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Biblical
Church Leadership Elders who handle the affairs of the church well are worthy of double honor—at least according to Paul. The apostles never imagined one man rule for any church, for any location, for any reason. Rather than mini-popes, commanding obedience and submission, they ordained a group of equal leaders for the body of Christ in each locale. The church badly needs to return to this biblical example of leadership. Church history and myriad attempts to repair leadership problems affirm that our churches are broken. Unfortunately, rather than fixing them by returning to the Word, attempts have been made to fix man-made problems with man-made repairs. Wouldn’t it be better to admit we have erred and return to the leadership that Christ put in place through his apostles? Of course, the onus is on me at this point to prove that the oversight of plural co-equal elders is the plan originally laid out for the church. If it is simply one of many ways that developed then it has no more authority than the other developed models. Scripturally there are two offices in the local church—elder and deacon. Of course, many will point out that Ephesians 4 mentions five offices. First of all there are only four listed—pastor and teacher is better translated as pastor/teacher because of the Greek construction used. Second, is the fact that these are not offices, but gifts. Paul says Christ gave gifts to men then lists them as apostle, prophet, evangelist, pastor/teacher. He goes on to say why they are given: “to prepare God’s people for works of service (ministry) so that the body of Christ may be built up”. They are not offices but are gifts given to certain ones to teach and equip the rest to do ministry. If you insist on these being offices then you have the burden of proving there was ever an office of prophet. You can find prophets—those who operated in the gift of prophecy—but no holders of an office of prophet. If there are so many offices why are qualifications on given for elder and deacon? It is obvious that these were the only ones the churches needed to concern themselves with. Support for this also comes from the example of the early church. The Didache, from the last quarter of the first century to the first quarter of the second, is intended as a distillation of the teaching of the apostles handed down to the churches. In Didache 15:1 the churches are told to “appoint for yourselves overseers and deacons.” No other offices are condoned. There is mention of itinerant prophets and apostles, but these are not presented as offices. Of these two offices only one is of interest in this series. We’ll discuss the deaconate at another time, limiting our discussion to the elders for now. There are three words to keep in mind for this discussion: overseer (Gk: episkopos, also translated bishop), elder (Gk: presbyteros), and shepherd (Gk: poimen). The last one is the source of our word pastor. The Latin for shepherd is pastoro, so you can see where it comes from. When you hear the word pastor in this discussion think of a shepherd—not of a church office. I know some will be curious about the word bishop, especially if you are from an episcopal background or insist on the King James Version. The Greek word episkopos (overseer) was borrowed by Latin as episcopus and later came into Old English to finally take the form we know as bishop (hint: drop e and us and change b to p). To further define these words we need to see how they interact. The best place to look for this is the writing of two apostles—Paul and Peter. In Acts 20:28 Paul tells the Ephesian elders (presbyteros), “Keep watch over yourselves and all the flock of which God has made you overseers (episkopos). Be shepherds (poimen) of the church of God, which he bought with his own blood.” In 1 Peter 5:1f we read: “To the elders (presbyteros) among you, . . . : Be shepherds (poimen) of God’s flock that is under your care, serving as overseers (episkopos).” From these two passages we can only conclude that an elder is an overseer is a pastor; three terms describe one role; each term describes a different element. These men are overseers taking responsibility for the church, ensuring purity of teaching, giving rebuke or praise whenever appropriate. They are elders in that they are the mature members of the church, seasoned by their experiences in service to the Lord. They are pastors coming alongside others, showing when telling is not sufficient and demonstrating the Christian life to those they seek to influence. Elders are to lead the church as shepherds and overseers, but does scripture say this is to be a single person, or a plural body? Many churches apply the teachings on elders and overseers to the pastor, claiming that the pastor is the single elder and the other leaders are deacons. It is interesting that these churches don’t restrict deacons to only one, but have a plurality. Scripture, once again, is where we must go for answers. We can see in several passages that there are more than one elder in each church. The first stop in looking into how many elders are in a local church is with the first missionary journey of Paul and Barnabas. After going along their way planting churches and dedicating them to the Lord’s protection, they backtrack to set those churches in order. In Acts 14:23 Paul and Barnabas “appointed elders for them in each church”. Note that in each church (singular) they appointed elders (plural). The writer did not say that they appointed an elder in each church or elders in the churches—in each church a plurality of elders was appointed. The next stop in this investigation is the only apostolic letter addressed to the leaders of any church—Philippians. Paul addresses this church “together with the overseers and deacons.” Note that both are plural. This church to which Paul is writing has plural elders. The leaders of the church are the elders, they are to oversee and pastor the church, but are they all equal? Is it possible that one elder was over the others as sort of a chief elder? There are those who would separate out an elder as a pastor and the other elders would serve the church along with him. There is no scripture commanding equality among the elders, but this silence is far from condoning hierarchy. This must be balanced with the fact that scripture no where gives any single man leadership over a church. Some passages seem to differentiate areas of emphasis. For example, the double honor due elders is said to be especially due those who labor at preaching and teaching. This alone shows that some elders spent more time than others in teaching, but this does not show that they are somehow above the others in position or authority. For one thing, a basic requirement for any elder is that they be “apt to teach.” So the question is not one of ability, but of emphasis. The elders who labor at preaching and teaching are those who dedicate their time to studying and preparing to teach. This does not necessitate full-time vocational ministry, but their primary ministry would be teaching. The reasons one may spend more time teaching than another could be several. One possibility is that one or more elders are more gifted than the rest in teaching; the others would allow them the lion’s share of opportunities. However, even in this condition one must fight against the urge to set aside a special class of teaching elder; all elders are able to teach. Those elders not as gifted should be encouraged to teach in order to develop their gifts.
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