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Men's Business Meeting in the Churches of Christ

On one of the Bible lists that I subscribe to, I asked for information on the idea of men's business meetings.  The request was for definitive scriptural authority for such meetings.  I received many replies and have created a zip file containing most of them.  As to the definitive authority I was looking for, it is not in the replies, but that is not surprising as it is not in the scriptures.  Feel free to download the file and study the information contained therein.

If you need a compression/decompression tool EnZip is available here. It is FREE.

There is a good PDF reader here or here. Both are FREE.

My biggest problem with the idea of business meetings is the same that I have with several other things in God's word.  We spend way too much time trying to prove that this exception or that exception is expedient (scriptural) instead of simply following what God tells us in plain words.  In this case, if we would do what God says and appoint elders in every congregation (Acts 14:23), we would not have to worry about trying to prove business meetings to be scriptural.  If the man is not qualified to rule (oversee, shepherd, pastor) the congregation in the way God designated (i.e. meet the qualifications laid forth in 1 Timothy and Titus), what makes him qualified to rule it in a business meeting (with other men who don't meet the qualifications either)?

Yes, there are times when for one reason or another (men too young; no men at all; physical health issues) we will find ourselves in the position of not having elders, but I am afraid much of the time we are in that position because we want to be (i.e. some of the men don't want to lose their vote so they find a way to disqualify the other men), not because we must be.  Not having elders should be temporary thing, not a long term solution.

Having said that, if a congregation finds itself in the position of not having elders, I do believe Acts 6 and even to an extent Acts 11, 13 and 15 give us an example.  But if we look at these passages, there was nothing done in secret (private).  The entire congregation was privy to the decisions.  In fact, it appears they may have all there during the discussions.  Yes, God has given the male the predominate role in the oversight of the family, and the church, but that does not and should not be taken to the extreme of excluding women altogether.  In the examples cited, the men (apostles in Acts 6; apostles and elders in Acts 15) made the decisions, but not in private (secret) as so many times is the case we see today. 

It would be so much better if we would spend time as teachers and preachers and fathers teaching our young sons the value (and honor) of being an overseer of God's flock instead of, in many cases, talking about how badly the elders run the congregation.