Good morning. As Pastor Sam is in Mexico this week, I'm filling in for the next two paragraphs of chapter 26. But before we begin, let's go to the Lord in prayer. O merciful and gracious Heavenly Father, we do bless you and thank you that you've given us this blessed day to set aside all of our earthly cares and labors and focus on that one thing needful, which is you, our Lord and our God. We thank you that you've granted us your Word. We pray that you would, as we study our confession of faith this day, we would recognize the truth from your word in confessional form. And Lord, that you would guide and direct us, that we would not err to the left or to the right. And Lord, we do especially bless and thank you that our dear brother Mickey Myers is able to be here with us again today. We pray these things in Christ's precious name. Amen. All right. Well, Pastor Sam, it's probably been four months ago when we said we were going to divide this chapter between the two of us. I kept asking him for months and months, let me know what paragraphs I have. Well, two weeks ago, he finally let me know. And the first is paragraphs eight and nine, which, you know, okay, the first thing anyone does when they're teaching through the London Baptist Confession of Faith is they read what Sam Waldron wrote on it. Well, what Sam Waldron wrote on these two paragraphs takes six minutes to read. So first I was, how am I gonna fill a whole hour with this short thing? But then I realized some other things, and I don't know how I'm gonna fit it all in an hour. So let's go ahead and, so we're doing paragraphs eight and nine. However, Pastor Ben mentioned to me that a couple weeks ago, when I wasn't here, when Pastor Sam was going through paragraph four, that he didn't have time to discuss the issue of the Antichrist. It's probably the most notorious thing in our confession of faith that people might have questions about. And he just read it and had to move on. Okay, so I want to talk about it just for a little bit. You know, there's some places in the country where you'll see billboards, the Pope is the Antichrist, right? It's not Reformed Baptists who are putting those up. It's Seventh Day Adventists. But, let's just take a quick look at that paragraph. Paragraph four of chapter 26. The Lord Jesus Christ is the head of the church, in whom, by the appointment of the Father, all power for the calling, institution, order, or government of the church is invested in a supreme and sovereign manner. Neither can the Pope of Rome in any sense behead thereof. But is that Antichrist, that man of sin, and son of perdition, that exalts himself in the church against Christ, and all that is called God, whom the Lord shall destroy with the brightness of his coming? Now, that's what our confession says, but here at Grace Reformed Baptist Church of Owensboro, we have this stated in our Constitution regarding our statement of faith. We accept the London Baptist Confession of Faith of 1689, accepting the assertions regarding the salvation of the mentally incompetent, Chapter 10, Paragraph 3, and the identity of the Antichrist, Chapter 26, Paragraph 4. is our primary confession of faith. Now, some might think, or ask, why is that? Why do we take exception to the identity of the Antichrist? Because the first thing someone might accuse us of is its indeference to the Pope. Oh, the Pope's not really that bad. We don't want to say anything that nasty about the Pope. No, actually we do. He's an Antichrist. What it says about he exalts himself in the church against Christ and all that is called God, that's what the Pope does. The Pope substitutes himself for the Father, Son, and the Spirit, actually. So the problem isn't that we have a love for the Pope. The issue is exegetical. Because the confession is clearly pointing somewhere when it says, that man of sin. It's not a, an antichrist, it's the antichrist and that man of sin, which points us to 2 Thessalonians 2, which if we just read through, we'll see what the issue is. 2 Thessalonians 2, now brethren, concerning the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and our gathering together to him. So what's the context? Paul is talking to the Thessalonians about when Christ is going to return and we will meet him in the air, okay? We're not talking about an invisible imaginary rapture, we're talking about what's really going to happen when our Lord and Savior returns, okay? That's a subject matter. We ask you not to be soon shaken in mind or troubled, either by spirit or by word or by letter, as if from us, as though the day of Christ had come. Let no one deceive you by any means, for that day will not come unless the falling away comes first. And the man of sin is revealed, the son of perdition, who opposes himself and exalts himself above all that is called God or that is worshiped, so that he sits as God in the temple of God, showing himself that he is God. Do you not remember that when I was still with you, I told you these things? And now you know what is restraining that he may be revealed in his own time. For the mystery of lawlessness is already at work, Only he who now restrains will do so until he is taken out of the way. Then the lawless one will be revealed, whom the Lord will consume with the breath of his mouth and destroy with the brightness of his coming. The coming of the lawless one is according to the working of Satan, with all power, signs, and wonders, with all unrighteous deception, among those who perish because they did not receive the love of the truth, that they might be saved." So what do we have here? Paul is saying, don't believe someone who says Christ has already returned and you missed it. We know it won't happen until there's a great apostasy and the man of sin is revealed who's going to exalt himself, have all sorts of lying wonders. He's going to be in the spirit of antichrist. And we've told you, Christ will not return until after this has occurred. So here's the issue. This appears to be Paul saying, there's, okay, let me back up just a second. John and other places are clear. There is more than one Antichrist. And the spirit of the Antichrist has been in the world since Christ went up into heaven. The church has been fighting it. There will be this final manifestation of the spirit of Antichrist in one man shortly before Christ returns because he's going to be destroyed by the brightness of his coming. That's a man, not an office in an apostate church. That's the only reason we take exception. Could the final Antichrist be a Pope? Absolutely. I wouldn't be surprised at all. But do we confess dogmatically this is what the Bible teaches? No. Any questions about, Mickey? The only infallible interpreter of prophecy is its fulfillment. That's good. It's hard to read an office in the second Thessalonians 2 because there's all these singular masculine personal pronouns being used to refer to the man of sin. Him, the man of sin, the man of law. And, okay, the Lord will consume him with the brightness of his coming. How many popes have lived and died since that was written that weren't destroyed by the brightness of his coming? I, you know, okay, this is just kind of funny. Back when I was a pre-millennial dispensationalist, I had another, I had another idea about what the, I did think, okay, the Pope might, the Antichrist might be a Pope when he comes. I had another theory that he's going to look like the pictures of Jesus. because we know Jesus didn't look like the pictures of Jesus. And when antichrist means substitute for Christ, well, maybe the reason Satan's been giving us all these pictures of Jesus that we know didn't look like him is so when the antichrist comes, people think, no, I'm no longer pre-millennial dissensationalist. Maybe that theory will have some to it, but I don't think, anyway. Let's move on to paragraph eight. Paragraph eight is about the government of Christ's church. A particular church, gathered and completely organized according to the mind of Christ, consists of officers and members, and the officers appointed by Christ to be chosen and set apart by the church, so called and gathered, for the peculiar administration of ordinances and execution of power or duty which he entrusts them with or calls them to, to be continued to the end of the world, which are bishops or elders and deacons. This is basically simply laying out the two-office view of church government. There are only two offices in Christ's church by which he governs his church. They are, one, the office of bishops or elders, secondly, the office of deacons. Now notice it's bishops or elders. We'll see the Confession of Faith as well as the Scripture use a number of different terms synonymously, which in our day, various denominations have separated and made unbiblical offices out of biblical terms. But the first office, and I would say the only authoritative office is bishops or elders. The other office is deacons. Deacons do not have authority as rulers over the church. They are servants of the church. They may have authority delegated to them by the elders of the church. But when we're talking about the authority and the government of the church, It's the bishops and the deacons, and the bishops or elders are those who hold the authority. Now, to contrast this, You know, the most or many of the differences between Westminster Confession of Faith and ours are also seen in Savoy because Savoy was much closer to their ecclesiology than the Presbyterians. But this is a place where we clearly differed from the Congregationalists as well. They actually have a four office view. In the Savoy Platform of Polity, it says, the officers appointed by Christ, et cetera, are pastors, teachers, elders, and deacons. They see these as four completely separate offices in the church. There are other, let's see, I remember, my parents are both United Methodist ministers, Their polity was somebody straight out of seminary, the first time they get ordained, they're ordained as a deacon, which is a pastor, but they're called a deacon for two years, and then they're ordained again, become an elder, and then if they get the office where they're running things over, so then they go up to bishop, and that's it. Other interesting, but anyway, while we did follow Savoy in many things, here we differed. We stuck with the two office view, as we see in places like Philippians 1.1. To all the saints in Christ Jesus who are in Philippi, with the bishops and the deacons. There's no place where it says with the bishops and the deacons and the elders. There's nothing like that in the scripture. And another really, probably the most, sticks out as one of the strongest arguments for the two office view. First Timothy gives us the qualifications for officers. Elders and deacons. If these other offices exist, where are the qualifications for them? God didn't bother to give them any? Oh, I'm very strict on elders and deacons, but teachers, just take anyone you want. No, it doesn't make any sense. Or at least this pushes us strongly in this direction, but it's not the only thing it does, as we'll see here. So, pastor, elder, or bishop. The Confession of Faith uses these synonymously. See in paragraph eight it says, bishops or elders and deacons, so it's using bishops and elders synonymously. Paragraph nine, the office of bishop or elder in a church, again using them synonymously. Paragraph 11, the bishops or pastors of the church. So now you see it also equating bishops and pastors. It's not treating them as separate offices. Pastor, elder, bishops, they're all terms for the same office. Perhaps some of the difficulty comes from English Bible translations. You notice in a lot of the older translations, the term translated pastor in a modern translation is translated shepherd. A lot of the older translations say bishop, where the newer translations say overseer. A lot of the older translations say presbyter, where the newer will say elder. But all six of these English terms designate one and the same office in the New Testament. The pastors, the bishops, the presbyters, The shepherds, the overseers, the elders. These terms are all used simultaneously throughout the scriptures, throughout the New Testament. We see this in Acts 20, verse 17. From Miletus, he sent to Ephesus and called for the elders of the church. And then in verse 28, where he's speaking to those elders, therefore take heed to yourselves and to all the flock, among which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers to shepherd the church of God, which he purchased with his own blood. So, he calls the elders to himself, and when he's speaking to the elders, he calls them, he says the Holy Spirit has made you overseers, Your job as overseers is to shepherd the church of God. So, again, we see the equation, basically, of elder, shepherd, overseer. Then in Titus chapter 1, beginning in verse 5, For this reason I left you in Crete, that you should set in order the things that are lacking, and appoint elders in every city, as I commanded you. If a man is blameless, the husband of one wife, having faithful children, not accused of dissipation or insubordination, or a bishop," that's New King James NASV and ESV translated, overseer. So a bishop or overseer must be blameless, as a steward of God, not self-willed, not quick-tempered, etc. So when Paul is talking to Titus, he tells him to appoint elders. And when he talks about what the qualifications of those elders are, he calls them bishops or overseers. It's really, really hard to come away from this and have the idea of a bishop being a pastor that is over several churches and the pastors thereof. First Peter 5.2, shepherd the flock of God which is among you, serving as overseers, not by compulsion but willingly. Not for dishonest gain, so shepherd and overseer. Of course, the shepherd here is in the verbal form. But what do shepherds do? Shepherds shepherd. And who shepherds? Shepherds shepherd. We could make a children's book out of this. 1st Timothy 3.2, a bishop, or again translated overseer by the NASB or ESV, then must be blameless, the husband of one wife, temperate, sober, good behavior, hospitable, able to teach. So where the qualifications for one are the overseer, for the other it's bishop, the same qualifications because it's the same office. Ephesians 4.11, and he himself gave some to be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, and some pastors and teachers, or ESV, shepherds and teachers. Now this is probably, this passage, Ephesians 4.11, is where most of the confusion often comes from. This is where those go to add the office of teacher. He gave some to the apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, and they read it as though it continued, some pastors and some teachers. If you look at your translations, they all do something like this. It says some apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, some pastors and teachers. Is it apexagedical, Ben? I'm not the Greek guy. I've forgotten all the Greek I've ever known. I have to learn it all over again. Anyway, it's pastor slash teacher. It's equating the two. Pastors are teachers. Teachers are pastors. you would represent as a pastor slash teacher. The other view is that no, it's a separate office. There are translation issues involved, but especially when we look at the qualifications for elders, bishops, pastors, apt to teach. is one of them. The idea that you make an entirely different office and the rest of the New Testament doesn't tell us anything about because of this passage, it's not a good idea. Now, of course, I have to quote Sam Waldron. I'm talking about the London Baptist Confession of Faith. He says, it is common today to draw a distinction between pastors and elders. In Acts 20, 17 and 28, 1 Peter 5, 2, the elders are commanded to shepherd or pastor the church. In 1 Timothy 3, 2, it is required that all elders be able to teach. Ephesians 4, 11's pastor teachers are simply elders. There are not three offices in the church, minister or pastor, elder and deacon. There are only two offices, overseer, Overseer, elder, pastor, and deacon. Pastors and elders are the same. The biblical teaching should not be subtly undermined by unbiblical terminology." But I want to say something else. The norm is actually a plurality of elders in each local church. If you grew up in Southern Baptist church circles or many other denominations, you'd go, what? Every church you ever knew had a pastor, right? Plurality, what? Anyway, but here's a fact. There is no instance of a New Testament church where only one elder exists. Every time we look at elders in New Testament churches, there's more than one there. If it's specifically stated, it's always plural. Acts 14.23, so when they had appointed elders in every church, elders plural, churches singular. Acts 20 verse 17, from Miletus he sent to Ephesus and called for the elders of the church. Philippians 1.1, to all the saints in Christ Jesus who are in Philippi with the bishops and deacons. Church in Philippi had multiple bishops or elders. 1 Thessalonians 5.12, and we urge you, brethren, to recognize those who labor among you, who are over you in the Lord and admonish you. Those, plural. Titus 1.5, for this reason I left you in Crete, that you should set in order the things that are lacking and appoint elders in every city as I commanded you. Hebrews 13.17, obey those who rule over you. Those, again, it's plural. James 5.14, is anyone among you sick? Let him call for elders of the church. Elders, plural, church, singular. That's what we find. Now, before someone makes a wrong conclusion from this, let's go back to the way our Confession specifically states this. A particular church gathered and completely organized according to the mind of Christ consists of, etc. Just because the norm, what we ought to have is a plurality of elders in a church. That does not mean that the lack of multiple elders means it's not a legitimate church. In fact, you can have a church without any elders or deacons and it's still a church. Is it fully organized according to the mind of Christ? Is it what it wants to be, what it ought to be? But I mean, if someone could take these kind of ideas and have a church, the pastor dies, and it's no longer a church. We didn't have any deacons, he was our only officer, it's not a church anymore, no. That's still a local body of Christ that needs a shepherd now, okay? So we need to be careful not to draw false conclusions or uncharitable conclusions. Pastor Ben? Right. Right. Right. Exactly. Exactly. It wasn't go create churches by appointing elders to groups of people, their churches already. You go appoint elders. Yeah. Go ahead. You got it. The expectation, the hope of every reformed Baptist church should be that's not necessarily the case, to have elders. I've seen many churches around the world that have had a single elder or even no elders at a certain point, but their desire is to have multiple elders. There shouldn't be the expectation that, well, one is enough. In one sense, if you're in a church, God's only given you one elder, you need to be content. But in another sense, no, don't be content. Be crying out to God to give you what He knows you need. I mean, He's the one who sent them out two by two. This is His design. Okay. Now, that brings us to parity of authority. Parity in the eldership is something you'll hear in Reformed Baptist circles and almost nowhere else. This is an excellent, excellent, excellent book on the subject, written by multiple authors, including Dr. Waldron. It's Greg Nichols, Dr. Waldron, Dave Chansky, and Jim Hefstetter. I've got tons of these. We give them away everywhere. If you don't have it, get it. It doesn't take long to read. I reread it Friday evening when I was preparing for the Sunday school lesson. It's a good read. And actually, if you go to my old blog, it's actually free if you want to read it digitally. Anyway. Since the Bible presents us with one office of pastor, elder, overseer, we reject those hierarchical structures commonly found in most churches in our day. We reject the idea that a bishop is over several churches and has authority over those churches and their pastors. That's completely unbiblical. The Bible doesn't warrant any idea like that. Now, church history shows us that this cropped up fairly early, but the Bible itself doesn't seem to make any room for it. The idea of ruling elders who have authority over pastors. I'm personally familiar with a conservative PCA church that had the preaching pastor and three ruling elders, and the preaching pastor, he preached in such a way that really convicted two of the elders' wives. and rather than respond to that conviction in the proper manner, they sent their husbands after him. The elders of the church benched the pastor, made him sit in the front row of the church for three months while they brought in preachers from elsewhere because he didn't deserve to be in the pulpit because he had insulted their wives. And that's a conservative PCA church. I know another, conservative PCA church, where, and this is a very interesting example, there was a Baptist, a convicted, convinced Baptist family in this PCA church, which is not uncommon, especially in the deep south, because PCA churches don't have the same They have no problem allowing Baptists to be members of their church. Anyway, there's this Baptist family whose teenage daughter, I believe she was 15 or 16, comes to faith in Christ. And she wants to be baptized. And she wants to join the church that they go to. Well, they go to, and if I told you the name of this pastor, you'd all recognize it. They go to him. and they want her to be baptized by immersion. And you know, the Westminster Standards have room for that. The Westminster Standards say sprinkling, pouring, and immersion are all proper forms of baptism. This main pastor, whose name you would know, thought it would be a great idea. The elders of the church vetoed it. This family ended up going to a Reformed Baptist church an hour away having their daughter baptized, she joined that church and then transferred her membership to the Presbyterian Church. What's this come from? You've got this idea they're ruling elders and pastors, they're separate offices. And the interesting thing is, in some cases, it seems like the preaching pastors, the ones with the authority, and the ruling elders have no authority, and then you've got these other ones where it's completely reversed and it's the other way around. I'm not sure which is worse, because they both, quite frankly, can be pretty scary. Or the senior pastor having authority over all these associate pastors. In larger Southern Baptist, conservative, even very conservative Baptist, it's the norm. You have one guy who's really in charge, the senior pastor. These other men may be called pastors, but they really don't have any authority, or a pastor having authority over the ruling elders. All these different things. Why are they wrong? Because it's one office. There's no hierarchy anywhere in the scriptures. Every elder is given the same duties, the same responsibilities. We'll get to diversity in a little bit, but they have the same authority. There's no hierarchy among them. All elders hold the same office and thus have the same authority. The elders of the church are, in the relevant passages, all depicted as pastors and bishops, all are called upon to discharge this very stewardship of shepherding and oversight. Titus 1.7, for a bishop must be blameless as a steward of God. Stewardship always embodies authorization from a master. always embodies authorization from a master for which the steward is accountable to that master. The elders are therefore equally authorized by and accountable to Christ." That was Greg Nichols. Just quickly, Greg Nichols gives a number of implications of parody. When we're talking about all the pastors, all the elders in the church are pastors, That really bothers some people. You call every elder pastor? Yeah, that really gets under people's skin. Strange, but he gives us a number of implications. What's it matter? What application could we make this that all elders have equal authority? Let's walk through a handful of these. Parity implies that all the elders should participate in visiting and counseling the flock. The idea of having one pastor does a preaching, another exclusively, another pastor who does the visiting exclusively, it's not a biblical model. It's the response, but now, We'll get to this in diversity. Do they all equally visit same people all together, no difference whatsoever, they're all clones of each other? No, we're not saying that. But it is each one of their duty to visit the flock. Parity implies that all the elders should participate in interviews of prospective members. I don't know if you're surprised about that. membership interview, has done it in a meeting with the elders. Apparently implies that all the elders should be included in setting church policy, not, again, one sending the standard and just making sure he's got a bunch of yes men underneath him. Parity implies that each elder should get pastoral oversight from the eldership as a body. Real parity, I think, is probably the best way to ensure a church's obedience, or an elder's obedience to Paul's command not to lay hands quickly on any man. Because when the elders of a church lay hands on another elder of the church, they're making him their elder. When Pastor Sam and Pastor Joe laid hands on Ben, Ben became Pastor Sam and Pastor Joe's pastor. I know that seems bizarre in some ways, but it's biblical. Because you know what? Pastors need shepherding too. The Bible doesn't have Lone Rangers. Parity implies that elders are equally eligible to lead the observance of the sacraments. Some of these just seem obvious to us if you've been in our, but in some churches they're like, what's that pastor doing that for? He's a pastor. Parity implies that the elders are equally eligible to represent their church and associations, or for that matter, nominate others to participate. Parity implies that each elder must grasp sound doctrine and be apt to teach and defend it. That's another, a bad outcome of having the wrong view of this hierarchical structure So some of the elder pastors aren't really elder pastors. They really didn't have to have the same qualifications. If all the elders have to be equally qualified because they will have the equal stewardship and equal responsibilities. Okay, now, the problem is, some people hear all that and say, Well, then every pastor needs to do everything exactly the same. They have to have the same number of hours in the pulpit. They have to teach the same number of classes. They have to visit the same number of people. They can't have, and they call this, I'm not gonna go into their mocking terms for it. That's not what we're saying at all. There is a legitimate diversity in the eldership. There's a legitimate diversity as to spiritual gifts. 1 Corinthians 12.1, but one in the same spirit works in all these things, distributing to each one individually as he wills. Who gives gifts to elders? God, the Holy Spirit, it's sovereignly administered, and it's not equal. No one thinks it's equal. We're not pretending it's equal. You don't have to have equal gifts to have equal authority. That's just silly. 1 Peter 4, 10-11, as each one has received a gift, minister it to one another as good stewards of the manifold grace of God. If anyone speaks, let him speak as the oracles of God. If anyone ministers, let him do, et cetera. So there's this clear diversity of gifts and giftedness. Romans 12, seven and eight, or ministry, let us use it for the ministering. He who teaches in teaching, he who exhorts in exhortation. So we recognize the Bible clearly tells us that different elders are going to have different levels of gifts, different strengths, different weaknesses. They all have the same general qualifications. They all have to be able to teach, but some are gonna be able to teach a lot better than others. It's just a fact of the matter. And here's another interesting thing. Some of them, part of the congregation is going to think this one is a much better teacher. And this other part of the congregation thinks, no, this one's a much better teacher. We're not talking about cookie cutters. Kingdom of heaven is like a man traveling to a far country who called his own servants and delivered his goods to them. To one he gave five talents, to another two, to another one, to each one according to his own ability. It's God's sovereign decision who gets what gifts, how many, and there is diversity. So we're not claiming there's no diversity in gifts in the eldership. Secondly, there is legitimate diversity as to financial support. on gifts before you move on. I hit the nail on the head. The qualifications for the office are unified. Every elder must have those qualifications. But what's interesting is those qualifications more often than not are reflections of the congregation. The congregation has some of those same gifts. And then every elder is unified in having the gift, but the degree of distribution from the spirit is such that He's a great example. I've been in former church circumstances where every elder was hospitable. That's the qualification. But some were more hospitable than others in terms of degree. And so for us here at CBTS, no student should enter the ministry thinking, well, I'm not hospitable. That'll be somebody else's job to do that. No, you're wrong. The Bible says you must be hospitable to be qualified for the ministry. Amen. Okay, so there's also legitimate diversity as to financial support, because if there wasn't, we'd have to go look at our budget again. 1 Timothy 5, 17 through 18, let the elders who rule well be counted worthy of double honor, especially those who labor in the word and doctrine. where the scripture says, you shall not muzzle an ox while it treads out the grain and the laborer is worthy of his wages. I don't have time to fully exegete this, but what it's talking about, it's not saying let the elders who rule well be paid more than the elders who don't rule well. That's not the comparison. It's the elders, the assumption is elders will be ruling well. The double honor is talking about how much they get paid as verse 18 demonstrates. You should not muzzle an ox when it treads out the grain. The labor is worthy of his wages. But especially those who labor in word and doctrine. What this points out to us is there are elders whose primary focus is laboring in word and doctrine. They should be worthy of double honor. There are also those whose primary function is not laboring in the Word and doctrine. Their primary occupation might be a banker, or a plumber, or any number of things. They have equal authority, but they don't need to get paid. You don't pay the person who's already got a full-time job and is an elder, same as you do the person who you're actually paying to study the Word all week long. See, as soon as I brought in parody, I went from not having enough to, how are we going to get through all this? But there's also legitimate diversity as to the degree of actual influence. First Corinthians 15.10, but by the grace of God, I am what I am, and his grace toward me was not in vain, but I labored more abundantly than they all, yet not I, but the grace of God which is in me." So this Paul, he labored more abundantly than them all and ended up with a much greater influence because of it. Peter exercised a greater influence than many of the other apostles. And as Dr. Waldron says, what is true of the extraordinary office of apostles certainly must be true of the ordinary office of a pastor. So there will be a legitimate diversity of influence. That's not the same thing as an authoritative structure. Yes, there are certainly, in our case, there are certain instances where there's something going on. Dr. Waldron has written a book on this subject, etc. The other two elders naturally defer to him. but would feel free to disagree if they disagree. But there's more influence there. And certain elders in certain situations have more pull, not inappropriately. But it's not the same as having an authoritative structure where one elder is really making the decisions and the others just follow suit. Tom? was added to them, but when they originally had come out, three of those men were my pastors. And we had never had an elder that was a non-supportive elder. That came later, and we had to restudy the whole thing about some being worthy of double Do we have him on the month this morning? All right, well, I'm about to get to the next paragraph, which I probably could get done in three minutes, but we have one. So I'll get to that later. So go ahead. I've got a one minute question. Go ahead. When it comes to our rejection of a church hierarchy, it seems that at first glance, the New Testament example How exactly would Paul and Barnabas give us... First of all, we're talking about apostles, or Paul the apostle. Paul has authority over every one of these churches. And that is, well actually today the apostles still have legitimate authority over all churches. What they've written in the word is our standard. So there is a sense, there was an office of apostle that was over multiple churches. And it was church universal, not even simply a group of local churches. That's what you see in the Jerusalem Council It's an apostolic answer to a question in the church that had authority over all the churches. It involved the elders and others as well, but it's an apostolic answer. That's where the authority came from. Blake? Well, that's what you're going to find in here. Some of the chapters are directly in response to other Reformed Baptists' arguments. But what you'll find in here, you'll see that Reformed Baptists aren't uniform. I think you'll also see that our view is much more conformable to our confession of faith. And you also get to see where we really agree and disagree with John Owen. It's worth the price of the book right there. And I'm not even charging for it. And what I was going to say with that is usually when you talk to these guys, the thrust of their argument tends to become pragmatic, where they say, you can't tell me that one of your elders doesn't end up becoming the leader. That's usually the thrust of the argument. And I can point to our eldership and say, absolutely not. Because if there was ever an eldership where that happened, it would be one in which Sam Baldwin was president. and yet we don't have that. He does have greater influence, especially outside the church, right, than our other two, but I think internally we don't need them because they don't operate that way. They don't operate as one who is a bone. Amen. Pastor Ben. I don't know how many times when I tell somebody I'm a pastor, they ask, are you the senior pastor? You have three different senior pastors. All right.