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What Is The Authority Of...
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July 27 - What Is The Authority Of The General Conference?-4

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And he has put all things his feet and has made him the head over all things for the church, which is his body. Eph. 1:22, 23, RSV.

It is easy to take either too high or too low a view of church leadership. Butler, we noted yesterday, erred on the side of too high.

Ellen White joined her husband in opposing Butler's perspective. Asserting that he, in defense of his independent style of leadership and rather highhanded manner, had developed his ideas of leadership for his "own benefit," she went on to deny the validity of his principle of one-man leadership.

On the other hand, while rejecting the authority of any one person as leader, she upheld the prerogative of the General Conference as a body. "You," she penned to Butler, "did not seem to have a true sense of the power that God has given His church in the voice of the General Conference. . .When this power which God has placed in the church is accredited to one man, and he is invested with the authority to be judgment for other minds, then the true Bible order is changed. . .your position on leadership is correct, if you give to the highest organized authority in the church what you have given to one man. God never designed that His work should bear the stamp of one man's mind and one man's judgment"(3T 492, 493).

Acknowledging that James of necessity had led during the early days of the church, Ellen went on to say that once Adventists had established organization, "it was the proper time for my husband to cease to act longer as one man to stand under the responsibilities and carry the heavy burdens"(3T 501).

In a pamphlet containing her letter to Butler, James attached a section on leadership in which he noted that he had "never professed to be a leader in any other sense than that which makes all of Christ's ministers leaders."

Thus James and Ellen White both stood firmly for the power of the General Conference as a body and against the type of individualistic power proposed by Butler.

Most modern Seventh-day Adventist don't give much thought to the question of church authority. We merely speak out about what we like or don't care for in leadership.

But this topic is of crucial importance in both the Bible and in our history. We do well in taking a look at what is church authority and how it should impact our lives.

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Christ Himself will decide who are worthy to dwell with the family of heaven. He will judge every man according to his words and his works. Profession is as nothing in the scale. It is character that decides destiny(COL 74).
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