We recently had a problem about someone wanting to teach who had only been in the Church meetings 4 or 5 times. I know the scripture about not being a novice, but how do you intrepret that into time? Our bi-laws covered the elders and deacons, but not the teachers. Do you expect a 6 month probation period, or one year, or is it entirely up to the elders? Do we bend the rules for a re-located preacher? I don't intend to create the Mishna again, but would like to hear some opinions in the present day and age about how others may handle it. In His service, Dennis Dilley

-- Anonymous, January 14, 2000

Answers

Dennis,

My background is in the Church of Christ and what you wrote above is foreign to me. Please explain *our bi-laws covered the elders and deacons, but not the teachers.* Are these laws set up to govern the *church* you are associated with?

Just wondering!

Nelta

-- Anonymous, January 14, 2000

Nelta:

You have asked Brother Dennis a good question. However, if he were to follow your example in this forum he would just ignore it and start another thread. Especially if he percieved that your question was a difficult one for him to answer ( which it is not). In fact he must be careful in his answer to you that he not "get the upper hand" for you may, at anytime, without the slightest amount of warning, falsely accuse him - as you did Brother Danny when he had the "upper hand" in your discussions with him- of "having something against women". YOU HAVE DEMONSTRATED TO THIS FORUM THAT YOU WILL "PLAY THE GENDER CARD" if you are lossing the argument. You have also shown that it does not matter to you if your accusations are true or false.

So Brother Dennis, be careful to not get the "upper hand" in a discussion with sister Nelta because she has demonstrated that she will resort to FALSE ACCUSATIONS and "PLAYING THE GENDER CARD" if she perceives that she is lossing the argument.

Nelta, you have falsely accused your Brother Danny of "having something against women" and you have found it extremely difficult to deal with the strong negative reaction that you received to that false accusation. You therefore have followed your regular tactic of running away to other threads without dealing with the hard facts that your false accusation requires you to face. You must face this sin either in this life or at the Judgement. I urge you to repent of it now for your own sake.

I have asked you a question that you find too difficult to answer in another thread so I thought that I would bring it to your attention in a thread where YOU have asked a question and would appreciate an answer. Just to show that Nelta is interested in having others answer HER questions but she is completely unwilling because she is totally unable to deal with the truth when she is inescapably faced with it. For this reason she is more than willing to ASK questions but very unwilling to ANSWER or even attempt to aswer the difficult one's that are put to her. Nelta, It is only reasonable that you finish what you start. To run away when the discussion becomes uncomfortable is nothing less than cowardice. You falsely accused Brother Danny of being a coward. We can only assume from this that you believe that cowdice is a vice for Brother Danny but a VIRTUE for you. Brother Danny has not shown any cowardice in this forum but you have demonstrated a great deal of cowardice when you are clearly lossing the argument. You have completely failed to establish that Brother Danny "HAS ANYTHING AGAINST WOMEN" AND THEREFORE HAVE DELIBERATELY FALSELY ACCUSED HIM. Yet you do not have the courage to face this fact and repent of the evil of falsely accusing your brother. You have also falsely left the impression upon others who are visitors to this forum that there are those among us who "have something against women". You have allowed that Lie to stand without making any effort to correct it. This is sinful and you should repent of it. Here is my response to you which you have ignored in the thread where it was originally put to you:

Nelta: I am glad that you have at least acknowledged that we have said something in response to your patently false accusations against Brother Danny in this forum. I now quote your words with a response: Lee, I didn't read all of the posts in response to me. I don't have time. I didn't read yours. What I apologized for was sending something public that should have gone private. If you remember, I said someone wrote me privately and asked what Danny had against women. I said it got me to thinking and then I said to me he was a coward. That is not what I apologized for. The person perceived Danny had something against women. That person had read his posts to three of us (women) where he had been rude and sarcastic. BTW the one who wrote to me was not the person who came on anno. She was giving her opinion and I think she had every right to do so.

I will close this to say I am COMPLETELY through with this subject. What I think about Danny is my business, from now on, as is what he thinks about me. The problem was that he and I both brought public what should have been private.

Nelta

You begin by telling us that you do not have time to read all of the post in response to you: Lee, I didn't read all of the posts in response to me. I don't have time.

Obviously you only have time to make false accusations but you conveniently have not enough time to offer any proof of you accusations. You clearly accused Brother Danny of having something against women and you had absolutely no evidence to support that accusation. You took the time to respond to me but you still have not found the time to give evidence that your accusation against him is true. Give us any quotation from Brother Danny that caused you to accuse him of having something against women. Your problem in this matter is clearly not a lack of time but rather a complete lack of EVIDENCE to prove that your accusation was true. Your accusation is completely false and all who read this forum can see that it is false. Therefore you have deliberately LIED. You have been given every opportunity to correct this completely erroneous idea that cannot be supported by the facts. It is obvious that your intent was to allow your statement that Brother Danny has something against women to stand even though you know that it is completely false. A more deliberate effort to tell a LIE and stand by it could not be made by anyone.

Then you tell us what you apologized for with these words:

What I apologized for was sending something public that should have gone private.

The message that you delivered publicly was that Danny has something against women. That message was delivered and you have yet to offer even the slightest proof that such was true. You have given absolutely no evidence to justify that FALSE accusation. Therefore you delivered what you knew to be a complete fabrication and a totally false accusation publicly and you think that your only offense was that you made this statement publicly! A lie is an offense to God and man and it does not make the slightest amount of difference whether the lie is told publicly or privately. Unless you can prove that what you said concerning Brother Danny was true then you have LIED and are therefore as a Christian obligated to repent for accusing your brother FALSELY. The fact that you did so publicly only obligates you to repent and correct the LIE publicly. But instead you merely apologize that you accused him publicly deliberately ignoring the fact that you accused him FALSELY and think that you should be clean of this vicious sin of telling a LIE about your brother. A lie should not go at all either privately or publicly. And no matter how it is conveyed a Christian should NEVER be one to carry LIES! You have LIED and you will never be finished with this matter until you repent and publicly correct this evil that you have committed against your brother!

Then you try to tell us to remember what you said and seek to escape responsibility by blaming other women for this situation with these words:

If you remember, I said someone wrote me privately and asked what Danny had against women. I said it got me to thinking and then I said to me he was a coward. Now you clearly wrote about what these women had said because you agreed with them. You wanted the impression to be left that Danny had something against women. You used them to convey your opinion that Danny had something against women. If we need to we can ask Duane to bring that thread back so that all can see exactly what and how you said these things. I do remember exactly what you said. But I will just ask you to come back and do now what you were not willing to do then and tell us that you do not believe that Brother Danny has anything against women. Will you do that? You are with the above words attempting to leave the impression that you did not agree with those women who had told you that brother Danny had something against women! When you wrote those words you were in complete agreement with their completely unfounded sentiments and even sought to have us agree and tell you what we thought God thought about brother Danny in this matter. Now if you did not agree with their view that Brother Danny has something against women why did you not say that you disagreed with that view? Are you willing now to say that you do not believe that Brother Danny has anything against women? So long as you continue to support your accusation that Brother Danny has something against women you are continuing to support the LIE that cannot be proven by anything that Brother Danny has said in this forum. You also called him a Coward because you agreed so much with the view of these unknown women who seemed to think that he has something against women. You cannot even offer any evidence to support your accusation that Brother Danny is a Coward! That is just another LIE for which you have shown no compunction of conscience that you should apologize for having said. You have committed a great wrong and an evil in the sight of all and unless you repent you will not find forgiveness for this deliberate sin against God and your Brother.  If a man say, I love God, and hateth his brother, he is a LIAR: For he that loveth not his brother whom he hath seen, CANNOT love God whom he hath not seen. And this commandment we have from him, that he who loveth God love his brother also (1 John 4:20,21). One who falsely accuses a brother of anything is lying about his brother and therefore cannot love him. This you have done. Anyone who calls a brother a coward falsely is lying about his brother and cannot love him. This you have also done. You therefore do not show Christian love toward your brother in this matter and according to these verses you demonstrate that you therefore do not love God! Repent of this evil sister before it eternally destroys you!

Then you say: The person perceived Danny had something against women. That person had read his posts to three of us (women) where he had been rude and sarcastic. BTW the one who wrote to me was not the person who came on anno. She was giving her opinion and I think she had every right to do so.

Now with these words you again seek to shift responsibility to these fathom women. You even defend their rights to give their opinion. Of course that have a right to give their opinion. They gave their opinion to you. You agreed with their opinion and delivered it to us and sought to convince us that they were correct. Then when it backfired and everyone completely rejected this as pure absolute false nonsense you wanted to run away. It never occurred to you at that time to quickly tell us that such was the opinion of these fathom women who had a right to their opinion even though you also disagreed. No, you agreed with their view then and could not find a way to escape from the onslaught of the negative reaction and tried to run away. Then you decided instead to slide out from your responsibility by pretending to be conciliatory and apologetic by apologizing for something that could not be wrong if your accusations against Brother Danny had been true. Now you try again to escape the truth by pretending that this was not YOUR PERCEPTION but theirs! How absurd can you be in your efforts to tell a LIE and try to avoid responsibility for it! You have lost ALL credibility with reasonable honest people who read this forum.

Then you close by making matters even worse with these words:

I will close this to say I am COMPLETELY through with this subject. What I think about Danny is my business, from now on, as is what he thinks about me. The problem was that he and I both brought public what should have been private.

Can you tell us exactly what Brother Danny brought Public that should have been kept private? Now you are trying to apologize for Brother Danny when he has done absolutely nothing wrong in this matter! How arrogant can you become? Is there no limit to satan's power over you sister? Now you tell another LIE that Brother Danny has made something public that he should have kept private. You are compounding this egregious sin by continuing to accuse your brother falsely!

No, Nelta, you are not COMPLETELY through with this subject. For you see it is not COMPLETELY within your power to be finished with this matter. First of all I will not just let it drop so easily. Second and most importantly if you do not repent of these LIES you will be judged in the last day for telling them. If you do not repent you will not be finished with this subject until the judgment day! How tragic that you are so unwilling to humble yourself under the mighty hand of God and repent of this obvious and public sin against God and your Brother. No you are sadly mistaken to think that such evil as this will go away simply unnoticed and unpunished by God. This issue will not go away so easily. You cannot sin in this way and refuse defiantly to accept responsibility for it by refusing to acknowledge it and repent of it and escape Gods wrath. It will not happen, Nelta. For I perceive that you are without doubt in the gall of bitterness and the bond of iniquity and I will continue at every opportunity to URGE you to repent of this evil behavior. This is not just a matter of excessive or emotional debate rhetoric. This is a matter of your FALSELY accusing a Brother in Christ and therefore it is deliberately LYING. This is a blatant and public sin that must be repented of if you seek the mercy and grace that comes from our blessed Lord and savior Jesus Christ. Your soul is at stake, sister, and I will not just sit by and neglect to do all that is within my power to remind you of your dire need for REPENTANCE! Are you just too PROUD to repent?

I do pray fervently for you sister Nelta. This behavior is not characteristic of you. I pray that you will turn from your evil intentions of depicting Brother Danny as one who has something against women when you KNOW that such is clearly NOT TRUE.

Your Brother in Christ,

E. Lee Saffold

-- Anonymous, January 14, 2000

Dennis,

Sorry that Nelta was the first to respond, or, actually, more accurately, sorry that another thread followed Nelta here.

Though I agree with Nelta in asking "what bi-laws", let me strip down what you may have intended -- please clarify if my assumptions seem wrong.

The scriptures about a novice shouldn't, my belief, be interpretted to mean someone a novice to your congregation. Are they a novice in their knowledge of the Lord? I wouldn't worry about the time. Ask this person about where he previously taught. If he has taught, find a phone number and call and ask for a reference. Don't ask him for a reference -- if there was a problem, he will pick someone on "his side" of the issue(s).

If he hasn't taught but has been a disciple for awhile, ask him to substitute for someone in front of a class of spiritually mature Christians. You may still want to call back to his previous congregation and do a background investigation. Certainly if he folows any false doctrine, it has crept out regardless if he has taught or not.

Now, that is my opinion and interpretations, but as one who has moved quite a bit and been where this guy is at, let me tell you what other congregations have done to me when I tried to volunteer to teach or lead or other "dangerous" things if I held false doctrine.

1) 1989, I moved to Charlottesville Va, and volunteered to lead an on-campus study. Someone convinced me to lead a midweek study just for college students instead. Hesitatingly, I agreed. Bottom line: this was a disfunctional church, I caught all sorts of flack, for the person convincing me to lead the study was out of bounds on his authority (this was an elderless church). We straightened things out, and the Wed night class went on.

2) 1995, moved to Dallas. I made my interest in teaching known for several months, got some substitution gigs in my own "home" class, but didn't get an "interview" with the education coordinator until late 1996. Got my "trial" teaching in the fourth quarter of 1997. Left December 1997 to join an effort to plant a new church, about the time I was informed I had been approved for the teaching rotation at my first congregation.

3) Current location: teaching all happens in small midweek groups. Coordinator of that called back to my previous congregation, let me sub once and watched as I taught, and we had breakfast together every third week or so for three months so he could get to know me. Actually, I am not actually "approved" where I am for small group teaching -- while deemed "qualified", it is the coordinator's view that my best fit isn't in teaching in their typical setup. I do occasionally teach, but for now I am writing new material while we look for that elusive "best fit". This congregation is a large congregation of new or never really committed to the Lord before recently Christians, so I am bit of an oddball here.

-- Anonymous, January 14, 2000

Dennis,

Yours is a question that has confounded many a congregation and potential teacher. But I think you have already answered your own question in a way. You mentioned that Elders/Deacons qualifications are spelled out in your by-laws. While I understand the legal need for by-laws in many states, I prefer to default to God's qualifications as outlined in Scripture.

As you read through the Evangelist Epistles (I & II Timothy & Titus), Paul gives the qualifications for Elders and since one of those qualifications is "able to teach", I see very little difference between the requirements for teachers & Elders. True, not all teachers would want to be (nor should be in some cases) Elders - but the same principles should apply.

I'm not going to quote those passages from I Timothy and Titus, but let's look at their underlying principles and see if they fit:

1. They must desire the position. The Greek word for "desire" used here is a Strong desire, lust may actually be a better translation. Experience has shown me that a half-hearted teacher soon becomes just a bad teacher.

2. Not a new convert - one cannot teach what one does not know. And I mean "know" in the Biblical sense. Knowing the insides and out of the scriptures, not just "Jesus loves me this I know".

3. Should not teachers should be of high moral character just like Elders, Deacons, or any other Christians for that matter? Qualifications such as self-controlled, sober, not a stirker, able (not just willing) to teach should be exhibited by any candidate for teaching. Notice I did not say they have mastered these qualities (for nobody ever has), but these things should shine through their lives on a daily basis.

I see no way in which one can put a time limit on the development of such qualities in people. Instead of a "cut-in-stone" set of rules, a church's leaders need to discuss with a candidate what they expect and possibly even conduct an informal Q & A session if need be. Then careful (and prayerful) consideration should be the course for a final decision.

One last thought, before a person accepts a teaching position, take a few minutes to read and explain James 3:1 to them, "Let not many of you become teachers, my brethren, knowing that as such we shall incur a stricter judgment". That passage has kept me straight on my teaching for years and may well nip a lot of your problems in the bud - separating the wheat from the chaff so to speak.

I hope I haven't "muddied your waters" any.

-- Anonymous, January 14, 2000

Mark:

There is no need for you to apologize to Dennis for something that I did. I followed Nelta in this thread and I did so for a reason that I still consider to be appropriate. When someone is using other threads to escape the truth that they are trying to avoid in threads where they have run into problems and questions that they are unwilling to face I will follow them to where ever they run to in order that it may be clear that they are avoiding the facts.

Nelta's proceedure it to "hit and run". Mine is to deflect and follow! It is my judgement that such a procedure is useful and can be effective.

I do understand your view of this matter. It is better if we can keep the discussions of matters in one thread all within those boundaries. I prefer that also. But when those who oppose the truth and falsely accuse us and deliberately leave a false impression of the entire forum try to use other threads as a means of avoiding responsibilitiy for LIES that they have told in other threads I will follow them in order to call for them to correct the false impressions that they have made. I do apologize to you and the others in this forum for the minor and insignificant inconvienience you may experience because I have done this but It is not wrong to do what I have done and I will continue to do so in similar circumstances.

But you have no reason to apologize in my stead. I understand why you do not like it and others my feel the same and to you and others I express my apologies. But I will continue to follow Nelta until she faces the fact that she has without doubt falsely accused a Brother in this forum and she has falsely left the impression that the Men in this forum "have something against women". I will continue to insist that she either prove her accusations to be true or repent of making false accusations such as these which leave new comers to this forum, especially the women, with the completely unjustified view that they will not be treated with respect in this forum because the men here "have something against women." What I have done here and what I will do in other places where Nelta wants to practice "hit and run" tactics is not something that you would do and I understand your reasons. But it is something that I have done and will continue to do for we cannot allow this kind of deliberate lying in this forum to go unchallegned and ignored. I will continue so long as such sinful behavior is found in a forum that is designed for honest, sincere and faithful Christians to discuss their differences in a fair and reasonable way.

I appreciate your concern and agree with it but I have more concern about this evil that needs to be confronted in every place until it is dealt with properly. No one in this forum has shown any disrepect toward another person just because they are women. In fact, the women in this forum are accorded the same respect as the men without exception and anyone who makes the false charges that Nelta has made must be held accountable for her words. I am holding her to account and I refuse to allow her to just run to another place and continue as if she has done nothing wrong. She has sinned grieviously and tainted unjustly the image of this forum and her Brother in Christ. I want her to either defend her false allegations or repent and correct them but I will not just sit back and allow her to pretend that her soul is safe when she is without doubt in the "gall of bitterness and the bond of iniquity.

Now, it really does you little harm that I have followed her from one thread to another. And it is harmless to others as well but the harm done to this forum by her false accusations and LIES is serious and should be treated as such.

I appreciate you and your remarks in the forum and wish that there were a better way to deal with one who has sinned so publicly and grieviously in this forum and then runs to another thread to avoid responsibility for the LIES that she has fostered upon us. But for now this seems appropriate to me and I will continue to follow her until the truth is clear to all.

Your Brother in Christ,

E. Lee Saffold

-- Anonymous, January 14, 2000

Thanks for the responses so far. (Mark W.)- The James 3 passage was the first one that I quoted when the problem arose, so we tend be on the same wave link. I too prefer the Bible alone on the subject, but we still have the law of the land to contend with too. In a smaller congregation especially, it seems difficult to get teachers and workers and we, some of the Churches I know, have a tendency to grab the first one who even shows the slightest interest in teaching. I have even seen some use trusted non-members as a children teacher, which I think often leads to problems.

-- Anonymous, January 15, 2000

This thread points to the sometimes absurd comedy which happens in congregations. There is always a "need" for teachers, especially willing and qualified ones. So often "willing" is substituted for qualified, while the qualified are ignored. I've had that happen to me several times.

As a military member, I wasn't able to attend a church more than 3 years on the average. However, I KNOW that my gift and calling is as a teacher. I am a seminary graduate, and a former instructor in military schools, so I am trained and qualified. But when I volunteered to teach, I was usually told I had to "wait" while they "got to know me" and could "watch me." So I ended up doing nothing, and by the time "they" got around to deciding I could be used, it was time for me to transfer to somewhere else.

The Bible is the ultimate authority. Unfortunately, my experience (in Baptist congregations) is that the "rule and practice" in reality is "good 'ol boy." Which is sad. I was forced to start my own independent ministry in order to be obedient to the calling God gave me because my own church wouldn't allow me to exercise my God-given gifts under its roof. (And now you know why I did it.)

Such policies are flesh and not scriptural. I often wonder how many people are "out there" with callings to preach, teach, or other ministry areas who cannot be obedient to their callings because of the narrowmindedness of those is church authority.

-- Anonymous, January 16, 2000