God has winked at a lot, but today's world demands the glory of the latter house, a true City on a Hill.
This post is not new. St Paul wrote about these very things, but for 2000 years we have ignored them and what you see currently in the earth is the result.
Teaching on why pastors do not rule over churches
Jesus Christ is Head over His house.
He appoints in the Holy Spirit gifts to operate in His house
The ones anointed to speak Word in His house, to build His house are
first apostles, then prophets, then pastors , teachers and evangelists.
Nowhere in the New Testament does it talk about a priest, vicar, or solo pastor being head over his house.
There are pastors, there are teachers, there are apostles , prophets and evangelists.
These are some of the effects of disobeying the Lord Jesus Christ
1. If a Pastor is over a church
it creates a false model. While a natural family has a father and this is a pattern of the heavenly Father, the Church is not a human institution , but a supernatural one with Jesus Christ as the Head. The family of God learn the Kingdom by there being no Head but Jesus.
Jesus Himself modelled this. I do only what I see the Father doing. While my Father is working then I must work. Jesus modelled the Psalm 123 lifestyle. At the time there was only one Person on earth living this way and with the anointing of the Holy Spirit.
First in the upper room when Jesus breathed upon His disciples and they became new creations in Him……(And remember the exact thing happened before to Adam), then they were baptised in the Spirit along with all the others on the day of Pentecost.
All 11 including the new apostle stood with Peter as he opened the door to Jews and in fact everybody to the Kingdom.
All 12 went from house to house preaching teaching and breaking bread as pastors in this new Kingdom. To begin with until he was murdered, James was the administrative head of Jerusalem Church.
2.If a Pastor is over a church he may even defer to the Holy Spirit as Pentecostals and charismatics have done, but although this looks generous, it is not given to a pastor to head a church nor to defer. It’s not His Kingdom and Jesus shares His headship with nobody. Again a pastor is presenting a false model.
3. If a Pastor is over a church then the final authority in any matter rests with him or an eldership or board who rule by their minds. In renewed church settings people tend to pray before Board meetings but they are missing the whole point. Paul and Barnabas weren’t called to lay the foundations of most of Asia Minor by a board meeting, the Holy Spirit set them apart in a gathering of saints meeting in the Name of Jesus when Jesus Himself was in the midst. That is the difference.
4. If a Pastor is over a church then while his strong gifting is in human care, reassurance and encouragement, which is a true gift in God’s Body, it is not given to rule a church. The Church is ruled in the Presence of the Living God, where those who have already trained their senses in righteousness are recognised already for their ability to discern the spirit of good from the spirit of evil. Something of the mantle of God’s Presence is facilitated by them but by no means exclusive to them. They are called elders only because they are recognised as such for their authority in the Holy Spirit and that they have just gone ahead some in the things of God.
5.If a Pastor is over a church while he may defer to the saints exercising their gifts, he has already robbed the primary agendas of the Holy Spirit which is that nothing occurs until the Holy Spirit is released to give gifts and contributions as He chooses, in diverse forms, as He directs. This is Church . This is how saints learn psalm 123 living, and to intercept this is to slow down saints ability to walk properly outside of meetings, since meetings are usually the first place they are commanded to learn the new administration suitable to the summing up of the times. Ephesians 1.10
6. If a Pastor is over a church and paid by a tithe he is modelling Judaism and having a rabbi over a synagogue, which has nothing to do with the Kingdom of God since the Cross.
7.If a Pastor is over a church he is maintaining the idea of Levitical priesthood like Anglicans and Catholics and Lutherans do.
8. If a Pastor is over a church people are not receiving the male anointing of the Father. This is an anointed seed that comes under the supernatural gifting of the Spirit, and rests heavily upon evangelists to see people dynamited out of Genesis 3 into a definite receiving of Jesus Christ into their person. It rests heavily upon prophets to see the foundations of a community laid bare and lay a foundation of Christ in its place in a specific Christ Word over a locality, that may initially be difficult to understand but shines a beacon for the way ahead, and later people understand more of what that Word meant.
The male anointing upon an apostle establishes people in the Romans teachings, taking a congregation step by step round the Holy Spirit versions of the Jewish Feasts and the Gates of Jerusalem. Pastors and teachers under the male anointing , and divorced from a secular idea of rule and office, are now free to deliver their giftings under a male anointing to build up the saints in their faith and their behaviours, from within out, as the new Covenant grace gospel works.
9. If a Pastor is over a church the church doesn’t grow fast enough and by the times the testings come as they must, people are not sufficiently rooted and grounded, and they become bitter as at the waters of Meribah and Massah. When we receive the Word it is sweet like honey in the mouth , but much like the labour of childbirth at the end, at the point of realisation and manifestation, things can feel exceedingly bitter. Within 15 years most Moves of God dissipate through bad relationships within and bitter persecution from without. In America apparently 70% of pastors burn out.
God never called pastors to that position and He doesn't give grace to any of them to do His own job. He is the banner of Love over us.
He is our Good shepherd.
A shepherds human role is purely like Jesus , to get learners hitched up to Psalm 123 living , then withdraw. Nolonger do I call you servants but friends if you do what I say. Then Jesus disappeared.
10. If a Pastor is over a church, unless he personally has a strong evangelists anointing like Eric Chambers of Amersham Old Baptist Church, then evangelists get shot in the foot, there’s terrific jealousy and rivalry at their success, and up until now evangelists in the church function way more than they have to outside congregations. Like the shepherd in Song of Solomon as a Jesus figure, evangelists should be free to come and go, to gather sheep and not to have to worry all the time that their male Holy Spirit anointing and impartation is not completely undermined by pastors who are not even given the right to rule over flocks anyway in the Bible.
