8 He was not that Light, but was sent to bear
witness of that Light.
John the Baptist, in type like any Pastor today, was not to
be the object of veneration and adoration but to point toward the Lord Jesus
Christ, to bear witness of Him. The Holy Ghost, the third part of God, does
similar work.
John 14:16 And I will pray the Father, and he shall give
you another Comforter, that he may abide with you for ever…26 But the Comforter, which is the Holy Ghost,
whom the Father will send in my name, he shall teach you all things, and bring
all things to your remembrance, whatsoever I have said unto you.
John 15:26 But when the Comforter is come, whom I will
send unto you from the Father, even the Spirit of truth, which proceedeth from
the Father, he shall testify of me:
There was a heresy that the Bible calls Nicolaitan, composed
of two Greek words that mean, ‘victory over the laity’. On a basic level when
you elevate the pastor’s office to an almost God-like status and make a pastor
someone who cannot be questioned or is not subject to the same commandments and
moral principles as God applies to everyone else in the congregation you fall
into this heresy. A pastor who allows himself to be venerated and set apart
from the congregation in that God’s standards don’t apply to him is guilty of
supporting this heresy, which Jesus hates. In certain cultural contexts in
American history pastors’ marital infidelities were ignored and moral sins
against God committed by pastors were overlooked as if it was the pastors’ privilege
to thumb their noses at God’s moral commands for Christians. Recently, it was
said by members of a pastor’s congregation, after he had confessed to a crime
of abuse, that they were still following him because he was the, “man of God.”
Nicolaitanism is one of the primary weaknesses of Christian fundamentalism.
1Peter 5:1 ¶ The elders which are among you I exhort, who
am also an elder, and a witness of the sufferings of Christ, and also a
partaker of the glory that shall be revealed: 2
Feed the flock of God which is among you, taking the oversight thereof,
not by constraint, but willingly; not for filthy lucre, but of a ready mind;
3 Neither
as being lords over God’s heritage, but being ensamples to the flock.
The legend that Nicolaitans were followers of Nicolas of
Antioch in Acts 6:5 is unsupported by the Biblical text. When a word is not
defined in the Bible it would be best practice to determine of what the word is
composed and apply that. The words in the following verse 15 of the second
chapter of Revelation confirm that these heretics existed in the same church
alongside those who committed idolatry and fornication, but it does not say, by
the construction of the sentence, that they were one and the same.
Revelation 2:6 But this thou hast, that thou hatest the
deeds of the Nicolaitans, which I also hate…15
So hast thou also them that hold the doctrine of the Nicolaitans, which
thing I hate.
The preacher points to Christ. He is not Christ’s substitute,
the vicarious Son of God on earth, with the congregation being mere props in
the pastor’s own “Passion Play”. Like all Christians, he is to follow Christ
and display Christ to the world. But, as this is something all Christians are
called to do this does not elevate the person of the pastor to a point where,
as a child was reported to say in wonder and awe when Jack Hyles stopped to tie
his shoe, “God just tied my shoe.”
I have read but have not confirmed that Cyprian, a church
father, in the third century, first said that to obey the pastor is to obey
God. This is perhaps because he took the following verse to an extreme,
removing it from the spiritual world and into the physical world where some
church-goers among fundamentalists will even ask their pastor if they can take
a vacation.
Hebrews 13:17 Obey them that have the rule over you, and
submit yourselves: for they watch for your souls, as they that must give
account, that they may do it with joy, and not with grief: for that is
unprofitable for you.
The verse, written to the Jewish Christians in the early
church and most applicable doctrinally to the believing Jews in the Tribulation after the
Gentile and Jewish church is removed, is a reference to spiritual matters not
what color car you can buy or what color you should paint your kitchen.
But, we must remember that in times of political chaos in
Europe at the end of the Ancient world and in the beginning of the so-called
Medieval period a priest or a pastor was the only consistent human authority in
spiritual or physical
affairs. So it is today in places like Liberia, which has suffered from two
devastating civil wars. The pastor guides and exhorts the congregation to
follow Christ in all behavior but the importance of pastoral guidance in the
recent Ebola outbreak cannot be overstated. In certain cases, it was pastors
whose congregations followed their instructions who kept them from the
practices which spread the disease.
Still, every pastor must remember that he, like John the
Baptist, is not the congregation’s Messiah, but bears witness of their Messiah,
who is the Lord Jesus Christ. If a pastor says something that cannot be
supported by scripture then he is under the same restrictions and condemnation,
if he persists, as any other heretic.
Acts 17:10 ¶ And the brethren immediately sent away Paul
and Silas by night unto Berea: who coming thither went into the synagogue of
the Jews. 11 These were more noble than
those in Thessalonica, in that they received the word with all readiness of
mind, and searched the scriptures daily, whether those things were so.
John the Baptist paved the way for the appearance of
God in human flesh.
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