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Baptist History, Heritage & Distinctives \u2013Historic Baptist Ecclessiology – Part 6 of 11<\/p>\n\n\n\n
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5. Church Officers<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“If a man desire the office of a bishop, he desireth a good work \u00b7.. They that have used the office of a deacon well purchase to themselves a good degree. \u201c<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n (I Tim. 3:1, 13.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n The context of the two verses shows that bishops and deacons are church officers, and to this fact practically all Christians agree, however far they may depart from Scriptural ideas of the duties of these offices. Even believers in an imaginary “invisible” church become at least temporarily realistic and operate in some kind of organized assembly in naming bishops and deacons.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But if bishops and deacons were officers in the kind of church that Jesus built, and if this kind of church passed out of existence, as Protestants allege and as ignorant Baptists admit, then by whose authority are such officers named today?<\/p>\n\n\n\n Thomas E. Kresal from: \u201cTen Bible Proofs Of Baptist Perpetuity\u201d by Rosco Brong<\/p>\n\n\n\n http:\/\/baptisthistoryhomepage.com\/brong.sermon.bapt.perpet.\u2026<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n