches of America today and all around the world, you see churches that have no concern with what God has said for the church.

They have no concern for the way the church is supposed to function. They don't care about being biblical. They care about being successful, and in their mind, success is large numbers. And they're willing often to say no to Scripture in the pursuit of those numbers.

Saying no to Scripture is essentially looking at God right in the face and saying, No! You have said this, but I am not going to do it. This week, an article came across my news feed from a person who confesses to be a Christian, and the article was entitled, Why It's Not Wrong for Me to Live with My Boyfriend Before We Get Married.

That was the title of the article, Why It's Not Wrong for Me to Live with My Boyfriend Before We Get Married. And so, as I often do, I use it as an opportunity for family worship, oftentimes in our family worship devotional times, because I have two teenagers that are facing life and facing the struggles of adulthood and growth.

I sat them down. I said, Here's this article put out by a person who is supposed to be a believer. I said, But consider the argument that they're making. Because in the article, what it said, it said, How could it be a sin if I'm loving this person?

How could it be a sin if I'm enjoying being with this person? How could it be a sin if I love what I'm doing and I'm happy? I said, That's the same argument that a rapist would make. How could it be wrong if I enjoy it, if I love it?

You say, Well, that's a little bit of a stretch. It's not a stretch at all. Just because you love something does not make it right. Just because you enjoy something does not make it not a sin. That's foolish to the nth degree.

And yet that was the argument. I love this, so it can't be wrong. The heart is desperately wicked above all things. Who can know it? Says the prophet. You see, when we come to the scripture, we come to the scripture either obedient or disobedient.

Either willing to say yes God or no God. And as a church, we must say yes God. We must obey. We do not have the prerogative to look at scripture and say yes God is clearly spoken here. And yet I don't care.

Who do we think we are? And yet so often that is the case. So again, our text today, it's a simple one. Our text today gives a basis for what I consider to be a foundational principle when it comes to the management of the church.

And it's one verse, it's in 1 Corinthians 14. The context of 1 Corinthians 14 is the apostle Paul is dealing with the improper use of gifts in the church. The particular gift that's being talked about in 1 Corinthians 14 is actually the gift of the tongue.

In comparison with the gift of prophecy, and Paul says prophecy is better because people understand it, people don't understand the tongue. It's not helping people, it's not benefiting people in the church, so he compares prophecy as a better gift.

And he goes through this whole relentless struggle about the gift of the tongue and what it's for and what it's not for, how it can be misused. And at the very end of the passage, we come to our text for today.

And as we always do, we'll stand so that I might read and then pray. It says 1 Corinthians 14, verse 40. But all things should be done decently and in order. Our Father and our God, we come to you in Jesus' name.

I thank you for the opportunity to study, to teach, and to proclaim your word. I pray as I always do that you would keep me from error, as I am certainly capable of that. And I pray for the sake of your people and for my own conscience to be kept from that.

I pray, Lord, that when we look at the Bible, that we would not see it as a list of suggestions, but as the very word of God, which is to be obeyed. And I pray, Father, throughout this message that not only will we understand the purpose and role of the church, but our roles in it as members of the body of Christ.

We thank you and we praise you for all this. In Jesus' name, amen. 1 Corinthians 14 actually begins, the thought process of Paul begins back in chapter 12. As he starts talking about the gifts and the ministry of the gifts within the church, he talks about all the different gifts and how there isn't one gift that's more important than another.

Just because one person might be the hands, another person might be a foot, another person might be an ear, another person might be a mouth, if you ever wondered what I am, it's that last one. And he just talks about the fact that there's equality in the church.

Your hand can't say to your foot, I don't have any need of you. I can't say to the ear, I have no need of you. And Paul makes that pretty clear. And then in chapter 13, he goes on to talk about how love is the most important thing.

Because even if you have all the gifts in the world, if you don't have love, it doesn't matter because you're not doing it motivated properly. Your gifts aren't being motivated properly if you're not motivated by love.

And then in chapter 14, he deals with that very specific thing which we talked about a minute ago. He deals with prophecy and the gift of the tongues. And he ends all of this. He ends this whole thought process with verse 40 of chapter 14, it says, but all things and in context, the all things in the church.

Doesn't say that in the text, but that's the context of the writing. All things in the church. And you could certainly say all things in life should be decently and in order, but in this context, it's all things within the body are to be done decently and in order.

What do those two words mean? I know we have a meaning for them that we sort of understand. You know, if I say decent versus indecent, or if I say orderly versus disorderly, but there are meanings to the word which are important.

The word decent in the Greek, the decently here means in a seemly manner, decently all things in the church are to be done in a way that befits the character of someone who claims the name of Jesus Christ.

There's not supposed to be any shady business. There's not supposed to be any backdoor politics. There's not supposed to be anything that would be unbecoming of a Christian. It's supposed to be done rightly in the light and above board, decently.

If you want to know what decency is, look at the politicians in Washington and then do the opposite. I wish I were kidding, because that's what we see. We see corruption, backdoor politics, secret meetings, cloak and dagger type decisions.

That's not the way the church is supposed to function. You know, that is how the church was functioning in the time of the Reformation. The Roman Catholic church had become very hierarchical, and the people in authority were very corrupt.

There was a time when there were three popes at once, and each one excommunicated the other one. What are you going to do with that? You're the highest Christian authority in the land. And then that guy is too, and so is he.

And he excommunicated him. That's just foolish, and that's totally ungodly. And that's part of what we see here. Decency in the church is to do things rightly, to do things godly. Huskamanos means to do it in a decent way, and orderly.

And really, orderly is the way that I really want to focus on the word order today. The word order is the word taxis. Think about not taxes like what you pay, taxis, I-S, not E-S. And it means according to an arrangement, an order.

You know what taxonomy is. Taxonomy is when you place things into categories. Actually, taxonomy is sort of the root of all science, because science begins with putting things into categories. So taxonomy is sort of placing things in order.

You can't do science without first making distinctions between man and animal, different types of animals, all that. That's taxonomy. That's how that works. The heart of this is an arrangement, an order, a certain quality, a certain way that it's supposed to be.

And that's the word that I think is most important here, because not only should we be decent, but we should do our ministry in accord with the order that God has established for us. The arrangement that He has placed for us.

I remember years ago, I went to a church, and it was off the chain. I mean, it was just outlandish. The pastor was walking across the pews yelling, like the backs of the pews, and he would walk by and he would snap his finger and he'd point, and he'd snap his, I mean, he would just go down and he would get down, and he would get up on the other side and come back, and he was shouting and pointing, and everybody was falling over, except for me.

I was watching with amazement. People would just get up and, a few days later, I didn't mean that to be as funny as it was. A few days later, I was talking to a member of the church that had invited me, and I said, I said, what do they do with 1 Corinthians 14 .40?

And this lady, she said, well, what is that? And I said, 1 Corinthians 14 .40 says that all things in the church, that's the context, all things in the church are to be done decently and in order. And she said, well, how do you know that's not the way they keep order?

I said, because there's difference between order and chaos. And if language matters at all, that was chaos. That's an amen moment right there. No, I'm serious. That was, it was chaos. It was chaotic. And you can't have chaos and call it order, and it becomes order just because you say so.

That's relativism and it's foolishness. We're talking about a biblically functioning church, and my goal today is to talk about what's the order? We're told, do things decently and in order. What is the order?

The Order of Worship and the Structure of the Church

And I'm going to talk about the order of worship. Because I realize different churches have what we call liturgy difference. And every church has a liturgy. There's high liturgies, like if you go to the Presbyterian church, everything's written out for you, and they have a nice handout that everything is, you go down the list like that also.

Also in Methodist churches, I think they have the very strict structured liturgy. Our church has an outline, but it's not as structured as you'll find in some of those churches. And in some churches, it's a little more relaxed even than we are.

That's not what I'm talking about, though I think that often is the outgrowth of what's behind the scenes. But I am talking today about the structure of the church. How is it structured? And is it structured in an orderly way that goes with what the Bible says is the order that it's supposed to be?

Some people would argue that the Bible does not tell us how the church is to be ordered. I would disagree. Some people would say the Bible doesn't give us enough information. I would say you haven't looked hard enough.

The Bible is pretty clear. In fact, I would say absolutely clear as to how the church is supposed to be structured. And it's so simple. It really is a simple, simple structure. And that's the outline of today's lesson is the threefold structure of the church.

I gave you a blank sheet on the back of the bulletin. I didn't give you any notes because you might want to draw a picture. I don't know if that's you, but on this one, I didn't bring my whiteboard, but this really is simple.

Because we're going to go through three things about the structure and order of the church that you need to understand. And why those three things are important. Number one. You put this at the top. There is only one head in the church.

You put that right at the top. There is only one head in the church. Turn with me to Ephesians chapter 5. Ephesians chapter 5. Go to verse 22. Now, of course, verse 22 is a passage which by itself could have an entirely different message in regard to the structure of the home.

Because it talks about how wives and husbands are to relate to one another and the wife submits to the husband. But that's not the part I'm dealing with today. We could, but just so you know, Paul says that and then he uses the church as the example.

It says in verse 22, Wives submit to your own husbands as to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife, even as what? Christ is the head of the church, His body, and is Himself its Savior. Now, as the church submits to Christ, also wives are to submit in everything to their husbands.

Again, the focus of Ephesians 5 is the marriage relationship. Right before that, or right after that, he talks about husbands loving your wives. He says, wives submit to your husbands, husbands love your wives.

That's the focus of the text. But in the heart of that text, he says, here's the reason why. Wives submit to your husbands just as the church submits to Christ. Because Christ is the head of the church.

Years ago, one of my professors was doing some work as an interim preacher at a little Baptist church somewhere, and he went in a few days before he was to start the interim work, and he went in to the narthex or foyer of the church, whatever they called it, and the head deacon met him.

And I don't know if you've ever been in a Baptist church, but the Baptist church tends to place the deacons in a very prominent position of leadership, very unbiblical prominent position of leadership, to the point where they are functioning elders, oftentimes, in the church.

Often unqualified, but that's another conversation altogether. But he walked in, and he met the guy, and the guy shook his hand, and he goes, Hi, I want you to know my name is Brother Bill, whatever, whatever.

I'm the head of this church. And my professor said, I'm glad you told me, because I always thought it was Jesus. He didn't stay there long. He was not very popular. But you see, that's the problem. This is something about which we must make no mistake.

I'm the pastor, but I'm not the head of this church. Jack Bunning is an elder, he's not the head of this church. Richard Taylor is an elder, he's not the head of this church. Paul Turner is a deacon, he's not the head of this church.

Don's a deacon, he's not the head of this church. Chris is a deacon, and you're not the head of this church. And you know that, right? I hope you do. Jesus Christ is the head of the church. Jesus Christ is the Lord of the body.

That word, head, kephale, in the Greek, it means the physical head. He is the one leading it. He is the guide. You know, if you think about your body, men have survived injuries of all sorts, and wars, and accidents, you know, people can lose an arm, people can lose a foot, or even a leg, a whole half their body can be gone, and still survive.

But you can't, that part can't go away. The head is what governs and directs everything else, right? And that's really the idea of what's being said here. Christ is the head! He's the head of the body!

And you might say, well, that's a simple thing. That's not a simple thing, because people usurp Christ's authority all the time, without any concern. How does the Lord, who is the head, govern His church?

He governs His church through His word. This is how the head of the church speaks to the church, right here. This is how the head of the church governs His church, through the word of God. And I know an objection, which some people have, and I like to consider objections, and try to keep them in my messages, sort of in the forefront of my mind.

People say, well, the Bible is interpreted so differently, by so many people, how can you say the Bible governs the church? There's not unanimity of thought. I agree. There is an issue when you go to different churches, and you hear them teaching different things.

But this is where the two offices of the church come in. So we've seen there's one head of the church who is Christ. If you draw on a picture, draw Christ at the top, and then a Bible underneath Him, because that's how He governs the church.

But then that government, or leadership in the church, comes through two offices. The Bible only gives two offices, that's the second point. There are only two offices in the church that the Bible gives.

The offices, elder, what we call elder, some people call bishop, there are other, episcopate, is a word that's used at times. The elder, and the deacon. There are two Greek words which we would understand as elder.

One is episkopos, and the other is presbyteros. Presbyteros is the more specific word for elder. Episkopos means overseer. But those two words are used interchangeably, particularly in Titus, when he's addressing the office of episkopos and presbyteros.

That is one office. Because in some churches they believe you have the bishop who is over the elders. That's not the way the Bible describes it. The Bible describes it as those two offices are the same office.

Episkopos is what he's doing, he's overseeing. Presbyteros is who he is, he's an elder. You see, but it's the same position. And then you have the diakonos. The diakonos is the deacon. The elders, let's talk about them for a minute.

And we're going to have a sermon later in this series about who qualifies as an elder. But today I want to just talk about what their job is. The elders are a group of God-ordained, scripturally qualified men whose job it is to study the Scriptures and teach the congregation the Word of God and ensure doctrinal purity.

That was long, let me do that again. The elders are a group of God-ordained, scripturally qualified men whose job it is to study the Scriptures, teach the congregation the Word, and ensure doctrinal purity.

That's their job. In most churches, there's only one. Well, I don't say most churches, in a lot of churches, there's only one. And he's usually called what? Pastor, right? And what happens is, oftentimes, especially when you get a personality-driven church, what I mean by that is a pastor who has great appeal and charisma.

He becomes the unquestioned leader. There's a guy up north who had his own picture put into a coloring book for the kids in children's church to color. His name's Stephen Furtick. He's a false teacher.

And he is a dangerous guy because he's so popular. His people come in without question. He had pictures. We need to follow pastors' vision is what the coloring page said. It was him standing with his microphone.

That's dangerous. That's cultic. And that's why there is no single pastor model in Scripture. There is no single elder, single pastor model. I don't mean single like not married. I mean, there's no unilateral leadership in Scripture.

In fact, if you want to just write down a few verses or look with me, Titus 1 .5, the apostle Paul writing, he said, This is why I left you in Crete, so that you might put what remained in order, by the way, there's the word order again, and appoint elders in every town as I directed you.

So what was Titus' mission? His mission was to go into these towns where there's churches were, and he was to go there and appoint not a single man for leadership, not a single man, but a group of men whose job it was to lead the church according to Scripture.

Elders in every town. Acts 14 and 23. And when they had appointed elders for them in every church, with prayer and fasting, they committed them to the Lord in whom they had believed. Elders, plural. It's plural in the Greek as well.

And that was what they did. They went about and they appointed these men as elders. They laid hands on them, they prayed on them, they ordained them to that position because God had called them to that position and they recognized the call in their lives.

And so they placed them in that position. Acts 20 and 17. Now from Miletus he sent to Ephesus and called the elders of the church to come to him. In fact, when we get back to our study in Acts, I really look forward to Acts 20 because there's a whole section there about the Ephesian elders that we're going to address and talk about and the role that they had.

But it's elders, folks. It's elders. And within the eldership, there's two simple things that you have to remember. A plurality and an equality. A plurality and an equality. Plurality and no one man does it by himself.

And why do you think that is? I think it's as simple as this. There's too much leadership authority invested in the elders that any man do it alone. Power corrupts and what does absolute power do? Corrupts absolutely.

If no one can be questioned. If no one's authority can be questioned. There was a guy out in Washington who had a church. He ended up being defrocked and put out of his church. But when it finally came to the realization of what was going on, he was an absolute authoritative bully and could not be questioned.

And guess what? The church, it was in disarray because you had one guy and he couldn't be questioned. I do appreciate the fact that our elders will challenge me, especially if I say something wrong from here.

And I have before. I've corrected things that I've said because I'm not perfect. And if we can't be challenged as Christian men, we have no reason to be in leadership. So that's that. But the other thing is equality.

You'll notice in our new constitution the little thing that we changed. We took out the word senior and associate pastor. Why did we take out that word? Because a pastor is an elder in the church and an elder in the church is equal with the other elders.

There's no authority between me and Jack and there's no authority between me and Richard. And if we hired somebody to come in to work as another vocational man in the ministry here at the church, there would be no authoritative structure where I would be able to boss him as his boss.

It wouldn't work. Because that's not the way the eldership functions. There is equality there. Now the reason these two concepts are important to understand is because they assist in our understanding the role and the responsibility of the elders.

I do want you to turn to Acts 20 with me. I want to show you something in Acts 20. I'm fearful we're not going to have time to finish all this. We'll see. We'll see how far we get. There's not a lot to say on this issue.

This is important. Understanding this structure is hugely important. But Acts 20, this is the commission Paul gives to the elders at Ephesus. Anytime we talk about an elder or we're going to ordain an elder, this is the verse.

Pay careful attention to yourselves, elders. Pay careful attention to yourselves and to all the flock in which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers to care for the church of God which He obtained with His own blood.

Number one, there's a huge Christological passage here because it says that God purchased the church with His own blood. That's huge in and of itself because it's speaking of God in Christ purchasing the church.

We understand that, right? That Christ is the God-man. We talked to the Jehovah Witnesses the other day. They don't believe that. They don't believe Jesus is the God-man. He is the God-man and God purchased the church with His own blood.

We see that in this passage. But think about what the church is. The church is the bride of Christ. The church is the people of God whom God has by His own blood bought out of the slave market of sin and placed in the person of His Son.

We are living in Christ. Now, Christ lives in us and we live in Him. There is value here. Any man who would take the role of elder, any man who would take this position has to understand who he is ministering to.

Ministering to the bride of Christ. Imagine a man who loved his wife had to go away for some important thing. Maybe he's in the military and he has to go away. Or maybe he has a job that's going to take him away for a few weeks.

And he comes to me and he says, Keith, my wife is going to be home by herself for four weeks and please, I'd appreciate if you and Jennifer would look in on her and care for her and watch over the house.

If she has a need, if there's a danger, would you take... That's an important responsibility, wouldn't it? That would take a lot of trust for me to come to you and say, Hey, my wife is going to be home for a week, Chris.

You live right around the block from us. Would you go by my house at night and just make sure everything is okay? That would be a lot of trust invested in that person, wouldn't it? And there would be a lot of responsibility in that.

Beloved, that's what the elders have been told. This is the bride of Christ and you've been called to oversee that, to love her. This is why it's not a small thing. This is why an eldership position is not one that is a popularity contest.

This is one that is God-ordained and recognized by the people of God. How are they to oversee? They are to oversee with the Bible. How are they to do that? They are to be men who know the Bible. We're going to talk about this more when we actually talk about the elders in the weeks to come.

But they are to be men who are able to teach the Word. You know that's the only real difference between deacons and elders when it comes to qualifications? If you read the qualifications of a deacon and you read the qualifications of an elder, the difference between the two is the elder is to be a man who has studied and knows the Word that he might teach and counsel in accord with the Word.

Deacons don't have to have that qualification because deacons are not teachers in the church. They're supposed to serve in the church and they're supposed to have that gift, the desire to serve. But if a man says, I feel called to be an elder, are you called to study the Scriptures so that you might teach and counsel in accord with the Scriptures?

If you're not, you're not called to that office. It's not a position because it's the highest position. I like it. I like that authority. I want to be in it. I don't care. Nobody cares. What we care is do you know the Word?

Can you teach the Word? Can you counsel with the Word? That's what matters. Everything else is of no importance. Or secondary importance, rather. And that's to say the difference between the elder and the deacon is very simple.

The deacon is called to serve the body in whatever the need may be. The deacon is called to serve the church in whatever the... You know how the deacons were first established? Most of you remember this.

When we studied in Acts, Acts chapter 6. What happened? There was an issue going on in the church where there was needing of service within the church. And the elders, the apostles came together and they said, look, we've got to study the Word of God.

We've got to teach the Word of God. We've got to be about the business of leading these people. And yet they're tying us up with serving tables. And it's not that we're too good to serve tables. I have mopped every floor in this church.

I've cleaned every toilet in this church at some point. I'm not better than you in any way. You understand? And I love this church. But there is a role that everybody plays. Everybody has something different that they do.

And the elders at that point in Acts chapter 6, they said, we've got to put some men in charge of this. Because if we tie ourselves up with serving tables, then we'll never be about the business of preaching the Word and praying.

So they did that. And they chose the men. Actually, the congregation recommended the men. It said, choose from yourself men of good reputation. And they chose them, they ordained them, and they called them to that position.

It doesn't call them deacons in Acts 6. But that's essentially what they were. Later in 1 Timothy 3, the actual qualifications for a deacon come out. And as I said, in the weeks to come, we're going to see that.

So there are two offices in the church. Christ is the head. He governs through His Word. The elders teach the congregation the Word. And the deacons serve that congregation in accordance with the Word.

That's the structure of the leadership of the church. So now we get to the question, well, what do you guys do? What do you have to do? Now it's important. Hopefully all of it's been important. But now we're going to talk about you.

Because number three is very important. And this might sound like a hard left turn, but it's not. As we've already said, there's one head of the church, that's Christ. There's two offices in the church, that's elder and deacon.

The Church as a Theocracy, Not a Democracy

Number three, there is no example of democracy in Scripture. The church is a theocracy. Write that down if you're taking notes. There is no example of democracy in Scripture. The church is a theocracy.

The concept of democratic government, one man, one vote, is very American. But not biblical. The idea of voting within the church came as a result of the church becoming more and more Americanized. And as the church became the social pinpoint in the towns of areas, that was the place where people came to vote.

And thus the church began to be seen as a democratic institution rather than a theocratic institution. I can prove to you in one sentence that we should not use voting as a way to determine what's right in the church.

Very quickly, if everyone in this church voted that homosexuality was not a sin, would that make it not a sin? So does voting make a difference as to what is true and what is not? No. There it is. You don't have to argue it.

Voting doesn't determine truth. The Word of God determines what is truth. And when we use voting to determine what is true and what is not true, that's mob rule. That's not the way the Bible says we're determined what is truth.

Righteousness is never determined by taking a vote. You might say, now wait a minute, Pastor. Once a year we have a congregational meeting and everybody in the church comes to affirm the new budget. You know why we do that?

Because we're not affirming whether it's right or wrong to have a budget. We're affirming whether or not we as a church can support that budget. Because we all do that together. The Constitution, we come and lay the Constitution before you.

By coming and reading it through, we're showing you how we lead and we're asking you to affirm that. If we've made a mistake, show us. We're asking for affirmation. We're not voting as most people would think of voting.

You know, there are some places, and Jack and I have talked about this in the past, some places have a mandatory no vote. You ever heard of that? Remember when we talked about that? Where you had to have one person vote no?

Because you should never have 100 You know, I can't remember the last time we didn't have 100 in this church. Honestly, we had 100 of the Constitution, 100 of the last budget, 100 of the budget before that, 100 of the budget.

Because we want to have things affirmed by the congregation. But at the end of the day, things like the Trinity will never come up for a vote. Things like whether or not marriage is between one man and one woman won't come up for a vote.