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The Falling Away That Brought On The Dark Age (Part 2 of 5)
There are three Greek words used to describe the office of leadership in the local church: presbyteros, an older man of knowledge and wisdom; episkopos, one who has proven himself capable of leadership; and poimen, one capable of feeding or tending a flock. From these three Greek terms, we get six English terms. From presbuteros, we get “presbyter” and “elder.” From episkopos, we get “bishop” and “overseer.” From poimen, we get “pastor” and “shepherd.” To some, this is a little confusing, but for one who studies the scriptures carefully, it presents no problem.
We get further from the scriptures that each local church was to have a plurality of these men, and each were equal in their responsibilities toward leading the congregation. A one-man leadership is totally unknown in these scriptures. Furthermore, the scriptures describe this office to be one of service and leadership, not one of lordship and dictatorial rule, the latter of which brought on the corruption that followed.
To any student of the scriptures, it is clear that the apostles, and those on whom they laid their hands, were guided directly by the Spirit. This direct guidance of the Spirit was designed of God to give to man a complete and perfect revelation in written form. Once completed and on permanent record, the need for direct guidance of the Spirit had served its purpose.
God gave to these inspired men miraculous power to establish beyond question that these men were his appointed spokesmen (Hebrews 2.1-4). So then, after the death of the apostles, and those on whom they laid their hands, men were no longer directly guided by the Spirit. This written word is now the perfect guide to Christians for all times to come (1 Corinthians 13.8-13; Jude 1-3). As the apostle Paul said in 1 Corinthians 14.37, “If any man thinks himself to be a prophet, or a spiritual, let him acknowledge that the things I write unto you are the commandments of the Lord.”
The matter of continuous inspired guidance of the Spirit is the matter that caused the great falling away spoken by Paul in 2 Thessalonians 2.1-7. After the apostles were all dead, rather than solve religious problems within the church by the written word, certain ones within the leadership of the church claimed direct guidance of the Spirit. If they could persuade those within the congregation to accept their claims, they could lead the church in whatever direction they wanted it to go. So very shortly after the death of the apostles, in many churches, one man became a presiding bishop, and his word, not the scriptures, was to settle all controversies within the local church.
From a book entitled, The Apostolic Fathers by Edward Burton, we read the account of one outstanding bishop named Ignatius, who, according to history, was the bishop of Antioch between ad 98 and ad 117.
He identified himself as Theophorus. This term signified a person carried by God. Without any historical foundation, he claimed he was the child that Jesus set in the midst as recorded in Matthew 18.1-6. Thus, he assumed to himself a special position of authority and preeminence among the churches. Because of his unwarranted claim, he wrote letters to several churches in which he especially admonished them to fully submit to the rule of the bishop and the presbyters among them. (Please note that he makes a clear distinction between the bishop and the presbyters.) In his epistle to the Magesians, a church located on the river Meander, about fifteen miles from Ephesus, we give the following quote:
Wherefore it will become you also not to use your bishop too familiarly upon account of his youth, but yield all reverence to him according to the power of God the Father — as I also perceive that your holy presbyters do — not considering his age, which indeed to appearance he is young, but as becomes those who are prudent in God, submitting to him, or rather not to him, but to the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the bishop of us all. It will, therefore, behoove you, with all sincerity, to obey your bishop in honor of him whose pleasure it is that ye should do so, because he that does not do so deceives not the bishop whom he sees, but affronts him that is invisible: for whatsoever of this kind is done, it reflects not upon man, but upon God, who knows the secrets of our hearts (pp. 84-85).
As one can clearly see from this quote, Ignatius laid the groundwork for a one-man bishop over all the churches. As strange as it may seem, many of the churches accepted Ignatius as a special bishop among bishops. To many of the Christians during that time, Ignatius confirmed his unwarranted claim by willingly offering himself as a martyr when he insisted that he be cast to the wild beast in the colosseum at Rome. The Christians of that day greatly erred by putting their faith in the words of this uninspired man rather than putting their trust in the inspired word of God as given by the true apostles and prophets of Jesus Christ.
[Part 2 of 5 — to be continued next week]
