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The Authority of Man

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I was having a conversation with the Lord about authority and discussed about a church pastor who tried to tell me to come under his authority, and how I gave the puffed up peacock the bum's rush. A verse of Scripture came to me:
"You were bought at a price; do not become slaves of men" (1 Corinthians 7:23)

What this means that we have only one master - Christ. This is not to say that we have mentors who give us sound discipleship and confirm our faith in Christ. But the attitude of these ones is "Be followers of me as I am of Christ" (1 Corinthians 11:1). The good discipler shows an example of following Christ, and instead of forcing his own authority on his disciple, he points to the only Master of believers. Jesus Christ Himself.

The bottom line is this:
"No one can serve two masters: Either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other" (Matthew 6:24).
I know that Jesus referred to having money as a master instead of God, but the principle is still the same, we cannot have Christ as our Master, and be under the authority of a man or group of men as masters.

If we put ourselves under the authority of men, we are no longer under the lordship of Christ. He is no longer our Master, the man or group of men are our masters instead. It means that as soon as we place ourselves under man's authority, we are no longer following Christ. We are rejecting Christ in favour of men, putting ourselves in a very serious situation concerning whether we are really committed to Christ or not.

This shows the the corruption of the Shepherding Movement, where "disciplers" and "shepherds" exerted their own authority on believers, causing immeasurable harm.

An example was in a New Zealand small town where there was a Pentecostal church. A group of people wanted to plant their own church, and the leader went, out of respect to the pastor of the existing church to inform him that a new Pentecostal church group was being planted and that they could work together in harmony. The pastor said, "This is my town, and I'm going to make sure that your church never gets off the ground". In six months, that Pentecostal church folded, and the pastor was out of the ministry, while the new church grew and flourished. This is an example where a pastor was setting up his own authority and not following Christ. The consequence was that the Holy Spirit took his ministry away from him and probably got into heaven by the skin of his teeth. The tragedy is that by asserting his own authority, he was deceiving his people and getting in between them and Christ.
 
conversation with the Lord about authority and discussed about a church pastor who tried to tell me to come under his authority, and how I gave the puffed up peacock the bum's rush

There are two aspects to this.
If you join a church, you are under the authority of that churches leadership.
It is they who will rebuke you or pull you up for a lifestyle or views that are contrary to there understand of scripture.
This is perfectly normal.

The other view, an old one that is reapearing is known as ' shepparding ' where the minister/ church leaders approve of your spending, people you associate with, where you work, shop etc.
Needless to say this is totally unbiblical and an abuse of authority.
 
There are two aspects to this.
If you join a church, you are under the authority of that churches leadership.
It is they who will rebuke you or pull you up for a lifestyle or views that are contrary to there understand of scripture.
This is perfectly normal.

The other view, an old one that is reapearing is known as ' shepparding ' where the minister/ church leaders approve of your spending, people you associate with, where you work, shop etc.
Needless to say this is totally unbiblical and an abuse of authority.
I would always be quite happy to work with a leadership who follow Christ and works to confirm believers' faith in Him. They would lead by example, not force authority on me.

I would never join a church that expects me to be a slave to it.
 
I was having a conversation with the Lord about authority and discussed about a church pastor who tried to tell me to come under his authority, and how I gave the puffed up peacock the bum's rush. A verse of Scripture came to me:
"You were bought at a price; do not become slaves of men" (1 Corinthians 7:23)

What this means that we have only one master - Christ. This is not to say that we have mentors who give us sound discipleship and confirm our faith in Christ. But the attitude of these ones is "Be followers of me as I am of Christ" (1 Corinthians 11:1). The good discipler shows an example of following Christ, and instead of forcing his own authority on his disciple, he points to the only Master of believers. Jesus Christ Himself.

The bottom line is this:
"No one can serve two masters: Either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other" (Matthew 6:24).
I know that Jesus referred to having money as a master instead of God, but the principle is still the same, we cannot have Christ as our Master, and be under the authority of a man or group of men as masters.

If we put ourselves under the authority of men, we are no longer under the lordship of Christ. He is no longer our Master, the man or group of men are our masters instead. It means that as soon as we place ourselves under man's authority, we are no longer following Christ. We are rejecting Christ in favour of men, putting ourselves in a very serious situation concerning whether we are really committed to Christ or not.

This shows the the corruption of the Shepherding Movement, where "disciplers" and "shepherds" exerted their own authority on believers, causing immeasurable harm.

An example was in a New Zealand small town where there was a Pentecostal church. A group of people wanted to plant their own church, and the leader went, out of respect to the pastor of the existing church to inform him that a new Pentecostal church group was being planted and that they could work together in harmony. The pastor said, "This is my town, and I'm going to make sure that your church never gets off the ground". In six months, that Pentecostal church folded, and the pastor was out of the ministry, while the new church grew and flourished. This is an example where a pastor was setting up his own authority and not following Christ. The consequence was that the Holy Spirit took his ministry away from him and probably got into heaven by the skin of his teeth. The tragedy is that by asserting his own authority, he was deceiving his people and getting in between them and Christ.

Idk, inasmuch as you did make a few good points there I think you would do well to recognize your authorities on this earth. Are you a member of that Pastors church or work there? Then of course you would be under his authority as long as it did not step outside the will of God.

Scripture tells us that we are to respect our leadership for it is He who put them in power, and we are to hold ourselves in respect to it's laws and so forth.

And so to hold yourself under an authority is an exercise in humility and humbleness with respect to the Lord. There's nothing wrong with having a strong spirit but it has to be tempered with humility or can be ineffective with respect to spiritual growth.
 
Idk, inasmuch as you did make a few good points there I think you would do well to recognize your authorities on this earth. Are you a member of that Pastors church or work there? Then of course you would be under his authority as long as it did not step outside the will of God.

Scripture tells us that we are to respect our leadership for it is He who put them in power, and we are to hold ourselves in respect to it's laws and so forth.

And so to hold yourself under an authority is an exercise in humility and humbleness with respect to the Lord. There's nothing wrong with having a strong spirit but it has to be tempered with humility or can be ineffective with respect to spiritual growth.
I think I made it pretty clear about the distinction I made between submitting to an appropriate authority properly appointed, such as civil authorities, church leadership, and being "enslaved" by a self-appointed "power and control" authority figure who is merely out to build up his own "empire" in the church.

In my 23 years of involvement in a Presbyterian church in Auckland, I quite happily worked with the ministers and elders, and when I became an elder myself, and the senior elder, I was glad to have a group of mature men to support and correct me when I needed it.

But way back before I was a Presbyterian, I was with an evangelistic group taking services around the region. We got to a small rural town and worked with the Presbyterian church there. The minister there was dictatorial and controlling, and insisted on taking the church services himself, while ministers in other towns were quite happy for us to take the services. On the Sunday afternoon after church there was a social gathering at an elders home. When the minister found out about it, he arrived and "took court" in the meeting, and proceeded to reprimand the elder for having a meeting without his permission. As a young person, it gave me the wrong impression that all Presbyterian ministers were like that. It wasn't until years later when I became a member of a Presbyterian church, that I learned otherwise.

While I was still in the Pentecostal movement it was not uncommon to hear about pastors dictating to members who was to use a spiritual gifts (in one well-known Pentecostal denomination a person is not permitted to prophesy in the services unless he was approved by the leadership of the denomination and appointed as a "prophet"). In one church the pastor announced publicly to a person who gave a prophecy in church, that "I am the only one who gives prophecies here". In another church it was well known that the pastor was a control freak who would in a Sunday service publicly excommunicate anyone who disagreed with him.

The pastor who dictated to me that I had to come under his "authority" took over the church when it had over eighty members (in a small town, 80 members in a church is termed a fairly large gathering). After six months, people got disgruntled with him, because he was all talk and didn't produce "the goods" of effective pastoring, and left the church, and it declined to less than 20 people. Soon after, it closed its doors because they couldn't afford to pay the pastor any longer, so he was out of a job.

It is interesting that when I moved to Christchurch a year ago, I joined a Methodist/Presbyterian Union church, and the minister was into saving the planet and had a fairly liberal theology. He was part time and we had Christ-centred visiting ministry for two of the Sundays. But he was welcoming, and accepted me in spite of my Calvinist/Puritan/Pentecostal theology, and supported me taking the odd service when he went on leave. Although our theologies were very diverse, he was not a control freak and welcomed a mixture of different types of ministry in his church. It was in that church, with his support, that I was able to play the piano in a Sunday service for the first time.

So the "authority of man" that I am talking about is the "power and control" freaks that are encountered in many churches. Actually, there is one in almost every church. I once told the people in a conference that such people were always taller than me, and when I look up to them I get a pain in the neck!
 
I would always be quite happy to work with a leadership who follow Christ and works to confirm believers' faith in Him. They would lead by example, not force authority on me.

I would never join a church that expects me to be a slave to it.

Says someone who fails to realise they are a slave of Jesus.


What church expects you to be it's slave?
 
You mentioned the Shepherding Movement. It is known today as University Bible Fellowship and is a false religion as they teach the false doctrines of man as Satan has blinded them from truth as he does with so many other religions. That is why there are over 5000 different religions in the world.

These shepherds/Pastors, as well as many different denominations/non-denominations teach on authority, submission, and discipleship according to their will as they again are blinded of God's will for His true Church. The doctrine that reshaped the charismatic community was that every individual must be submitted to another person and that all major life decisions should be submitted to a “shepherd or pastor”. It became a system in which elders or “shepherds” acted as spiritual leaders responsible for the entire church. Individual church members were assigned to specific elders and were “submitted” to them. Over time, a religious system developed in which a blind obedience to “man” was promoted.

The end result of shepherding is that it puts the submissive person in a position of having two masters – Jesus Christ and a personal shepherd. Over time the shepherd gains more power and control over the one being shepherded, and Jesus Christ is terribly overshadowed. In other words, shepherding becomes nothing more than an idolatrous religious system.

In hindsight, what starts out as a method of accountability morphes into a system of enslaved people.
 
Says someone who fails to realise they are a slave of Jesus.


What church expects you to be it's slave?

That first part is funny and reminds me of a testimony/story.
Since I started walking with the Lord again in 2010 the lions share of lessons I have learned is that the Lord is not an angry God and He loves us...and we are to walk in love towards our neighbors also. So I got used to giving people a break who can't otherwise afford a needed repair in their plumb/heat/air systems at home.

But sometimes I still like to make a few dollars. To cover parts or gas at least. Besides, you can tell when you step inside someones home that if they are flush or struggling and price according to needs.

So anyway, I'm on my way back to the customers house and I can't decide how much to charge them so I prayed and asked the Lord how much should I charge this lady? ;;;There was no mistaking the Lord's reply to me. He caught me totally off guard, lol. He said, Nothing, you can't charge. Your life when you gave it to me became Mine and all that you have belongs to me...

That was a very sobering thought to ponder. It got them a bigger discount so to speak! It made total sense too.
 
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