Apostolic Grace

What happens around you doesn't have to happen in you.

- Ron Horner

Apostolic Grace

By Ron M. Horner

A pastor friend was confronted with a serious situation in the church he was pastoring. One of the men in the church had engaged some of the married women within the church in extramarital affairs. This behavior that could remain secret for only so long. Finally it was exposed and the details became common knowledge within the body and ultimately in the community. This married man and father had engaged in affairs with three women in the church (themselves also married and some with children). How could this have occurred? Why was this allowed to go on long enough that three marriages were threatened in addition to the man's marriage? What could have been done to prevent it? And what would be the correct response to it? All these questions needed to be addressed. Its impact and the correct answering of these questions would dictate the future of the church. Here is what occurred:

The couples whose wives had been seduced by this man had to undergo ministry and counseling…for very obvious reasons. These affected husbands had issues to confront and deal with. The women had to examine their lives as well. Not just the women involved in the affairs, but the man's wife also was impacted. However, the pastor's response was disappointing. He had the gentleman presented before the church and without a confrontation of the sin, asked that the congregation would be "understanding" and "pray for Jim*" in this matter. He had been through a really difficult time.

This approach of course, did not solve the problem. The issues within the man that resulted in this behavior were not addressed, the wounds to the families were not addressed and therefore could not be healed, and the three women involved were made to be the victimizers, not the victims.

What was the problem here? Misguided mercy. By misguided, I mean that with a repeat offender was the church served by the overlooking of the man's sin and placing the blame upon the women involved…women who had not "gone after" the man, but rather the opposite. One of the husbands of the wives involved was deployed overseas when this occurred and came home to discover this news.

In Ephesians 4:7, Paul informs us that grace is given according to the measure of Christ's gift.

"But to each one of us grace was given according to the measure of Christ's gift." (NJKV^TM)

What is Christ's gift? Two verses later, Paul identifies Jesus' gifts to the church; that of the apostle, prophet, evangelist, pastor and teacher. Each of these ministry gifts carries with it a certain grace or endowment. They each have specific arenas of specialty and with those arenas, a degree of grace to carry out their respective responsibilities.

In this particular case we see a shortfall in the organization of the typical American church. The pastoral office, by virtue of its nature and the arena in which it functions day-to-day is a "mercy motivated" office. The compassion and mercy by which the pastoral office generally functions is wonderful in the everyday ministry to the saints, enabling the pastor to ministry with great patience to the people in their paths, but it has a drawback – it is not generally geared to the correction of errant behavior in a manner sufficient to bring change. A mercy motivated person has a hard time facing conflict or confronting sin in a forceful manner as is sometimes required. Paul, in his first letter to the Corinthian church, instructed the leadership of that body to deal very forcefully with the man creating havoc in the church by his fornicating ways. The Corinthian man had engaged in repetitious destructive behavior and it needed to stop. Mercy was not the order of the day -- correction was. The failure to correct such blatant wrong behavior would have sent the wrong message to the Corinthian church and to the other churches in existence at the time. The message that it is OK to sin…nothing will be done anyway…sin has no real consequence. Unfortunately, the American church is rife with such attitudes. The situation this pastor faced was dire. The adulterous man whom, through his repeated behavior, needed to be dealt with in a strong manner. He needed to be made an example of, sending the message that such behavior would not be tolerated. Yet, that did not occur.

This is an example of why the apostolic function is needed in the church. The apostolic office is not a mercy motivated office. That is not to say the apostle does not possess mercy, but that his motivating trait is different from the pastoral. The apostolic has a broader view of the needs of the local church seeing it in a perspective that encompasses the short-term as well as the long-term impact of behavior on a local body. This pastor needed the support of the apostolic to help him deal properly and effectively with the errant behavior. The apostolic grace enables the apostle to deal, as necessary, with the forces that will negatively impact the church. Mercy is shown when mercy is the order of the day, but when correction is the order of the day – correction is rendered.

Few parents would deal with their children on a mercy basis alone if their child was engaged in behavior that threatened their life or the lives of others. They would quickly change to a corrective posture should the situation warrant.

The American church has had in its primary leadership role the pastoral office, however that is contrary to the instruction of Paul to the church in 1 Corinthians 12:28 where we read:

"And God has appointed these in the church: first apostles, second prophets, third teachers, after that miracles, then gifts of healings, helps, administrations, varieties of tongues." (NKJV™)

The context of these appointments was the local church (ecclesia – is the Greek word used here) and its context was always the local assembly of believers…not the universal body of Christ. According to this scripture, God has appointed or set in place, first the apostle, secondarily prophets, and so on.

We must understand that the apostolic office has several arenas of functionality. Paul and Peter, as we know from scripture were the apostles to the Gentiles and Jews respectively. Peter's realm of influence and ministry was to the Jewish community, while Paul ministered predominantly to the Gentile world. The scope of their ministry was worldwide. We see however in Timothy that his realm of responsibility was to the churches in Ephesus and Titus had responsibility for the churches on the isle of Crete (see 1 Timothy 1 and Titus 1). Theirs was a regional responsibility with corresponding graces. Looking further we see that James, the brother of Jesus was the presiding leader over the church at Jerusalem, he was also considered an apostle. His scope of authority and his focus was the local church at Jerusalem. When we understand that the term apostle not only means "sent one, or messenger," but also "delegated authority" we can see that the apostolic office can function internationally, regionally, and on the local level.

Having already made a statement that probably ruffled a few feathers by saying that the primary leadership role of the pastoral office is contrary to scripture let me encourage you to look for yourself. Go past the typology of a shepherd and sheep and look in the New Testament and find in the book of Acts or the Epistles a functioning pastor who is labeled as such. You will find the apostles, the prophets, the teachers, even the evangelists, but you won't find a designated "pastor". You probably are disagreeing with me strongly at this point, but take a look at the Book. Much of what we have done in the American church is based on cultural practice and not scriptural practice. What that has brought us is a dysfunctional church with minimal impact on the society it is supposed to be effecting change upon. As you study the New Testament, find who in the New Testament was called as a "pastor". It will surprise you.

A contributing factor to this pastor's dilemma is also found in the passage we just quoted. The phrase "second prophets" (or secondarily prophets as the King James Version reads). The American church makes little room for the functioning of the prophetic office. The Old Testament seer had the ability to "see" and identify errant behavior. Such an ability is still needed in the church. Another drawback of the "mercy motivated" is that often sin and potentially problem behavior is not identified because it is overlooked or excused. Prophets often see things in a very cut and dried manner. Their uniqueness is their strength, yet again, a "mercy motivated" pastor is not likely to appreciate the hard edge that the prophetic person is likely to take toward sin. The "mercy motivated" are likely to stroke and tolerated rather than strike and eliminate as the prophetic might. That's why the apostolic may need to referee between the two so that strife doesn't show itself. Realizing that most don't want counseling from a prophet and most prophets don't want to provide much in the way of counseling services is not a negation of their function or purpose. The pastoral and the prophetic offer two totally different graces to the body of Christ, graces that must be partaken of in order for the church to benefit.

Our impact as a societal form is directly related to our structure. Because we have yielded the senior leadership functions of the local church to those not designed to carry it, we have put the entire church at risk and we have put those in the pastoral office at risk. We are requiring them to carry a burden for which they are not designed. It is not reasonable to expect those with a "mercy motivation" to rule with diligence the body over which they have been given charge. They are not emotionally equipped for the task. It may be a strong factor in why so many good men and women leave the ministry every year.

I submit that as the American church must begin to adopt the New Testament precepts of church leadership and gives place to the local apostolic office as well as the prophetic office, and that a new degree of holiness and positive impact will come upon the church. The pastor mentioned in this article needed the apostolic to come in and help him effectively confront this situation. He needed to allow the prophetic office to speak to him concerning this situation.

The long-term effect of his inaction is that all the marriages involved have since dissolved. Children have been negatively impacted by the breakup of their families and the local body where this occurred was scarred. The womanizer should have been rebuked, corrected, and restored, not placed in a position of "it's too bad what happened to Jim, let's pray for him, OK?" That was not a solution. The church must confront sin. It must deal with the unrighteousness that is staining its banner over the communities they are supposed to save. It is our lack of distinction and our unwillingness to remove the beam in our own eye that the world sees. They see that the behavior of those inside the church differs little from their own. Why do they need our "rules". They can do what we have been doing without them.

Will we learn? And if we learn, will we change, or have our methodologies become our idols to which we will forever bow?

*not his real name.

Definitely NOT church as usual!

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