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As we look at church leadership structures and roles, it becomes more and more clear to me that so often tradition carries more weight than the clear teaching of Scripture. How right the 19th century Swiss Reformation Historian d’Aubigne was when he is reputed to have said something along the lines of, “As we advance through the centuries, light and life begin to decrease in the church. Why? Because the torch of the Scripture begins to grow dim and because the deceitful light of human authorities begins to replace it.”
In his book I Will Build My Church, Alfred Kuen writes: “The churches established by the apostles remained the valid models for churches of all times and places”. 1
Well, the biblical model clearly modelled, as well as taught, in Scripture, and which has largely been replaced by what d’Aubigne calls “the deceitful light of human authorities” is undeniably that of an independent, elder led, congregation of believers.
It is without question that from the earliest days of the New Testament Church, the role of the elder was central and critical for the wellbeing of the local church
John Zens writes, “…we need to seriously consider the doctrine of eldership; it jumps out at us from the pages of the New Testament, yet it has fallen into disrepute and is not being practiced as a whole in local churches.” 2
And Al Martin affirms that, “The normal biblical framework of oversight is a plurality of scripturally qualified overseers laboring together with genuine parity and realistic, harmonious, functional diversity.” 3
Having seen how the foundations for this model are laid for us in the role of national and community elders in the Old Testament, we now turn to the New Testament to examine its teaching on church leaders. There are eight primary passages that teach the role, qualities and duties of church eldership – Acts 14:23; 20:17-38; Philippians 1:1; 1 Timothy 3:1-7; 5:17-25; Titus 1:5-9; James 5:14-15; 1 Peter 5:1-5 – and we will need to study each of them in the appropriate place in these studies.
We are going to consider, in this and future studies, the Roles, the Responsibilities and the Requirements of church elders.
The Roles of Church Leaders
We begin with the different words used in Scripture to refer to the role of those in this spiritual leadership, and already we have seen, from the quotes just used, that different words are used in Scripture.
The most frequently used word is the Greek word presbyteros (πρεσβύτερος), which simply means “old” or “old man”. It is, as we have seen, the word that the translators of the Septuagint used to translate the Hebrew word zaqen or zaqan, meaning “beard”. The word is, at different times, used both as a designation of age and as a title, the context in every case determining the correct meaning.
Of the sixty-six occurrences of presbyteros in its different forms in the New Testament, the majority refer to the national leaders of the Jews, as, for example when Luke uses the term when speaking of the “assembly of the elders”, the council, the Sanhedrin, in Luke 22.66; or to people who are old, as in 1 Timothy 5:1. But sixteen times it refers to recognised church leaders – Acts 11:30; 14:23; 15:2, 4, 6, 22, 23; 16:4; 20:17; 21:18; 1 Timothy 4:14; 5:17; Titus 1:5; James 5:14; 1 Peter 5:1, 5.
In keeping with the Hebrew background to this word presbyteros, the idea of seniority and respect are clearly signified when the word is used in regard to New Testament churches, as well, of course, as wisdom and godliness. One Lexicon says that it signifies a “position of great dignity” 4, and the scholar, Don Carson, says it “carries an overtone of seniority, or at least maturity, that qualifies a person, ideally, for respect and for leadership responsibilities.” 5
There is of course, not only an assumed or supposed natural link between age and increased wisdom, but Scripture itself states that, “Wisdom is with the aged, and understanding in length of days.” (Job 12:12)
So elders are the spiritually wise and mature men of counsel who can be trusted to give sound and godly leadership.
If presbyteros has a strong Hebrew and Jewish background, our second word to note comes from the Graeco-Roman world. It is the word episkopos (ἐπίσκοπος),which occurs just six times in the New Testament, one of which is a reference to Christ (Acts 20:28; Philippians 1:1; 1 Timothy 3:1-2; Titus 1:7; 1 Peter 2:25). Most English versions translate episkopos as overseer, but unfortunately, the AV, in five of those six instances, chooses the word bishop. As Strauch rightly comments, “It reads ecclesiastical traditions into the biblical text that developed after the time of the New Testament, and thus only adds confusion to the subject.” 6.
In everyday Greek, the word was used to describe the role of an official who managed or oversaw other workers or business matters. It was also used by the Septuagint translators to translate, for example, Old Testament references to army officers (Numbers 31:14), and Aaron’s son, Eleazar, who had “oversight of the whole tabernacle” (Numbers 4:16).
The reference in Titus 1:7 helps us in our understanding of the role of the overseer, because Paul describes the overseer as “God’s steward”, (οἰκονόμος), a person who was the most senior member of staff in a wealthy household and was entrusted with the day to day management and oversight of the household. Think, for example, of Joseph’s role in Potiphar’s household. Paul uses the same word, steward, to describe his apostolic ministry (1 Corinthians 4:1-2)
My good friend, the author Iain Murray, told me just a few days ago that in the southern states of America, during the days of slavery, black men were prohibited from being church elders. So, to circumvent the iniquitous legislation, they used the very legitimate alternative term of watchmen.
So, overseers are those in church leadership who are tasked with the management, the supervision – literally the oversight – of the household of God, the local church.
The third word we need to consider occurs only four times in connection with church leaders, once as a noun, and three times as a verb, and it is the word poimen, (ποιμέν). The poimen was a shepherd, the Latin form of the word being pastor, which is the usual way the role is described in churches today. It is one of the gifts listed as given to the church by the ascended Christ in Ephesians 4:11, and because of the way the Greek is structured it is probably, though not certainly, right to think of the pastor – teacher role as one and not two different ministries.
Elsewhere, this task of shepherding the people of God is mentioned in John 21:16, where Jesus charges Peter to “Tend my sheep”; in Acts 20:28, where Paul reminds the Ephesian elders that God has commissioned them, as overseers “to care for the church of God”, and in 1 Peter 5:2 where, similarly, Peter “exhorts the elders….as a fellow elder…shepherd the flock of God that is among you.”
So the pastors are the shepherds of the people of God, caring for and tending them. Interestingly, when I looked at the Eldership page of a Portuguese church website recently, the automatic translation facility gave the result as Herdsmen. Very appropriate.
Those last two references – Acts 20:28 and 1 Peter 5:2 helpfully lead us on to the next consideration. Having examined these three key terms individually – elder (presbyteros), overseer (episkopos) and pastor / shepherd (poimen) – we now have to take note that Scripture is not referring to three different groups of leaders, but that the three words are used interchangeably of the same men. Let me put it like this – elders are overseers and pastors; pastors are overseers and elders; overseers are elders and pastors. If you are an elder in your local church, you are also an elder and an overseer.
Look at the Acts 20:28 reference. Paul is speaking to the “elders” (20:17) and says that God has made them “overseers” (20:28) to care for (20:28) – literally to shepherd, to pastor – the church of God.”
Similarly in 1 Peter 5:2, Peter charges “the elders” to “shepherd” – to pastor – “the flock of God”.
So without question, to be an elder is to be an overseer, is to be a pastor and so on. And that is more important than simply on a semantic level. It underlines the fact that pastoral ministry is much more than just leading (elder), or just giving oversight (overseer), or just caring for the flock (shepherd). It involves all three, and any individual in the role must be suitably gifted, at least to some degree, in all three aspects of pastoral ministry.
- Alfred Kuen I Will Build My Church Chicago: Moody Press, 1971 p253 ↩︎
- John Zens The Major Concepts of Eldership in the New Testament Baptist Reformation Review (Summer 1978) p28 ↩︎
- Al Martin Pastoral Theology (vol 3) Montville: Trinity Pulpit Press, 2020 p63 ↩︎
- Frederick W Danker A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament And Other Early Christian Literature. 3rd ed. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2000 p862 ↩︎
- D A Carson Some Reflections on Pastoral Leadership Themelios 40, 2015 p196 ↩︎
- Alexander Strauch Biblical Eldership Biblical Eldership Resources: Colorado, 2023 p124 ↩︎