Rules For Walking in Fellowship Rule 1

The first section of Rules for Walking in Fellowship has to do with the relationship to the pastor. This might seem somewhat self-serving on my part. However, I am not attempting to say something more than the good words of Owen. I am very pleased with our church and you as her congregants. Take these rules in the spirit they are given, with the desire to teach you to walk faithfully to Jesus.

Chapter 1- Attending to the Ordinances Dispensed by Your Pastor

Rule 1- Diligently attend and submit to the word and all ordinances committed to his administration and disposed by his ministerial authority, with ready obedience in the Lord.

1 Cor. 4:1 Let a man so account of us, as of the ministers of Christ and stewards of the mysteries of God.

2 Cor. 5:18, 20 And all things are of God, who hath reconciled us to himself through Jesus Christ and hath given to us the ministry of reconciliation...Now then we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God did beseech you by us: we pray you in Christ's stead, be ye reconciled to God.

Gal. 4:14 And my temptation which was in my flesh ye despised not, nor rejected; but received me as an angel of God, even as Christ Jesus.

Heb. 13:, 17 7 Remember them which have the rule over you, who have spoken unto you the word of God: whose faith follow, considering the end of their conversation. 17 Obey them that have the rule over you, and submit yourselves: for they watch for your souls, as they that must give account, that they may do it with joy, and not with grief: for that is unprofitable for you.

Owen explains that there is a two-fold power for dispensing the Word of God: 1. Ability 2. Authority

The ability is revealed in the qualifications to the office listed in 1 Timothy and Titus. The authority is recognized as men are set apart to this work in an orderly manner. He describes an orderly manner as 1. Christ's institution of the office. 2. God's providential designation of the person so called. 3. The church's call, election, appointment acceptance and submission. 

He goes on, "these (powers) do not give pastors dominion over the faith of believers nor make them lords over God's heritage but entrust them with a stewarding power in the house of God--that is, the particular flock over which, in particular, they have been made overseers."

He describes motivations to adhere to this rule as 1. the name of God in which minister's speak. 2. the work that God has called them to do. 3. the return that they make 4. the regard the Lord has for them in His employment. 5. The account that hearers must take of the word they dispense.