Government
The Reformed Presbyterian uses a Presbyterian form of Church government - members of each congregation elect elders (who must be male, as this is believed to be commanded in the Bible, and who must also be members of the congregation). These elders, along with the minister or pastor of the congregation make up the "Session" of a congregation. Ministers are known as "teaching elders", others are known as "ruling elders". The teaching elder is not in authority over the ruling elders; neither are the ruling elders in authority over the teaching elder.
Read more about this topic: Reformed Presbyterian Church (denominational Group)
Famous quotes containing the word government:
“Every government degenerates when trusted to the rulers of the people alone. The people themselves are its only safe depositories.”
—Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826)
“I incline to think that the people will not now sustain the policy of upholding a State Government against a rival government, by the use of the forces of the United States. If this leads to the overthrow of the de jure government in a State, the de facto government must be recognized.”
—Rutherford Birchard Hayes (1822–1893)
“Our domestic problems are for the most part economic. We have our enormous debt to pay, and we are paying it. We have the high cost of government to diminish, and we are diminishing it. We have a heavy burden of taxation to reduce, and we are reducing it. But while remarkable progress has been made in these directions, the work is yet far from accomplished.”
—Calvin Coolidge (1872–1933)