August 22, 2025 Show with Greg Nichols & Daniel Wolford on “Duties of Church Members to their Pastors”

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Live from historic downtown Carlisle, Pennsylvania, home of founding father James Wilson, 19th century hymn writer

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George Duffield, 19th century gospel minister George Norcross, and sports legend

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Jim Thorpe. It's Iron Sharpens Iron. This is a radio platform in which pastors and Christian scholars and theologians address the burning issues facing the church and the world today.

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Proverbs chapter 27 verse 17 tells us iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another.

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Matthew Henry said that in this passage, we are cautioned to take heed with whom we converse and directed to have a view in conversation to make one another wiser and better.

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It is our hope that this goal will be accomplished over the next two hours, and we hope to hear from you, the listener, with your own questions.

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And now, here's your host, Chris Arnzen. Good afternoon,

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Cumberland County, Pennsylvania, Lake City, Florida, and the rest of humanity living on the planet Earth who are listening via live streaming at ironsharpensironradio .com.

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This is Chris Arnzen, your host of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, wishing you all a happy Friday. On this 22nd day of August 2025,

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I am thrilled to have two very dear friends on the program today, one a returning guest and one a first -time guest.

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The guests for today are Greg Nichols, author and pastor of Amazing Grace Church in Catskill, New York.

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And first of all, let me welcome you back to Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, Pastor Greg Nichols.

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Thank you very much. It's a privilege to be with you once again. And also joining us is a deacon at the church where I am a member,

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Trinity Reformed Baptist Church of Carlisle, Pennsylvania, Daniel Wolford. And it is a joy to have you on the program for the very first time, brother.

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Thank you. Thank you, Chris. It's an honor and a privilege to be here, long -time listener, first time on the show, and delighted to be here with both of you brothers as we consider this important topic.

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Amen. Well, first of all, Greg, let's hear something about Amazing Grace Church in Catskill, New York.

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Amazing Grace Church is a little church that's been here for a long time. And when

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I retired in 2019, this church had been without a pastor for about three years, and they asked me to be interim pastor.

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They asked me to try to evaluate, since they were down to 18 members, whether they should keep the church going or close the doors.

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After being here for a year, I said to them, I think you should keep it going because God has sent a wonderful spirit of prayer to this church.

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And to my mind, why would the Lord send such a deep and wonderful spirit of prayer if he wanted the church to close?

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So then they said to me, OK, stay, help us rebuild the church. Since that time, the church has gone from 18 members, 32 members, and since that time, the church has gone from an average age of 60 in 2020 to 48 in 2025.

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Except me, I've gone from a specific age of 72 to 77.

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The church is very—I didn't get younger. So the church is very much in need of a younger elder to see the church, help to rebuild it, bring it to the next generation.

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And the church has peace and love and unity. It's a great privilege to be here in my, quote, semi -retirement, and thank

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God for bringing us here. Ginger and I are very happy here. This is a very loving, though small, church family, and we praise

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God for the privilege of serving him among us. Thanks for asking. Hey, my pleasure. And I believe you are subscribers to the

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London Baptist Confession of Faith? That's true. Second London Confession, yes.

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And the website for those of you who are living in the

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Catskill area, perhaps you're just passing through, you're going to be vacationing up there, or you have family, friends, and loved ones up there.

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The website is AmazingGraceCatskill .com, AmazingGraceCatskill .com.

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And now, Daniel Wolford, everybody at Trinity Reformed Baptist Church of Carlisle, Pennsylvania is so delighted that the

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Lord blessed us with a deacon such as yourself. Why don't you tell our listeners more about Trinity Reformed Baptist Church of Carlisle, Pennsylvania?

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Thank you, Chris. Yeah, well, delighted to serve the Lord as the deacon and delighted to serve the dear

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St. Trinity Reformed Baptist Church of Carlisle. As Brother Patrick Rand alluded to, we're also a church that subscribes to and upholds the 1689

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Second London Baptist Confession of Faith, and it's a sweet congregation that's growing.

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We also have around 33 members, I think a total of around 77.

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The Lord has blessed us with a lot of youth and children, and for that, we're most grateful. Amen.

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Amen. And for those of you listening who want to find out more about Trinity Reformed Baptist Church of Carlisle, our website is trbccarlisle .org,

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trbccarlisle .org. And Daniel, you know that we have a tradition on Iron Sherpa and Zion Radio, whenever we have a first -time guest, unlike Pastor Greg Nichols, who's been on this program a number of times, this is your first time as a guest on Iron Sherpa and Zion Radio, and we always have first -time guests give a summary of their salvation testimony, and I'd like you to do that for us.

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Thank you, Chris. I'm a big fan of this tradition, and it's an honor to give my testimony of how the Lord has worked in a saving way in my life.

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As you know, Chris, I grew up attending a non -denominational church that would be broadly

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Pentecostal, and as such, kind of grew up in an easy

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Beliebism, both in the church and say a sinner's prayer, and that's how you're saved.

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Obviously, I've now fully come to believe and appreciate the doctrines of priests.

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I grew up in a Christian household with two very loving parents who

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I'm very close with until this very day, grateful for them, and grew up going to church, and parents reading the scriptures and encouraging me, and one night at a very young age, my mom tells a story that I asked her to say a prayer with me to accept

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Christ into my heart, which I did. I always grew up believing that I was a

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Christian. I don't know that that's why I was actually saved. I tend to doubt that, but at some point, the

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Lord did work through the preaching of his word, even maybe in a church that we would not have some concerns with, maybe doctrinally, but the

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Lord did a great work. And one of the things growing up, I was always troubled.

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I didn't fully understand it until coming to the Reformed faith. I was always very concerned about actually being a

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Christian, not because of any necessarily besetting sin or anything like that, but I was always concerned, did

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I actually say the right word? Did I really mean the prayer? Was it effective? And the thought that any part of my salvation could be in my hand was concerning, because that means

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I might have messed it up. And coming to the Reformed faith and understanding that it is all a grace, it is the working of the

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Holy Spirit, and knowing that to be amongst

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God's elect, it is such an encouragement. I think it answered so much of that longing and misunderstanding that I had for not truly understanding the

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Scriptures and how Christ works in a saving way. Amen.

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Hallelujah. Amen. Well, today we are going to discuss a very important topic that has a huge, enormous, incalculable impact on local congregations, and that is the duties of church members to their pastors.

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And we are going to be drawing a lot from a booklet that Dr.

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Greg Nichols and my mutual friend, who is not only a friend of mine, but my very first pastor as a born -again believer who baptized me,

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Mike Dadosch of Solid -Ground -Books .com,

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Solid Ground Christian Books, he brought back to print many years ago this booklet by John Angel James, a 19th century

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English nonconformist. He was actually born in the 18th century. And this is a wonderful, precious booklet that actually comes, including another brief booklet,

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Plead to Pray for Pastors by Gardner Spring, with a foreword by Dr. John MacArthur.

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But before I go to Dr. Greg Nichols, Daniel, this was your idea quite a number of months ago to cover this issue on duties of church members to their pastors, and I'd like you to tell us why you were so compelled to have this issue covered on Iron Trip and Zion Radio.

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Thanks, Chris. Yeah, no, it's a subject I have felt passionate about, having the privilege now to serve as a deacon in two different churches, and having the great opportunity to have been greatly blessed by knowing several pastors very well, the unique challenges that pastors face, and just the realistic truth that it is very difficult for a pastor to be his own advocate.

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A pastor should never shy away from preaching the gospel and things that it says about caring for ministers, but that's a very difficult thing to do when you're the man who is receiving that check.

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And so I've always felt passionate about that as a deacon, and so I thought this would be a good topic for your listeners,

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Chris, and something that I have just more and more become convinced of as I've done readings.

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You recall, Brother, right before our church had constituted, I led a

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Sunday evening where we were thinking through duties of a church member supporting their pastor and drawing on the work of Benjamin Teach and his work,

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The Glory of a True Church, and we also looked at John Owen's work by the title of Duties of Christian Fellowship, and a lot of good material on those two books, and a lot of similar points are made here by John Angel James that are very worthy of our consideration.

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And Pastor Greg, you yourself have written a book where much of what

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John Angel James covered is in your own writings.

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I think that you said you covered about eight of the nine points that John Angel James makes in his booklet.

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Yes, a couple of things. First of all, I think that what you meant to say was that it was

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Dr. Joel Beeky who collaborated with our dear Brother Mike to produce that booklet.

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Oh, for some reason I'm unaware of that or forgot it. I didn't know that Joel Beeky was a part of that.

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Well, I think it was Dr. Beeky. You said Dr. Greg Nichols, and I knew you didn't mean that, but maybe you meant

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Dr. Beeky. No, what I meant to say was that you and I have a mutual friend in Mike Gajdasz.

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That's what I meant. I see. Well, then let me just clarify. I have a Bachelor of Science in Chemical Engineering and a

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Master of Divinity, but I don't hold a doctorate degree. Well, you deserve one anyway. Well, I didn't earn it.

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Okay. Let me see. Yes, as far as covering those points in the doctrine of the

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Church, I do cover most of those points, slightly different headings, but yes, indeed.

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As I was telling you before, there's only one of them that I really didn't cover. Then I thought back later and realized

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I did, but under a different heading, under the heading of evangelism, the responsibility of bringing people up to the sound of the gospel.

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My man, why don't you start by going through as many of the nine issues that are covered by John Angel James about the duties of church members to the pastors.

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We'll take them one by one, and we will have Daniel Wolford chime in with not only his of these nine points, but also his own knowledge of what

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Benjamin Keech and John Owen had to say. Right. Okay, well, do you have—how many—it's 4 .14.

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How much time do I have before you have to take a hard break? About 15 minutes. Oh, plenty of time.

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Okay, good. I won't take that much. Well, let me start by saying this. All right. The first thing is the word duties.

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Duties, duties, duties, duties, duties. Okay? Duty, duty, duty, duty.

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Exactly. Well, that's the point. That's exactly the point. And I've said this to these people in Catskill.

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I told them I'd say this to you until you're blue in the face. First thing, Christianity is not for good people that never did anything wrong.

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Christianity is for bad people that never did anything right. It's for hell -deserving sinners, and we're all saved by grace and not by works.

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Amen. And I'm not decrying the responsibility of Christians to do what is good to evoke a gospel obedience to God.

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But whenever you talk about duty, I say to them, I'm never going to speak to you, never going to preach to you, never going to say a word about duty unless I say this.

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There's a difference between legalism and Christian duty. And any time you ever speak about duty, you have to make clear what you're talking about.

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I'm not talking about legalism, not talking about works righteousness, not talking about earning your way to heaven.

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I'm not talking about things you do in your own strength. I'm talking about things that Christians do by the power of the

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Holy Spirit who dwells in them, not to earn salvation. But in order to please

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God who has saved them by grace on the ground of Christ alone, because of grace alone, by means of faith alone, we're right with God and justified.

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And whatever we do, we do in the power of the Holy Spirit. We do washed in the blood of Christ.

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We do out of love to God. We do it to please God who loved us and in Christ, and Christ who gave himself for us.

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So we're talking about duty. We're talking about Christian duty, not talking about any other kind of duty, not legalistic duty, not

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Pharisaic duty, Christian duty. And then I end up by saying to them, are we clear?

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Are we clear? Do I need to say it again? So that's the first thing about duty.

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Now, with respect to the responsibilities of church members in regard to pastors,

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John Angel James makes nine points. I summarize them in one word headings like this.

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Defer, respect, attend, intercede or pray, invite, inform, cooperate, defend and support or provide.

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The first is defer. He puts it this way, quote, submission to their just and scriptural authority.

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Secondly, respect. And he says, quote, church members should treat their pastor with distinguishing honor, esteem and love.

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The third, attend. He says, quote, attendance upon their ministration is another duty which church members owe their pastors.

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Fourth, intercede or pray. He says, quote, earnest prayer.

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The fifth would be invite. And he says, quote, members should encourage others to attend upon the ministry of their pastors, end quote.

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The sixth, inform. He says, quote, it is incumbent on church members to make known to their pastor anything of importance that occurs within the scope of their observation or the course of their experience relating to his church and congregation, end quote.

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Seventh, cooperate. He says, quote, zealous cooperation in all schemes of usefulness proposed by their pastor, whether for the benefit of their own society in particular or the welfare of the church and the world at large is the duty of Christians, end quote.

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Then he also says, defend. The way he puts it is this, quote, a most delicate and tender regard for their pastor's reputation, end quote.

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And finally, support or provide. He says, quote, liberal financial support, end quote.

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So those are basically his nine points, the nine one -word headings that I put on them because I find it easier to use things like one -word headings like defer, respect, attend, intercede, invite, inform, cooperate, defend, support.

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So that's a mouthful. That's a mouthful. But that's the sum and substance of what he says is the

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Christian duty, not legalistic duty, not Pharisaic duty, but Christian responsibility of church members with respect to their pastors.

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And let me just say it is a tremendous encouragement, a privilege, and thank you very much, brother, for being a deacon concerned to address these things.

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Thank you. Yes, I thank you as well, Daniel. And after you heard the reading of those nine duties of church members to their pastors, which you have already read, obviously, beforehand, does anything strike out at you where, in your experience, congregants need the more urgent reminder to fulfill those and to remember those duties when caring for their own pastors?

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Yeah, thank you, brother. Yeah, I appreciate Greg summarizing those titles.

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Those are very, very helpful. You know, I do think that support, the financial support, is a very key topic.

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I think there's just a lot of maybe misinformation out there or churches don't know where to find resources or even ways to look at compensation in a way that is beyond just salary.

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So I think financial support is very important, but I would put a lot of emphasis as well on a couple of the other topics here briefly.

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And the first of that is to pray. And that's why I think that really struck—that came out to me very strongly reading

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Owen, reading Teach, having the opportunity to read this booklet, both the comments from John Angel Gaines as well as from Gardner Spring.

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I think they all may have referenced a well -known passage of Scripture, the Apostle Paul in 1

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Thessalonians 5, 25, when he says, Brothers, pray for us. I certainly don't want to get ahead of what

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Pastor Greg will share on that section, but there is so much emphasis in all of Scripture of prayer.

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Our Lord was very devoted to prayer, and there is so much request for prayer for the elders of the church.

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That is a great need. And even just having the privilege of knowing several pastors very well, very intimately, to the need for encouragement for them.

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And, you know, I think people rightly assume that maybe the pastor is the most connected man, the most connected person in the church.

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And in some ways there's truth with that. However, there can be a loneliness that pastors have to deal with, not having maybe very many close friends or people assuming that others are encouraging them.

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There's a great need for church members to encourage their pastor, to let them know how much they are appreciated and loved.

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I think those things go a long way. And I would also say there is also a great need to defend a pastor from unjust charges that may or may not come up in the life of church or even in fact that may come from the outside.

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Amen. And, Pastor Greg, as far as the respect and reverence that we have when we approach our pastors, and I'm fairly certain that all of us on this program today agree that, according to the

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Scriptures, there are only two offices in the church—elders and deacons—and we are to seek to have a plurality and parity of elders, that not all elders have the same gifts, but at the same time they should have the same level of authority.

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But in my experience as a Christian going back to the 1980s, I have seen, perhaps even especially being in Christian media for most of that time,

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I have seen the two extremes of how people approach pastors.

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You have one extreme where they make tyrants out of them.

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They create either tyrants or cult leaders, people with the traits of a cult leader anyway.

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They fall on every word of their pastor and view the pastor, even if they would never admit this, superior to the

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God -breed words of Scripture. And then you have, on the opposite end of the spectrum, which is probably the most prevalent failure of professing

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Christians, is the attitude, this man is no better than I am.

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Of course, we are all equal in the sight of God as blood -bought children of God.

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But they will have an attitude about it, and some think that this guy, he only works one day a week, they wrongly think.

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He should be getting a secular job. He doesn't deserve the money that the church expects us to give.

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And they are treated very often like hirelings. People want to get rid of them just because of disagreements that they have on secondary and tertiary matters, might even just be things that have no bearing on his qualifications as a minister at all.

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It's just their preferences and tastes that annoy them. But if you could, tell us about how we are to seek the balance, the biblical balance of treating our

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God -called, ordained pastors, ministers in a unique and special way without going overboard and making them idols.

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Well, you sure said a mouthful there. You really did.

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First and foremost, a couple of things. In the treatment of this,

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I put prayer for pastors first. And the more people understand of what the responsibility of pastors actually is, and the more they understand how totally dependent on God we are to do any of it in a way that pleases

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God. And the more they understand the tremendous importance of the pastoral ministry, then they will pray for us, hopefully.

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Because there's absolutely no way that we could do anything that we're supposed to do in our own strength.

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Our sufficiency is not in ourselves. Our sufficiency is from God. We are totally dependent on God for wisdom, to know what we have to do, and for strength to be able to do it.

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And if they grasp the tremendous importance of the ministry and the work, it says in that text that John Angel James quotes, that they should esteem them very highly in love, and it says, for their works.

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And that it's for the work's sake. If you grasp the tremendous importance of the work, the insufficiency of any human being to do it in his own strength, and how much that work means to you and to your own eternal welfare, then you will pray for God's blessing on that man and on his ministry for the sake of the church, for the sake of your own soul.

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You will pray. So that's first and foremost, I think, is prayer.

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With regard to work, one of the things you said, I remember one time back in the 1980s,

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I was preaching on the subject of Colossians 1 .29, which says that the ministry is work, and then the first point, the ministry is work, and the second point, the ministry is hard work.

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And I pointed out from that text that it's common for people to say that the pastor only works, they complain that he only works for an hour on Sunday morning.

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But these same people turn around and complain that he works for an hour and 15 minutes. So it's a question of valuing the work that's done.

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I mean, the whole idea that it's an hour on Sunday morning, the very fact that that even gets said, we all recognize that that's what people think.

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There's something fundamentally, radically deficient if we're not teaching people better than that about what the work of the ministry actually really does involve.

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Yes, and we are going to go to our first commercial break right now. And if anybody listening has a question, our email address is chrisarnson at gmail .com.

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chrisarnson at gmail .com. Please give us your first name, at least city and state and country of residence.

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We will allow and welcome anonymous questions if they are about personal and private matters, perhaps even especially if you are yourself a pastor and you'd rather remain anonymous.

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In regard to your question today, but if it's a general question, give us your first name, city and state and country of residence.

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Please don't go away. We're going to be right back after these messages from our sponsors. James White here of Alpha Omega Ministries announcing that this

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September, I'm heading out to Pennsylvania to speak at two events that my longtime friend

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Chris Arnzen has lined up for me on Thursday, September 18th at 11 a .m.

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I'm speaking to men in ministry leadership at Chris's Iron Sharpens Iron radio pre -pastor's luncheon at Church of the

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Living Christ in Loisville. Then on Sunday, September 21st at 1 30 p .m.

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I'm speaking at Trinity Reformed Baptist Church of Carlisle on the theme. Can we trust the

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Bible is the authentic and inerrant word of God? I hope you can join Chris and me for both events.

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For more details on the free pastor's luncheon, visit Iron Sharpens Iron Radio dot com.

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That's Iron Sharpens Iron Radio dot com. For more details on Trinity Reformed Baptist Church of Carlisle, visit trbccarlisle .org.

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That's trbccarlisle .org. God willing, I'll see you in September in Pennsylvania for these exciting events.

31:28

I'm Simon O'Mahony, pastor of Trinity Reformed Baptist Church in Carlisle, Pennsylvania.

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Originally from Cork, Ireland, the Lord and his sovereign providence has called me to shepherd this new and growing congregation here in Cumberland County.

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At TRBC, we joyfully uphold the Second London Baptist Confession. We embrace congregational church government, and we are committed to preaching the full counsel of God's word for the edification of believers, the salvation of the lost, and the glory of our triune

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God. We are also devoted to living out the one another commands of scripture, loving, encouraging, and serving each other as the body of Christ.

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In our worship, we sing psalms and the great hymns of the faith, and we gather around the Lord's table every

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Sunday. We would love for you to visit and worship with us. You can find our details at trbccarlisle .org.

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That's trbccarlisle .org. God willing, we'll see you soon.

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Oh, and make sure that you tell them you heard about them on Iron Sharpens Iron Radio. Welcome back.

35:48

If you just tuned us in, this is Chris Arnson, your host of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, and my guests today are

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Pastor Greg Nichols of Amazing Grace Church in Catskill, New York, and Daniel Wolford, a deacon at Trinity Reform Baptist Church of Carlisle, Pennsylvania.

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We are discussing the duties of church members to their pastors, and our email address is chrisarnson at gmail .com.

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chrisarnson at gmail .com. Give us a first name at least, city and state and country of residence.

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And we do have Emery in Sunderland, Massachusetts. And Emery says, can you please explain 1

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Timothy 5 -17 that reads, The elders who rule well are to be considered worthy of double honor, especially those who work hard at preaching and teaching.

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And I'll start with you, Pastor Nichols, if you could. You want me to address 1

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Timothy 5 -17? Yes, if you could just explain that for our listener. Okay.

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Well, it's not talking about specifically elders that are failures.

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So it's not contrasting with good rule versus failure. But the idea is having to do with a level of competence that if all elders are ruling competent, these elders are ruling with an increased measure of competence that grows out of their experience.

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And so with regard to those that labor in the word and doctrine, what our confession refers to as pastors or what we might call vocational pastors, the honor shown to them includes financial remuneration that is in accord with competence of their service.

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Now, okay, go ahead. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Did I not explain it? Go ahead.

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No, you paused. I thought you might have been finished. So you may continue.

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Well, I wanted, I'm just going to, if I was going to say something else, I'm just going to summarize that, you know, there are different views of this that different people take.

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I summarize a lot of these views in the doctrine of the church book. I'm going off the top of my head here that it refers to those that rule with a greater degree of competence that grows out of experience.

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And it has to do with both honor shown to elders that are such. And in the case of vocational elders or what we would call full -time pastors, it has to do also with financial remuneration that's in accord with their work and experience.

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Now, Daniel, I can't speak for my listener, but I'm wondering, because I've heard this question asked myself over the years, specifically when it talks about double honor,

39:26

I even know one fundamentalist Baptist pastor who believes that means that people in the church should be giving a proportion of income where the pastor winds up receiving double the income of the average member of the church.

39:54

And I think that that's probably a rare view, but where do you come to the conclusion about double honor specifically, the concept of double?

40:09

Yeah, thanks, Chris. Let me back up here a little bit. I think 1

40:15

Timothy 5, 17 through 18 is a very crucial passage of Scripture. We can clearly get financial support for our pastors.

40:23

Pastor Greg mentioned there is also a sense of honor, of respect that is here as well, but double honor.

40:31

So there's also financial support for those elders that are engaged in preaching and teaching.

40:37

And really, you know, this passage is referencing both

40:43

Deuteronomy 25, 4, doubt muzzle a knot when it treads out the grain, as well as a quote from Christ, from Luke 10, 7, that deserves his wages.

40:57

Or Matthew 10, 10 translates that, deserves his food. And so I think, you know, the main thrust here of the passage is that those who are devoted to laboring in gospel ministry should be able to earn their living from this service.

41:12

And that there is an earned reward or duty that comes from the church to provide financially for the man who labors in this way to earn his wages, and he should be provided with his food.

41:25

Tom, and Pastor Greg, I think that you would likely be as repulsed as I am and as Daniel would be by those men who are very often televangelists.

41:42

They're not necessarily televangelists, but they may have become, in some sense, celebrities in whatever movement that their congregation or denomination is in, whether they are

41:59

Pentecostals, Charismatics very often, and even more specifically

42:05

Word of Faith Pentecostals, where these men are becoming rich, not only off of being pastors and preachers, but by preaching and teaching lies.

42:18

And you even have one such example in Kenneth Copeland, who is literally a billionaire with a

42:25

B. How do we prevent ourselves in the body of Christ from going that far with our leaders, and how do we know what is appropriate when we seek to serve them financially?

42:45

Well, I've been around Baptist circles for over 40 years, and I haven't met any guys that became billionaires in our churches.

42:55

Right. That's why I specified the people that I did. So, what

43:03

John Angel James says about this, and I quote, . . . It is to the deep and wide and endless reproach of some churches that, although possessed of the ability to support their pastors in comfort, they dole out but a wretched pittance from their assholes, leaving the pastor to make up the deficiency by secular work, and then, with insulting cruelty, complain that their sermons are very meager and have a great sameness, end quote.

43:42

And he goes on to say, quote, . . . Many rich Christians spend more in the needless luxuries than they contribute toward the support of their pastor.

43:52

Some give more for the sugar that sweetens their tea than they do for all the advantages of public worship, end quote.

44:01

And he goes on to say, quote, . . . Let it never be thought that what is given to a minister is a charitable donation.

44:10

It is the payment of a just death. It is what Christ claims were his faithful servants, which cannot be withheld without robbery, end quote.

44:24

Also, recently I had occasion, we were talking about bringing a young man in here to give our deacons something to use as a guideline, and it comes from the

44:40

Orthodox Presbyterian Church. It was delightful to hear Pastor Bill Shushkoff's voice on your commercial.

44:48

What a delight, just to hear the man's voice. And also, the Orthodox Presbyterian Church guidance for the pastoral compensation of pastors is an excellent guideline for the

45:04

Baptist churches to use. And I'll just tell you a little anecdote. After our deacons saw that, they got a little discouraged with what our church could do, how

45:18

God could provide. But I told them, don't be discouraged. It doesn't mean that you can't afford a

45:25

Baptist. It just means that you can't afford a Presbyterian. Anyway, so what the

45:35

OPC Church has on that is a very good set of guidance. The 1689

45:40

London Confession of Faith has one of its distinctive contributions to the

45:46

Reformed faith that it addresses in chapter 26, paragraph 10,

45:54

I think, explicitly the responsibility of churches to provide for their pastors comfortable supply.

46:04

And one more thing. I remember when I was first in the ministry and we had put ourselves through seminary and living on savings.

46:14

I won't go all through all that. But we still had some of our savings left. And after two years of my first pastorate,

46:21

I was completely out of savings. They weren't paying us enough to live on. And I wasn't about to go in debt.

46:29

So I was about to go back into chemical engineering to provide for my family.

46:35

But I didn't want to just do that without explaining why. So I sat down with the leaders of the church and I presented to them what

46:47

I referred to. I didn't ask them for a raise. I presented them a financial impact statement, meaning this is the impact of what you've been paying me on my finances.

46:58

I now have no savings left and I am not going to go into debt.

47:04

So I have to go back into secular work if things don't change. And one of them said to me, quote, be content with your wages and live by faith, end quote.

47:16

And my answer to him was, let me ask you one question. Who in his right mind leaves chemical engineering and goes into the ministry for the money, end quote.

47:33

And they listened. They started to listen. And I explained to them what I referred to as the financial perspectives of a righteous man.

47:42

And I understand your point, Brother Daniel, if this is a hard thing for pastors to deal with, but we need to deal with it.

47:49

And thank God for deacons that are willing and able to deal with it. But we need to teach people what the

47:55

Bible says about this. And the confession of faith is very clear about it. And the passages that you quoted that are the background, 1

48:03

Timothy 5, 17, Luke 10, 7, and 1 Corinthians, those passages that form the background that the laborer is worthy of his hire and what that means.

48:14

And if you take the guy from Ephesians chapter 4, 26 and 27, let him that stole steal no more, but rather let him labor, working with his hands what's profitable in order to have to give to the one who has need.

48:29

That if the work that you're doing is worthwhile, that you want not to be on a subsistence salary, especially if the church can afford it.

48:38

And that you ought to be able to have what our confession calls a comfortable supply, that you would not only have what you need for your family, but that you would be able to show benevolence to other people, that you'd have enough to educate your children, to provide a home, to provide food, clothing, and inheritance, and education, and to show benevolence to those who are in need.

49:00

And the Orthodox Presbyterians, at least, know how to figure that out in an honest, practical, and very appropriate manner.

49:10

So anyway, that's what I say about that. But billionaire,

49:16

Reformed Baptist, I never met one. Never met one at all.

49:23

And Daniel. I met guys that have had to go through secular work. I shouldn't say secular work, I should say other work.

49:29

Or work is, if you do it as unto the Lord, it's God -ordained, Godly work.

49:35

I don't mean that in a Godless sense. But in any event, I've seen that many, many times.

49:43

And students that had to work because the churches wouldn't support them. And students that had to work full time and put themselves through the academy or through other seminaries.

49:53

Seen plenty of that. But billionaire, Reformed Baptist, boy, I haven't met one of those. And Daniel, doesn't the

50:01

London Baptist Confession, the Second London Baptist Confession, actually urge the church to, if at all possible, avoid having to send their ministers to seek outside employment other than their duties?

50:25

Absolutely, Preston. In fact, I'll read that brief section here. And Pat McGregor alluded to the first half of the sentence.

50:32

So this is Paragraph 10 of Chapter 26 of the church. So they may have a comfortable supply without being themselves entangled in secular affairs.

50:47

So there may be times in a church's life where they are paying as much as they can, and they are doing their very best to support their pastor.

50:54

Maybe there's a season and time where that man is bivocational. But that church should be making every effort that if they have the ability to make that man free from secular affair.

51:04

And Pastor Nichols said very, very well, and this is, I've read this in many of the different articles in research of compensation, it is not just that man provides well for himself and his family.

51:15

It is that. But also so that man has an abundance, so they can be generous in hospitality and involved in the work of the ministry.

51:23

And if you want a Christian leader, a pastor who is worried about their finances, and you want them to have great sermons, you're asking for two contrary things.

51:34

And what I think that the Confession talks about is not only is this something that is clear in Scripture, that a pastor is being well paid, there's double honor here.

51:46

But the Confession also states that the financial support of the pastor is required by the law of nature itself.

51:53

That is the concept of being paid a comfortable wage is so obvious that it would be almost universally accepted and implemented by all people everywhere, not just for the believer, but especially for the believer who has far more than the law of nature to draw on on this subject.

52:10

So clearly the church has a duty to provide for the financial care and well -being of their pastor.

52:16

Scripture requires it, natural law provides evidence for it, and the church has provided joyfully due to the great benefit that they receive from docile labors that are given to them from their pastor.

52:28

And one of the things I really loved in the introduction of John Englejean's book here, that these men are honoring under the authority of Christ.

52:40

These aren't just random employees that should be taken care of. He talked about that church members should behave towards their pastors as if ministers who came in his name, bear his commands and transact his business, who are to be treated in every respect in a manner that corresponds with their office.

52:58

Certainly that includes all of his nine points, but that certainly includes financial support and care as well.

53:05

And we have to go to our midway break, folks, so don't go away. We will be right back after these messages from our sponsors.

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Again, I'm Pastor Anthony Avivio, and thanks for listening. I'm Dr.

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Tony Costa, Professor of Apologetics and Islam at Toronto Baptist Seminary. I'm thrilled to introduce to you a church where I've been invited to speak and have grown to love,

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Hope Reformed Baptist Church in Corum, Long Island, New York, pastored by Rich Jansen and Christopher McDowell.

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It's such a joy to witness and experience fellowship with people of God, like the dear saints at Hope Reformed Baptist Church in Corum, who have an intensely passionate desire to continue digging deeper and deeper into the unfathomable riches of Christ in his holy word, and to enthusiastically proclaim

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Christ Jesus the King and his doctrines of Sovereign Grace in Suffolk County, Long Island and beyond.

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I hope you also have the privilege of discovering this precious congregation and receive the blessing of being showered by their love, as I have.

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For more information on Hope Reformed Baptist Church, go to hopereformedli .net,

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that's hopereformedli .net, or call 631 -696 -5711, that's 631 -696 -5711.

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That's L -Y -N -Brookbaptist .org. This is Pastor Keith Allen of Lynnbrook Baptist Church reminding you that by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves.

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Dr. Joe Moorcroft. I'm Joe Riley, a faithful Iron Sharpens Iron Radio listener here in Attoye in County Kildare, Ireland.

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Going back to 2005, one of my very favorite guests on Iron Sharpens Iron is

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Joe Moorcroft is the author of an eight -volume commentary on the larger catechism. Heritage is a member of the

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chrisarnson at gmail .com. chrisarnson at gmail .com. Give us your first name, at least city and state and country of residence.

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And we have Duncan in Fort Mill, South Carolina, who has a question.

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The question is, in our day and age, one of the things that makes people reluctant to even join a church is that they think, obviously wrongly, that all churches are just out for their money.

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How do we, especially if there are many new converts in the church, address these issues in a way that is tactful and wise, that does not give them the impression that we are simply interested in their money?

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And we'll start with Pastor Greg on that one. Well, before I address that, if I may take a minute,

01:12:56

I'd just like to, as I've been thinking about it, say one last word about 1

01:13:05

Timothy 5 .17 and the issue of financial regeneration. Okay. And that is the elders that ruled well, that is competently and with years of experience, all elders should be honored.

01:13:21

Those elders that are ruling well should be doubly honored. And this has special application to those who are pastors that are laboring full time in the

01:13:33

Word and in doctrine. And the Orthodox Presbyterian Church guidelines, they have a range of salary for an inexperienced full -time pastor and a pastor with 25 or 30 years of experience, and there's a range of salary.

01:13:57

It's not a range of 10 times as much, but it is a significant salary increase that's associated with competent leadership over many years.

01:14:11

And that's reflected in the OPC guidelines for pastoral compensation. And I think that's not something that's unique to ministry or those in the ministry, but many, many professions recognize the importance of years of competent service and the compensation related to those years of competent service.

01:14:35

Now, with regard to the issue of not giving people the impression that all that we want is their money, one of the things that could be done and one of the things that we do is we do not take an offering, we don't pass a collection plate, we don't ask visitors for money.

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When people come and they want to join the church, I explain to them the biblical principle that those that preach the gospel should live of the gospel.

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I explain to them the biblical principle of giving to the work of the Lord, the biblical principle of tithing, and the expectation of church members to support the church, that if you want this church to be and to continue, then you need to support it.

01:15:43

You need to support it financially, but we never ask visitors for money.

01:15:49

And recently, we talked about taking a collection. And if we did take a collection, and the reason that some people were talking about instituting taking a collection was because we all know that giving is a spiritual sacrifice and an act of worship that we do individually when we put the money in the box at the back, but that some people wanted it to be collected, like the spiritual sacrifice of praise, singing praise to God, we all do together.

01:16:19

They wanted the sacrifice of giving to be something that we all do together as a congregation.

01:16:27

And if we do that, I would make a point of saying probably every

01:16:34

Sunday, or at least every Sunday where we had a visit, that we do not expect or want visitors to feel any compulsion when that plate goes past them, that they have to give to the plate.

01:16:47

We're not trying to put pressure on you to do that. That's not where we're coming from. But I think that that's one of the dangers of taking a collection.

01:16:57

One of the dangers of not taking a collection with a collection plate is that people can tend to lose sight of the fact that giving is an act of a spiritual sacrifice, that's an act of worship.

01:17:08

So there's not absolute right or wrong. But I think what the listener said is a genuine concern that we need to take to heart.

01:17:19

We have to be careful. We don't give the people the impression that all we care about is their money. We don't care about their soul.

01:17:25

We just want their money. We've got to be very careful that we don't give that false impression. I think he's right about that, whatever steps we take.

01:17:36

And Daniel Wolfert, I know that we do pass a collection plate, but do you have anything to add that you have your own thoughts about in that regard?

01:17:47

Yeah, a comment, Chris. Like Pat the Great said, the offering and our giving as believers is a spiritual part of our worship, primarily on the

01:17:57

Lord's Day. The Apostle Paul tells us that we should set something up on the first day of each week.

01:18:04

Of course, we're also called to be joyful givers, not to give out of compulsion.

01:18:10

The Lord loves a joyful giver. But there is, I think, practical wisdom in how do you collect the offering.

01:18:19

And we do pass a plate in our church. And I've seen this done in churches where the offering plate is literally passed by everyone, and maybe there's a greater sense of obligation.

01:18:33

In that case, when I'm collecting the offering at our church on the Lord's Day, I'm not going to walk down the aisle.

01:18:41

We have a small church, we'll be neutral to do this. And if I see that someone has a check or they have cash in their hands,

01:18:46

I will pass the plate to them, I'll hand it to them, and I'll keep going. So there's never a thought of—and

01:18:52

I even try to actually make it a point as a deacon, if we do have a visitor in our church,

01:18:58

I try not to make a lot of eye contact with them. I don't want them to think that I am expecting them to give something.

01:19:03

So I do think Pat the Great gets my good point there. But we can just say more broadly, and again,

01:19:09

I think if your listener has a good question, one of the practices that we do in our church is we give financial accountability to the congregation.

01:19:19

The congregation, a congregational church, the budget is approved by the congregation, and there's also a full accounting of what has been spent in a year.

01:19:31

So we have the budget, and then what do we actually spend money on? And I would hope that people would see that, where the money is going, it's not just paying the pastor, it's paying other ministry and missions and purposes for the church, that they would see that it's not about just collecting money from the individual, and they would hopefully see that there's very good causes, including the compensation of pastors as part of that budget.

01:19:53

So I think even some of that transparency—now, you may not be doing that with a visitor, but certainly someone who's a member of the church at a member's meeting—that should hopefully inspire confidence, especially for those who are maybe a member and they come out of a church where there has been some abuse from a financial standpoint.

01:20:12

So I do think those are ways that we can encourage our members, and some of that is even the importance—to me, as a reminder—the importance of teaching the confession to our churches, and, you know, talking about giving, talking about many other great topics, and I think the importance of making our church members familiar with what

01:20:32

Scripture says or confession faith has to say. I think those are all good ways to combat maybe false notions or concern over, well, the church just wants to be here for my check.

01:20:43

Yes, and it may even be wise for a church, when they are having a guest preacher, to preach a sermon specifically on the importance of giving as an act of worship so that the person has no bias or self -interest involved in this, and perhaps can even feel more bold to speak freely than the pastor of the very church that this is happening in.

01:21:17

Does that make sense? I think very much so, and, you know, even at our church, and it is true of other churches, that you have deacons in the church.

01:21:28

I present the budget to the church. We do not have our pastor do that, because a large portion of that budget is his salary.

01:21:34

And so, you know, if a church does not have deacons, maybe if there is not a full -time elder who is being compensated financially, you can present that, or maybe even a member of the congregation, or, like you said, maybe there is a visiting elder who can have that discussion.

01:21:53

Pastor Greg Nichols, if you could put a magnifying glass over any of the other points by John Angel James that you want to highlight that we have not really investigated thoroughly yet.

01:22:11

And while you are looking, I am going to give our… I am listening. I am listening. Sorry, I do not want there to be dead air.

01:22:17

Right. I will just quickly… That mistake wants to form something. That is all right. I will give our listeners our email addresses, chrisarnson at gmail dot com, chrisarnson at gmail dot com.

01:22:25

Go ahead. I am sorry. No, not your fault. My fault. Number three, attendance upon their ministration is another duty of church members.

01:22:37

Now, he offers illustrations and applications, but he does not give much in terms of explicit biblical support.

01:22:51

And this is one of the issues that comes up a lot in membership interviews.

01:23:00

People talk about this all the time, the idea of stated meetings, and this is legalism, and this, that, and the other thing.

01:23:09

So in the Doctrine of the Church, I do not deal with this issue in the context of the responsibility of church members to pastors, but rather the responsibilities that church members have as church members to the church, to the whole church.

01:23:31

And the principle on which it rests is the principle of spiritual participation in the life of the church, and the fact that those who are participating in the spiritual life of the church are and should be the ones who are having a voice in running the church.

01:23:57

So other churches of which

01:24:03

I'm aware, and those pastors that have suffered through this, they have hundreds of members on the church roll, but they don't all come to church.

01:24:17

And a few people come on Sunday morning, even less on Sunday night, and even less on Wednesday night to prayer meeting.

01:24:26

They don't pray. They don't learn there. They don't come to Sunday school. They don't usually worship there.

01:24:32

But if there's a business meeting, they all show up and vote there. And the things they do in those meetings are not godly, not glorifying to God.

01:24:44

So in one sense, it's about cleaning up church rolls, but it underscores a principle that the people who vote here ought to be the people who pray here, the people who learn here, and the people who worship.

01:25:01

So if you worship here, and you learn here, and you pray here, then you vote.

01:25:09

That's the idea of state of meetings. Every time I do a membership interview with people, I go over this principle.

01:25:16

Do you understand that those who are involved in the spiritual life of the church ought to be the ones who have a voice in running the church?

01:25:24

People who vote here decide who the pastors are going to be, who the deacons are going to be.

01:25:30

And do you want people deciding that who don't worship here, and don't pray here, and don't learn here?

01:25:38

So if you worship here on Sunday morning, and if there's a Sunday evening service on Sunday night, if you learn here at Sunday school or whatever other venues you have, if you pray here at prayer meeting, when you learn here, and worship, and pray, and you're part of the spiritual life of the church, then you vote.

01:26:02

If you have people that are not involved in the spiritual life of the church, running the church, I can give you a guarantee you will live to regret it.

01:26:12

You will wish you didn't. You will wish you didn't. So stated meanings, it's not legalism, it's the principle that those who are involved in the spiritual life of the church ought to have a say in running the church.

01:26:27

And I plead, please, don't find that out the hard way.

01:26:33

Yeah, I have a friend who many years ago, the church was voting on whether he should remain as their pastor.

01:26:44

He had adopted an amillennial eschatology, and that outraged quite a number of people who were dispensationalists in the congregation.

01:26:56

And the day that they were voting on whether or not he should stay, he said that there were people showing up that were on the membership rolls for decades that he had never seen in his life showing up to vote for his dismissal.

01:27:15

It is important. Right, exactly. And that's not an isolated story.

01:27:22

Right. Daniel, I don't know if you want to go ahead. I'm not sympathetic with people that tell me that stated meanings are legalistic.

01:27:30

I'm not buying it. It's not about legalism. It's about spiritual life of the church, and people who are in the spiritual life of the church having a say in running the church.

01:27:41

Do you have anything to add to that, Daniel? Just briefly,

01:27:46

Chris, I agree very strongly with what Pastor Gray has shared. One of the comments that John Angel Games mentioned in his booklet here, 856, is that this attendance should be constant, not occasional, are the words that he used.

01:28:02

But again, I think that talks very much about church members who are actively involved in the church, the stated members, the stated meanings of the church, particularly, obviously, being actively involved on the

01:28:15

Lord's Day, be devoted for meetings for corporate prayer. I think the author uses the word social prayer.

01:28:24

But no, the saints should be actively involved in their church. And it shouldn't be a duty that we look at begrudgingly.

01:28:31

This is some terrible thing. We should have joy and a sense of duty.

01:28:38

Going back to Pastor Gray's word, there is a duty, but that is not a duty that should be unjoyful.

01:28:45

Those things should not be divorced. There's joy in the affairs of the church and being an active part of that, learning, supporting.

01:28:53

I think that's a beautiful thing that Christians should want to do. Now, Daniel, since you're a deacon,

01:29:00

I'll start with you this time, because I have a question about the diaconate.

01:29:07

I have known pastors over the years who are so burdened with the work that they have to do that is not solely involving the duties of a pastor to his flock.

01:29:26

We were talking before about churches should be making the utmost effort to prevent a pastor from getting secular work, but there are also many pastors out there doing the work of the diaconate.

01:29:43

And even I've known pastors whose churches have deacons, but it seems that the only role they play is to gather at business meetings to make financial decisions.

01:29:57

They are not rolling up their sleeves and doing the diaconal work. And now,

01:30:03

I don't want to go overboard. There are pastors that may find mowing the church lawn relaxing.

01:30:10

They may be pastors that have carpentry skills, and they actually love going to the homes of people that need repair and stuff, and they love using their skills.

01:30:22

But when a pastor has to do that, that's a different story. Isn't this a danger of churches?

01:30:30

Daniel? Yeah. The danger of the pastor doing the work of the deacon, maybe that's either their choice or maybe because it's thrust upon them because the deacons aren't carrying out their duty.

01:30:45

It came to my mind, you think of Acts 6, the choosing of the seven, kind of the institution of the office of the diaconate in the church in the

01:30:53

New Testament. And what it said there, it is not good for us brothers to wait table.

01:31:00

They should be devoted to the ministry of the word and prayer. So there's a real reason that deacons are in the church.

01:31:07

I mean, this is from Christ himself through his Holy Spirit, through the apostles, that churches should have deacons.

01:31:14

As long as there are men or a man who is qualified to serve, we shouldn't be hasty to put any man into an office of elder or deacon.

01:31:22

But if there are men who are qualified and they have a desire of calling to serve, especially for the office of elder, that is a good thing.

01:31:31

And we should praise that the Lord will provide men for those offices and that there would even be a plurality of officers on both boards.

01:31:39

And so if a church does not have deacons, they should pray to that end. If the church does have deacons, praise

01:31:46

God, they should be at work in that office. I know

01:31:52

Heech talked about that there are three primary duties for the deacon. They're to attend to the

01:32:00

Lord's table, to the pastor's table, through provision for the pastor as well as to the table of the poor.

01:32:08

And deacons should be actively engaged in serving in all those aspects of the church, not just business, not just financial decisions.

01:32:17

This is an office where your sleeve should be rolled up as it were. You should be engaged in the work actively.

01:32:25

And hopefully if a pastor does have deacons and they're not using them effectively to think about that and really encourage those deacons to take on those tasks.

01:32:37

Maybe it's something where they're not informed, maybe it's a control thing, but I would hope that any pastor would be fit to utilize the talent of those deacons.

01:32:46

These are not men who were put in this position happily. These should be men who are gifted in grace by the

01:32:53

Holy Spirit and who have been recognized by the congregation for that office. And so if they are in that office and they are qualified men, let them do the work of the office.

01:33:03

Amen. Do you have anything to add to that, Brother? Amen. Well said, both of you.

01:33:10

Well said. And I thank God that I have been privileged to have wonderful, wonderful deacons who do all the things you've been talking about,

01:33:20

Brother Daniel. And I thank God for them. And I think you guys hit the nail on the head.

01:33:27

I just say amen to what you just said. Yeah, I want to heartily recommend a book by my friend

01:33:36

Alexander Strauch on the deaconate minister of mercy, the

01:33:43

New Testament deacon by Alexander Strauch. And he also wrote a great book on biblical eldership.

01:33:51

And if you folks listening want more information on those books by Alexander Strauch, go to lewisandroth .com,

01:34:02

that's the publisher, L -E -W -I -S -A -N -D -R -O -T -H .com.

01:34:09

Pastor Greg, do you want to put another magnifying glass over one of John Angel James's points about duties of church members to their pastors?

01:34:20

Let me think a minute, and I'll speak while I'm thinking.

01:34:25

And I will once again give our email address if you want to join the conversation, chrisarnson at gmail .com.

01:34:32

chrisarnson at gmail .com. Give us your first name at least, your city and state of residence, and your country of residence if you live outside of the

01:34:39

USA. And you may remain anonymous if your question is involving a personal and private issue.

01:34:46

In fact, when Pastor Greg is finished giving his thoughts on something here, we'll have an anonymous listener that has written to us.

01:34:56

We'll have their question read and answered. Are you ready?

01:35:03

Yes. With regard to prayer, I just want to do some quotes from John Angel James and what he says about people praying for their pastors.

01:35:14

I think he makes some excellent points. He says, quote, prayer is a means of assisting a minister within the reach of war.

01:35:27

They who can do nothing more can pray. The sick who cannot encourage their minister by their presence in the sanctuary can bear him upon their hearts in their lonely chamber.

01:35:46

The poor who cannot add to his temporal comfort by financial donations can supplicate their

01:35:56

God to supply all his needs according to his riches in glory by Christ Jesus.

01:36:04

The timid who cannot approach to offer him the tribute of their gratitude can pour their praises into the ear of Jehovah and entreat him still to encourage the soul of his servant.

01:36:19

The ignorant who cannot hope to add one idea to the stock of his knowledge can place him by prayer before the fountain of celestial radiance.

01:36:34

Even the dying who can no longer busy themselves as a fore time for his interests can gather up their remaining strength and employ it in the way of prayer for their past.

01:36:51

And then he says something else that's very interesting. He connects praying for your pastor with loving him and esteeming him.

01:37:00

He says, quote, prayer, if it be sincere, always increases our affection for its object.

01:37:11

We never feel even our dearest friends to be so dear as when we have commended them to the goodness of God.

01:37:21

Prayer is the best extinguisher of enmity and the best fuel for the frame of love.

01:37:29

If some professing Christians were to take from the time they spend in praising their ministers and others from the time which they employ in blaming them and both were to devote it to the act of praying for them, the former would find still more cause for admiration and the latter far less reason for censure.

01:37:56

Amen. Any comments, Daniel? Yeah, thanks,

01:38:03

Chris. Hebrews 13, 18 says, pray for us, for we are sure that we have a pure conscience desiring to act honorably in all things.

01:38:12

We talk before 1 Thessalonians 5 .25, brethren, pray for us. There is clear warrant for that.

01:38:21

And the author of Hebrews, the Apostle Paul there in 1 Thessalonians, if men such as the

01:38:28

Apostle Paul were dependent upon and indebted to the prayers of Christians, how much more so for the ordinary ministers of Christ?

01:38:36

That's what John Angel James writes. And he says that little do our churches know the number and magnitude of pastors' temptations, discouragements, difficulties, and trials.

01:38:48

Our office is no bed of down or a rosy, far, very far from it. Cares of oppressive weight, anxieties which could be known only by experience, labors of the mental kind almost too strong and incessant for the powers of the mind to sustain, fall to our lot and demand the prayerful sympathy of our flock.

01:39:07

These are clear calls for us as a church to pray for our pastors.

01:39:13

There was a comment by Gardner Spring on his section on a plea to pray for pastors.

01:39:19

And he says that it is a delightful thought for a young man entering upon the ministry of reconciliation that unworthy as he is, that prayers of thousands of God's people are continually going up on his behalf, his father and theirs.

01:39:34

That is such an encouragement for our pastors to be prayed for. And there is work that clearly demands prayers of the saints before the throne of grace for their faithful ministers.

01:39:47

Okay, we have an anonymous listener who has a question. The anonymous listener says,

01:39:54

When should an elder be called upon the congregation to step down because of disagreement with one or more elders that does not involve sin and does not involve ungodliness in any way, shape, or form, but it is a difference of opinion that is a legitimately held one amongst

01:40:21

Orthodox Christians? And we'll start with Greg Nichols this time.

01:40:29

Would you repeat the question, please? Tom, this anonymous listener is asking,

01:40:37

What kind of issue would compel an elder to step down from his office because of a disagreement with the other elders that is not involving sin?

01:40:55

Like, for instance, eschatology or something. Well, I don't know that I can give you a general, absolute, one -size -fits -all answer to a question like that.

01:41:14

That, to me, if there is a disagreement in the eldership, and that disagreement in the with those elders could potentially lead to a parting or a saying,

01:41:27

Well, we can't work together anymore. That's something that they ought to make a matter of fasting and prayer.

01:41:33

It's something they ought to get counsel about. It's something they ought to be careful to do everything in their power not to split the church over something like that.

01:41:42

And that's not a simple, easy, one -size -fits -all answer, except I could give you those general principles that I've run into over the years.

01:41:54

And to me, there's no simple answer to a question like that.

01:42:00

Any thoughts, Dan? Yeah, I would echo what

01:42:05

Pastor Greg had to share there, Chris. You know, that's thinking through our church constitution, and it says that votes for the office of elder as opposed to the office of deacon, that at any point, a man in either of those offices should maybe come to contrary views or disagreements doctrinally, that they should bring that forth and potentially resign from their office.

01:42:28

So maybe someone is an elder and they no longer hold to the 1689, if that's part of your church, or they don't hold to the doctrine of grace.

01:42:37

But, you know, maybe there's reasons, at least from a church constitution, where maybe it's wise for them to no longer labor in their office.

01:42:48

You know, it's a little bit more difficult when there's not an issue of sin. You know, if that person is faithfully laboring, particularly, we're thinking about an elder here in this context, are they faithfully laboring in the

01:42:59

Word? Are they teaching what is sound from Scripture? You know, it's not always a popularity contest to be a pastor, but are they faithfully proclaiming those things of, thus saith the

01:43:12

Lord? And without knowing all the details of this particular situation, it may be harder to give more guidance, but those are some thoughts that came to my mind, brothers.

01:43:22

Yeah, like, for instance, I have known issues where the elders of a church decided to approach the elder that was not on the same page over an issue that was not heresy, which is different from theirs, that they not publicly preach and teach on that issue.

01:43:41

Like, the 1689 London Baptist Confession of Faith does not involve an insistence upon amillennial, historic, premillennial, or postmillennial.

01:43:56

There are no godly men who are Reformed Baptists who have all of those views.

01:44:03

And you might have a church that is so committed to amillennialism or postmillennialism that they ask the brother who is premill that he—and

01:44:14

I'm not saying that this is necessary. They might even want him to teach a class on why he believes in premillennialism just to get, you know, to give people a broader scope of understanding of the different views.

01:44:29

But you know where I'm coming from. Sometimes it's just a matter of the person agreeing, all right,

01:44:35

I'm not going to publicly teach on that issue. Would you agree? Well, I would.

01:44:43

I would agree with what you said. I agree as well, brother. Okay. We're going to go to our final break right now.

01:44:49

And if you have a question, send it in now because we're rapidly running out of time.

01:44:55

chrisarnson at gmail .com. Give us your first name at least, city and state, and country of residence. Only remain anonymous if it's a personal and private question.

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Botofuco and Associates, from Chris Arnzen of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio. And we have a question from Douglas in Glade Mills, Pennsylvania.

01:50:48

And Douglas says, When a church has a plurality of elders, and they are supposed to also have a parity of elders, how does a church come to the conclusion who will be doing the majority of the preaching?

01:51:05

And of course, sensitivity and humility have to be involved here because some men are not going to be taking advantage of that pulpit responsibility as often as they may want to.

01:51:19

And Pastor Nichols, if you want to start with that. With regard to parity, it has to do with parity of office.

01:51:30

And that doesn't mean that the elders all have the same, quote, job description, end quote.

01:51:40

That is something that has to be determined by prayer, by humility, by counsel, by agreement, hopefully, as to what is best under the edification of the church.

01:52:07

Who is best suited to either have a majority of preaching or majority of teaching?

01:52:16

How much of an individual pastor full -time time should be devoted to counseling or to teaching or to preaching?

01:52:28

Those are some things that have to do with stewardship of gift, assessment of the measure of gift.

01:52:34

And hopefully with humility, nobody thinks of himself more highly than he wants to think.

01:52:40

But there's one to some mind about the utility and stewardship of all the different gifts that God has deposited in a given eldership.

01:52:49

There's no absolute hard and fast rule about that, but it has to be determined by prayer and by an assessment of edification and stewardship of gift.

01:53:00

And do you have any thoughts on that, Daniel? I think

01:53:06

Pastor Greg did a beautiful job of describing that. Amen, brother. Nothing further to add.

01:53:13

Well, I'd like you now, Daniel, to start with, to summarize what you most want etched in the hearts and minds of our listeners today about this very important topic of the duties of church members to their pastors.

01:53:27

And then we'll have Pastor Greg Nichols conclude the program with his own summary of thoughts.

01:53:35

Brother, yeah, you know, I would really encourage our listeners, obviously, you know, we could spend many hours talking on any one of these subjects exhaustively.

01:53:45

We've not been able to do that today, but hopefully there's been some good fruit, some meat on the bones for people to chew on, to think about.

01:53:53

I would encourage people to read this booklet, the work of John Angel James. Again, works of John Owen and Benjamin Keech on these subjects are exquisite.

01:54:05

You know, but just to say that the church has many duties to their pastor. And the church should be attending these duties with love and care and respect.

01:54:16

Our pastors are called to a great and weighty work, and they need the encouragement and the support of the church to do their job effectively for the good of that church and ultimately to the glory of Christ and for the spread of his kingdom.

01:54:31

So these are all important topics, and there's many facets, many ways that a

01:54:36

Christian can encourage and support that work of the pastor.

01:54:43

And, you know, these are all areas that, you know, should be done maybe all the time, but there will be times in the life of the pastor.

01:54:50

There's times in the life of the church where maybe some of these rise to a greater level of enforcement.

01:54:57

Maybe there's times when a pastor's reputation is being attacked flanderously, either from within the church or outside the church.

01:55:04

Well, then there's a time for the church to defend that man. If he has not sinned, he needs to be defended in the right execution of his office.

01:55:15

But at all times, we should be availing ourselves. We've talked about the importance of attendance on the

01:55:20

Lord's Day and other called synod meetings of the church. They're the call for us as individual church members to be actively involved and active participants in our local congregation.

01:55:36

And Pastor Greg Nichols, if you could summarize what you most want etched in the hearts and minds of our listeners today.

01:55:43

First of all, I want to express my gratitude to you for the privilege of being part of this today. Thank you for the work that you do, and may

01:55:53

God richly bless you. Thank you. Again, with regard to duty, we're talking about Christian.

01:56:01

We're not talking about Pharisee, legalistic. We're talking about seeking to please

01:56:07

God because we love him, because of all he's done for us, not in our own strength, but in the power and enablement of the

01:56:16

Holy Spirit. We've addressed basically three of these things, praying for pastors, supporting them financially, and attending to the prayer and learning and worshiping of the church to participate in the church.

01:56:37

Many other ones that we didn't even touch on today. And like Brother Dan said, there may be some of them that are more prevalent times than others.

01:56:52

So, may God be pleased to be glorified in the church in the way that pastors love their people and in a way that people basically appreciate and thank the

01:57:07

Lord Jesus Christ who gives gifts to the church, and that if he gives people that are qualified to do the ministry, pastoral ministry to the church, all the glory and the praise belongs to Jesus Christ and to him alone.

01:57:26

And that appreciation for pastors is actually appreciation for Christ who gives them to the church.

01:57:36

He that receives you receives me, and he that receives me receives him that sent me.

01:57:45

And if a man is a faithful pastor, it's very difficult to see how you can divorce and radically separate your attitude toward him from your attitude toward Christ.

01:57:59

And to him alone be the glory. Amen. Well, I want to make sure that our listeners have the two websites for the two churches represented here today.

01:58:11

First of all, the church where my guest, Pastor Greg Nichols, serves, and I've known

01:58:18

Greg going all the way back to the 1980s. It's such a privilege to have him back on the show. The church that he currently pastors is

01:58:25

Amazing Grace Church in Catskill, New York, and that website is AmazingGraceCatskill .com.

01:58:34

AmazingGraceCatskill .com. And the church where I am a member, where my dear friend Daniel Wolford serves as a deacon, that website is for Trinity Reformed Baptist Church in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, is trbccarlisle .org,

01:58:50

trbccarlisle .org. And I'm just wondering what we're going to do for a deacon when you become an elder eventually, because I have a feeling that's going to happen.

01:58:59

But I want to thank you both for doing such a wonderful job today. I also want to remind everybody that tomorrow at 10 .30

01:59:09

a .m. Pacific time and 1 .30 p .m. Eastern, the memorial service of the late

01:59:18

John MacArthur will be live streamed, and you can go to gty .org

01:59:25

for that live stream. That's the website of Grace to You Ministries, gty .org.

01:59:31

I want to thank everybody who listened today. I hope you all have a safe, blessed, and Christ -honoring weekend and Lord's Day, and I want you all to always remember for the rest of your lives that Jesus Christ is a far greater

01:59:44

Savior than you are a sinner. God bless. Tom, amen. Thank you,