Jesus
Now, what does Jesus say about elders? Quite a lot, actually.
First, Jesus himself is referred to a “shepherd” several times, most importantly in —
(John 10:11-16 ESV) 11 I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep. 12 He who is a hired hand and not a shepherd, who does not own the sheep, sees the wolf coming and leaves the sheep and flees, and the wolf snatches them and scatters them. 13 He flees because he is a hired hand and cares nothing for the sheep. 14 I am the good shepherd. I know my own and my own know me, 15 just as the Father knows me and I know the Father; and I lay down my life for the sheep. 16 And I have other sheep that are not of this fold. I must bring them also, and they will listen to my voice. So there will be one flock, one shepherd.
Jesus is alluding to Ezekiel 34. By calling himself the “good shepherd,” he is claiming to be God, because God is the good shepherd in Ezekiel 34. And Jesus is paraphrasing that chapter.
But in so doing, he defines his own role as shepherd. He cares for the sheep, he defends them from wolves, he lays down his life for his sheep, and the sheep listen to him.
(Mat 20:25-28 ESV) 25 But Jesus called them to him and said, “You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their great ones exercise authority over them. 26 It shall not be so among you. But whoever would be great among you must be your servant, 27 and whoever would be first among you must be your slave, 28 even as the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.”
Finally, Jesus describes the nature of leadership in the church. True leadership is to do the work of servant, even that of a slave. Like washing feet filthy from walking on the roads behind farm animals.
Leaders in the Kingdom cannot be like secular leaders. They cannot domineer, that is, impose their will on the unwilling.
I’m on the managing committee of my law firm. I’ve successfully avoided the job for decades. My first act was to advise the younger partners that management is a job, not an honor. I refuse to put “managing partner” on my business card. It’s like cleaning bathrooms — you spend your days cleaning up other people’s messes.
A proper manager works for the firm, not himself. He seeks the good of the whole, not himself. He has to make personal sacrifices to set an example for others, because no organization can operate effectively if everyone is selfish. Therefore, the managing partners must be the least selfish. That’s the nature of leadership — in the secular world — when done right.
The same is true in church, of course, except times 10.
Conclusions
Many use the term “servant-leader” to describe the concept of leadership within the church. But coining a term hardly explains the full nature of the ministry of elders. And so, let’s start with some boundaries.
1. There is a strand of thought in the Churches of Christ that “elder” and like terms do not constitute an office and that the only authority held by elders is the authority of a good example.
I think a serious study of the words and the history of the church as recorded in scripture utterly contradicts that notion. The apostles chose words indicating positional authority in that culture. Acts shows them having positional authority.
The early church used “elder” at a time when the Jews were ruled by the Sanhedrin, made up of “elders.”
They used “overseer” in a culture where an overseer was a supervisor.
They used “shepherd” in an agricultural culture — and so the listeners knew that a shepherd not only cares for the flock but he cares for the flock by first leading them where they should go. Sheep follow the shepherd, or they die. They don’t get to vote. Sheep herds are not democracies.
More broadly, churches are said to have had “leaders,” “governments,” and even “administrators,” and the members were instructed by the apostles to honor and follow them. After all, these are people equipped by God’s Holy Spirit to lead God’s people.
2. There is a strand of thought in the Churches of Christ that makes elders into overlords. Rather than selecting men based on their giftedness, we seem to want to select men based on their domineering personalities. We look for worldly leaders (in the worst sense), and so we have worldly leadership.
Or we pick untalented men who are not objectionable, resulting in good-hearted men making bad decisions just because they’re not equipped for the task.
Indeed, so many have been abused and traumatized by bad elders that we sometimes contort our doctrine in an effort to destroy their authority. The elders are often seen as the enemies of God’s church!
But all groups of people need leadership, and so God supplies leadership. It’s just that we often do a very poor job of discerning the equipping of the Spirit. Sometimes we pick the sheep, or even the wolves, instead of the shepherds.
This is, I’m convinced, because of the seriously deficient theology taught in the 20th Century Churches of Christ. If we see God as harsh, quick to judge, and unloving, we’ll pick leaders who are like the God we worship. They’re the ones best equipped to help us obey that kind of God!
But if we learn about God from such passages as Ezekiel 34 and from the life of Jesus, well, we’ll pick leaders who remind us of Jesus. After all, it’s the men most like Jesus who are best equipped to show us how to be the same.
Tragically, we’ve drifted into a pattern of selecting elders based on the men who are least objectionable. If someone is nominated and he meets the very low thresholds of 1 Timothy and Titus (you know, “not a brawler”), we ordain him. We insist that any objection be a “scriptural objection,” meaning that the objection has to be in the qualifications list, even if the man is utterly lacking in the gifts required to be an elder, overseer, and shepherd.
You see, the terms themselves suggest certain qualifications above those found in the qualifications lists. But rarely is that sermon preached! And the churches are suffering because of it.
And in a fellowship where the Spirit is considered retired by many, it’s hard to preach that elders must be equipped by the Spirit! And we’re paying the price for that false doctrine in leaders who don’t have the necessary gifting.
Moreover, by insisting that we divide into tiny congregations (average size is 75 in the US), we so dilute the pool of gifted leaders that a given church may not have a man equipped by the Spirit to lead — because God’s chosen leader is attending across the street at the other church in town that split off for reasons that no one cares about any more. (Merge!)
3. Some complain that their elders are too imperfect, too lacking in the complete array of gifts. But that’s the nature of humans. We’re weak, and none of us has the full compliment of gifts needed to be the perfect elder.
Some can teach. Some can rebuke. Some can lift up the weak. Some can mend the broken. Some can administer and govern. Few can do all well.
The key, you see, is to have the full array of gifts at the table. There are no 15-talent men, but there are plenty of 15-talent elderships.
4. The ultimate model of church leadership is Jesus. Jesus is the Good Shepherd. And Jesus demonstrated his servant heart by in fact serving others — by healing, by teaching, by washing feet, and ultimately by giving his life for us.
But the servant heart of Jesus does not change the fact that we are to submit to him. He is not only a servant-leader, he’s a servant-king.
He’s not a normal kind of king. He’s a king who serves. But still he’s a king.
Our submission to Jesus, our willingness to obey, is a gift of God. It comes from the Spirit. And it’s not out of fear, but love.
Think carefully: why do we follow Jesus? Well, for the immature, it’s sometimes fear, which is entirely legitimate, you know. But for the mature, it’s love.
For the very mature, we never leave love, but love no longer drives us to do what we don’t want to do. Rather, love and the Spirit transform us: we become so much like Jesus that we find joy in the same things that give Jesus joy. We thus become deeply united with Jesus and so with God.
Why do we follow our elders? Well, the Bible tells us to do so. But that’s for the immature. For the mature, it’s because they’re on the same road that we’re on, headed in the same direction. And we follow because we recognize the work of God’s Spirit within them.
We follow because we know that imperfect leadership is better than no leadership. The mature believer knows that a refusal to submit will undercut the efforts of the leaders and make them ineffective.
The mature Christian follows because he loves his congregation, and knows they need leaders, and their leaders need the support of the most mature. After all, the most mature have followers of their own, and if they refuse to follow, the elders are rendered impotent.
We therefore follow whether or not we happen to agree with them. To refuse to follow a leader with whom we disagree is to claim the role of leadership for ourselves above God’s chosen leaders. But it does mean we can call them to account if they stray from the path toward God.
There are boundaries, but if we don’t give our leaders considerable leeway, they can’t lead at all.
5. But what if our churc has bad elders? Or great elders who are making a foolish decision? [to be continued]
I would agree with Jay about our own culture of individuality. Resistance to authority is classically American. Our whole history, even our Constitution, is best summarized by the grammar school phrase, “You’re not the boss of me!”
Congregations here are made up of people whose mother’s milk was “the consent of the governed”. This fundamental belief has leached over into parenting, the schools, and the workplace. How much more so binding is this form of rule in voluntary associations such as our autonomous congregations?
The call many of us continue to make for elders in the city would be a strong and effective medicine for self-rule among the believers. Today, even if God has found an elder worthy of being entrusted with spiritual authority, our American church structure emasculates him. Rebellious Junior need not listen to his dad; he can find a more tractable father in the house next door. Let us be clear: true authority in the church does not come from the governed, but from Him who is Lord of All.
On the other side of the argument, the other tradition which emasculates true spiritual authority in the church is the church’s belief that any coffee-klatch of “core members” can nominate and set in place its own leaders at its own behest. When the students in algebra class assign to themselves the right to appoint their own teacher, and listen to him as much or as little as they choose, this school is not a place where quality education is going to be expected. One cannot treat the illness of self-rule with more of the same. Rule by the rebellious is merely anarchy-in-waiting. Paul did not send a letter to the Cretan believers with instructions on how to appoint elders; he sent Titus to do it. A person with true spiritual authority, whose imprimatur is not mere local acquiescence, but of stronger stuff.
Something else Jesus taught about leadership:
God’s people “must obey” those who are appointed as leaders, even if those leaders are not all they ought to be. This was true even of the Pharisees and the teachers of the law. Jesus saw it as something important to say even as he embarked on the most extended rebuke of those leaders in scripture.
There is a point at which a person is justified in leaving a particular set of leaders. In other words, don’t follow your leader off a cliff. But if you’re not going to follow them, you should leave rather than staying in their flock and fighting. At least that’s how I read it.
Americans hate being under authority. But God created authority in the church. Yes, it’s a different kind of authority (Luke 22:25-27). There is a lot of teaching in scripture, including the “red letters”, on what kind of leaders we ought to be. But it is real authority, and all Christians are under a particular instance of that authority.
When the leaders practice the right kind of authority, and the followers submit willingly, it is a beautiful thing to see. That is God’s plan for the church. To whatever degree churches don’t follow the biblical roles of authority and submission, they fail to be what God intended for them to be. And all kinds of problems follow.
Lots of good words here by Jay and by Charles.
What is missing is any indication that elders are endowed with ‘authority’. Passage after passage is cited that tells us of the responsibilities of elders/shepherds/watchmen. Is that not enough to get us to re-examine our dearly-held fascination with authority?
When I tell a hired person to mow my lawn, have I given that person authority over someone else? Or have I given them a responsibility to take care of?
Does the assigned person now own my lawn? Of course not. And it is NOT within their assignment responsibilities to choose to dig up the yard and plant corn.
Elders do NOT choose the direction of a church. They monitor it to keep it close to God’s active work in the community. Elders do NOT choose how much to pay one another or ministers of the Word. They watch to see that those supported are supported sufficiently and consistently with the work they do. Elders have an assignment, a responsibility before God. That is what servants do. The authority remains with the Master – not the servants.
Why is this so hard?
Grizz
“I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep.”
I made reference to this passage, in my comment about the modern day watchers of the real sheep, no one caught the similarity, or just thought it not worthy of comment.
“The barking dogs, and the braying donkeys would protect their wards with their life, how many human elders/pastors would be as committed.?”
There are way to many men who want the title, but not the serious commitment, and very few who can fulfill the office with love of their wards, Paul even hinted he would sacrifice his future for the benefit of others. I don’t know any elders that would do that, do you?
The concept of an eldership and responsibilities of elders is much more involved than one word can capture in its meaning. With multiple meanings and connotations, using one word descriptors provides even less communication value. So,when people use words such as authority, rule, shepherd, etc and with different nuances of meaning, we find ourselves trying to sort out the different word meanings more than really getting at the concept. The word, shepherd, is becoming a conceptual buzzword from Lynn Anderson’s book, and the more that word is elevated as The Model,nthe more clearbit is that people carry different connotations of it’s meaning.
Jesus painted many different word pictures to describe “the kingdom of God is like ….”, depicting functions, attitudes, relationships between people and to the Master or King. We could discuss the meaning of authority for three weeks and not come much closer to agreeing
whether or not elders have any. So, perhaps we should also use analogies, examples, parables, real situations, or hypothetical — whatever useful to attempt to describe something that we can’t do adequately because the real definition is known be the Holy Spirit, since He made the appointment .(Acts 20).
Elders are representatives of the True Shepherd, although elders are also sheep themselves. Elders and ministers and staff need shepherding, too. The church is preparing itself to be the Bride of Christ. Does that occur spontaneously? Do the sheep get themselves ready? — all cleaned up and healed and safely in the fold not missing any legs because a wolf bit one off? The elder is a shepherd representative, a caretaker of a group of sheep (word in Acts 20 and 1 Peter 5 is small flock, or -don’t laugh – “flocklet”). The shepherd tends to the flocklet so that the church can be properly adorned to be the bride of Christ. Shepherds/elders have to be mature enough that they have the strength of the Spirit to tend to others while they are sustained by their own established lifeline to Jesus. A sense of urgency was in the NT church. We may think they in the first century were under the mistaken impression that Jesus was coming in a short time. But maybe it is the intensity of preparation that we are to emulate, irrespective of how long it is. If the flocklet understands the shepherds/elders are preparing them for Jesus, that makes for a different idea of submission than “Ugh, me in charge, you obey.”
So, one view of an eldership is saying to the flocklet in the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace, “come on, we need to get the bride of Christ ready for the coming of the Bridegroom. Let us help you so we can prepare by staying together and working together staying on track led by Jesus.”. If a congregation sees that in action, a lot more cooperation might be seen.
Alan says:
January 25, 2012 at 7:29 am
Something else Jesus taught about leadership:
Mat 23:1 Then Jesus said to the crowds and to his disciples:
Mat 23:2“The teachers of the law and the Pharisees sit in Moses’ seat.
Mat 23:3 So you must obey them and do everything they tell you. But do not do what they do, for they do not practice what they preach.
God’s people “must obey” those who are appointed as leaders, even if those leaders are not all they ought to be.
Alan, I don’t believe that is the lesson taught here. Lesson: follow the LAW , not the teacher . I believe that should be the same lesson with elders, follow the word, not the man. As long as this elder proves his word through scripture
and not opinion great, if not then they become the “blind, leading the blind”.
No way, I will ask my family to follow a man, who I believe is wrongly interpreting the bible, and God did not ask us to.
An Elder who can teach the accuracy of the scriptures well won’t need to force people to accept his opinion… Sheep follow because they are comforted and protected by the Shepherd…not because they are beaten with the staff… The teaching of Jesus is what we should follow after and the men that focus on equipping the saints to do just that are the ones that men and women will follow after…The ones that exalt their opinion over sound teaching will find they are lacking their flocklets…
It curious that we place so much weight on following after the Elders and yet the churches of Christ have so many divisions… Who are the men that started other congregations based on disagreement…Are they worth following after…What about the next split and the next one ?? At some point there seems to be some expectation of individual responsibility… While we might be sheep, we aren’t allowed to blame the Elders on the day of judgement for anything that we’ve chosen to do… I’m judged by my actions not those of others.. Sheep yes…blissfully ignorant…not so much.
I know one group of Elders that won’t implement anything unless they have unanimous agreement… They believe that the Spirit isn’t divided and neither should they be. Interesting decision.
A brother writes, “Alan, I don’t believe that is the lesson taught here. Lesson: follow the LAW , not the teacher . I believe that should be the same lesson with elders, follow the word, not the man. As long as this elder proves his word through scripture
and not opinion great, if not then they become the “blind, leading the blind”.
No way, I will ask my family to follow a man, who I believe is wrongly interpreting the bible, and God did not ask us to.”
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Should the elders be the teachers for the church? Or is it their responsibility to hire someone to do that work? The fewer decisions that are made and “imposed” on the congregation, the better work any group of elders is doing, in my opinion. I must admire what is happening at the Hills church in Ft. Worth, Texas. People there seem to be free and well led and taught. Every church should be so blessed.
Im not church of christ so maybe its just me, but how do you get from these passages then to elder as opposed to say the office of episcopos or prebytos.
Zach,
There are three words that appear together as either verb-form or noun-form in a number of passages: episkopos, translated as bishop, overseerer, or (as Jay has pointed out) as superintendent; presbuteros, translated as elder or transliterated as presbyter; and poimen, translated as pastor.
For example, we have Acts 20: 17, 28 where Paul called the elders of the church (v. 17) and spoke to them. In v. 28 he stated the Holy Spirit had made them bishops (overseers) and charged them to “feed” the church, where a verb form of “pastor” is used.
Similarly, in 1 Peter 5:1-2, we have the following:
Here, the elders (presbyters) are to shepherd (pastor) the flock, exercising oversight (verb form of episkopos or bishop).
These three terms all refer to the same men, but each emphasizes a different aspect of their character or work.