Peter
Peter was an elder. Evidently, the apostles of Jerusalem came to adopt “elder” as their own title, indicating their leadership over the city of God on earth, I suppose. Or perhaps they wanted a more equal relationship with the non-apostles elders in Jerusalem.
We really don’t know. It’s interesting, isn’t it, that Peter chose what to us would be lesser title.
(1Pe 5:1-5 ESV) So I exhort the elders among you, as a fellow elder and a witness of the sufferings of Christ, as well as a partaker in the glory that is going to be revealed: 2 shepherd the flock of God that is among you, exercising oversight, not under compulsion, but willingly, as God would have you; not for shameful gain, but eagerly; 3 not domineering over those in your charge, but being examples to the flock. 4 And when the chief Shepherd appears, you will receive the unfading crown of glory. 5 Likewise, you who are younger, be subject to the elders. Clothe yourselves, all of you, with humility toward one another, for “God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.”
Here Peter uses “elder,” “overseer,” and “shepherd” as virtual synonyms, but also meaning that the three words describe differing facets of the elder’s work.
They have “oversight.” The word is the verb form of “overseer,” hence “supervise” or “oversee.”
Peter finds it necessary to warn them not be “domineering,” meaning the position has the potential to domineer. (You don’t warn against the impossible.) The meaning of “domineer” is to “subdue” or “master,” that is, to impose unwilling obedience.
Peter urges the overseers to be examples to the flock. Some argue that, therefore, the only authority the elders have is as examples. That argument, doesn’t fit the evidence or the grammar.
The verb is “shepherd.” It’s followed by a series of participles that explain the how the shepherding is to be done: “exercising oversight,” “not domineering,” “being examples.” You can’t take “being examples” to repeal “exercising oversight.” It’s all of the above. The idea is that if you’re example of what you ask of the church, you won’t be domineering.
Hebrews
(Heb 13:7 ESV) Remember your leaders, those who spoke to you the word of God. Consider the outcome of their way of life, and imitate their faith.
(Heb 13:17 ESV) Obey your leaders and submit to them, for they are keeping watch over your souls, as those who will have to give an account. Let them do this with joy and not with groaning, for that would be of no advantage to you.
“Leader” translates ἡγέομαι (hēgéomai), meaning, according to Thayer’s,
1. to lead, i. e. a. to go before; b. to be a leader; to rule, command; to have authority over: in the N. T. so only in the present participle ἡγούμενος, a prince, of regal power (Ezek. 43:7 for sמֶלֶךְ; Sir. 17:17), Matt. 2:6; a (royal) governor, viceroy, Acts 7:10; chief, Luke 22:26 (opposed to ὁ διακονῶν); leading as respects influence, controlling in counsel, ἐν τισί, among any, Acts 15:22; with the genitive of the person over whom one rules, so of the overseers or leaders of Christian churches: Heb. 13:7,17,24
The same word is used in —
(Eze 23:12 ESV) She lusted after the Assyrians, governors and commanders, warriors clothed in full armor, horsemen riding on horses, all of them desirable young men.
(Dan 6:1-2 ESV) It pleased Darius to set over the kingdom 120 satraps, to be throughout the whole kingdom; 2 and over them three high officials, of whom Daniel was one, to whom these satraps should give account, so that the king might suffer no loss.
(Acts 7:10 ESV) and rescued him out of all his afflictions and gave him favor and wisdom before Pharaoh, king of Egypt, who made him ruler over Egypt and over all his household.
Now the word can also carry the meaning of “leader” rather than “official” or “ruler,” but Hebrews does not avoid the use of a word that connotes positional authority. This is not the word used to say that someone is only a good example.
The Spirit
Any New Testament exegesis that ignores the Spirit is bad exegesis. How does the Spirit figure in?
(1Co 12:28 ESV) 28 And God has appointed in the church first apostles, second prophets, third teachers, then miracles, then gifts of healing, helping, administrating, and various kinds of tongues.
Notice that Paul explicitly ranks gifts: first, second, third, etc. This seems to suggest a community that is not strictly egalitarian. There are five-talent men and one-talent men. Some are gifted to lead, but not all.
“Administrating” means, according to Thayer, “governing, government.” The Spirit specifically equips some Christians with the gift to govern God’s church.
(Rom 12:6-8 ESV) 6 Having gifts that differ according to the grace given to us, let us use them: if prophecy, in proportion to our faith; 7 if service, in our serving; the one who teaches, in his teaching; 8 the one who exhorts, in his exhortation; the one who contributes, in generosity; the one who leads, with zeal; the one who does acts of mercy, with cheerfulness.
We also see that the Spirit equips some to “lead” and that they’re instructed to do so with zeal.
Friberg defines the Greek as —
(1) middle put oneself (responsibly) at the head, lead, direct, rule
Louw-Nida defines the word —
to so influence others as to cause them to follow a recommended course of action – ‘to guide, to direct, to lead.’
We next turn to Ephesians —
(Eph 4:11-12 ESV) 11 And he gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the shepherds and teachers, 12 to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ,
Paul lists “shepherds” as gifts from God, surely meaning that God equips men to be shepherds by a special gift from the Spirit.
Now, we see that those qualified to be leaders in the church are qualified by special gifting by the Holy Spirit. And this giftedness should be visible to the church. After all, in Acts 6, the apostles called on the church to select men “full of the Spirit” to serve the widows (likely as deacons). How did they know?
Speaking in tongues hardly makes one qualified to run a benevolence program. The church surely looked at the hearts and talents of their members to select the ones best equipped by God for the task.
The Pastorals
(Tit 1:9-11 ESV) 9 [An overseer] must hold firm to the trustworthy word as taught, so that he may be able to give instruction in sound doctrine and also to rebuke those who contradict it. 10 For there are many who are insubordinate, empty talkers and deceivers, especially those of the circumcision party. 11 They must be silenced, since they are upsetting whole families by teaching for shameful gain what they ought not to teach.
We often read Titus for its list of qualifications, but we often overlook what Paul says they’re to be qualified to do: teach and rebuke — even to silence those who teach a false gospel.
(1Ti 5:17-20 ESV) 17 Let the elders who rule well be considered worthy of double honor, especially those who labor in preaching and teaching. 18 For the Scripture says, “You shall not muzzle an ox when it treads out the grain,” and, “The laborer deserves his wages.” 19 Do not admit a charge against an elder except on the evidence of two or three witnesses. 20 As for those who persist in sin, rebuke them in the presence of all, so that the rest may stand in fear.
“Rule” in verse 17 is the same word we encountered in Romans 12:8. The NIV paraphrases with “direct the affairs of the church.” The NET Bible translates “lead.”
“Honor” refers both to respect and to payment. The text anticipates that some elders may receive their support from the church, as v. 18 makes clear.
But elders are not above criticism. If they “persist in sin,” the evangelist — Timothy — is charged to rebuke them before the entire congregation. But this requires witnesses. “Persist” implies that they been warned privately before the public rebuke, as Matthew 18 would insist.
Jay, I appreciate your comments regarding the “gifting” of administration. Some have discounted the laying on of hands by Timothy (I Tim 5) on Elders because, it was “only” in the appointment of Elders not some miraculous gift that Timothy was conveying by this tradition… It seems that the leadership of the church is somehow reduced in it’s importance over speaking in tongues or interpretation of tongues by those that misunderstand the need for Spirit-lead and Spirit-gifted leaders… Would that God would empower more of our leadership with supernatural ability.
I also found the definition of “domineer” to restrict requiring “unwilling obedience” to contrast sharply with the Hebrews passage admonishing the reader to Obey… I guess this contrast, along with the need to admonish, correct or discipline an unwise or otherwise incapable elders suggests to me that we need to be very cautious in our following… that there might be those of the circumcision (rules based theology) that we must be wary. It seems pretty clear to me that God doesn’t require us to blindly follow anybody…that we have a responsibility to ourselves, our family and our church to weigh the leadership to see if it is leading appropriately…yet within a mindset of cooperation and respect..
Elder (OT and NT), deacon, and shepherd are used most often as adjectives. This to me suggest that Peter is using elder as a description rather than a title. Paul talks about the equality of parts but the difference in roles which is why I think Peter talks about not Lording for the leaders and Hebrews talks about submitting for the flock.
There is no doubt that by the 2nd and 3rd century they wanted these to be titles and offices to more align the church with the Roman model. Peter’s comments always gave those latter leaders a problem in that how could an Apostle have a lesser position of elder. But I believe he had both roles an Apostle who was with Christ and an elder (with other elders) over a local body.
Jay,
I would suggest that you do a more comprehensive study of ‘authority’ before you say much more about it. My old Strong’s Exhaustive concordance lists 216 verses/passages in which 7 different words are translated ‘authority’ … and quite an enlightening study it is.
Louw-Nida offer the following in their master-work of a lexicon …
36.1 ἡγέομαιb; προί̈σταμαιa; κατευθύνω; φέρωd; ἄγωd: to so influence others as to cause them to follow a recommended course of action—‘to guide, to direct, to lead.’ἡγέομαιb : γινέσθω … ὁ ἡγούμενος ὡς ὁ διακονῶν ‘he who takes the lead must be like the one who serves’ or ‘he who is the master must be like one who serves’ Lk 22:26; μνημονεύετε τῶν ἡγουμένων ὑμῶν ‘remember your leaders’ or ‘… masters’ He 13:7.2
προί̈σταμαιa: προϊσταμένους ὑμῶν ἐν κυρίῳ καὶ νουθετοῦντας ὑμᾶς ‘those who guide you in the Lord and instruct you’ 1 Th 5:12. The phrase ‘in the Lord’ probably refers to matters concerning the Christian life.
κατευθύνω: ὁ δὲ κύριος κατευθύναι ὑμῶν τὰς καρδίας εἰς τὴν ἀγάπην τοῦ θεοῦ ‘may the Lord lead your hearts to the love for God’ 2 Th 3:5.φέρωd: φερόμενοι ἐν τῷ ἁγίῳ πνεύματι ‘being guided by the Holy Spirit’ Ac 15:29 (apparatus); ἀλλὰ ὑπὸ πνεύματος ἁγίου φερόμενοι ἐλάλησαν ‘but being led by the Holy Spirit, they spoke’ 2 Pe 1:21.
ἄγωd: ὅσοι γὰρ πνεύματι θεοῦ ἄγονται ‘for as many as are led by the Spirit of God’ Ro 8:14.
In some languages it is difficult to distinguish readily between expressions for ‘leading’ and those which refer to ‘ruling’ or ‘governing,’ but it is important to try to distinguish clearly between these two different sets of interpersonal relations. In some languages, the concept of ‘leading’ can be expressed by ‘showing how to’ or ‘demonstrating how one ought to.’ In other languages it is possible to speak of ‘leading’ as simply ‘going ahead of,’ but too often such an expression may designate only ‘a scout’ who goes ahead to see whether things are safe, or it may refer only to a person who insists on his prerogative as the most distinguished person in a group.
Louw, J. P., & Nida, E. A. (1996). Vol. 1: Greek-English lexicon of the New Testament: Based on semantic domains (electronic ed. of the 2nd edition.) (464–465). New York: United Bible Societies.
One of the most noticeable features of their work and of the BADG (Bauer-Arndt-Danker-Gingrich) Lexicon is that they make it very clear that there is a clear distinction between the leaders of armies (as in Ezek???) and the leaders in Hebrews 13… made all the more clear by the context and by the corollary teaching of Jesus concerning the way leaders among HIS people will lead.
Why do you think there is so often such a blind spot that insists that elders MUST HAVE authority when there is nary a word in the NT about such a thing???
Amazed and amused and saddened into seriousness,
Grizz
Bruce wrote,
That’s likely right as to “elder,” but doesn’t appear to be true as to “shepherd” or “overseer.” (I’ve checked.) As to the use of an adjective to mean “elder,” it’s fine point of Greek grammar, explained in Wallace in Greek Beyond the Basics —
There are others here more expert in Greek than I, but my take is that Greek, unlike English, often uses an adjective for a noun.
But grammars and all the translations suggest that the best translation is “elder” not “elderly person” or “person who is like an elder.” It’s just how the Greek preferred to say some things.
In English, we use nouns for adjectives — “home run” uses the noun “home” but it doesn’t mean “run that’s like a home.”
At present, the CoC does not recognize what I would call real authority at all. In its place, we find a club directorate, a minor autocracy whose jurisdiction does not extend past the church-house door. Those who are members of the club next door receive nothing of authority from their neighboring elders, while all theoretically claim the same source of their authority.
The capacity to rule one’s own clubhouse and activities is not “authority” of such a magnitude as to suggest its origin in the hand of God. To my mind, it is not even worthy of discussion as “authority” the right to make rulings on the views of a few dozen folk who can set aside the rule of those micro-potentates by the simple expedient of changing pews. So, the oft-claimed “divine authority” of the congregational elder, if it has no more reach than this, or no more power, or no more force of love or relationship than what is too-commonly seen among local elderships, does not seem to me to be divine at all.
Authority does not derive from position, except that position as near the Lord of All. Let him who would be chief, be servant of all. Yes, the undemocratic idea of a “chief” is a real one in the church. But if we would find those who truly hold such a place, we will look first for a pan of water and a towel.
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Easy there Jay. Pointing out that a preacher has biblical authority to rebuke an elder or even to select men to serve as elders (Titus 1:5) will you get you in a load of trouble with the brethren. Do you not know that we cannot allow our hireling preachers to have such authority and power in the Lord’s church? After all, he works for US and WE pay him! He has no authority to do such things in the church! (read with a thick layer of humorous sarcasm 🙂
It is a poor shepherd who pays a man to do his shepherding and then complains that the man is a hireling.
In practical terms, we have intitutionalized and legitimized and elevated the hireling. We hire him, and then if we don’t like the results, we fire him. When we stop paying him, he moves along to the next sheepshed. But can you imagine the consternation among the board if that fellow we hired to tend the sheep chose to STAY and continue to care for those sheep even after we cut off his paycheck? Jesus appears to see this as indicative of a true shepherd… we would probably call him a troublemaker.
The whole system of hiring preachers has no authority in scripture. And I am serious about it.
Alexander
I wouldn’t either approve hiring preachers or eschew it based on the fact that we find no business meeting minutes for such a hire in the NT canon. The idea that “we can’t do it if Ephesus didn’t do” it makes good debate fodder, but not much real sense. We are not led by precedent, but by the Spirit.
However, I would suggest that the hireling system as we have developed it runs contrary to what we do read of church life in the early days of the church, and contrary to some of the principles of which I read. I think we have cobbled together several ideas found in the scripture, and synthesized from them a whole new animal which resembles none of those ideas.
Paul insists that it is appropriate to supply the natural needs of a man who serves you in spiritual things. That is a simple quid pro quo. Nothing here about creating a corporate staff position.
James speaks for the apostles and elders in Acts 15. That does not make him the single local ecclesiastical leader.
Paul disciples men and sends them to various churches to encourage and edify them. This is a long way from taking resumes from seminary graduates.
The church in Jerusalem selected several men to oversee the feeding of widows. From here to a pastoral search committee reading resumes and listening to audition music is a long leap.
I’m not sure where we got the “hire ’em, fire ’em” dynamic for our leaders. I can’t find anything like that at all. The one-man pulpit band seems likewise absent from the text. Perhaps these parts come from the American Constitution.
I am reminded of the blind men and the elephant. Having bumped into the elephant and groped it thoroughly, we have assembled a rope, a snake, a wall, a fan, and a tree. We have tossed the lot in a large hamper, shaken it well, dumped the mixture onto the sidewalk and said, “See? An elephant!”
Alexander….two things… I guess there is some indication that some people were paid for their services. I Cor 9:9-14 seems to suggest that men have been “compensated” in some form for their services rendered all the way back to the temple days… I don’t read anything specific about a “preacher” but it does seem to suggest that it’s not necessarily forbidden. The second item is just a question. You seem pretty familiar with the ECF’s..did they ever comment on providing compensation for those that worked as servants of the church ?
Yes, Price, some people received material goods for spiritual services. But to hire one preacher to do all the teaching is totally alien to the NT. There was always a plurality of teachers and elders, and elders should routinly teach the church from the word and not just when they are on “hiatus”. But once “between preachers” elders seem to have to be compelled to do real elder work beyond business-administration …
The “compensation” for teachers in the ECF was about on the level of the alms for widows, the basic necessities. It was not a job for money-lovers … In the Didache we find the earliest reference:
Interesting: This is not talking about a permanent local minister, but about a travelling prophet. But this is a young church. Each church should grow their own local leaders, as is seen a two chapters later (XV):
Prophets and travelling teachers should not stay longer than a day (see chapter XI), but the bishops (this texts alludes to 1Ti 3) should be the teachers of the church. Not only when they are on “hiatus”, but as a norm. The support (I assume) is the same as in Chapter XIII. Oh, and please don’t envision a church of several hundreds (the first fruits of a mega church would mean a mega salary) but a small house-church. The church of the Didache is small enough to be quite dependent on travelling teachers and prophets. But still they are encouraged to grow their own leadership.
And – also interesting – when there is no prophet to support, they should give the prophet’s compensation to the poor.
Alexander
Alexander… Sounds like to me that the early “traveling prophets” were compensated pretty well for their era.. first fruits of the business enterprises of the congregation…pretty hefty… I wonder if they really thought that these men were prophets in the same sense as the term implies? Thanks for taking the time to look that up…
Aren’t elders that teach a special gifting from God… I Cor 12:28 and Eph 4:11 suggest that teaching is a special gift. Are you suggesting that no Elder should be elected that doesn’t have a special gift of teaching ?? What about those Elders whom God gifted in other ways for the building up of the church… I find it difficult to come to the same conclusion that in every circumstance that an Elder today should be gifted by God to teach… Teaching isn’t the only need of the church. Another gift is Administration…seems that it would be good to have an Elder with that gift for the work of the ministry (Eph 4:12)…
I know there are many exceptions but most of the Elders I know did have some teaching role…It may not have been from the pulpit, but they taught individuals, classes, they trained deacons to be Elders…they provided council in many ways to individuals…lot’s of teaching goes on outside of worship services… And, if a guy has a gifting in public speaking and delivery of the word, why wouldn’t it be a good idea to have that man be in that position… ?? Many a gifted man is able to encourage thought and “teach” via the internet and blogs…why would that not be considered teaching ?? Do we have to meet in small groups in small houses with dirt floors for it to be considered teaching ? Surely not.
This simple question can be answered by two simple verses from te same epistle:
So, obviously ALL elders should be able to teach, but not all have to see this as their main task.
The other question is: Is the fact that not all elders teach regularly enough to hire a professional preacher? To this I say: NO.
Alexander