Are Church Organizations Biblical?
by David K. Bernard
Podcast recording (no venue stated in the delivered transcript)
Kind: teaching
Scripture: Hebrews 10, Romans 14, Matthew 16, Acts 15, Acts 16, Galatians 2, Acts 21, Matthew 18, Acts 13, 1 Timothy 3, Titus 1, Acts 2:42

Source: https://acts238.life/repository/sermons/david-k-bernard--are-church-organizations-biblical
Published by Acts 2:38 Life from the sermon transcript on that page.
Free to copy and share with attribution.

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first of all biblical religious organizations or church organizations are biblical but second the precise form is not required what i'm saying in other words is the principle of organization is clear in scripture we must have some kind of organization for the local church and some kind of organization for the broader church that does not mean you have to belong to the united pentecostal church international to be saved to have a valid ministry or anything like that however i would like to say if you read the book of acts was the church united was the church pentecostal was it indeed a church was it international so i guess you could say the united apostolic pentecostal church international is found in the book of acts now they didn't have a general superintendent by name and i think one reason why we use these other names is not only does it help us relate to modern society like communications director but we do want to be very careful that there are some biblical roles that god chooses and we don't want to claim well this guy's an apostle this guy is a prophet or or this guy is a bishop unless you define what he's a bishop of and so the way to avoid a lot of the theological questions well what kind of authority are you trying to assert well we just say we'll we'll we'll have a role that's defined you know uh that's not in the bible so we can define it according to how we're using it and then there's no confusion or doubt as to what kind of authority we're asking for but to the criticism that all organizations are man-made well let's talk about the local church is the local church biblical well certainly hebrews 10 says don't forsake the assuming of yourself together but my local church the structure of that church whatever the church government is if they have a church board or they don't have a church board they have a business meeting of the congregation or they don't if they have a sunday school teacher or sunday school superintendent or a youth pastor or you know those things are do they have a church building do they have a choir do they have a praise team do they have um you know pews do they have chairs you know none of that is biblical in the sense of the bible requiring it so in that sense the particular form of church government of that local assembly is man-made so we would say the local church is god's idea but the precise form is human constructed that doesn't mean it's wrong that doesn't mean you shouldn't go to the local church doesn't mean you can just pick and choose whatever church you want because hey it's all man-made no it is the local church is our way of fulfilling biblical principles and the fact that everything is not specified i think is intentional that's god's way of saying you have christian liberty i go back to romans 14 a lot of things are left to our discretion and in fact matthew 16 uh talking in the context of church government and planting a church or grow building the church jesus said whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven and that's not unlimited authority but i think that's his way of saying to the church when you make certain decisions to fulfill my plan i will honor them i will back them up so even though say a local church could have like let's say you have two local churches in the same city they have two different buildings they might have two different forms of church government they might have two different times where they have church they might have two different types of children's programs all those things can be different but both could be the will of god and if you're a member of that church it could be the will of god to be you to be faithful to that one church and not go to the other church and vice versa so even though there are differences that's on purpose so i believe god the new testament doesn't specify all the details of a local church because god recognizes that could vary based on culture time location personality needs you know what works in palestine in the first century might not always be the best for us and canada in the 21st century so god let you be flexible to that he lets you choose different ways of doing that he didn't require a bus ministry in the first century or an internet presence in the first century because that wouldn't have been possible but he allows it in the 21st century he doesn't require us to to ride donkeys to church you know we could actually do something different so what i said of the local church the the principle is biblical and the fact that you should belong to the local church is biblical but the way that local church is constructed is man-made nevertheless god honors that and you can't just say well my attendance and participation is optional because it's man-made no it's a man-made structure designed to fulfill a biblical principle and therefore you're obligated to follow that well all i've said is true beyond the local church because when you read the book of acts it's obvious the churches work together so for example in acts 15 the apostles and elders so that would be the ministers the preachers the pastors they all gathered in jerusalem to decide can gentiles come directly into the church and join the church without accepting the jewish law or do they need to keep the jewish law do they need to be circumcised and so on and so they had the first council and they made that decision for the whole church then in acts 16 they sent delegates to each local church telling them here is what we decided in jerusalem and we're telling you to follow that obviously each local church was not independent each church considered itself to be part of a larger body and they felt obligated to follow the teachings of the larger body when the apostles and elders in jerusalem wrote these letters and sent emissaries to go to each local church to read the letter here was our decision they expected every local church to follow that they didn't expect any local church to write back saying you know what we disagree with your decision so we're resigning from the united apostolic pentecostal church international and we're just going to go on our own now i'm not saying it's wrong to be to be part of a different organization or to switch organizations under certain conditions although you usually wouldn't expect that same with local churches but there should be some organization being strictly independent doesn't seem to be biblical because it seems the principle of organization beyond the local church is also biblical so while the precise structure is left to our discretion i.e christian liberty god will back up our decision so if we say if you want to be an ordained minister here's the process so the fact that we should have ordained ministers is god's plan but how we decide to recognize that god gives us the discretion so one group could have one way another could have another or we ourselves could change our policy and god would honor that because that's within our discretion but the fact that we should have ordained ministers that's a biblical principle likewise if you read the epistles you find lots of organization so the apostle paul writes and commends certain leaders i'm sending this preacher to you or if this preacher comes accept him or this preacher has fallen into false doctrine don't receive him the apostle john his letter same thing so you have what is the equivalent of ministerial credentials and revoking ministerial credentials it's not stated in such a way and we have our own system but the fact that there is a system of credentialing and removing credentials or discipline that's a biblical principle another example so paul in galatians he said uh peter was recognized as the apostle to the jews i was recognized as the apostles of the gentiles so in some sense the larger church said paul you're going to be the foremost spoken to the gentile world so maybe we should say global missions director gentile missions director but then in acts 21 he reported to the elders in jerusalem he felt like he was obligated to report to them get their advice and he followed their advice so he felt like he was working under the authority of the broader church so then in time in the book of titus paul writes to titus his son in the gospel and he says you're in crete so crete is an island off the coast of greece it's part of the nation of greece today and he says i'm asking you to ordain elders in every church so crete had many different towns and he says titus i want you to set up churches and organize them and appoint elders so elders would be the pastors so whether it be a pastoral team or in a in a city you could have a number of house churches and each one would have an elder so there there might be a team of elders for the city which would be equivalent to pastors of small groups or small churches so notice there implicitly we don't have a detailed description a job description or or the exact flow of authority but you can see at least four levels of authority so here you have local church members who have elders in charge of them titus is overseeing the whole island of crete which is a region paul is overseeing titus and giving him instructions as the apostle to the gentiles and then paul is reporting to the apostles and elders in jerusalem so from the local level to the elders to titus to paul to the collected apostles and elders and the counts in jerusalem and james the brother of the lord not one of the twelve apostles was looked like the spokesman and the leader both in acts 15 and galatians the book of galatians chapter 2 1 and 2 is seen as the leader in jerusalem so actually if you count the the local church remembers you've got five layers of organization that sounds like an organized church to me so while we don't know the details it is absolutely clear and then when you talk about um so so there's there's a program for global missions missionaries support of missionaries raising offerings to help the poor in jerusalem raising offerings to help paul's missionary journeys you know i don't have time to go through all the scriptures but pretty much all the types of functions that we have not the details but the concepts we actually see in some form in the new testament so to answer the question yes the concept of church organization is biblical the details are human constructed but god honors those details as long as they're in accordance with the scriptural principles and in fact god says he's going to back it up the decisions that we make and you see this also in matthew 18.

if we make decisions for discipline in church government on in a positive way two or three are gathered together i'm in their midst two or three prey on something i'll honor that if there's a problem between two people bring it to the church and the church makes the decision so you see that kind of structure not only within one local assembly but as you read the book of acts in the whole new testament the epistles you see that kind of structure beyond the local assembly and so to summarize so why should we have organization number one it's a biblical concept and you can also bring in old testament precedents as well which i don't have time to do number one it's a biblical concept number two to promote world missions we have to organize number three for um approval of ministries approved by god but also by the church you see that in acts 13.

number four accountability so to make sure that our ministers are living according to god's word and they're qualified the first timothy 3 and titus 1 gives qualifications for ministers well how could you recognize those qualifications and hold people accountable to those qualifications and recognize when they've lost their qualifications unless you unless you have an organization that goes beyond the local church so for accountability and then for doctrinal integrity acts 2 42 they continued steadfastly in the apostles doctrine and fellowship breaking a bread and prayers so the doctrine and the fellowship there is in nutshell form i believe fellowship unity and organization is a biblical principle