Alright We are discussing the church and in doing so we have We are on page 19 in your booklet Try to Eliminate as much like internet traffic as I can so that I don't fall down the video So I had something download the update downloading crazy thing alright This study looks at one of the most ... I changed some of the words, so I'll read it the way I wrote it here, the way I corrected it. This study looks at one of the most confused and misunderstood doctrines of the Bible. People have all kinds of ideas as to what a church really is. Some people think it is a building, like a cathedral or some place of worship. Others think of church as a denomination or human organization and speak of the, quote-unquote, Catholic Church or the, quote-unquote, Presbyterian Church or the Baptist Church, et cetera. Many Christians conceive the, quote, church as consisting of all born-again believers in the world and a kind of invisible universal church. Our task is to put aside these notions and determine what God says a church is in His Okay, important when you go to study a topic or you go to learn something from a Word of God is we understand that we all generally come to the Bible with preconceived notions. It's kind of impossible not to. There's some preconceived notions that you obviously want to come to the Bible with, like as in the fact that the Bible is true. So that's a preconceived notion that you want to certainly come to the Bible with. There's some that you don't want to come to the Bible with, The Bible means whatever it means to me. That's not a good preconceived notion. The Bible means what it says. But I don't want to get too far off on the rabbit trail here. So the church is a New Testament institution, is what's mentioned here first. It says, look up Matthew 16, 18, which says, oh, our memory verse, not forsaking the assembly. Wrong one. Not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together as the manner of some is, but exhorting one another, and so much the more as you see the day approaching. Matthew 16, 18, and I say also unto thee that thou art Peter, and upon this rock will I build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. The first mention of the church in the Bible is here, and the question here is, who founded or built the church? Is it Peter? Jesus. Jesus. Very good. Alright, it depends on who you ask. No it doesn't. It depends on what your answer is going to be. Right, right. We know what the true answer is. Yes, that's right. Alright, John 1.42, And he brought him to Jesus, and when Jesus beheld him, he said, Thou art Simon Bar-Jonah, thou shalt be called Cephas, which is by interpretation a stone. So what is the meaning of Peter's name? Stone. Notice here he's called Cephas, but he's Cephas, Peter, those are both, they both mean stone. Peter's full name is Simon Peter Bar-gona. He is also sometimes called Simeon. So we're gonna look at what Peter said here. First Peter chapter two, verse three through eight. It's actually three, four, six, and eight. I just threw it all away. If so be ye attested that the Lord is gracious, to whom coming as unto a living stone disallowed indeed of men, but chosen of God and precious, ye also, as lively stones, are built up a spiritual house and holy priesthood to offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God by Jesus Christ. Wherefore also it is contained in the scripture, behold, I lay in sign a chief cornerstone, elect precious, he that believeth on him shall not be confounded. unto you therefore which believe he is precious, but unto them which be disobedient, the stone which the builders disallowed, the same is made the head of the corner, and a stone of stumbling, and a rock of offense, even to them which stumble at the word, being disobedient, whereunto also they were appointed." So, Peter did, or who did, I'm sorry, who did Peter identified as the rock upon which the church would be built. Jesus, a living stone, right? And the cornerstone that was disallowed of men, or the stone which was disallowed of men and approved of God. So the Old Testament's primarily addressed to the nation of Israel. The New Testament, mainly addressed to churches, says here not to confuse the two. The Bible makes a clear distinction between them in 1 Corinthians 10.32 when it says give none offense Neither to the Jews, nor to the Gentiles, nor to the church of God. Gives a distinction between the church and the Gentiles and the Jews. So, a church is an assembly. He begins to define the actual word. So the word church, or churches, is found 114 times in the New Testament, and is rendered from the Greek word ekklesia. If you speak Spanish, it's iglesia. It's almost a direct transliteration. So this word, ekklesia, has only one meaning, a company of people called out to a specific place for a specific purpose. Now this, he's defining the word not based upon biblical context necessarily, but based upon the historical context of the word first. Then we deal with the biblical context. Does that make sense? Okay, so speaking of the word here, it says it has its roots in the democracies of ancient Greek cities, our city-states, where the town crier would call the citizens to a meeting in order to conduct the city's business. So, Matthew 16, 18, when the Lord said that He would build His churches, He says, the Lord did not change the meaning of ekklesia. He distinguished it from other assemblies of the day with a personal pronoun, my. Okay? quote-unquote churches or assemblies that would assemble together. In fact, there's other places in the Bible where there's at least one other place in Acts where the word church or churches is used, but it's not referring to scriptural New Testament churches. It's actually referring to assemblies of the goddess Diana in Ephesus. Anyways, the difference between the Ekklesia, the common word Ekklesia, and the Ekklesia that Jesus built was that this church is his church. Does that make sense? Yeah, okay. Thus, the New Testament church is the Lord's assembly. So there are four important facts concerning an assembly. An assembly must be local. People cannot, number one, people cannot come together and yet be all over the world. For example, he says here, an automobile is an assembly of many and various parts. How absurd to think of it as being everywhere, a quote, universal car. Would you consider that? I have another example that I usually use and I'll mention as well, and that is the example of a school. When my kids go to a suburban Baptist school, or suburban Christian school, depending on which side of the building you're looking at, because they've got a sign that says Suburban Christian School and a sign that says Suburban Baptist School. So either way, I think they go by Christian. But anyways, so they are students of that school. Now, there are schools, like I go to Maranatha Baptist University online, so I'm part of that student body, that assembly, but I'm way over here. But when I meet with them, I have a presence through the internet. That's how that works. Kind of weird, but it's not a universal, you know, you can't technically call a class there an assembly because I guess you're meeting, but the meeting place is virtual. Kind of interesting. But anyways, for the kids, you know, when we say, when Melissa says, I'm going to take the kids to school, Or when we talk about schools rivaling one another in sports or whatever, we don't mean this universal just school. When we say the kids go to school, we're talking about the one specifically that applies to them. Some kids homeschool. Their school would be at home, and their student body would be those in that household that are part of that school. Just the same, when we talk about a church or an assembly coming together, it's local, and it's specifically speaking to the one that's being spoken of, which we actually kind of deal with as we, yeah, the very next note here. It says, in all but about 15 instances, so 99 instances, 99 out of the 114 times that the word church is used, and in those 15 instances, It says that it's used in a generic or institutional sense, like I was just explaining. We talk about school in a generic sense. Well, what school do they go to? Well, the one that they go to. It's not a universal, invisible school. They go to a physical place. And so that is, he says, any church in general, but no church in particular. So this is when it speaks of the church. Well, I'll read the rest. The word church, or churches, is always used in connection with definite geographic localities. When he speaks of the church in Ephesians, he's speaking of the church in general, or the church as an institution. When he talks about that Jesus Christ gave himself for the church, he's speaking of the church as a general concept or an institutional concept. So he gives some proof here. I'm not going to look up all those verses. Hopefully you already have and you have a list for me. So it says to look up the Bible references and write down the actual cities or regions where some real churches were located. So I'm going to skip down past Revelation 3. And you all hopefully have read that already. And you can tell me now. Cities. Geographic locations. Where were these churches in these passages? I'll start you out. The first one is Centuria. Corinth. Corinth, yeah. Galatia. Galatia. Asia. Asia. And in Asia it was actually a church in someone's house. Met in someone's house. What else? Macedonia. Thessalonica. Thessalonica, yep. Laodicea. Laodicea. Babylon. Babylon. Ephesus. Ephesus. And then the seven churches of Asia. Ephesus, Smyrna, Pergamos, Thyatira, Sardis, Philadelphia. And I didn't mention Laodicea again because it was already mentioned. So number four, for these reasons, the Bible knows nothing of a universal or quote unquote Catholic worldwide church. Man, I could run a bunny trail right now about school and stuff, but I'm going to leave it alone. By the way, I would not send anyone to the school I'm going to. If you want a Bible college, or whatever you want to study and all that, let's do it right here. We've got plenty of material. We have plenty of stuff. We can do it here at the church. Don't go to some school that believes their mother's the Catholic Church. So the New Testament mentions many churches, all of which we're meeting in different locations or localities. So let it be. An assembly must be visible. There's a couple of things, by the way, that he doesn't mention here. Actually, I'll read this section, and then remind me about discipline, all right, after we get done with, before we go on to organize, all right? So, let it be, an assembly must be visible. One, people cannot come together and not be seen. Many like to talk about the, quote, invisible church, which allows them to move around in Christian circles, but all the churches mentioned in the New Testament were seeable. They're all right there. Number two tells us to look up these three passages here. Philippians 1, 27, only let your conversation be as it becometh the gospel of Christ, that whether I come and see you or else be absent, I may hear of your affairs, that ye stand fast in one spirit. with one mind striving together for the faith of the gospel." 1 Thessalonians 2.17, but we brethren, being taken from you for a short time in presence, but not at heart, endeavored the more abundantly to see your face with great desire. 1 Thessalonians 3.6, but now when Timotheus came from you to us and brought us good tidings of your faith and charity, and that ye have good remembrance of us always, desiring greatly to see us as we also to see you. So Paul, writing to the churches, I emphasized a few words there. Paul, writing to the churches at Philippi, Thessalonica, desired to come and see these assemblies. Very good. Visible, okay. Another thing that kind of throws a monkey wrench in the whole idea of a universal invisible church is the fact that Jesus spoke of church discipline, decisions made in the church, where two or more are gathered together, and that's speaking of that church, okay. It is impossible to properly execute church discipline on a global, universal, invisible membership. If you were Catholic, and you believe that there's such a thing as a universal visible church, that's what the Catholics believe, the Protestants believe in a universal invisible church. So they're all part of the same church, it's just that this church, or as D.A. Waite, who doesn't understand this doctrine, would say, yes, I just said that, it's online, and it's gonna go all over the place. So as he would say, the church, or the body of Christ, as it's like some separate organization, organism, than the local church. He would say that it is the real church, or the true church, which is this universal thing. Speaking of all this, now, of course we can speak of the word church, or the church of God, in a general sense. And what we mean is, no church in particular but every church in general. We do that in our language often. For example, I hate to use a sports example, but at the Indy 500, what do they say after they sing the national anthem? Gentlemen, start your engines. They don't have one collective, they don't have a collective car or collective engines that are all, no, they all have individual things that they're doing. It applies to every single one of them separately. So just the same as when the Bible talks about the church and speaks about doctrines, it's speaking specifically about each individual church. Does that make sense? Maybe I grabbed the wrong analogy. Well, no, because it's not one big engine that runs all 33 cars. That's right. That's right. But we still have one head, which we'll talk about. And the Catholic Church believes in a universal, visible church whose head is on earth, and that's the Pope. Right. And the only difference between the Catholics and the Protestants is that the Protestants are the stepchildren of the Catholics, and they believe what Mama says, except they change it a little bit to fit their own interests. So, there you go on that. You're burning it up today, brother. An assembly, what's that? You're burning it up today. I'm not going to make it through here if I don't keep on moving. Letter C, an assembly must be organized. Number one, an assembly is not a rabble or a disorderly mob. The word assembly implies organization. This doesn't mean, well, we'll get there. You'll hear a few. So Colossians chapter one, verse 18 says, and he is the head of the body, the church, who is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead. that in all things he might have the preeminence. Oh, there it is. The body, the church. It's that universal big old huge, no, it's speaking of the church, whichever one you're talking about. In this case, it was the Colossian, the church of the Colossians, or the church at Colossi. So the human body, an assembly of many parts, but does a random pile of skin, flesh, organs, and bones, etc., constitute a body? No. They must be put together according to a plan, and as we see, Psalm 139, 14, I will praise thee, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made thy, marvelous are thy works, and that my soul knoweth right well. 1 Timothy 3.15. Here in the New Testament is, well, hold on, let's read it. 1 Timothy 3.15, but if I tarry long, that thou mayest know how thou oughtest to behave thyself in the house of God. A lot of people stop there. They're like, see? The Bible talks about church buildings. No. Which is the church of the living God, the pillar and ground of the truth. No. The house of God is the church, not the building. The assembly. That word church there, same word church. It's ecclesia, it's an assembly. The congregation, the church. So it uses the figuratively likened to a house. Very good. The house you live in is also an assembly. But does a dumped pile of bricks, timber, plaster, nails, et cetera, constitute a house? Of course not. These items must be put together according to a plan or blueprint. Anybody been there, done that? Travis, amen? Mess with, you know, building a house, it takes work. It has to be put together. All the parts have their own purpose. So it tells us to study a few other passages where the church at Corinth is likened to a temple. We'll just take a quick look at that. It's 1 Corinthians 3, 9-11, and then verse 16. For we are laborers together with God. Ye are God's husbandry, ye are God's building. According to the grace of God which is given unto me as a wise master builder, I have laid the foundation, and another buildeth thereon. But let every man take heed how he buildeth thereupon. For other foundation can no man lay than that is laid, which is Jesus Christ. Number 16, know ye not that ye are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you. Notice that it says ye here. This does not say, know ye not that you are the temple of God. It says, know ye not that ye are the temple of God. By the way, that's a very important reason to still have the you and ye and thee and thou and all that, because there's a difference between you and ye. You is general. It could mean you, or it could mean you. means you, all of you, y'all. It's like we say y'all, right? But that's, that's what ye is. And if you, if ye misunderstand what the word ye is here and you change it to the word you, then it changes the doctrine here. It changes what this verse means because what, um, what people will say is they'll take this verse and they'll say, Your body's the temple. And there's other passages you can use that, but this verse is not for that. This verse does not fit for that, because it's not saying your body is the temple. This verse is saying that the church is the temple, that ye, the Corinthian church, is the temple of God. And it says which temple ye are. In that same chapter, there's a little further that you could go on. Anyways, the idea is that the assembly is a temple. It's a put-together thing. There's organization. So a New Testament church is to be organized. The blueprint is found in the New Testament. Letter D, an assembly must be constituted. Now, that does not mean that you have a constitution. It means that you are arranged properly. So we'll get into this. By this, we mean it must be made out of the right components. So it says, how absurd to assemble a motor vehicle with milk, leaves, and uranium. Would that be a pretty good vehicle? Drive around milk, leaves, and uranium? No, that wouldn't work. How bullish would it be to build a house with paper, bandages, and meat? Might taste good, but it's not going to be very good for very long. Anybody ever seen the little log cabin things made out of it? I think I sent a picture to you. Log cabin made out of like waffles and the little sausage links and the bacon and stuff and make you hungry. All right, so how foolish could it be to try to build things out of the wrong components? So too, the New Testament church, number two here, he says, the New Testament church is not to be made up of just anything or anyone. God specifies the components of the New Testament Church, and hopefully you've written it out. If you wrote it out, let's read it out loud together. Acts 2 41. Then they that gladly received his word were baptized, and the same day were added unto them about three thousand souls. It says to circle the words that we just emphasized. Received, baptized, and added. So this verse gives God's qualifications and order for church membership. You gladly first, A, you gladly receive the word, and then you're baptized, and you're added to the church. Now, this is not salvation. This is how you're added to the church, okay? So, verse 47 of Acts chapter 2 says, praising God and having favor with all people, and the Lord added to the church daily such as should be saved, okay? Then Acts 15, 14, the believers were the more added To the Lord multitudes both men and women. So there's it's you're not just Automatically, what's that? Did I say something wrong Yeah, 514 not 1514, thank you You're not The church isn't just a hodgepodge you get saved and you're a part of the church. No, no, you have to be added That's that's the point right components the right Constitution okay, and when I say Constitution, I don't mean a document that's written out all that we're just talking about the proper components so number four he says This is only this is the only scriptural way to be or by which people become members of a Baptist Church salvation first then baptism so And I've made a point of add you're added added added you're added through baptism So definition he gives a New Testament Baptist Church is an organized assembly of baptized believers. This is a good definition for a New Testament Baptist church. Now, a basic simple definition for church or ecclesia is an assembly of people coming together for a specific purpose. That can apply to a New Testament church, or it can apply to a government body that meet together for a specific purpose. Now, it's not the same as the New Testament church. It's not Christ's church. It's another type of church, Assembly, okay, so the church has a head Man-made religious organizations have their heads presidents popes Presidents folks moderators superintendents, etc. Each New Testament Baptist Church also has a head but one Who is vastly different from any of the above? Colossians 1 18 And he is the head of the body, the church, who is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in all things he might have the preeminence. And then in Ephesians 5, 23 and 24, for the husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the church, and he is the Savior of the body. Therefore, as the church be subject unto Christ, so let the wives be to their own husbands and everything. Now this here, again, and the next verse, he says, this is a mystery, but I speak concerning Christ and the church. That's the point that he's trying to make, concerning Christ and the church. And here, when he's speaking of the church, he's speaking of the church in general, okay? But more specifically, the Ephesian church, obviously, because he's speaking to the Ephesians. But does that apply to the church in Fountain Square? Yes, it does. It applies to Fountain Square Baptist Church as well, that Christ is the head. So, who is the head? of each New Testament Baptist church. I just said it. Jesus Christ, yes. Letter B, each church is to be subject, very good, to its head. And then Galatians 3.1, O foolish Galatians, who hath bewitched you that ye should not obey the truth, before whose eyes Jesus Christ hath been evidently set forth, crucified among you? In chapter 5 and verse 7, Says he didn't run well, who did hinder you that you should not obey the truth. So, in which, in what way is the church, or is a church subject to its head by? Obedience. Obedience to the truth. Very good. Note, Jesus Christ is not a figurehead. Any, quote, church which is not subject to him and his laws is out of control. No church has the right to make laws. Say that again, no church has the right to make laws. It may only obey the laws already given by the head through his word. A church without a living head is dead. So, how does God have us to set, how does God have us to handle these things? Well, the church has officers. Look up Philippians 1.1. He says, Paul, Antimotheus, Servants of Jesus Christ to all the Saints in Christ Jesus which are at Philippi with bishops and deacons Okay So what are the two offices that are mentioned here in a church? Bishops and deacons very good so the terms the terms bishop elder and pastor. He says they're used interchangeably in the New Testament I would I would agree, but disagree yes, they're used interchangeably, but when they're used they're giving a little bit of a different spin on the office of the bishop. So we can get into that. We actually talked about that on Wednesday night when we were going through our statement of faith, dealing with the offices of the church, what the difference is between a bishop, elder, and pastor. It's if a bishop is an elder and a pastor, okay, but not all elders are bishops. Not all pastors are bishops. But we generally use the term, specifically in our church, we generally use the term pastor to speak of the leader, the gospel in place, to speak of the bishop. So he says here, we do that because the others have been given unbiblical ecclesiastical connotations over time. Although, There should be more than one elder in a church. There should be multiple elders, meaning mature men and women that lead other men and women that lead other women. There should be multiple elders in a church. However, there should be only one pastor, only one bishop in a church. Although, I say only one bishop. Throughout here, he says pastor, and then with a parenthesis, pastors. And I believe what he means there is not that you have multiple pastors who have equal rule, like a Presbyterian church, but that you have the bishop or the head pastor, and then you have other elders or pastors who have a responsibility to feed the flock that are part of the shepherding of the flock. They have a shepherding job as an elder, Not the bishop. Does that make sense? Yeah. I didn't want to take all that time, but we're going to skip some of these large passages that we're looking at here, okay? So 1 Timothy 3, 1 through 13, and Titus 1, 6 through 9. Hopefully you guys read through that. And so it says this is the qualifications required for the two offices. And it asks, how many different qualifications do you count? We probably have quite a few different numbers. Okay. 21 ish. 21 ish. I said 29 different ones. Okay. Yes. But there are actually 44 total all the way through, but some of them are like repeated. Okay. Now that's in first, first Timothy three and Titus one. Okay. So, um, so there you go. So I, I, I mentioned the pastor or pastors as he's got here, pastor with the parentheses S. Um, so let's see here. Okay So first Peter 2 25 and 5 4 say For you were as sheep going astray but now are but are now returned unto the shepherd and bishop of your souls and then verse Chapter 5 verse 4 and when the chief shepherd shall appear You shall receive a crown of glory that fadeth not away By the way, okay, the question it gives here is Who is the chief shepherd, or pastor, of our church? Jesus Christ is, yes. Now, I don't like beat up guys that use the term under-shepherd, but it's not a scriptural term. Pastor's a shepherd, not an under-shepherd. But he's under the chief shepherd. So, anyways, Christ is the chief shepherd. First Peter 5, 2 and Acts 20, 28. one after another. Feed the flock of God which is among you, taking the oversight thereof, not by constraint, but willingly, not for filthy lucre, but of a ready mind. Take heed, therefore, unto yourselves and to all the flock over which the Lord or the Holy Ghost hath made you overseers, to feed the church of God which he hath purchased with his own blood. So it asks the question, or it says, what does the Bible call a church in relation to its pastor? pastors a flock okay, and then According to first Peter 5 to what is the chief duty of the pastor? Feed the flock to take the oversight thereof And it says for the right I put for the right reasons not for filthy lucre And then I put in here also, about feeding the flock, because, I mean, what's that mean? Does that mean I throw food at you? Right? Yeah, throw food at us. Matthew 4.4 says, Jesus said, man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God. So feeding the flock is to dish out the word of God. Bummer. We'll eat, too. Ephesians 4, 12 through 14, and we've got to fly through here. We've got like... Oh, goodness. For the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the unifying of the body of Christ, till... Okay, you guys have read this, right? Yeah. Okay, here's what I'm going to do. I'm going to say the passage. It's up there. If you're at home, you've got to look it up. Pause and look it up. So, question. According to Ephesians 4, 12 through 14, why has the Lord given my church a pastor, or pastors? They're perfecting it as saints, working, ministering, edifying the church. Yes, bringing them into the unity of the faith, so they're going to be mature, under a perfect man, and given steadfastness. Okay. So, according to Acts 20, verse 17, In verses 28-31, how will my pastor protect me? By speaking the truth. Okay. I put, by overseeing, feeding, and watching. Okay. Which feeding? What's that? Preparing a warning. Preparing a warning. Okay. Very good. According to Hebrews 3-7, I am to Remember my pastor and follow them. Remember them to have a rule over you. According to verse 17, I am to obey my pastors and submit to their leadership and oversight of the church. According to 1 Thessalonians 5, 12 and 13, I am to esteem them, uh, uh, let's see, esteem those over me and the Lord very highly because of their work sake. And, and, uh, the, the, the passage there is it deals with, um, let's see. Yeah, part of that's dealing with taking care of and so on. So, okay. Uh, next he said, how should I address my pastor? Um, Don't call me reverend and don't call me father, all right? I'm not your dad. The Lord is reverend, all right? But at the same time, as we train children not to call their parents by their first name, you respect the position. I'm not going to stand up with a power trip and beat somebody down because they called me by my name. But it says here, my pastor prefers to be addressed as, I wrote down pastor, preacher, Pastor Campbell. you know, something like that. Especially like in a public setting, but that's mainly the deal there. So, you and your pastor. It says give your pastor your confidence, love, encouragement, and constant prayers. Be his co-worker. Go to him with your difficulties and struggles. Call him when in need. He is best able to help you with counsel from the Word of God. Never make him your idol. Don't do that. Keep your eyes on the Lord. But neither harshly criticize your pastor or be party to scheming against him or his leadership. We'll go ahead and read these and I'm going to actually, we're going to chop it right here at Church Decisions and then we'll finish it next week. But let's see. 1 Thessalonians 5. There it is. And we beseech you rather than know them which labor among you and are over you in the Lord and admonish you and esteem them very highly for their work's sake and be at peace among yourselves. Um, Oh, I guess it was down here further too. There it is. Uh, and then first Timothy five, 17 and through 19 that the elders and this actually, I mean, it's of course talking, they're, they're trying to point out that there's respect or, honor and so forth. This is actually contextually talking about taking care of your pastor's physical needs, but we'll read it for the sake of honor anyways. It says, let the elders that rule well be counted worthy of double honors, especially they who labor in the word and doctrine. For the scriptures say, thou shalt not muzzle the ox and treadeth out the corn. And the laborer is worthy of his reward against an elder received not accusation, but before two or three witnesses. He's pointing out the fact that you should honor and so on. That verse does that, but the context there is take care of his needs. Beat him like you would an ox. Anyways, let's see. So love and appreciate the wife of your pastor also. That's important. If you don't, pastor's going to beat you up. No, I'm just kidding. Some will. What's that? Some will. Some will, yeah. No, no. I'm not to be a brawler. So she holds no office in the church and has no authority, but she is a very, very important, she's very, very important to my ministry, to the pastor's ministry, and his children are also. So when they get out of line, whoop them. I'm just kidding. So 1 Timothy 3, 4 and 5, it says, one that ruleth his own house well, having his children in subjection of all gravity. For if a man know not how to rule his own house, how shall he take care of the church of God? Titus 1 6 if any may be blameless the husband of one wife having faithful children not accused of riot or unruly They're important important to the ministry so Let's see. We are going to start in Acts 6 Next week, let me just mark it In my Bible here or in my notes Mm-hmm And we'll pick up where we left off I just talked about how we shouldn't argue and scheme right now. Hopefully, it's been helpful to you. I knew this was going to take some time. Next week, we may actually get done a little early. No, probably not. We've got plenty of material to cover still. I really, really wanted to get this whole thing done today, but it's just not going to happen. So, praise the Lord. We will make a run for it, reconvene next week. Dealing with church decisions, the church as an independent institution. We'll talk about the commission, the ordinances, how we're financed, which that doesn't even really talk about, it just mentions it. The church and me. That's it Let us pray Father we thank you Lord so much for this day. We thank you Lord for your word. We thank you for your church