Does Submitting to the Elders Mean We Have to Do Whatever They Say?

Does submitting to the elders at our church mean we have to do whatever they say? That's just one of the questions we'll be answering on today's edition of CORE Christianity. Well, hi, I'm Bill Meyer, along with Pastor Adriel Sanchez. This is the radio program where we answer your questions about the Bible and the Christian life every day. Here's our phone number. It's 833-THE-CORE.

That's 1-833-843-26. You can also post your question on one of our social media sites, and of course you can always email us your question at questionsatcorechristianity.com. First up today, let's go to Christian calling in from Arkansas. Christian, what's your question for Pastor Adriel? Hi, so I'll start by saying when we look at Christmas, it's a holiday that's supposed to be centered around Christ.

As far as everything like that, there's a mixture of things in there. When we start mixing in Santa Claus and the consumerism and the gifts and this and that, it's all been anthropomorphized to be symbolic to the Christian faith, but I've been experiencing division because ever since I was a little kid, whenever I found out that Santa Claus wasn't real and it didn't take my parents telling me to see that there was an S on a present underneath a tree in early December. It just occurs to me now that whenever we talk... I get criticism for not being in the Christmas spirit.

It hit me when someone said that. The Christmas spirit is not the Holy Spirit. It's almost like there's this consumerism holiday that's hidden by the shield of virtue and protected by us Christians when in reality Santa Claus and presents don't deserve the throne of God. So is it ridiculous to think that we should say yes, have your Christmas, have your Santa Claus, have your present, but keep Jesus out of it because they do not hold the same, that they do not deserve to be on the throne with him, that he deserves his own recognition.

We don't need to be mixing anything with it. Hey, Christian, thank you for that question. I think a lot of things that frustrate you, frustrate me, frustrate a lot of pastors that I know as well, where you take this season, this time, where oftentimes we'll say as Christians, this is about Jesus. In particular, this is about his incarnation, the incarnation of the Son of God, the Word coming to redeem us from our sins. And yet the reality is you talk to most people out there on the street and when they think of the holiday season, when they think of Christmas, they're thinking about, as you said, the presents.

Jesus has been maybe dethroned, as you put it there, by the consumerism and things that you're absolutely right are not honoring to the Lord. Now, of course, giving gifts to each other, there's nothing wrong with that, but what is central in our minds? The first thing I'll say is that under the New Covenant and the New Testament, we don't have holy days, if you will, beyond the Lord's Day, the Christian Sabbath. We gather together on the first day of the week for worship as Christians to celebrate the fact that Jesus Christ has conquered death once and for all. But throughout the history of the church, there have been times, and really early on, the celebration of the incarnation, Christmas, or whatever you want to refer to it as, was something that Christians were doing, focusing on this great event in redemptive history, because the incarnation of Jesus Christ is central to our salvation. God united humanity to himself through the incarnation so that he might redeem it, so that he might redeem us, and that is something we should talk about and celebrate.

The problem is oftentimes we don't, not during Christmastime and not throughout the year. I happen to like, in December, to focus on that, to talk about the coming of the Lord Jesus, to talk about the incarnation, because I find that there are a lot of Christians who are just confused about this. It's what we call Christology, the doctrine of Christ. In particular, we're getting deep here into some theology, but it's important for you guys to know good theology, because this is how we grow in our understanding of the Lord and our worship of him.

We're talking about what's called the hypostatic union. That is the divine person, the eternal son of God, the word, uniting humanity to himself in the incarnation so that you have one divine person with two natures, human and divine, so that he might redeem us and save us. This is central to the gospel, so we should talk about it. We shouldn't just say, let's get rid of it, but we should prioritize that and really think about when we celebrate Christmas with our families, is Jesus the focus, or are we just stressed out and upset at each other and just family feuds? We've got to take a step back and say, Lord, help us to honor you. I know we're a long way away from Christmas, so what I'll say is this is how it should be with everything. We don't want anything in our lives to take the place of Christ, the centrality of his work for us.

It can. You think of the parable of the soils that Jesus told where he says the cares of the world, the desire for riches choked up the seed of the word so that it became unfruitful. We don't want that to happen to us around Christmas time.

We certainly don't want it to happen to us any time. So we fix our eyes on Christ and on his gospel and draw near to him by faith. Christian, I appreciate your question and may the Lord bless you. By the way, we have a great resource on this topic. It's called Five Reasons Christmas is Not a Pagan Holiday. It's one of our core guides. You can find that by going to corechristianity.com forward slash guides. Again, corechristianity.com forward slash guides.

Look for Five Reasons Christmas is Not a Pagan Holiday. Let's go back to the phones. Eric is on the line from Iowa Falls, Iowa. Eric, what's your question for Adriel? Hi, Pastor Adriel.

I have a question. Recently, on an interview, I heard a person say that God had told them to give a certain amount of money to this ministry. And I've heard things like that before where someone would say, well, God told me to go there or do this or help someone this way or he told me this is a person to marry. I was wondering, does God actually speak like that? You know, I prayed before and maybe I felt led to do something, but I've never heard God tell me to do something. So I wanted to see what you thought about this. Eric, such a good question.

Such a practical one, man, because we hear that. I think you hear that as a Christian. You think, well, maybe I'm just not as connected to God as this other person is. And you can begin to feel discouraged. And you read the Bible and it seems like God was talking to people, you know, Moses speaking directly to the apostles. And that's not your experience.

Well, let me just say to you that you're not alone, Eric. Ordinarily, that's not how God leads us and guides us. Now, sometimes in God's providence, could we have this sense that the Lord is really steering us in a particular direction?

Yeah, sure. And sometimes it can even be, you know, in extraordinary ways that the Lord is providentially guiding us or just seems like, man, these doors just, it seems like they magically opened up and I know it just has to be the Lord. But ordinarily, he uses the wisdom of his word, the wisdom of others around us who are encouraging us in him to help to guide us. And so you have this category of wisdom in scripture where I think we study the word and we grow in our understanding of the word, in the understanding of God's will for our lives. When we talk about God's will, specifically when we're thinking about his revealed will, you know, what he says to us in his law, what he calls us to, we want to shape our lives around that, following him, obeying him, serving him.

And so a lot of times, you know, there's decisions that are put before us and it's not like one is right and the other one is wrong, it's just a matter of wisdom. And so we have to study the scriptures and pray and say, God, guide me, whether that's through closing a door or opening a door or just giving me a sense of where it is that you want to be, want me to be. But we shouldn't expect that God is going to open the windows of heaven and say, hey, you're supposed to marry Sally, not Jenny.

I think, again, we got to get back to the wisdom of the word. Too often, let me just say this, Eric, people are looking for some sort of feeling and that feeling is the indication that God is leading them in a certain direction. And I've even heard people say, well, I know that this goes against God's word, but I really felt God giving me the freedom to do this. That's not what divine guidance looks like. You're being led by yourself, you're being led by your feelings, not the word of God. And so I would say ordinarily, the way in which God leads us when we think about decision making is through the wisdom of his word, through the encouragement of others, solid brothers and sisters in the Lord that we can go to for counsel.

There's wisdom there in a multitude of counselors. And then through just the providential circumstances of life as we're praying, as we're saying, Lord, provide for this so that I might be able to do this. And he opens those doors. You can say, okay, God, thank you. I praise you and walk through those doors confident that the Lord is leading you. But don't feel bad if you're not hearing a voice from heaven or having a vision saying, you know, go here and not there. Can God do that?

Sure. Can God actually do that in extraordinary circumstances? Maybe. I think a lot of people, you know, are just saying, I felt this way, are just saying God spoke to them.

But in reality, it's just a feeling that they had. But God can do whatever he wants. I mean, he's the Lord. But ordinarily, he's going to work through his word and through godly people in your life. And so, Eric, may God bless you. May he comfort you. May he give you wisdom. And I hope that you, as you continue to grow in your understanding of the scriptures, live a life of wisdom in the decisions that you make day by day. God bless. Eric, thanks so much for your call and for listening to Core Christianity. We really do appreciate you. If you have a question for us about the Bible or the Christian life, we would love to hear from you.

Our number is 833-THE-CORE. And of course, you can always email us at questions at corechristianity.com. Want to tell you about a really cool new Bible study that we have available for you.

It's actually one that Adriel co-wrote with his co-author, Josh Maloney. Yeah, it's a study that goes through one of my favorite books in the New Testament, the book of Hebrews. Back when I was preaching through Hebrews, it was funny.

The team here at CORE would always say, whenever to answer the questions, you know, we'd get a phone call. And I was always going to the book of Hebrews because it's so rich. And it does contain the answers to so many of the questions that we ask as Christians.

In particular, you know, we're always talking on this broadcast about assurance. How can I know that I belong to Jesus? Who are the covenant people? I mean, so much of the book of Hebrews addresses these kinds of questions as the author is calling a group of Christians who are drifting. They're wandering away from Jesus. He's calling them back to the gospel and to the once for all sacrifice of Jesus, which is sufficient to put away all of our sins.

And that's something we all need to be called back to, frankly, every single day reminded of that great truth of the fact that our sins have been washed away and we're called to live in light of that great reality. And so I hope you get a hold of this Bible study. It's a 10-week study through the book of Hebrews, and I believe it'll bless you. And so it's yours over at corechristianity.com for a gift of $15 or more. You know, all of our Bible studies are great for personal study, but you can also use them in a small group or a Sunday school format. In fact, if you're kind of looking for a resource for something to use this fall in a Sunday school class or small group, you might want to consider this new Bible study on the book of Hebrews. Again, go to corechristianity.com forward slash offers to learn more.

Well, here's an email that we received from one of our listeners earlier this week, or actually over the weekend. Josh says this, I've heard Hebrews 1317 used over the years to justify an almost cult-like obedience to a pastor. From what color shirts to wear to justifying questionable decisions, does this verse really command us to blindly do as we are told? No, it does not command you to blindly do as you are told. If you're in a church where your pastor is saying you need to wear this color shirt, there is a huge issue, I would say.

You're probably going to want to find a different church because he's stepping out of line there. Now, let me just read the verse that you referenced, Hebrews 13 verse 7. Remember your leaders. Those who spoke to you the word of God, consider the outcome of their way of life and imitate their faith. Then he goes on to say in verse 17, that was verse 7, obey your leaders and submit to them, for they are keeping watch over your souls as those who will give an account.

Let them do this with joy and not with groaning, for that would be of no advantage to you. A couple of things I want to highlight here. I'm glad you brought this verse up because I think this is something that many people need to hear. First, when it comes to the authority of the church, we need to distinguish between what we call a ministerial authority and a magisterial authority. Ministers of the gospel, pastors like myself, we don't have the authority to make up rules for people. We don't have that magisterial authority that God has, that his word has over our lives, calling us to submission and faith. As ministers of the word, we're calling people to submit to the word, to the law of God, to what God calls us to as Christians. That's the only authority that we have and so we preach the gospel. We call people to faith. We call Christians to walk in accordance with what God's law says, what God's word says, and insofar as people don't do that, then I think there's this call to submit, to obey specifically there.

But we do so as ministers. It is this ministerial authority serving God and his word and calling people to obedience to that. And so when a pastor is making up rules for people saying, well, I know that it doesn't say this in scripture, but you have to dress this way in particular.

You always have to wear red on Sunday or you have to do this, that or the other. They're abusing their authority. They're stepping outside of their authority and that's a serious problem. This is something that the Protestant reformers actually had to address during the time of the Reformation because the issue was there were all these practices within the church that were not rooted in scripture and people felt bound to these things. Their consciences were bound to these things and it was a huge issue. So there was a call back to the word of God and back to submission to the authority of God's word and pastors as ministers of the word of God calling people to that. And so that's where we're called to obey and to submit.

Now, here's the other thing I wanted to say. There came a point in my life when I was in college, I believe, where I would read verses like this and I just thought, I don't have anyone over me to whom I'm accountable. I don't have anyone who's watching over my soul. Yeah, I've got Christian friends and Christian community and we'll talk about the Bible and even talk about theology, but I'm not a member of a local church accountable to the elders there, to the ministry that's taking place. I go to churches when I feel like it, sometimes here or there, but really being connected to a local church, there are a lot of people and maybe you're one of these people, you profess faith in Christ, but if I asked you who's keeping watch over your soul, who are the elders to whom you're accountable, you wouldn't be able to say anybody because you're not a member of a church, you're not really plugged in anywhere. I just want you to note this, the New Testament assumes, as these letters are being written, there's the assumption that Christians are plugged into churches where they're being cared for, spiritually speaking, where something like this makes sense, it's coherent.

He's writing, he's saying, obey your leaders and submit to them. There are people in my life who are calling me to obey God's word, to follow him, for they are keeping watch over your souls. Friends, we need that in the Christian life. We need people who are keeping watch over our souls.

Why? Because the Christian life was not meant to be lived in isolation. 1 Corinthians 12, each of us is a part of the body, a member of the body, but none of us individually are the whole body. We're a part of the body called to grow together in the faith under the ministry of the word.

I want to say that because I think it's so important. We want to be in good churches where the ministers understand the extent, the scope of their authority. It's not to command us to do things that aren't written in scripture, to give us laws that God has not given to us. It's to call us to follow Jesus and to obey his word and to set that example for us as pastors and elders.

I hope that you have that. As I said, if you're in a church where that's not happening, where actually there's this heavy-handed rule and all sorts of new laws being invented, on behalf of God, I would say run from that. That's legalism and get into a place where the gospel of Christ is exalted and the word of God is respected.

Now, Adriel, you're accountable to your elder board. What if they told you what shirt to wear? What if they said wear a Hawaiian shirt when you're preaching?

On Sunday? Yeah, if my elder board said wear a Hawaiian shirt, I would say, you guys are going to buy it. If you want me to wear it, you guys better buy it.

No, I'm just joking. Thankfully, I don't think that the elders that I serve alongside of, really wonderful men, would ever say, hey, you need to wear this. If I was really dressed and kind of scrappy, they might say, come on, bud, you need to get up your game. What a blessing it is to get to serve alongside of others who love Jesus and want to serve his church. Amen, that's great.

This is Core Christianity with Pastor Adriel Sanchez. Let's go back to the phones. We have Adrian on the line from St. Louis, Missouri.

Adrian, what's your question for Adriel? Can you hear me? Hey, I can hear you, man. OK, how are you doing, Pastor? I'm doing well. How are you? I'm doing good. So I talked to you last week. I called in last week about a young man that I ministering to that had, he's trying to choose between Christianity and the Mormon religion.

So I just want to give an update on him. He chose Christianity. Oh, man. Praise God. Yeah, that's why I thank you for your prayers with that. But I do have a question that he asked me and the reason why he chose Christianity, because he said he didn't feel right in his spirit. They they asked him to make sure that before he's baptized to make sure that he cleanses for two weeks.

No sin, no alcohol, no drugs and different things like that. And he came to me and asked me, what did what did I think about that? I said, well, that's false. I said, you know, Christ tells us to come as we are. So I'm really just trying to find the perfect scripture that I can share with him about that. Well, you know, it's interesting you bring this up and let me just say, praise God, man. I was I'm so grateful to hear that that he's he's hopefully going to get plugged into a solid Christian church. And we want to pray for him.

Certainly this today. But but it was interesting, you know, with the previous question that we just got on on the air, this this idea of, you know, making up rules for people to follow, to obey and saying to somebody, hey, before you get baptized, you know, for two weeks. This is sort of a, you know, like why, why do we want two months?

Why not two years or two days? And for two weeks, you've got to make sure you don't drink any alcohol because we know that the Bible says that's a sin to drink alcohol, which it doesn't. FYI. And so they're just adding to the law of God. And that's a problem.

That's a problem. So I think just being able to say, look, what you saw there was rules and regulations not rooted in scripture. People calling you to do something that you knew wasn't right necessarily.

You couldn't put your finger on it. But but it's they don't have the authority to say things that aren't in God's Word. And when churches do that, you got you got all sorts of of problems.

And I think that you're onto something, right? Because when we think about coming before the Lord in baptism, we're coming by faith to experience his grace in our lives. That cleansing, which baptism is a picture of our union with Christ and his death and resurrection through faith, that he's the one who washes our sins away.

So to say to somebody, hey, you need to cleanse yourself first and make sure you're cleansed first for two weeks. And then you can come forward and Jesus will accept you. No, there's there's I mean, that just that just muddies the waters of baptism. And so I would say that that one again, praise God that he's getting plugged into a good church. And two, I think the encouragement for him would be, look, if there are sins in your life, you're called to repentance. Jesus calls you to follow him. So if you're doing things that you know are contrary to his word, like like doing drugs and being consumed with alcohol, maybe this isn't there's an issue of alcoholism. Well, look, this is a real struggle, but Jesus invites you to turn to him and experience his grace and his forgiveness. And he offers to you the promises of his gospel, even as you limp along in life, even as you struggle. And as you turn away from these things and say, Jesus, help me, help me to follow you to obey you. And you're laying hold of Jesus by faith through his word, through the promises he gives in places like baptism.

No, no, on the basis of God's word that he receives you. None of us, none of us can perfectly cleanse ourselves to the point where we deserve to be in God's presence. Indwelling sin still clings to us. And so we come to God broken. I mean, even even our best works are still stained with the remnants of of sin, with impure motives, impure desires.

And yet God receives them through Christ and welcomes us and cleanses us. And so I hope that your friend can experience the grace of the gospel in a powerful way and that cleansing that he needs. And let's just let's just pray for this young man that was thinking about becoming Mormon LDS and has decided he wants to he wants to stick with the Christian Church.

Father, I pray for this young man. Lord, would you do a mighty work of redemption in his life? Would you bless him? Would you give him a deep understanding of your gospel? And would you be with Adrian, giving him wisdom as he continues to minister to this man? Lord, bless his efforts by the grace of your spirit in Jesus name. Amen. Amen.