Hierarchy within the church

Here are a couple articles on hierarchy within the church. The first is naturally on the blog "Three Hierarchies" and proves once and for all that priests and bishops are the same order in the New Testament.

The other article is an excerpt from J. N. Darby and proves that The Notion of a Clergyman is Dispensationally the Sin against the Holy Ghost.

Neither of these articles prove that the apostles are not examples of male leadership in heaven, as Grudem affirms, but it makes you wonder whether males will be able to agree on how to distribute male leadership in heaven. Fortunately they will not be the ones to decide.

This description of the Exclusive Brethren explains that they do not to this day appoint elders.

The Exclusive Brethren differ from the Open Brethren in that they reject the notion of assemblies being independent and uphold the necessity of assemblies acting in unity. They also reject the appointment of elders today. They have varying postions on the reception of Christians to the Lord's Supper. In theory, at least they accept that all Christians have the right to participate in the Lord's Supper, but they will not accept Open Brethren, as they consider them to be upholding evil because of the events of 1849.

I hasten to add that I did not grow up in the Taylor Brethren, but the other Exclusive Brethren. We were teatotallers, and the women did not have to wear scarves except in the assembly. But elders were not appointed. The only distinction was between the 'brothers' and the 'sisters'. Otherwise there were 'labouring brothers', travelling preachers who depended on faith for their financial support. Naturally those local brothers who were wealthy had more influence, that goes without saying.