to the church has been denominational and sectarian.

[Sidenote: Ordination]

The true church was the whole family of God directed by his
Holy Spirit. Ministerial appointment, with its authority and
responsibility, was therefore divine. We have seen that through the
spiritual operation called the new birth, one became a member of
Christ, and hence by divine right belonged to whichever congregation
of the church he might be able to associate with; but that in
practical experience, such local membership involved recognition on
the part of the other members. So it was with the divine appointment
to the ministry. The only other essential to its practical operation
was simply recognition of that call. Such recognition, in the last
analysis, belonged to the whole church (1 Tim. 3: 2-7; Tit. 1:
6-9), but was given formally by the laying on of the hands of the
presbytery.

[Sidenote: Plurality of local elders]

The development of ministers in an apostolic church was a divine,
natural process, the inevitable result of the emphasis placed on the
gifts and callings of the Spirit. This free exercise of the Spirit's
gifts working in the members doubtless accounts for the plurality of
ruling elders found in those local churches. See Acts 14:23; 20:17;
Phil. 1:1; 1 Tim. 5:16, 17; Tit. 1:5. It could not be otherwise as
long as the churches were Spirit-filled, working congregations and
the Spirit of God had his way. The system that limited local church
government to a one-man rule originated in the apostasy, after the
gifts of the Spirit had died out. It is simply one part of that great