Tuesday Speech

Tuesday Speech

Speech for Tuesday meeting
Baptist Faith and Message section on the Church

A New Testament church of the Lord Jesus Christ is an autonomous local congregation of baptized believers, associated by covenant in the faith and fellowship of the gospel; observing the two ordinances of Christ, governed by His laws, exercising the gifts, rights, and privileges invested in them by His Word, and seeking to extend the gospel to the ends of the earth. Each congregation operates under the Lordship of Christ through democratic processes. In such a congregation each member is responsible and accountable to Christ as Lord. Its scriptural officers are pastors and deacons. While both men and women are gifted for service in the church, the office of pastor is limited to men as qualified by Scripture.

The New Testament speaks also of the church as the Body of Christ which includes all of the redeemed of all the ages, believers from every tribe, and tongue, and people, and nation.

According to what we believe as Southern Baptists, we as the congregation ARE in charge of the church. Being elder-led hasn’t changed that about who we are. We are responsible for who leads us, for who we place in positions of authority. Ultimately, the men up on stage tonight are accountable to God, and they will have to give an account to Him. But, they are also accountable to us as the body. We, as the local church, are accountable to God for how we manage ourselves and who we let in the door of leadership.

John Calvin writes in his commentary on 1 Timothy:
[Paul] wishes a bishop to be blameless, 49 instead of which, in the Epistle to Titus, He has used (Titus 1:7) the word ἀνέγκλητον, meaning by both words, that he must not be marked by any infamy that would lessen his authority. There will be no one found among men that is free from every vice; but it is one thing to be blemished with ordinary vices, which do not hurt the reputation, because they are found in men of the highest excellence, and another thing to have a disgraceful name, or to be stained with any baseness. In order, therefore, that a bishop may not be without authority, he enjoins that there shall be made a selection of one who has a good and honorable reputation, and not chargeable with any remarkable vice. Besides, he does not merely lay down a rule for Timothy what sort of person he must select, but likewise reminds every one of those who aspire to that rank, to institute a careful examination of himself and of his life.

As of last night, the elders aren’t repentant; therefore I’m speaking to the congregation. The “apologies” we heard from the elders were not valid. “I’m sorry if you felt that way” is not an apology. It’s a blame-shifting tactic to put the guilt back on the victim or advocate for the victim.
None of the men on that stage are irreplaceable. The minute we can’t survive as a church without one or more of them is the minute we’re in a cult.
Wade Mullen writes, “When someone treats you as an object they are willing to harm for their own benefit, abuse has occurred and that person has become an abuser.” Something’s Not Right, p.2 
We as a body are being abused by those who are called to shepherd us. We are being abused by feckless leadership who wouldn’t stand up for the truth against power and indeed attacked those bringing truth to light. We’re being abused by evil leadership who, when confronted by truth-tellers, respond by circling the wagons around abusers and attacking truth-tellers as the enemy.
We as the church body have the obligation to come around victims of this abuse and live as brothers and sisters, caring for one another:

Eph 4:32
Be kind to one another, tenderhearted forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you.

We as the church body have an obligation to root out and expose sin and abuse first of all in our midst.
I ask for repentance. I want to see forgiveness. But even if I don’t see either of those things, that will not stop me from loving the sheep. We’re in the midst of a spiritual war. 

Eph 6:2
For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places.