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Originally Posted by Apostolic1ness
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I agree with most of what your saying and really agreed with your second paragraph. However surely we shouldn't worship man but to say that people should not follow their Pastor's guidance or leadership is not right. Paul said "be ye followers of me, even as I also follow Christ". Leadership was given to the church to perfect the church. Do you not believe in Leadership in the Church?
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I do believe in leadership in the church. I don't believe in authoritarian leadership in the church. There is too much scripture that invalidates it. Mainly this one . . .
1Cor.11
[3] But I would have you know, that the head of
every man is Christ; and the head of the woman is the man; and the head of Christ is God.
By the authority of what scripture do we shoe-horn the pastor between the husband and the wife, or between every man and his Savior?
I believe that the headship of Christ is threatened when we acknowledge that the pastor is the head of our church. The pastor being head of the church is not found anywhere in scripture. I do believe that pastors (notice the s) are given to the church for the perfecting of the saints (along with apostles, prophets, evangelists, and teachers, by the way, we seem to have elevated pastors above all others). I do believe pastors as a rule are sceptical of the ability of saints to follow the leading of the Holy Ghost, when they should be encouraging it. It results in saints that are encouraged to be overly dependent upon pastors and under dependent on seeking the leadership of the Holy Ghost, in my opinion.
Example: A young couple, who were evangelizing at the time and of which he has since become a pastor were instructing a group at our church. I was in the group. When she spoke, she began by saying that we should NOT be bothering our pastor with every little detail of our life. We shouldn't be going to him about every little thing. I was in agreement!
THEN she defined the things that we should be going to him about. If we bought a house or a car, she said, we should definitely consult our pastor before doing so. I guess the little things are a matter of perspective. I have NEVER consulted a pastor about buying either a house or a car. I have no reason to believe that his advice would be any more qualified than my own opinion, or of others that I may seek advice in that regard. I do see value in seeking the advice of elders in the church whom I respect, however, a pastor is not necessarily where I think I should go, not that he is automatically excluded from being able to give sound advice about real estate or cars. I just don't believe he has a God given ability to advise secular matters based on his filling the office of the pastor.
I believe that when we seek the counsel of the Holy Ghost, we become stronger Christians, we become better at seeking and following the Spirit. When we seek the counsel of the pastor, we should pray and seek the leading of the Holy Ghost about whether to follow his counsel. As you quoted about Paul. he said follow me as I follow Christ. What he didn't say is simply follow me because I'm the man o God. This scripture implies that we have the responsibility to evaluate whether Paul, or perhaps our pastor, is truly following Christ.
Along these lines, I have seen pastors give their blessing on marriages, some of which I had serious misgivings about. Many of these marriages have failed horribly. Is he accountable for this?
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