If the body of Christ is not institutional but organic, how does it actually function then? The box of our thinking, with respect to where the church operates, is that it's institutional; men 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 peoples’ 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 the people are members of the institution but have no connection to the leadership.
And a strange and interesting culture develops as a result of that disconnect. People will speak, 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?” This back and forth just 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 a particular way.
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 I Corinthians 4, “I became your father by this gospel.”
So, is Paul just walking a doctrinal tightrope here, daring to defy the Lord’s clear instruction? No, of course not.
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.” Well, the two things that are being spoken of, the father and the thing he fathered, are conceptually 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 meant is that there's no one on the earth from who you derived your innermost being because we have our very being from God; we live in Him, we move in Him, etc.
So, there can be no other relationship more intrusive into our beings than the relationship that we may have with God as our Father. When Paul said, “I became your father,” to the believers in Corinth, he was declaring that he was the father of the faith: they now believed in Jesus Christ through his gospel, as he himself would say it. He 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 they would become sons of God, they would become believers in Jesus Christ, and they'd grow from infancy to maturity) Paul would be the indispensable party to that entire process, his stamp on them was undeniable.
Therefore, he 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, by becoming a living example of what he preached, and yet another was to encourage them to follow in the manner in which he lived. In these ways, Paul had the right to correct them when they were wrong 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.
So, by Paul's example and writings we were supposed to understand that God appoints spiritual fathers 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, etc. 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.” The gospel necessarily includes fathers of the faith in Christ who are to model the gospel in their lives.
BUT, This is a far cry from the way people pastor today. Today pastoring is a remote undertaking. But in Scripture, pastoring, shepherding, 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.
Well, how exactly does this spiritual fathering 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 was the model pastor for all pastors and He only took on only those whom the Father gave to Him. Furthermore, He would give an account to the Father. So, at the end of His ministry, Jesus said, “Father, all those whom You have given to Me I have kept.”
The first element of spiritual fatherhood, the step that you cannot overlook and you cannot ignore, if you do this you're off on the wrong track, is that God assigns who the father is and who the sons are. That's the first, most basic truth that forms the alternative to religious institutions.
In a religious institution, a large net is thrown out. The bait in the net is a certain type of preaching or a certain type of entertainment, maybe a coffee bar or certain music. Largely, those things are meant to appeal to the souls of people. Even declarations of a certain level of piety like “King James only” or “We worship on the true Sabbath” etc. are used. All are designed to appeal to men’s pride or need for significance. Anyway, whoever is caught by that net, is drawn into the institution. They become members by a cognitive agreement.
Now here's the problem with that: when they come to a cognitive disagreement, they will go out as easily as they came in. That is what we are seeing today: the people moving from one congregation to another. A growth in one congregation typically follows a decline in another. Because people are just moving from one group to another. And, because decisions to move from one group to another are based on soulish needs, the largest groups will be those who appeal to the greatest number of souls needs: entertainment, significance, feelings, good music, etc.
The church today, generally speaking, cannot endure the intrusiveness of a spiritual father like Paul. He would say things to the Corinthians like, “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 will find the closest door and exit quickly. That's because the reality is much of the church is not maturing. The current church system, by and large, 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.
But here’s the rub: If you cannot discipline a person, (and just to be clear: to disciple someone is to discipline them and to discipline them is to narrow their scope of acceptable behavior) 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: 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.
And a strange and interesting culture develops as a result of that disconnect. People will speak, 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?” This back and forth just 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 a particular way.
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 I Corinthians 4, “I became your father by this gospel.”
So, is Paul just walking a doctrinal tightrope here, daring to defy the Lord’s clear instruction? No, of course not.
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.” Well, the two things that are being spoken of, the father and the thing he fathered, are conceptually 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 meant is that there's no one on the earth from who you derived your innermost being because we have our very being from God; we live in Him, we move in Him, etc.
So, there can be no other relationship more intrusive into our beings than the relationship that we may have with God as our Father. When Paul said, “I became your father,” to the believers in Corinth, he was declaring that he was the father of the faith: they now believed in Jesus Christ through his gospel, as he himself would say it. He 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 they would become sons of God, they would become believers in Jesus Christ, and they'd grow from infancy to maturity) Paul would be the indispensable party to that entire process, his stamp on them was undeniable.
Therefore, he 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, by becoming a living example of what he preached, and yet another was to encourage them to follow in the manner in which he lived. In these ways, Paul had the right to correct them when they were wrong 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.
So, by Paul's example and writings we were supposed to understand that God appoints spiritual fathers 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, etc. 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.” The gospel necessarily includes fathers of the faith in Christ who are to model the gospel in their lives.
BUT, This is a far cry from the way people pastor today. Today pastoring is a remote undertaking. But in Scripture, pastoring, shepherding, 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.
Well, how exactly does this spiritual fathering 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 was the model pastor for all pastors and He only took on only those whom the Father gave to Him. Furthermore, He would give an account to the Father. So, at the end of His ministry, Jesus said, “Father, all those whom You have given to Me I have kept.”
The first element of spiritual fatherhood, the step that you cannot overlook and you cannot ignore, if you do this you're off on the wrong track, is that God assigns who the father is and who the sons are. That's the first, most basic truth that forms the alternative to religious institutions.
In a religious institution, a large net is thrown out. The bait in the net is a certain type of preaching or a certain type of entertainment, maybe a coffee bar or certain music. Largely, those things are meant to appeal to the souls of people. Even declarations of a certain level of piety like “King James only” or “We worship on the true Sabbath” etc. are used. All are designed to appeal to men’s pride or need for significance. Anyway, whoever is caught by that net, is drawn into the institution. They become members by a cognitive agreement.
Now here's the problem with that: when they come to a cognitive disagreement, they will go out as easily as they came in. That is what we are seeing today: the people moving from one congregation to another. A growth in one congregation typically follows a decline in another. Because people are just moving from one group to another. And, because decisions to move from one group to another are based on soulish needs, the largest groups will be those who appeal to the greatest number of souls needs: entertainment, significance, feelings, good music, etc.
The church today, generally speaking, cannot endure the intrusiveness of a spiritual father like Paul. He would say things to the Corinthians like, “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 will find the closest door and exit quickly. That's because the reality is much of the church is not maturing. The current church system, by and large, 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.
But here’s the rub: If you cannot discipline a person, (and just to be clear: to disciple someone is to discipline them and to discipline them is to narrow their scope of acceptable behavior) 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: 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.
