All churches have leadership. It may be an eldership, a body of deacons, or some other leading board who make business decisions for their church. Once again, these decision-making boards are necessary for a church organization. The fact that no such ruling boards are found in the Scriptures supports that no such organization existed. Any creation of man runs the risk of hindering the purposes and plans of God or being counter-productive. When such innovations of man’s wisdom become an addition to the revelation of God, it naturally creates problems for which we have no antidote short of ending the practice.
The preceding blogs follow the pattern of church organizations from the particular tradition of my fathers. In teaching from that tradition, the concept of church organization was thought to be biblically based and distinctive from the organizational structure of competing denominations. It includes local autonomous churches led by an eldership, who is a decision-making body of men. They controlled the money collected by their members, the teachers who were allowed in the pulpits, benevolence, the support of preachers, and the discipline of the unruly and unrepentant. They buffered inner turmoil and personal problems among the membership and controlled all decisions of administrative duties. We have yet to find anything that resembles such leadership in the Scriptures.