Why I Wouldn’t Want The Five Fold In My Church – Part II
….. because my institutional church values their traditions, their view of Biblically correct doctrine, and their desire for a professional hierarchal view of leadership over change, challenges to one’s theology, and having to give up control.
In John 17 Jesus prays that the Church will be one, but over two thousand years that prayer seems to not be answered yet. Sectarianism has brought division in the Body of Christ, the Church, as there are hundreds of different splintered groups; all claiming to have the correct Biblical perspective and correct doctrine.
The Gospel was a simple message at the beginning of the first century, as the twelve apostles taught the same principles with simplistic clarity. The gospels also warned of false teachers, and since that time every sectarian group thinks they teach the truth while the others are in doctrinal error somehow, being the false teachers.
If there is ever a time the Apostles’ teaching is needed to restore doctrinal unity, it is today, but that teaching, although simplistic, would challenge the majority of the theology of most church sects today. They wouldn’t want their theology challenged, would be offended that others have challenged their theology, and would immediately become defensive.
The church has been deeply entrenched in a hierarchal form of professional leadership since Rome made it their official religion. What started as leadership based on relationships turned into a hierarchal structure lead by bishops and eventually a pope. A professional priesthood/ clergy would be formed separating it from the laity, an unbreached chasm that still remains.
The five fold would equip, train, birth, nurture, and release common believers in their evangelistic, shepherding, teaching, prophetic, and apostolic passions that would empower the laity for service rather than the professional clergy, thus threatening the control currently held by the clergy over the laity.
If my church did not want its doctrines, creeds, tenants of faith, and theology challenged and wanted to maintain its control through a professional hierarchal leadership structure, it probably would not embrace the five fold mentality of equipping and empowering the saints for the works of service. It would not be open to relinquish the offices and positions it has established to maintain control. It would accuse this five fold paradigm that I propose as heretical. They’ve done it throughout history. Unless the Holy Spirit is allowed to work among them to nurture a culture of unity, they will do it again.