Expert: Mr. McClellan - 11/10/2009

Question
are those in the scripture if where

Answer
Hello Sandy,
Those things, in a manner of speaking, are in the scriptures but not exactly in those words.

In addition I think that I need to mention that you may not know that in the scriptures, the words, pastor, bishop, and elder all refer to the same person. In other words, if a man is a pastor, he is also a bishop and an elder. The scriptures, in no way, speak of three different positions in the actual church of the New Testament. Let me make a comparison using myself as an example. I'm a father, I'm also a son, and I'm a brother. Of course, I am not three different people. The words father, son, and brother just refer to different areas of my responsibilities as a man. Likewise, the words pastor, bishop, and elder just referred to one person and the different aspects of his responsibilities. In the true church, a man (not a woman) was chosen for such a position by an evangelist who was clearly approved by God, one who knew for certain what the will of God is as revealed in what the apostles said and then wrote, and which contain "everything that pertains to life and godliness" so that no additions or changes of any kind needed to be made or would ever need to be made. "Even," said Paul, "if an angel from heaven" were to come preaching anything that differed from what had already been presented, people should assume that he was an enemy of God.

Now, if I were a pastor, for example, and I needed someone to help me with my work in that capacity, or in either of the other two areas of my work, it would not be wrong for me to get someone to do that. The thing I'd need to be cautious about would be to be as sure as I possibly could that the person was a mature Christian knowledgewise and that their behavior reflected that knowledge. A woman, acting in this capacity, would be acceptible as long as she was not put in a position of having authority over Christian men or involved in teaching them anything except by her exemplary Christian behavior as in the case of a Christian woman with a non Christian husband. However, the trend in modern times has been to twist the meaning of the passage which says that "God is no respecter of persons" and illigitimately make it mean, for example, that women and men are not to have different responsibilities in the Church. That idea is just one of a large number of false teachings that, like the "salvation by faith only" lie, and the "once saved, always saved" lie, has become so popular and compose a copletely false idea of the biblical God so that, according to these doctrines, he is an evil hypocritical tyrant who wants people to do as he says but not as he does, nor does he allow anyone to question it but to just irrationally accept it as a fact and assume that, in his own manaical way and that is so beyond our understanding, he loves us. This last part is the result of yet another twisting of scripture used to justify the false idea that we just can't know with certainty what the Bible really teaches so that all we can do is guess, and when it comes to guessing one person's opinion has to be considered to be as valid as that of another thus resulting in another false doctrine that says that there are many paths to God, and on and on it goes.

Now, let me make one other thing very clear. The Bible most certainly teaches that salvation is by faith apart from works, but that is not the same as salvation by faith alone. The people who teach the "salvation by faith alone" heresy are using definitons for "work" and "faith" that Paul did not use when he said what he did. Therefore, those people are teaching a different way of salvation than Jesus and his apostles taught. As a result, they are preaching a false Christ and a false way of salvation that, obviously, can't save anyone. So, all of those people who follow those false teachings are still lost and are rather oblivious to this fact.

OK, I know that I've given you more than you asked for and maybe more than you can handle at this time. But with God as my judge, I've made a sincere attempt to enlighten you to the point that you might do a good deal more serious investigation into what the Bible really does teach so that you might be more aware of the vast number of false teachers, false doctrines, and false churches in this world claiming to be Christian. They are not.
Just read the New Testament very carefully and in time you'll see that what I've said is really what the scriptures say.

Sincerely,
Mr. McClellan