How many different interpretations did those in our group have? In fact, just how many sets of rules and regulations did most of us come across in our lifetimes? I think some of us wondered how some ministers preached one thing, and others preached something else.

It’s likely true that somebody told us we were not to ask questions about it; it was considered disobedient or failing to be under subjection. I think it’s a bit sad, that somebody could not have stood up in front of a whole group of these people, and asked, “Why are you guys not all teaching the same thing?”

There should have been; there was in the early church. I think, that if some folk had read on down a little further in their texts, they might have learned more about how some of this was supposed to go.

Not many want to hear today about the five-fold ministry; but it’s going to take getting this kind of teaching in order, if we are going to return to the power many once had. If you read and study, ask yourself, what things were said, just after the verse talks about what God set in the church. For what reason, for how long and for what purpose. But don’t stop there. Keep going. This just picking out what we want to hear and leaving off the rest, is simply flesh.

How can I say this kindly. Many of us were tossed back and forth, by those who had assumed rule over us. I’m not going to list all of the things that so many of us were told we had to do, or not do; it’s endless. It bothered a lot of us, that you could do some things in one church, but not another. For some reason, it was considered that the leader of an assembly, could say or require anything he wanted, and everybody had to do it. They were given that power. The time quickly came, that even the evangelist, was only supposed to preach to the sinners; and not to the church. This is when the true five-fold ministry would have stood up; the apostle, the prophet or the evangelist, could have stepped in, spoke up, and said, “You cannot preach one set of rules in one church and another set of rules in another!”

We were supposed to grow up in the Spirit; and we wonder why so many didn’t. Did you ever hear anyone preach or teach, on “the sleight of men”? Most of us likely thought, that the next words, “cunning and craftiness,” was talking about the world. Nobody was given the authority to preach on those among us, who might have been those false teachers, false brothers and even false apostles who had slipped in unawares. God forbid, that a true prophet might walk in and point them out. Some people were thrown out of the church for not following all of the rules; they were shunned to such a point, they literally dried up on the vine for lack of fellowship. I hear some people denying that happened; the problem is, it’s still happening.

We were all supposed to speak the same thing. There’s only one body of Christ, and it was designed to work in harmony and unity together. Tell me why, our God, who wanted all men to be saved, would put together some kind of helter-skelter outfit that could not function in love and harmony? It is just not possible, that He would create a body, that one part would think it was more important than the other, and one ministry would take control over all the others? He didn’t.

It was men that changed the true structure God had put in place; and they are still doing the same today. Bylaws were not necessary. The right way, had already been written. The wind is truly blowing many people in many directions today; they are being deceived. Teaching for doctrine, the commandments of men, tosses good people.

Robert Blackburn