If you live a heart-led existence, you’ll probably recognize this as the truth. However, I’ll make mention that this follows Scripture, provided you grasp the uniquely Hebrew approach to language and thought as it applies to divine revelation. You’ll have to intentionally distance yourself from Western assumptions and historical customs. If you are fan of Western Church History, you’ll get everything wrong. What would a church look like built on the tenets of Radix Fidem?
The Hebrew Scriptures establish the image of Two Witnesses to the revelation of God: priest and king. In historical terms, a king is just a tribal chief, the head of the big family. Both of these trace back at least to the time of Noah, as they are the assumed social leadership roles behind all Law Covenants. You cannot possibly have a just society according to God’s revealed character without a tribal structure and these two separate offices. You want His shalom? Build on this assumption.
We can’t actually do this, of course, except in the private life of the church. Most Christians read the New Testament with a Western bias and fail to grasp the full meaning of the discussions of church organization. Just as the king had the final veto on human organizational choices, so it is with the ruling elder of any congregation. Regardless of actual shared DNA, the senior elder of the church is the family head of the covenant congregation. He is not appointed, but rises naturally and organically from the membership. Like any family, his leadership is crippled unless he has at least one “mama elder” working alongside (it matters not whether she is actually his spouse). Both are an utter necessity long term.
The label of “pastor” describes the ritual leader, the New Testament equivalent of a priest. The image of pastor-led churches is part of the Hellenistic corruption that led to allowing the High Priest of Judea to become de facto head of government. A proper priest confines himself to ritual and spiritual considerations. It’s a male-only role and this fellow is appointed by the elder.
Both offices would include attendants or some kind of appointed helpers who assert a kind of leadership in their own right. We call these folks “deacons.” Their function may be general or specific, and their authority matches the job. Gender is immaterial, but you would expect prevailing local custom to influence who does what. Any or all of them can and should be paid for their work, but it obviously depends on organizational resources.
There are other ways people can express their callings with ad hoc offices or roles such as a dean of religious education, appointed prophet, missionary, etc. Those are not organic to the fundamental concept of a church, but every congregation has full freedom in the Spirit to come up with what brings together calling and need. In other words, we don’t create an organization on paper and then grab bodies to fill the slots, but we discover what each person can do against the perceived needs. You look for ways to enable the gifts to operate.
Do I have to explain the danger in human ambition? For example, the senior elder of a family in ancient times would be the guy who realized his duty and rose to the occasion. You would prefer someone who isn’t ambitious at all, but someone who believes he has better things to do. If he’s not a little reluctant to take up the burden, he’ll be the wrong man for the role. Still, he needs to have a knack for it. If the sheep don’t follow, you aren’t much of a shepherd.
That the pastoral role is actually secondary is what would seem heresy in Western churches. On the other hand, it seems the first person to draw any pay from the budget is the priestly guy. He’s not the boss, but the first hire of every congregation. The elder is saddled by virtue of being the guy folks will follow, and while he should be paid, that comes later. A good elder already has resources of some sufficiency. You pay him as the burden takes up more of his personal resources.
The last thing we want is a pretense of objectivity. It’s all very personal and subjective every step of the way. The whole purpose in having a church is not something you can put on paper and evaluate by standard measures. The whole purpose is to study and embrace the character of God and bring change in individual lives so that the congregation gets stronger as a whole. Bigger may not be better. We make room for all kinds of hangers-on and people who really don’t belong, provided their presence does not interfere with the basic mission. That business of study includes lots of time in prayer, contemplation and various ways of learning how to exercise the leadership of the heart over the mind. You cannot possibly objectify awakening the heart as a sensory organ and as a higher form of intelligence.
Objectivity is just the intellectual mythology of a mind seeking to usurp the heart. That’s the very foundation of the Fall, where the mind becomes the executive, the little god inside each of us that defies our Creator. Logic and reason are the means to cut off the heart, and the heart is the only element in your soul that can discern the character of God in this world. So the church could be characterized as the place where we all herd the minds and bodies into some confinement while we seek ways to enthrone the heart again — that’s what redemption is about.
Given this is what church is all about, as an extension of the Law Covenants viewed through Christ, how could you possibly take seriously any human political system that takes any other shape? Just today I read of some noise made by some fellow in Congress, the birth of whose political career I observed first hand. He retired from the US Army all famous and joined the one most politically active church in the area of his hometown. I don’t know much about the man right now, but I got a good whiff of his character very early and it stunk. I see no reason to expect it got any sweeter since then. He’s a model of all that’s wrong with the US, not to mention Dispensational Christianity.
I’m neither his enemy nor his supporter. I’m completely outside his orbit. I submit that fully embracing the heart-led faith of Christ makes you an alien to just about everything around you, in particular the most sacred concerns of human politics.
