Category Archives: Ecclesiology

Why Did You Start King’s Church?

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I received an email today asking me about why I started King’s Church, Phoenix, AZ, especially knowing it would be a very small start up situation. I will edit some of what they wrote so that they are not identified in any way, but they are wondering about their own situation and whether or not a new Church should be started near them.

They wrote: You mentioned (in a Dividing Line teaching) that King’s Church began in your home. I am wondering if you have any link to a testimony you have given as to why King’s Church began in your home. Was there a need for it? A church plant from another church?

My Response:

Hi —–,

No, I don’t have a link to any testimony regarding starting King’s Church.

Need? Well there is always the need for sound, biblical churches in any locality, and of course, there is biblical precedent for a church to meet in a house (Rom. 16:5; Col. 4:15), but the reason King’s Church started was just a burning and lasting conviction (for more than a year) that this is what I should do. In a nutshell, I felt starting the Church was “the call of God” on my life.

It is vital that this is in place in the heart and mind of the pastor. I cannot stress that enough. If the man can live his life without doing this, he should not start the Church.

There is no doubt the enemy will not leave a biblically sound church alone but will seek its destruction for sure. That is true, no matter what the size, but a small church starting can easily be hit by even a few people leaving. The winds and waves can be strong and even severe at times. There needs to be a long term commitment from the pastor that this is his life’s work – he is not there to merely “try” this, or to see if it works… he is there for the rest of his life (if needed) to establish this – BECAUSE HE CANNOT SLEEP AT NIGHT IF HE DOES NOT DO THIS!

Then there needs to be a life that backs that commitment up. Just about everything in life starts small and as a seed. Scripture says “Do not despise the day of small things.” (Zech. 4:10) We are told this for the simple reason that it is VERY easy to do exactly that – despise something that is small. This is especially true in the U.S.A. when so much is measured by its size. Lets always remember though, a large oak tree is simply an acorn that held its ground.

The call of God to pastor and specifically to start a church is difficult to explain and very subjective (I realize) – but in my own case, this conviction only seemed to grow over time and I felt it was confirmed by other pastors both locally and far away who provided much encouragement for me to do so. I think that is important. Many believe they have gifts suited for a task but it is the Body of Christ who can confirm whether this is true or whether someone is self-deceived. By way of analogy, in a worldly setting, a lot of people think they are amazing singers, only to be exposed on “American Idol” as having a “talent” the Lord wouldn’t mind them burying.

Bear in mind too that I had decades of pastoral experience both in the UK and here, specifically in start up churches, so this proposed new venture would be done with my eyes wide open, so to speak – knowing some of the hardships and issues we may well encounter before we began.

While we were not a church plant, I was assured that other pastors would be behind me, at least in prayer, so I would not be on my own. It would be the best scenario if we were a church plant, and had access to resources beyond our own, but such was not the case. But at least I could get good advice from fellow pastors. They also expressed their willingness for me to talk with them at any time.

I say this because I don’t think it is wise to be totally on your own in starting a Church. The road is never an easy one, and it is imperative to have others you can turn to for advice along the way.

I hope something in what is above can be helpful to you.

God bless,

John

(I received this reply)

“Absolutely helpful! Praise God and thank you…”

Can Women Teach Under the Authority of Elders?

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Article by Jonathan Leeman, Editorial Director of 9Marks, and an elder at Capitol Hill Baptist Church in Washington, D. C. (original source here – which includes links to the articles cited)

In case you’re just tuning in, a good in-house conversation among complementarians is going on between John Piper, Thomas Schreiner, and Andrew Wilson over whether or not women can teach in a church gathering under the authority of the elders. In order, see Piper here, Wilson here, Schreiner here, Wilson here, and Piper again here. Previously, Tim Keller has also presented Wilson’s side of things here, while John Frame has offered that same side here. (I’ve been told this conversation at Mere O is good, but I haven’t listened to it.)

Everyone agrees that there are times when women will open their Bibles and instruct men, as Pricilla does with her husband Aquilla when instructing Apollos (Acts 18:26). And everyone agrees that there is a certain kind of teaching that women must not do, based on 1 Timothy 2:12: “I do not permit a woman to teach or to exercise authority over a man.”

The question is, what are the criteria for saying when we are in the first domain versus the second domain? What’s the fence between one side and the other?

There are two things I hope to contribute here. First, I’d like to offer the simple observation that what seems to be driving the different approaches to 1 Timothy 2:12 are Presbyterian versus congregationalist conceptions of teaching and authority. And any congregationalist who agrees with Wilson or Tim Keller or John Frame is relying upon a Presbyterian understanding of teaching and authority (which is not to say a Presbyterian must adopt Wilson’s position). Second, I’d like to offer a more congregationalist distinction between authoritative teaching that occurs in the context of the gathered church, and teaching that occurs outside it.

WHAT THE PLAYERS HAVE SAID

Andrew Wilson distinguishes the two domains described above by distinguishing two different kinds of teaching—what Wilson calls big-T versus little-t teaching. Big-T teaching involves “the definition, defense, and preservation of Christian doctrine, by the church’s accredited leaders.” Little-t teaching is “a catch-all term for talking about the Bible in a church meeting.” Or: “explaining the Scriptures to each other in a peer-to-peer way, according to gifts.”

Wilson’s theological distinction between two different kinds of teaching is hardly unique. He’s backed up by no less than luminaries Tim Keller and John Frame.

Keller writes,

Elders are leaders who admit or dismiss people from the church, and they do “quality control” of members’ doctrine. These are the only things that elders exclusively can do. Others can teach, disciple, serve, witness…We do not believe that 1 Timothy 2:11 or 1 Corinthians 14:35-36 precludes women teaching the Bible to men or speaking publicly. To ‘teach with authority’ (1 Timothy 2:11) refers to disciplinary authority over the doctrine of someone. For example, when an elder says to a member: ‘You are telling everyone that they must be circumcised in order to be saved—that is a destructive, non-Biblical teaching which is hurting people spiritually. You must desist from it or you will have to leave the church.’ That is ‘teaching authority’—it belongs only to the elders.

And Frame writes,

Reformed theology has often distinguished between the special teaching office, which consists of the ordained elders, and the general teaching office, which includes all believers…Your committee unanimously holds that scripture excludes women from the special teaching office. Scripture plainly teaches this limitation in I Cor. 14:33-35 and in I Tim. 2:11-15. But scripture says with equal plainness that women are not excluded from the general teaching office…Paul in [1 Cor. 14:33-35] essentially forbids to women the exercise of the special office….I Tim. 2:11-12 also limits the teaching of women, but…here too Paul has in mind the special office rather than the general.

Schreiner, on the other hand, says teaching is teaching is teaching. He writes,

Teaching explicates the authoritative and public transmission of tradition about Christ and the Scriptures (1 Corinthians 12:28–29; Ephesians 4:11; 1 Timothy 2:7; 2 Timothy 3:16; James 3:1)… it is the heart and soul of the church’s ministry until the second coming of Christ.”

Piper’s distinction between the two domains is, honestly, a bit vague for me. He writes,

It seems to me that, as men and women relate to each other in the church, men are to lead, on the analogy of the way a husband leads at home (Ephesians 5:22–33)…Thus when I think about how this leadership by men is expressed in the church, I see the regular preaching of the word of God in the weekly worship gathering as the heart of that leadership.

To risk reading into Piper (and in a direction favorable to my own view!), he is saying that teaching is exercising authority, and that in the church’s gathering only men should teach because teaching is an exercise of authority.

TWO KINDS OF TEACHING VS. TWO KINDS OF SETTINGS

To summarize the two sides, Wilson, Keller, and Frame distinguish two kinds of teaching. Wilson calls it big-T versus little-T teaching; Keller calls it authoritative versus non-authoritative teaching; and Frame calls special versus general teaching. The point is, the teaching of an elder is somehow more authoritative than the teaching of any other church member. So you have more authoritative teaching and less authoritative teaching. (In once sentence in his essay, Frame says that what’s at stake is the “occasion” of teaching. But nothing else in his article fills out this idea. Everything else he says distinguishes not between occasions but between kinds of teaching.)

When this side turns to 1 Tim. 2:12, they might either argue that “to teach and to exercise authority” is a hendiadys (reading two words as saying one thing, like “nice and cozy”)—in spite of Kostenberger’s fairly thorough refutation of this position. Or they might say that the context of chapter 3 suggests Paul has a special category of authoritative teaching in mind here. Continue reading →