13 June 2023
The Kingdom of Heaven is in Heaven. It is not here on Earth. It is manifested in this world by the Elect who still live as humans, but the bulk of our Heavenly family has already gone to Heaven ahead of us. When any big shot or organization or institution claims to be the Kingdom of Heaven on Earth, they are deceiving themselves, at the least.
Your church is not the Kingdom of Heaven. There has been no authority granted to anyone except Jesus Himself to rule over the Kingdom of Heaven. He did not delegate that authority to any human. Peter was not granted that authority; his mission was as an attendant to open up the treasure house of Heaven to his Lord. That's what the "keys" represented when Jesus mentioned them. The Lord's real treasure is souls. Peter got those doors opened -- first the Samaritans, then the Gentiles -- and then he went underground. The Lord rescued Peter from a certain execution, and sent him away to other work, until the He was ready to call him home.
The notion that Peter established a throne over the churches is a myth. He was charged with evangelizing the Jews, while Paul was the Apostle to the Gentiles. Before he and Paul were executed about the same time (67 AD), the Gentile believers outnumbered the Hebrew Christians. Peter was never granted authority over the entire range of churches. Once he got to Rome, he stayed there.
Meanwhile, we know for certain the last living of the Twelve Apostles was John, and he served in Ephesus. When the Jewish activists in Jerusalem revolted in 70 AD, the Christians fled Jerusalem and the majority of them ended up in Ephesus where John outlived the rest of his peers. Ephesus became the "seat", the center of gravity for Christian religion. It was never in Rome. John was the closest there could possibly be to any "pope" or other prelate. His Revelation mourns the end of the Hebrew influence in Christian religion. Those who claimed to be Peter's successors never rose to the stature of John. If anyone bore any kind of alleged "apostolic succession", it would be the successors of John. But they succeeded only in corrupting the message and agenda of Christ over the next few centuries.
By about 300 AD, it was all over but the weeping. The leadership of the existing church organizations compromised with the Roman government and ceased representing Christ. In the following centuries, they lost more and more of the Hebrew outlook. A few more centuries and they quite intentionally Germanized the gospel to gain influence over the invading hordes of German tribes. The Great Schism didn't solve anything; it only made things worse.
So much is established history.
Any attempt at raising up a human to authority over other believers must follow the Hebrew patterns of authority. Your elder/pastor folks are merely assistant shepherds serving the Good Shepherd. There is no leash, just a voluntary association of people who seek to act out the family life that Christ granted to His people in His Covenant. The authority of elders/pastors is not literal; it is spiritual. It is merely representative of our feudal submission to Christ. We engage in symbolic role-playing to gain access to the blessings of the Covenant. The blessings are real. Living those blessings is our primary testimony to the rest of the world.
As I write this, my authority is just imaginary. Maybe you believe what I write; maybe you don't. In the end, it's your problem. If my writing does not seem to you an echo of the Lord's voice, then it's just electrons on a screen, and nothing more. Ignore me; this is not about me.
I've noted in the past that a core element of my ministry is to raise up believers to stand in their own faith. God has granted so very much that we cannot describe what He will do for you today. The defeat of Satan, knocking him down, is helping you to harvest your own divine inheritance here in this life. Our victory is you becoming able to claim that heritage. I'm devoted to helping you see the path clearly, because your victory is my victory; it is the glory of my Lord.
Don't let any human lord it over you. Find your convictions. Get to know them; they are the true voice of God for you.
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