Headship Theology

I've been a Christian now 40 years now. I've been in several congregations. I've noticed that most of the congregations believed that they either had more truth than the rest or were on the front edge of what God was doing. One of the phenomena I noticed was that each group functionally had one predominate leader (other than Yeshua). This individual was looked to as the one who heard what God had to say to the church and in turn spoke those things to the group. This leader was considered to have wisdom and a knowledge of church history and tradition. He was also the one who was considered to have the most correct interpretation of the Scriptures. This leader was for all practical purposes the head of the group. Often the young men would strive to be like this leader and were rewarded with influence and position. The young women were either on their own, or were encouraged to become like his wife. This leader often was the one who made the financial decisions and who defined and co-ordinated the activities of the group.

There were always a few who ran into conflict with the head. Generally these individuals interpreted the Scriptures somewhat differently than the head and invariably some type of conflict arose. Generally the head would begin to speak to the conflicting view point from the pulpit, warning people of the dangers of that particular view point. There was of course never an opportunity for the opposing view to be presented, since it was obviously wrong, perhaps even heretical or demonic. Seldom was the opposing view point prayerfully considered or even tolerated. Generally the issue had little if anything to do with the individuals relationship with Yeshua, his salvation or worship, but instead with the particular practices of the group as defined by the leader. Those who held such a viewpoint were left with little choice but to either deny what the believed to be from the Lord by submitting to the head or to leave their friends and the group. Occasionally, if enough of the group held the opposing viewpoint they would actually rise up and remove the head but often the individuals would end up leaving for another group where there was "room to grow". These individuals were usually labeled rebellious and/or independent. The head of the group that they left would be obligated to warn other heads of other groups to the danger of the individuals beliefs. This is ineffect the Catholic practice of excommunication.

It seems that this head would in effect be a lid on the group which no one could surpass. This individual is generally given the title of "pastor" for the group. This system of thinking is pervalent in Protestant circles. I've given a name for this phenomena, headship theology. This system of belief operates on several assumptions and has several inherent dangers for the body of Christ.

The following is a list of assumptions that are made either consciously of unconsciously:

1. The leader is the primary (sometimes only) one who understands the Scriptures and receives revelation. [The Holy Spirit interprets the Scriptures and leads us individually to all truth. We are all to be filled with the Spirit. We are a nation of priests.]

2. The leader is primarily (sometimes solely) responsible for the direction of the group. [The Holy Spirit is to direct and build the Church.]

3. The leader provides spiritual safety for all those who believe and practice his teachings and obey his desires. [The Lord warned us to beware of the deceptions of man and to find safety in Himself.]

4. The leader is to be fully supported financially by the followers and is empowered to use the corporate funds as he sees fit. [We are to walk by faith. We are to let the Lord know our needs in secret and the Lord will reward us in public. All of our money belongs to the Lord. The tithe is past.]

5. The leader is empowered to determine what is truth and what is heresy and deal with any individuals that stray from his truth.

6. The followers are incapable of hearing and following Yeshua without the leaders direction. [My sheep hear my voice and follow me.]

7. The followers are immature and will never mature beyond the leaders maturity.

[We are to grow up into Him who is the Head Christ Yeshua.]

8. The position of Pastor must be respected even if the man is wrong. [Where is this in the Scriptures.]

9. The people who obey the leader will be protected from error and deception even if the leader is wrong. [Every man will be accountable before the Lord for His own actions.]

What the Scriptures say:

Yeshua has been proclaimed as the Head of the Church, Eph 1:22. We have been admonished to grow up into Him who is the Head, Eph 4:15. We see in the scriptures that the purpose of Father is to have many sons who are just like His first born, Yeshua. We have the description of the body with Yeshua as the Head, Col 1:18 . If we look at the head-body illustration in the natural body we see some vary interesting facts. The head possesses all five of the senses, while the body contains only one the sense of touch. The body with out the head cannot see, hear, taste or smell. The sense of balance is located in the inner ear, so the body cannot walk straight if at all without the head. The ability for an individual to walk on the straight path resides in the head only. The body cannot function with any coordination without the head controlling motor functions. The ability of the body to intercept what is sensed resides in the head as well as the ability to reason. The head also contains the mouth for speaking and eating. The breath of life comes through the nose and mouth in the head and the used air is exhaled through the same head. All of the bodies motor functions originate in the head except for the reactionary ones. The head is also located at the top of the body above all of the other parts, lifted up by the body. However, the head cannot move without the body. The scriptures speak clearly that there is one body and one head but many parts of the body.

The Origin of Headship Theology:

It seems that for the last 1800 years or so there has been a plant growing from a seed that was planted in the church a long time ago and has grown up to maturity. Than plant has effectively supplanted Yeshua as Head and placed a man as head. The result is we have many little bodies each with its own head, each thinking more highly of it's self than it ought. Anytime someone replaces Yeshua as head he has put himself into a position equal with the Master, this is a prideful position. The real head of the church is humble and lowly, one who never, NEVER lifts Himself up, and allows Himself to be lifted up only to suffer for and save others. He is the Shepherd of the flock. The pattern of true headship lies in Father being the head of Yeshua, Yeshua being head of man and a husband being the head of his wife. There is no other mention of any other kind or position of head in the Scriptures.

Headship theology has it's roots in the world or in worldliness. The concept can be traced back to the beginning of time. The underlying motive is to have authority over man. This was Satan's goal in the garden. His concept of authority came from his own experience. He was one of the archangels who answered alone to God, and had many angels answer to him. Hence the origin of the pyramid structure of authority, the principalities, powers and rulers in high places, . That authority structure was designed for the angels not for man. The angels are created servants, man is a created son, a companion with volition and the divine capacity to LOVE.

God never intended for man to be ruled over by angels or other men. His intention was for each man and his family to be ruled by God himself, 1 Cor 11:3, as seen in the exodus and the unfolding of His purpose at Sinai. God sent Moses to get His people out of Egypt and bring them to Himself and Sinai so that each person could come before Him and He could be their God. The people elected to have Moses, a prophet, to rule over them. God's intention is seen again seen in the partitioning of the promised land. Each family was to have their own piece of land and live on it from generation to generation. He even made provisions so that the land would return to the family at Jubilee if they had lost it to debt or slavery. This was not a hierarchical structure of cities, local government and then national government even though that was the pattern of the day. Yahweh was and is to be the Head of each family.

Origin of the Hierachial Structure:

The origin of the hierarchical structure came from Satan. He established his order in the world through lessor angels, Moloch of Assyria, Marduk of Babylon, Baal Melkart of Phoenicia, Ra of Egypt, Zeus of Greek and Jupiter of Rome. Each of these gods were the ruling god or the god of power and each taught the gaining of power to exercise authority over man. I believe that these gods are in fact one and the same spirit with simple different names in different nations. It motivated man by using the range of human desires from greed to humanism (taking care of the lessor because they cannot take care of themselves...so as to accomplish great things). So a pyramid structure is formed which has a top cap stone, the head. Is there not a head of every company. There has to be someONE to make the decisions we are told. However, the pyramids are full of dead men's bones. This can be seen in the Pyramids of Cheops, a monument to power, built at the cost of many enslaved human lives for the glory of one man, the head. This is the very bondage that God delivered the Israelites from, that is building structures as a monument to the head, pharaoh. The pyramid has become a symbol of power and knowledge. Look at the back of our dollar bills. Satan has quite successfully imposed his rule and the structure of his rule upon all nations of the earth. This form of rule also fell upon the animals when man sinned, that is the alpha male and alpha female in the wolf pack, the pecking order, etc. Is it any wonder that all creation waits expectantly for the revelation of the son's of God. This is why the Lord called Israel and the church out from among the nations to be ruled by Himself, a nation of families of priests. However, I'm afraid that the church has done the same thing that Israel did, that is ask for and receive a king but not the KING. Yeshua came and set all those who would receive Him free to become a nation of priests. A priest does not need another priest to go before the Lord for himself. He has every right and obligation to present himself before the Lord. The calling of a priest is to go before the Lord for someone who does not have access to the Lord and present their sacrifice to Him.

John the Baptist's Error:

Yeshua was preceded by one who prepared the way for the head to be lifted up. His name was John, the Baptist. Disciples had gathered around John to follow him. When Yeshua came to John to be baptized John recognized Yeshua as the Messiah and turned to his disciples and told them to follow Yeshua. John continued to preach the Kingdom of God. He recognized his role in the kingdom to be one who points the way to Yeshua. He proclaimed that "He must increase and I must decrease." He recognized that he could get in the way of God's plan by distracting from Yeshua and gathering disciples for himself. It appears that John, however, faltered in his faith in Yeshua and allowed some of his disciples to remain. We also see that when John was jailed he sent one of his disciples to Yeshua to ask if He was really the Messiah. John met his end by being beheaded by the King's daughter. Do you suppose that John's losing his head was related to his not removing himself completely as the head of his disciples? How did this headship theology get into the church?

Worldiness Enters the Church:

Constantine was the "Caesar" of the Roman Empire and became the head of the church through his own reported conversion around 320 AD. He then imposed the pyramid structure up on the church. He then proceeded to take the dates of pagan holidays and renamed them as Christian holidays; the holiday to honor the fertility Goddess Ishtar for Easter and the holiday to honor the birthday of the Moon god, Molech for Christmas. He also declared that 'the day of the sun' would replace the Sabbath as the day of God's ordained rest, thus taking upon himself the authority to change the 4th Commandment. The Church at that time was observing the Passover and did not observe any date as the birthday of our Lord. The Church up until then met mostly in their homes. It took almost a hundred years before the Church fully accepted Constantine's changes. Constantine also added the New Testament and eliminated by banning any competing texts that his council disagreed with by threat of death.

Reformation:

In the 1600's Luther and Zwingli recognized the false structure and authority and the result was the Reformation. This effectively broke the pyramid structure down into smaller pyramids, State pyramids.

Pilgrims:

The Church of the State came into existence in Europe, such as the Church of England. The next significant change took place when the Pilgrims left England because of heavy oppression by the Church of England. They arrived in the New World "without their pastor by divine providence". The Church was planted in the New World without the hierarchical structure. The Pilgrims disposed of all of the teachings of the Church of England except the "right of the Church to determine what is heresy and to judge those practicing heresy." The Baptist came under persecution by the very people that fled persecution to form a nation with freedom of religion. Alas once again we have fallen prey to Satan's deception. Now we have many little pyramids each with its own head determining what is heresy and judging the heretics. However, the days of kings are coming to a close and the time for the KING to take His rightful place is coming upon us.

Eldership:

Lets look at what I think the Lord wants the eldership of the church to be like. That answer is found in the day's of Exodus and the promised land. The Lord brought the children of Israel out from among the Egyptians, their god of power, Ra and slavery to a new land and a new order, family order. He had Moses lead them to Sinai so that He, Yahweh, could become their King and ruler. Then He would have lead them into the promised land. There He divided the land into a portion for each family. He then made provisions in the Law that assured that each family would retain their land through inheritance and Jubilee. Each family thus had the means to provide their own livelihood from the land provided by the Lord. The each worshipped at the temple through the priests. The New Covenant revealed God's eternal intentions by reveling the Fatherhood of God and the sonship and priesthood of all believers. The Lord intentions were to make a nation of priests where each person could come before their father as a priest and had access to the high priest, Yeshua. This nation of priests each stood before the Lord for himself and his children. There was no need for a priest to stand before the Lord for another priest, each priest had equal access to God, except for the high priest. Yeshua became our high priest under the new covenant. So who were the priests to stand in for, if not for each other, THE WORLD, the ones that Yeshua came to seek and save, the ones He gave His blood for, the ones He made friends. This is the calling of the church, to befriend the WORLD, to sacrifice themselves for the WORLD, not the hierarchical structure and it's false head, to seek them out and to offer Yeshua to them, family to family on every cross road, street corner, in every household. Not "evangelism" but LOVE, loving your neighbor by laying down you live for him and his family.

Jethroh, Moses' father-in-law, who was a priest of Midian gave Moses the pyramid structure to rule the Israelites. This group of rulers became the Sanhedrin who crucified Christ and later wrote the Talmud.

Pastor and Elders:

The word pastor is used once in the KJV translation. The Greek word in that passage is poimen (poimenaz) - feeders of sheep. Poimen is used 16 other placed in the New Testament text, where is refers to either shepherds of sheep or Yeshua. There are two other words used in the text; elder and overseer that along with 'pastor' are actually used synonymously. These Greek words are; presbuteros (presbuteroV) and episkopos (episkopoV) respectively. The Greek definitions of these words are: presbuteros; of age or advanced in life, episkopos; one who watches over.

These three Greek words are used in Acts 20:17, and 1 Peter 5:1-2, to discuss the same individuals, that is the 'elders'. Titus 1:5-9 gives the qualities of an 'elder' and then switches to the word 'overseer'.

Personal Pastor:

A part of the headship theology that is taught is that each person should have a personal pastor. I have searched the Scriptures and have not found a single reference to any other person being another man's pastor or shepherd other than the Lord Yeshua with the exception of the Ezek 34 passage which ends in the Lord becoming Israel's shepherd. The idea of a pastor and/or leaders being our covering is likewise absent from the Scriptures. The Scriptures do say: "Oh sovereign Lord, my strong deliver, who shields (covers) my head in the day of battle", Psa 140:7. "My God is my rock, in whom I take refuge, my shield and the horn of my salvation. He is my stronghold, my refuge and my savior from violent men you save me", II Sam 22:3. This concept is all through the Scriptures and is solid. The concept of "under shepherds" is also absent in the Scriptures. The Scriptures do exhort the elders to shepherd (feed) the flock, . Every reference to the elders shepherding the flock refers to elders in the plural, never singular. They are never given the title of shepherd or pastor for that matter.