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The apostle Paul wrote to Timothy so that he would know “how one ought to conduct himself in the house of God, which is the church of the living God, the pillar and base of the truth” (1 Tim. 3:15). If Timothy needed such instruction, how much more do we! Let us answer some questions before we consider our conduct in the house of God, which is the church.
Question: How can I have a proper regard for the headship of Christ in dealing with my husband? I have been in the recovery for only six months and am not clear about the right relationships between brothers and sisters in the church.
Answer: In ordinary times the wife must follow her husband. However, if a robber breaks into the house, you do not have to wait for your husband to phone the police. If your house is on fire, you do not have to submit to your husband to the extent of letting him stay asleep. To wake him up and to call the fire department is not overstepping your place. If someone in the church stands up and preaches that we should worship Satan, everyone, even the youngest sister, should rise up to protest.
Question: Even if we read the Bible over and over, I do not think we would ever come up with what you have shared with us regarding leadership among the saints [see chapter 15]. How can we as young people get into the Word and really get the meat, or the divine concept, out of it?
Answer: As I have said before, we first approach the Word not to understand it but to get into God’s presence, to breathe Him in and be washed by Him. As for seeing the light in the Word, this requires much labor. I have been clear for many years that God does not want human leadership in His service, but it is only in these last two years that I have put the various Scripture references together that prove this point (Matt. 23:8, 10; 1 Pet. 5:3; 1 Cor. 12:28 and the cases of Peter and Paul. All this we covered in chapter 15, “Leadership among the Saints.”). It takes time for the understanding to come on these matters. In the house of God we have the prophets and teachers (Eph. 4:11). It is a family with both older and younger ones. Gradually, you will have more understanding, not by the mere passage of time but by accumulating the knowledge of the Bible as you contact the Lord in its pages.
Question: I have heard it said that when we come into the church life, we are getting into a boat, and that we should all stay in the boat, even if it means going over the cliff together. This has made us feel that even if we sense an objection within us to something, we must not disturb the oneness but all stay together and let the Lord rescue us.
Answer: Such talk, I am sorry to say, is foolish and superstitious. It is true that we do not want to be rebellious and disobedient; we are not out to make trouble or cause turmoil. However, our obedience is based upon the logical truth and the proper knowledge. Suppose I tell you that Satan is God and that you must worship him. Will you stay in such a boat to keep the oneness?
I have also heard of the saints’ being told not to try to discern others, that if they discern, they are not showing love. Does not the Bible say, “Two or three should speak, and the others discern” (1 Cor. 14:29)? In Philippians 1:9 the apostle Paul prayed “that your love may abound yet more and more in full knowledge and all discernment.” Love should not abound in foolishness; we should not love blindly. A love that abounds in full knowledge is the proper love.
The truth about leadership among the saints has two sides; we must keep the balance. On the one hand, there is no permanent leadership in the New Testament economy. On the other hand, the younger are to be subject to elders (1 Pet. 5:5). While we practice the truth of not recognizing human leadership, we must also practice the subduing of our flesh by learning to submit humbly to others.
Question: Could you explain more specifically what the truth is that Paul wrote about in 1 Timothy 3?
Answer: The word truth means what is real. In actuality, only God is real; thus, in the Bible truth refers to God Himself. “The law was given through Moses; grace and reality came through Jesus Christ” (John 1:17). When Jesus came, God came to be our enjoyment. When Jesus came, God came to be the reality. All the truths in the Bible refer to God Himself, not to doctrines. In the Bible there are many doctrines, which contain the truth. The truth is not mere doctrine. There is a distinction between doctrine and truth, though many Christians confuse them.
In order for us to conduct ourselves properly in the house of God, we must realize that God gave Christ to be Head over all things to the church (Eph. 1:22). In God’s administration there was a specific time when this inauguration of Christ into the headship of the universe occurred. It is clear from Peter’s words on the day of Pentecost that this enthronement took place at the time of Christ’s ascension (Acts 2:32-36).
Why was the headship of Christ not fully established during the time of the Old Testament? Acts 17:31 gives us a hint: “Because He has set a day in which He is to judge the world in righteousness by the man whom He has designated, having furnished proof to all by raising Him from the dead.” God in His administration wanted a man to exercise His judgment; it was not His will to deal with the enemy directly. During the time of the Old Testament, Christ had not yet been incarnated; He was the Son of God but not the Son of Man. For Christ to be the fully qualified Head, He could not be just God; He had to have the human nature as well as the divine. We may think that God Almighty is surely adequate to head up the universe, but in His economy He does not will to exercise His administration in His deity.
Why is there a need for a governmental administration in the universe? We all realize that government is mainly to restrain the lawless, like robbers and murderers; if everyone behaved properly, there would not be much need of human government. Similarly, if in the universe there were no Satan with his evil spirits and demons, there would not be so much need for the divine government over the universe. This is the negative reason for God’s government. Positively speaking, God also has an eternal purpose to carry out. For its fulfillment there is the need of a man.
God would not directly deal with Satan, because their relationship is that of Creator and creature. So as not to lower His status as Creator, God must use man, another of His creatures, to defeat the creature Satan, His enemy.
By His incarnation Christ, the Son of God, gained the humanity that made Him the Son of Man also. By His death on the cross He accomplished God’s purpose and defeated His enemy. Now He qualifies to be Head over all things in God’s government: He has taken on the human element by incarnation, and He has accomplished God’s purpose and destroyed the enemy by crucifixion. Once this work was finished, He rested in the tomb for three days.
Then He was resurrected and ascended into the heavens. At this point He was inaugurated into the full headship of the whole universe. He is not only the Head of the church but also the Head of every man. What we are touching here is not a doctrinal matter but a truth, for the seeing of which we need to have our inner eyes enlightened.
“Let all the house of Israel know assuredly that God has made Him both Lord and Christ, this Jesus whom you have crucified” (2:36). When Peter made that declaration in the first gospel message, he was proclaiming that God had inaugurated a little man from Nazareth into the universal headship over all things. Let us exult that a man has been exalted to the throne, a man from a small country village in the despised district of Galilee. This Jesus has been made Head not of just one country but over all things.
Proper conduct in the house of God first means that above all else we honor the One whom God has exalted. It is God’s intention that there be no other head among His people. In the Old Testament economy there were kings who acted as head over the people of God. Not so in the New Testament.
Do you think that Peter was the leading apostle? He may have been listed first when the apostles’ names were given, but a careful reading of the four Gospels will make plain that it was never the intent of the Lord Jesus to make Peter number one. Even though Peter’s natural disposition was to take the lead, the Lord was always making things hard for him. He may have been the first to jump out of the boat and into the water, but in the end he began to sink and was reproached for his little faith (Matt. 14:28-31). He may have been the first of the disciples to speak out on the Mount of Transfiguration, but even before he finished, he was stopped by the Father’s voice from the cloud (17:4-5).
You have probably noticed that when the women went to the tomb after the resurrection, they were told, “Go, tell His disciples and Peter that He is going before you into Galilee” (Mark 16:7). Surely you do not think that the little phrase and Peter means that Peter was first among the apostles. If Peter was foremost, he was foremost in denying the Lord (14:66-72). No other disciple denied the Lord three times. This phrase and Peter was the Lord’s way of telling Peter that he was forgiven and would be welcomed back.
We have already discussed Peter’s role as leader in the Acts in chapter 15.
The relationship among believers in the house of God again touches the headship of Christ. How should the church be “organized” (to borrow a word that does not really apply)? Throughout the twenty centuries of church history this problem has never been solved. Myriads of people are involved. On just one day three thousand were saved and brought into the church (Acts 2:41). Soon after, five thousand more were added (4:4). What could be done with so many people? In time there was not only the church in Jerusalem. There was a spread into Samaria, into Antioch, from there to Asia Minor, and then to eastern Europe. In the house of God there were not only believers but also apostles, prophets, evangelists, and teachers. There were also elders, deacons, and deaconesses. How could all these interrelationships be worked out?
Most of you realize that there is no more need to organize the church than there is a need to organize the physical body. Who organized your two eyes? Why are your arms where they are? The church is organic, an entity of life. It is not many pieces, devoid of life, organized into a unit by human hands.
From the second century Christianity’s history has, alas, been one of organization. To impose such a structure on the church is an insult to the headship of Christ. Were your arms voted into place? Has your nose won an election? Could your arm be fired and a replacement hired?
Yet we still need to resolve how the thousands upon thousands in the church should be related. With saints scattered in different places and then coming together in their respective localities to be local churches, how could the practical matters be arranged and carried out? I have been told that seminaries offer a course on the way to organize a church. The organization of the church is surely not a term found in the New Testament.
Well, you may ask, what is wrong with organization? It is a basic principle that organization leads to hierarchy, a leadership having one rank subordinate to the next. This insults Christ’s headship.
The Catholic Church demonstrates this in its organizational setup. The papacy began with the recognition of Peter as the unique representative and successor of Christ. Peter was later called the first pope, and the subsequent popes were called the head of the church. What an affront to Christ! Then their local congregations have leaders responsible to a bishop who heads up a district. In the New Testament the word bishop should be translated “overseer” (cf. 1 Tim. 3:1-2; Acts 20:28) and refers to the office or function of an elder. The Greek word for elder means an older person. The elder’s function is to oversee. Thus, these two words, elder and overseer, refer to the same person. It was Ignatius who brought in the wrong teaching that a bishop is higher than an elder. Once the church accepted this teaching and set bishops over the elders, the hierarchy developed with archbishops over bishops and cardinals over archbishops. The cardinals select one of their number to be pope. This pyramid of rank — elder, bishop, archbishop, cardinal, and pope — is a contradiction and insult to Christ’s headship.
Do you remember the request of the mother of the sons of Zebedee? She came seeking position for her two sons. It was on that occasion that the Lord told His disciples, “The rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and the great exercise authority over them. It shall not be so among you; but whoever wants to become great among you shall be your servant, and whoever wants to be first among you shall be your slave” (Matt. 20:25-27). The one who wants to be great must be a servant. The Lord pursued this very subject further in chapter 23, when He said, “Do not be called Rabbi; for One is your Teacher, and you are all brothers...Neither be called instructors, because One is your Instructor, the Christ. And the greatest among you shall be your servant” (vv. 8, 10-11).
The so-called Plymouth Brethren in their early days called themselves “brethren” because of Matthew 23:8. They did not consider that they had any leader among them. When Brother George Müller came to the Lord’s table, he would always sit at the back.
The concept that we must have a leader influences us who are in the Lord’s recovery too. If even twenty of us come together, is not our first thought, who will be the leader? But the practice in our meetings does indicate some degree of a transformed mentality. When we meet together, one will call a hymn, some others may pray, and then there may be a testimony or requests for more hymns. This is an indication that we are not waiting for someone to lead the meeting. It is surely an improvement over our days in Christianity, when we came into a church building Sunday morning and quietly took our seat, waiting for the leader to come and conduct the service.
For years I have been concerned about the elders’ sitting in the first row. This practice was begun by me in order for the elders to have a way to confer about anything that might come up during the meeting. But I realize it may give a false impression that these are the leaders.
To rightly conduct ourselves in the house of God also requires that we receive our orders directly from Christ, without any intermediary. The toenails may be the farthest from the head positionally, yet their orders go directly to them from the head, just as do those of the shoulder, which is closer to the head in position. We may refuse the Catholic blasphemy about a “holy mother” between the believers and Jesus, yet in practice we may want another saint to advise us what course to take.
Suppose a young believer goes to an elder and asks him if it is all right to go to the movies. In one way it is good that this new believer does not trust himself and would check with another saint, but from another aspect it is wrong to let someone else act as a leader or go-between to make his decision. From the very first time the young believer comes for advice, that elder should instruct him, “I may be able to help you, but I am not the Lord. You may be young, but the Lord Jesus is within you, just as He is in me. Go and check with Him. Kneel down and pray for Him to guide you.” To counsel the young one in this way means that both are respecting Christ’s lordship. How offensive it would be to His headship if that elder should say, “Brother, because I love you, I want to tell you the truth. Now that you are saved, you should not go to the movies. Christians should never go to the movies. That is a damage to the Lord’s testimony. Do you understand, brother? You must not go.” Do you realize that for the elder to speak in this fashion is for him to take the Lord’s place? We must instruct others to go again and again to the Lord until they are clear. The house of God is the church of the living God. We are living members with the living God inside us. The proper way to conduct ourselves in His house is to contact Him directly and to help others to do the same.
Besides being called the house of the living God, the church is also called the pillar and base of the truth. Here Paul alluded to the Mediterranean architecture of his day. The ancient buildings were designed to be supported by strong pillars or columns, which were placed on a base. The pillars held up the whole structure. The church is both the base and the pillar that bears the truth. It is not the elders but the church — every member — that bears this responsibility. This is why it is important for you young people to be well built up in the church. You must realize that the meetings are not for your entertainment but for your edification, your building up, so that you will have the discernment of the truth and will resist any lie that may be brought in.
One reason the United States is so strong is because of the respect given to the Constitution. Even the president must conform to it. What other country could peacefully depose a president for his disregard of the law of the land? As the pillar and base of the truth, the church must exercise the same vigilance to see that no falsehood, no evil, and no hierarchy contradicting the headship of Christ can be brought in. This is the responsibility of all the members.
The Epistle to the Philippians opens with this verse: “Paul and Timothy, slaves of Christ Jesus, to all the saints in Christ Jesus who are in Philippi, with the overseers and deacons” (1:1). Please notice the little word with. It indicates that the church’s major component is the saints; the elders and deacons are like attachments. By the choice of word in this verse the Holy Spirit would further impress us that the headship is Christ’s alone. The responsibility to uphold the truth belongs to the whole church, not just to the elders or deacons.
This is a need in the church today. We must learn the truth and how to defend it. Otherwise, the church will have no future. All of us must bear responsibility to know and practice the truth.
These are the two main matters concerning our conduct in the house of God: respecting the headship of Christ and knowing, keeping, and defending the truth.
