And where did you get the idea there was little debate at the Jerusalem council? Read Acts 15:7, “After there had been much debate, Peter stood up and said to them . . . .”
The word is more accurately translated "dispute," as it is in the KJV, and in most other translations:
Act 15:7 And when there had been
much disputing, Peter rose up, and said unto them...
--It was't organized debate. It was the Judaizers trying to force their heresy on the others.
As for whether the New Testament shows the church having two or three orders, I will cut you some slack. A lot of people miss the third order of bishop because they only look at what scripture says.
Of course. That is what sola scriptura is. The scripture is our final authority, not tradition and the writings of others. Most heresy evolved from the ECF.
They pay no attention to who is writing, to whom it is being written, or why it is being written. They pay no attention to the transactions taking place in the writing. They often disregard what precedes and follows it. In other words, they ignore the context. If you ignore context you will often miss the true meaning.
Now that is all part of sola scriptura. Let's take an example.
Go to Acts 20. Here Paul did not have time to go to Ephesus, so he meets half way with the elders (pastors) of Ephesus, of which Timothy was the senior pastor.
Act 20:17 And from Miletus he sent to Ephesus, and called the elders of the church.
--Here they are called elders.
Act 20:28 Take heed therefore unto yourselves, and to all the flock, over the which the Holy Ghost hath made you
overseers, to feed the church of God, which he hath purchased with his own blood.
--Here he addresses them as overseers. The Greek word here is: episkopos.
It is the same word used in 1Tim.3:1,2 that is translated "bishop."
Thus overseer and bishop mean the same, and are the same person that is also called "elder."
The command here is "to feed the flock of God." That is the shepherd's duty of the direct duty of the pastor. He is addressing the pastors of the church.
Pastor, elder, bishop, overseer, are all words to describe the same person, but different parts of his ministry. There is no hierarchy described here. He is speaking to the elders or pastors of one church, the church at Ephesus.
Now looking at the context of the Pastoral Epistles, it is clear that Paul is instructing Timothy and Titus in how to run a church. Not just their church but multiple churches. This is the job of a bishop—to appoint and ordain elders in local churches and to make sure these elders properly pastor their flock.
Mature local churches often start other churches and help them find pastors. We have done that in our area here. We have also carried out the same principle on the mission field. No denomination is needed.
These men clearly had more authority than the ordinary elder.
These men were elders by nature of their office as a pastor.
BTW, the word "office" is entirely an English addition not found in the Greek in 1Tim.3, where the qualifications for the "offices" of a pastor and deacon are listed. It isn't there. The ministries of the pastor and deacon are there, and both are ministers or servants of the local church to whom they are appointed for service. The word "office" was inserted by the translators.
In addition to Timothy and Titus there were probably others, Luke for example, but scripture only focuses on these two. So yes, there are three orders—deacon, elder and bishop.
Elder and bishop are the same person as we have seen.
The word deacon "diakonos" is a transliteration, as you can see.
The actual translation of the word is "servant."
The feminine form of the Greek word is used in Romans 16:1, where it is accurately translated:
Rom 16:1 I commend unto you Phebe our sister, which is
a servant of the church which is at Cenchrea:
It is the same word: diakonos, more accurately translated "servant." It is not an office, per se.
This is sound doctrine, and we see it being used without any question of its propriety in the Bible and also in the Second Century Church and thereafter.
You have put forth tradition, not sound doctrine at all.
As for the local church which you extol, it exists only as an organ of the One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church. I will repeat what I said in my previous post: "There are simply no examples of the New Testament church acting independently of bishops, apostles or other churches. As close as we come is the election of deacons in Acts 6, but even there the church made this selection after being told to do so by the apostles."
Although many assume that these are the first "deacons" in Acts 6, the word deacon is not there. These were men that helped the apostles in a specific matter, so that they could give themselves to the Word and prayer. People assume they were deacons. It doesn't say they were.
There is no "One Holy Catholic Apostolic Church." This is a fact not in existence, and therefore a logical fallacy.
Over 100 churches established on 3 missionary journeys is enough evidence to establish the autonomy of local churches. Christ wrote seven different letters to seven different churches, all independent of each other. There was nothing to connect them to each other. If there was Christ could have written one letter to them all, but he didn't.
You fail to make a case for any kind of a denominational church; for any kind of one catholic church at all. There were simply local churches and that is all.
You say there were no denominations in the New Testament church. You are right. There was one church with many local congregations, i.e., the One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church. This is fact and anyone who says otherwise distorts the Word of God.
You are wrong, wrong in your ecclesiology, wrong in your assumptions, wrong in your definitions, wrong in your conclusions. The Catholic Church never existed until the fourth century. All of the churches mentioned in the NT were independent of each other.
