The doctrine of didaskoloj

1. The public assembly of the local church is the classroom of the royal family of God for this dispensation. It requires both the pastor as the teacher and the congregation as students without portfolio.

2. The pastor must have complete authority as well as the proper spiritual gift, study preparation along with moral courage and academic honesty.

3. In the public assembly of the local church we have the concept didaskoloj to cover the pastor-teacher or the guardian. The pastor-teacher is known by the word e)piskopoj which means overseer or guardian. In keeping with the principle of the privacy of the royal family the believer assembles himself with others under the title of maqhthj, which means to be a disciple or a student without portfolio. The one who faces this person is called didaskoloj. The word means a communicator to a group, never to one person.

4. Therefore only in public communication of doctrine in the classroom of the local church does the royal family have the necessary privacy for learning, for personal application, for fulfilling the principle of living your life as unto the Lord, as per Colossians 3:16,17.

5. Personal time with an individual — the one on one system — is an intrusion upon the freedom and the privacy of the royal priesthood of the believer. it is a violation of freedom, it becomes a system of dictatorship through either coercion, bullying, or salesmanship. It violates the right of the royal priest to live his life as unto the Lord and it becomes a system of personality pressure, a system of promoting pseudo spirituality and legalism and forcing on the believer a system of pseudo spirituality, legalistic gimmicks, evil, reversionism, in effect. The pastor is the teacher of doctrine. No one ever grows up apart from the function of didaskoloj. That means he is not a coach, he is not a physical training expert, he does not teach the congregation salesmanship, he does not teach his congregation anything except Bible doctrine. What they do with it is their volition processing the entire matter. It is not even the responsibility of the pastor to counsel. If you take in Bible doctrine as you should you don’t need counseling.

6. Primarily the pastor is a teacher, a policy-maker, a super student of the Word of God, an administrator in the sense of finding men who have the gift of administration. He is also the spiritual leader of the local church. All of these are accomplished without intrusion into the privacy of anyone in the congregation.

7. Didaskoloj must have the absolute authority in teaching. This authority is derived from the verb that goes with the cognate. The verb is didaskw which means to teach with authority, to teach with confidence, to teach in monologue form. The objectives of didaskoloj and his teaching function are:

* To construct the inner altar of the soul in the royal priesthood. There must be an altar before you can serve the Lord. Your service as a priest depends on possessing an altar. The altar is made up of Bible doctrine. No altar; no service.

* To lead the believer to the tactical victory of the supergrace life. This is accomplished by consistent teaching of the Word.

* To maintain supergrace. This is called equipping the believer with the full armour from God — Ephesians 6.

* To challenge the royal family of God to pick up the cross and follow Jesus Christ, which means the primary priestly function of the believer in this dispensation is the daily function of GAP.