My first question concerns the epistles of Timothy and Titus. Why is it that these are called, pastoral epistles? Seeing that the only church authority and responsibility that Paul discusses are the eldership positions of the Bishop and Deacon. Paul never writes or speaks using the word pastor. So I have never been able to find a link between the eldership roles and that of pastor.
I am having a little disagreement with a couple of people, and I am hoping you can settle it. Is it ok for a pastor to use a sermon that he found off the internet? Some people think it is stealing, and makes the pastor look lazy. I think it is NOT stealing because a sermon is about God's word. God's word is not copyrighted, nor is the King James Bible. It was given to us freely, and a man's sermon is worthless without God's word. The people who were disagreed treat God as business. I just think that if the pastor had someone dear to him passed away, I think it is ok for him to get a sermon off the internet as long as he tells his members he found a sermon off the internet that he wanted to share to them and tell them where he got it from, or repeat some of his old sermons. What is your opinion on this?
What is the correlation/connection between water baptism and church membership? I see where Acts 2:41 references both baptism and adding to the church in the same context, but have not found where baptism is clearly required for church membership.
