The
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How much “discernment” is the article asking me to engage
in and maintain in both understanding and carrying out the duty the article is
requiring?
XX. Ministers of the Word
We recognize no other pastors in
the Church than faithful pastors of the Word of
God, feeding the sheep of Jesus Christ on the one hand with instruction,
admonition, consolation, exhortation, deprecation; and on the other resisting
all false doctrines and deceptions of the devil, without mixing with the pure
doctrines of the Scriptures their dreams or their foolish imaginings. To these
we accord no other power or authority but to conduct, rule, and govern the
people of God committed to them by the same Word, in which they have the power
to command, defend, promise, and warn, and without which they neither can nor
ought to attempt anything. As we receive the true ministers of the Word of God
as messengers and ambassadors
of God, it is necessary to listen to them as to him himself, and we hold their
ministry to be a commission from God necessary in the Church. On the other hand
we hold that all seductive and false prophets, who abandon the purity of the
Gospel and deviate to their own inventions, ought not at all to be suffered or
maintained, who are not the pastors they pretend, but rather, like ravening
wolves, ought to be hunted and ejected from the people of God.
WOW! – Aren’t you just tickled pink that modern day “passive Christianity” doesn’t find it
necessary to do this anymore? Oh –
wait. Who said? Evidently not Jesus
since He expects His disciples to actually embrace the Word to obey it and
reject not obeying it!
Why do you call Me, 'Lord, Lord,' and do not do what I say? Everyone who comes to Me and hears My words and acts on them, I will show you whom he is like: he is like a man building a house, who dug deep and laid a foundation on the rock; and when a flood occurred, the torrent burst against that house and could not shake it, because it had been well built. But the one who has heard and has not acted accordingly, is like a man who built a house on the ground without any foundation; and the torrent burst against it and immediately it collapsed, and the ruin of that house was great.
Luke 6:46-49 NASB