WWUTT 2340 Q&A What is Church Polity, What is a Biblical Polity, and Disagreeing with a Church's Polity

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What is church polity? What is a biblical church polity? What if you don't agree with your church's polity?

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How should you respond to that? The answers to these questions and others when we understand the text.

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This is when we understand the text studying God's Word to reach all the riches of full assurance in Christ.

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Thank you for subscribing and if this is ministered to you please let others know about our program. Here once again is

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Pastor Gabe Hughes. Thank you Becky who is not with me this week. I am flying solo but still taking your questions which we'll get to here in just a moment.

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Let me open the scriptures first of all. Proverbs chapter 8 picking up in verse 6.

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Hear the call of wisdom. Hear for I will speak noble things and from my lips will come what is right.

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For my mouth will utter truth. Wickedness is an abomination to my lips. All the words of my mouth are righteous.

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There is nothing twisted or crooked in them. They are all straight to him who understands and right to those who find knowledge.

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Take my instruction instead of silver and knowledge rather than choice gold.

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For wisdom is better than jewels and all that you may desire cannot compare with her.

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So let us desire the wisdom of God and walk in it all our days.

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This is the Friday edition of the broadcast when we take questions from the listeners and you can submit those questions to when we understand the text at gmail .com

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that's the email address or send us a voicemail. Go to www .utt .com our website.

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There is a voicemail tab right there on the top right corner of the page. Click on that and you can record us a voicemail using either your phone or your computer.

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I think it gives you a minute and a half, 90 seconds or something like that which fits when we understand the text. Many of our videos are just 90 seconds long.

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So I got a voicemail here from Adrian. Let's get started with this. Hey Pastor Gabe, this is

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Adrian. I was just recently listening to your podcast and you were in the section with John the Baptist questioning whether Jesus was the

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Messiah or not. I recently preached on this passage at the end of last year. My pastor asked me to fill the pulpit and I used that text to alert our people that everyone expects certain things in the new year.

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They expect to do new things and I say, well here he is folks. Don't really expect anything different other than the fact that you're gonna have opposition to speaking the truth.

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John the Baptist was in prison for speaking the truth. Also to expect confusion when you're going through suffering.

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Again he was in prison and he was confused and so we get confused when we go through suffering.

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And to expect to be blessed if we don't fall away. Jesus said, hey blessed are you who do not shrink away on account of me.

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So it was really fun to hear your interpretation of that passage. Keep doing what you're doing.

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Thank you for your ministry and God bless. Thank you for that Adrian. Those are some great applications to go along with that lesson.

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That was on Wednesday when I was teaching that. So again for those who just listen to the Friday show we have a

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New Testament study Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday. Old Testament Thursday. And this past week in our study of Luke we've been in chapter 7 where John the

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Baptist in prison sends his disciples to Jesus and asks him if he's the one or are we expecting somebody else.

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So Adrian with some great points to take from that. Providing some good application for all of us.

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We're gonna pick up in that text this next week on Monday. But God bless you brother and appreciate you listening and and offering those points as well.

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Let's get to an email now. This is from Mark and I didn't catch where he was writing from but here we go.

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Dear Pastor Gabe, so here's the story. I grew up in a Southern Baptist Church which my family has been a part of for a long time.

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It's the kind of church that you think of most Baptist churches being. They meet in a traditional style chapel.

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There's a senior pastor who preaches from the Bible. They sing a blend of hymns and contemporary worship songs.

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There's Sunday school for kids and adults. There's an Awana like program on Wednesday night where kids memorize verses.

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There are life groups and Bible studies during the week and they have deacons and committees. You know the type.

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I moved away for college, met my wife, we got married and started having children. By God's providence we have moved back to the community where I grew up.

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My parents are expecting us to attend the same church that I grew up in.

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They would love to be able to go to church with their grandkids but if I'm honest I'm not sure that I can as my convictions have changed.

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I've become more reformed in my doctrine since moving away and while the preaching of my parents church I would say is biblical, it's not where I think they should be.

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For example, my parents church is dispensational in their eschatology whereas I am not. That's not a requirement for membership but I'd still be expected to be subject to dispensational teaching.

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Also there are issues with polity. I never thought about when I was younger but now that I look at it

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I'm not sure that I could be a part of this church without at the very least pushing back on the structure of leadership including the way the pastors and deacons function.

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As this is already getting a little long I'll cut to my main concern. The church has a congregational polity meaning that the congregation rules.

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Everything operates by committees, the members of which are chosen from the laity. Even the pastors have to be subject to the decisions of these committees.

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That's a problem when these committees have women on them. It's the same kind of structure as the

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Southern Baptist Convention itself where sometimes women chair committees and hold authority over men.

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Correct me if I'm wrong but isn't this egalitarian? My parents church would say they're actually complementarian.

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Only men can be pastors or deacons but when women serve on committees that hold authority over the pastors or when women in the congregation can vote over the pastors isn't that giving authority to women over the men contrary to 1st

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Timothy 2 11 to 12? I don't know that I in good conscience could be subject to that structure of polity myself without raising my biblical concerns.

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Any advice on how I could talk with my parents about that or if you think I'm overthinking things

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I'll consider that too. I apologize for this getting a little bit long. I'll understand if you can't read the whole thing on the podcast.

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Any guidance or insight you could provide would be greatly appreciated and I've also asked my previous pastor about this too.

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Thank you for your ministry and God bless. Well I certainly appreciate you entrusting me with this mark.

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I can relate. Been in churches like that when I was growing up. I was part of a

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I pastored a church like that when I was in Kansas but we changed our polity while I was pastor there.

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So yeah under the same conviction couldn't operate under that polity anymore and we changed the structure of the polity as things went on.

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Now that that same church is elder led rather than congregationally led and their reformed

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Baptist as their statement of faith has become the Second London Baptist Confession 1689 which

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I'm guessing is where you are as well based on what you were saying in your email. Knowing this question was coming up on the broadcast this week

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I asked a couple of poll questions or a few different poll questions on the what page on X the what account on X and so one of the questions that I asked was just very simply would you attend a church with a woman pastor.

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It's been a debate lately so I went ahead and presented that question 1681 votes and 96 .8

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% said no. The vast majority of responses said no

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I would not attend a church with a woman pastor. 1 .8 % said yes and 1 .3 % said I don't know so you can tell where most of our readership stands on that one.

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Now I also asked a question a little bit more specific here to the kind of polity that Mark raised and so the question that was the question that I this is the way

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I worded it anyway in the poll question that I asked congregational polity is often run by committees common in many

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SBC churches so that even pastors are subject to those committees. If women are on those committees who may determine what a pastor does and teaches is that church egalitarian even if the elders are all men and by egalitarian of course we mean that women can hold authority over men.

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Egalitarian doesn't have to be that women are pastors it could just simply be that women have authority positions over men in the church.

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Now the passage that Mark had raised was from 1st Timothy chapter 2 and we know as it says there in verse 11 let a woman learn quietly with all submissiveness

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I do not permit a woman to teach or to exercise authority over a man rather she is to remain quiet.

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So what's demonstrated there is not just that a woman can't be a pastor but she can't hold a position that even has authority over the men in the church.

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Is that the kind of polity we're looking at or is that the kind of structure we see in a congregational church where women have authority over men?

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I think you can have congregationalism where women don't have authority over men so I'm not just blowing out all you know congregationalism is unbiblical even though that's not the kind of polity that our church has but is this type of structure where you have women on committees telling the pastors what to do is that egalitarian?

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So here were the options for that poll yes it's egalitarian no it's still patriarchal it's soft complementarian that's a letter

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C or D I don't know and the way the poll came out was this those who said yes that structure is egalitarian 63 .6

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% 6 .3 % said no it's still patriarchal 16 .8

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% said soft complementarian which means yeah it may be complementarian on the surface men hold the position of pastor or deacon but there's still some things there they haven't ironed out giving women authority and for whatever reason you know whatever motivation they may have for giving women that kind of authority but it's not purely complementarian it would be called soft complementarian and then 13 .3

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% honestly answered I don't know here were some of the responses that I got from this friend of mine pastor friend of mine up in Washington Toby Logsdon he said absolutely and unequivocally not to mention sinfully egalitarian

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Michelle Leslie whose podcast I've been on we've mentioned her on ours as well she said if it's a situation in which the pastors have zero recourse and absolutely must do whatever the women committee members chairs slash majority say then yes it's egalitarian the women are essentially the ruling elders at that point my husband was once on staff at a church where a took to mean direct supervisor of the pastor and minister of music

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I've seen that before I know exactly what you're talking about she tried to tell my husband which songs he would and and could not select for the worship service how to run the choir etc

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I think he and the pastor basically ignored her it was quite unpleasant but it at least gave me a great example to use when

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I teach the exercise authority part of first Timothy 212 that's right sometimes we kind of ignore that part she just can't have the authority to teach but she might be given authority somewhere else so we do have to consider that part of the verse as well which often goes ignored this fellow

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Sean he said I'm torn between egalitarian and soft complementarian since egalitarian is usually how we describe a church which officially has female leadership but it is certainly functionally egalitarian

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Jedidiah said my mouse slipped I click the wrong one I meant to click yes and I click no ok thanks

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Jedidiah and then this fellow Kellen said the women are having authority over men and making spiritual decisions to lead the church this is essentially backdoor egalitarianism thank you for answering guys and providing some input as well we as a church

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I'm talking about my congregation we talked about this last year because we went through first and second

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Timothy and Titus over the course of 2024 I was a brand new pastor and so what sermon series could we get into together to understand our responsibilities as a church why we have the confession we have why we have the structure and the polity that we have we didn't change anything there wasn't anything about our structure or polity we changed but just coming to a deeper understanding of why this church is arranged the way that it is according to what the

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Bible says and so going through the pastoral epistles together that we may all be on the same page and of the same mind about these things and myself and the elders this was about a year ago or so but we got to talking about this very subject all of us had experience in churches with that kind of polity structure where it was a congregational model congregation holds the authority committee structure and even committees having authority over the pastors and as we were talking about those things it just wasn't really anything that we thought about when we were part of those churches but now having stepped away from it and looking at it it makes sense that kind of structure looks egalitarian rather than true complementarian or the word that I put in the poll was patriarchal where the men have authority as God intended the men to do now when it comes to polity let's talk about polity in general first and then mark

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I'm kind of working my way toward giving you counsel or advice on what you might be able to do regarding this particular situation so polity what do we mean by polity well that word polity simply means governance and when we talk about church polity we're talking about the way that a church is governed or a way that a church governs itself now some churches have polity in which they answer to a higher authority even outside that body the irony there though is that body is still choosing to be subject to an outside body so all churches in some sense are autonomous even if they choose to give up that autonomy to be subject to someone else they've they've in their autonomy in their individual autonomy made that decision so it's yeah that's kind of the funny thing to me about like the presbytery structure or answering to like a higher political body outside its own institution now any good church polity begins with Christ for he is the head of the church

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Ephesians 122 and 523 also Colossians 118 he is the head of the body the church if a church does not recognize

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Christ as the head or they recognize the Pope as a substitute for Christ as the head then their polity is already a failure from there a church congregation builds its polity on the

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Word of Christ so Christ is the head and we build our polity the governance of the church upon his word now there are three main kinds of church polity there are probably various subsets under each one of these headings but almost every kind of polity will fit under one or more of these three categories and they are

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Episcopal Presbyterian and Congregational now of course there are denominations called

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Episcopalian Presbyterian and Congregationalism but I'm talking specifically here about polity the governing structure of the church we're not even delving into the the denominational sense of these words though those denominations are named after their political structure but again those three categories of polity are

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Episcopal Presbyterian and Congregational now what do those mean Episcopal let's start with that one that comes from the

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Greek word Episcopal which is often translated as bishop or overseer as the word appears in first Timothy 3 1 if anyone desires to be an overseer he desires a noble task

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Peter uses the word as well in first Peter chapter 5 the Episcopal model is the governance of a church under a single leader now just recently and we talked about this on the broadcast last week in fact recently the

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Episcopalian Church was in the news because it was at an Episcopalian Chapel that the president and vice president and their families went to the inaugural prayer service that was held last week in Washington DC at the

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Episcopalian Church there in our nation's capital Marianne buddy who is a woman bishop is the head of that church and she makes all the decisions for that diocese even

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I'm pretty sure so that's the Episcopalian model it's one person is kind of the head of everything the most infamous example of Episcopalian polity is of course the

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Roman Catholic Church under the of the Pope who is said to be the Vicar of Christ according to Catholic answers being the

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Vicar of Christ implies the Pope's supreme and universal authority both of honor and of jurisdiction over the

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Church of Christ and I would call that heresy as I hope you would as well the

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Greek Orthodox Church are also Episcopalian in their governance the Anglican Communion is as well but sometimes this polity doesn't have to exist on that large a scale even a small independent

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Baptist Church can be Episcopalian in its polity if there is a pastor who runs everything and everything is done to the will of that one man everyone knows he's the rooster he's the head honcho he's calling all the shots well that church's polity is

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Episcopalian even though they may call themselves independent Baptist and I would present to you that we do not see this kind of model anywhere in the

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New Testament there is not one example of a church being run by a single man some have argued that James is presented as the

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Episcopal head over the Jerusalem Church in the book of Acts but no that's incorrect Acts 21 18 says that when the

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Apostle Paul went to Jerusalem he went to James who may have been functioning as an in an overseer capacity but the text says all the elders were present so James wasn't the single figurehead over an individual church so that's the

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Episcopalian polity the second polity is Presbyterian it comes from the

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Greek word presbyteros meaning elder this is the word that appears in Titus 1 5 for appointing elders in every town appoint presbyteros this is a form of church government where the authority rests not on a single individual but with the body of elders or presbyters a church will have several elders which would include the pastor or the you may even refer to all of those elders as pastors but even those elders answer to a higher board of elders it just kind of keeps going up the line to a higher

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Presbytery of authority of course the Presbyterian Church is the most notable example of this kind of polity it's in the very name of the denomination most reform

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Protestant denominations are Presbyterian the Dutch Reform Reform Church of America but there are also some non -reform denominations that may function this way including some of the charismatic churches and I believe

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I've heard it said that Seventh -day Adventists have this kind of polity too so now the third kind and this is the one that Mark brought up the third kind of polity is congregational now it is often understood that a congregational church means the authority rests with the congregation in a word it functions like a democracy or perhaps like the

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United States is a constitutional Republic but that's just a form of congregationalism historically speaking a congregational church is simply an autonomous church it's an individual church body that is not answerable to an authority outside of or over that particular body so in that sense the church that I'm a part of is congregational the polity of our church is not the authority rests with the congregation there are things that a responsibility is given to the congregation to decide but the congregation does not have authority over the elders we're more what we might define as an elder led congregationalism those who favor congregational polity might point to passages such as 1st

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Corinthians 6 or 2nd Corinthians 2 where it appears as if Paul references the discipline of one of the church members by the majority of the congregation most

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Southern Baptist churches follow this kind of polity as Mark pointed out but I would present to you that this kind of congregational rule where the the mass body of the laity holds all the authority for all the decisions that are made in that church it is not the the ideal form of polity that we find presented or instructed and exemplified in the

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New Testament in fact when a church is run by a democracy things tend to go kind of bad it was the congregation of Israel who raised up a golden calf to worship it it was the congregation in Jerusalem that voted to put the

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Son of God to death so yeah not the not the best form of polity not it not a biblical structure that I think that we see represented in Scripture but like with the

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Episcopalian if a church finds itself without elders or without a pastor it's not that the church is somehow unbiblical so now the church is is forced into a position where the congregation has to make decision we got to find a pastor and we got to test this man in order to appoint him to the eldership or even men that we need to appoint to deacons or something like that a church may need to do that it doesn't mean that it's functioning unbiblically but they should be moving toward having a plurality of elders leading the preaching and teaching in the church if a church comes down to you know maybe all the elders have gone maybe they've moved away or somebody becomes disqualified and he has to be disciplined and he's removed from the position of elder and you only have one guy there's only one elder now so you would say the structure of that church is

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Episcopalian well maybe not because it could just be that in that season there aren't a there aren't enough men to serve in that spot in the plurality of elders so the church's responsibility at that point would be to raise up men that become qualified to fill those eldership roles even though there's one guy that is the qualified elder that doesn't mean that the polity is instantly shifted toward Episcopalian they still desire in like maybe a

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Presbyterian or elder led structure to have a plurality of elders so now they just you know they got to do what they got to do in order to get back there according to the kind of polity that the church is of like mind about being biblical now mark your question was is there any advice that you have on how you could talk with your parents about that or if you think you're overthinking things

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I'll consider that too well maybe if there isn't another option because I don't recall you saying anything about there being another church that is more like the one that you just came from if that is an option then join that church and tell your parents why you would not be able to join their church simply express the concerns like you've expressed them with me here ask your parents questions about that go through the scriptures together on that you yourself be armed with the scriptures so that you can make a proper biblical argument to your dad or to your parents and and maybe you'll get them to be thinking about things in a way that they haven't thought about it before but if that is the the most biblical option for you like as far as you said they teach the

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Bible they're faithful to teaching the Word of God and even shepherding children and things like that well if that is your only option then by all means go to the church that is preaching the gospel and calling out sin even if you disagree with their eschatology or with their polity but then you can begin a process if you become a member of that church make sure you're transparent in the membership process where you might have some disagreements because it could be that the church would decide well if you have a problem with our eschatology or you have a problem with our polity then

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I don't see how you can become a member here because you won't be subject to the structure of our authority as a church they may go ahead and make that decision for you but again be transparent about those things if you go ahead and become a member there then you can begin a loving process on pushing back on the structure of that church and get other people to examine properly what

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Scripture says and if the church's tradition in their polity matches with what

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God desires it could be like you said you were in that tradition for so long you just didn't even think about there being any problems and it could be that way with most of the people that are there as a part of that congregation in fact

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I would say it's that way they they're so used to that and this is the way we've always done it that they've not really stopped to examine or think about if this is really what the

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Bible teaches concerning our church's government so again the first bit of advice that I would give you is if there is another church that's just like the one you came from go ahead and go to that church and then have the conversation with your parents about why you would not be able to attend church with them you could not become a member of the church that you were

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I mean perhaps even a member of you might have to talk to the church about moving your membership that might have to be a conversation too but if there is not another option and this is the most gospel teaching church that that is in your area that you can join then go ahead and join go through the process be transparent in that membership process and begin as a brother in the

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Lord to start to challenge some of those things that you think might be unbiblical traditions but I appreciate your question and I hope that this was helpful for you any other questions you may have you can certainly follow up with me and I'll try to catch your email one last one here and I got a few emails about this but I'm just narrowing this down to one hey

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Pastor Gabe on your hear the word of the Lord podcast you accidentally uploaded January 17th episode

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Exodus 8 through 10 with Leviticus 8 through 10 Leviticus so I did

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Leviticus instead of Exodus I was listening to Exodus and all of a sudden you were saying Leviticus chapters and I didn't hear any of the plagues then all of a sudden the 10th plague was happening in Exodus 11 and I realized what had happened and I wanted to let you know

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I love your podcast it has been such a blessing to me thank you for what you do and all the hard work that you put into this

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I know it's not easy to do everything you do while ministering as a pastor and a husband slash father well

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I appreciate that very much Aaron I don't know what is up with that episode because I have re uploaded that audio multiple times and it's the right audio

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I've listened to it it's fine I went all the way through it just to make sure that it was actually Exodus 8 through 10 and I uploaded it and it still came out

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Leviticus 8 through 10 which is audio that I've already uploaded but I uploaded it to Leviticus 8 through 10 so I don't know what's going on I don't know if there's something in the you know the code of the the podcast service that I use where for whatever reason they're sticking the audio that I made for Leviticus 8 through 10 on Exodus 8 through 10

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I can't figure it out I have tried to correct it multiple times and it still keeps coming out

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Leviticus 8 through 10 on the audio for Exodus 8 through 10 I'm sorry I truly

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I wish I could correct the problem but I don't know what's happening I'll continue to try to finagle with it a little bit we're almost through with the book of Leviticus and again that's the hear the word of the

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Lord podcast and whatever podcasting app you like to use just be sure to look up hear the word of the

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Lord daily Bible readings no music no commentary just scripture

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God bless you guys and thank you so much for listening again if you have any questions send them to when we understand the text at gmail .com