There are many fine books available on the offices of church leadership. Few, if any, address for a contemporary audience the biblical foundations of the government of the church. But this should be a priority for us, because God emphasizes the government of his church throughout Scripture.

Why should we be church members? How do church officers reflect Jesus’ reign over us? Where do the church’s responsibilities begin and end? Where do ours? These, and other important questions, are answered in Guy Prentiss Water’s vital examination of How Jesus Runs the Church.

At a time when church authority is treated with contempt, it’s important that we honor God in our churches more than ever.

Table of Contents

1. What Is the Church?
2. The Government of the Church
3. The Power of the Church
4. The Offices of the Church
5. The Courts of the Church
6. Conclusion
7. Church Government: A Select and Annotated Bibliography 

About the Author

Guy Prentiss Waters (BA, University of Pennsylvania; MDiv, Westminster Theological Seminary; PhD, Duke University) is professor of New Testament at Reformed Theological Seminary in Jackson, Mississippi. At Duke, he studied under Richard B. Hays and E. P. Sanders, two leading expositors of the New Perspectives on Paul. Dr. Waters is the author of Justification and the New Perspective on Paul: A Review and Response. He is an ordained minister of the Presbyterian Church in America. He is also a member of the Society of Biblical Literature and the Institute of Biblical Research.

Endorsement

"It is a pleasure to commend Guy Waters's book as a sound, biblical, accessible guide to the nature of the church."

—Carl Trueman

"A compelling reminder that the health of the church is inescapably tied to its polity, and that submission to biblical church government is essential to the rightly ordered Christian life."

—John Muether

"One of the Reformed community's finest contemporary biblical scholars. . . . I heartily recommend this book and hope that for many years it will strengthen our understanding and practice of biblical church government."

—David VanDrunen