Cultures tend to overemphasize one of two things: the “me” or the “we”. You currently live in a highly individualistic culture that emphasizes the me. Everything revolves around you as an individual. But this hasn’t always been the case. Even other modern cultures heavily emphasize the “we”. Think of the regimentation of Chinese military parades. The individual is lost in a sea of people. Historically, this is what the royal “we” intended: the populace summed up in one monarch.
Democracies are heavy on the me, while communism insists absolutely that there must be no “mes” only we. Both suffer from a defective understanding of the me and the we.
It shouldn’t come as a surprise, but in Biblical church government we find both the me and we perfectly ordered. You aren’t an isolated individual, nor are you indistinguishable from the rest of the host of saints. Our heavenly Father promises us each a new name––there’s the me––but together we form an innumerable host of redeemed saints––there’s the we.
I want to apply this to church government as we continue this congregations formation as its own particularized church. Each family has a variety of members. Each family has a head. That head speaks on behalf of the various me’s of the family in things like elder and deacon elections. Further, within an elder board, each elder labors to represent those under his care as he joins the other elders in deliberations. He functions as a me, and then once the elders vote, the result is “we have decided.”
Presbyterian polity is not a dry academic topic. Rather, it’s how each “me” in the congregation finds their voice represented; it ensures the we does not swallow everything up. However, it also fends off rampant individualism as it allows us, as one body to say things like, “We confess, we believe, and we proclaim.” In this way we hear personal responsibility harmonized with corporate unity.
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