Hi Mike, and thanks for your encouragement.

You’ve also nailed me in observing attention to the individual details possibly at the cost of missing the big picture. I can miss the forest for the trees at times

Anyway, I have written a review of Zac’s book to be published (I think) in December’s Briefing, which is not simply an abbreviation of these blog posts, although there is overlap. So to be fair to subscribers, I won’t anticipate here yet what I’ll say there about the book overall.

But to try and express it yet another way, if the book was being published and promoted in circles lacking strong biblical foundations and good theological education, I would be a bit worried. But in my Sydney evangelical and Moore College circles I think it is a very good book for us to be reading and critically engaging with.

Maybe come back at me after the review comes out in December (though I suspect blog posts don’t retain that much currency!)

Brett, thanks for commenting. In one sense, the importance of the work of the Holy Spirit in a person’s life is critical.

My comments - and Zac’s thesis - were largely over the matter of church governance - do elders appoint or do congregations elect leaders.

But yes, the right leaders are even more important than the method of appointment.

That said, I’d like to interact with what you have said.

It seems to me that more important than appointing, rather than electing, leaders is that we should be seeking those whom the Holy Spirit has set apart for particular purposes and positions within the church.  When we see that God has placed a gifting in a certain individual that corresponds with a particular position, it becomes really easy to “appoint” that person, because in all likelihood they are already in some fashion playing that role, or a similar one—and all in the church will agree.

This assumes that the Holy Spirit always gives direct revelatory guidance about such matters in terms of setting people apart for particular tasks. I am not persuaded that we have any promise in the New Testament that this is the ordinary or guaranteed way the Holy Spirit guides us. Rather I am persuaded we must rely on the guidance he has given us in the God-breathed Scriptures. (See Jensen and Payne’s book Guidance and the Voice of God or the discussion in my blog post on calling.

In particular, I would take issue with the suggestion that simply seeing God’s gifting of a certain person that corresponds to a position means we should appoint them. No. Character matters enormously as well as gifts.

Brett, you’ve made me look carefully again at these various issues so thanks…

If the congregation and the elders and the apostles and whomever else may be “appointing” an individual are all listening to the same Holy Spirit, it doesn’t seem it would matter a great deal which of those groups stated to everyone what was probably already known by all.  I wonder if the greater importance of the “appointment” was the laying on of hands and prayer?

Once again the laying on of hands occurs mainly in the New Testament in association with healings (by Jesus several times, by Ananias with S/Paul Acts 9:17, by Paul with Publius’ father on Malta, Acts 28:8) and also with the coming of the Spirit on two key groups for the progress of the gospel in Acts - the Samaritans, Acts 8:17, and the Ephesians whose beliefs still seemed more shaped by John the Baptist, Acts 19:6.

In terms of ‘ordinations’ or appointments, it occurs with the seven selected to deacon in Acts 6:6; with the setting aside of Saul and Barnabas in Acts 13:3; twice in association with the giving of Timothy’s ministry gift, 1 Tim 4:14 and 2 Tim 1:6; as well as in the warning to Timothy not to be nasty in the laying on of hands, 1 Tim 5:22, most likely a reference to appointing others as elders. (I think it is impossible to tell for sure what the reference in Heb 6:2 refers to.)

Yet the laying on of hands is by no means always mentioned in association with the appointment of church leaders. And very little fuss is made of it when it is mentioned. It just happens. And that’s fine.

But I think it extremely unwise to put a heavier emphasis of things mentioned descriptively, almost in passing, and to downplay the importance of the explicit and prescriptive requirements given to us for the appointment of elders/overseers in places like 1 Tim 3:1-7, Titus 1:5-9 and 1 Peter 5:1-4.

The way we listen to the Holy Spirit is by relying on what he has told us through the Prophet and Apostles in the Scriptures - in this case about the sort of persons to appoint as leaders.

Sam, sorry for delay in replying.

Here’s a quote from Zac giving 5 good reasons:

There are many benefits of this approach:
* By chaning the groups around each year newcomers are accepted and included faster. More poeple acorss the congregation will get to know one another over the years.
* It helps church members to look out more than in.
* In an ideal world all Bible study groups will be great, but sometimes groups will struggle. If there is no change because the groups that ‘work’ are kept together, it indirectly means that the ones that didn’t ‘work’ are unable to change.
* It gives Bible-study leaders experience leading different groups.
* It gives opportunity to raise up assistant leaders, train them in one year, and then graduate them easily as small group leaders the following year. [p184]

Remember he says the same approach could work over every 2 years.

I presume some of these advantages could be maintained though diluted, even if groups changed only every 3 years, so long as most did.