God Centered Podcast - Episode 24 - God Centered Church - The Church Only Has One King

God Centered Theology

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Welcome to the God -Centered Podcast. This is the place for consistent

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God -centered, God -honoring, and God -glorifying biblical content.

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Now, let's join Andy Cain for today's episode. Hello there and welcome back to the

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God -Centered Podcast. This is Andy Cain. It's a joy to be back with you once again. Today within this podcast we have had some articles regarding God -Centered

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Church, but today we're going to start a series within the podcast about the God -Centered Church. This series will take as long as it needs to, for we will go through all the exegesis in, around, and relating to the church.

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We will have multiple discussions on everyone's role, including elders, deacons, and congregants.

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We will have discussions about what elders should look like, how they should operate, what they should be doing, what they should not be doing, so on and so forth.

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So we're looking to be exhaustive in our look at this so that we can provide information and a blueprint that is submitted to Scripture for churches to, if they want to and if they need to, make actual changes that will be glorifying to God and will ultimately be

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God -Centered in their changes. So today we want to begin our look at this by starting off at the right starting point, and that is with God, that is with Christ.

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And a God -Centered Church is going to start with God, end with God, it's going to start with Christ, and end with Christ, and the way we start this is by understanding that the church only has one king.

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It only has one king, it only has one leader, it only has one head. In the Great Commission, when

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Jesus brings his disciples together in Matthew 28, it says in verse 16, but the eleven disciples proceeded to Galilee, to the mountain which

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Jesus had designated. And when they saw him, they worshipped him, but some doubted.

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And Jesus came up and spoke to them, saying, All authority has been given to me in heaven and on earth.

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Go therefore and make disciples. Now when it says, go therefore, you could translate this, having gone, so the going is assumed.

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As you go, make disciples, make disciples of Christ, disciple the nations, make disciples of all the nations, this is all inclusive.

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And making disciples is duplication, duplicating Christ in people, which will naturally lead to local communities and larger pictures being discipled.

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And this is the essence of the post -millennial understanding of eschatology, is that as the gospel finds success in this world, as more and more people are regenerated and come to a saving knowledge of Jesus Christ, you will naturally see as a consequence of that,

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Christians submitting to the scripture, submitting to God's word, and carrying out the great commission which involves discipling the nations, calling for all men everywhere to repeat and to submit to scripture and submit to God's word.

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And so as this great commission is carried out, we will see the nations discipled.

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That's why it says, the authority has been given to Christ. There's only one king, Satan is not the

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God of this world, Jesus Christ is. When it talks about Satan being the God of this world, it was mostly before he was bound, so he would have the ability to deceive nations and things like that, but now

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Jesus Christ has taken all that power, the keys are given to him, and so now he is the ruler, he is the one that has all authority.

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There means that there is none or no part of any authority over the earth that Jesus Christ does not have.

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And because he is the king, because he is the sovereign one, he will grow his kingdom. Isaiah talks about how the increase of that government, there will be no end.

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So he says, having God as you go, I want you to be making disciples. This is part of why the church exists.

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The church exists to make sure that Christians are being matured so that we can make disciples of all the nations.

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That assumes that Christians are not just going to sit on a pew in church, but they're going to actively go out into their world, into their local communities, and train governments, schools, people, churches, all sorts of gatherings and groups to love the

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Lord their God with all their heart, soul, mind, and strength, to obey the commandments of God, because notice it says here, you're going to baptize them in the name of the

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Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, teaching them to keep all that I commanded you, and behold,

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I am with you always, even to the end of the age. And the end of the age he had in mind here was the end of the old covenant age.

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This was going to be a judgment of God, when Christ would come in judgment, and the temple would be destroyed by the

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Romans, with Nero being the Antichrist, and the one who would stand in opposition to Christ, and he would persecute the

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Christians beyond what is even imaginable in some cases. But this would be the end of the covenant age, the old covenant, as the new covenant has now been instituted, and so part of that new covenant is that God's law is written on his people's hearts, and so we know from the

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Word of God and from the indwelling presence of the Holy Spirit what Christ has commanded, and he's saying everything that I commanded you, you are to teach the nations.

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Notice there's no break here, and it doesn't say just make disciples of just Christians. Now you may say, well,

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I thought the Great Commission, the gospel, was to be successful. Yes, that's true. As the gospel has been increasingly successful, we will be making disciples of Christians.

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We will be teaching Christians to keep all that Christ commanded, and while the unregenerate will uphold that or obey that, we are still to call all nations and all men everywhere to repent and obey the gospel.

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Now it will be successful in those that have been regenerated, and as that number increases, we will see the nations discipled, we will see the majority of people keeping the commandments of God, and we will see them taking themselves as they are discipled and turn around and discipling others.

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And so that is one of the main purposes of the church, and one of the main purposes for our sanctification and our growth in Christ, so that we can be better disciple makers.

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But yes, the church only has one king. The church only has one ruler, and that is

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Jesus Christ. So that means even though, and we will get into this, elders are commanded to oversee the church, they still do this in submission to scripture.

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They're not doing it because they are the authority that gives commands. Jesus is the one who gives commands, but elders are there in place to make sure that we are following scripture, to make sure that things are being done correctly.

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I want to hop over to Matthew chapter 16 in verse 13 and finish up this particular episode talking about how the church only has one king by looking at Peter's confession of Jesus being the

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Christ. Now this would be a whole sermon for another day. We're not going to get too deep into the issue with the

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Roman Catholic Church, where they think this is scripture establishing Peter as the first pope.

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And one of the things you have to point out to them is that it's a very inconsistent form of exegesis to take a passage like this that has no wording in it saying the word pope, or you're the leader of the church, or you're the, you know, things that would be necessary to agree with the statement that this is making

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Peter the first pope. All that stuff and all that language is absent here. And also to be consistent in our exegesis, you have to understand the flow of the text and the original author's intent.

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He's got here where the Pharisees and Sadducees are testing Jesus once again, and we move down here, he's dealing with all this, and now when

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Jesus comes into the district of Caesarea Philippi, he's asking his disciples, who do you say that son of man is?

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This is what's setting the context. Unfortunately, a lot of times when you see false teaching, especially when you get the

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Roman Catholic Church saying that this is the establishment of Peter the first pope, what's really going on is they want to assume their religion to argue their religion.

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It's circular reasoning. So they say, well, you know, because we have a pope, because that's what the Roman Catholic Church says we're supposed to be doing.

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And this shows language that would seem to fit that thinking, so therefore this must mean that.

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Well, that's not consistent exegesis. The way you consistently and faithfully and normally interpret text is by letting the original author establish his or her own context, which in the case of biblical writings, it's all men.

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So when it says, when Jesus comes into this district and he asks his disciples, who do people say that the son of man is?

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First of all, it's a very clear question to them. He's been calling himself the son of man, his disciples would have readily recognized that Jesus is asking them, who do they say that he is?

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This is what's setting the context for this paragraph and this passage that Matthew is conveying here, because there's no break here.

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This is a, it's in a flow of a point that's being made. There's no discussion here about the church or who's going to run the church in the sense of who would be over it.

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There's no language here at all where you could faithfully and consistently say there is absolutely no doubt that Peter was made the first pope as we understand the pope to be today.

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It's just not there. And we need to make sure we point this out when dealing with our

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Roman Catholic friends. But when he says, who do people say the son of man is, that's the context. The context of this and the responses that would follow has to do with answering the question of who

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Jesus is. And so the disciples are saying, you know, some say John the Baptist, others

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Elijah, some others Jeremiah, one of the prophets, because that's all they had understood.

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Remember, these are Old Testament issues here. They're still under the old covenant at this time.

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So they're going to have an old covenant framework in their mindset. So they had always had revelation by prophets.

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You know, you think of Jeremiah prophesying and writing about coming Babylon. You've got

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Daniel and the minor prophets and, you know, the psalmist and they're used to having priests and prophets that would bring revelation, bring a word of God to them.

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And so it would be very natural for them to think in this line of thinking. It makes sense why they would mistake and think, well, you know, you're just another prophet, another thing here.

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So these disciples had to come to the point in their life where they would be regenerated and brought to life and recognizing who

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Jesus is, that he is the Christ. And so Peter demonstrates what a saved, regenerate response to Jesus Christ is when he, see, because Jesus follows us up again and he drills it down here.

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He says, you know, who do you say that I am? He asked him the first time, you know, who do people say?

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Well, they say this, they say that. So, okay, that's what they're saying. What do you say?

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Who is it that you think that I am? Who do you claim that I am?

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So Simon Peter steps up and says, well, you're the Christ, the son of the living God, the

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Messiah, the promised one, the one who was to come and save us from our sins, basically what he's saying.

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You know, you're the Christ, the Messiah, the son of the living God. And it's on that basis of what he says that Jesus responds to him and says, blessed are you,

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Simon Bar -Jonah, because flesh and blood did not reveal this to you. Or so he's saying, you're

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Simon, son of Jonah. He says, my father in heaven has revealed this to you. And this is consistent with everything else in the

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New Testament. And in particular, the gospels teach John 3, talking about how he must be born again, born from above.

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We must worship in spirit and truth. And we do this by having a spirit that is alive and not dead.

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And so since we are born in Adam and are born in dead and sin, we must have our spirits raised to life.

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And so this being born again, being made a new creation in Christ is something that comes from God.

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Paul talks about this in Philippians 3, and he says he wants the righteousness that comes from God. The righteousness we have when we are saved is

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Christ's righteousness credited to our account. And so Peter is obviously regenerate here.

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He's obviously one of God's elect and one of God's people. And he's saved. And he says he recognizes, and Jesus tells him that your understanding of this comes and originates from the

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Father who is in heaven. That he has gracefully and mercifully granted

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Peter repentance and forgiveness and has given him a spirit that is alive.

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And now he has the spiritual understanding to recognize who Christ is.

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Flesh and blood does not originate this type of spiritual truth, but it's a spiritual matter and it comes from God.

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He says, I also say that you are Peter. And when he says Peter here, this is a word that means a stone or like a small pebble.

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And he says upon this rock, which is, you think of this, when he says this rock, it's more of like a large sort of conglomerate, a large, huge, massive rock.

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So he's making comparisons. You're Peter, you're a small rock in this large chasm of rocks, you know, so to speak.

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But the rock here that he's building his church on is the response that Peter had.

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Because notice he says, you are Peter and upon this rock. He doesn't say upon you or upon Peter or upon you as a person that believes this.

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Even he's just saying, yes, you are Peter. And now upon the normal reading of the

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English language here, he just responded, said, you're the Christ. Jesus says, blessed are you for knowing this.

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This is clear that the father has saved you and drawn you to me and that you were saved and regenerate.

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And this is clear in this statement that you've said that's true. This is the truth of the church.

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Remember, the good news, the gospel of the church is that Jesus is the Christ. And that is the foundation upon which we operate.

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So why would we completely abandon all New Testament scripture that is consistent about that?

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Take this passage and somehow twist it, say, well, he's just talking about a person. He's talking about a man.

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And he's the first pope. And because of that, you have all these cardinals and bishops and popes and all these indulgences and all this stuff that a

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Roman Catholic church has invented over all these centuries. Now we have to accept every bit of it because of an inconsistent approach to exegesis here in Matthew 16.

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The clear reading of the English language as it's translated in the

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Legacy Standard Bible in Matthew 16 here, it's obviously that he is responding to Peter, noting that he is blessed for knowing this about Jesus.

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And when he says, upon this rock, the rock of what Peter said, you are the Christ, the son of the living

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God. I, Jesus, will build my church. And the gates of Hades will not overpower it.

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Remember in Matthew 28, he says, all authority in heaven has been given to me. Why would

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Jesus turn and say something inconsistent here and say he's going to build his church on a man?

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When he is the one with all authority. Notice he, I, will build my church.

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If it was going to be based on Peter and he was the rock that he was building the church on, he would have instructions here.

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He'd have some language would be here about how, you know, on you and your power and who you are, your personality, everything about you,

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I'm going to build my church. And we would all give allegiance to Peter. We'd all recognize Peter. No, Peter was no different than any one of us.

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He had to be saved. He had to recognize that Jesus is the Christ. So it's very obvious from a plain reading here that the rock upon which

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Jesus builds his church is the truth of the gospel of scripture that Jesus is the

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Christ. He is the son of God. He is the one who takes away sin. He's the only mediator between God and man.

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It's upon that basis that he says, I will build my church and the gates of Hades will not overpower it.

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Meaning that the church is on offense. It is the gates of Hades trying to hold up against the church that is on defense.

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And so we see just from these passages here, and we could go to Colossians and talk about how, you know,

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Jesus is the head of the body and different things. And we'll look at that in the, in coming episodes. But you can see very clearly here from this, these two texts that we look at,

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Jesus is the sovereign one. He is the one that's the living God. He's the son of the father. He's the one that has all authority.

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It is his directive, his authority by which the church operates.

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He is the one building his church. He uses means, M -E -A -N -S, means like us, his people, and preaching and prayer and service and all these different things we'll get into.

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But ultimately is Jesus building his church through us. So he has never singled out one person anywhere in scripture and made that man somehow a head or quasi head of his church.

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It is said in scripture, specifically in Colossians, that Christ is the head of the body, not

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Peter, not any other man. So since scripture is consistent with itself, we can't allow some religion like Roman Catholicism to come in and say, well, you know, this is clearly making

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Peter the first Pope. The language isn't there. The right is just not there in the writing.

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Jesus is the head of the church. Jesus is the only head of the church. And that means that pastors are not, they are required to be qualified elders.

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They are required to oversee and administer to make sure it's operating properly. So they are not under the deacons or congregants in that realm.

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So deacons are there to primarily care for the physical needs of the church, visiting, taking care of people.

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And if needed, they can call on the elders for prayer. But deacons are there to assist the elders.

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Congregants are there. We're going to see this to discover, develop and use their gifts to build up the body and also to carry out the work of ministry and things like that.

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So neither the deacons or the congregants are over the elders, but the elders overseeing the deacons and congregation.

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There's a lot of scripture talks about how this must be carried out. It's not to be done in a dictatorial way, but in a shepherding way.

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And so we're gonna talk about all those things. But regardless of the roles in the church and how they're to be carried out, nothing about scripture indicates that there's any other head of the body, that there's any other king of the church.

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There's no one else that can be said to be sovereign over or is the one building the church. Other than Jesus Christ and he alone.

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Amen. Well, this is the first installment. We've got a long way to go, but I want to thank you for joining me on this episode of the

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God -Centered Podcast as we began the journey looking at a