Theology in the Raw - Bonus Q&A: How Biblical Is Current Church Structure and more!

Episode Date: October 30, 2024

Bonus Q&A: How Biblical Is Current Church Structure and more!  If you've enjoyed this content, please subscribe to my channel! Support Theology in the Raw through Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/theologyintheraw Or you can support me directly through Venmo: @Preston-Sprinkle-1 Visit my personal website: https://www.prestonsprinkle.com For questions about faith, sexuality & gender: https://www.centerforfaith.com My Facebook public page: https://www.facebook.com/Preston-Sprinkle-1528559390808046/?pnref=story My Facebook private page: https://www.facebook.com/preston.sprinkle.7 Twitter: @PrestonSprinkle Instagram: preston.sprinkle Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hey friends, welcome back to another bonus Q and a episode at theology in the raw, where I'm going to address several questions sent in from my patron supporters, such as is the current church structure biblical? Is it okay for intersex kids to be given puberty blockers? Does Luke 16, 24, which speaks of torment, disprove the annihilation view of hell. Does Leviticus 1928 forbid tattoos? Who, who am I voting for? Which I am going to answer and many, many others. If you want to gain full access to this Q and a, the full length version of it, you can go to patreon.com forward slash the all general.com become a patron supporter and a member of the theology rock community. And, and, and we are going

to be rolling out more premium content for our patron supporters. We're going to start doing two Q and A's a month. We're giving free access to some of the videos of the previous exiles and Babylon conference talks, discounts on exiles and Babylon registration access to my current research project, monthly zoom chats, of course, for the gold members and much, much more. So again, patreon.com forward slash theologianra.com or just click on the link in the show notes. Okay. Let's dive in. An anonymous supporter wants to know, how biblical is the current church structure? Is it biblical to have a head pastor? Is there anywhere else that does that? That does it differently?

It's a big question. Even though I'm going to spend a bit of time here, my answer is still going to be unfortunately brief. I mean, whole books have been written on this. Many books have been written on it. We're also dealing, we also have to take in consideration very different strands of the church. I mean, we have our Western Protestant church, we have Eastern Orthodox churches, we have Roman Catholic churches, and even within that, well, at least within the Protestant churches, there's many, many, many, many different types of church structures. So I assume, you know, this question, questioner, questioner, question asker has probably a really specific kind of current church structure in mind, but I do at least want to point out that there are many, many, many, many, many different kinds of current church structures. Biblically speaking, I

will say this. I think that I don't think there is a kind of monolithic church structure taught throughout the New Testament. I think the church was designed to be flexible. It was designed to be multi-ethnic. I think this is a really fundamental point, that between the Old and New Testaments, we are shifting from an ethnocentric nation of the people of God, you know, where, you know, you had people living in one kind of ethnic context, one geographical context, and that demanded a certain kind of structure among the people of God in the Old Testament. When we go to the New Testament, we now no longer worship God on this mountain or that mountain, but in spirit and truth. The people of God now are to be

spread or exiled among the nations. And they are, given the fact that the church is designed to be multi-ethnic, it will adapt and change and morph and shift depending on which cultural, ethnic, geographical context that X, Y, and Z churches find themselves living in. So I do think that there is a flexibility in church structure built into the very nature of what the church is. We also see this in the new Testament. For instance, if we compare the leadership structures of say the church at Corinth versus the church at Ephesus, for instance, when Paul's writing to Timothy and first, second, first and second Timothy, you see, you see different kinds of structures like in, in the church at Corinth,

it seems to be very much more for lack of better terms, democratic. You don't see a lot of hierarchy reflected in the church of Corinth. Now, whether that's, you know, some people could say, well, yeah, that's why the church was a mess. And you know, I don't know, maybe that's the case. I don't think there's any explicit that says that, but you do get a different feel for the kind of structure of leadership in the end of Corinthian church versus something like the church of Ephesus, where Paul, according to first Timothy in particular, and also the church at Crete and Titus Titus chapter one in particular, you do see a bit more, a bit more of an established leadership structure that seems to be advocated

for there. That raises the question that I really can't really get into, you know, are the pastoral epistles, is that Paul writing for that specific context? And he wants these churches, these particular churches to implement, you know, the kind of church structure he's advocating for in the pastoral or are the pastoral pistols, you know, canonically designed to apply to all churches of every era, you know, they're written after Corinth. And so, you know, one argument has been that, you know, the church began, it was a bit more democratic, a little bit more loose, a little bit less hierarchical and its leadership structure. And then when you get to the pastoral,

then we, you know, then we realized, gosh, look what that led to the mess of Corinth. So we need some more structure. And that's why later on the, you know, Paul realizes, gosh, we need to start establishing a bit more, a bit more structure to, to church leadership. I don't, I don't know. I mean, I don't think I'm quite by that. But that is one possible way to read the kind of differences between Corinth and the pastoral epistles in terms of even the pastoral. Um, it, it's a little tricky. I mean, I, even there, I don't think it's crystal clear whether it was a plurality of

leadership led by elders or whether there was sort of one person at the top and other leaders underneath that one person. I did tend to tend to see it more in terms of a plurality of leadership, but there is an argument that says when Paul talks about the overseer in Titus one, first Timothy three, that the overseer is sort of the primary leader, most likely the, the, um, the leader of the house that where the church met. So the church would gather at the house of somebody that was, you know, sort of the overseer and, um, that overseer was akin to what we might call today like a modern, like a modern lead pastor. Other people see overseer and elder is more synonymous. In fact, in first Timothy one, I think it's

verse five and then seven, Paul seems to use overseer and elder synonymously. So yeah, I, I, I'm still wrestling through that. I, I get, I tend to lean more towards, I think there's probably a plurality of leaders and the, the, the whole argument that the leader of the house that the church met at was a de facto leader of the church that, that, I got some pushback to that. I mean, nowhere does Paul say in order to be qualified as an overseer, you must own a house. In fact, I can see Paul pushing back against the idea that just because you own a year, you must own a house. In fact, I can see Paul pushing back against the idea that just because you own a house, it's big enough to house the church. Ergo, you are wealthy. Therefore you're qualified to be a leader. I can see Paul, he decides almost pushing

back against that assumption. So lots to wrestle with. It is really complicated. I would highly recommend the work of a new Testament scholar by in terms of the money, church, I, again, here, I don't want to say that modern, let me just speak to my own context, kind of a non-denominational Protestant, evangelical evangelical ish modern church where you do have, you know, a gathering, typically a state, a church, um, where you do have, you know, a gathering, typically a stage, usually a sermon given usually by some kind of lead or teaching pastor. Um, and that might be in the context of a kind of plurality of leaders, but there is a kind of also head pastor, lead

pastor. The leader among equals is how some people put it. Yeah. I don't, I don't think that structure is, I wouldn't necessarily say anti biblical. I just think it's non, there are several non biblical elements to it. That, that is things we are doing today that they just weren't doing in the first century. And then we can argue about whether, well, are the context is different. You know, the first century, there wasn't that many believers so they can gather in a house. But as a church has grown throughout the centuries, now there's a lot more Christians and they can't stuff them on houses. And so we need buildings and larger

gatherings are inevitable because there's more Christians. So that's that, you know, that I could see some legitimacy to that. Of course, the house church movement is going to say, yeah, but that's problematic. So let's instead of having a one large gathering, let's just keep expanding a network of house churches. I don't think, I think both of those kinds of views make, again, I don't, I don't think, I think both of those kinds of views, again, I don't think one is just totally right, totally wrong. I think both make good arguments. And again, because of the flexibility of the New Testament, I don't think there is as much prescriptive leadership structures in the New Testament as much as descriptive, that the New Testament is describing,

you know, certain churches that they're working with. So I do think the size of the gathering does... The size of modern day, non-denominational kind of low church gatherings, I think that does present some challenges. Like, I do think think the idea of the community, the family of God gathering where 99% of people are watching 1%, if that of other people use their gifts. I think that is that that does, doesn't, I mean, that, that does seem to go against the grain of the new Testament. If certainly it's, doesn't reflect what was going on at Corinth at all. And again, some people can say, well, yeah, that's, it wasn't the best church experience, the church at Corinth, but just that idea, right? I mean, push back.

You can push back on that. Like, like if 99% of, or if sometimes 99.9% of believers feel that the same Holy spirit are sitting, watching and absorbing, or just simply passively receiving the gifts of a small percentage of the, of the gathered body. Um, that does seem a little odd. Now, of course, people are saying small groups. That's why we have a small group for everybody can exercise their gifts. Okay. I can, I can, I can see that. Um, are they, how they exercise in their gifts is a, is the Holy spirit, the same Holy spirit that breathe creation into existence or help the

tree hovered over creation and Genesis one two is that same Holy spirit that is in dwelling all the believers is, is that Holy spirit are the gifts that that Holy Spirit has given all these believers being manifested in some kind of rhythm of the gathered body of Christ, whether that's on a Sunday or throughout the week. Like, minimum, I would want to see that at work. if, if the main gathering of the body of Christ lacks rich, authentic community, brothers and sisters loving on one another. I mean, think about how many love commands there are, love one another. I think there's over 50, right? Like this is a primary value. Brothers and sisters acting like brothers and sisters. They are loving one another. They are meeting each other's needs.

There is no poor among you, you know, like people with financial needs are being taken care of, like that rich, authentic, meaningful community. That's just, I think for a modern church to reflect the New Testament church, that needs to be baked into the rhythm of the church so that if you're not participating in that, it'd be hard for me to say you're participating in the body of Christ. If your

gifts aren't being used, you're not embedded in deep, rich, authentic, accountable relationships in the rhythm of the church. I think that would run up against the New Testament vision of what ecclesia means. Again, if you have a better biblical pushback to that, then feel free. And again, if larger churches that have a large gathering, like, okay, on our large gathering, that doesn't really happen, but we do that throughout the week and small groups, whatever, if that is indeed happening, I could see, I can see a case for that. I certainly can. I also, and I talked as I talked to lots of pastors, they, they

have a hard time with like, they're, they're like, yeah, we want that to happen. We try to make it happen, but you know, 20% of our people are involved in the small groups. Some of them aren't really even engaging in, you know, the kind of church rhythm I see in the new Testament. So, so I think most pastors I talk to would be honest and say, yeah, that's the goal, but we do seem to be falling short of that. Yeah, let me leave it at that. I mean, there's so much more I could say. Again, just to summarize, I think there is a lot of flexibility built into the New Testament church structure. And I think there is. I think we should be honest with some disconnect with the rhythm of what church looks like in the New Testament, how that might not be reflected in contemporary churches. But again, there's so much diversity in contemporary churches that I just don't

want to make a blanket statement castigating all, you know, contemporary churches. How should we interpret Luke 16, 24? I'm going to, as I'm talking, I'm going to go to my Bible app here. How should we interpret Luke 16, 24 regarding annihilation? Does it suggest that there is torment, but it leads to perishing after that eternal torment. Okay. Um, Luke 16, just so we're all on the same page here. Okay. But yeah, the poor man and the rich man, poor, poor man's name is Lazarus happened when the poor man died the rich man, poor, poor man's name is Lazarus happened when the poor man died. He was carried away to Abraham's side and the rich man also died and was buried. And in Hades, he lifted up his eyes and lifted

up his eyes and he was in torment. And he saw Abraham from a distance and Lazarus at his side. And he called out and said, father Abraham, this is a rich man. Have mercy on me. Send Lazarus so that he could dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue because I am suffering in this stuff. I mean, I am suffering pain in this flame. One thing, one key crucial thing to point out, which I could almost just say this and then move on. Cause it kind of answers the question to some extent is that Luke 16 is talking about Hades, not hell. This is the so-called intermediate state. This is not the final state of hell. So quick tour of the afterlife when people, and this is, I guess I should add the qualification

that there's different, you know, debates about this, but that this is pretty widely held, I would say, okay? And I do think this is probably the best reading of the afterlife. Again, there's going to be different interpretations and different viewpoints, but this is kind of the mainstream view, which I think is probably the best representation of what the Bible says. When somebody dies, they go into an intermediate state. If you die as a believer, you go to hear Abraham's side or other passages talk about going to heaven. I think they're talking about the same thing. Um, if you are not a believer and you die, you go to a place called Hades, but both of these are at the intermediate state. You stay there for until Jesus comes

back. When Jesus comes back, he raises both the good, um, both the righteous and the wicked. And they both stand before judgment. And though, you know, the sheep and the wicked, and they both stand before judgment. And the sheep and the goats, Matthew 25, and the sheep go into the people who have believed in Jesus, go into what I would call the new creation. And those who are not believing in Jesus will go to the place that the Bible calls Gehenna translated as hell, or Revelation calls it the Lake of Fire. So, these respective intermediate states are disembodied, again, is the dominant view. And I do agree with that. There's no resurrection for the intermediate state and then another resurrection for the final state. When the Bible talks about resurrection, it is the final resurrection when Jesus comes back,

where the souls that were in their respective intermediate states will receive a resurrected body. So, that's one thing to keep in mind. This is a dis. So first of all, this is not even talking about hell. It's not talking about the final state. So even if we take the torment literally, and I'll come back to that, it is not talking about an ongoing eternal torment in hell. That's that's, that's a different place. So right there, I could stop and say, okay, this, the annihilation view of hell talks is referring to hell, not the intermediate state. The annihilation view of hell could leave room for some kind of suffering in the intermediate

state, while in the final state, there is a quote unquote annihilation of the body and soul as Matthew 10, 28 hints at, among many other passages. I'm not sure if that's a good thing. I mean, I think that's a good thing. I think that's a good thing. I think that's a good thing. I think that's a good thing. I think that's a good thing. I think that's a good thing. I think that's a good thing. I think that's a good thing. I think that's a good thing. I think that's a good thing. I think that's a good thing. I think that's a good thing. I think that's a good thing. I think that's a good thing. I think that's a good thing. I think that's a good thing. I think that's a good thing. like all the people in Hades are gonna be hanging out, looking over all the people by

Abraham side. Like just think about the geography of that. That's, that's a little too close for comfort. I mean, and you're literally able to kind of yell out and talk to people across, I guess, a chasm. I just, I don't, I don't think given the fact that it's a parable, given the fact there's a lot of non-literal elements, you know the dipping your finger in a cool water. Like give me a bath. You know, like the whole, I mean, the whole thing just has a fanciful character to it. Like, like parables can have, I mean, the parable, the genre of a parable opens up opportunities for a lot of non-literal fanciful elements to teach a truth.

And I think that's the thing about parables. I mean, I think that's the thing about parables can have. I mean, the parable, the genre of a parable opens up opportunities for a lot of non-literal fanciful elements to teach a truth, teach a certain kind of theological truth rather than trying to give a detailed literal geography of the respective places that these people are in. So even with the torment, oh, and then just to repeat what I said earlier, we're dealing with the intermediate state, which most people would say this is, this is a disembodied state. There's not some temporary resurrected embodied state here. So all the bodily elements in this parable, um, I think there's a good case to say that those bodily features, finger, tongue, whatever, um, are not to be taken or not to be taken

literally either. So, so even the view that there is suffering, temporary suffering in the intermediate state, I think even that has to get over, um, all the hurdles of, of, of, you know, the fact that this parable does seem to have a lot of non-literal elements to it. I'll leave it at that. Much to research there. There's a lot of different views on kind of what's going on here. I believe it's been a long time since I looked at this passage, but I believe Richard Bauckham, you might Google around, has an article on this passage that is really good. He situates it in the early Jewish context

and points out parallels in early Jewish literature to this passage. And I think, again, if I remember correctly, he makes the case that this parable is sort of participating in a very common, well-known genre about this sort of situation in the intermediate state. And he shows that it is not to be taken literally. All right. Next question. Elijah wants to know, what are your thoughts on generational curses? There are various perspectives on passed down sin, but it seems clear we aren't punished for our ancestors sins. Yeah. This is, I think we need to make a distinction between, you know, sons being punished for the sins of the fathers. There's several passages that say God does not do that. If you have

a Ezekiel, I want to say 18, is that correct? And there's other passages. I know Ezekiel 18 for sure. That if a, if you have a wicked son and a righteous or have a wicked father, righteous son, the son's not going to be punished for the sins of the father. We're punished for our own sins, like you see that in Scripture. But that's different. I think generational curses can be somewhat different than simply a punishment for something you did not do. As far as I understand, when people talk about generational curses, it could be somebody bringing sin into the home, sin into the family, and that sin sort of perpetuates itself. I mean, for example, you've often heard, you know, hurt people hurt people. It's common. I mean, unfortunately, it's common for people who have been abused to also abuse others. And that doesn't work the other way. Don't, you

know, if you have been abused, I'm not saying you are going to go abuse others. I'm saying those who do abuse others, oftentimes, if you look in their past, they have been a victim of abuse. And if somebody has been abused, especially by family members, so physical abuse, sexual abuse, and they don't find healing from that trauma, not always, but it can and often can manifest itself in also abusing others. Again, I'm making a very general statement here. So if, say somebody, say a father is abusing his kids and you look to

his father abused him and maybe his father abused him, that I think that could be an example of generational sin being passed down. Not that an innocent person is being punished for the sins of the father, but that when the sin can come into the home and sort of breed more sin among the different generations. And also, I think in the Bible, I mean, when we're talking about generational curses, oftentimes you had parents, sons, grandparents, even great grandparents living in the same home. So if a great grandparent has unchecked sin, that's going to also influence the home as a whole, especially when they're living in this literally living in the same home. Yeah. There's, there's people, I'm sure that are better experts on generational curses.

I know that some people will talk about even like demonization, like demons that might be territorial, geographically focused. And if somebody brings in kind of the presence of a demon under the home, under a certain, you know, even physical property, that that demon will stay there unless it is cast out. And so you need to do some deliverance to get rid of the demon from that house. Otherwise it'll keep passing on the demonic influence to other people in the home. That's outside my realm of expertise there.

I would need somebody who has done more work with that, both biblically and experientially to speak into that. But I do know that that's also another view that somebody might point to. Okay, another question here from anonymous. What line would have to be crossed for you to engage in nonviolent protest or action? Is there stuff you would do or would march for? I think, I mean, in theory, there's probably lots of things I would engage in terms of

nonviolent protest. I say in theory, just because I haven't, have I done it? Not formally, no. I've not marched. But no, I have no problem for nonviolent protest. I mean, the whole civil rights movement was built on nonviolent protest and there's many, many history knows of many nonviolent protests. In fact, this is another question I'm going to get to later on that have actually worked that have overthrown huge regimes of evil dictators. I mean, and so I think that's perfectly fine. And should, you know, should be, should be done. Should the moment call for it. And you know, for me to march or protest in something,

I would need to be very clear and certain that there is a clear moral line that's being violated. I, I know I'm thinking of some sensitive ones here and I almost hesitate mentioning them. Hey friends, I hope you enjoyed this portion of the Patreon Only Q&A podcast. If you'd like to listen to the full-length episode and receive other bonus content like monthly podcasts, opportunities to ask questions, access to first drafts

of my research and monthly Zoom chats and more, then please head over to patreon.com forward slash theology in the raw to join theology in the raw's Patreon community. That's patreon.com forward slash theology in the raw. This show is part of the Converge Podcast Network. Hey, so I'm launching a new season on the podcast, The Doctor and the Nurse. World renowned brain coach, Dr. Daniel Amon, joins me as a co-host as we dive deep into the mind and the brain of everything high performance. I've been fascinated for years as I've worked with top athletes, high powered CEOs, Hollywood actors, and all high performers in all types of different fields

of how they break through pressure, ignite drive, how they overcome distractions, how they put fear on the bench, how they tap into flow state and just dominate all these different areas of high performance. So on this season, my good tap into flow state, and just dominate all these different areas of high performance. So on this season, my good friend Dr. Daniel Lehmann will break down what is actually going on in the brain

in these different areas, and I will give actionable tools to be able to use and apply in your life. So buckle up, the doctor and the nurse on the David Nurse Show coming at ya. Hi, I'm Haven, and as long as I can remember, I have had different curiosities and thoughts and ideas that I like to explore, usually with a girlfriend over a matcha latte. But then when I had kids, I just didn't have the same time that I did before for the one-on-ones that I crave. So I started Haven the Podcast.

It's a safe space for curiosity and conversation. And we talk about everything from relationships to parenting to friendships to even your view of yourself. And we don't have answers or solutions, but I think the power is actually in the questions. So I'd love for you to join me, Haven the Podcast.