No believer has authority over any other believer, and we have no need of a teacher, because Christ in us is our teacher. There is no other mediator between us God, than Jesus Christ.
Acts 4:12 "Salvation exists in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to men by which we must be saved.”
John 15:13 13 However, when the Spirit of truth comes, He will guide you into all truth. For He will not speak on His own, but He will speak what He hears, and He will declare to you what is to come. 14 He will glorify Me by taking from what is Mine and disclosing it to you."
Notice that when it is the Holy Spirit working in someone it is God Who gets the glory not man. When man seeks to be the mediator between people and God it is the man who glorifies himself and others glorify the man too.
1 Timothy 2:4-6 "…4 who wants everyone to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth. 5 For there is one God, and there is one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus, 6who gave Himself as a ransom for all—the testimony that was given at just the right time.…"
We have teachers, we teach ourselves, we listen to evaluate with the help of the Holy Spirit, and no one has teaching "authority" over us.
John 14:6 "Jesus answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me."
Nowhere does God tell us to obey our leaders within the church, that idea comes from English translations that were guided by the Anglican model. We are to listen to discern, correct the leaders if they are wrong and see them as equal brothers and sisters in Christ.
This is crucial to understand because many leaders bring false doctrine and those who do not read and pray and are not led by the Holy Spirit believe whatever the leaders tell them. Even feeling intimidated and fearful if they do not do as the leaders tell them.
I have heard of cases in which the "paid-pastor" forbade someone in the congregation from holding Bible studies in their home because a pastor had to be teaching it. This is total nonsense. No one needs permission from anyone else to start a prayer group, have a Bible study or even baptise or observe the Lord's supper. We are free to do all these things as led by the Holy Spirit.
If a man in a gathering begins to attempt to bring others under his authority, that is the time to rebuke him for it, and if we refuses to stop and others follow him, then is when we must leave. Placing ourselves under spiritual authority of human beings is to usurp the Holy Spirit in us.
John 14:26 "But the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in My name, will teach you all things and will remind you of everything I have told you."
John 15:26 "When the Advocate comes, whom I will send to you from the Father—the Spirit of truth who proceeds from the Father—He will testify about Me."
1 Corinthians 2:10-13 "But God has revealed it to us by the Spirit. The Spirit searches all things, even the deep things of God. / For who among men knows the thoughts of man except his own spirit within him? So too, no one knows the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God. / We have not received the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, that we may understand what God has freely given us."
Romans 8:14 "For all who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God."
Those who are led by the Spirit of God because they have been transformed by Christ follow only Jesus Christ.
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