Pulpiteer or Practitioner ?

Jim Eliff lays out a clear job description for Ministers in what he en-titles "the first principle of decision making". Christ centered elders who maintain a life immersed in the scriptures will immediately draw from the objective source of inscripturated revelation when decision making is required.

Unfortunately, there are to many ministers who claim a high view of scripture from the pulpit but in reality are functional secularist when circumstances call for them to be practitioner's of "It Is Written!"

For these Ezekiel 34 pseudo shepherds, rationalism, pragmatism, existentialism and relational sentimentalism rules the day.

May the Exalted Christ keep us from becoming such uncharactered leaders!

[rgh]

"When Christ is recognized as the Head of His church, decision-making begins with a prayerful and serious attempt to find out what Christ has already said on the matter. He has said plenty in most cases. When elders learn this, their mission for the church changes. They now see themselves as “under-shepherds,” with their authority derived from the true Shepherd, not inherent within them as qualified people. Elders’ meetings will be concerted efforts to interpret Scripture for the sake of the church and the glory of Christ.

In our elders’ meetings, for instance, a long portion of our weekly four hours together is commonly spent with our Bibles in hand, seeking to uncover God’s will for our church. This last year, our labors ended up in a book on the subject of divorce and remarriage. All we were doing was what every elder team should do. We wanted to find out what Christ wanted us to do about divorce before we had our first case. You may not agree with our conclusions, but we have done our best to be faithful to Christ in our study.[1] We have also written other documents that were efforts at understanding what Christ has already said to the churches about certain church matters.

In cases where the Lord has not revealed His will directly in the Bible, elders should still turn to the words of Scripture to find the related principles that will help them know the ways of Christ with His church. By prayerfully seeking wisdom (James 1:2-3), a biblical and Christ-sent answer will be found. This is the pattern, for instance, when the leaders of the early church met in Jerusalem to discuss intra-church issues related to the inclusion of Gentiles. The questions were answered through Scripture, as well as through prayer-saturated, biblically-based wisdom about how to address that difficulty in the experience of the universal church life and mission (see Acts 15). "

http://www.ccwtoday.org/article_view.asp?article_id=238

related:
>http://antagoniz.com/2009/07/28/principle-centered-vs-preference-oriented/#more-264
>http://antagoniz.com/2009/05/03/biblical-manhood-and-womanhood/
(By Lance Quinn)