Who Is the Body?

Excerpt from Frank Viola's book Reimagining Church.

Who Is the Body?

People are accepted by God because they have repented and trust the Lord Jesus Christ. If a person belongs to the Lord, he or she is part of the body of Christ. And on that basis alone are we to accept them into fellowship.

If a group of Christians demands anything beyond a person's acceptance of Christ before admitting that person into fellowship, then that group isn't a church in the biblical sense of the word. It's a sect.

A sect refers to a body of people who have been chosen to separate themselves from the larger whole to follow their own tenets.

Anytime a group of Christians undercuts the biblical basis for fellowship by excluding those whom God as accepted, they are a sect. Christians should never join sects because they are inherently divisive. And God does not own them. To put it plainly, the only church we as believers can claim is the one that Jesus Christ began—His body in local expression. And that body receives and accepts all who have trusted in Jesus.

For only those whom Christ has accepted belong to His body. And only they make up His church. A Christian may leave a sect or religious organization that calls itself a "church." This is not the same thing as leaving a church that meets on the ground of Christ alone. Healthy organic church life is nonsectarian, nonelitist, and nonexclusive. Such churches meet on the ground of Christ alone.

Elders

Leadership is a corporate affair, not a solo one. It's to be shouldered by the entire body. The idea that elders direct the affairs of the church, make decisions in all corporate matters handle all of its problems and supply all of its teaching is alien to New Testament thinking. Such an idea is pure fantasy and bereft of biblical support. It's no wonder that in elder-led churches spiritual maturity atrophies and members grow passive and indolent.

Stated simply, the New Testament church knows nothing of an elder-ruled, elder-governed, or elder-directed church. The first-century church was in the hands of the brotherhood and sisterhood. Plain and simple.

The elders of the early church didn’t operate as an oligarchy (absolute rule by a few) nor as a dictatorship. They were simply older men whom the church organically and naturally looked to in times of crises.

An elder had no biblical or spiritual right to bark out commands to a passive congregation. Instead, they (once they emerged) worked together with the whole church toward reaching a unanimous decision, and a single mind. But it was the church, as a whole that made the decision as "one new man."

Submission

The Bible does have something to say about authority and submission. However, it spills far more ink in teaching us about love and service. When the fundamental aspects of love and servanthood are mastered, the issues of authority and submission amazingly take care of themselves. (Furthermore, those who put undue emphasis on these subjects are typically more interested in making themselves an authority figure than they are in serving their fellow brethren.)

In the shepherding movement, every Christian is to find a shepherd to disciple and "cover" him or her. The shepherd is "God's delegated authority." Therefore, his advice must always be followed. To disobey one's shepherd is to disobey God Himself. Thus, all Christians must trust in their shepherd's judgement above their own. If a person fails to submit to his or her shepherd, he or she has moved outside of divine "covering" and will experience loss—either spiritual or physical.

The major error of the discipleship-shepherding teaching rests upon the false assumption that submission is the equivalent of unconditional obedience. Equally flawed is the idea that God vests certain people with unquestioned authority over others. God, it was taught, will hold individual "shepherds" responsible for wrong decisions. The "sheep" bear no responsibility so long as they mindlessly obey their shepherds—regardless of what they command the sheep to do.

Biblical subjection has nothing to do with control or hierarchy. It's simply an attitude of childlike openness in yielding to others. Mutual subjection rests upon the New Testament notion that all believers are gifted. As such, they can all express Jesus Christ. Therefore, we are to be in subjection to one another in Christ. God's authority has been vested in the entire body rather than to a particular section of it. His authority resides in the entire community.

I won't lie: the writings of Frank Viola have changed my view of church and scripture quite dramatically from where I was 15 years ago. He does use a tremendous amount of scripture and history to support his points. And I do agree with the majority of his conclusions. The only thing I would add to the above excerpts is that I HAVE been in churches where there were Elders and those Elders did function in a servant role, yielding great fruit in the people. So even though the "office" of Elder was noted by all the application of it was in fact the organic leadership Viola describes. Same thing goes for other appointed, and even paid, positions. I used to think that the best thing would be for churches to abandon the titles all together. Now I think that's unreasonable. But I do think it IS reasonable for churches to redefine leadership within a local Body and release more the members to take up leadership roles organically, so that the end result is a mixture of titled and non-titled organic leadership. But that's my opinion and my opinion is changing as the years role on.

Irregardless of the leadership, the most important thing in the quotes above are the first two paragraphs. That change alone would open the flood-gates of blessing on SO many Bodies of Believers. I've witnessed this first hand. Once a church accepts others based on Christ and not their own tenants great things WILL always happen....for the glory of God.