All right, Baptist distinctives, we're learning them from the acrostic, right? Baptist, biblical authority, autonomy of the local church, priesthood of the believer, two ordinances, individual soul liberty, saved church membership, two offices, we're gonna talk about quickly tonight, probably not do this topic enough justice, and then separation of church and state. Two offices. You're all Baptists here. What are the two offices in the church? Pastor and deacons and four elders. What about trustees? Nope. They're not in the Bible? Nope. Pass it. Nope, not in the Bible either. Mary and Martha are, but not sure. Right, pastors and deacons. Pretty clear. I mean it's, this is, It's just that the Bible is just so clear in the New Testament, right? Paul's teaching that there's pastors, there's deacons, and that's all that we're given. Synonym for pastor. There's lots of words in the New Testament that get translated differently. They all have slightly different meanings. Okay, pastor, elder, overseer, bishop, shepherd, okay? All these terms are used to describe the same office, right? Whichever one of these words you use, you're talking about one thing. The office of pastor, right? We call it, we're pretty traditional conservative Baptists, we call it pastor, right? We don't use bishop, right? Or overseer, or presbyter, or anything like that, right? It's- Bishop mom sounds just a little funny. Huh? Bishop mom sounds just a little funny. Yeah, I guess it does. Bishop Bob, okay, we'll have to tell him that and see. But they all point to a position, this is the leadership, people who are given charge of, place in positions of leadership in the church, right? And let's not get too far, right? This is still, we believe in congregationalism, the congregation chooses the pastor, and then the pastor leads. Right? That's the structure that we as Baptists agree with. What are some of the functions of the pastor? Shepherding the flock. This is a good term. I think all the terms of the New Testament, I think I like shepherd the best. Unfortunately, because I think that's because we're all dumb sheep and we need a shepherd. It's a little funny. I mean, sheep are not smart animals. If you've ever had a study about sheep, they're very simple animals. But the core of the pastor's role is to take care of the sheep, to shepherd the sheep, and care for them. The spiritual well-being of the congregation, much like a shepherd cares for the sheep. I think that's That's the most, just the thing that we, maybe we like best about pastors, right? That they take care of the flock. Teaching and preaching. Pastors are responsible for preaching and teaching the word of God to the community or the church, right? That's, again, this is probably one and one A here, right? Teaching, be able to, preaching, teaching the word, shepherding the flock, this is one and one A of what a pastor's supposed to do. protecting the church. We don't often think about it in terms of this way, but this includes guarding the congregation from false teachings and other spiritual dangers. It's the pastor's job to be on guard for things coming in. Wolves, yeah. What does the shepherd have to do with the sheep, right? One of the things they have to do is fight off wolves, right? whatever's going to come and attack the sheep, that's kind of the pastor's role, is to identify and fight against the dangers to the church. Pastoral care, this is a little bit different than shepherding, I think. Providing counsel, praying with church members, caring for the sick and needy, right? This maybe falls under shepherd, but I think it's a little different, pastoral care, Equipping believers. Again, some of these are related, but part of what we do is, or what pastors are to do, is to help all the rest of us minister to other people. Because one thing a pastor is not is the guy who does everything. Ideally, the pastor is to equip us, the rest of the church, to do the work of ministry. His primary job is to prepare us to do the ministry that needs to be done. I've been in a lot of small churches in my life. Sometimes the pastors, he does everything, right? And nobody else is doing anything, and that's not a good situation. He is to prepare and help the rest of the people for the work of the ministry. And then serving as example. Pastors are expected to be models of godly living with the qualifications outlined in biblical texts like 1 Timothy 3 and Titus 1. We know these texts. I'm not going to spend a lot of time. We're just going to pull out what 1 Timothy 3, 1 through 7. Again, I'm being very, very brief here because I'm going to leave some time at the end for questions. Kind of three separate areas of qualifications for a pastor, personal and character. Above reproach, husband of one wife, sober-minded and self-controlled, respectable, hospitable, gentle and peaceable, not violent or quarrelsome, not a lover of money, and not a new convert. All of those, right? If we've got any time in the church at all, we're like, yeah, that's, all of that makes sense. If there's some, you know, you want a godly person to be your pastor. Someone who is trying to emulate, trying to follow God closely, because what is one of the things that Paul says? He says, follow us as we're following Christ, right? I'm gonna be the example. Do what I'm doing. Because I'm trying to be the example for you and that's what we want, the type of people you want to be your pastor. Family and household qualifications, we could spend more time we're going to on this, but kind of sums it down to two. Got to manage his household well and his children are to be Obedient, well behaved, right? That manage household well and all that kind of goes together. If he's not managing his household, then how can he manage the house of God? That's the idea there. Now, does that mean that every pastor's kid is always going to be well behaved and follow in the ways of God? No, that's not what it means at all. But it's more like, you can tell, right? You know when someone is trying to lead their household well, trying to teach them, that doesn't mean They're all going to go the right way, right? We prepare our kids the best we can and we trust God with it after that. But you can tell, right? If there's chaos and if there's a chaotic household, the man in charge of that household should probably not be considered to be for leadership in the church. ministry and community qualifications, it's got to be able to teach. Got to be able to take the Bible and give it to the people in a way that they can understand, to grow them up, to give them more biblical knowledge, to show them the ways of the Lord and a good reputation with outsiders. at least at the beginning, right? How many pastors have started out with a good reputation, then when they actually start preaching the Word of God, the outside of the church doesn't appreciate them that much anymore, so. That's just true, right? I mean, but we know, I think we get the idea here, it's like, he's not a scoundrel, you know, he's a good guy, nice guy, has a good reputation, you know. That's it. I think it really, we're growing quickly, but if we talked about these some more, a lot of these really put a lot of limitations on who should be a pastor. Right? I mean, there's sometimes stuff happens in somebody's life, and they're kind of always going to have a reputation in the community that's probably going to preclude them from, you know, of being in leadership in the church. Some things are disqualified. So you want men with good reputations. Hold firmly to the message of the Bible. He doesn't waver on his commitment to the Bible and the teachings of scripture and following God. He's solid. not waving, going up every wind of doctrine, right? The pastor better be sure of what he believes the Bible teaches. We don't want him, you know, feeling around and changing the message of the gospel. All right, we're gonna move quickly to deacons. The word deacon is actually a transliteration of a Greek word, diakonos, The first time we... It means one who serves. One who serves the church. That's the whole purpose. The first idea that this is used is in Acts 6. What was going on in Acts 6? Does anybody remember? That's... You're 98% there. No, she's closer But the widows weren't being served Just not right. That's that's right Yeah So the Greek widows were not getting the same treatment. They weren't getting served. They were serving the Jewish ones first. And so there wasn't an equitable distribution, you know, when it come time to the feeding, right? And I bring that up because if you'll notice, if you go back and somebody study this, there's Greeks and Hebrew guys appointed to be deacons so that It was so that everybody got served, right? It was to be equal and everybody was... And what did the apostles say? It was like, we're trying to teach. We're preparing. We don't have time to take care of all of these things. And because our job is to teach and preach and disciple. And if we do this, we're serving tables, which I don't think they would say they were above serving tables. It's like, but only so many hours in the day. If the most important thing for us to do is to be preaching the word of God, teaching the word of God. And so appoint you some men to take care of these things so we can stay focused on what we're supposed to stay focused on. All right, so I think if you get too much away from like, the first deacons, like what their role was, the farther you get away from that understanding, like the more trouble you can get in. Like what deacons are and what pastors are, right? You got to remember, who were the first deacons and what was their role? And that kind of gives you the best picture of what the role should be going forward. And I think the rest of the New Testament only serves to back that up. Right? The rest of 1 Timothy 3, 8 through 13, qualifications for a deacon, personal care, he has to be dignified and respectable, not double-tongued, not addicted to wine, not greedy for dishonest gain, holding to the faith, tested and blameless. Pretty similar to the pastor. It's not exactly the same, but it's pretty close to what the qualifications are for pastor so far. Qualifications, husband of one wife, manage household well. Again, it's almost exactly the same as the qualifications for pastor. So what's the difference between a pastor and a deacon? The qualifications are almost exactly the same. What's the difference between a pastor and a deacon? Okay, yeah, I think that's the one we say, able to teach. That's the lead, like you boil it down, the ability, if there's different abilities, To be a deacon, or to be an elder, you need to be able to teach in some way. Now that doesn't mean you've gotta get up there and preach a sermon, although I could make that argument that an elder or a pastor should be able to preach a message, right, if he had to. I think, but, if you can teach a Sunday school class, you can preach a message. I would say that, right? If you're able to teach a Sunday school class and feel confident, it's like anything. You could do it if you had to. And that's kind of the difference. A deacon wouldn't necessarily, like, oh, pastor just got sick. He can't preach. You would go to someone who's able to teach. You wouldn't go to just any service in the church. But primary calling, The pastor's primary calling is spiritual leadership, preaching, and teaching. That's what a pastor's called to do. A deacon is service and ministry to the church's practical needs. He's not required to have to teach. There's a whole range of things that deacons can do, but he doesn't have to be a teacher. The focus, what is the focus of what they do in the church? Again, the pastor's spiritual oversight and discipleship. That's what the pastor's role is. He's worried about our spiritual well-being. Teaching us about God, growing in discipleship, that's the pastor's role. That's what he needs to be focused on. Deacons are service to the community and supporting the pastor. Okay, that's what, the deacons, if you've read the trellis and the vine, right, in a rough picture, right, the deacons are the trellis, right? Their primary responsibility is gonna be the trellis. Get the support structure up, and then the pastor's the one that's helping the vine grow, right? That's his job, to be cultivating the vine, to helping it grow while the deacons are making sure the trellis is solid, you know, he doesn't have to worry about that, he can just, The pastor can do his job because he doesn't have to worry about all of the other things. Key duty. Again, the pastor's key duty is shepherding the congregation. It's not making sure all of the light bulbs are on. That's not the pastor's job. If he's got to be worried about making sure all the light bulbs are out and everything's cleaned up and organized, then that's effort he's expending on things that he could be doing to studying the Bible. Preparing his lessons, getting ready for a sermon, all of these things. We want his primary role to be that. To be preparing to preach, ministering to people. Deacons assisting with practical needs like visiting the sick, managing facilities, making sure everything's, you know, the basic, you know, how the finances work in the church, right? That could be done, you know, a deacon could be overseeing that, right? Because There's a ton of, when you break out everything, the deacons are the support, they're the helper, they're the servants of the church, while the pastor's the leadership. I'm gonna end quickly, I could be done by six, so good for me, I guess. Deacons are not pastors. Okay? Deacons are not pastors, and conversely, pastors are not deacons. These are two different roles, okay? Two different key missions, right? Historically, problems often arise in churches where the roles and functions are not distinct and clear. I've been in small churches my whole life, except for a couple of years, I would say in seminary, we were in a church that had like 400 people. But there was one senior pastor, an associate and a youth pastor, but then there was a board of deacons. And that's what they called it, a board of deacons. And whatever the name they were using, They were functioning like elders. They were involved in the leadership and making decisions as the direction of the church would go. I know story after story growing up, or not growing, but being in seminary in Kentucky and these, a new seminary student would go into a little old country church and think that he was supposed to be leading the church, and he's not. There was two or three deacons that were running the church. They were in charge. And the pastor was, as long as he did what they wanted, he was fine. And because those deacons thought they were elders, which maybe they were, but then they should have call an elder an elder and call a deacon a deacon. Don't confuse the role, make it distinct so that we know what's going on. Now I have skipped over a lot of things that can be controversial in this. So, questions? No? Carolyn? I just have a, it wasn't in here, but all the names that you have for pastors, I just had a question. So reverend is someone who's been ordained is a is a term for somebody who's been ordained and It's not typically, well, it's a cultural thing. I'm not going to do it. I went to college, played football with a bunch of African-Americans, and they would make fun of the right reverend doctor. It's a title. And I don't like it. I wouldn't want to be called it, because what is the word reverend? reverence, right? Revered, like this guy should be revered. And I just don't think, you may be revered and people think a lot of you, but to call yourself that, I don't like it, but I understand that it is a cultural thing since some churches use it and you know, so, good question. But normally, it would be reserved for somebody who's ordained. Like, you would never call, you know. And for a pastor, right? I don't ever hear called deacons, ever called reverend. But. Something you noted earlier was trustees. And trustees, as I understand it, is a legal term that's needed for church corporation. Right. Yeah, depending on the state you're in, the locality you're in, the rules of incorporation, a trustee actually is, just depending on how they function, they can, yeah, they're able to sign for legal things for the church. But they're not in the Bible. They're just a product of something that's necessary for us to function, right? I have a question about the congregation picking the leaders. I think there are examples in Scripture where Paul tells whomever he sent to that church to appoint elders in those towns and in those churches. What do you make of that, where we get the teaching that it's the congregation versus, in this example, like Paul is telling yeah so yeah Paul said actually says that yeah when you have appointed elders in all these churches uh but he's speaking to the leaders that are already there to the church that's already there like it's i thought it was a letter to timothy or to Right. Well, this practice, he says, of appointing elders, because Paul actually talks about appointing elders in the places. So I would say that that part of the practice is the early church. These churches are brand new. They don't even know how to be a church. And so Paul is planting these churches and setting up the leadership for them so that they can function. Again, we're coupling this with the idea that we talked about before that we are congregationalist by nature. And so we're completely independent. We don't believe that like the Presbyterian Church or whatever can come in and they appoint the pastor. right, or Catholics, they just send you the priest who's going to be over in this parish, right? That's, I think there's enough evidence, and we talked about it, we talked about it before about congregationalism, that things happened in the early church when it was being set up, the structure that, that would say that's, that's, and as it developed through the New Testament, you know, because how many times does, he says, take them to the, right, he specifically says on matters of discipline and things like that, it has to go to the church, right? It may go to the elders first, or the pastors first, but then it has to go to the church for final, the congregation ends up with the final authority, and so that's where we get the idea that the church chooses the pastor, and then the pastor leads. Right, I mean it's, It's a hard situation if the church chooses the pastor and he's trying to lead and the church doesn't follow, right? I mean, that's, we get into all kinds of problems, but it's congregational, elder-led, pastor-led, congregationally governed, right? The congregation has the final authority. So, it's a balance of those two things, but I think it's because it was the early church. That helps because it was our first yeah well yeah and that's the same way is sort of like i mean i'm Not a continuous when it comes to speaking in tongues, right? Because I think that was for when the early church didn't have the whole scriptures yet. And so these things were happening. But now we have the full counsel of God, and so there's really no need for tongues, you know, speaking in unknown languages. So I think it's the same thing. There were things that were descriptive that were happening in the early church that aren't necessarily prescriptive for how we should be doing things today. And you kind of do the same thing, don't you? Like, if you had a church plant, if we had a church plant, you guys would pick a pastor for that place. It's not just for points. Yeah, yeah. When we were part of a church plant, there was three of us that said, OK, you guys are going to be the leaders. There wasn't a church to speak of. It was just a group of people, right? But eventually, through leadership, then you constitute. But then, as you constitute, the congregation receives the authority. When you constitute and become an actual church, the congregation then has that authority. Yeah, and the congregation, each individual member, is affirming that. plant as an elder because they're individual celebrity. They're joining the church. That's exactly right. Yes. By their own conscience to join with that. Right. So it's like they're all casting a vote in a way just by joining that church. Yes. Okay. I think that's... I'm sure it's a lot of the same thing when we have missionaries that go out into an area where there isn't a church. They start gathering people together like my teaching and so on. In de facto, they are the pastor of that group. But when that group becomes a church and has things in place, they most of the time, they get voted on yes or no. I know Veritas has been voted, you know, a few times as pastor, and now they're going to go off into another area, and they have voted another person that is qualified to do it. So. Yeah, another connection I think I'm making is it is the church even that sends out missionaries, right? Yes. Not just some group of elders, but it's the church themselves will recognize a missionary. Yeah, absolutely. And send them out to plant churches. Yeah. There's examples of that, right? Yeah. Oh, yeah. Because they set aside Barnabas and Saul, right? After fasting, praying, laid hands for them, and sent them out. Yeah. Yeah. I mean. The original role is just, I don't want to use circular reasoning. I want to use all the examples of scripture. Right. And that's where I was kind of getting them out. Yeah. Any more questions? One more. Probably got time for one more. Alright, well I'm not going to beg. There's going to be pizza down there. The kids will be be hungry, so I said I would try to be done by 6.15 and it's 6.11, so we did pretty good. I'm sorry that was so fast. We could have spent a lot more time on that. It's harder to keep it short than it is to keep when I got more time. What do I talk about? I got to limit it because I can't talk about probably everything, but we made it. All eight things of what it means. I hope it's been helpful. You know, like, why are we Baptists? And I hope somebody asks you, this is why do you go to a Baptist church? Well, you got eight reasons to kind of say, this is all of these things together is what makes me a Baptist. All right. Let's pray. We'll be dismissed. Father, we thank you for this time that we've had together. We pray. for the kids, and we hope that they have just had a, that this time of learning the questions and answers will point them to Christ at some point, Father, that they will believe. We pray that this is giving them a foundation that is solid. And Father, I pray for all the adults, the ones up here, that they'll have a foundation, that this will strengthen their foundation of what it means to be a Baptist, what it means to be a member of New Covenant Church. Father, we pray that you will Continue to help us to glorify you in everything that we do, that this church would be a lighthouse in a dark world. And we pray that you'll just continue to grow us, Father, in you and in our standing in the community. And Father, we pray that unbelievers would be saved and we'd be coming into our church. We give you all the honor and glory and it's in your son's name we pray, amen.