Yes, I’m the King of the World!

I can understand the first time in 1963 because who’d want a baby Pope? And then, in 1978, I was a punk rocker, so maybe that put them off. In 2005, I’d been an evangelical Christian for 25 years, so maybe they wouldn’t have wanted an evangelical Pope. But I would have been happy to compromise. Maybe if they allowed me to split the denomination into individual baptist churches, I would have taken a 20% cut in salary. But then I wouldn’t be pope anymore 😤.

And most popes speak in broken English, so it would be a bit odd to hear a Pope with a Cork accent.

But now, they have an American Pope. Why would I even qualify? Well, I’m told that any baptized Catholic man of sound mind who is willing to accept the role can be chosen. It’s 45 years since I was a Catholic, but I’d probably still be on their books, so I should still be in with a chance. But I’d need to be of sound mind 😀.

By the way – I’m only joking. I know that people from all parts of the world read this blog. And maybe not everyone realizes that Irish people enjoy being silly at times 😀. When I was an instructional designer, we were told not to use humour because people from other cultures might not understand our humour. So, apologies if I’ve confused you. Actually, Irish people probably don’t think that I’m very funny either, although I think I’m hilarious 😀.

Anyway, seriously, I think that we all need to be leaders at times. I’ve been a leader at home, as a schoolteacher, and in churches. But these would be small churches or Christian fellowships, and my policy was always to keep things simple. I never liked people to think too highly of me. It was just a matter of organizing the service, giving sermons etc. People might ask my advice, but I never liked people to put too much weight on my advice. And I myself wouldn’t put too much trust in human leaders, but they are necessary, and I don’t like to make life difficult for them.

In the New Testament, there’s much focus on having a direct relationship with God rather than relying on leaders. And decisions at a church level appear to have been collective. For example, in Acts 15, when they needed to decide how “Jewish” the Christian church should be, they didn’t go to Peter and say “Well, you’re the Pope, tell us.” Or they didn’t go to some prophet and say, “Tell us what God has decided”. Various people gave their input and in the end James, who was the leader of the Jerusalem church summarized their outlook.

And people were encouraged to see God himself as their teacher and not to over rely on human leaders:

Matt 23:8-12
“But you are not to be called ‘Rabbi,’ for you have one Teacher, and you are all brothers. And do not call anyone on earth ‘father,’ for you have one Father, and he is in heaven. Nor are you to be called instructors, for you have one Instructor, the Messiah. The greatest among you will be your servant. For those who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted.”

Some people think that as time progressed, the churches started getting more organized and there was more emphasis on leaders. Others believe that you had local church leaders from the beginning. These would have been elders and deacons. Various names are used for elders – overseers, bishops, pastors, shepherds etc. But it appears that these would have been leaders in local churches only. Generally, there would have been a few in each church. It was very much modelled on the Jewish synagogue.

After the New Testament era, regional, monachal bishops developed, and some would have been more influential than others, especially those in big cities like Rome, Antioch, Alexandria and Constantinople. At one stage, in the Western church, the bishop of Rome would have carried the most weight and he came to be known as the Pope. Eastern Orthodox churches see him as just another bishop. Protestant churches, don’t recognize the office of pope. And many evangelical churches believe that church leaders just exist at a local level, though in the evangelical world, you do get people who are influential across a region or even across the world, though they don’t make rules for everyone. And I’m an evangelical Christian, so you can understand now why I was never appointed pope 😀. Maybe I wouldn’t have wanted to be one anyway.

Some modern informal evangelical groups that I’ve known never bothered with formal leaders at all, but if you don’t have someone in charge, things can get very chaotic, or you might get some silly person wanting to take over. So, it does make sense. And it’s the New Testament pattern. I don’t think it’s good for leaders to be overbearing and to be intruding into every detail of people’s lives. The best ones point to Jesus and encourage people to get to know the Bible for themselves rather than build up their own influence and empire.

I mentioned earlier that there are evangelicals who are quite influential around the world. A few days ago, I signed up to Spotify again. I was offered two months for 6 euro. And I discovered that they now have audiobooks. I saw some pop biographies that I’m keen to listen too, but I was surprised to find some of my favourite evangelical authors too. I’ll list some of my favourites. I bought most of these already on Audible.

Spotify Books

• Why I’m Still a Christian – Justin Brierley
• Systematic Theology – Wayne Grudem
• Issues Facing Christians Today – John Stott
• Concise Theology – J.I.Packer
• Historical Theology – Alister McGrath
• The Bible for Dummies – Jeffrey Geoghegan
• Philosophical Foundations of a Christian Worldview – J.P. Moreland, William Lane Craig
• Pilgrim Theology – Michael Horton
• Understanding Four Views on Baptism – Paul E. Engle
• The Book of Revelation for Dummies – Richard Wagner

I enjoy the “views” books, such as Understanding Four Views on Baptism, because you have a few authors of different views revealing their position on issues that divide Christians, and the other authors respectfully respond. It’s a much better way to gain understanding than just aligning yourself with one viewpoint and ignoring or ridiculing all those who differ – which what I was prone to do in my younger years 😀.

With all these, I’ll find things that I might not agree with, and that’s as it should be. I don’t like elevating human teachers to the level of Scriptural authority, but I like them to provoke me to dig into the Scriptures for myself, which is precisely what happens.

Spotify also has lots of hymns and Christian music, ancient and modern. If you regularly read my blog, you’ll know that I have a tendency to prefer my younger years to the present, but Spotify is one of the things I like about the 21st Century – even more so now that they have audiobooks. My next wish is that they’d have all the movies and TV shows that were ever made, but we’ll see what happens 😀. In the meantime, we have YouTube.

I’ll close with two hymns about the greatest leader ever, who divided history into BC and AD.