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I am not recommending the book House Church, edited by Steve Atkerson with eight other contributors. The book is a little over 300 pages with small font, single-spaced and information I did not agree with, making this an unpleasant slog. I did find one excerpt from Beresford Job that I thought was compelling and it’s highlighted below.

It is amazing to realize, though nevertheless a fact, that Jesus’ conflict with Israel’s religious leaders was not over the Mosaic Law. Jesus kept the Old Covenant to the letter. Apart from one attempt to trip Him up using the occasion of a woman caught in adultery, those who sought to do battle against Him did so for other reasons. What made them so angry with Jesus wasn’t that He went against anything in the Old Testament Scriptures, but rather that He challenged and went against something called the tradition of the elders.

We read in Mark’s Gospel, “Now when the Pharisees and some of the scribes who had come from Jerusalem gathered around him, they noticed that some of his disciples were eating with defiled hands, that is, without washing them. (For the Pharisees, and all the Jews, do not eat unless they thoroughly wash their hands, thus observing the tradition of the elders; and they do not eat anything from the market unless they wash it; and there are also many other traditions that they observe, the washing of cups, pots, and bronze kettles.) So the Pharisees and the scribes asked him, ‘Why do your disciples not live according to the tradition of the elders, but eat with defiled hands?”” (Mk 7:1-5). So what, precisely, is going on here? The answer is that whereas in theory Israel considered the Old Testament scriptures to be its final authority in matters of both faith and practice, the reality was somewhat different. The Jews actually paid far more heed to a system of teaching and practice known as “the tradition of the elders” or “the Oral Law.”

Pharisaic Judaism taught that when Moses was on Mount Sinai he was given not one, but two laws by God. The written law, or Mosaic Law, was recorded in the pages of the Old Testament. However, a second, secret law was said to have been passed on purely orally down through the generations. This secret law allegedly only came to public light in the years preceding the time of Jesus. When the inevitable conflict between these two laws and what they taught came about, Israel had to eventually decide which one was their actual final authority. After all, you may claim to have two things equally as your final authority (in this case the Old Testament and the Oral Law), but you can really only have one, and it is that which you obey if contradictions between the two emerge. Incredibly, Israel went with the Oral Law, and relegated the Mosaic Law, and thereby the Old Testament scriptures, to second place. Indeed, the Pharisees taught that it was more punishable to set against the tradition of the elders than the Old Testament scriptures.

What we must understand is that, at the time of Jesus, the nation of Israel lived under the authority of a system of teachings and practices which, in vitally important ways, went against other teachings and practices laid down in the Old Testament. They did this whilst claiming to have been led to do so by God Himself, under the pretext that this Oral Law had supposedly been given to Moses by Him. A system of completely man-made and merely humanly originated teachings and practices had therefore usurped and replaced the revealed truth of the written Word of God, yet under the claim that, even though they contradicted the Old Testament Scriptures, such traditions and teachings had nevertheless come from the Lord God of Israel Himself.

However, if we ask what the Lord God of Israel thought about this (supposedly) inspired Oral Law, then all we have to do is to look at Jesus’ responses to it: “He said to them, ‘Isaiah prophesied rightly about you hypocrites, as it is written. “This people honors me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me; in vain do they worship me, teaching human precepts as doctrines.’ You abandon the commandment of God and hold to human tradition” (Mk 7:6-8).

Hypocrisy! That was the Lord’s clear and unwavering verdict on such traditions as were causing His people to go against the inspired traditions as revealed in the Word of God. To hold to merely humanly originated practice, whatever it may be, as opposed to biblical practice is, according to the Lord Jesus Christ, to “abandon the commandment of God.”

I think you’ll agree that this is pretty heavy duty stuff, and I can imagine the kind of responses even now being elicited from my readers: “Amen brother! That’s terrible what Israel did!” “Imagine that! Israel going against the Mosaic Law in favor of their own man made teachings and practices and traditions. No wonder God judged them!” “What? Abandoning the commandment of God by holding to merely human tradition? Unthinkable!” But I have to tell you that, for virtually two millennia, we Christians have been doing exactly the same thing.

It is incredible beyond words to realize that when it comes to our experience of church life, by which I mean the traditions, or established practice, which the vast majority of Christians unquestioningly follow, virtually all of it is based on a system of practices which, just like Israel’s tradition of the elders, has nothing whatsoever to do with the Word of God. Far from being what we see revealed in the pages of the New Testament, it rather originated from, and was implemented by, men who came on the scene after the Apostles of Jesus were dead and therefore after the writing of the New Testament was completed.

Many church traditions are not just different from what we see in Scripture, in the sense of being merely variations. They are actually the complete opposite of what we see in the New Testament. Far from being mere developments whereby biblical practices are applied in slightly different ways, they are rather practices which are actually at complete variance with what the New Testament teaches. They are practices that cause those adhering to them to go directly against what we see revealed in the Word of God, the very thing Jesus so unwaveringly and blatantly condemned.

Israel disobeyed the Old Testament at various points because of their beloved, yet totally wrong and unbiblical, tradition of the elders. The Christian Church has done exactly the same thing, only with the tradition of the Early Church Fathers. In England we call that a double-whammy, and it’s time we started to put it right. What are we going to go with? The traditions of man? Or the traditions of the Divine? I leave you, dear reader, to decide for yourself!

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Biblical Church by Beresford Job has become one of my favorite books and is highly recommended. This is the second excerpt from the book. The excerpt is a bit longer than my usual posts but I hope you take the time to read it. You can read the first excerpt here.

No! This is not about ‘perfect’ churches. It is rather about something as attainable as any other aspect of obedience to scripture, and that is bringing biblical churches into being.

But neither is it about advocating churches without problems. That would be as ridiculous as any notion of having ‘perfect’ ones. In a sinful world, and given that churches both exist in that world and are precisely comprised of redeemed sinners, problems are actually one of the things you can positively count on. So no, it’s not about being problem-free either! In fact, as someone who has practised church life as advocated in this book for three decades, the author can testify with some conviction that, as part of such a church, you will very possibly have more problems than you would in an unbiblical one. Yet what you can be assured of is that you will at least then be experiencing the problems you are meant to have, and which result from being true to scripture, rather than, as with unbiblical churches, having to give such considerable time and effort to dealing with problems and difficulties that arise precisely because of not being biblical; problems and difficulties which are, therefore, actually entirely unnecessary and completely avoidable. Just imagine never again having to give the slightest thought, or money, to buildings and infra-structure. Consider never having to give time or effort to the process of choosing your next Minister or Pastor, or giving thought to how much the church is going to have to pay him. Revel with me in the sheer delight and freedom of not having to bother with keeping up with what the ‘big cheeses’ higher up the church hierarchy are getting up to, or what they are expecting of you. Savour too the joy of being able to put family life first, and of being part of a church setup which positively encourages and enables the families in it to do just that.

The problems which do emerge though, and emerge they will, are those of significant ongoing relationships. How we love and serve one another, and how we grow in the Lord together! But of course those are the precisely the problems we are meant to have. They are the ones which sanctify us, which bring us into that ‘death to self’ we so desperately need to experience. They bring us to our knees, and therefore more and more in line with the teaching of scripture, and the knowledge and experience of Jesus living his life in and through us. It is hard; yes! And sometimes it is harder than you think you are able to bear; but it is life! It is real life and it is real discipleship! Through it we are able to share the sufferings of Jesus, become like him in His death and resurrection and, as a result, grow in grace, love and truth.

There is another misapprehension that needs to be addressed here, and it is any idea that I am contending that if only we get church structure right, if only we set up churches which function and operate according to the blueprint found in the New Testament, then all will be well. However, not only am I not contending that, I do not in any way believe it to be the case. It is perfectly possible for a group of believers to get together and form a church which observes the structure this book outlines down to the smallest detail. They could meet in absolute accordance with the format I am arguing for and they could go through the checklist and tick every box in my ‘irreducible minimum’ chapter, and then some. Yet they could nevertheless be cold, unloving, and virtually without anything of the grace and power of the Lord amongst them. Indeed, they could constitute quite the most unpleasant church on the face of the earth.

The issue, ultimately, is not that of just getting structure and format right at all. It is much deeper and far more profound than that. It is understanding that the structure and format is only as it is in scripture in order to enable and encourage something else entirely; the sharing of the life of Jesus together. Although the Lord used the picture in a slightly different context, we are nevertheless talking about the difference between wine and wineskins. It is not the wineskin which ultimately matters, but the wine which it contains. Yet if the wineskin is not the right sort, then as Jesus taught, the wine will escape and you are left with nothing but an empty wineskin. And whereas it is certainly the case that you could have a wineskin of the right shape and size, but with little or no actual wine in it, representing a spiritually dead and, therefore, useless and unpleasant biblical church; nevertheless, having an unbiblical church which is alive in the Lord though obviously much better than having a dead biblical one is still an ultimate compromise because it can just never fully experience what the Lord wants for it; or rather, for those individual believers who together comprise it. Precisely because it is an ultimately passive experience for the vast majority of believers in it, an unbiblical church can never fully hold the wine of the life of Jesus in the way an alive, biblical one can. The wine is what really matters and not the wineskin. Absolutely! Yet if the wineskin is wrong, then our experience of the wine will always be severely compromised and limited.

Think of it like hands and gloves. If we liken a church to a glove, then Jesus is the hand that goes inside it. Without the hand inside it is, of course, a dead thing; but when the hand is in it there is both life and movement. The glove then truly becomes that which the hand is lives and moves through. The issue then arises concerning the design of the glove. What, exactly, should it look like? What shape should it be? And of course the answer is that it should be the appropriate and correct shape for a hand to fit into it. The more correct and appropriate the shape of the glove, the more freedom of movement afforded to the hand inside the glove.

Unbiblical churches, because they are not based on the design and blueprint found in the New Testament, are like a glove that has, for example, two fingers and one thumb. Or maybe eight fingers and three thumbs. Whereas the hand can get in the glove, nevertheless, because the glove is the wrong shape for the hand to fit into properly, the movement of the hand inside the glove is compromised in varying and major ways. The life coming from the hand is truly there, but heavily restricted in what it can do.

As So what about biblical churches in this regard then? Well, what we can say with absolute certainly is that they are, at the very least, the right ‘shape’. They are the perfect design for the life that wants to fit inside them. Remaining with our picture we can say that they do indeed have the requisite four fingers and one thumb, and the hand can therefore fit inside with very little problem. However, even this is not sufficient on its own, and the reason I am making clear that you can have a spiritually lifeless and completely unappealing biblical church. Vital though it is to have the correct structure and format of church life, it is not of itself anything like enough. A glove, whilst being completely the correct shape, could nevertheless still be made of silk, or cast iron. It could be correct in ‘shape’ – that is, in structure and format – yet hard, unyielding and immoveable. You could quite easily have a group of believers who gather together on the basis of a mutual and completely correct understanding of what the Bible teaches about church structure and format, but who are, both as individuals and as a corporate church, nevertheless still completely missing the point: and that is the life, power and presence of Jesus lived out amongst them. If we were to take a certain amount of liberty with the well known saying about ‘an iron fist in a velvet glove’, then we might say that such a church, though fully biblical in its structure and format, would nevertheless be the equivalent of the velvet touch of the hand of the life of Jesus being pretty much completely constricted inside a hard and unyielding iron glove.

So let it be properly understood just what is, and is not, being said in this regard. If someone asked me what is best, a loving and spiritually alive unbiblical church, or a harsh, unloving, legalistically driven biblical one, I would unhesitatingly reply that it is the former. Yet that thinking is, ultimately, a false dichotomy. Why be limited to merely choosing between two such things when we can simply look to the Lord to enable us to form into loving, spiritually alive biblical churches? You might as well ask me whether I think you would do best to marry an unbeliever who is brilliant with children, or a believer who is not and who can’t stand them. My reply would be simple: Why not just trust the Lord and go all out for a spouse who loves the Lord and children, and who is good with them?

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I’m currently reading, Biblical Church by Beresford Job and came across this gem I wanted to share. I added a second excerpt from the book and you can read it here.

This is radical stuff! I don’t, however, mean in the sense of how the word gets used to describe something as being new or different, but rather its more accurate meaning of going to the root of a thing. When Jesus told the religious leaders of the day that the axe was being laid to the root of the tree, he meant that their fundamental problem, their plight at the foundational level, was the belief they held that they were right with God, and therefore Heaven-bound, simply by virtue of being Jews. However, believing what they did virtually guaranteed that they would reject their very own Messiah and end up with the opposite. Jesus confronted the root causes and, therefore, got right to the heart of the matter. It is also what we must do regarding the issue of church life.

It is, however, going to be somewhat of a rough ride. Whenever Christian thinking and practice is challenged at a fundamental level, church history sadly demonstrates that those believers who are unwilling to honestly look at whatever is being addressed will rather just seek to attack, vilify and discredit those doing the challenging. And of course this must not just be put down purely to failures of approach, lack of wisdom or graciousness, or anything else for that matter, on the part of the dissenters. Those issuing the challenge may, or may not, present their case well. They may, or may not, raise the necessary issues lovingly and humbly. Anyone swimming against the tide of Christian opinion does indeed need to greatly attend to the importance of so doing in a Christ-like manner and gracious spirit: but the truth of the matter is that there nevertheless does seem to be a principle at work in Christian history whereby believers in the last reformatory move of God strenuously resist those in any current such move quite irrespective of other factors.

The Reformation is itself a case in point, although one does need to bear in mind that those who did the resisting in that particular instance weren’t actually believers. However, the principle remains the same. So-called ‘Christian’ thinking was challenged at a fundamental level, the issue then being the very nature of salvation, and of course all hell soon broke loose against the challengers from those who wanted the existing status quo to prevail. Far more pertinent to us here, though, is that even the Reformers, who were undoubtedly genuine believers, persecuted other genuine Christians whose only crime was to want to go even further in the implementation of newly recovered biblical truth. The Anabaptists, for instance, taught that the baptism of infants was wrong and that only believers should be baptized. They further maintained that there should be a separation between church and state, and purity not just of doctrine, but of practice as well. In short, they wanted to live in accordance with the teaching of the New Testament somewhat more comprehensively than did the Reformers who, having understood that salvation is through faith in Jesus alone, were happy to leave things there and not go much further.

Another example would be the advent of Pentecostalism at the turn of the last century and the retrieval of the experience of the baptism with the Holy Spirit and the miraculous spiritual gifts. Again, Christian thinking was challenged at a fundamental level and, once more, all hell broke loose against genuine believers at the hands of other genuine believers who saw them as nothing more than dangerous tongues-speaking maniacs and deceivers. But now, keeping the strands of church history in dynamic motion, there are those of us who are saying that it is time to move on to the next area of biblical truth that has been lost and ignored down the ages: church practice! Acknowledging with great gratitude how the Reformers regained the truth of salvation (whilst mourning their treatment of those who wanted to go further), and how the Pentecostals rediscovered the power and ministry of the Holy Spirit, the cry is now going up that we need to go full circle and put in place what may well be the last piece of the Reformatory jigsaw puzzle: biblical church practice!

However, those who labor to teach and implement such truths and practices, far from being heralded as ‘prophets at the cutting edge of what the Holy Spirit is doing’, are rather more likely to be seen as subversive and divisive troublemakers of the first order. At the very least and I thank God that here in the West in the 21st Century we live in reasonably civilized times where public executions at the behest of established church authorities, such as befell the Anabaptists at the hands of the Reformers, cannot happen-we will be badly spoken of and rejected as being undesirable, weird, or even a new and dangerous cult. Even in the most promising of scenarios where brothers and sisters do take us seriously, we are nevertheless still going to be bombarded with both strident and deeply felt objections to what we are saying. However, this should not be seen as a negative problem, but rather something we should positively welcome. It isn’t easy, of course, but any opportunity to get this issue on the agenda with Christians must be considered a bonus.

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I certainly want to honor Larry and LaVerne Kreider as they have been modeling small relational gatherings since the early 1970’s. They have gained a wealth of experience over that time. The excerpt below is from Larry’s book, Micro Church Networks, published in 2020. The section below is about becoming effective spiritual fathers and mothers, something we desperately need today.

Before we can be effective spiritual fathers or mothers and see our posterity emerge, we must first check our motives. Spiritual parenting is a “behind the scenes” task. Probably no one will pat us on the back and say, “What a good job you are doing: keep up the good work.” Why? Because being a father or mother is not something we do, as much as it is something we are. I do not have to tell people that I am a father. They know it when they see my son and daughters.

Scripture warns us about giving ourselves an impressive title in an effort to gain the honor and respect of others: “Do not call anyone on earth your father; for One is your Father, He who is in heaven…but he who is greatest among you shall be your servant” (Matthew 23:9,11). A spiritual father or mother is not a title or position. It is a role of servanthood. A spiritual parent who is a small group leader or a micro church leader is always a servant first. No one can ever take the place of our heavenly Father. Spiritual fathers and mothers point their spiritual children to their heavenly Father.

Paul, the apostle, called himself a father several times in scripture, but he uses the word “father” to denote “not authority, but affection: therefore he calls them not his obliged, but his beloved, sons” (see 1 Corinthians 4:14). The measure of greatness of a spiritual parent is one’s level of servanthood and love, not one’s position.

Spiritual fathers and mothers could also be called mentors. The term mentor comes from a story in Greek mythology in which Odysseus asked his friend, Mentor, to look after his son while he went on a long journey. A spiritual mentor recognizes that people need to be developed through a caring and empathetic approach.

My favorite definition of a spiritual parent is this: A spiritual father or mother helps a spiritual son or daughter reach his or her God-given potential. It is that uncomplicated and yet profound. Bobb Biehl says it this way: “Mentoring is more about ‘how can I help you?’ than ‘what should I teach you?””

So how does a young man or woman become a spiritual parent? The only way is to have children-then be committed to helping them. This happens either by spiritual adoption (becoming a spiritual father or mother to someone who is already a believer but needs to be discipled) or by spiritual natural birth (becoming a spiritual father or mother to someone you have personally led to Christ). Paul became a spiritual father to Onesimus through “natural birth,” leading him to Christ when he was in prison (Philemon 10). Paul became a spiritual father to Timothy through “adoption” after meeting him in Ephesus (Acts 16:1-4).

The micro church and small group provide ideal opportunities for everyone to experience a spiritual family and eventually become spiritual parents themselves. When micro churches and small groups multiply, new spiritual parents have the opportunity to take responsibility and start a new spiritual family (micro church or small group) themselves.

A sweeping revival is just around the corner. God’s people need to be alert to accommodate the great harvest this will bring into the kingdom of God. Spiritual parents will need to be ready to obey His call and take these young Christians under their wings. God has called us to be spiritual parents. The Lord wants to give us a spiritual legacy. We may not feel ready; in fact, we may feel unprepared. Nevertheless, God’s call remains on our lives.

Although for the past 1,700 years much of the church of Jesus Christ has strayed from the truth of relational restoration between fathers and sons, the Lord is breathing a fresh word to His people. Rather than putting the focus on meetings and buildings which promote programs to encourage the spiritual growth of believers, He is calling us back to being His family and returning to the New Testament truth of building families.

Many believers are meeting house to house in small groups throughout the world because the Lord is restoring this sense of family to the body of Christ. Christians are again beginning to relive the book of Acts. They are seeing the importance of empowering and parenting the next generation.

Jesus wants His church to be restored to the New Testament pattern of family life. He ministered to the multitudes but focused on a few. These disciples changed the world!

True spiritual fathering and mothering was modeled by Jesus when he chose and trained his twelve disciples. Spiritual fathering and mothering and making disciples is basically one and the same. But when we understand spiritual fathering and mothering, we care about the persons we are mentoring while training them to make disciples at the same time. Persons we disciple are not our projects. They are people we love deeply and desire to see grow into their God-given destiny.

I believe the Lord is preparing to pour out His Spirit and bring revival to the church in these last days. The new wineskins, or church structures, of the early church were simple: people met from house to house. I believe our Lord’s strategy to prepare for the harvest is still the same-He wants to use common ordinary believers who have encountered an extraordinary God to meet together as spiritual families from house to house to disciple, train and prepare for the harvest.

Many Christians today are thirsting for this great influx of new wine-new believers pouring into His kingdom. God is placing a desire within spiritual fathers and mothers to welcome these believers into the kingdom and then train them as spiritual sons and daughters. Small groups of believers meeting together provide an ideal structure for this. The micro church is meant to be a spiritual family with the leaders and other spiritual moms and dads in the group taking responsibility to train the spiritual children. Micro churches produce mature Christians in a family-like setting.

Although micro churches and micro church networks are wonderful wineskins for spiritual parenting, in themselves they are not the answer. It is not the structure itself that is significant, but the relationships occurring within its perimeters. If the people in the micro churches do not practice spiritual parenting, their groups can quickly become as boring and lifeless as any other structure. The life comes from the Lord and from the active discipling relationships that are taking place.

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“Let it not make thee despair, neither yet discourage thee, O reader, that it is forbidden thee in pain of life and goods, or that it is made breaking of the king’s peace, or treason unto his highness, to read the Word of thy soul’s health-for if God be on our side, what matter maketh it who be against us, be they bishops, cardinals, popes.” William Tyndale

William Tyndale was born around 1494 in Gloucestershire, England, and he was executed by strangulation and burning at the stake on October 6, 1536, near Brussels, Belgium.

My good friend Buff sent me a link to this first New Testament, translated in English from the original tongue by William Tyndale in 1525-1526. I thought it important enough to include it on my Resources page. If you click here you can access the Tyndale Bible. There are important discussions of how and why certain words, especially “church”, found it’s way into the King James bible. If you search you can find lots of information about this. I have included a comparison below of just one verse, Hebrews 2:12.

Saying, I will declare thy name unto my brethren, in the midst of the church will I sing praise unto thee. KJV

I will declare thy name unto my brethren, and in the midst of the congregation will I praise thee. the Tyndale Bible

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The Servant Leader is a short book by Jason Anderson outlining principles of Kingdom leadership. Jesus really turned the world upside-down. Following is an excerpt about collaborating with others.

Corinth was one of the most important cities in Greece; prosperous and wealthy, it was the capital of the Roman province of Achaia. However, the Corinthian church had fallen into disputes and “disquieting irregularities in the conduct of the believers” that were challenging its very unity. Paul addressed these concerns through a series of letters and personal visits to Corinth where he discusses unity and diversity within the Church that produces a synergistic outcome greater than the individual parts could produce alone.

1 Corinthians 12:4-7
There are different spiritual gifts but the same Spirit; and there are different ministries and the same Lord; and there are different activities but the same God who produces all of them in everyone. A demonstration of the Spirit is given to each person for the common good.

Paul writes that the Holy Spirit is the originator of different kinds of spiritual gifts. The Greek word diaireseis expresses the idea of division of gifts, or distribution of the gifts all for the common good. Paul is building his case that we, especially servant leaders, must see the bigger picture to bring unity and collaboration in the Spirit as opposed to competition based on unique and diverse giftings. “All the gifts are to set forward the same great divine purpose.”

Later in the same chapter, Paul writes that the whole church is like a body (1 Cor 12:12). It is put together of many parts that are vital to life. There is no role that is too little, nor one that is too big. Instead, all parts are equally important and necessary. In other words, we need each other. We cannot do what God calls us to do in an atmosphere of competition but only in a spirit of collaboration. Thus, a servant leader understands that we need each other to succeed.

1 Corinthians 12:24-25
The parts of our body that are presentable don’t need this. But God has put the body together, giving greater honor to the part with less honor so that there won’t be division in the body and so the parts might have mutual concern for each other.

In these verses, Paul brings us to the understanding that there is no competition in the parts of the body, but rather a synergistically divine collaboration. “In the body all the members without distinction work for the good of the whole. No special care is lavished on one member to the detriment of other members.” The servant leader therefore does not view themselves as more important or significant than any other member of the team. Instead, all are equally necessary and must work together to succeed in God’s purposes. It is only the role that servant leaders fill which places them in a special area of trust.

A servant leader must then operate and build with the future in mind. “Servant-leadership, like stewardship, assumes first and foremost a commitment to serving the needs of others.” Servant leaders see the present role, task, or position as one that is entrusted to them for the benefit of others. This forward-looking approach to leading for others is vital in seeing our role as servant leaders.

When we begin to see that we are working for the benefit of others in a position of trust on God’s behalf, we can take a different approach to accomplishing tasks and goals. We stop seeing others as competition and obstacles. We quit working to advance ourselves and reap personal rewards and accolades, and we choose to focus on the success of others that leads to the success of the whole team. We truly begin to see how working together benefits everyone as we focus on the future gains for God’s Kingdom.

While humility, service, and collaboration are by no means the only practices, or spiritual disciplines, we must develop, I encourage you look for ways to practically apply them in your own life. Robert Foster, in his book Celebration of Discipline, writes, “[T]he Spiritual Disciplines are the means God uses to build in us an inner person that is characterized by peace and joy and freedom.” Development of our inner life is foundational for growing as a servant leader. Often understanding follows obedience as we discipline ourselves and apply what we learn as we journey with God. Allow Him to reveal ways to grow as a servant leader in humility, service, and collaboration.

To find out more about Jason click here.

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Triple Blessing! I get excited when new books are written, even more excited when I enjoy reading them and even more, more excited when they are written by someone I know. My good friend, Dion Williams, just released his new book Our Divine Right. At the current time, it is only available through his website https://ourdivineright.com/. The book is primarily written to encourage followers of Christ to understand their divine right to have a more integral part in His church. It is filled with scripture and lots of love. An excerpt from the book is below.

How can we edify one another if we don’t even care about each other? The church nowadays can be a lonely and seemingly unloving place. Driven by various programs or external ministries that keep the church busy and mostly imparting personal development through sermons alone, it can be impersonal and distancing to never really be part of the lives of others. This does not resemble the original intent of what church was meant to be. I am not saying this simply because I have an axe to grind, but I have scripture to prove that we are deficient in what was to be ours in Christ Jesus’s body. If true, this deficiency has to be addressed biblically and corporately.

The systemization of the church’s abuse of believers’ rights is astounding. How the leaders have embarked on such an overarching rule is one thing. How the church has allowed these leaders such power is another thing all together.

Even “good churches” are tainted by this pastoral exclusivity. When the church departed from mutual edification, the pastoral ministry mentality gave way to creating a business-like atmosphere which has become foundational to the modern church structure. Pastors serve their customers in a business style transaction. The parking spots, secretaries, business cards, large buildings with overhead and even child care solidifies the faculty driven service.

This is not what Paul taught, he pictured a family mindset where elders, brothers, sisters and children were all together loving and serving one another in different capacities. Figuratively, where the immature child-like believers sat at the table and were allowed to eat with the more mature adult believers. However, they are expected to behave maturely in due time. Learning to share and not be selfish as they grow up. Sometimes dinner does not run smoothly but that is the ultimate goal; children becoming adults through trial and error. Rebukes and praises of love are given. If we first teach our family how to love each other then they will be able to reach a lost world. In principle, it all starts at home.

Peter was not educated and made many mistakes even though he had been given the royal title of an Apostle of Jesus Christ. His example is the believer’s example that God has called even the lowliest to share in the meeting. Peter would be discouraged from any participation today where a Seminary education is considered a prerequisite to be part of the ministry to the body.

To the contrary, the gospel is the reason and motivation for our obedience and taking up the privilege of responsibility toward one another! We love him because He first loved us. Jesus’s love accomplished for us what we could not do for ourselves. He forgives our sin but that doesn’t mean we should sin. Why hate somebody who loves you? Instead, His desire to love and willingness to forgive should drive us to love Him in return!

Romans 6:1-2 What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound? (2) By no means! How can we who died to sin still live in it? ESV

This is enormous! Paul based our motive to share and edify one another on the work of Christ on our behalf. Our motive to speak and be vulnerable to one another is based on the fact that Jesus loved us and died for us. Despite our sins, He cared to lift us up and we are to lift up others. This is why when he completes chapter 12-14 to the church, he then concludes with chapter 15, where he tells us the Gospel.

1 Corinthians 15:1-4 Now I would remind you, brothers, of the gospel I preached to you, which you received, in which you stand, (2) and by which you are being saved, if you hold fast to the word I preached to you-unless you believed in vain. (3) For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, (4) that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures, ESV

Paul not only grounds the duty of each Christian to participate in the motive of love but he grounds it in the gospel example set by Christ. Why seek to edify others? Why not let the more ambitious members take my responsibility, when they seem so good at it? Because God gives each member the responsibility. If He wanted only a certain class of men to do it He would have never put in the “each of you” passages. This passing of the buck also fails in its motivation. Why? Because Christ died for you that’s why! He loved outside of His comfort realm and even died for others when he didn’t have to.

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