Ecclesiastical Studies

Koinonia     Ministerial hickups in Adventist ecclesia

Koot van Wyk (DLitt et Phil; ThD)

Visiting Professor

Kyungpook National University

Sangju Campus

South Korea

Conjoint Lecturer of Avondale College

Australia

13 November 2011

         The word church in the New Testament comes from the Greek word meaning "called out ones". They were called out of the world of sin to live for Christ. Each one of them is called a member. They are not all the same members. They are all saved by Christ our Substitute forgiving all their past sins, their sinful history, their sinful condition in fallen Adam that they inherited. Now they start their journey with Christ in this world still stolen by Satan until the plan of God brings the eschaton to deal with the wicked in the executive judgment.    That is the part that Eliphaz in chapter 4 and 5 of Job misunderstood since he thought that God deals with the wicked in a preteristic and presentistic way now in this world. God causes the bad things to come over a person and He then also removes it, was his thought. He did not know that God permits Satan to tempt or test faithful people because He is proud of their victory in faith and can use that as a living witness in the courts of angels for other unfallen worlds to appreciate. Until the eschaton, then time is up for the wicked. Then all the things that Eliphaz listed will come true, but not until then. Until then the wicked may be prosperous and healthy, it seems. But all die. Good and bad since the wages of sin is death. Christ came to give us the promise of eternal life through acceptance of Him and His life, death and work or functions on our behalf in the Heavenly Sanctuary. Doing this, is to be a called out one, to be part of the ecclesia and to be a member.

         Individual Christians are coming together on Sabbaths from Friday evening to Saturday evening and other times during the week because they are corporately forming the koinonia, the fellowship. It is a fellowship with the Trinity and people or members.

         Koinonia means more than just a club of VIP's coming together to play golf. It is more than just the Lion's club. It is a group of people who held up high Christ's ideals. Christ's ideals includes Christ and His salvation plan in the center. All that the Bible has to say about it. Every doctrine concerning it. Every application of it in their lives. Christ's character is the ten commandments, so the upholding of the ten commandments, all of them, including the Seventh-day Sabbath are important. The fruits of the Spirit in Galatians 5 is the fruits of the ten commandments since the Spirit is also God, just like Jesus and the ten commandments also is the character of the Spirit.

         The doctrinal and lifestyle standards are to be held high for koinonia to exist. Without doctrines and lifestyle standards there is no koinonia.

In such a koinonia, there is no compromise, no permissiveness allowed, no accommodation towards evil or wrongs. Anything that is skew is anything that runs against this concept of koinonia. The will of the people should be in harmony with this ideal of Christ.

         The leaders of the church and the members are all humans but there is a difference between them in the church of Christ. It has to do not with the way Christ wants it but with the imperfection of humans due to their own choices. By choice some members are victorious Christians and with the help of the Spirit made to follow Christ and His example. Day by day they are overcomers and thus victorious overcomers. Their sins are non-intentional.

         There are other members and they still harbor intentional wrongdoings, or sins in their life. They are the slipping overcomer of sins. They are the struggling Christians in the church. Sometimes they are slipping. The danger with slipping is that it can become a sliding overcomer, which eventually becomes a backslider and an ex-churchgoer.

         The minister that serves the church is either a full time employee by the conference or a part time arranged caretaker. Finance is the difference. The full time minister gets all his salary and support and pension, medical, insurance from the tithes as the Bible describes. The members can see that he/she is employed because a written contract was signed between the conference and the pastor. He is ordained and licensed by them. The members know it. When a part time minister comes, they know that the minister is not employed but paid $200 per month without any other benifits. They know that he is just helping. The members feel that they are in control of the church and not the pastor/preacher since they just do him/her a favor by giving him/her $100 per month as a thanks for the hard work. The head-elder and the other church leaders feel they are in control of the church and that the part-time minister is only their to be utilized as their merchandise. $100 and sometimes a meal at a restaurant is sufficient support for the part-time minister, so they think. Even that situation may or may not be such a problem for some ministers in the carrying out of their duties. But sometimes hick-ups come from a direction never expected and that should not exist in koinonia.

         It is understandable that most of the members are struggling overcomers, struggling Christians, slipping overcomers and some of them sliding overcomers. But your elders and deacons are all victorious overcomers, or should be. They have to hold the standards of Christ high without reservation at all. Even if the members are intentionally sinning, only unintentional sins are permitted for the victorious Christian leaders. There can be no intentional sinning for the victorious Christian. It is against the Bible concept of Christian identity.

         Even when the acts of the Christian are in full conformity with koinonia, there will still be personality and character traits that need work. Friendliness comes in degrees of less, more and most. Forgiveness comes in degrees of less likely, more likely to, most likely to. The deeper the spiritual experience and the deeper the experience with Christ, the more these fruits of the Spirit will show themselve in the victorious Christian or the Christian leaders like the elders and deacons. The minister is just a head-head elder since he is also a member. But more so also from him. He cannot be but a victorious overcomer.

         If your deacon pays to go to a horse-riding school on Sabbaths, or attend university classes on Sabbath, or if your elder opens his private school teachings on Sabbath, or attends government education meetings on Sabbath, or is involved in invigilating examinations on Sabbath, or is harvesting fruit, rice, grain, vegetables, or is building graves on Sabbath, then there is a big problem with koinonia. The ideal is not kept up. Even if in their private lifes they insist that they know the correct koinonia, if they come together and accommodate each other, or are permissive on these aspects, especially the leaders who are suppose to be victorious overcomers and non-intentional sinners, they fail the biblical standards and standards of Christ. Such a situation is chronic.

         When the church treasurers do not use the computerized finance system the conference provides as templates for their finance records of the church, and the church offerings that they are entitled and permitted to keep at the church is placed in the account number of the treasurer, problems arises. Many treasurers are "loaning from God" because they are solely responsible for the $10 000 in their accounts. They do not separate their own business from God's business and use these funds for private purposes. Then when the church asks for the money there is a stress period whether it will be returned or not which lasts months and weeks. Everyone is stressed, especially the part-time caretaker or helper.

         If the church is approached by the part-time caretaker to sign up or implement the computerized finance system of the church and the whole churchboard rejects the plan to bring finances out of the sole hands of the treasurers into a control check system, the stress for the part-time caretaker or helper runs into severe stress. Because the part-timer is not contracted by the conference, because he/she is not licensed or ordained as minister, because the members know it and only utilize the help, therefore the words or admonition of the helper or part-timer is completely ignored.

         When this happens in a congregation, you no longer have koinonia but a club of VIP's that only comes to church for social purposes and mock or fake or pretend to be or think to be religious activities. It cannot be real or true religious activities when the Christian leaders are no longer following the guidelines of Christ, His ideal, His ten commandments including Sabbath keeping, His instructions regarding church pocketing, like Judas Iscariot did, it is indeed fake worship or pretending Adventism.

         At this stage, it is best for the part-timer or helper who has no contract but favor doing oral agreements between all parties, to quit. God does not operate with such an economy.

Even if the leaders and members are ergative and visit hospitals and sick people on Sabbath afternoons, hand out pamphlets in the community, spend time on Sabbath afternoons to talk about church businesses and building projects, even if they do all these things to work for God, there is no koinonia but only a club meeting of VIPs.

         One cannot buy God's oversight for one's intentional sin. You cannot break the Sabbath by having your supermarket open on Sabbath and then bring people from time to time to church with the intention to say to God, forgive me for breaking the law, I evangelize for you. It does not work that way. Christ had to die because He could not compromise with sin in any way. It cost God the Father His son, it cost Jesus His blood and it will cost also for us to be victorious overcomers in Christ or total commitment.

         In the Adventist work for God, there is no such thing as a smoking pastor, or drinking evangelist, or money pocketing treasurer, or Sabbath breaking professor at our Church institution, or pork eating medical doctor at our hospitals.    Either you are part of Christ's ideal in koinonia or you are a struggling overcomer, maybe a slipping one from time to time but in great danger of becoming a slipping one. There is not such thing as salvation by good works ergatism but Christ's ideal or koinonia comprised or accommodated.

         So what must the lisenced and contracted full-time minister do? Call a churchboard meeting and seriously address the issues one by one. Ask for resignations or immediate intention to reform. Take strong steps towards reform. Get their support. Then approach the members through the sermons on Sabbaths pleading for the same.

         Part-timers? Depending on your physical condition, or mental condition, it is almost best to resign and leave so that the church will get a full-time experienced retired pastor who can discipline the churchboard appropriately and effectively. Create a space for the next pastor to come. Give them as sense that they feel they need full time pastor. That is maybe the great service you have done for the congregation, to build them up to such a level to feel a need for a full-time minister.

So much for ministerial hickups in the Adventist ecclesia.

Post-script

         Your ecclesiasia theorists may complain that this is a Platonic view of ecclesia and not an Aristotelian one. The big difference between Plato and Aristotle is that Plato saw reality as separated from the earth but Aristotle saw it as part of this earth.

         So what they will argue is that my suggestion supra is based on a Christ ideal that is separated from human weaknesses and that only by escaping human weaknesses one can be really part of koinonia. It will mean that struggling Christians come short of ideal koinonia and thus are not yet part of it. My answer is that the Spirit of God pleads with all and cross all barriers. We do not need to lower standards to make God available for all, the Spirit approaches already all. My actions or decision do not control the area or zone of operation of the Spirit. The Spirit controls us as humans. Therefore the ideal should stay where it is and humans should change, not God or Christ.

         Aristotelian koinonia concepts will argue that God is more permissive and accommodative and inclusive than Platonic koinonia theorists like myself is suggesting. God liberates and oversee one's shortcomings and embrace. It is true for those who intends to become victorious overcomers in Christ. He is a God of love that will not hurt anyone. It is true that He will not hurt anyone who intends to follow Him but Christ had to die for sins and this is a serious issue. Christianity in metro-environment should not be made more permissive or more accommodative but man must be brought up to the ideals of Christ or God.

         I agree with William Horden when he said:

"The new conservatives are seeking dialogue with their world and a way to translate without transforming the gospel" (William Horden, "Theology in Dialogue" in Millard J. Erickson ed. Readings in Christian Theology Vol. 1: The Living God [Michigan: Baker Book House, 1989 8th], 47-57 especially 55). He continued to say: "At the same time, the dialogue [with modern metro humans] will tempt many to cast their lot with the god of this passing age. Where that happens, we need the persistent voices of those who, while ready to translate the faith for the modern times, are not prepared 'to practice cunning or to temper with God's Word' (II Cor. 4:2)" (ibid. 1989: 56).

Biblical koinonia expects us to keep biblical