Particulars
of Christianity:
312
The Church Ethic
Conclusions:
1 Corinthians 14,
Church Gatherings & Leadership, Final Words
Introduction
& 3 Models of Church Gatherings and Leadership
Examining the Models
Examining the Models
Conclusions and Study Expectations
Examining Church Gatherings
in the Gospels
The First Supper, Jesus'
Specific Instructions, Conclusions
Survey of Post-Ascension
Church Gatherings
Apostolic and Eldership
Functions in Acts and the Epistles
1 Corinthians 1-10 &
Introduction to 1 Corinthians 11-14
1 Corinthians 11-13
1 Corinthians 14
1 Timothy 2:12, Conclusions
on Women in Church Gatherings
Conclusions: 1 Corinthians
14, Church Gatherings & Leadership
Conclusions
on 1 Corinthians 14 and Church Gatherings
Having
concluded our survey of early church gatherings with this
final component of 1 Corinthians 14, let us keep in mind what
we have learned from these important chapters in 1 Corinthians.
Paul’s prohibition against women speaking in the church is
the fourth type of restriction that he provides in this passage
and it fits very well with his theme from the proceeding portions
of this text.
First,
we have the indication that not all were apostles, prophets,
or teachers and that not all were the same part of the body
with the same function in the body. This implies directly
that not all would contribute in the same way, to the same
amount, or at the same time especially given that we have
seen repeated indications that the role of apostles and teachers
at the church meetings was teaching God’s word in a dominant
fashion. Second, we saw that Paul limited which types of activities
or gifts should be practice during church meetings. Again
his comments limited the activities to those which would profit
all persons through the sharing of instruction, teaching,
and insights that would build the understanding of the church.
This is identical to what we have seen repeatedly that the
apostles and elders did through the administration of the
word at the church gatherings described in other passages
throughout the New Testament. Third, Paul places some kind
of restriction on the number prophets and speakers in tongues
who could speak. And fourth, we have a prohibition against
women speaking at the meetings.
Now
it is one thing to dispute what exactly Paul was intending
to restrict in each of these cases. It is quite another thing
to assert that nowhere in the course of the 84 verses comprising
1 Corinthians 12-14 does Paul limit or restrict who participates
and how they participate during church gatherings. If there
is one thing that is the most difficult to resist from these
chapters it is that Paul is clearly not describing a system
in which when the church met together everyone participates
equally and in the same way as everyone else.
Instead,
it is unavoidable that Paul is saying that not everyone will
participate in the same function, that not everyone will participate
in the same amount, that some may
not participate at all, and that only teaching-oriented gifts
should be practice in the church gatherings by those specific
persons who have those teaching gifts. In the first century
church, this included, apostles, prophets, teachers, and (if
there was an interpreter present) those who could speak in
tongues. It did not include other types of gifts, which weren’t
teaching-oriented. It did not include skits and poems. It
did not include more than two or three persons leading (although
others in the audience could certainly interrupt with questions
or short comments of their own). And it did not include women
speaking, teaching, or asking questions. Since the spiritual
gifts are not available to the church today, the limitations
on what may be practiced in a church gathering are reduced
even further to include only those who can competently teach
the word.
In
a nutshell, Paul’s instructions for participation at church
gatherings in 1 Corinthians are as follows:
1.
Not everyone has the same gifts. Only teaching-oriented gifts
should be practiced in the church gatherings. Consequently,
since not everyone has a teaching-oriented gift not everyone
will participate.
2.
Only two to three with teaching gifts should take turns presenting.
3.
Men can ask questions.
4.
Women must remain silent and cannot teach or ask questions
during the meetings.
Summary
of New Testament Church Gatherings and Leadership Study
Now
that we have studied in detail every passage in the New Testament
that discusses church gatherings and leadership, we should
compare what we’ve learned to our three models.
First,
we would like to highlight a point that has not been directly
stated so far. Early in this study we discussed how the Last
Supper was really intended to be the First Supper in the sense
that it was intended by Jesus to serve as the model for all
church gatherings, not just concerning the meal but all of
its components. Over the course of our study we have seen
that this was true, but we have not always stopped to point
it out. According to the Gospel accounts, the Last Supper
consisted of a long teaching segment dominated by Jesus Christ,
his disciples interrupting with questions and comments, corporate
prayers led by Jesus, no vocal participation by the women
followers, and even a psalm being sung (Matthew 26:30, Mark
14:26). It is no wonder that the rest of the instructions
for church gatherings found in the New Testament touch on
these exact same components. Even the very long commentary
in 1 Corinthians 11-14 contains all these essential components,
including one to three speakers dominating through teaching-oriented
gifts, the rest of the men judging and asking questions, the
silence of women, and even the opportunity for some singing.
Since these components are also present in the Last Supper,
it is right that we should use the Last Supper as the preeminent
model for each of these components when we interpret later
passages on church gatherings and when we assemble for gatherings
today.
Second,
before we began our long survey and study of the New Testament’s
discussion of church gatherings and leadership, we identified
three models that are available and in use in the modern church
today. All three models claim the New Testament as their foundation.
We named these three models the Pseudo-traditional model,
the Viola model, and the Elder-Leadership model and defined
them in regards to their chief characteristics and the expectations
each projected. These key features and their inherent expectations
were placed into categories regarding four main issues of
church gatherings and leadership. The result was as follows.
Category
A: Church Leadership.
1.
The Pseudo-traditional
Model – New Testament church communities will be lead
by a single individual head pastor. New
Testament church communities will not involve shared leadership
distributed to a group of elders or overseers who together
share the leadership of the church community.
2.
The Viola Model
– New Testament church communities will be lead by a group
of individuals called elders or overseers who together share
the leadership of the church community. New
Testament church communities will not be lead by a single
individual head pastor.
3.
The Elder-Leadership
Model – New Testament church communities will be lead
by a group of individuals called elders or overseers who together
share the leadership of the church community. New
Testament church communities will not be lead by a single
individual head pastor.
Category
B: The Communion Meal.
1.
The Pseudo-traditional
Model – New Testament communion meals will consist of
only a small portion of bread and a small portion of wine.
New Testament communion meals will not consist of a full meal.
2.
The Viola Model
– New Testament communion meals will consist of a full meal.
New Testament communion meals will not consist
of only a small portion of bread and a small portion of wine.
3.
The Elder-Leadership
Model – New Testament communion meals will consist of
a full meal. Testament
communion meals will not consist of only a small portion of
bread and a small portion of wine.
Category
C: Format and Common Features of the Meeting (not including
Communion.)
1.
The Pseudo-traditional
Model – New Testament church gatherings will consist of
a large segment of musical worship and a large segment devoted
to an absolutely uninterruptable teaching from the head pastor.
New Testament church gatherings will not involve any participation from
anyone besides the main speaker.
2.
The Viola Model
– New Testament church gatherings will consist of every person
participating, functioning, and contributing equally. New
Testament meetings will involve various types of activities
including: singing a song, reading a poem, performing a skit,
giving a short teaching, giving a word of encouragement, providing
a testimony, or offering a prayer. New Testament church gatherings will not contain special roles or tasks
reserved for certain, distinct individuals including pastors
or elders/overseers. New
Testament church gatherings will not involve one, two, or
three individuals dominating the time and contributions of
the meeting while all other attendees contribute and participate
to a much lesser extent (primarily in the role of an audience).
New Testament meetings will not contain long sections of musical
worship or teaching.
3.
The Elder-Leadership
Model – New Testament church gatherings will consist of
a large teaching component lead by one to three male leader(s)
called elders and may be interrupted by other men with questions
or comments. New Testament church gatherings will also include
prayer (and possibly some singing). New Testament church gatherings will not consist
of a large segment of musical worship or an absolutely uninterruptable
teaching from a head pastor. New Testament church gatherings
will not consist of every person participating, functioning,
and contributing equally.
Category
D: Gender Participation.
1.
The Pseudo-traditional
Model – (Views on the participation of women in leadership
and church services will vary depending on the denomination.)
2.
The Viola Model
– New Testament church gatherings will include the participation
of both men and women with no distinctions or limitations
based on gender. New Testament church gatherings will not be
limited to participation from men only and will not restrict
the participation of women.
3.
The Elder-Leadership
Model – New Testament church gatherings will limit participation
to men only. New Testament church gatherings will not include examples of women speaking,
teaching, or asking questions.
Having
now completely our thorough investigation of the New Testament
on this subject, we are now in a position to make some final
conclusions in regards to which of the above models fits the
New Testament record. As we do we should keep in mind that
what we find in the New Testament is prescriptive and binding
as far as church gatherings for all generations.
Our
first category (category A) dealt with the issue of church
leadership. What did we learn about the ongoing and normal
mode of church leadership that the apostles established in
the New Testament churches? Was church leadership of each
local church community placed solely in the hands of a single,
authoritative individual as is commonly practiced in Roman
Catholic and Protestant churches? Or was church leadership
of each local church community shared equally by a group of
men in that community who together had oversight?
In
the New Testament it is clear that all church leadership was
shared by consensus of the leaders. This was true among both
the apostles and their successors, the local church elders.
In the New Testament there was no singular, universal head
of the church other than Jesus Christ and there were no singular
heads over local churches. Because of these facts, we must
reject at least this aspect of the Pseudo-traditional model
for church leadership in favor of that offered by the Viola
and Elder-Leadership models.
Our
second category (category B) dealt with the issue of the communion
meal. What did we learn from the New Testament about the communal
meals of the early church gatherings? Were these meals simply
a single serving of bread and a single serving of wine as
practiced by Roman Catholic and Protestant churches today?
From
the New Testament study it was clear that the communion meal
was based on the Old Testament Passover meal. This meal was
a full meal and consisted of more than just a small piece
of bread and a tiny cup of wine. The early church continued
to share these full meals with one another in their gatherings
throughout the New Testament period. Since this is the case,
we are forced to reject the highly abbreviated communion meal
of Roman Catholic and Protestant tradition presented in the
Pseudo-traditional model. Instead, if we wish to follow essential
New Testament teaching in obedience to Jesus’ command the
night before he died, we must return to the practice of the
early church as called for by the Viola and Elder-Leadership
models. We must reincorporate a regular, full meal as a central
act of our weekly Christian gatherings.
Category
C dealt with the format and common features of the New Testament
church meeting (besides communion, which we covered in category
B.) In this category there was a greater diversity among the
three models. Meetings of the Pseudo-traditional practiced
by Protestant churches today include a large segment of musical
worship followed by a long, absolutely uninterruptible monologue
given by the head pastor. The Viola model, instead, claims
that church meetings must consist of every person participating,
functioning, and contributing equally with no persons being
more dominant than others, with no long teaching segments,
and with various activities including a song, a poem, a skit,
a short teaching, a word of encouragement,
a testimony, or a prayer. And finally, the Elder-Leadership
model calls for a church meeting that is chiefly characterized
by the teaching of one to three of the church elders, but
which is open for other men to ask questions or make comments.
Which
of these three different models did we see presented in the
New Testament? From the on-the-job training of the disciples
during Jesus’ ministry and continuing after Jesus’ ascension
and the day of Pentecost into the latest portions of New Testament
scripture only one model is presented. Jesus’ meetings with
his disciples were characterized by his dominant teaching
and their asking questions. After Jesus’ ascension and the
day of Pentecost, the apostles continued in the model they
had learned from Jesus. They dominate the church meetings,
teaching Jesus’ doctrines to the church community of Jerusalem.
Paul did similarly in all of the churches that he established
and visited. And as the apostles themselves left behind the
Christian communities of the first century, they trained and
appointed groups of elders or overseers to watch over the
flock through the teaching of Jesus’ doctrine and refuting
of false beliefs. The terminology that is used in the New
Testament in presenting of the role of the elders as teachers,
overseers, and shepherds or pastors is identical to the role
held first by Jesus and distributed by Jesus to his apostles.
The
New Testament bears no accounts of large segments of musical
worship or of an uninterruptible monologue reserved for a
single head pastor. Neither do we see anywhere where the meeting
was characterized by every person participating, functioning,
and contributing equally. From the four gospels through the
Book of Acts and through the epistles, participation in meetings
was restricted to teaching-oriented activities and was restricted
to one to three individuals leading the presentation. Without
the spiritual gifts in operation today, the nature of these
teaching gifts will be further restricted to biblical exegesis.
Certainly, each meeting included prayer. And we have some
indication that psalms or hymns may occasionally have been
shared, though there is very little emphasis or information
we could use to establish any more significant place for musical
worship in our church meetings. (See also our article entitled
“The Importance of Music in Worship.”)
Because
of the pervasive New Testament depiction of and instruction
for church gatherings to be characterized chiefly by the teaching
by one to three elders with participation open for men to
ask questions and comment, we must reject the Pseudo-traditional
model’s inclusion of large musical segments and uninterruptible
monologues. Likewise, we must also discard Frank Viola’s notion
of a church meeting where every person participates, functions,
contributes, and shares in an equal manner and to the same
extent as one another. Nothing like either of these models
can be found anywhere in the New Testament record including
in Paul’s instructions for church gatherings in 1 Corinthians
11-14. The result is that we should adopt the Elder-Leadership
model for its adherence to the model of church meetings instituted
by the apostles and enacted in every New Testament church
community. This model is teaching-dominant, led by one to
three elders, and open to questions and comments from other
men.
The
final category (category D) dealt with the question of gender
participation. The alternative offered by the Viola model
claimed that women could participate, speak, teach, and ask
questions during church meetings just as the men could. In
contrast to this, the Elder-Leadership model restricted participation
only to men. Women are not permitted to speak, teach, or ask
questions in the church meetings. As we surveyed the New Testament
material on this subject we found that the biblical facts
warrant the adoption of the Elder-Leadership model’s prohibition
against women participating in church.
First
among these facts was the complete lack of a single instance
of women speaking, teaching, or asking questions in a church
gathering. Second, we saw that meetings were teaching-oriented,
that the teaching was presented by the elders, and that only
men could be elders. Third, we saw several specific prohibitions
written to two different church communities prohibiting the
women from speaking in church or teaching men. And last, the
New Testament prohibitions against women speaking in church
were connected to larger Christian theological issues such
as the headship of Christ over the church, the headship of
the husband over the wife, and the submission of the wife
to the husband, the creation of man before woman, and the
deception of Eve by the serpent. Because of these scriptural
facts the prohibition against women speaking in church must
be upheld and the Viola model, which embraces the participation
of women in church gatherings, must be rejected.
As
we conclude our examination of these models in light of the
New Testament, only one model, the Elder-Leadership model
embodies and continues the binding prescriptions and commands
for church gatherings that are recorded in the New Testament.
It follows that if we wish for our modern church meetings
to validly follow the model established in the New Testament
we should include a full meal for communion and fellowship
in sober remembrance and celebration of the New Covenant we
have through Jesus’ death and resurrection. Besides the communion
meal, our meetings should chiefly consist of a teaching-oriented
presentation lead by one to three elders characterized by
biblical exegesis with participation open for men to ask questions
or make comments. There should also be prayer and perhaps
a psalm or song. In addition women should be silent during
these teaching-oriented segments. Church gatherings will most
frequently occur in the homes of the Christians in that local
church community as an aspect of the shared lives and livelihood
we have with our spiritual family.
Lastly,
let us take one final look at Hebrews 10:25.
Hebrews 10:25 Not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as the manner of
some is; but exhorting one another: and so much
the more, as ye see the day approaching.
As
we saw earlier, Hebrews 10:25 is a command that Christians
should not abandon or forsake gathering together, but should
do so all the more as the day of Christ’s return approaches.
By all counts that day is nearer now than when this verse
was first written. And yet, we must ask whether Christians
today are following this command?
Surely,
modern Christians are still gathering together with one another.
But are they meeting after the manner instituted by Jesus
Christ and His apostles in the New Testament churches? Our
study has shown that most of us are not. Are we to suppose
that the author of Hebrews intended this instruction to be
understood as “get together in any way you want to just don’t
stop getting together?” Isn’t it obvious that this command
not to abandon getting together necessarily and inherently
includes the command that we must continue to meet in the
manner that was taught and practiced in all of the New Testament
churches? Surely, this command to continue in the same manner
of meeting is implicit in the command to continue meeting.
And yet, most of us are gathering in a manner which deviates
in almost every way from the custom of meeting taught and
practiced in all New Testament Christian churches. Haven’t
most of us then abandoned the gathering together of the New
Testament church?
We
would like to leave our readers with a few final additional
questions. If we wish to follow Christ and reject man-made
traditions how can we continue to operate within a modern
church system defined by practices which differ so completely
from that of the New Testament church? If we have genuinely
pledged ourselves to Christ and seek to be members of His
church shouldn’t we reject all these post-biblical accommodations
and return in sincerity to New Testament Christian practice?
If we do not, what justification can we offer to God for the
man-made deviations we have applied to His divine blueprint
for His church? Furthermore, why would we continue in man-made
para-churches when it is entirely possible to come out from
these compromised, corporation-style institutions that we
have built and instead, live in real, New Testament Christian
communities? What could we validly say is too great a cost
for following the New Testament teachings of Jesus Christ
for His church? And if we do decide that the cost is too great
to follow Christ in these things and instead set them aside
for our own traditions can we still truthfully call ourselves
His disciples and His church? And lastly, is it right for
us to respond to Jesus’ command to “do this in remembrance
of me” with a counter offer saying “that’s not going to work
for us, we have a better idea”?
Final
Words on Frank Viola’s Contributions
Before
we close this long study, we would like to add a few additional
words on Frank Viola’s contributions to the study and practice
of home church gatherings and non-institutional leadership.
As we said in our introduction Viola deserves commendation
for his recognition of the errors and deviations of modern
church practice. He deserves credit for his many years of
earnest effort to get others to reconsider the basis for our
modern traditions. In particular, Viola has done a good job
cataloguing and historically chronicling the deviations that
led to today’s church practices and pointing out their origin
in Roman imperial and pagan religious custom rather than in
New Testament teaching. We share agreement with Viola in these
areas as well as in his rejection of the such specific, unbiblical
practices as the fully-salaried pastoral staff, the singular
headship of the modern pastor, church buildings, the excesses
of musical worship, scripturally deficient sermons based on
Greco-Roman rhetoric and oration rather than biblical exposition,
the abbreviated communion meal, and the isolation of modern
Christians from a true sense of familial community.
Unfortunately,
these agreements with Viola are minimized in light of the
significant disagreements that we have with him over the issues
of local church leadership, the format and features of church
gatherings, the importance and role of elders and overseers,
the participation of women in church meetings, and the value
of informed and reasoned scriptural analysis. The reason that
we have given priority to expressing and detailing our disagreements
with Viola rather than affirming the areas of our agreement
stems from the challenging nature of participating in home
church Christianity in the modern world.
While
Viola must be recognized for his contributions in bringing
home church Christianity into the larger Christian discussion,
it is also for this reason that his views must be scrutinized.
As a spokesman and one of the few known home church proponents
to make it in the public forum, Viola’s perspectives and errors
will be taken by those who oppose and resist home church Christianity
as representative of all home church groups everywhere. As
one of those home church communities, we feel it is necessary
to proclaim our disagreements with what we feel are some serious
misunderstandings offered by Viola in his writings on the
subject of New Testament church gatherings and leadership.
Our hope is that by taking the time to thoroughly present
our points of view in the light of a tedious scriptural examination
we will responsibly demonstrate the capability of the home
church approach to both competently handle scripture in a
logically sound, biblically informed, and historically consistent
manner as well as to offer a more accurate biblical model
for Christians to practice today in fulfillment of New Testament
protocol.