To Appoint and Ordain the kingdom and the Church

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An Appointment Ex Officio

In Acts 6:3,¹ the Greek word kathistemi is translated ‘appoint’ as well as ‘make’ or ‘made ruler’ and ‘ordain’.² This word is defined: “to set one over a thing (in charge of it) 1b) to appoint one to administer an office.” Here in Acts 6:3, the appointment to administer this office took place after an ‘election’ by the people of men to carry out the daily ministration. The daily ministration in the temple of God’s government on earth included many duties, and among them was the care of widows, orphans, and the needy of society who were in want of assistance through the charity of the kingdom.

There was still adequate welfare available in the Roman system of Qurban, and the Corban system of the Pharisees’ temple run by the Jews who rejected Christ. The followers of Christ were banned from those entitlement programs of the treasury of the Pharisees.³ The Christians were not only cast out like in the days of Egypt, but they would not apply, i.e.. pray, to the Fathers of Rome or the Hellenized Judean Pharisees for any of their Nicolaitan benefits. Christ said to pray to Our Father who art in Heaven.

Understanding the concept of an appointment of those who were already elected is the key to maintaining a free Church, or any large body of people, without centralization of power. It was used by the Apostles, by David, by Samuel, by Moses, and even earlier, Abraham.

This ancient system included some essential safeguards. If the Ministers Christ appointed could exercise a direct authority over the handling of the funds needed to manage these duties of the church government, they would have a power similar to what corrupted the Pharisees and all other governments of power and authority. An office of power and authority, which such administrators held, would soon attract men greedy for gain and “lovers of soft things”⁴.

In order for the government of the people, by the people, and for the people⁵ to not perish from the earth the power of consent must continue to rest with the people individually, from contribution to contribution, and day to day. Men may not be chosen and appointed from the top down to rule over the contributions and the people. Nor can the people be the sole electors of those titular ministers. If that were true the Church would be established by the people and not by the appointment of Christ.

All ministers need to be appointed, but only by someone who is at least believed to be Christ’s ordained minister already. Their titular office must also fall within the job description criteria given by the Messiah, the Christ. The apostles had three years of intensive instructions on the mysteries of the Kingdom and the manner of its service. They began to understand what the Pharisees had forgotten, whether by choice, or neglect, or deception.

By the time of Christ, the Pharisees were forcing the collection of contributions of the people by taxation. If you did not contribute the prescribed amount to their governing body, the scribes, accounting clerks of that government, would turn the matter over to the courts. The right hand of government could fine or imprison you for not paying your fair share into what had become a central treasury.

Christ had instructed that in the Kingdom, if you were to pay what you believed you could afford, it could be marked “paid in full,”⁶ whether a penny from a widow, or a vast sum from the wealthy.⁷

In one system there was guaranteed grants, bestowed benefits, and social security. But in these schemes of authoritarian benefactors, there was an effort to placate the poor with self-indulgent welfare which weakened the poor.⁸ The benefactions of every person could be forced as contributing members. Through covetousness, the people became human resources for the whim of the benefactors of the government. The idea of the compelled Corban (or sacrifice) came from Greek and Roman influence.

After the porters of the temple (called money changers in the Greek) took their generous commission, the funds of that central royal treasury was supposed to care for the social needs of the people. This could include everything from welfare for the destitute, retirement supplements for the aged, or even large work projects like roads or aqueducts to bring water into the city. But corruption, pork barrel projects, and extravagance, for ministers often put more emphasis on their stone buildings and robes than the needs of the people they were called to serve.

For any government to function, there must be participation by the people in the supply and demand of services. The titular leaders of a free government cannot be given power to exercise authority over how much or when the people entrust their ministers. Christ commanded that His appointed ministers not “exercise authority”. When the people lose their daily right to choose, they are made subjects.

What is given is given completely, like a burnt offering or bread cast upon the water, but the free will choice to give must remain with the people. The choice and manner of service provided by that gift must remain entirely with the minister, who is a servant of God. In essence, this form of sacred purpose trust, with the minister as the steward (a kind of trustee), is at the foundation of His Church.

It has been customary that another group oversee the ministers. Of course in truth the actual overseer of the Church is the Holy Spirit or what is sometimes called the Comforter.⁹ The Apostles met the requirements laid down by Christ. They were prepared to represent the Holy Spirit, and when they had received the power to do so from that Spirit, they were able to go out and preach the Kingdom as the physical representatives of that Comforter. They exercised no authority by their own hand over the people, but relied entirely upon the power of that Holy Spirit.

The ordination requirements of the overseeing ministry of Christ are extremely controversial today, but have been a tradition both at the time of Christ and before. They are well documented in the Biblical text, but neglected by many modern ministers. The Levites did not belong to themselves as freemen, like those in the congregation of the people, but they “belonged” to God. They were His firstborn servants, appointed to minister to the people according to the Holy Spirit as it moved in them and in the people. They had no right to hold a free dominion offered by God to all men. They had no inheritance in the land as a personal estate. The same was clearly true at the time of Jesus’ appointment of His ministers.

At that time the Levites were unlawfully allowed to own land in their own name, and some had become wealthy thanks to the Hasmonean corruption some 175 years before. Corrupt men were drawn into what was once an office of service. What once had been an appointment of leadership and respect had become an office of rulership and power. What had once been a government of public servants had steadily become a government that required the service of the people. Freewill offerings had become legislated taxation imposed without proper daily Consent.¹⁰ God’s kingdom of Judea was becoming merged into the world of Rome, as the centralized leaders fornicated with the benefits of that power and authority.

In James 4:4 we see a warning where the word ‘kathistemi’ is translated ‘is’ rather than ‘ordained’.

“Ye adulterers and adulteresses, know ye not that the friendship of the world is enmity with God? whosoever therefore will be a friend of the world is [ordained] the enemy of God.”

The word ‘world’ in this text has nothing to do with the planet and is one of the five different words translated into ‘world’ in the New Testament; it is defined as “an apt and harmonious arrangement or constitution, order, government.”

James’ warning had to do with the constitutional order or government of which Jesus’ Kingdom was not a part. This included Rome and those Jews who denounced Christ, claiming they had no king but Caesar. They had appealed to Caesar to be the protector of their system of Corban and appointer of their priests as Pontifex Maximus. Rome was more than willing to commission and license the ministers of that government, ex officio. But this Pontifex of power was not only appointing, but electing the replacements to those offices that once rose up through the “courts and villages”¹¹ of the people.

The kingdom of Heaven gives and maintains the power of choice to the people, and the Ordained ministers have the power to accept or reject, appoint or withdraw their election. The Kingdom of liberty is the Kingdom of God on earth. It is a Kingdom that only works amongst the virtuous people who seek the righteousness of Christ and the love of the Father. It only functions under the perfect law of liberty. It is a place where men are as concerned about maintaining their neighbors’ rights as much as they are concerned about maintaining their own. It is not one place or one city, but it is a nation of peculiar people, who as brothers have learned to live in the world, but not of it, by following the ways of Jesus the Christ.

1Acts 6:3 “Wherefore, brethren, look ye out among you seven men of honest report, full of the Holy Ghost and wisdom, whom we may appoint over this business.”

2See Titus 1:5, Hebrews 5:1, 8:3.

3John 9:22-34 “These [words] spake his parents, because they feared the Jews: for the Jews had agreed already, that if any man did confess that he was Christ, he should be put out of the synagogue. ... they cast him out.”

4“lovers of soft things” was a phrase used by most Essenes to describe Essene ministers working for Herod.

5Introduction to John Wycliffe translation of the Bible in 1382 calling that the purpose of the Bible.

6Luke 7:41,42 “There was a certain creditor which had two debtors: the one owed five hundred pence, and the other fifty. And when they had nothing to pay, he frankly forgave them both. Tell me therefore, which of them will love him most?”

Luke 16:1...8 “...And the lord commended the unjust steward, because he had done wisely: for the children of this world are in their generation wiser than the children of light.”

7Mark 12:43 “And he called [unto him] his disciples, and saith unto them, Verily I say unto you, That this poor widow hath cast more in, than all they which have cast into the treasury:”

8Ezekiel 16:49 “Behold, this was the iniquity of thy sister Sodom, pride, fulness of bread, and abundance of idleness was in her and in her daughters, neither did she strengthen the hand of the poor and needy.”

9Parakletos translated comforter 4, advocate 1. 1) summoned, called to one’s side, esp. called to one’s aid. 1a) one who pleads another’s cause before a judge, a pleader, counsel for defense, legal assistant, an advocate.

10“For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent” The Declaration of Independence of the Thirteen Colonies.

11The “courts and villages” meant the congregations and generations or families of the people.

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The Free Church Report

The Free Church Report presents a unique path for the modern Church according to the nature of the first century Church by explaining the duty and purposes of that institution appointed by Christ. While Rome declined under runaway inflation, corrupt government, martial law, and endless threats of war, the Christians found an alternative to the men who “called themselves benefactors but exercised authority one over the other.”
The early Christian knew rights and responsibilities were indivisible. They sought the right to be ruled by God by taking back their responsibility, through the service of “called out” ministers who lived in the world, but were not of it. Their government benefits came through a divine network instituted in their hearts and minds by faith, hope, and charity under the perfect law of liberty as their Qorban of the unrighteous mammon failed the Roman society. Order

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