Healthy Questions

I'm reading through Witmer's "The Shepherd Leader."  This is an excellent and challenging book for any church elder. In the third chapter Witmer recalls first how the church strayed from the leading of a plurality and parity of elders.  This shift began in the second century but was greatly accelerated by Cyprian in the third century.  Cyprian tied church leadership to the Levitical model, with elders becoming priests.  “Bishop” became a title that vested a single man with immense authority over the church and its leadership. The biblical idea of elders and deacons began to be restored in the reformation, beginning with Wycliff, advancing greatly with Calvin and his student Knox, the latter two of which split the role of elder into a teaching pastor and a ruling elder.  The former was to teach the word, the latter was to “seek the fruit of the same in the people” (Knox.)  According to Witmer, these elders were to be men of good character, but they need not poss

Recently I found myself ready for a new book and thought I'd try a different approach to selecting it.  I am an elder at my church and, with that in mind, asked our Senior Pastor what he would recommend for me.  I was mildly disappointed when he recommended I read something on hermeneutics - how to interpret the Bible.  Not sure what I was hoping for, but this wasn't it.  Felt like I was asking for an exciting adventure, and got told to go sit in a boring lecture hall for 6 months.  Fighting for my freedom I explained that I had already read, "Knowing Scripture" by RC Sproul, and have been happily and properly studying the Bible for many years now.  Didn't work.  He responded by saying that we can never stop learning in this area; that the interpretation of Scripture is so fundamental that, for the rest of our lives, we should be refreshing ourselves on the principles and practices of correct study.  So, with no small feeling of guilt, I humbly purchased: "