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Dr. Couch, I attend a church that only has deacons and no elders. What's the difference? ANSWER: Many churches have seen the biblical light and realize that the Word of God says that a church should have both. This problem highlights two issues. People (1) are not reading their Bible, and (2) tradition has a stronger hold on church leadership than looking carefully at Scripture. I know of many churches that have gone to elder leadership when they simply opened their Bible. Rather than give you the long answer here, I suggest you order from me my book Biblical Theology of the Church. Make the donation check of $17 out to Scofield Ministries, 120 CR 3222, Clifton, TX 76634. Unfortunately, even when a church has elders, the elders can walk about carnal and do stupid things. I know of this at first hand! Power or authority can go to their head and they can destroy what is good in their church. But supposedly, by following God's directive on the issue, the church should be in a better position to be biblical. Another problem is that elders are not very trained. They should (but don't) really know their Bible. I have seen many who were "led" by the nose by their wives! Or, they are just passive when it comes to making tough decisions. "Duh, what shall we do?" One of my old professors, Dr. J. Vernon McGee, told of the passivity of elders. He said he was playing golf with one when it started to rain. The elder just stuck his hand out and said, "Uhhh, what shall we do?" Dr. McGee answered, "Well, what about getting out of the rain?" The old saying, "Some don't have the brains to get out of the rain!" Thanks for asking. Dr. Mal Couch ANSWER: I agree! The author who has it right is Kenneth Wuest. He says what I have said for years but did not know of his views until fairly recently. We both hold that the book of Hebrews was handed over to the church to use as a polemic and as an apologetic book to convince the Jews of what Christ was all about. In other words, the main thrust is to convince the Jews of Christ and Christianity. Now I was influenced by no one except from my own study. I translated the entire book under the great New Testament scholar, Dr. Lewis Johnson. Hebrews is tough Greek but it's rich for advanced graduate language students. One of the problems Bible students have is that of false assumptions! They assume that every letter in the NT is written to the church believers, but this is not the case of Hebrews. But again, I want to be clear, the book was handed over to the church, though the message was aimed at the Jews who were "considering" the person of Christ as being their Messiah and Savior! I don't know how anyone could read Hebrews 3 and misunderstand the focus of the argument of the book! The chapter speaks of the Jews in the wilderness who had "the unbelieving heart" and went astray in their heart (vv. 10-11). When they heard God in the wilderness, they refused to believe but instead "hardened the hearts and provoked God" (v. 15). Note 3:18-19: "And to whom did God swear that they should not enter His rest, but to those who were disobedient? And so we see that they were not able to enter [God's rest] because of DISOBEDIENCE" (v. 18). That's about as plain as can be! The word "disobedient" in Greek is "apeitheo," and is one of the strongest words for disbelief! It is an Aorist Participle with the force of: "They were characterized distinctly as disobedient!" It can be translated "not to comply with, not to allow one to be persuaded, to refuse to believe, to be un-persuaded, to be un-compliant." But the last word in verse 19 is also very telling! It is "apistian" which means simply "unbelieving." The "a" is the negative in Greek, coupled with "pistian" which means "to believe." The Greek is strong as made clear even in the English translation. "'They were not able, not capable, to go into' God's rest …" 4:1 then carries the idea on. The "us" is the collective body of Jews who had the full revelation about Christ but were refusing to believe that He was truly the Promised One from the OT prophecies! The Jewish people were "to fear" lest while the promise was there, they would refuse to take hold of it. Some did believe (v. 3) but not all! I hope this helps. You need to get Wuest's set entitled "Word Studies in the Greek New Testament" published by Eerdmans. Thanks for asking. Dr. Mal Couch |