The Government of the Church

The following comments apply to chapter 11 of Batsell Barrett Baxter's book, The Family of God.  The chapter discusses how the church is governed.

This lesson revolves around the points that Christ is the head of the church, He rules through His inspired word in the Bible, local leaders alternately called elders, bishops, presbyters, overseers, or pastors operate under the guidance of Christ, and under their leadership deacons, evangelists, teachers (and other members) serve their functions.

Baxter starts by showing the distinction between the church worldwide and the local congregation.  Both are at times referred to as "the church," but there are important differences made in scripture.

Every saved person is a member of the church worldwide, which can also be called the church universal.  We are members throughout all time and throughout the whole world.  It might be hard for us to understand this, but the church worldwide has no single headquarters, no "permanent worldwide organization" to administer all the local churches.  Baxter comments that the only influence exerted is through teaching, not any worldwide machine to activate the church.

Whose idea was that?  Remember, we study the Bible to discover how the church is governed.  When we survey the New Testament, we find no central government, only an established pattern of leadership in each congregation.  We will look at several verses that demonstrate this fact.

So, who is steering the whole thing?  That is a legitimate question, and the answer is that Christ and His word are the final authority for the church.  With no separate set of rules or separate ruler between Christ and the church, we have our only real opportunity to be what the church, and we as members, should be.

The Bible shows us that the local church does have a form of government.  Each congregation is autonomous and exists side by side with other congregations, but independent of them.  Some people cannot understand that, because they like big organizations that are controlled by a hierarchy from the top.  Yet, the Bible sets forth autonomous congregations.  It gives local leaders a great responsibility, but that is the way God planned it.

The beauty of this plan can be seen in the defense of the church against corruption.  A centralized organization can be corrupted worldwide by central decision makers.  We can point to some shifting doctrines in denominations that show this effect.  With autonomous congregations, in the undesirable event that one is corrupted, others need not be.

Baxter points out that if this organization or form of government for the church had been respected through the centuries, a big, huge problem with division in the religious world would have been prevented, and millions more people would have found a way to be saved.  You might have started reading this lesson wondering just how important the topic is.  In light of these possibilities, it is hard to imagine how it could be any more important than it is.