TiL Podcast- Pastoral Ordination Series- Intro

Welcome to the truth in love podcast. We're going to begin a series on pastoral ordination.

Stick with it. Welcome again to the truth in love podcast.

We're thankful that you're with us. The comment line is open. Leave us a comment. Let us know that you're watching.

Say hello if you would like for us to pray for you. We'd love to be able to do that. If you have a question, comment, whatever it may be, we would love to hear from you.

So the comment line is open. Sometimes we have to give StreamYard permission to ask a question so that we know that it's you.

I want to say hello to Becky. How you doing, Becky? Yeah, and we are back.

Dan and I are back live and we're glad to be here. If you missed our last series, we did a 10 episode series that most of them are around 30 minutes long on cessationism.

Our take on cessationism. You know, we didn't hit 30 minutes once. That was our aim.

30 minutes was our aim. But at least they weren't our episodes like our previous podcasts have been.

But if you're interested in that, go check out our series on cessationism. You can find it on YouTube.

They're put together on a playlist or a website, TruthAndLoveNetwork .com or YouTube TruthAndLove Network.

You can look up the TruthAndLove podcast and the playlist called Cessationism. Dan has been super, super busy.

He's preaching up a storm and he is working on his steps towards ordination in the denomination that he's a part of, which is the

RPCNA. RPCNA. What does the acronym stand for? The Reformed Presbyterian Church of North America.

All right. Reformed Presbyterian Church of North America. And Dan has been working hard at that and I'm proud of him.

And I'm excited to do an episode on ordination on that denomination and what all you're going through and learning more about that because it's way more extensive than anything that I'm used to.

And I'm truly looking forward to that. We're going to hopefully interview other denominations, talk about how they do ordination, their pastoral ordination, get different perspectives.

And I don't think we're probably not really going to do so much of a critique, just be learning from.

And then, of course, what we do with everything is we individually line it up with scripture.

And that's the direction that we want to go in our lives, in our church, and as we teach others about these things.

So, Dan, how are you doing? I'm doing great, I guess. I'm taking it day by day, trying to figure it out as I go.

I'm with you. Yeah. There's so much reading. I'm sure. I can imagine.

It's probably almost like going through school again. Oh, man. It kind of is because you go through school and you learn stuff and you take your tests and you write your papers and you read and you read and then you read some more.

And then a few years later, somebody is wanting to ask you in -depth questions about it in front of a whole bunch of people.

And you're like, I should have remembered more than I did when I went to school. And so you read some more and you read stuff that you read before and then you realize, oh, man, maybe

I didn't go as deep in this topic as I would have liked to. Maybe I should go deeper into that one.

Maybe I shouldn't have spent so much time on this. Maybe I should have read more history.

In fact, I realized that one of the things I've got to brush up on is my

Reformed Presbyterian history. And so I was talking to one of my elders about it and he went upstairs yesterday to the church office and handed me a book about that thick on Reformed Presbyterian history.

We trace our history back to the time of the Scottish Covenanters and Presbyterians coming out of Scotland and Ireland.

And there was a lot to it. We were almost snuffed out at one.

Yeah, shout out to John Cripps. We were almost snuffed out at one point. Didn't have any ordained elders in our denomination sent off to the

Continental Reformed in order to ordain some folks and brought them back. All sorts of cool stuff.

It's going to be really good to look into and see and check out and everything. You were talking about your history and your trail of history.

It made me laugh myself there for a second. So are there any landmark

Presbyterians? There's no trail of blood in the Presbyterian church.

Only the Baptist, right? Yeah, that's not something we do. Oh, that's cool.

I think there's a question that I want to ask every guest that we have on from every denomination.

I'll start off asking you. I've been wanting to bring this up with somebody in conversation to talk about it.

It's not really in depth, but it's just I think it can be a key question, important question.

But when you're talking about the Bible, somebody's asking you a theological question or a congregant is asking you a question about the

Bible. Somebody may ask you and lead up to the question with this.

Is this biblical? And that can have two, in my mind, that can have two definitions.

Is this biblical? Okay. Are you saying is it in the Bible or is it a practice mandated by the

Bible? And so that question kind of leads into this pastoral ordination.

Yeah. You're asking like, is it explicitly stated in scripture or is it just something that we can take from scripture?

Yeah. Like the Trinity, for instance, is clearly taught in scripture, but you never have somewhere that says the word

Trinity or lays out the doctrine in a systematic format. You learn it through reading and studying the scriptures and putting the pieces together.

Is that what you're asking? Yeah. Yeah. That's part of the conversation. And sometimes people on different issues can see it or flip off it and see it in different ways.

They'll say, yes, it's biblical and mean that I read it in scripture and the other person can say, no, it's biblical.

It's something that we need to practice. It's a mandate. And then on another issue, they may flip flop.

Oh yeah. I see that scripture, but it's not necessarily a biblical mandate. You're talking about the difference between it being described and prescribed.

Yeah. Yeah. Is it just described in scripture or is it something that's mandated, something that we have to do?

Right. And we'll use the same term. It's biblical. Right.

Right. Exactly. Yeah. And so that kind of leads up to this pastoral ordination issue from,

I was just reflecting as we're talking about this issue, I was reflecting on my upbringing, my tradition, my practice, what

I've seen. And I don't know that there's ever been a class or an explanation on why we do it.

Here's the biblical principles or verses that we go by.

This is why we do it. It's just a practice that I've seen in the churches that I've attended.

It's something, just something that we do. And I hope this will be helpful. I know this will be helpful for me and I hope it's helpful for others that watch or listen.

Also, I'm hoping and praying that ministers and leaders from different denominations will listen in and they will be encouraged or they will glean or learn something as we talk to the folks from other denominations, because there's a vast difference in the way we approach ordination, say in the

Baptist churches that I've been a part of and what you're going through. There's a lot that I can be learning.

Well, a lot of it, a lot that's different. In fact, it has to do with our church polity and our church government.

Since the Baptists are a congregational people, your church government stops at the congregational level.

So if you're going to be ordained, generally speaking, it's through a church.

Now, I do understand that from time to time, Baptist churches will call other

Baptist churches in the area to come together for an ordination council, but it's kind of like a one -time thing where, hey, we're going to get together for this purpose.

I want you guys to help me examine this fella in order to prove that he's able to be ordained. Whereas in the

Presbyterian church, the power to ordain or to defrock, which means you're not ordained any longer, it's something that lays in the

Presbytery level. So a church can call, but then the ordination actually goes through the

Presbytery level. So it doesn't rest entirely with the congregation.

We believe that helps out a little bit because, say, one congregation is just desperate for a pastor. So any old

Jim Bob that comes by saying, hey, I want to be your pastor, and they've been so desperate for one, and he's got smooth talking words, and a whole bunch of people think, well, maybe this is a good idea, send them before the

Presbytery, and they're like, ho, ho, ho, not this guy. Should do something else.

Even then, we were talking about maybe going to speak with a

Methodist or what was it, Brother John, Church of God.

And what he was describing almost seemed more of a semi -Episcopalian view where you have a hierarchy almost like an

Anglican or a Roman Catholic view where there's bishops, and they would call them overseers for an area, but bishops, and how does all that play into the ordination process?

Where does the authority to ordain come from in those denominations? It's something that's going to be interesting to look into.

Absolutely. And you've been trying to convince me to convert to Presbyterianism, and you're trying to get me on the infant baptism, but you're more likely to get me on this ordination thing than you will on the infant baptism.

One step at a time, man, one step at a time. Because I can really see if you look, if you're looking over time, and you look at where in the

Baptist Church, maybe some failures or places that need to be shored up or strengthened would be this area of ordination, and we could glean and learn a lot from our

Presbyterian brothers. Sure. Yeah, I was trying to shoehorn a way to talk about Presbyterian church government a little bit more, but I'll let aside for another time.

Yeah, well, and whenever we get to that one, you were talking about the Presbytery handles this and the

Presbytery handles that. I mean, that would be a good time for you to help folks like me help understand those different levels, those different positions, the hierarchy, and how that works, because some of us just aren't familiar with that language and how it works.

Yeah, yeah. And I guess the whole question in that would be, where does the authority of the church lie?

Is it solely in the congregation? Is the church at large?

Is there any authority in the church at large, or is it all vested in the individual congregations?

I would say that biblically speaking, well, obviously, because I'm the Presbyterian, but biblically speaking, there's some real authority vested in the church at large, especially when you look at say, the

Book of Acts, when the Jerusalem Council comes together to decide what to do with believing

Gentiles. What do we require of them? And so they bring in all the pastors and elders from all over the place, and there's binding ruling that's placed upon all the churches.

It seems to me that the authority can't just stick with the congregational level.

Now, maybe an argument out there from some that maybe, although those were apostles, those weren't just pastors and elders, those were apostles, so they were special.

I think they're wrong, but we can fight over that as we go along. Well, just in case somebody's listening or watching, that may be a little nitpicky,

I do want to clarify something that Dan said that I think you will, you'll agree with me when I'm pretty sure, that when

Dan asked the question, who has the authority of the church, we all, number one answer is the

Lord Jesus Christ is our authority. But what Dan was saying was, we as men, we as creative beings, we as undershepherds, somebody's making decisions somewhere, and we want to follow the

Lord Jesus Christ to the best of our ability, according to scripture. I only say that because there may be somebody who's really nitpicky, and I want to clarify.

Right, and any power that would lie in the church lies in the church because it is there given by Christ the

King, who has ordained his church to act and function a certain way with elders and deacons to have certain functions within his church.

So the only functions and authority that they have really is within those narrow confines, what do we do?

And then we could get into talking about different things, about ministerial or magisterial authority, and I'm not gonna bore people with big words and whatnot, but I would say that the church's authority, the pastor's authority is more ministerial, meaning that it's there to minister to, not lord over like a magistrate.

So we are there to truly be the undershepherds, the caretakers of the flock, the ones who look out, protect the people of the church, to really love the church the way that Christ loves the church, and that's the only authority that the church has.

It's an authority to care for and protect the church by ordering the church the way that God has said to, listening to the spirit, upholding the scriptures, preaching the word of God, which is why when you go to figure out who's gonna be in charge, that's where the ordination really comes into play.

Is this one qualified to be an elder in the church? Is this one qualified to serve as a deacon in the church?

And it's all because anyone who holds that office is really doing so at the appointment of Christ and the recognition of the church.

And that kind of leads us to set apart, called out, ordained, for what?

And I think that would be something good that we can discuss. For what? What do they call appointed to?

That would be a great conversation to have. So let's get back to that initial question.

Our series is going to be pastoral ordination. And my initial question leading up to this, is it biblical or is it biblical?

Yes. Is it biblical as in described or biblical as in prescribed?

Yes. Both. Okay. You say both. All right. You say both. I say it's described in such a way that the apostles are laying out a normative principle for the church, especially when you hear

Paul saying things like, it was this reason why I sent you to this place, so that way you could appoint elders in the churches.

He was describing events that happened, but he described events that happened in the formulation of a church.

So how is this new church supposed to be formulated? How is it supposed to be put together, built up?

What's it supposed to look like? It's supposed to look like elders in the churches and deacons alongside serving in a service capacity.

Right. So the question that comes to my mind is, so we're saying it's both, and I'm not disagreeing with you.

We're saying it's both. And it falls in the category of something that's prescribed, something that we should follow from scripture and from church to church, generation after generation.

So why is it not included in what we would label the ordinances of the church?

You have the Lord's Supper, you have baptism. How come ordination is not included in that list?

Well, I'm going to get Presbyterian on you for a second. All right, go ahead. That's where you're coming from.

That's your perspective. Yeah. The Lord's Supper and baptism are sacraments. And I know that Baptists would say that they would have some disagreement on terminology, maybe, depending on which stripe of Baptist you are.

But we would say that they're sacramental because in them, we truly do receive the grace of God because God's grace is found in those things.

And so they're sacramental in nature because there's real true power in those sacraments.

And then an ordinance would be something that has been ordained by God.

This is the way that God has prescribed us to do something. So I would say that it was ordained by God, through the apostles and set forward in the church.

It's described by the apostles in Scripture and how they were setting up the churches. So it comes from an apostolic tradition, apostolic authority, but it's recorded for us in Scripture.

So it is ordained by God, but we don't necessarily have a record of the council or time when the

Holy Spirit actually spoke those things to the apostles. We just have the apostles acting in a certain way in unison because that's what they've been given to do by the

Holy Spirit. Right. Well, I just found it interesting because in behavior, in our practice, we behave as if it is one of our ordinances.

It's something that we do, that we don't neglect.

And most, if not all churches, they ordain pastors.

We treat it as an ordinance, but it never makes that list. I find that interesting.

Well, if I'm not mistaken, I believe one of the sacraments of the

Roman Catholic church is ordination. Okay. I better look that up real quick.

I should know that. I know if the right presbyter is watching, I'm going to get that question on an exam.

Well, and there, that leads to another question. Why did the reformers, if that is actually true, why has the church distanced themselves from that terminology, from that way of practice?

I mean, we still do it, but we don't have that same label as they would.

Yeah, I was right. It's called holy orders in the Catholic church. It's considered a sacrament.

And it goes back to what was sacrament. Sacrament was something that where grace was found, where Christ was present ministering to his people in those things.

So we made a distinction between sacrament and ordinance to distinguish those means of grace that God uses to call his people to himself and to uphold them and mark them off as his own, to nourish them through the gospel.

And those things were sort of marching orders for the church.

This is the way things are supposed to look. So that's why the reformers pulled back finding only two sacraments in scripture and call other things ordinance.

Now, I don't know if that's why they chose those words in English, sacrament and ordinance. I don't know.

I'm not going to say. Could we define the two words?

Is Baker referring to, okay. Sacrament and ordinance.

Yeah, I think that's what she was talking about. Yeah. Well, and it makes sense coming from the

Catholic church that they would categorize that as a sacrament because in that position, especially you're talking about the

Pope or you're talking about just a priest, father, whoever that may be is providing forgiveness.

I mean, to an individual who's in confession, providing a grace from God and that it makes sense why that will be categorized under the sacrament.

Yeah. It's interesting because holy orders in the Catholic church, they would say that once you were ordained as a priest, you were given the power to turn the

Eucharist into the very body and blood of Christ. Whether you were a faithful believing priest or not, you always held that power to be able to perform the mass in such a way where it turned the

Eucharist into the real body and blood of Christ. Yeah, it was considered a sacrament because you were given a special authority to perform the mass.

Same thing with baptism. In fact, there were people that they went back years later because a certain priest, he was ordained, but he said the words wrong,

I think. They went back and said, well, all of you didn't, weren't actually baptized. Oh, wow.

But there were unbelieving priests who were baptizing with the right formula and all those baptisms were considered valid by the church.

They were in. Yeah. They said the right word. Wow. Yep. And that makes sense why the

Presbyterian and the Baptist and all the other Protestant churches would move that to a different category and fall under ordinance rather than sacrament.

Sure. Yeah. Sure. Okay. That makes a lot more sense now. I'm glad we fleshed that out.

So let's, what was I going to ask you? Ordinance.

So we don't, we don't find that word. You mentioned that earlier. We don't find the word ordinance in scripture. So what are we pulling out of scripture?

What are we seeing in scripture that we're calling the ordination?

All right. So what we do see in scripture is the laying on of hands, the setting apart for the work of God, of elders and deacons in the church.

And it's that process of recognizing skill, godliness, and calling from, from God that this one is set apart for, for service in the church.

So you are, you are ordaining someone or, or recognizing you are setting them apart for service in Christ's church in that particular fashion.

Yeah. So, so these words that we see in scripture, calling out, appoint, set apart, which is what the, what the, which is what they were commanded to do.

You go to the churches and set apart or appoint elders. That's, that's what we're calling ordination.

We just use the terminology ordination. Yep. And it's also, it's also important to point out that when, when the elders were ordained in the new

Testament, they were ordained through a process of the laying out of hands of the, those who were already ordained to that office.

So those who are already ordained to the office of elder would gather around the one who was going to become an elder.

They would lay their hands on that person and pray for them. They'd be given a charge and then given, given the office.

So the, the, the Holy Spirit would work for that. We prayed for the

Holy Spirit would work through them in a special way in order to have them execute that office in a, a godly way that's profitable for the church.

So if I heard you correctly, I, I didn't put all the verses in our document that I shared, but it sounds very familiar to this verse in John 15, verse 16.

What I heard you say when you said we ordained somebody who's already in that office.

So it's following this trail of John 15, 16, where he says, you did not choose me, but I chose you.

And, and kind of in the, in the Baptist church, the way I think, I think we're, we're taught or, or suggested or encouraged, the direction we're encouraged to go is the congregation is to appoint, ordain, call out those who are giving signs that God has already done that work in them.

Right. Well, in, uh, there's a Ephesians four,

I believe it says that, um, God has given some apostles and pastors and teachers and preachers and others for the building up of the church for the work of the ministry.

So it, and this is something that, I don't like, uh,

I don't know. It seems weird to me to say that pastor is God's gift to the church because it just sounds funny to say, especially if you're, if you're going for the office, if you're already serving in the office of pastor, but in, in the humblest sense, which is the way that we should all view that, um,

God has given men certain skills to execute that office, office of elder in the church.

Right. So, um, the ordination recognizing, yeah, is recognizing, um, that gifting of that individual, uh, in their skill and godliness to execute the office of elder or deacon in the church.

Yeah. Shout out to brother, Claude Ramsey, part of the truth and love network here. I stand theology podcast.

Thank you brother for watching. We really appreciate it. Um, and I think that's where we've dropped the ball.

Um, in a general sense, in a broad brushing sense, we've, we've dropped the ball as, as the church, because we're so many places, so many times, so many places you see this being done backwards.

I've seen it being done backwards. Um, I'm, I may have, I may find myself,

I mean, if I do enough reflection on, um, the process that I went through, um,

I may have went through the process backwards because it's, it's what

I observed, but you've got, you've got people who are ordaining themselves, calling themselves or giving themselves titles.

I am a fossil. I am this, I'm that even the ordaining themselves, or you have someone who says,

I feel the call to ministry. I want you to ordain me. I've seen that so many times.

Um, and we, that's totally backwards, totally unbiblical process. Well, kind of, it can be, um, ambition can push one in the wrong way.

Yes, you can get ordained online for $10 plus a 499, uh, shipping and handling fee from the universal life church.

Anyway, that's about my credentials. Let's talk. No, I'm kidding.

Um, mine expired. Yeah. Anyway, um, uh, what were we talking about?

People, um, ordaining themselves. Yeah. That's not entirely off base because there, there is such a thing as at least in the

Presbyterian circles, we, we will distinguish between an internal and an external call to the ministry, an internal call to the ministry.

Um, Oh goodness. Internal call to the ministry is when one senses that they may be called into the ministry.

They feel that they could execute the office of an elder or a deacon. And so really where people will go off the rails and say, well,

I feel called of the Lord. That means that the calls on my life, and then they go off and they do it or they put the office on themselves.

What the real process of the church should be then is for them to wait for an external call. Now in the

Presbyterian church, that means that you go for your, your elders and they examine you, um, to see, does this one have skills?

Do they have what it takes? Is there a godliness there the way that they live their life? Is that okay? And if that, that's okay, they send them on to the next level where they, um, where they are examined by, by the churches in their region.

And then they're saying, okay, who you have passed these, these examinations.

We believe that you're fit for the office. We're going to, um, say that you're eligible for an external call.

No, what that means is that a church actually has to call you to be their pastor or their elder.

Um, which means that you could go through the whole process of ordination, not be called by a church and not be ordained to the ministry because not only do you need to feel the call and have the skill, if you were to be a minister in God's church, you'll actually be called formally to do that by a particular congregation and for a particular work.

Um, this sort of, uh, I, I mean, I've heard people in, in a Baptist church, and it's not picking on Baptist, but, uh, someone would say, well,

I was ordained once. So I'm always a pastor and haven't been, you know, behind the pulpit for years, call themselves pastor.

They act like a pastor, almost act like they don't have to go to church if they don't want to, because they're a pastor.

And it's, uh, it's weird because the pastor's actually serving in the church at the office of a pastor, because that's where Christ has called them to.

And if you don't have that external call, um, your, um, feelings really don't matter that much.

Yeah. And according to that article that I was telling you that I was reading about um, I found it interesting.

Um, is his recommendation on that process was, and this will be towards the

Baptist side of things would be not ordaining until, you know, you're, you're filling that role and then call the church that you came from to ordain.

So it seems like to me, there's a lot of accountability there. Right. There should be. Yeah. Um, and we're talking about, you know, ordaining ourselves or pursuing this, um, yourself individually.

Um, tell me if you think I'm on the right track here with first Timothy three, one seems like are good boundaries for me as an individual in my pursuit of this.

It says, um, this is a trustworthy saying. If someone aspires to be an elder, he desires an honorable position.

If anyone wants to provide leadership in the church, good. This thing is trustworthy. If anyone aspires to be an overseer, he desires a noble work.

So for me individually, what, what's my role in this and what are my boundaries recognize that, um, aspiring that you have in your heart.

Nope. Um, evaluate it according to scripture.

Um, yeah, well, that's the thing. If you feel that call and you desire the office, there's a, there's several lists that tell you what you need to be like in order to be a pastor.

So I guess start there, which isn't a bad thing for anybody to do, you know, even if you're not going to be a pastor or an elder, you know, look at the qualifications for, for, for an elder and just try to be there.

Those are good things for any person to be right. Absolutely. Um, we're working on about 20 minutes.

Um, we have an hour. Um, maybe we can touch on, um, ordained to what, but also want to talk on the laying on the hands issue.

Um, that's seems to be part of the process. Pretty common in most churches where we, we found that practice in scripture.

We continue that practice when we ordain someone. Um, and that's in the circles that I'm around, um, that seems to be the only time we, we lay hands on someone possibly if we're, if we're doing a group prayer for a sickness or something, we'll, we'll lay hands and we'll lay hands on shoulders to symbolize us that those that we can't read, we're, we're reaching them through the shoulders of the person in front of but that seems to be the only time we, we lay on hands in our tradition.

Um, I was, please, unless it's necessary, keep your hands off of me.

Um, but I was, I was looking through scripture trying to get a handle on, uh, this practice where it's mentioned.

And, uh, I was looking in the old Testament. It seems like it was, it was a practice of laying on the hands.

Um, you had a trance, it seems like a transfer of blessing. And I'm just going to give you a spiel of, of what

I was thinking as I, as I went through this and you can give me your thoughts on it. But, but in the old Testament, you had, it seems like a symbol of a transfer of something, a transfer of blessing.

Um, you had the, uh, the transfer of sin to the scapegoat. Um, you know, you had to lay your, your hands on it and send it out into the wilderness.

So there seems like a transfer of something when you, when you lay your hands. When you look through the gospels, um, the main mentioning of laying on the hands seems to be from Christ himself.

And he's laying his hands on, um, someone who's sick, healing the, healing the sick.

That seems to be the majority of what you read in the gospels. In Acts, it seems like the laying on the hands is a practice of transferring of the

Holy Spirit. Um, and so there's, there's different, seems like different things happening in the act of laying on the hands in different places in scripture.

Um, and then you have in beyond Acts in, in the, in the epistles, uh, pastoral epistles, you have laying on of hands for what we're talking about ordination, the separating, setting apart, calling out, appointing of elders and deacons.

And so it seems to me that there's different, different applications, but, but what put it all together for me, uh, let me see what, uh, brother

Claude says here. Laying on, laying hands on is representative of those in the presbytery giving their public approval of the one being ordained for the ministry.

Absolutely. I totally agree with that. Um, but me trying to put it all together from Old Testament to the gospels,

Acts, and then the pastoral epistles and seeing, seeing it happen in all those different places, different things happening.

Um, it come across to me, um, if I could compare it to how a

Baptist may understand baptism, um, you, it's a symbol, it's an outward symbol of an inward, uh, inward spiritual act that's going on.

Um, as, as men, we can't transfer the Holy Spirit, but, but touching someone, it seemed like it was like an outward symbol of what was going on on the inside.

You were being touched by God, by the Holy Spirit, or touching the scapegoat is, is an outward symbol of an inward transaction that the sin is being removed and sent away or laying on hands of ordination, uh, for the, for the pastor or deacon.

It's a, it's an outward symbol of what, like, like we were talking about before, what

God has already done or been doing in a man's life. Same with baptism, an outward symbol of what

God has already done in someone's life. Um, and, and that's, it's not really related, but it's the same concept.

This is the verse that I was looking at before we come on. Um, in Matthew 18, you have the, uh, the practice of church discipline and you have that verse that people use out of context where two or three are gathered together in my name,

I'm there in their midst. I was talking about church discipline. Uh, but so you have two verses up before that it says, truly,

I say to you, whatever you bind on earth shall have been bound in heaven. And what

I learned studying this passage is if you read it in, if it was to be worded or spelled out in literal

Greek, from Greek to English, uh, you, it would read as such truly.

I say to you, whatever you bind on earth has already been bound in heaven. Whatever you loose on earth has already been loosed in heaven.

Again, I say to you, if two, two or three, or if two of you agree on earth about anything that you may ask, it shall be done for you by the father who is in heaven, because it's already been, um, it's already been ordained by him.

It's already been bound by him. You're just agreeing with heaven is what I learned studying that.

And so this laying on the hands from my estimation, looking at it throughout scripture, it seems to be an outward symbol of an inward spiritual act by God.

Nothing's nothing special. Um, I think some folks may want to think they're, um, special qualities to, to laying on hands of someone.

Um, and so you have verses that, that tackle that, that issue.

First Timothy 5 22, do not lay hands upon anyone too hastily and thereby share responsibility for their sins, uh, for the sins of others.

Uh, keep yourself free from sin. And when I read that verse, I couldn't help, but think about the

TV preachers who are just laying home hands on everybody. Um, they're, they're healed.

They're laying their hands on them. They're falling out. And I'm thinking first, simply 522, don't lay your hands on anyone too hastily as not to share in their sin.

Um, and so that was kind of my take as an overview of scripture,

Old Testament, New Testament. Um, what are your thoughts on my assessment there? Oh, I liked it.

I liked the general thrust of it. Okay. I don't know if, if I don't know, but I liked the general thrust of it.

Um, one, one thing, um, that I don't know, a lot of Protestants may get the heebie -jeebies is thinking about, um, apostolic succession, meaning that we have an unbroken line of, um,

Christ's church in the world, um, through, um, through all of history.

A lot of times you hear that in relation to the Roman Catholic church, um, especially when they, they see it in Matthew 16, um, speaking to Peter, he says, now

I will, I'll say to you that you are Peter and upon this rock, I will build my church and the gates of Hades will not overpower it.

I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven and whatever you bind on earth shall have been bound in heaven and whatever you shall loose on earth shall have been loosed in heaven.

Um, and so people will get the heebie -jeebies thinking about Rome sometimes, um, saying, well, that's, that's what they use to say that the

Pope is, is a long, um, is an unbroken line of, of apostolic succession from Peter to Pope, uh, oh, what'd they call this one?

Um, uh, Francis, I forget his, his Pope, Pope Lee name. Um, but yeah,

I don't remember. Um, but what we do believe is that Christ's church has been on the earth, um, and been real and it's been true faithful, uh, people, even though it got real murky for a while.

Um, we believe that Christ's church has been around from the beginning that the keys of the kingdom have been still in the hands of the church that they can, uh, bind and loose things, open a heaven and shut it off, uh, through, um, church discipline, the preaching of the gospel.

Um, and so that's one of the things, that's one of the things that the laying on of hands is representing is a, a transfer of, of not, not transfer of power sounds weird.

Um, but a, uh, a continuation of Christ's governance in his church through, um, through the use of, of elders in, in the church.

It shows that what Christ has begun, he has continued, um, what he has given is, is upheld.

And, and it, it shows that from, from one to the other, it's been passed down because, um,

Christ is, uh, is working in his church. Yeah.

Yeah. I'm arguing for, for papal, papal, papal line here.

Um, but yeah, yeah, it's one of the, it's one of the things that it's, it's representing is that Christ's church has remained unbroken and that his authority has remained passed down to faithful ministers from generation to generation so that we all have, um, we have, well, even if it had got a, it got murky for a while with, with a large portion of the church.

So do you, can you agree with my, my general assessment there that it's a, it's an outward symbol that we do of a spiritual inward act that, that God is doing?

Um, and we, we are going back to make it using the language of Matthew 18.

Um, we're recognizing what God has, has done in heaven.

I say that we're recognizing what God, what God is, is, is doing in, in the world.

Right. Yeah. Um, I don't know, maybe it's just the Presbyterian in me. I don't like the outward, outward sign of an inward reality language.

Maybe, maybe that's just me. I don't know. Maybe you're right. Um, I don't know. Every, every time

I hear that, I'm like, Oh no. Well, I mean, that goes back to our differences in, you were talking about it from the

Presbyterian perspective. You're, um, yeah, but, but the general thrust on what you're saying.

Yeah. I'm on board with it. Yeah. Cause God's doing the work. Yep. And he is, he is successfully continue continuing and growing his, his church and his, and, and, and gifting, uh, gifting, uh, uh, pastors and deacons to his church for the continuation and up building as well.

Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. So, um, so the

Presbyterian church and Baptist formally, many

Baptists are recognizing that we aired and are going back, but the plurality of elders, plurality of pastors, those words are interchangeable.

So we agree with that. Let's, let's stay on the local church level. Um, so we, in the, in both churches, we would agree that we should have a plurality of elders slash pastors.

Same, same. Okay. So back to, or ordaining for what, what, what does scripture say?

We are ordaining these plurality of pastors and elders to be doing. What would you say?

Uh, uh, hold on. I'll give you scripture. Okay. Uh, go to first Timothy five real quick.

Oh, I should have been there already. First Timothy five 17.

Oh, look what it says about, about elders. Uh, the elders who lead well are to be considered worthy of double honor.

So, uh, elders, um, who lead well, part of what elders are supposed to be doing is leading.

Now they're leading, ruling, um, and guiding the church of Christ.

Uh, they're considered worthy of double honor. This is especially those who labor at preaching the word and teaching, which

I believe means there can be elders who aren't necessarily putting their full, uh, weight and effort into the preaching and teaching ministry who are all, who are still faithfully fulfilling the role of elder and still worthy of double honor for, um, leading

Christ church. Well, which you see that in, in Presbyterian churches a lot with the distinction between ruling elder and a teaching elder.

Um, so you have to be, I don't know, I guess in the

RPCNA, we joke that we're, uh, we, we believe in two and a half offices, um, that there's a, there's the office of the deacon.

And then there is, um, the ruling elder and teaching elder, um, which, uh, which the ruling elder wouldn't necessarily be preaching as much, wouldn't necessarily be engaging in teaching as much, although they should be able to do so.

Um, but their, their main thing is working on, on shepherding the flock, uh, through, through other means, visitation, one -on -one council, uh, making decisions for the church in a church discipline.

And, you know, what are we going to do with this situation or that situation? Um, so yeah, there'd be, uh, we, we, we split it, but we keep it together.

So if you go into a, a RPCNA session meeting, the teaching elder and ruling elder have one vote a piece.

They all have the same say they're all on the same level, even though they labor in, in different areas.

Would you say that, uh, that an elder should have the, or we should recognize in our elders, the ability to, to discern from scripture, how to, how to be making those decisions, how to be doing that counseling, how to be doing that teaching and preaching, um, they, they have, um, uh, an ability to be able to do that.

05 .06 Yep. And they, they should be able to articulate it well enough to disciple someone else in the process.

Even if, even if they're not going to be standing, um, and preaching on Sunday mornings all the time, even if they're not going to be teaching

Sunday school classes all the time, they should be able to discern the word of God and, um, and articulate it well enough to be able to guide people, disciple them, and to lead them on by shepherding them in the right direction towards what

Christ would have them to know and believe. 05 .07

But do you, do you have any, um, do you have any last thoughts on our introduction episode for coordination?

05 .07 Um, anything else we wanted to get in there? 05 .08

No, not really. Um, I really think it's going to be, it's gonna be interesting when we get into, uh, denominations with different, uh, church government, you know, how that plays a role and, and how, uh, folks are ordained.

Um, you know, what are their qualifications? What's the process look like? It should be, it should be interesting to see, you know, what each ones are doing and how they're doing it and why they're doing it and why they think they're allowed to do it and all that, all that good stuff.

We love you too, brother. We love everybody that's, uh, um, that support.

Well, not just those who support the ministry. We love you all too.

Uh, we'll see what Ms. Becky says. Let's get to the church. It's a good wife right there.

That's right. Absolutely. Um, so yeah, there are some folks,

I'm sure you've seen in the Presbyterian church, I've seen in the Baptist church that sometimes we're so, so gripped on our own denomination.

We're, I don't know if it's, we have a fear or that we think we're so right or they're so wrong, but we were so gripped and stuck in our own denomination that we, we don't want to have an, a conversation or listen to a conversation, um, from someone from a different perspective or background.

Um, and I, and I pray and hope that, as I said earlier, that others, especially leaders and pastors will join in this conversation with us, uh, because I know that I'm going to go in,

I'm going to learn a lot from what I hear from you. And I, and I know that I'm going to learn from others that we have as guests on here, because I don't think there's anybody in my denomination that's perfect.

And I want to know where we dropped the ball. And I want to be able to learn from, from somebody in another perspective, other denomination.

I may not agree with you on everything on, on sacraments or infant baptism, but there's plenty of things that I can learn from you, from the

Presbyterians about, and I, and I want to learn those things. And I want to, I want to be driven by the

Bible and you may have a better grasp, understanding from scripture than, than I do on the issue.

And I'm looking forward to learning. I hope others will have the attitude that they can learn from others in this process.

Yeah. Yeah. It's really neat. Um, especially when you listen to somebody who's, who's different than you remembering that, that this is still a part of, of Christ's church.

And since it's a part of Christ's church, um, we shouldn't be able to, to learn from, uh, challenge and encourage them all in love to look towards Christ, to, to believe in his gospel and to, uh, uh, just grow.

No iron sharpens iron. Um, I really hope we're able to get this, this one fellow on,

I listened to him on his podcast all the time. Um, he's from an Anglican perspective. I'd be really, really stoked to hear what he has to say about stuff.

He's a really, really sharp guy. Um, hopefully we'll be able to snag him and hey, another

Presbyterian. All right. What's up there. How you doing brother.

Thank you for watching my friend. Yeah. Um, and I guess one last thing for me is something

I want to reiterate that we brought up earlier is that, uh, folks who are any, uh, any age and not just folks, it would be, if we're being biblical, it'd be men who are aspiring to the, the office of elder that, um, you would look at first Timothy that we looked at.

Uh, you would look at Timothy and Titus for the qualifications. If you feel that you're aspiring to that office, you're aspiring to a good thing.

If you're aspiring to leave, it's an honorable thing. Um, but make sure you're staying within your boundaries, but then within the biblical process of things, look at your qualifications, look at your motivation is, is it a, you know, you know, speaking of myself and, and I'm desiring that office because I desired his position.

I desire the attention that he gets. I mean, that, that happens. Um, and, and I've probably been guilty of that, uh, seeing someone in the spotlight and, and, um, desiring the, um, the, the attention that he gets because people come to him desiring, um, the, the wisdom and knowledge that he has, you know, designed to, to want that from other people.

You know, I would need to shed that and, and say, is, is my aspiring to this office, um, coming from God, is it coming from a place of humility because, um, it's

God doing that in me. He's giving me that, that, that calling and that, um, that desire to shepherd and lead his church for no other reason.

Yeah. For, for anybody who's, who's wanting to be a pastor for the purpose of, of having, um, people say good things about you, just so y 'all know, um, there's, there's large portions of the time when the pastor is hearing very negative things about himself, um, from lots of different places.

So, um, if, if you're only there for, for the good feelings and hearing, oh, you did good on that sermon, uh, you're going to be sorely disappointed in, in, uh, in the outcome of, of that, of that, uh, that endeavor.

It's not good. It's not going to go how you think it is. So yeah, it's not all sunshine, rainbows and kittens.

That's right. Well, then I'm going to share the gospel to the best of my ability and I'm going to ask you to pray for us.

And remember, Daryl, he says, uh, perverse church. He's on the search committee. They're, they're, uh, the pastors are tying and they will be looking for a new pastor.

So what's your, uh, what's your church name? Where are y 'all at? If you can hit us up in the comments, we'll make sure to pray for him by name.

Um, I know Daryl's in Richmond, Virginia, but I do not know the name of the church.

Uh, Paul says, don't worry when people speak well of you, for you are much worse than they think.

Speak ill? Ill of you. You're much worse than you think. Absolutely.

So there's, there's only one reason. Um, one reason alone, and it's because it's

God's four day plan. It's his good plan. It is his, um, perfect plan.

He only had a plan A and he is fulfilling that plan. That plan was, um, to, to have this creation and that his son would come redeem a fallen world.

And we are part of that fallen world. We, as men actually brought the curse, um, and brought sin into this world through, um, our federal head,

Adam, when he disobeyed God in the garden, God said, don't eat of this tree.

He ate, he disobeyed God and brought sin and the curse of sin to this world.

And it has infected every single person that's ever lived on this earth. There is no one that does good.

No one that searches after God, not even one. There's no one righteous, not even one, none of us.

There, there's not one good deed that we can do apart from Christ. Apart from Christ, we can do nothing. Scripture says,

James chapter 2 verse 10 says we've all sinned or if we keep the whole law and yet stumble even at one point, we're guilty of it all.

We've broken God's law. If you go through the whole 10 commandments, we've broken everyone multiple times, unlimited, too many to count.

We, we fallen short of, of that mark, fallen short of God's glory.

We were hopeless because of our sin. And because it is so, the reason that, that is so, um, detrimental, so, um, so bad for, for lack of better term is because God is infinitely holy.

God tells us of himself in scripture that he is infinitely holy, worthy of perfection, worthy of all praise and glory.

And we fail to give them that in, in our, with our lips and with our obedience and the, the worthy punishment for disobeying an eternally eternal holy

God is an eternal hell, which the Bible describes. And we desire that you do not face the judgment of God and receive what we all deserve, which is eternity in hell.

But the good news of the gospel is that God sent his one and only son to this world, that everyone who believes in him would not perish, but have eternal life.

And so we would call on you as scripture does today, um, repent of your sins, put your faith and trust in Jesus Christ.

We hope you'll do that today. We hope you will share that good news. Yep. Let us pray.

Uh, dear heavenly father, thank you for the time we had together today. Pray that we would, uh, learn a lot from this study, that we would trust in your processes, uh, look to those of you who put over us and, and, and, uh, submit to them as it says in book of Hebrews, uh, pray for, for the crown and joy of Presbyterian churches.

They are looking for a pastor as theirs is getting ready to retire. Thank you for his, his, uh, service, uh, at that church.

We pray that the right man will come into that congregation and preach and lead and shepherd and comfort and, and scare off that needs to be scared off and everything else that he should be doing.

Pray that you give them a good, solid leader there that looks to you as, uh, as their, uh, only hope and, and guidance in this world.

Pray all these things in the name of Christ. Amen. Amen. Thank you for watching the truth and love podcast.

Remember that Jesus is King. Go live in the victory of Christ. Just speak with the authority of Christ and continue to go out there and share the gospel of Christ.