A Display of God's Glory/Introduction

From Gospel Translations

I remember using the word “polity” in a paper I wrote in the 8th grade and having the word circled by my 24-year old English teacher as an error. It was with juvenile glee that I took the dictionary to her, opened it, and read to her something like “the organization created for managing affairs, especially public affairs; government.” Polity, then, is management, organization, government, and structures of authority.

As Christians, we strive to found our lives on the teaching of Scripture. The question, though, must be asked: Does Scripture deal clearly with questions about the polity, or organization, of the church? And if so, what exactly does Scripture teach about it? Of course, we Christians believe that Scripture is sufficient for our preaching and discipling, for our spirituality and joy in following Christ, for church growth and our understanding of evangelism. But is Scripture even meant to tell us how we are to organize our lives together as Christians in our churches, or are we left simply to our own investigation of best practices? Is our church polity a matter indifferent? Is it a matter to be determined simply pragmatically, by whatever seems to work best and to most effectively avoid problems?

I believe that God has revealed in His Word all that we need to know in order to love and serve Him, and this includes what we need to know even about the organization of our churches. This has been the assumption of the confessions of Baptists, Congregationalists, Presbyterians,