One of the big ideas we are picking up on as we do this deep dive into Bethel theology is the idea of “a culture of honour”. The key person behind this is one of the main, Bethel leadership team, Danny Silk who has written a book by that name.
Now, we might have an idea of what could be behind such a culture because we are familiar with the term honour culture. We associate that perhaps most negatively with the term “honour killing”. However, the concept is broader than that and may not necessarily involve such tragic atrocities but it does revolve around the idea of honour and shame. In such cultures, the issue is not so much about whether I’m guilty or responsibility, it’s whether my actions or indeed very existence bring shame on my community (note that this reflects why people with disabilities can become outcasts in such cultures).
However, in terms of Bethel theology, the idea is specifically linked to the belief that the church is meant to bring heaven down to earth. Or to put it another way. Silk says of his book:
“Within these pages you will find what one of my friends calls a “recipe.” The ingredients in this recipe are a set of beliefs and practices. The steps in this recipe combine these ingredients in such a way that they create something powerful—an environment that is uncommon on the earth today. It is an environment that attracts and hosts the presence of God. We at Bethel Church, in Redding, California, call this environment the culture of honor. By no means is our “recipe” the only one that creates a culture that hosts the presence of God, but we can tell you that it is one that works.[1]
If it is the case, that we are meant to be creating the environment of Heaven in order to enjoy God’s presence , we need some kind of conduit, a pipe or funnel if you like for bringing down the blessings, particularly the supernatural gifts. In order to do this, it is important that we honour the key parts of that conduit and that means naming them. Silk argues that:
Honor creates life-giving and life-promoting relationships. The key here is “accurately acknowledging who people are.” We can only do this when we recognize their God-given identities and roles.[2]
And adds:
“A culture of honor is created as a community of people learns to discern and receive people in their God-given identities. Throughout this book we will explore some of the “names” that have enabled us to establish very specific kinds of relationships in the Bethel community. These are the relationships that attract and sustain the outpouring of God’s presence and power in our midst. The names “apostle,” “prophet,” “teacher,” “pastor,” and “evangelist” and their distinctive anointings, mindsets, and gifts create a network of relationships designed to bring the focus and priorities of Heaven to earth. Names like “free sons” and “children of light” define the way we must honor and relate to one another, particularly when addressing areas of behavior and relationships that need discipline and restoration. Descriptive names like “royalty,” “wealthy,” and “benefactor” shape our relationships with our resources and with the wider community that the Church is called to bless and encounter with the love and power of Heaven.[3]
Dany Silk argues that the process flows through the fivefold gifts or offices given to the Church by the Holy Spirit at the Resurrection. Ephesians 4:11 says:
“11 And He personally gave some to be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, some pastors and teachers,
Now, it’s worth introducing two side points here. First, many commentators would suggest that there are in fact four gifts here with pastor-teachers being one gift rather than two separate gifts of teaching and pastoring/shepherding. Secondly, the idea that the apostles and prophets mentioned here are the kind of roles seen in the contemporary church is even more controversial and with good reason. The context of Ephesians 4:11 with its immediate connection to the resurrection suggests that Paul is talking about gifts generally to the whole Church throughout history, not individual local churches. Additionally, apostles and prophets have already been mentioned in Ephesians 2:19-22:
19 So then you are no longer foreigners and strangers, but fellow citizens with the saints, and members of God’s household, 20 built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus Himself as the cornerstone. 21 The whole building, being put together by Him, grows into a holy sanctuary in the Lord. 22 You also are being built together for God’s dwelling in the Spirit.
It is likely that Paul is talking about the same things in chapter 2 and chapter 4, especially when we remember that the chapter divisions weren’t there at the time. So, Paul is most likelyh to be talking about the foundational apostles, the twelve, or capital “A” Apostles who were with Jesus. The point is that apostles and prophets together bring revelation to hand over the Gospel or Scripture to us.
Now, that isn’t to say that there isn’t a type of gift within the church that has a part to play beyond the local church. In Romans 16, Paul refers to someone being outstanding among the apostles whilst Titus, Timothy and Barnabas seem to have a role which goes beyond local church leadership. So, many church networks today think in terms of people who have some kind of invited in, relational authority that goes beyond take it or leave it advice. In some cases, as with ours (New Frontiers) people are happy to refer to it as “apostolic” whereas other networks very clearly have such people but would stay clear of the label.
However, here’s the crucial point. Silk offers a definition of the role of apostle which is very different to that. He says:
“You have likely heard the term apostolic ministry used more in recent years. I am confident that we will hear and see more of it in the years to come. This term is something that needs defining early in this book because I will make frequent references to it from here on. Through this term, I will be referring to the primary goals and objectives of the apostle’s leadership, and therefore, the goals with which all the people under the apostle align themselves.
When Jesus taught the disciples to pray, He brought a key phrase into their core values. He told them to pray, “Your Kingdom come. Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.”4 His instructions taught them to long for Heaven on earth. I believe this core value is the primary objective of the apostle’s ministry. Apostolic leaders are focused on Heaven, and their mission is to see Heaven’s supernatural reality established on the earth. They long to see the evidence of Heaven’s touch in the environment they lead or influence. Having this motivation at the foundation of a church leads to an entirely different emphasis in the church’s governing priorities. The apostle will make the presence of God, the worship of God, and the agenda of Heaven the top priorities in the environment. An apostolic government is designed to protect these priorities.
from which we derive the English word “architect.” This perfectly describes the role of the apostolic ministry. It is as though God Himself has given blueprints to certain individuals to reproduce Heaven on the earth. Along with this blueprint, the anointing of the apostle contains a quality that stimulates and draws to the surface the diverse anointings in the people around him. As those around the apostle begin to manifest their own unique anointings, it creates an environment of “sub-contractors” who help the “master builder” to realize the blueprints of Heaven. The following are some of the key characteristics of an apostolic environment and culture: Worship and supernatural activity are priorities in the environment and the lifestyle of the saints, because God’s presence is the top priority.
The saints are sent, as Jesus was, to destroy the works of the devil, including disease, sickness, and affliction. The saints live to demonstrate to all the people on earth that God is always the good guy and the devil is always the bad guy. The Kingdom of God is “joy in the Holy Spirit.”5 Therefore, church is to be a place of exceeding, abundant joy. God desires those who don’t yet know Him to come into a relationship with Him where the primary emphasis is love, not merely service. The Body of Christ is being built up and equipped to become a glorious and victorious Bride, no matter how the conditions of the earth may presently appear. The Church is to create global awakening and impact. Successive generations must be equipped to carry and demonstrate Kingdom revelation.[4]
I wanted to give the full quote here so that we are absolutely clear about what Silk and Bethel believe about the role of apostle. We will come back shortly to why this matters and the impact it has but I want to do two things before that. First, I want you to observe that this is all completely made up. There is nothing here that is drawn from what Scripture has to say both in terms of its specific words about the 12 apostles or how it describes the work and ministry of anyone else in the church including those like Timothy and Titus who might be seen as most closely fulfilling the modern role.
Secondly, I suspect that the retort would be something along the lines of “but you would say that because you are just a teacher in the church.” And so, it is important to see what Silk has to say about the role of teacher.
“Next we have teachers. As I mentioned, the teacher is generally accepted as the highest anointing level in the American church. But the truth is that it is not the highest anointing, but only the third level of anointing. It is a “C” in a grade scale, and it is what keeps the Church only average in its effects and influence. Our need and opportunity to upgrade the anointing to an “A” is growing. Before I get too far into this section about teachers, I need to confess that this will not satisfy the needs of the teachers reading it. For most teachers, this section would have to be a book in itself, because teachers need lots of information before they can conclude most anything. I respect that about teachers. I am not going to try very hard to convince teachers that I am right or they are wrong. I am simply going to present why I think we’ve made a big mistake in making the teacher the highest anointing operating in the leadership of the American church. Our current church culture has a high value for the security we feel when we are able to prove that what we have devoted our life to is right. In order to assert our faith, we assume that we must be able to argue a case to a logical conclusion. But the fact is that our need for so much certainty comes from great uncertainty. When Heaven stops manifesting itself in the Church, Christians have to prove somehow that they are reasonable for following Jesus. When the power of the Gospel is replaced by arguments, everyone should be concerned. When cancer, paralysis, tumors, and mental illness leave people’s bodies and minds, we do not require an argument. A person experiencing the touch of Heaven is proof enough that Jesus is who He says He is. But when the Church insists on having a logical culture, we demand a logical gospel, and therefore, we turn to the teachers. Most teachers today are fixated on the written Word of God. They believe that the Word of God is the source of life and truth on the earth. Their value for the Word is much higher than their need for the supernatural. These are the lawyers, scribes, and Pharisees of our day. They can wield the “Sword” with the best. The teacher has a deep, driving need to be right, and predominantly sees the world in terms of “scriptural” and “non-scriptural.” Because the teacher’s focus is on the Word, the anointing of the teacher influences the Church to focus on the Word. Please don’t misunderstand me; I am not trying to devalue Scripture. But I want us to understand how unimportant Heaven has become because of this dreadful error and disorder. The teachers, as the primary influence in the Church, have turned our attention to the law. When we focus solely on the Word, eventually we begin to fight amongst ourselves over the Word. We begin to pull apart the Body of Christ because there is a right and a wrong. Each teacher is compelled to be right. As Paul said to the Corinthians, we have “many teachers” in the Body of Christ.8 And when the teachers disagree, and many do, there is division. Leader after leader begins to assert his or her case of doctrine and theology and builds a case to prove his or hers and disprove the others. What then is the role of the teacher in the church if it is not to prove that Christians are right to believe what they believe? In order for teachers to play their true role in the culture of the Church, they will first have to be willing to pursue a supernatural lifestyle. They will have to be dissatisfied with the armor of their arguments and the lifelessness of their theology. They will need to increase their courage to risk failure and live a life that is unable to answer all the questions of their world. The teachers must embrace mystery. The anointing on teachers will always cause them to have a high value for education. They will be those who believe that most problems are solved through training and informing people according to Scripture. But the real change they want to see will come under the leadership of an apostolic and prophetic culture. In a supernatural culture, teachers will teach with supernatural results. When Jesus taught a crowd about the Kingdom of Heaven, He always showed them the Kingdom. His disciples were in a never-ending classroom experience. Jesus took “show and tell” to a whole new level. Our teachers must put the “show” back into their lesson plans. I’ve heard Bill Johnson say many times, “Jesus is perfect theology.” I agree. If we see Jesus doing it, then we are on to something good. If He wasn’t doing anything like what we are doing, we’d better ask ourselves, “What went wrong?” Teachers must take the passion and the revelation of the apostles and prophets and show us how it becomes truth that we apply to our lives. The role of the teacher is to help replicate the processes of the supernatural and then train and equip the saints to cooperate with those processes. The love of Scripture and the knowledge that teachers carry help them to communicate complex processes in simple analogies and applications. Randy Clark of Global Awakening is a prime example to me of someone with a teaching gift who uses it to help the world and the Church. understand the supernatural. Although he is an apostolic leader himself, his teaching gift operates in that higher anointing. Therefore, he uses his understanding of Scripture, history, theology, and people to connect mysterious revelations to practical daily life. His models for training people to pray for the sick are excellent and highly effective methods for mobilizing prayer teams to minister to large groups in his crusades. Believers who have never prayed for others to be healed in their whole Christian experience are, within a few hours of training, seeing miracle after miracle. A successful revival culture has teachers who are perpetuating the supernatural in it. The days of teaching our limited experiences are over. We now must learn to teach how and what Heaven is doing every day to everyone.[5]
Again, I wanted to make sure that you have the full statement. It’s pretty shocking isn’t it. Not only is this not in Scripture but it foes directly against Scripture. Silk claims that he does not want to downgrade the role of teacher or Scripture but that’s exactly what he does. First, he creates a hierarch within the church Timothy 3 where he recognises the high calling of eldership and insists that the primary qualifications of those responsible for churches is that they are self controlled, godly leaders of their own family, hospitable and able to teach. Secondly he dismisses a concern for safety when Paul explicitly makes that our first concern as elders in his commission to the Ephesian elders (in Acts 20). Third, he suggests that the only way to recover a place for teachers is if they see themselves as subordinate to Bethel’s apostles. In other words their job is to pass on the ideas and revelations of these apostles and prophets. This goes right against all that Paul has to say about not setting in place other foundations or preaching other gospels. This is just utterly wrong.
I said that I would come back to the impact and implications of Danny Silk’s view of a kind of process and of the different roles. So, here it is. First, I think you can see why such a culture is deeply uncomfortable with the idea that people can be challenged and confronted. Why honour prevents disagreement. You see, the belief is that these people, the apostles and prophets, the big senior guys are the conduit that links heaven to earth and you don’t want to cut yourself off from that. It feels like the kind of struggle people might encounter when they discover a leak or worse, the water coming out of the tap is gunky and brown. You really should shut the water supply off and find out what the problem is so you can fix it but you worry that then you won’t have water.
Secondly, and this is the crucial point. What this theology and practice does is to place these men (it’s usually men though occasionally some women) into an intermediary position between Heaven (God) and us. This is why it is important to be clear. There is no vacancy for that position. It’s already taken by Jesus.
[1] Silk, Danny. Culture of Honor: Sustaining a Supernatural Enviornment: Sustaining a Supernatural Environment (p. 25). Destiny Image. Kindle Edition.
[2] Silk, Danny. Culture of Honor: Sustaining a Supernatural Enviornment: Sustaining a Supernatural Environment (p. 26). Destiny Image. Kindle Edition.
[3] Silk, Danny. Culture of Honor: Sustaining a Supernatural Enviornment: Sustaining a Supernatural Environment (p. 26). Destiny Image. Kindle Edition.
[4] Silk, Danny. Culture of Honor: Sustaining a Supernatural Enviornment: Sustaining a Supernatural Environment (pp. 61-63). Destiny Image. Kindle Edition.
[5] Silk, Danny. Culture of Honor: Sustaining a Supernatural Enviornment: Sustaining a Supernatural Environment (p. 67-7070). Destiny Image. Kindle Edition.
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