Fathers and Sons in the Lord

In the church, we've been so used to institutional functioning that it's difficult to conceive of any other form of functionality. The box of our thinking, with respect to where the church operates, is that it's institutional; members derive their authority from the institution. This is the model that the Romans introduced in the 4th century AD when Constantine gave the church power and instituted the church of a state. Then, it didn't matter what the relationship was between the leaders and the people because the people were compelled by the state to observe certain norms. And, in fact, when you have a church that is the church of the people's culture, then you're automatically in it just by being born into it and so the institutions supplant the organic nature of the church and the result is: people feel no connection to the leadership but they're members.

And a strange and interesting culture develops as a result of that disconnect: People will speak of, on one hand, of their being members of a particular church, on the other hand, they'll speak disparagingly about the leaders of that church. “Since your pastor was so obviously a reprobate, why did you stay in the church?” And the answer that comes right back from that particular constituency is, “Look at what the priests do in the Roman church or what the bishops do in the Episcopal church, why are you still a member, why do you not quit?” And it highlights the point, that in an institutional church there is no assumed relationship between the leadership and the people; the people have a relationship to the organization, to the institution, and the institution determines who the leaders are by the particular polity that delivers that answer. And so the people have little connection to the leadership.

Jesus said, “Call no man on the earth your father, for one is your Father who is in heaven,” and on the other hand Paul said to the Corinthians in 1st Corinthians 4, “I became your father by this gospel.”

There are nine different meanings to the word 'father' in the Scriptures. The most intrusive meaning is the word progenitor, it means “the one from whom your origin is derived.” But there are other meanings such as such as one saying, “So and so is the father of this business,” or “he's the father of modern science.” In these examples, the two things that are being spoken of, the father and the thing he fathered, are conceptually very different beings or very different entities; one is a human being, the other is an idea or a concept. So, Paul was not the actual biological father of the Corinthians, he was not their progenitor in that sense. So when Jesus said, “Call no man on the earth your progenitor,” what He's saying is there's no one on the earth from who you derived your innermost being because we have our very being from Him; we live in Him, we move in Him, etc.

God, as our Father, is the ultimate relationship one may have with God. What Paul was saying, when he wrote, “I became your father,” is not he supplants God as their Father, for obvious reasons; Paul didn't give birth to them in any way like that; he's not their Creator. But, what Paul did do is he was the father of the faith to which they had come, they now believed in Jesus Christ through his gospel, as he himself would say it.

Furthermore, Paul not only preached the gospel to them, he modeled what the gospel meant to them. So, everything that they would become through the gospel, namely that they would become sons of God, that they would become believers in Jesus Christ and that they would grow from infancy to maturity, Paul would be the indispensable party to that entire process, his stamp on them was undeniable. Therefore Paul had a right to correct them because part of his fathering them in the gospel was to model the gospel, another part was to teach them what they were watching him do and yet another was to encourage them to follow. Even yet another facet of this same concept was to correct them or rebuke them when they would go astray or would miss the mark. All these things are among the things that a father would do, even if you didn't give birth to their being.

Aaron said, "And it highlights the point, that in an institutional church there is no assumed relationship between the leadership and the people; the people have a relationship to the organization, to the institution, and the institution determines who the leaders are by the particular polity that delivers that answer. And so the people have little connection to the leadership."

Mr. Aaron, you have hit the mark with that statement. Could not have stated it any better. Probably the number one reason for so much confusion in basic doctrine.

Thank you my friend.

This condition, I suppose, may be best summed up as a culture built upon celebrity wherein the popular, not the refined, are elevated in their stature.

Paul: "For though you might have ten thousand instructors in Christ, yet you do not have many fathers; for in Christ Jesus I have begotten you through the gospel."
Paul: "For this reason I have sent Timothy to you, who is my beloved and faithful son in the Lord..."
Paul: "Therefore I urge you, imitate me."
Paul: "I do not write these things to shame you, but as my beloved children I warn you."
Paul: "My little children, for whom I labor in birth again until Christ is formed in you..."
Paul: "..as you know how we exhorted, and comforted, and charged every one of you, as a father does his own children..."
Paul: "To Titus, a true son in our common faith..."
Paul: "I appeal to you for my son Onesimus, whom I have begotten while in my chains..."
Peter: "She who is in Babylon, elect together with you, greets you; and so does Mark my son."
John: "My little children, these things I write to you, so that you may not sin. And if anyone sins, we have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous."
John: "My little children, let us not love in word or in tongue, but in deed and in truth."
John: "I have no greater joy than to hear that my children walk in truth."


God appoints fathers in the Lord in the lives of His children to bring them to maturity, to model the gospel, to instruct them in righteousness, to correct them, to approve of them, to encourage them; all these things. These things are done by humans, not from the remote regions of heaven; they're actually done 'hands on' by those whom God appoints and sends. So, Paul said, “I became your father by the gospel.” This is a far cry from the way people pastor today. Today pastoring is a remote undertaking. But in Scripture, pastoring is descriptive of one of the functions of a father; it's one of the things a father does. So, Paul then is the father of the Corinthians and he has therefore a spiritual family over which he has the right to rule and to exert influence that they might become mature. And the sign of their maturity would become their ability to function alongside other believers under the headship of Jesus Christ.

How exactly does this relationship work? Paul refers to Timothy as his son in the gospel. Jesus commissioned us to go and make disciples of the nations. Discipling people begins with receiving those whom God gives you. Jesus himself being the model, the pattern Son who models discipleship for us, took on only those whom the Father gave to Him. And He would give an account to the Father at the end of His ministry for those. So, He would say, “Father, all those whom You have given to Me I have kept.” So, the first element of spiritual fatherhood, the first element, the step that you cannot overlook and you cannot ignore, if you do this you're off on the wrong track, is God assigning who the father is and who the sons are. That's the first, basic truth that forms the foundation of relationship that offends religious institutions.

In a religious institution, you throw out a net. That net is a net of ideas, intellectual constructs, perhaps entertainment. Whoever is caught by that net, you draw into the institution. They become yours by mental agreement. Now here's the problem with that: when they come to mental disagreement, they will become as readily the sons of the new persons whose ideas they've adopted. That explains why people move from one congregation to another so easily. You take growth today, in cities, in churches, there's no actual growth in numbers. In fact, in the majority of cases there is an overall decline in cities and we know that overall in nations, especially nations who have have a history of institutional religion, there are dramatic declines in the numbers of people going to churches overall, even though individual congregations may experience spikes in membership. If the overall trend is downward, from where do those come who spike the membership of a particular group? Well they come from the groups that they used to belong to and often so many move when there are troubles in these groups that the groups disband and the reconfiguration occurs in bigger and bigger groups but smaller and smaller numbers of these groups.

The global church today, and especially the church in the U.S., cannot endure the intrusiveness of Paul. For he would say to the Corinthians, 1st Corinthians 4, “Shall I come to you with gentleness or shall I come to you with a whip?” The preacher who says that today, “Shall I come to you with a whip?” ...the congregation is likely to be non existent when he does come with a whip. That's because the reality is - the realities in spite of all the fluff, in spite of all the noise to the contrary, the reality is the current church system produces and maintains orphans, fatherless people. And you cannot discipline an orphan because an orphan is someone who already knows the rejection of a father; that's why they're orphans, that's how they became orphans.

If you cannot discipline a person, you can never bring them to maturity. They may have positions that signify authority but if you put any weight on them, they'll go and find another position where they're more comfortable. Which means coddled in their insecurities rather than corrected and brought to maturity. Any relationship that cannot sustain correction, is a relationship in which the persons will remain immature. Now the problem with being immature is that God will not entrust the responsibilities of the kingdom to any immature person.

This may well be true for some, if not many congregations, however, it is not true for all!

Our churches does not derive it's worthiness from the Institution or the Leaders. We derive our worthiness from the Word of God. We are made holy by the indwelling presence of the Holy Spirit who is the Leading Power of our churches. We have no creed but the Word of God,

Pastors, Church Leaders must be chosen by our Committees and presented before the entire Congregation to be voted on for acceptance to Office. Those Leaders are directly responsible to the Congregation to lead our churches in accordance with the Word of God, and not the traditions of man. Our Leaders have only the power to govern that the Congregation gives them, and if the Congregation becomes displeased with their Leadership, the Congregation will remove them.

Voting for leadership in the church? Where is that in scripture?

Imagine if Paul could be voted out because he offended people.
That's not how a kingdom works. But I understand why it is done the way it is.