The lightbulb goes on

Today I was reading in the I Peter New Testament Commentary by John MacArthur, Ch. 23 on "Shepherding the Flock." As always I'm hit with something not so profound but something I never thought of before. I realise lately I've not been so kind to the church as a whole, but there's some things that just bother me and so once again my thoughts are a not so wonderful reflection of past church experiences.
Here is the quote that got my attention:

"The plurality of godly leaders, as designed by the Lord, not only provides more ministry care (cf. Ex. 18:13-26) but offers some important safegurards (cf. Prov. 11:14). First, it helps protect the church against error. The apostle Paul told the church at Corinth, "Let two or three prophets speak, and let the others pass judgement...and the spirits of prophets are subject to prophets" (I Cor. 14:29, 32). No one was to speak or minister independently (cf. 1 Cor. 14:26-33), teaching strictly on his own and not being accountable or subject to the knowledge of other teachers." (p.264)

In many churches, many people, including deacons and those given leadership positions, are not students of the Scriptures. They do not "Study to show [themselves] approved unto God..." as I Timothy calls us to do. So then the pastor becomes the only one who knows the Bible. The pastor could (and I've been in churches where pastors have) preach a total erroneous message and no one will tell him he's off because they either don't know the Bible well enough to know he was in error or they do not feel they have the authority to do so. In fact I've sat through sermons SO off and afterward heard people tell the preacher what a wonderful message it was!

I firmly believe that if my pastor was to preach something in error, the elders and men of our church would confront him on it. Even if it was a few weeks later that they discovered otherwise...because the TRUTH is of utmost importance, to the people and to the pastor.
But I've been to churches where socialization was of utmost importance and if the pastor preached over 20 minutes, Bibles got slammed shut....but I drift from my point.
There is accountability in having people and elders in a congregation that study dilligently the Word of God and can sort out truth from error. Pastors and elders are not infallible...that is why God calls all of us to be dilligent students of the Word.

May we be like the Bereans who searched the scriptures to know if the apostle Paul was preaching the truth or not. May we never think we know it all.