BIBLICAL ELDERS

We get some weird and wonderful interpretations of scripture to justify female elders and pastors running the show.

People raise Deborah as an example of a church Elder even though she lived thousands of years before the church came into being.

They claim Junias was a church Elder because that is what being a helper to Apostles mean. And there is some doubt that Junias is a woman.

They stretch credibility when they say Mary was the first to the tomb so that qualifies her to be an Elder.

And they claim that when it says in Timothy that an Elder must be the husband of one wife, the point about this is that they only have one wife, not that they are a husband.

And then there is Priscilla and Aquilla, who is an Elder of the church because her name comes before that of her husband. They forget that in Acts 18:2, Aqullia comes first.

Then the hoary old chestnut of culture is thrown up as implying parts of scripture do not apply because of the culture of the day.

And most people that use any of these examples usually ignore Paul's instructions to Timothy and Titus that talks about appointing Elders.

That is if they have not already dismissed what he said because he is a misogynist.

So, where does that leave us?

First, much of the confusion is caused by the use of the word "pastor" to indicate a person in charge. if you are a pastor then you are in charge and women can be pastors.

Having studied the whole of the New Testament (NT) not once does it say that "a pastor" is in charge of the church. There are 23 verses that speak of leadership and every one of them uses the male pronoun in the Greek and not one of them mentions a pastor.

Leadership was and is always the Apostles, the Prophets, and the Elders. I have said this over and over again but, not one person has revealed this not to be the case.

That means two people do not constitute leadership in the NT church. One is the pastor and two is females. I will explain why in my next post.

Dave-W said:

Did you include the list of leadership ministry gifts to the church in Eph 4 in your "23 verses?"

11 And He gave some as apostles, and some as prophets, and some as evangelists, and some as pastors and teachers, 12 for the equipping of the saints for the work of service, to the building up of the body of Christ; 13 until we all attain to the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a mature man, to the measure of the stature which belongs to the fullness of Christ.​

To be included with apostles and prophets means it is a leadership role.

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No, I don't include Ephesians 4:11. The 23 verses are specifically in relation to leadership, not ministry gifts. That is the difference.

com7fy8 said:

1 Timothy 3:1-10 says the man needs to be "the husband of one wife", plus he needs to rule "his own house well, having his children in submission with all reverence (for if a man does not know how to rule his own house, how will he take care of the church of God?" (in 1 Timothy 3:5)

From this, I see he needs to have a family so he can be tested to see if he knows how to rule "his own house". Because from this we can know if he can "take care of the church of God".

Jesus says the one "who is faithful in what is least is faithful also in much," (in Luke 16:10) So, we need to see if he is faithful in ruling his own family so we can be sure if he can rule a church family. Our Heavenly Father desires that rulers rule in His family caring and sharing way, including >

"nor as being lords over those entrusted to you, but being examples to the flock." (1 Peter 5:3)

So . . . by the way . . . our attention, then, in evaluating a possible pastor, is not only or mainly to what gender the person's body is, but if the person is "blameless" and how well the person has been tested in one's ability to bring up a family and succeed in one's marriage. We need pastoral people who have learned how to love, in their own homes, with their own wives, and together they have found out how to bring up their children.

This they have learned with each other; so he needs his wife who has helped him to grow to become "blameless" (1 Timothy 3:2) the way God's love has us becoming blameless in our character (1 John 4:17, Ephesians 1:4, Philippians 2:14-16), so he is our public example (1 Peter 5:3) of this.

Plus, she has helped him learn how to rule their own home in God's family caring and sharing way so now he can rule the church in God's family caring and sharing way.

So, to me this is part of why she is essential to his qualifications. Pastoring, then, is done by a couple, not only the man. Because she has been so essential to him being brought up to know how to love and rule by example.

So, you can see why I think his physical gender is not what needs to get the main attention. Or else, our attention could be well away from what really is important.

They become able to minister to other marriages, after they have been through things, and after God has proven Himself to them, in how He has corrected them (Hebrews 12:4-11) and has matured them in how to love and relate in marriage and bringing up children.

Jesus went through things so now He can feel for us and minister to us (Hebrews 4:15). Like this, a pastoral couple is also in the priesthood of Jesus, by how they have gone through things so now they can understand and help other couples. So, Paul is giving what qualifies a man and his wife to be in the priesthood of Jesus . . . as a married couple

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I am not talking about pastoring. I am talking about Eldership. If you don't know the difference between the two, I suggest that you do some study and find out what it is I am talking about.

My understanding required the reading of over 60 books on the subject of the New Testament Church to prevent me from looking at it through the eyes of tradition, which most of the offerings are.

com7fy8 said:

I understand that in your understanding of things, you mean two different ministries.

But I am talking about what Paul means by appointing elders. The elders he means are responsible for taking care of the church of God > 1 Timothy 3:5. If you take care of God's people, this means you are pastoring them, being their shepherd, doesn't it???

And I offer how this fits with what our Apostle Peter has said to "elders", yes, in chapter five. Peter says >

"The elders who are among you I exhort, I who am a fellow elder and a witness of the sufferings of Christ, and also a partaker of the glory that will be revealed: Shepherd the flock of God which is among you, serving as overseers, not by compulsion but willingly, not for dishonest gain but eagerly; nor as being lords over those entrusted to you, but being examples to the flock;" (1 Peter 5:1-3)

So, Peter tells these "elders",

"Shepherd the flock of God which is among you", in 1 Peter 5:2. To me, to shepherd God's people means to pastor them . . . but how God means this, not how certain traditional and divisive and contentious people might mean this.

And Peter says they are to be "overseers", and in some of our translations "overseer" is translated to mean "bishop".

So, I see how an elder is a pastor who also is a bishop > meaning an overseer of God's people by pastoring us. So, all the terms mean the same person, in the Bible.

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Again, the confusion between ministries and leadership has come about because in general, the church only recognises pastors, not Elders.

A pastor is not an Elder but an Elder can be a pastor. An Elder has four roles. One, to watch over. Two, to teach. Three, to shepherd. And four to discipline. And it is important to realise that in the New Testament Church Elders were not paid positions.

One who has a pastoral (shepherding) gifting does not do all these things, evidenced by the fact that Paul said in 1 Timothy 5:17 Let the elders that rule well be counted worthy of double honour, especially they who labour in the word and doctrine.

This suggests that some do not labour in the word and doctrine. Therefore we have to assume the four roles of Elders is a collective thing, not an individual thing.

That is another reason why you will not find one single pastor appointed as leader in the New Testament Church.

And the fact that Elders and shepherds are not referred to in the same way or the same breath is a clear indication that they are not one and the same.

In Ephesians 4:11 there is no mention of Elders being anointed for ministry from Christ. In Timothy and Titus, they were appointed by another human so their roles and responsibilities are different. At the same time, Timothy and Titus did not appoint Shepherds.

And you don't have to be a leader to be a shepherd. Anyone can be a shepherd if they have the anointing. No one can be an Elder unless they are approved by the congregation.

My wife was not an Elder of the church we attended in the UK but she was a shepherd as she spent a lot of her day taking care of the needs of the people in the fellowship.

com7fy8 said:

1 Timothy 3:1-10 says the man needs to be "the husband of one wife", plus he needs to rule "his own house well, having his children in submission with all reverence (for if a man does not know how to rule his own house, how will he take care of the church of God?" (in 1 Timothy 3:5)

From this, I see he needs to have a family so he can be tested to see if he knows how to rule "his own house". Because from this we can know if he can "take care of the church of God".

Jesus says the one "who is faithful in what is least is faithful also in much," (in Luke 16:10) So, we need to see if he is faithful in ruling his own family so we can be sure if he can rule a church family. Our Heavenly Father desires that rulers rule in His family caring and sharing way, including >

"nor as being lords over those entrusted to you, but being examples to the flock." (1 Peter 5:3)

So . . . by the way . . . our attention, then, in evaluating a possible pastor, is not only or mainly to what gender the person's body is, but if the person is "blameless" and how well the person has been tested in one's ability to bring up a family and succeed in one's marriage. We need pastoral people who have learned how to love, in their own homes, with their own wives, and together they have found out how to bring up their children.

This they have learned with each other; so he needs his wife who has helped him to grow to become "blameless" (1 Timothy 3:2) the way God's love has us becoming blameless in our character (1 John 4:17, Ephesians 1:4, Philippians 2:14-16), so he is our public example (1 Peter 5:3) of this.

Plus, she has helped him learn how to rule their own home in God's family caring and sharing way so now he can rule the church in God's family caring and sharing way.

So, to me this is part of why she is essential to his qualifications. Pastoring, then, is done by a couple, not only the man. Because she has been so essential to him being brought up to know how to love and rule by example.

So, you can see why I think his physical gender is not what needs to get the main attention. Or else, our attention could be well away from what really is important.

They become able to minister to other marriages, after they have been through things, and after God has proven Himself to them, in how He has corrected them (Hebrews 12:4-11) and has matured them in how to love and relate in marriage and bringing up children.

Jesus went through things so now He can feel for us and minister to us (Hebrews 4:15). Like this, a pastoral couple is also in the priesthood of Jesus, by how they have gone through things so now they can understand and help other couples. So, Paul is giving what qualifies a man and his wife to be in the priesthood of Jesus . . . as a married couple

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As I have said and will keep saying this is not about shepherding. This is a post about Biblical Elders. There is a difference which I am trying to point out but so far, some are falling back on tradition rather than seeing what the scriptures say.

RDKirk said:

You should have included this distinction in your OP.

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Why?

hedrick said:

As far as I know, Junias is identified as an apostle, not an elder, and not a helper to an apostle. As others have commented, church officers during Paul's time aren't as clearly identified as later Christians might like.

I've looked at the Greek and the commentaries. As far as I can tell, there's no question that Junias was a woman and that Paul refers to her as an Apostle.

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And there are just as many commentaries that question Junias being a woman and her being an apostle. When there is no such definitive agreement, it is unwise to use such verses as a basis for formulating a doctrine, especially when there are plenty more that are quite definitive.

One can raise them in the course of study and teaching but always with a proviso so that others do not fall into the same trap of saying this is what this means when it is open to interpretation.

In my opening comment, I finished by saying "That means two people do not constitute leadership in the NT church. One is the pastor and two is females. I will explain why in my next post."

As I said, there are 23 verses in the New Testament outside of the discourse in Timothy and Titus, that speaks of leadership.

Three people are referred to. One is the apostles, two is the prophets and three, are the Elders. Here are a few of these verses....

Acts 14:23 And when they had ordained them elders in every church, and had prayed with fasting, they commended them to the Lord, on whom they believed. Note: Not pastors.

Acts 15:6 And the apostles and elders came together for to consider of this matter. Note: Not pastors.

Acts 20:17 And from Miletus he sent to Ephesus, and called the elders of the church. Note: Not pastors.

1 Timothy 5:17 Let the elders that rule well be counted worthy of double honour, especially they who labour in the word and doctrine. Note: Not pastors.

Hebrews 11:2 For by it the elders obtained a good report. Note: Not pastors.

James 5:14 Is any sick among you? let him call for the elders of the church; and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord:

All of the verses have the same Greek word for Elders and that is presbuteros which means older or senior men. That fits in with the Jewish custom that a man could not be an Elder until he was 40 years old.

At the same time, it talks about ruling his household well. Jews married young so by the time they reached the age of 40 years they could have a child who is 20 years old.

In Jewish culture, it was always the man who ruled the household so this requirement would not have been addressed to a woman.

I remember when I was presented with a husband and wife leadership situation. it was in a Pentecostal church and at the time I was working as a researcher for a Christian ministry that addressed cultural issues.

At the time feminism was in full flight with its attack on males and patriarchy, especially that of white males.

On the one hand I was seeing a feminist fight back and on the other hand, I was seeing the church embracing feminist demands by appointing women to leadership which to that point had not been the case.

We have gone the full circle as a few weeks ago I heard a feminist church leader speak about women in leadership and to justify it she butchered the scriptures to blazes. Apart from reading into it what was not there, she brought up the old hoary chestnuts of Deborah, Junias, and Pricilla, none of which have any relevance to the subject of Eldership.

To cap it off, she said the fact that God gave dominion over everything to Adam and Eve, then women can be leaders in the church and have dominion over men.

When you are so desperate to control people, you will say anything to force your authority on them, especially if you are motivated by a Jezebel spirit as this woman is.

When I suggested that she had ignored the teaching of Timothy and Titus, she said that you have to apply the totality of scripture to a subject. (but not those bits that blow your theories out of the window).

I agree that you do have to apply the totality of scripture to a subject rather than proof read a text, but that does not mean you ignore large passages of scripture at best or put your own spin on it to make it fit your theology at worst.

More about that later when I will deal with Timothy and Titus.

RDKirk said:

Sooooo....what does "leadership role" mean?

More importantly, what did it mean in 1 AD, and how does that extrapolate to today?

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One has to look at the sociology of Jewish life to discover answers to these question. I have many books that address these things and they pretty much say the same thing, probably because Jewish life was fairly stable.

The New Testament Church originally was made up of Jews, who had grown up under the dictates and customs of the Jewish way of life.

A Jew could not be an Elder under the age of 40. This is revealed in the verses about Elders in the New Testament as they all indicate an older, senior man.

In Matthew 26:3 it says...Then assembled together the chief priests, and the scribes, and the elders of the people, unto the palace of the high priest, who was called Caiaphas,

The Jewish nation had what you might call a board of Elders who ruled them. it was made up of chief priests, scribes, and Elders. Their word was sacrosanct and obeyed.

This form of plural leadership carried over into "The Way" as it was known then, with Apostles, Prophets, and Elders. No pastor was ever spoken off as a leader of a Church. And when I say church, I don't mean the Baptist Church down the road. I mean every believer in a given town.

I do not read anywhere in the New Testament where this form of government has been superseded with government by a single pastor.

That means we have replaced God's order with man's order of things.