CENTRALISM - A CENTRALIZING SYSTEM
Businesses cannot survive long if they do not adhere to some centralizing system. The church also is dependent on centralism. There are only two kinds of centralism: the right kind and the wrong kind. Most religious groups have some kind of headquarters on earth. It doesn’t matter if there is one man ruling the church and sending down edicts, or a council of leaders that makes creeds for them to go by, they are still being led by men from an earthly headquarters.
The Bible makes it clear that there is no authority above the local congregation other than God, Jesus, and Their Word. (Eph 1:22-23) “And hath put all things under his feet, and gave him to be the head over all things to the church, {23} Which is his body, the fulness of him that filleth all in all.” Despite the clear Bible teaching that we are to obey God and not men, the church in the early centuries succumbed to this very thing. It didn’t happen overnight. It was a process of years, starting in the second century with the idea that one of the elders in a congregation was “first among equals” as if that were possible. This ‘head’ elder was soon referred to as bishop while the others retained the office of elder. Through this process centralization of and apostasy of the church on earth continued and was completed when around 600 AD Boniface proclaimed himself to be the head of the church. Of course this was no longer Christ’s church, because only Christ is the head of His church.
We might think that that could never happen again, but we are mistaken. The church is always only one generation (or less) from apostasy. Failure to teach our children properly will result in falsehood in the church. There are as I type men and women in the church that are not satisfied with the autonomy (rule of each congregation through the Word by men from within the congregation) of the church. There are elders who are not happy with being on equal terms with the other elders of that congregation and want to rule everything themselves. There are elderships that are not happy with overseeing the congregation where they are, but desire to spread their rule over other congregations.
There are those like Diotrephes who want to have preeminence, and worse than him want to throw whole congregations out if there is anything they don’t like about the way the congregation is led. I am not saying that anything is ok, far from it. Those congregations who are not faithful to the word will be spewed out of the Lord’s mouth like Laodicea. However, we need to all be watching our own congregations and helping them to stay on the right path rather than sticking our noses into other congregations of which we are not even part.
I often express to our congregation the beauty of autonomy like this: Because each congregation is ruled from within and the only outside force is from God through the word, it doesn’t matter if every other congregation in the U.S. or even in the world goes astray, we can still be faithful. It doesn’t work that way with any earthly centralism. Under any central system you believe what the council or the Pope, or the Apostle of that denomination commands (whether you want to or not). Of course as is obvious from this emailing itself, that doesn’t mean that we are not all part of the same body of Christ because we live in different places. We are all brothers and sisters as many of us as are in Christ. So keep encouraging your brothers and sisters no matter where they may be, and be sure to thank God for his wisdom in providing the only kind of centralism that can work, a system with Him as the Owner/President/CEO at the headquarters in heaven.
Businesses cannot survive long if they do not adhere to some centralizing system. The church also is dependent on centralism. There are only two kinds of centralism: the right kind and the wrong kind. Most religious groups have some kind of headquarters on earth. It doesn’t matter if there is one man ruling the church and sending down edicts, or a council of leaders that makes creeds for them to go by, they are still being led by men from an earthly headquarters.
The Bible makes it clear that there is no authority above the local congregation other than God, Jesus, and Their Word. (Eph 1:22-23) “And hath put all things under his feet, and gave him to be the head over all things to the church, {23} Which is his body, the fulness of him that filleth all in all.” Despite the clear Bible teaching that we are to obey God and not men, the church in the early centuries succumbed to this very thing. It didn’t happen overnight. It was a process of years, starting in the second century with the idea that one of the elders in a congregation was “first among equals” as if that were possible. This ‘head’ elder was soon referred to as bishop while the others retained the office of elder. Through this process centralization of and apostasy of the church on earth continued and was completed when around 600 AD Boniface proclaimed himself to be the head of the church. Of course this was no longer Christ’s church, because only Christ is the head of His church.
We might think that that could never happen again, but we are mistaken. The church is always only one generation (or less) from apostasy. Failure to teach our children properly will result in falsehood in the church. There are as I type men and women in the church that are not satisfied with the autonomy (rule of each congregation through the Word by men from within the congregation) of the church. There are elders who are not happy with being on equal terms with the other elders of that congregation and want to rule everything themselves. There are elderships that are not happy with overseeing the congregation where they are, but desire to spread their rule over other congregations.
There are those like Diotrephes who want to have preeminence, and worse than him want to throw whole congregations out if there is anything they don’t like about the way the congregation is led. I am not saying that anything is ok, far from it. Those congregations who are not faithful to the word will be spewed out of the Lord’s mouth like Laodicea. However, we need to all be watching our own congregations and helping them to stay on the right path rather than sticking our noses into other congregations of which we are not even part.
I often express to our congregation the beauty of autonomy like this: Because each congregation is ruled from within and the only outside force is from God through the word, it doesn’t matter if every other congregation in the U.S. or even in the world goes astray, we can still be faithful. It doesn’t work that way with any earthly centralism. Under any central system you believe what the council or the Pope, or the Apostle of that denomination commands (whether you want to or not). Of course as is obvious from this emailing itself, that doesn’t mean that we are not all part of the same body of Christ because we live in different places. We are all brothers and sisters as many of us as are in Christ. So keep encouraging your brothers and sisters no matter where they may be, and be sure to thank God for his wisdom in providing the only kind of centralism that can work, a system with Him as the Owner/President/CEO at the headquarters in heaven.
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