The theme of this chapter on the ekklesia deals with authority. This is the main issue in nearly all discussions of the ekklesia of Christ. Several years ago a group of Reformed Baptist pastors published a book entitled Shepherding God’s Flock. The book was specifically aimed at trying to correct a growing problem of abusive eldership within that movement. The very fact the book was written and published is testimony to the severity of the problem about which these men were concerned. It is obvious that there are a lot of elders in that movement, and in other movements, who are acting like mini-popes. These writers evidently felt a moral obligation to the church to expose such tyranny. The introduction says it all:
The failure of God’s office bearers to exercise biblical rule in his church in the past has certainly led to confusion, impurity, and doctrinal laxity. On the other hand, the abuse of power by some shepherds of the flock is a present reality that has sometimes produced tragic fruits. Among these are beaten and scarred believers who feel themselves forced to leave local churches, immaturity and dependency among believers who remain in those churches, a lock-step uniformity which undermines genuine Christian liberty, and a siege mentality toward any questioning or criticism from the outside.[1]
No good purpose would be served by naming the individuals against whom Shepherding God’s Flock was written. Those within the Reformed Baptist movement will know the major characters (and devotees) who are being rebuked. Those outside that movement will probably be able to identify the same symptoms in men within their own denomination or movement.
The book has one great weakness. None of the authors in the book make any attempt to trace the problem to a root cause. They have purposely kept the theme of the book to one subject, namely the abuse of eldership. How and why that abusive attitude came into being, was nurtured, and allowed to grow is not discussed. All of the authors treat the tyrants against whom they are writing as aberrations of their own doctrine of eldership. We would suggest that it is possible that the tyrants are in reality the logical conclusion to that very view of eldership and as long as the same system of eldership is maintained tyrannical men will continue to arise in their midst. Again, the introduction says it all:
It is not the purpose of this book to debate the institution of the eldership as such, but simply to explore the claims and the limits of the authority of elders. Its intended goal is not to break new doctrinal ground, but rather to probe the more practical aspects of the doctrines of church government already established and commonly held.[2]
The moment I read that statement I knew the book would have a very limited effect and would do very little to solve the real problems. I knew it was ‘surface’ treatment. I confess I was surprised at the statement because I knew all of the contributing authors. I knew they were men that took doctrine seriously. They also believed that correct doctrine led to correct living and bad doctrine led to bad living. I was amazed that they had totally jettisoned that conviction in this book. They were saying, “Our doctrine is correct, the problem is with the ‘practical’ application.” I would suggest that it was the doctrine of eldership believed and taught by the Reformed Baptists that gave birth to and nourished the very problem they were trying to solve. It is the purpose of this book to go one step further and discuss some basic presuppositions that I believe must be changed before the problem can be solved. A large part of the Reformed Baptist movement is still following the very man against whom Shepherding God’s Flock was written.
Some Reformed Baptists, as well as others, have attempted to wed two things that are totally opposite. These men have tried to put elements of Presbyterianism into a semi-Baptist framework and managed to destroy the strengths of both systems and exaggerate the weakness of both systems. Both the concept of Presbyterian rule through eldership and the Baptist rule by congregationalism have great strengths when applied in their own settings. However, those very same strengths become very dangerous when they are put into another system. It is this fact that helps to explain the problem of abusive eldership in the circles addressed in Shepherding God’s Flock. Let me explain what I mean as it concerns authority and eldership.
PRESBYTERIAN ELDERSHIP
First, we will look at the Presbyterian view of eldership.
(1) In this system, the authority of the church is in the eldership and not the congregation. It is for this reason that a Presbyterian congregation cannot hold an official congregational meeting without an elder being present.
(2) In a Presbyterian church, the pastor does not join the local church nor is he subject to the discipline of the local church. The pastor is received by, and is a member of, the Presbytery (the pastors and elders in a given area) and is subject to the discipline of the Presbytery and not the local church.
The checks and balances in this system make it very difficult for a pastor to act as a pope. This system of eldership works very well until the Presbytery goes bad. When that happens everything is lost and the local church is hostage to the Presbytery because the authority is in the Presbytery and not the local congregation. The Presbytery has the final authority to approve or disapprove who will pastor a church in their Presbytery in that system of government. True, the Presbytery cannot force a congregation to accept a pastor they do not want, but the Presbytery can refuse to receive a pastor that a congregation does want. The congregation either bows to the authority of the Presbytery or is forced to withdraw from the denomination.
The Presbyterian system of authority has some very good features. If several families in a Presbyterian congregation feel the pastor is not teaching the truth or if his behavior is hurting the church, they can go and talk to him. If they cannot convince him he is wrong, or if he refuses to listen to them, they can lodge a complaint against him in Presbytery and he will have to answer it whether he wants to or not. In other words, the pastor is subject to other pastors and elders. He is not a law unto himself. Presbyterianism can usually handle and resolve local church fights much better than Baptist congregationalism. This is especially true when the trouble involves the pastor or his authority. The checks and balances of power work well as long as the Presbytery is made up of godly men.
BAPTIST ELDERSHIP
Second, let us look at the Baptist system of authority. Historically, Baptists have taken the congregational form of government. They have resisted both the idea of a Presbytery beyond the local church and putting the final authority of the local church into the office of eldership. Baptist congregations in the past have had elders, but always those elders were subject to the rule of the congregation. The pastor and elders functioned as leaders of the congregation, and as such, their views (rightly so) have great influence. But ultimately, the congregation chose whether or not to accept the recommendations of the pastor and elders. It is at this point that some present-day Baptists (mostly Reformed Baptists) have departed from both the Bible and their Baptist forefathers. They have adopted the Presbyterian view of eldership and put the authority of the church in the hands of the eldership, thereby rejecting congregational rule. However, they have also rejected the idea of a Presbytery, or any authority, beyond the local church. They have destroyed the checks and balances established by the Presbytery. This is a hybrid view of authority of recent origin. It is really ‘Baptist’ Catholicism. The evils that Shepherding God’s Flock is fighting are the ‘good and necessary consequences’ of such a mixture of contrary principles.
Here is the problem in this hybrid system: (1) If the authority of a local church is in the eldership and not the congregation (Presbyterian eldership), and (2) if there is no authority past the local congregation (Baptist congregationalism), then (3) to whom can an appeal be made when an elder acts like a tyrant? In such a situation, the eldership is a law unto itself with no accountability to anyone but its own conscience! In such a system, if several families come to the pastor with a sincere concern and he either refuses to listen or is not convinced that they are correct, those individuals are not allowed to even talk to another person after they leave his office. To do so is to be ‘guilty of rebellion against God’s duly authorized leadership.’ Such a system is nothing but Roman popery. There is no check and balance because the eldership is ultimately responsible to no one but itself. A tyrant can have a field day and be untouchable in such a system.
As previously mentioned, either the Presbyterian view of authority or the Baptist view of authority will work very well. The object of this article is not to state which view is biblical or preferable. I have long believed that a combination of the two would be the best. However, a hybrid system that adopts a Presbyterian view of eldership and then denies both congregationalism and a Presbytery has, even if unknowingly, created an eldership that has all of the unchecked authority of an infallible pope. Eldership rule without a Presbytery is Roman Catholicism. Someone has made the following observations:
1. A good man in a bad system will not abuse the bad system.
2. A good system can deal with a bad man and curtail his power.
3. A bad system attracts, encourages, and protects bad men.
The last mentioned situation (3) is the case with the authority system taught and practiced by many Baptists, especially Reformed Baptists, today. This system has no way to deal with tyrants. Its basic foundation of authority makes the tyrant untouchable. The congregation is powerless to remedy the problem because the ‘authority is in the eldership,’ and sister churches are forced to ‘mind their own business’ and not infringe on the ‘autonomy’ of the local church since there is no ‘authority past the local church.’ Christ’s suffering sheep are either forced to ‘vote with their feet’ and leave the church they love, or to remain and endure continued abuse from the tyrannical leadership. Neither option is pleasant. Little wonder that the evils mentioned in Shepherding God’s Flock so often occur in such a system, and as I mentioned before, will continue to occur until the system is changed. It is impossible to take some elements of Presbyterianism (rule by elders) but reject the concept of a Presbytery (as a check on elders) without creating a framework with the potential for the very problems addressed by the authors of Shepherding God’s Flock.
The men who have created this hybrid system of authority, or who presently hold to it, must either (1) return to Baptist congregationalism, or (2) form some kind of Presbytery. Until they do one or the other, any movement using this hybrid view will experience a continual repetition of the evils that Shepherding God’s Flock so forcefully and accurately condemns.
Can you imagine what our country would be like if the President was not subject to Congress or Congress was not subject to the Supreme Court? Most people do not realize that the success of our form of government is the fact it is built foursquare on the belief that man is a sinner who cannot be trusted with authority. The system of checks and balances was deliberately established to check man’s lust for power and authority. Our founders believed the old saying, “Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.”
A clear illustration of the truth I am trying to establish is the Reformed Baptist Missions Services established by some Reformed Baptist pastors several years ago. The Reformed Baptist movement was greatly stymied for a long time, by its own admission, because of their view of missions and the local church. They totally rejected ‘mission boards’ and insisted that only an individual local church could send out a missionary. If a church was too small to be able to do that then the individual wanting to go to the mission field would move his membership into a larger church and the smaller church would funnel their money through the big church. Because some of these Reformed Baptist pastors were godly men and had a real heart for missions they were not satisfied with the total ineffectiveness of this system. They have never publicly repudiated the system but they have repudiated it in practice.
It was in this atmosphere that the Reformed Baptist Missions Services was born. It is a separate organization with its own constitution and budget. This was forbidden under the original Reformed Baptists’ doctrine of the local church. The organization meets once a year and sets its agenda and committees, etc. Member churches send delegates to the yearly meeting where the business is handled. Local churches may join RBMS by being approved by a vote of the RBMS members and paying a yearly fee. The RBMS can likewise discipline a local church out of membership at the annual business meeting. Several years ago they disciplined a church out of their organization over a wrong view of the Sabbath.
This missions effort seems to be working very well. However, no one seems ready to publicly admit that the primary reason it is working is that it operates exactly like a Presbytery and has, in practice, repudiated the idea that a single local church must own and control every ministry. For all practical purposes the RBMS is a Presbytery. Its decisions cannot be challenged by anyone.
We should add a word here about church splits and abuse of authority. Most of the time when a church splits over a leader’s tyrannical attitude, the new group, like the book mentioned above, will not question the doctrine of eldership but will automatically establish the very same system of eldership. They merely get new elders. It is sad but true that the same attitude will soon be found in the new elders. We can wonder if the leaders of the split were really opposed to the system of tyranny or merely upset because they were not the ones in charge of running the show. How many church splits occur because, “If I can’t be the big frog in the pond, I will build my own pond”?
Three Views of Authority
There are three basic views of authority, or government, with many degrees in between. This is just as true in the religious world as it is in the secular world. We will examine these three one at a time.
1. THE DICTATORSHIP
First, there is the dictator. One man alone is the pope, general, president, or whatever. That person’s word is law on the basis of the strength and authority of his ‘office.’ He is the undisputed, ‘duly authorized’ leader. The individual’s authority is not directly related to his ability or his character. He totally controls his kingdom either by raw power (guns, money, fear,) or by masterful manipulation of other people. He may be ignorant or intelligent, wicked or godly, kind or mean, but he is still the ‘boss’ because he occupies the office. The following are always present in this system:
(1) There is always a chain of command or ‘pecking order.’ An individual’s authority is measured entirely by where he is in the chain of command. In the army it is the general, colonel, captain, etc. In religion it is the pope, cardinal, bishop, etc., or else the pastor, elder, deacon, etc. The offices are often used as ‘carrot sticks’ to reward the faithful and control the dissenters. The offices, or positions of power, are bought and paid for by unquestioning obedience to every whim of the top man.
(2) The offices are filled from the top down and never from the bottom up. Only the present leaders can bring someone else into leadership. There may be a mock election but only those approved by the top can even be considered as a candidate. The church congregation with this view of authority does not really elect its officers any more than the enlisted men in the army choose their officers. The congregation may, in some cases, be allowed to ratify the people chosen by the pastor or elders but it is merely a formality.
(3) The authority is always in the office and often has little or nothing to do with either the ability or character of the individual. A general who is an idiot has as much authority as a genius. The pope or pastor has the full ‘authority of his office’ regardless of whether he is capable or not. Rome is not the only religious organization with egg on its face because of either stupidity or tyranny being ‘clothed with Divine authority.’ Shepherding God’s Flock gives ample proof that this tragic fact still exists today.
(4) There are never any checks or balances over leadership in this system. The ‘God-ordained’ individual is ‘duly authorized’ by God and is answerable to no one else. The king is king by ‘divine right.’ The general speaks the last word simply because he is the general. The pastor is the bishop of your soul and is accountable to God for your well-being. This ‘God-ordained’ responsibility gives him not only the right but the responsibility to totally run your life—for your own good of course! The more ‘sincere’ the leader is in his imagined ‘duty to God,’ the more tyrannical he is likely to become. He not only has the ‘authority,’ but he also has the ‘awesome responsibility to God’ to ‘guide’ (control) your life. Of course, he does it only because he loves you and is concerned for ‘your own good.’ The ‘lay’ people are duty bound to obey God’s ‘duly authorized leader’ even if he is wrong, and God will ‘reward your obedience.’ I have heard that papal nonsense preached from Reformed Baptist pulpits!
The typical example of this same form of authority in the secular world is found in the army. Can you imagine telling a Roman army officer that if he really wants to be great he should become a ‘servant of his men’? In Matthew 20:26-27, Jesus is giving us the essence of the world’s view of authority. It is ’lording it over the conscience.’ The New Testament concept of authority is totally contradictory to the chain of command and ‘the authority is in the office’ concept. The consistent religious example of this pagan form of authority is the Roman Catholic Church. Can you imagine telling the pope that he is no more infallible than the underlings who call him ‘Holy Father’? Could the pope ever be convinced that allowing men to kneel down and kiss his ring is nothing short of blasphemy and could never be biblically looked upon as act of ‘submission to Christ’s duly authorized authority’? There are pastors today who would not demand you kneel and kiss a ring, but they do that very thing in another form. They demand you do not question either what they say or do or their right to be a law unto themselves.
Notice the similarity between the secular and religious forms of this view of authority as follows:
The line of separation between the ‘officers and enlisted men’ (clergy and laity) is the first step toward the Gentile (secular) and religious, as illustrated in Roman Catholicism, view of authority. This will stifle and destroy the priesthood of believers. When a man demands that he be called by a special title to constantly remind people of his ‘holy office’ (and authority), that individual is infected with the Roman view of authority. In no sense am I saying that it is wrong to call someone ‘pastor.’ It is probably a good thing to teach children to say ‘pastor’ in the same sense that we call our physician ‘doctor.’ However, if this is demanded or ever done for the same reason that an army officer is called ‘sir’ and is saluted, then we have totally departed from the concept of authority taught by our Savior. We have become Romanist and are practicing priestcraft. We actually mean ‘father’ when we say ‘pastor’ under those circumstances. See Matthew 23:8-12.
In my pastorates I was called “Pastor John” and that usually wound up “PJ.” That did not bother me in the least and I never thought I was allowing ‘God’s holy office’ to be slandered. Many of the men called me “John.” Paul was never called “Reverend Paul” or “Pastor Paul.” Some men today demand that they be called “Pastor” despite the fact that the great Apostle was content with plain “Paul” or “Brother Paul.” This attitude reveals one of the marked differences between true and false shepherds. If you want to be ruggedly biblical and follow Scripture you will never demand that anyone call you reverend or pastor.
I am sure we can see that whenever the authority is put into the office you are moving toward a dictator type of leadership. Such a system can easily ignore personal qualities and emphasize only the institutional structure. It is impossible to develop and utilize spiritual gifts within the ‘laity’ when this view is in control of the church. There are only two gifts in any church that accepts this view. A giant tongue, the preacher, speaks and a giant ear, the congregation, obediently listens without question.
2. TOTAL DEMOCRACY
The second form of authority is the exact opposite of the dictator. It is pure and total democracy. This system will wind up in ‘mob rule’ and destroy itself or it will get so sick of anarchy that it will ‘elect’ a dictator. Someone has jokingly tried to use Acts 19:32 to prove that the early church must have been independent Baptist because this passage portrays a Baptist business meeting. It many cases it would not be too far from the truth. In the system of total democracy no one is supposed to have any ‘authority.’ No one is ‘officially’ functioning as a leader. I say ‘officially’ because every group, including the cows and pigs in the barnyard, has a pecking order. In this scenario the church is organized as a giant committee and settles everything around a table (preferably round). Everyone has equal authority. There is no ‘one man ministry’ nor is there any ‘office’ that has ‘authority.’ All of the attempts that I have ever seen to carry out this idea have wound up with clearly recognized ‘unofficial’ popes and a rigid but ‘unofficial’ pecking order. The Plymouth Brethren denomination is a classic illustration of this system. Every secular dictatorship and every religious cult started out with this ‘ideal’ in mind. The results were inevitable.
I remember seeing a cartoon with a group of men sitting around a table. One man had a crown on his head and was sitting on a large throne. This man was saying, “The round table shows that we are all equal. The throne I am sitting on and the crown on my head means that I am just a tad more equal.” Orwell’s Animal Farm is far more evident in religious circles than in political ones.
The Old and New Testaments, as well as church history, clearly demonstrate that God gives some men the gifts necessary for leadership. It is the responsibility of those men to be willing to serve in leadership roles and it is the responsibility of the congregation to recognize those leaders and follow them. Second Chronicles 12:32 is a classic text on authority.
3. REPRESENTATIVE GOVERNMENT
The third form of authority is elected leadership acting as representatives of those who elected them. In both the secular and religious world this principle is worked out in many different ways. The United States, England, Germany, France, etc., are all democracies but they have different systems of representation. Most Protestant denominations use some form of representative government. Both Baptist and Presbyterian leadership begin with the local congregation electing its representatives. From that point on there is a great difference in how authority is worked out.
The obvious question is, “What do the Scriptures say?” Our answer will always be determined by our basic presuppositions concerning the nature and function of the church. The New Testament Scriptures are not abundantly clear on this subject. The apostles do not give us a role model institutional church. It gives us basic principles. Neither a Roman Catholic nor a Puritan would view leadership and authority in the ekklesia of Christ the same way an Anabaptist would. Rome believes that Christ ‘founded a church’ and endowed it with the authority to be his sole representative on earth. Outside of that church there is neither salvation nor authority. The Pope, as the head of the Roman system, is Christ’s vicar on earth. The man in control, the pope, regardless of who he may be, is infallible in his pronouncements and is responsible to no human authority. He has this authority purely on the grounds of his office. Whenever we view the church primarily as an institution endowed with exclusive authority because it has been ‘duly authorized and constituted’ by God, we have already taken the first step toward the Roman Catholic view of authority.
We simply must maintain a view of the church of Christ that sees it as first a spiritual organism and not just a physical organization. As mentioned in a previous chapter, it is not without significance that Rome hated the doctrine of the ‘invisible’ church and vehemently argued that there was no church except the ‘visible’ church. It amazes me that all Landmark Baptists, and many Reformed Baptists, follow Rome’s view of ‘local’ (visible) church authority. There needs to be a lot of work done on this subject. Let me sketch a few broad categories.
(1) Both the membership in a congregation and the individual’s relationship with the leaders must be based on mutual consent. Our only weapons or bands that bind people are truth and love.
(2) There should always be a plurality of leadership to avoid the ever-present danger of popery.
(3) Leaders must be accountable to someone besides themselves. Every human being should be responsible in some way to other human beings. This is not possible if we reject both congregationalism and a Presbytery. To reject both of these things is to literally create an untouchable pope and make real accountability impossible.
(4) However, plurality and equality are two different things. Equality of eldership is a figment of idealistic imagination. Every congregation has one pastor whether it admits to that fact or not. Every group, whether in the secular world, the religious world, or in the animal barnyard has a ‘pecking order.’ A congregation with two ‘equal’ pastors is like a wife with two husbands.
The pastor’s submission to both the church and the other elders is in no way contrary to what I just said. Likewise, the pastor being the spiritual leader is not inconsistent with his being under human authority. A true pastor is both the leader and a servant at the same time. There is equality of eldership in that the pastor gets one vote in the elder’s meeting. If he gets outvoted, then he submits. However, there is not equality in ministry and gifts, especially in preaching. Likewise, each elder does not get equal time every time he disagrees with something the pastor preached. The preaching pastor exerts by far the most influence in a congregation but must not have any more raw authority than anyone else.
(5) One man being recognized and accepted as the pastor in no way destroys the priesthood of believers. We strongly affirm that every believer is a priest before God and called to minister with the pastor. However, their respective ministries are not the same. Every believer is not a preacher any more than every pastor is an apostle. The ‘priesthood of believers’ must not become the ‘priesthood of preachers.’ The fact that all believers are priests before God does not mean that all believers are leaders before men.
We must never equate the many exhortations concerning duties to one another with nothing but public ministry to the congregation in the stated meetings of the church. Every single believer is to exhort and encourage every other believer, including exhorting (and don’t forget encouraging) the pastor, but that does not mean that they stand up in the Sunday morning church service and exhort “Uncle Billy to quit cheating on his wife” or encourage “Aunt Minnie to keep trusting the Lord even though she, and everyone else, knows what Uncle Billy is doing.” Most of the duties enjoined in the ‘one-anothering’ passages are private. Do not equate public preaching and ‘one-anothering.’ Also do not, as many preachers do, think the elder is exempt from the ‘one-another’ passages. Only some believers have the gifts and responsibility for preaching, but every believer has the ability and the responsibility for ‘one-anothering.’
Every member of every assembly should feel a duty to tell fellow believers, including the elders, “You are wrong” when it is obvious that is the case. If a sincere Christian either feels that is not his duty or he is too afraid of the elder to be honest with him, something is terribly wrong with that assembly.
(6) Two things should greatly help determine a given pastor’s duties: (1) his own peculiar gifts (and weaknesses), and (2) the needs and strengths of the particular congregation that he pastors. The same man may well have some different duties in different situations. A congregation with few, if any, capable teachers or leaders (because it is either new or untrained), will require things of a pastor that a congregation with many capable and mature leaders will not require. It is not biblical to define ‘official pastoral duty and authority’ with an ‘office’ concept regardless of either peculiar gifts or situations. This is nothing but a Roman Catholic approach.
A pastor gifted in personal work and counseling, but not too adept at organization or administration, obviously should be freed to do what he is good at. Likewise, a pastor that has exceptional preaching gifts should be encouraged and allowed to exercise those gifts to Christ’s church at large even if ‘our congregation pays his salary.’ This, of course, assumes that his ministry in the local church is causing that local situation to grow and that other people are helping in the responsibilities that would otherwise be neglected by his being away.
My point is that we dare not have a set procedure and definition of pastoral duties that is identical for all pastors and churches regardless of particular gifts and needs. Some churches would do well to hire a ‘business manager’ and literally forbid their pastor to in any way get involved with managing the business aspects of the church. They should also not allow such a pastor to be criticized for ‘being away too much’ if God is truly using him in helping other congregations and nothing is being neglected at home. In some cases, things in a local congregation would go a whole better if the pastor went away every Monday morning and did not return until Saturday evening!
Our concern should not be with who does what, but rather, “Is everything that is necessary being taken care of in a satisfactory manner?” Are we concerned that the work of God actually gets done or that only duly authorized elitists be allowed to do the work? In my mind, this is what plurality of leadership and the priesthood of all believers is all about. It is utilizing the gifts of all God’s people to minister to as much of Christ’s whole church as is possible.
(7) We must not confuse responsibility with authority or raw power. The NTS do not in any sense emphasize ‘office and authority.’ They speak of people, gifts, and responsibility. Eldership is not an office as much as it is a function, just as the church is more a spiritual organism than it is a physical institution. The church has distinct institutional functions, just as a pastor has ‘official duties.’ However, when the emphasis is placed first on the ‘institution’ and the ‘office,’ we are starting at the wrong end. A leader that continually reminds us that he has ‘authority’ is really proving that he has no God-given authority at all. His constant exhortations to “submit to God’s duly-authorized elder” prove that he is not a true leader of Christ’s sheep. He is a thief who is attempting to drive the sheep away from Christ and draw them unto himself.
(8) A true leader has several clear marks. First, he has followers. Anyone who thinks he is a leader need only turn around and look if anyone is there. If no one is following, then the person is not a leader. However, that is not enough for the Christian. All leaders do not lead us in the same direction or to the same place. The test of a true Christian leader is whether he is first a follower himself and if he is following the right Person. A Christian leader cannot say, ”Follow me,” unless he finishes the statement, ”as I follow Christ.” We dare not say, ”Do this because I have authority to make you do it.” We must say, “Do this because your Lord, in this text of Scripture, has commanded you.” In one sense, we have no followers of ourselves. We are all followers of the Lamb. Leaders are merely pilgrims helping other pilgrims following the same Lord.
Unity and love are the things that make an assembly the closest thing to heaven we will ever experience on this earth. Where there is true, unified understanding of truth and a sincere love of each other, a congregation will bring honor and glory to their God and Savior. We should all pray for Acts 9:31 to be the experience of our congregations today.
Then had the churches rest throughout all Judaea and Galilee and Samaria, and were edified; and walking in the fear of the Lord, and in the comfort of the Holy Ghost, were multiplied.