Leadership In The New Testament Church

--- 1st Timothy chapter 3 beginning at verse 1 read with me through verse 7 it says

stop there please if you would with me and let's pray Heavenly Father open our hearts to the ministry of your Word today and teach us and instruct us and guide us in understanding we ask you to do this father in the name of Jesus Christ our Savior amen I don't know if you've ever considered what goes into the selection of a pastor for a church but if you asked most people they would probably say something like well you know I assume that you know a guy who desires to be a pastor you know just goes to school and gets himself a good education at a Bible College or a seminary and then he kind of puts out his feelers for churches that might be looking for a pastor and he goes through the process of finding a place maybe where he wants to serve and and then the church decides whether they want to hire him on to be their pastor and that's pretty much how it works and you would not be incorrect as it relates to the way a good number of churches find their pastor however you may be surprised to know that the Bible knows nothing of that system for raising up pastors it is 100% the work of human tradition and the way we've kind of adopted the methodologies of the world the business world around us we have begun to raise up pastors hire pastors much like the business world would hire an employee or a leadership position or something like that that's a travesty because Jesus had some interesting things to say about a shepherd who is a hireling and they weren't good he said the hireling cares nothing for the sheep when the wolf comes along he runs off because it's not his flock you know he's just a hireling he's there to get a paycheck and so forth now the reason I bring all this up is because today at the conclusion of our second service we're going to be ordaining one of our own as he steps out in ministry to start a new Spanish-speaking Calvary Chapel here in the Ontario area and of course you guys know that I'm speaking of Hector who was up here a moment ago doing our announcements and some of you might be thinking now wait a minute I'm confused hasn't he been leading this Spanish speaking fellowship for a number of years and yes he has but up to this point the Spanish-speaking ministry that he has been doing has been an outreach of Calvary Chapel Ontario it's been it's been our ministry that we began we've supported and it has been under the oversight of the elders of Calvary Chapel Ontario what is changing is that Hector is stepping out by faith and his fellowship will now be considered its own independent church and that's the difference Hector will be the senior pastor of this fellowship and it will exist in its own independent sense every by the way every Calvary Chapel you know that Calvary Chapel is not a denomination I certainly hope you know that by now every single Calvary Chapel is an independent autonomous church there is no organizational denominational structure in Calvary Chapel if you if you attend a Calvary Chapel and you obviously are this morning but you know if you consider a Calvary Chapel your home fellowship you are attending an independent church it is not a denomination people say that all the time to me you know they talk about Calvary Chapel as a denomination we are not never never have been you say well what makes the difference well a denomination has a headquarters that the individual churches report to and we don't have any of that so that's that's that means that the church that that that Hector will will will start here or spawn off from us will be its own independent fellowship and although it will be a Calvary Chapel affiliate the name of the fellowship are you ready I'm gonna this is my Spanish I don't know Spanish it will be Hector's gonna smile at me here Iglesia Nueva Vida huh Hector did I do okay thank you it means new life church and I like the name you know not every Calvary Chapel goes by the name Calvary Chapel in fact some of the very first Calvary Chapels to spin off from Calvary Chapel Costa Mesa took different names Harvest Fellowship and others so you know there's there's nothing that is unprecedented about that but I thought that it was important today given that we will be ordaining Hector as he steps out into this to not let this event pass without sharing something about what is going on and what it means biblically to raise up leaders in the body of Christ and and and the fact that you know this has been going on since the inauguration of the New Testament here's why this is important for you to hear this it's because you are members of the body of Christ and it is a good thing for you to hear a Bible study on how leaders get raised up because if you don't go through this information and if you don't really you know connect with it you go to some other church and they've got some completely unbiblical form of raising up leaders and not just the senior pastor but other leaders as well and and you know I have noticed over the years and I've been doing this for a little while but I've noticed that when there is an unbiblical form of leadership structure and how they raise up leaders and so forth it just creates all kinds of problems it creates drama where there doesn't have to be drama and it just it you know trust me when you when you do things apart from the Word of God and this goes way beyond just how you raise up leaders in the church I mean it has to do with your marriage too and your home and your family and your business whenever we get away from the Word of God and we do things that are are we let me say this whenever we give ourselves permission to do things that aren't in the Word we invite trouble we invite problems that we really didn't have to deal with but we invited into the process just because we got away from the wisdom and direction of God's Word so to kind of talk about this process and I'm going to be putting notes here up on the screen in fact I'll start here with the the title if you're if you're kind of person that takes notes it's leadership in the New Testament Church okay and essentially as we look at this idea of leadership in the New Testament Church there's three main points that I want to kind of outline and there it's it's helping us to understand first of all the terminology because I think there's some misunderstanding as it relates to some of the terms that we use in the church for leadership positions next we need to understand the issue related to calling and we'll talk about that and and and then finally we're going to talk about understanding qualifications here for ministry in the the New Testament again this is important for you because you're a member of the body of Christ and you need to know the people that are leading you and you need to know that there's a biblical process to this whole idea of leadership so let's begin with understanding terminology all right and although there are several leadership giftings in the body of Christ that we could talk about there are three that rise to the surface repeatedly in the writings of the New Testament and they are these pastor elder and overseer and they they come up again and again now there's also evangelist there's also Apostle there's also prophet in the leadership giftings and then there's a bunch of other giftings that go along but but these three of that that that pastor that elder that overseer these are the ones that that go on and are talked about repeatedly in the letters of the New Testament writings. And they are, interestingly, I'm sure you understand this, I mean, you would probably assume this, they're all made up of different Greek words. For example, the first word, pastor, is the Greek word pomino. And by the way, this is the exact same word that is translated shepherd. So shepherd and pastor are the same. Even when Luke tells about the shepherds out in their fields watching their flocks by night when the angels came to tell them about the coming of Jesus, this is the same word. But then we take this word into the New Testament to describe a leadership role, and they translate it differently. They translate it pastor, mostly. Sometimes they'll throw in the word shepherd because they're totally interchangeable, okay? So pastor, shepherd, all right? And then you've got this word elder, which is the Greek word presbyteros. And you can obviously see that, by the way, I'm not trying to impress you with Greek. I'm trying to explain that they're very different words in the Greek. And then finally, overseer is the Greek word episkopos. And yet, while these are all three different words, here's an interesting thing that you may not know. In the New Testament, they are used interchangeably. And what that means is the pastor is the elder, is the overseer. The overseer is the elder, is the pastor. You see what I'm saying? They're used interchangeably. And I wanna show you, in a couple of passages, how that is actually done. First, it's Acts chapter 20. And it says, from Miletus, Paul sent to Ephesus, and he called the elders of the church to come to him. Who did he call? The elders. What did he say to them? Be on your guard for yourselves, and for all the flock over which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers, to shepherd the church of God, which he purchased with his own blood. Look at that in that one passage. And again, remember that the word shepherd is the word pastor. He says, guys, he calls them together. He says, guys, I'm bringing you together as the elders of the church. Here's my exhortation to you. He says, be on your guard for yourselves and the flock over which the Holy Spirit has made you what? Overseers. Different Greek word, but he says, God has made you overseers, even though your elders now shepherd the church of God, or pastor the church of God, if you will, which he purchased with his own blood, all right? Now, this isn't the only time they're used interchangeably. Then we see in Peter's first letter in the fifth chapter, he says to the elders among you, I appeal as a fellow elder, a witness of Christ's sufferings and one who will also share in the glory to be revealed, be shepherds or be pastors of God's flock that is under your care, serving as overseers, not because you must, but because you are willing. So there it is again. Technically, we see that whether you're talking about pastor, elder, or overseer. And by the way, if you have an old King James Bible, that word overseer is gonna be translated in your Bible, bishop. Why is it translated bishop? No other reason but tradition, church tradition. It is not, listen, the word means overseer. Bishop was put in there by the King James translators because the church by 1611 had adopted the idea that there were bishops in the church who oversaw a region of churches, but that's church tradition. There's nothing in the Bible that says that the episkopos or the overseer should oversee churches, okay? That's something we came up with, not the Bible. So I just wanna make that very clear. We've got a couple of thousand years of church tradition. We've heaped onto the word of God, and we have to be careful to sift through it because there are things in here that just God didn't intend, but we added to the whole process. Now, the church has, like I'm saying, has divided these positions, this whole idea of the pastor, the elder, and the overseer. But the Bible doesn't. So when it comes to understanding these leadership ministries within the New Testament church, we need to go on to our next statement here, which is understanding calling. And this is gonna be an important part of this whole thing. Understanding calling, what do I mean by that? What I mean is that when people are raised up for ministry in the New Testament church, it's all about calling. It's all about calling. Listen, Jesus established a standard. You know, Jesus came and ministered among us. He showed us how to do things. And he established a beautiful standard for when you're raising up servants. Let me show you this one from Luke chapter six. It says, in these days, he, talking about Jesus, went out to the mountain to pray, and all night he continued in prayer to God. And when day came, he called his disciples and chose from them 12 whom he named apostles. Now, granted, the apostles that Jesus chose were very important men because they became the pillars of the New Testament church. But I happen to believe that what Jesus is showing us here is an example about how leaders ought to be chosen. And you know what's interesting? In the early church, they observed that standard. They used that same standard for choosing leaders. Let me show you this from Acts chapter 13. Here's a great passage. Now, there were in the church at Antioch, prophets and teachers. And while they were worshiping the Lord and fasting, the Holy Spirit obviously spoke through one of those who had a prophetic gifting and said, set apart for me Barnabas and Saul for the work to which I have called them. Then after fasting and praying even more, they laid their hands on them and sent them off. So you see, the early church followed the same pattern that Jesus established for us in the raising up of leaders. What did Jesus do before he chose the apostles? He prayed all night long. What did, when were Paul and Barnabas lifted up and called to go forth in their ministry? When the church was praying and fasting and worshiping and the Holy Spirit moved in their midst and said, I think you guys need to have a vote on who should be the next of. No, he said, set apart for me, Paul and Barnabas for this ministry and so forth. So you can see that this is the standard. This is the guideline. This is the example that the Lord has given us here in the word and in the New Testament writings, particularly as Paul's writing to Timothy who was also called by God, he spoke about these things. Look what he says to Timothy here. In Timothy, 1 Timothy chapter four, Paul writes and says, do not neglect the gift you have which was given you by prophecy when the council of elders laid their hands on you. He's talking about a similar ordination service, if you will, that happened to Timothy that happened to him. Paul was sent out and recognized and so forth through the Holy Spirit that we just read there in Acts. And then obviously Timothy was too. We don't have any record of Timothy's ordination service, but we have references to it telling us that it took place such as this one right here. And he says, for this reason, I remind you to fan into flame the gift of God, which is in you through the laying on of my hands. So Paul was there when Timothy was ordained. Isn't that great? So you can see that there are references made to this process and what this tells you and I is that in the New Testament church, we don't see men being raised up by popular vote. We don't see that happening. We don't see men being raised up by committee selection. It's not there. And we don't see men raised up based on educational achievement. That is assumed by so many people. I know churches where you have to have a master's in divinity to even apply for a position. Peter would have been out. You know, when the Sanhedrin listened to Peter and the other apostles testifying to the power of God through Jesus Christ, the Bible says they looked at these men and saw that they were uneducated fishermen and they took note of the fact that they'd been with Jesus, but they recognized they were uneducated. Now I'm not advocating that every, you know, pastor that Whoever takes the position should be uneducated. I'm not saying that. There's nothing wrong with getting an education. I'm saying that when we base ministry on education, we're stepping into a realm that the Bible doesn't speak about. That's the point of what I'm saying. I'm not saying that it's bad in any way. But in the New Testament, ministry is always based on calling. Calling. Are you called? Do you have a calling from the Lord? And it's always a calling from God. Churches don't call people. God calls people. We've even gotten into this terminology now where a pastor will say, well, I received a call from this church or this denomination. Listen, that's putting man in the place of God. What we see in the New Testament is that the church discerns God's calling, lays hands on the individual, and releases them to go do what God called them to do. Not what we call them to do. We don't call people. Because the word call means to summon. And we don't summon people into the ministry. God has to accomplish that. Whenever we talk about calling, we need to likewise discuss its first cousin, and that is gifting. Because the two obviously go together and are parts of the same whole. You know, Paul often spoke when he wrote in his letters about his calling, but he talked about the gifting. And he referred to it as the grace of God in his life. Because gifting comes in the package called grace. Let me show you one section where he wrote to the Ephesians. He said, to me, though I am the very least of all the saints, he says, this grace was given to preach to the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ. What is Paul talking about here when he talks about the grace given him? He's talking about gifting. He says, this gifting was given me to preach to the Gentiles. Okay? Do you know, Paul really wanted to reach his own people, Israel. He wanted to reach the Jews. And I think he was probably even a little bit jealous of Peter, who had a ministry to the Jews because Paul's heart. And we're going to see this, actually, when we begin our study in Romans again. Paul is going to make the statement that he's going to say, you know, I would, if I could, I'd literally choose to become accursed if I could, if my people, the Jews, would come to faith in Christ, if that's what it would take. He was so passionate about the Jews coming to the Lord. But God didn't call him to speak to the Jews. God called him to preach to the Gentiles. And Paul recognized on his life a grace, a gifting to accomplish that ministry. He says, even though I'm the least of all the saints, this grace was given me to do this. And speaking specifically of ministry gifts to the body along these same lines, Paul went on in the next chapter of Ephesians to say this, but grace was given to each one of us according to the measure of Christ's gift. And he gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists. Notice here, the ESV translates poimano shepherds, which again, pastors and teachers, to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ. So, what is Paul saying here? He's saying gifts were given to everybody, but among all of the giftings given in the body of Christ, he gave some to be, and then he makes this list, apostles, prophets, evangelists, and then that ministry of the pastor-teacher or the shepherd-teacher, which goes together. You can't have a shepherd who isn't a teacher. You can have a teacher who isn't a shepherd, but you can't have a shepherd who isn't a teacher, because what that means is you have a shepherd who doesn't know how to feed the flock. He's going to have a dead flock. So, a shepherd must be able to feed through the word of God. But he says, these things were given, these gifts were given to equip the saints to do the work of the ministry. It's a gift. They don't take it upon themselves, and guys, it doesn't come through education. Again, education is fine. No problem with it. I don't have any issues, but gifting doesn't come through education. Knowledge comes through education. And if all they have is knowledge, we know what that can do. That puffs up, right? But when there is gifting, you have ability from the Lord and grace to deal with things. You know, I've had people say to me over the years, literally, people have said, you know, boy, I tell you, if I was the pastor of this church, I would never sleep at night. I would be constantly just worried, and my phone's going to ring at any time, and I don't know. I couldn't do this. I just couldn't do this. And you know, I have no doubt that what they're saying is true. But what they don't understand is I couldn't do what they do. Listen, you do whatever you have grace to do. And when you have the grace to do it, his yoke is easy and his burden is light. So I don't know how to tell you this, but being a pastor is an easy thing because God's grace is there. But I couldn't do what you do because I don't have the grace to do what you do, okay? We all have grace to do what God has gifted us to do. And within the context of that grace, he enables us to do that work so that it won't overwhelm us and it won't ruin us. You see what I'm saying? That's what grace allows us to do. The last thing we're going to look at here regarding this is understanding the issue of qualifications. Now, this is where, again, we have to be careful. When we talk about qualifications for a pastor, shepherd, elder, overseer, we're not referring to the way an employer would look at a prospective employee. In other words, we're not looking at his qualifications for work. When we talk about ministry qualifications for a pastor, shepherd, elder, overseer, again, they're interchangeable, we're talking more about markers that reveal that a man is ready. He's ready emotionally, spiritually, and morally to take on the work that God has called him to take on. And Paul talks about a man showing also the giftings that go along with the calling. But more is made of the man's spiritual and emotional readiness to engage in the work of the ministry. That's what qualifications really are all about in the ministry. Are you ready to do this? Is there a sufficient spiritual maturity? Not have you gotten your master's or your doctorate. That doesn't tell us whether you're ready for the work of the ministry. Are you ready according to the guidelines that Paul lays out? Now, we started off this morning reading a passage from 1 Timothy. Do you still have your Bible open on your lap? Let's go through that again. I want to read that again for 1 Timothy. Look at the qualifications that God outlines for somebody going into this work of the ministry. He says again in 1 Timothy 3, 1 through 7, the saying is trustworthy. If anyone aspires to the office of overseer, he desires a noble task. Therefore, he says, an overseer must be above reproach. That has nothing to do with education, does it? Right? He must be above reproach. You know what that means? That means that he must not be liable to accusation. In other words, when he's out among the community, people... And that doesn't mean that an elder or pastor, overseer isn't going to be accused. You know, it's not saying that. It's saying he must be above those accusations. In other words, if an accusation is made, it better not stick. And that's what Paul is saying here. That is the readiness that we're referring to. He says, he must be the husband of one wife. And that's, you know, if you're a country music fan, I'll pray for you if you are, but it's kind of like you might hear in that tale, he's a one-woman man. That's what it's talking about. That's what it means there. He's a one-woman man. He is devoted and committed to one woman in his life, you know, who he has... She is his wife. She is everything in that respect to him. He must be also sober-minded, self-controlled, can't have a guy pinging off in 500 directions at once, emotionally, spiritually, whatever. He must be respectable. he must be hospitable willing to open willing and able to open his home he must be able to teach like I said he must be able to teach because again you got a shepherd who can't teach you got a dead flock eventually because you know and believe me there are pastors well there are people who claim that they're pastors but they can't teach yikes and so often what you see in churches whether they don't have a pastor who has the gifting to teach is they end up if they get big enough they'll they'll hire a teaching pastor well okay but that's the word says that the shepherd needs to be able to teach he's got to be able to feed the sheep it's got to be able to load them up with nutrients from the Word of God right he needs to be able to break down the scriptures and lay it out for him so that they can grasp and and and assimilate it and and be nourished by the Word of God and so forth so he must be able to to teach it says he must not be a drunkard and you might kind of go well duh you got to keep in mind drinking wine back in those days it was a daily beverage because potable water was hard to come by in that culture you know finding good filtered clean water was hard in fact when Paul wrote to Timothy you might remember he told him he said take a little wine for your stomach because of your frequent illnesses and what he meant by that was Timothy you're you're drinking so much water that you've built up this bacteria in your stomach and now it's it's creating illness he wasn't saying drink wine because it has a medicinal value he's saying drink wine because it's it's it's gonna be better than simply drinking you know unpotable water but obviously within the context of a culture that drank wine pretty regularly drunkenness was absolutely and totally forbidden and and particularly as it relates to an elder leader pastor overseer right he says he that's all part of self-control you know he must not be a drunkard okay now my personal feeling that just let me throw this out and this is gonna be I'll probably get all kinds of nasty notes I don't think pastors and elders should ever drink ever I don't care not at home not in public ever and I I'll be honest with you I think Christians are taking a very dangerous casual view of drinking today and I think it's I think it's destructive and and I don't think pastors or leaders in the church should ever be caught with an alcoholic beverage in their hand and I'll tell you why not because it's wrong from the standpoint of thou shalt not drink you're not gonna find that as one of the Ten Commandments but you will see a principle that runs through the the course of the New Testament where Paul says I am I'm not gonna do anything that's gonna cause my brother to stumble and when people look to leaders in the church and they see them doing things that maybe they don't have the freedom to do because they don't have that self-control then he Paul makes it very clear that we are the one heaping sin upon that individual because we are we are using our liberty in such a way that others might feel free to go and do that same thing and they don't have that liberty they don't have that freedom they don't have that self-control and we are responsible be careful Christians with your Facebook pictures clinking a glass over dinner or something like that other Christians are watching you I'm not saying it's immoral I'm not even saying it's wrong for you to have a glass of wine with dinner I'm not saying that the Bible does not condemn all drinking the Bible condemns drunkenness make that very clear but what the Bible also says is that if you and I don't live in such a way that we care for one another then we are causing others to stumble and sin and it's our mistake flat-out okay and I don't know maybe you don't like having that responsibility on you tough you're in the body of Christ and we don't live in a vacuum you don't live in a bubble you live in a way that other people can see you and I'm sorry if that rains on your parade but that's the fact of the matter you and I need to live in such a way that we care about our brothers and our sisters in Jesus Christ okay down off that soapbox but that's that's you know so this is what Paul says he goes on to say that he must not be violent but gentle in all of his dealings he must not be quarrelsome not a lover of money money is not something that that guides him directs him he must manage his own household well and with all dignity you know his children must have a sense of of you know his own leadership what Paul is saying here is that listen you're gonna see whether or not a man has the ability to lead from the context of his own family and if his if he hasn't led his family he's probably gonna struggle leading the church as well and that's what he says basically in verse 5 verse 6 he says he must not be a recent convert and you know you would think that would go without saying but it goes on to say why not he might become puffed up with conceit and fall into the condemnation of the devil what was the condemnation of the devil it was for pride listen we can raise up people too quickly and if they're if they're too new in the Lord they don't you know honestly what Paul is talking about here he's talking about brokenness I think a pastor leader elder needs to be a broken man from the standpoint that you think of breaking like a horse not a wild bucking stallion but someone who has learned to follow the leading of the Holy Spirit and there and he's not governed by this self will of pride and arrogance that says I'm going to do it my way which of course is so exalted in the world in which we live but in the kingdom of God it's it's it's dangerous to have those kinds of things in play and so Paul is talking here about someone who isn't going to be subject or liable to that kind of prideful conceit he says in verse 7 moreover he must be well thought of by outsiders so that he won't fall into disgrace and into a snare of the devil now I want you to find one other passage with me would you turn to Titus please in your Bible chapter 1 because there's one other quick passage I do want to show you from Titus and by the way the letters of 1st and 2nd Timothy and Titus we refer to those as the pastoral epistles or the pastoral letters because in those letters Paul gives more specific information about the role of pastors and leaders than he does in any other of his letters Titus chapter 1 beginning skip down to verse 5 through verse 9 he says this this is why I left you in Crete so that you might put what remained into order and appoint elders in every town as I directed you if anyone is above reproach the husband of one wife and his children are believers not open to the charge of debauchery which is living for physical sensual pleasure or insubordination which of course is rebellion for an overseer as God's steward must be above reproach we've already read that before in Timothy but he repeats it here he says he must not be arrogant or quick tempered or a drunkard or violent or greedy for gain but hospitable a lover of good self-controlled upright holy and disciplined interestingly enough and that refers to the disciplines of the Christian faith prayer reading meditating on the word fasting so on and so forth he must hold firmly to the trustworthy word as taught how you like that is that good in other words he needs to stick to the word the whole word and nothing but the word and not go beyond the word so that he may be able to give instruction in sound doctrine and also to rebuke those who contradict it Wow so the readiness of a pastor the readiness of a leader right you can see the emphases that God puts on this position can't you lastly I want to show you a passage for again from 2nd Timothy on the screen that goes like this and the Lord's servant must not be quarrelsome but kind to everyone able to teach patiently enduring evil correcting his opponents with gentleness now let me tell you there's so much more I could go on there's there's more in the Word of God about these positions of leadership the calling the the emphases that God puts on these but we only have so much time on a Sunday morning but I wanted to lay these out for you so that you would understand the essence of what we're doing here and again at the end of second service when I'm done sharing these we're going to be ordaining Hector will have Marley come up here with us and some of you might even want to think about coming back and and witnessing that because it doesn't happen terribly often around here but although we have I've ordained people before, but we're just going to pray over them, and recognizing the gifting and the calling that God has placed there, the emphasis of their lives, and we're just going to set them free to do and be what the Lord has called them to do and be. And it's always an exciting thing, but I didn't want to just have this ordination service and tack it on the end of our study in Romans like it was kind of unimportant, you know? I felt the need to give an instructional teaching here. I understand this wasn't all that devotional, but I think it was necessary so that you could say, well, you know, hey, at church they ordained a guy today, and here's why they do it, you know? And here's what they think about the requirements that, you know, the Bible talks about for somebody who is called into the position of a pastor, elder, overseer, shepherd. And this is why. And now we can point to these things, and we can say, well, this is why. This is what's going on, and this is biblical, you know? I'm excited to give Hector a biblical ordination, you know? I was excited in my own life to have a biblical ordination. After the church I served at in Montana watched my life for a couple, a little over two years, very same, similar sort of a thing. We were invited up, Sue and I, on a Sunday morning. I think it was a Sunday morning. It could have been a Sunday night. I can't remember exactly now. It's been so long ago. And the elders, pastors and elders, just gathered around us and prayed for us, and sent us off. Go do the work of the Lord, you know? Because they had watched, and they had observed and recognized that, you know, this was the calling of the Lord. So it is an exciting sort of a thing. And now you have a better, hopefully a better sense of what we do and why, and our basis of seeing that this is thoroughly biblical. And you've probably noticed, those of you that have been here for any amount of time, I have this passion of just stripping away churchy stuff. Have you noticed that kind of that going on? Tradition, I think tradition is a ball and chain around the church's neck. I really do. And I think all the things that we've given ourselves permission to do in the church that is not biblical, I think it has a great potential of being dangerous. And you know, eventually you start coming up with rules. If you've got to confess your sins to God, you've got to go through me, or something like that. And it's just, it's not in the Word. And I hope that you have that same passion, you share that same passion, to like just get back to the Bible. Let's just get back to the Word of God. Let's release ourselves from all the other stuff that weighs us down, and let's just focus on the Word. Amen? ---