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

Live from historic downtown Carlisle, Pennsylvania, home of founding father James Wilson, 19th century hymn writer George Duffield, 19th century gospel minister George Norcross, and sports legend 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. Proverbs chapter 27 verse 17 tells us iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another.

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

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

Good afternoon, 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. This is Chris Arnzen, your host of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, wishing you all a happy Friday.

On this 22nd day of August 2025, I am thrilled to have two very dear friends on the program today, one a returning guest and one a first-time guest. The guests for today are Greg Nichols, author and pastor of Amazing Grace Church in Catskill, New York.

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

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, 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.

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

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

Amazing Grace Church is a little church that's been here for a long time. And when I retired in 2019, this church had been without a pastor for about three years. And they asked me to be interim pastor.

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. 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.

And to my mind, why would the Lord send such a deep and wonderful spirit of prayer if he wanted the church to close? 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. Except me, I've gone from a specific age of 72 to 77. 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.

And the church has peace and love and unity. It's a great privilege to be here in my, quote, semi-retirement. And thank God for bringing us here. Ginger and I are very happy here. This is a very loving, though small, church family, and we praise God for the privilege of serving in Vermont.

Thanks for asking.

Hey, my pleasure. And I believe you are subscribers to the London Baptist Confession of Faith?

That's true. Second London Confession, yes.

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

The website is AmazingGraceCatskill .com. AmazingGraceCatskill .com. And now, Daniel Wolford, everybody at Trinity Reformed Baptist Church of Carlisle, Pennsylvania, is so delighted that the 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? Thank you, Chris.

Yeah.

Well, delighted to serve the Lord as the deacon and delighted to serve the dear St. Trinity Reformed Baptist Church of Carlisle. As Brother Patrick Rangia alluded to, we're also a church that subscribes to and upholds the 1689 Second London Baptist Confession of Faith.

And it's a sweet congregation that's growing. We also have around 33 members. I think total attendance is around 77. The Lord has blessed us with a lot of youth and children. And for that, we're most grateful.

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. Trbccarlisle .org. And, Daniel, you know that we have a tradition on Iron Trip 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 Trip 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.

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

And as such, kind of grew up in an easy believism, both in the church and say a sinner's prayer, and that's how you're saved. Obviously, I've now fully come to believe and appreciate the doctrines of priests.

I grew up in a Christian household with two very loving parents, very close with you until this very day. I'm 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 the story that I asked her to say a prayer with me to accept Christ into my heart, which I did. So I grew up believing that I was a Christian. I don't know that that's why I was actually saved.

I tend to doubt that. But at some point, the 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 Lord did a great work.

And, you know, one of the things growing up, I was always troubled. I didn't fully understand it until coming to the Reformed faith. I was always very concerned about actually being a Christian, not because of any necessarily besetting sin or issues like that.

But I was always concerned, did I actually say the right word? Did I really mean the prayer? Was it effective? And, you know, the thought that any part of my salvation could be in my hand was concerning because that means I might have messed it up.

And coming to the Reformed faith and understanding that it is all great. It is the working of the Holy Spirit. And knowing that to be amongst 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 scriptures and how Christ works in a saving way.

Amen. Hallelujah.

Amen.

Duties of Church Members to Their Pastors and Christian Duty Versus Legalism

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. And we are going to be drawing a lot from a booklet that Dr. Greg Nichols and my mutual friend, who was not only a friend of mine, but my very first pastor as a born-again believer who baptized me, Mike Dadosh of Solid-Ground-Books .com, Solid Ground Christian Books.

He brought back to print many years ago this booklet by John Angel James, a 19th century English nonconformist. He was actually born in the 18th century. And this is a wonderful, precious booklet that actually comes, including another brief booklet, Plead to Pray for Pastors by Gardner Spring, with a foreword by Dr. John MacArthur.

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.

Thank you. 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 be greatly blessed by knowing several pastors very well, the unique challenges that pastors face and the realistic truth that it is very difficult for a pastor to be his own advocate.

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. And I've always felt passionate about that as a deacon.

And so I thought this would be a good topic for your listeners, Chris, and something that I have just more and more become convinced of as I've done readings. You recall, Brother, right before our church had constituted, I led a Sunday evening where we were thinking through duties of church members supporting their pastor and drawing on the work of Benjamin Teach and his work, The Glory of a True Church and its Discipline Displayed.

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.

Amen. And Pastor Greg, you yourself have written a book where much of what John Angel James covered is in your own writings. I think that you said you covered about eight of the nine points that John Angel James makes in his booklet.

Yes, a couple of things. First of all, I think that what you meant to say was that it was Dr. Joel Beakey who collaborated with our dear brother Mike to produce that booklet.

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

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

No, what I meant to say was that you and I have a mutual friend in Mike Gaydosh. That's what I meant.

I see. Well, then let me just clarify. I have a Bachelor of Science in Chemical Engineering and a Master of Divinity, but I don't hold a doctorate degree.

Well, you deserve one anyway.

Let me see. Yes, as far as covering those points in the doctrine of the church, I do cover most of those points. Slightly different headings, but yes, indeed. 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 I did, but under a different heading, under the heading of evangelism, the responsibility of bringing people up to the sound of the gospel.

Amen. 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. We'll take them one by one, and we will have Daniel Wolford chime in with not only his knowledge of these nine points, but also his own knowledge of what Benjamin Keech and John Owen had to say.

Right. Okay, well, do you have, how many, it's four, 14, how much time do I have before you have to take a hard break?

About 15 minutes.

Oh, plenty of time. Okay, good. I won't take that much. Well, let me start by saying this. The first thing is the word duties. Duties, duties, duties, duties, duties. Okay, duty, duty, duty, duty. Exactly.

Well, that's the point. That's exactly the point. And I've said this to these people in Catskill. I told them I can say this to you until you're blue in the face. First thing, Christianity is not for good people that never did anything wrong.

Christianity is for bad people that never did anything right. It's for hell-deserving sinners, and we're all set by grace and not by works. Amen. And I'm not decrying the responsibility of Christians to do what is good, to walk in gospel obedience to God.

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

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

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

So we're talking about duty. We're talking about Christian duty. I'm not talking about any other kind of duty, not legalistic duty, not Pharisee duty, Christian duty. And then I end up by saying to them, are we clear?

Are we clear? Do I need to say it again? So that's the first thing about duty. Now, with respect to the responsibilities of church members in regard to pastors, John Angel James makes nine points. I summarize them in one word headings like this.

First, defer, respect, attend, intercede or pray, invite, inform, cooperate, defend and support or provide. The first is defer. He puts it this way, quote, submission to their just and scriptural authority.

Secondly, respect. And he says, quote, church members should treat their pastor with distinguishing honor, esteem and love. The third, attend. He says, quote, attendance upon their ministration is another duty which church members owe their pastors.

Fourth, intercede or pray. He says, quote, earnest prayer. The fifth would be invite. And he says, quote, members should encourage others to attend upon the ministry of their pastors, end quote. 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.

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.

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

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

That's a mouthful, but that's the sum and substance of what he says is the Christian duty, not legalistic duty, not Pharisaic duty, but Christian responsibility of church members with respect to their pastors.

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. 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 duties and to remember those duties when caring for their own pastors?

Yeah, thank you, brothers. Yeah, appreciate Greg's summarizing of those titles. Those are very, very helpful. You know, I do think that support, the financial support, is a very key topic. 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.

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

I think they all may have referenced a well-known passage of Scripture, the Apostle Paul in 1 Thessalonians 5 when he says, Brothers, pray for us. I certainly don't want to get ahead of what Pastor Greg will share on that section, but there is so much emphasis in all of Scripture of prayer.

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

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

There's a great need for church members to encourage their pastor, to let them know how much they are appreciated and loved. I think those things go a long way. And I would also say there's 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.

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 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.

Not all elders have the same gifts, but at the same time, they should have the same level of authority. 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, I have seen the two extremes of how people approach pastors.

You have one extreme where they make tyrants out of them. They create either tyrants or cult leaders, people with the traits of a cult leader anyway. They fall on every word of their pastor and view the pastor, even if they would never admit this, superior to the 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 Christians, is the attitude, this man is no better than I am. Of course, we are all equal in the sight of God as blood-bought children of God, but they will have an attitude about it.

And some think that this guy, he only works one day a week, they wrongly think. He should be getting a secular job. He doesn't deserve the money that the church expects us to give. 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.

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

Well, you sure said a mouthful there. You really did. First and foremost, a couple of things. In the treatment of this, I put prayer for pastors first. 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 God, and the more they understand the tremendous importance of the pastoral ministry, then they will pray for us, hopefully.

Because there's absolutely no way that we could do anything that we're supposed to do in our own strength. Our sufficiency is not in our sense. 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.

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.

And that it's for the works 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.

You will pray. So that's first and foremost, I think, is prayer. With regard to work, one of the things you said, I remember one time back in the 1980s, 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. 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.

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. 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.

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.

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

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Welcome back. If you just tuned us in, this is Chris Arnzen, your host of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio. And my guests today are Pastor Greg Nichols of Amazing Grace Church in Catskill, New York, and Daniel Wolford, a deacon at Trinity Reform Baptist Church of Carlisle, Pennsylvania.

We are discussing the duties of church members to their pastors. And our email address is chrisarnzen at gmail .com. Chrisarnzen at gmail .com. Give us a first name at least, city and state and country of residence.

And we do have Emery in Sunderland, Massachusetts. And Emery says, can you please explain 1 Timothy 5, verse 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.

And I'll start with you, Pastor Nichols, if you could.

You want me to address 1 Timothy 5, verse 17?

Yes, if you could just explain that for our listener.

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

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.

Okay, go ahead. I'm sorry.

I'm sorry. Did I not explain it? Go ahead.

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

Well, if I was going to say something else, I was just going to summarize. There are different views of this that different people take. 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. 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.

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. 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.

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?

Yeah, thanks, Chris. You know, let me back up here a little bit. You know, I think 1 Timothy 5, 17 through 18 is a very crucial passage of Scripture. We can clearly get financial support for our pastors.

Pastor Greg mentioned there is also a sense of honor, of respect that is here as well, but double honor. So there's also financial support for those elders that are engaged in preaching and teaching. And really, you know, this passage is referencing both Deuteronomy 25 .4, when it treads out the grain, as well as a quote from Christ, from Luke 10 .7, that deserves his wages, 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. 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.

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

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

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

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

So, what 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 athletes, 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.

And he goes on to say, Many rich Christians spend more in the needless luxuries than they contribute toward the support of their pastor. Some give more for the sugar that sweetens their tea than they do for all the advantages of public worship.

And he goes on to say, Let it never be thought that what is given to a minister is a charitable donation. It is the payment of a just death. It is what Christ claims were his faithful servants, which cannot be withheld without robbery.

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

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 Baptist churches to use. And I just tell you a little anecdote, but, you know, after our deacons saw that, they got a little discouraged with what our church could do, how God could provide.

But I told them, don't be discouraged. Remember, it doesn't mean that you can't afford a Baptist. It just means that you can't afford a Presbyterian. Anyway, so what the OPC Church has on that is a very good set of guidance.

The 1689 London Confession of Faith has one of its distinctive contributions to the Reformed faith that it addresses in chapter 26, paragraph 10, I think, explicitly the responsibility of churches to provide for their pastors comfortable supply.

And one more thing. I remember when I was first in the ministry and we had put ourselves through seminary and living on savings. 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, I was completely out of savings. They weren't paying us enough to live on. And I wasn't about to go in debt. So I was about to go back into chemical engineering to provide for my family.

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 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.