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Messages - revlar

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Authority in the "Church" / Re: Misunderstanding of Authority
« on: November 26, 2009, 01:08:39 AM »
Quote from: Peter on April 04, 2008, 06:35:47 PM
Ask someone in the parking lot of your church next week "Who's the head of this church?"
Do you think the answer they give you will be "Jesus Christ"?

It would depend, of course, upon who you ask - but I believe most of my parishioners would answer correctly.  In many cases, an incorrect answer would be the result of a confusion in understanding the differences between "authority" and "leadership".  Ours being a congregationally ruled church, there would be a natural tendency to perceive such a question as an inquiry regarding an issue of administrative "leadership" rather than from the perspective of "authority" as used in scripture.  Should the question be answered from the perspective of "spiritual leadership", you likely would be given the name of the president of the elders - or the name of the pastor.   

Protestants are certainly not immune from the tendency to set up men as the bestowers of "authority".  What is a denominationally sanctioned ordination but a human determined and administered conferring of "authority" upon a candidate?  We may wrap it in ritual and reverent invoking of the name of the Almighty - but it is still a ritual that has been created and conducted by men - based upon a decision regarding qualifications that has been reached by men.

In my view, an equally interesting question would be to ask a clergyman to justify by what "authority" he does what he does.

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General Discussion / Greetings from the Ozarks!
« on: November 25, 2009, 10:28:24 PM »
I am a bi-vocational pastor of a small (but thriving) interdenominational church in the Missouri Ozarks and am here because of something that happened to me last week-end.

This past Sunday I preached on Mark 13:1-13 (signs of the end of the age). As I was working on the message and was trying to strike the right balance between warning and optimism - I read on through to the end of that chapter for the umpteenth time. Then, seemingly out of the blue - something suddenly occurred to me. I keep a large framed photograph of the Temple Mount in Jerusalem on display in the church office. As I looked at the picture of the Dome of the Rock sitting on the ruins of the Hebrew temple a thought flashed through my mind - could that building possibly be "the abomination that causes desolation" mentioned in Mk 13:14, Da 9:27, 11:31 and 12:11?

Over the past few days (in my spare time - when I have any) I did some web surfing, and so - here I am.  There obviously is a great deal of material to be reviewed here and on the companion website.  But the more I read, think and pray about it all - the more it makes sense.  I did not want to believe that one of the three great monotheistic religions could be so closely tied to so many of the evils that plague today's world, but healthy doses of Holy Scripture and global situational awareness seem to be removing the scales from my eyes.  The god of Islam is not the God I know - therefore it must be an other, and far lesser god.  Sounds simple now - but getting to this point in my mental processes was not.  Forgiveness and tolerance is central to my faith - but even seventy times seven is a finite number.

Thank you for giving me the resources.

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