The independent Church of Antioch protests to Jerusalem about false teachers from there who have visited them. Wrongly called a 'Church Council', here are the facts of what took place and how apostles asserted divine revelation as the only source of doctrine and directions.
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“ Great Sermon! ” The text simply shows one autonomous local church appealing to another autonomous local church to deal with some of its members going round teaching false doctrine.
The decision made is based on the Word of God. The notice is also sent as a 'decree', and with an identification of the elders at Jerusalem (16:4).
It is a decree obviously because of the Spirit's testimony through apostolic authority. The indication of the notice being from the elders of Jerusalem is noted as such and limited as such (with no indication of elders from any other church) simply so that people will note that that local church's eldership had indeed dealt with the heretical problem, and were not complicit to it.
The text shows that independent local churches must practice church discipline of its membership. They may cooperate with other churches to ensure that, but they must certainly stick to the Scriptures.
However, no justification for (human) church government above or outside the local church government can be derived from this without assuming unnecessarily much more than the text teaches / necessarily implies. Any system of church government that goes beyond what this text plainly teaches is simply not based on this.
Dr Peter Masters has been pastor of the Metropolitan Tabernacle in central London since 1970. These sermons have been preached to packed congregations including very many young people, and many have been aired on the Tabernacle's twice-weekly television programme seen throughout...
