The Laborers' Podcast- Church Polity

Hello and welcome to The Laborer's Podcast. Thank you for joining us tonight. Tonight we're going to be talking about polity, church government, the structure of how God wants the church to be ran. We hope you can stick with us for the entirety of the program and it begins right now.

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Everybody else does too. And thank you guys for supporting the ministry. Go check them out. So how is everybody doing tonight? Good. Doing all right. Happy to be here. Good, me too, me too. So, so polity.

That's one of those words that I had never heard before, was unfamiliar with. Just like eschatology, ecclesiology, you know, all these, all these big words that people that go to college use. Wasn't familiar with it.

So give me a quick definition of polity. When we say polity,.

What do we mean? Well the term polity, a little bit of history, it actually goes back to Aristotle when he was wrestling through the idea of governments and different government structures with, you know, kings and different kinds of structures.

And he proposed what he called a polity, this idea of getting every demographic in a room together, having representatives from every background, every group of people, and having them represent those people in a larger mechanization, I guess you could say.

It's this, similar to what we would think of with Congress. He called polity, but it was wider. There was, you had every different ethnic background, every social standing, all that. So he called that polity.

And so when we talk about church polity, it's a similar idea. We're talking about having a group of people that represent the church body in a.

Specific set of functions. It's weird to say church government, but it's kind of kind of what it is, how God runs his church and his structure in that.

Tyler, I'm thankful you're on this program. Us too. Hey Tyler, I'm gonna make a public statement here, because all these guys, Big John, all the other guys, the other guys, they're probably man enough to handle this, but without a doubt, I say hands down, you are the most intelligent man on this podcast.

Raise our glass to.

You, brother. Raise my coffee to you, sir. Cheers to the coffee. I am very humbled by that statement,.

Claude. Thank you. I mean that, brother. That's not a statement I take lightly.

Thank the Lord. Yeah, we're thankful for you. Absolutely, absolutely. Well, tonight's questions that I put together are, they're not going to be deep as far as theological. They're going to be more practical.

I didn't want to get too lost in the weeds, but I just wanted us to have a candid conversation about this subject in its practical terms. So, and the question that I started off with, I think, is one that I've not really heard too many people address.

So, here it is. Before we, you know, we want to go to proof text, we want to support our stance, where we stand on this issue, because there's different approaches, different interpretations, but before we get to that section, where we begin to prove our point, tell where we stand and why we stand there, before we examine those specific texts to prove our position from a biblical theology point of view.

In other words, from a bird's-eye view, looking at the Bible as a whole, not systematically, but as a Bible as a whole, what role does church polity and structure and leadership have in the overall plan for the world?

So, in other words, God's plan for how he wants the local church to be operated, what effect does that have on his greater plan for the world, evangelism, the Great Commission, the future of Christianity?

What's your perspective on that?

Church Polity and the Kingdom of God

Well, if I could... I'm sorry. Go ahead, Tyler. Go ahead, buddy. Yeah. Well, I was thinking through this little bit today, and I kept coming back to some of the eschatological texts that we often focus on, like Isaiah 2 and Revelation 21, this idea of the temple, this idea of this thing that we're striving towards.

Now, Isaiah 2 says in the last days that the the mountain of the Lord's house will be established at the top of the mountains, and will be raised above the hills, and it says all nations will stream to it in CSB.

Others say flow, but the important thing there is that water doesn't flow up mountains. It has to be drawn in. And it says, and many peoples will come and say, come, let's go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob, and he will teach us about his ways, so that we may walk in his paths.

And I came to that passage because, one, we recognize that this is where God is drawing all nations, that he is bringing all to himself, that he is reconciling to himself all things, that Christ may be all in all.

But in addition to that, in the house of the Lord, that is the temple in the Old Testament, there was a structure in there, that you had certain levels of people. You had people that worked in the temple, you had things like that, and while that's not the end goal is to go be priests and all of that, the idea is that that all served a purpose, that it all had a purpose in building up the people of God in the Old Testament, and there are some principles there that carry over to how we look at the church, because the church is the true Israel, it is the true temple, it is the true people of God.

And so when we look at where we're going, where the world is going and where the church is going, that is the picture that God is painting, is that that ransomed people. And when we talk about the structure in the church, that's what we should be pointing to is the things of God, the kingdom of God, what God is going to do someday, and how he has invited us to join in that divine plan, not in the sense that we share in who God is, but that there is a piece in this puzzle where we fit, if I'm making sense.

So I'm going to stretch this just a little bit on this one part, if that's okay. I agree wholeheartedly with what you said, Tyler, so no disagreement there whatsoever. But I would also say, I would say church polity currently should be a reflection of futuristic polity when the full manifestation of the kingdom God is coming in hand.

And so if you were to ask my congregation, who is the lead pastor of this local church, they better say, Jesus Christ. If they don't, I take them to task, okay? And that's not a Jesus thing. I ask them that all the time, who's the head pastor of this church?

Who is the head pastor? And they're going to say, Jesus. And our new folks kind of look at me kind of funny, but that is a very true statement. Now and futuristically, Christ is the head of the church, period.

The church, the worldwide church, the kingdom, and every local church, he is king of kings and Lord of lords. So he is the singular head of the church. And then as Christ is the head, then Ephesians 4 tells us he's appointed apostles, and pastors, and teachers, and preachers, and missionaries, and however you want to phrase those things out and parse those out.

But in Ephesians 4, he's given us those things as leaders in the church. And why? For the equipping of the saints for the work of their ministry. So it's a multiplication from Christ who gives the vision to leaders who are shepherding and equipping to the whole body.

And so I think Christ, first of all, sets a hierarchy up that should be foreshadowing of what the eternal kingdom is. The worldwide church kingdom should be modeled in the local church. And so that's, first of all, where local church policy is extremely important.

And there's not a...and many would take me to task on this statement. I don't believe that there is an exact prescription to say this is exactly how it is to be laid out. There's things that are inferred, but that's even like getting into other questions.

So we'll deal with that in a minute. But whatever that looks like, I think we should be foreshadowing the worldwide kingdom to come, you know, which is the kingdom of God is at hand, and we should be foreshadowing that.

That's the first thing. The second thing is we need to realize and should not arrogantly, so I want to say this very carefully, not arrogantly act in this manner. But worldwide, there is going to be Christian authority.

We already have authority, but there is a coming authority. And it's not a passage that I hear many guys preach on. But like in 1 Corinthians 6, verses 2 and 3, Paul is saying, don't you know that you're going to even be ruling over angels?

You're judging angels. Like there is this authority of these ransomed people that Tyler was talking about, that now we're already seated in heavenly places with him in Ephesians 2. And so in the mind of God, it's a pretty neat study to talk about the authority in the futuristic worldwide kingdom of the authority of the Christians to even judge angels.

Now, what is there to judge in that? I know we can start unpacking all of that, but really, probably it lands that we'll have some kind of role or part in judging the fallen angels at some level. I mean, holy angels have nothing to be judged of, you know, that they'd be at the throne of God without sin.

But there are those that have rebelled against God. And so if we're judging angels, and we can imagine even below that down, Paul is stating there is authority of the Christians that will be ruling in the earth.

How that works out, I don't know, guys. I'll be the first to raise my hand and say I have no idea. But we have a glimpse of foreshadowing in the manifestation of the kingdom of God and where the earth is headed in the worldwide.

So my point in all of that is to say, if that's what God has ordained for our future, then why not begin to practice those things now? You know, begin to put in place a foreshadowing of the kingdom ahead and actually practice the kingdom of God is at hand with Christ as the head and leaders and elders and pastors and teachers that he has put in place in authority of the church that should be honored, as the Bible says, especially those that labor in the word and teaching in the word.

And then their design is for them not to domineer or rule over the people in the manner of rule as we think with a rod of iron, but it's for the sake of equipping the saints for the work of ministry. It's a shepherding, equipping, and exhorting.

There is a rebuking when necessary, but an exhorting. And so we have authority under the authority of Christ, that Christ has called and give to people with authority so that they can empower people and multiply authority.

And eventually, if church quality is done correctly, we should be multiplying the authority of Christ and the authority of the church and the governance across the whole wide world. And so I think that's why, to me, it's important worldwide.

I think this is God's design for effective multiplication. The final thing I'll say is if you've got godly elders, you're going to have missional people. And if you have ungodly elders, you're going to have unmissional people.

It's just that simple. So if you have elders that have the heart of Christ, that multiply that into their people, then you're going to have missional people that's going to multiply that into other people.

It's just the fruit of it. But if you don't have godly elders, if you've got power-hungry or self-centered or people-pleasing elders, then you're not going to have a missional church, and you'll be forsaking the commission of Christ.

And so that's the last thing I'll say, which is on the practical side. That's important worldwide. Because I would say, more than likely, every faithful man of God that is preaching the word of God or living out in mission can point back in their life at some point in time, some man of God or some person of authority under God that has poured into their life, that God used that to spark a fire in their life, and it continues.

And so that's very, very important in leadership there.

So thank you.

Claude, do you have any?

No, sir. I'm enjoying this. What about you? What about you?

Well, I would only think about two other things, and I'm sure there's so much more. But the two other things that I had thought about was, the first one is, I thought about Luke, and Luke 16 says, whoever can be trusted, and I don't want to stretch it, take it too far out of context, but it says, whoever can be trusted with the small things can also be trusted with big things.

And I guess I'm taking principle out of that, you know.

Hey, hey!

Sorry.

Sorry. Wrong button. Wrong button.

Was that Jack Nicholson? It was.

So whoever can be trusted over little things.

Yeah, you can't handle the truth.

That's right.

You can't handle it.

Sorry.

But I guess I'm taking principle out of that. You know, if you can be entrusted with the small things, you know, God will increase that trust and responsibility. And so we want to, you know, most of us are not in mega churches.

We're in small rural churches. And so I would consider that, you know, small things. And even this ministry here, Dan and I was talking about this before our podcast on Tuesday night this week. But think about guys like Bodhi Bach, or one of the guys that we know, Gary DeMar, or some of these other guys that are really popular in our circles that we may listen to their podcast or you may have to pay a little bit of money or a lot of money to come get them to speak at your conference or your church or something.

If you think about it in the scope of things in America, what would you say maybe if you were to ask 98 of Americans who is just Bodhi Bach for example, 98 of Americans probably would not know who that is.

But we do. And we, you know, we think he's wonderful. We want to pray for him. We're thankful that God has given up the church Bodhi Bach. And so our little ministries that we have in our areas, you know, they're small things.

And we want to be responsible there. We want to be biblical there. We want to follow the biblical model of how God has laid it out there in our local churches and our small ministries. So that whatever else God does give us to do, you know, we will be obedient and faithful and responsible in those things as well.

And then the other thing that I was thinking about is if you're thinking about how does my local church structure affect global ministry? Who are the people that are supposed to be going out and doing the ministry?

Who are the people that are supposed to be equipped to go out and do the ministry? Those in your congregation. And who is supposed to be doing the equipping? The leaders in the church. So we want to make sure that we are being faithful and obedient to the word of God in our structure and in our scope of ministry so that we are leading those and equipping those who are going to be going out into the world to be faithful and obedient following Christ correctly.

So those are two ways that I thought about how even in our small circumstances being faithful is so important and how it can affect the world. So the next question. And here's kind of some of the questions that are getting down to the nitty gritty.

What are the consequences for not following God's plan for the local church from a universal long-term perspective? So once we start down a slippery slope, what are the consequences kind of long-term?

How does that affect the church? Do you have any thoughts, Claude? We'll start with you.

Yes, sir.

So I would say there that the consequence, the long-term consequence in not having the standards for church polity or church government is that things like a rubber band, right? So Jonathan talked about stretching us earlier.

I love how Jonathan does that every podcast. He says, so I'm going to stretch us here. Is that okay? That's a rhetorical question. Is that okay? It's rhetorical. When Jonathan says opens with, I'm going to stretch us, basically just be ready to be stretched.

But what happens with a rubber band, if you continually stretch it, you continually expand it, right? There are different rubber bands made for different things, right? If you're making a rubber band ball, you can start with little bitty rubber bands.

But when you get to the outside, you got to get bigger and bigger rubber bands, right, because it grows. So I think with the church, the long-term consequence for not having fixed standards for church polity is looseness, right?

Now, I'm not saying that we're so rigid, we be so rigid that we snap at the first slide of pressure that's applied. But I'm also not saying that we be so loose that anything and everything goes, that we go to the scripture, of course, as our standard and best apply what we see in the text of scripture.

The reality is that as with everything, as human beings, everything that we touch at some point or another is going to be screwed up, bottom line, because we're humans. But God's perfect ordination and setup and design for the world, his church, is just that, it's perfect.

But we must always return back.

To the scripture,.

Because the long-term consequence demonstrates looseness. And in the world's eyes, I would say that it demonstrates a lack of continuity that God's people have with God's word.

What's that common phrase in the book of Judges? In those days, Israel had no king and every man did what was right in his own eyes.

Right.

Obviously, that's not about a pastor or an elder, but I think there's a principle there that definitely carries over, that they, as Claude was saying, they played fast and loose with what God has called good, with what God has called wicked, and we can basically just interpret that how we will, and we can figure this out.

And that seems to be sometimes how we look at things with this particular area, with church government or polity, whatever term we want to use here, that we can figure this out. I took church administration at one college, and they pretty much presented it like a business.

Yeah.

Basically, we can look at the church like it's a business. We can lead it like a business. We can develop the leadership styles and skills that you need to be a good pastor by reading these people talking about being a CEO.

Yep.

So then you've got this disconnect here between what a pastor is with what a church is and what we're doing.

Yep.

The only comment I would add is when Claude was saying loose and the same thing with Tyler, when there's no king, when there's no leader, when there's no principle, people do what's right in their own eyes.

The consequences of doing what's right in our own eyes or being loose will result in an abandonment of a gospel-centric, Christ-centric theology and will always land in a human-centered theology.

That's right.

And that's one.

Of the primary issues that I love to address in Western culture church. And I'm sure it's worldwide, but at the end of the day in America, elder polity is so difficult because we live in a democratic government.

So everybody wants to vote. Everybody wants to have their voice heard. But at the end of the day, we have to have leaders that it's not about the opinions and the whims of people. It's about the truth.

Of Scripture.

That leads to a Christ-centric theology. And again, I've been raised up and attended and been a part of probably every form of those different leadership models.

And so we have to be.

So when we get loose, as Claus said, in leadership or as Tyler's saying, where there is no leader, where there is no king, where there is no authority, people's going to do what's right in their own eyes.

And we can go back to Genesis 3 and find out what that's going to be.

From that federal Adam,.

We are going to put ourselves and whatever makes us feel good, whatever makes us feel comfortable, whatever entertains us, whatever pleases us, that's what we're going to do. And then we abandon the pleasure and the authority of God in the midst of that.

So I'm going to steal a line from Paul Washer now that we're talking about consequences. So when that happens, Paul Washer said, there's not been a single church in the entire world that bore the name of Jesus that has died that God didn't kill it.

And so in his point in saying that is, Jesus said, upon this rock, I'll build my church and not even the gates of hell will stop it. So if the gates of hell can't even stop his church, then why is there 4 ,000 churches a year closing in the United States?

Why is there far more dying that are being planted on an annual basis? What is this erosion? And so that's why this is, even though we're covering it from a very practical standpoint, this is a very serious issue in the United States because there has been an abandonment of the gospel.

The judgment of God starts at the house of God. And so therefore, God's not playing games when we have elders that will not lead, when we have church leaders that will not lead to make a Christ-centered, Christ-glorifying church.

And so God's not gonna share his glory with his creation. No one touches.

The glory of God.

This is a very serious matter that is a serious consequence in our culture on local church all the way from the judgment of God in the midst of the church, that it begins at the house of God, which should be the most God-glorifying entity in all the world.

But in many ways, when it's lack of leadership, lack of polity, then man does what's right in his own eyes. It's not gonna be God-centered, God-glorifying. It's gonna be man-centered and man-glorifying.

And then God's gonna shut it down, man. Like, he's not gonna play games with that.

And so,.

When we talk about consequences, it gets heavier. You can run on down that hill and watch how the water runs. And it gets more and more and more serious in the world we live in today.

Let me affirm that with the Scripture. Revelation chapter 2, to the angel of the church at Ephesus write, These things says he who holds the seven stars in his right hand who walks in the midst of seven golden lampstands.

I know your works, your labor, your patience and that you cannot bear those who are evil and you have tested those who say they are apostles and are not and have found them liars and you have persevered and have patience and have labored for my name's sake and have not become weary.

Nevertheless, I have this against you that you have left your first love. Remember, therefore, from where you have fallen, repent and do the first works and here's the consequence or else I will come quickly and remove your lampstand from its place unless you repent.

That's right.

Unless you repent and that's exactly what Jonathan was talking about.

Right there.

Is that what you were saying?

Amen.

Absolutely.

And it's 100%.

That's 100 it because the Scripture, of course, interprets the Scripture and I know we're not on Revelation but the mystery. Really, if you'll just sit down and read it, the mystery is taken away to a great degree.

The Lord explains most of the symbology and topology in it but He even says in chapter 1, verse 20, the mystery of the seven stars which you saw on my right hand and the seven golden lampstands, the seven stars are the angels of the seven churches and the seven lampstands which you saw are the seven churches.

So the lampstands are the churches, the spirits, or the angels are the messengers of the churches which are the pastors. The preachers, that's right. Yeah, the preachers.

That's right.

So Rob, real quick, I didn't see it in here but did you want us to do a quick definition of the options of church polity?

We can.

Just like two minutes. Can I do that?

Oh, yeah, yeah.

If you want to do that now,.

Yeah, that'll be fine.

Can I just comment.

On what you had to talk about?

Yes.

Before you do that.

Yes.

Jonathan was, Pastor Jonathan was giving us perspective.

Yes.

I mean, really, perspective. And I think, yes, yes, Jonathan, we can continue down that conversation and really delve into the seriousness of where you were taking us. But where you just took us was enough to make us pause.

Yeah.

And take it serious. And my mind was going to where you took us, Claude, to the lampstand, the room of the lampstand.

Yeah.

And you think about the passage that the gates of hell and you, Pastor Jonathan, you brought this up the gates of hell will not prevail against the church. And that can, that can cause a good and proper confidence in the Lord Jesus Christ.

But go back to what Claude was talking about earlier, it can also cause a looseness in how we behave.

Yes.

And when we, when we depart from confidence in the Lord Jesus Christ to looseness, and then we begin to do things how we want to do things, boy, we better begin to take serious that idea that no, the gates of hell will not prevail against the church of the Lord Jesus Christ.

But if we're not lining up with Him and bowing our knee to Him and submitting to Him, He'll remove our lampstand,.

Which is the church.

And I think that's.

And He disciplines those whom He loves too. It's not in, it's not in condemnation, I don't want to misrepresent it. It's not in wrath, you know, of lightning bolts coming from heaven or those kinds of stuff.

It is in love. It's in love for His own glory and His own righteousness and holiness. And it's in love for His children to say that I'm not going to stand for my children to remain in a man-centered theology.

That is a grace. It doesn't feel like graceful because it's spanking our hind end, you know, but that is grace that God does not talk about.

He's not going.

To tolerate that.

He's not going to leave us there. He's patient and long-suffering, but He's not going to just leave us there. And so, I'm thankful for the grace of God. He does this for those whom He loves. And I just wanted to put that in there.

The church of Ephesus, He's speaking to them in love, you know, but it's correction,.

You know,.

So a good father corrects his children.

And so,.

So just keep that in mind, I hope.

But you're right, Robert,.

And it's sobering.

When we,.

Especially in doing church planting, we get the opportunity to walk with young church plants to create a DNA of good church polity and good church structure. And I'm, we want to be very graceful in that there's room for variance, but at the same time, there's non-negotiables as well, you know, I think it's very important.

Yeah,.

So consequences are heavy. I just want to make sure we understand that this isn't just a matter of.

Personal preference.

I mean,.

This,.

We are,.

My whole point of bringing those statistics up is we're witnessing the consequences of the abandonment of biblical church polity.

Yes.

In America, we are witnessing this.

As,.

And I know we can get into a whole big post-meal conversation here, so I don't want to do that,.

Right, Robert? Are you sure?

But temporarily, I will say, and I'm hopeful for our future, and I am confident in an absolute authority of Christ in his return, but at least temporarily in our vapor of a life, we are becoming less Christian.

We are becoming less church-led.

Church rules.

And so, and it's very evident in our system secular society and in church society, too.

It's,.

Right now,.

It's,.

You have, you have, it's becoming very extreme, I guess is all I'm trying to say. You have those that are striving for God-centeredness, and then you have those that willfully and joyfully,.

It's,.

It's apostasy, in my opinion, you know,.

But it's,.

That's a strong word. They are abandoning not just church leadership polity, it's an abandonment of the authenticity of the gospel and authority.

Of scripture.

And so,.

So God's cleaning up.

His church,.

Praise God for that, but it is consequences of loose polity.

And, and,.

And not following.

God's design.

Praise the Lord.

Thank you. Absolutely.

And,.