Ruling Elders

[BryanW92]

Is it correct to call them laity/laymen? If not, what are they?

 

[hedrick]

That terminology really comes from a Catholic tradition, where there's a stronger difference between clergy and laity. Informally, I guess laity makes sense, because what most people mean by clergy is someone who is the primary leader of a congregation, often full-time. But technically in Reformed polity it's not really accurate. After all, ruling and teaching elders hold the same NT office, with the same ordination, and the clergy / laity distinction isn't quite right.

 

[BryanW92]

That terminology really comes from a Catholic tradition, where there's a stronger difference between clergy and laity. Informally, I guess laity makes sense, because what most people mean by clergy is someone who is the primary leader of a congregation, often full-time. But technically in Reformed polity it's not really accurate. After all, ruling and teaching elders hold the same NT office, with the same ordination, and the clergy / laity distinction isn't quite right.

Thanks. That makes sense.

 

[Look Up]

Broadly in the church per the pastoral epistles and by implication in other NT passages, there are only some who qualify and are ordained as elders in the church (I here ignore deacons); elders are distinct from those who do not qualify and have not been ordained as elders. Ideally elders have as a priority to lead by example.

An ecclesiastical lay vs. clergy or amateur vs. professional distinction might overlap with this elder/non-elder distinction typically at least insofar as (1) giftedness (esp. in teaching), (2) recognition, (3) relative maturity and reputation and (4) relative focus of time and energy (hence experience) are concerned, but not overlap for example insofar as abuses to or neglect of hierarchical superiority/inferiority relations are concerned (ideal v. real)--not that clergy and professionals are necessarily so characterized, but where they may exhibit such traits as sometimes stereotypically.

In other words, I am thinking of comparative hierarchical models from the quite hierarchical RC church and from secular business in order to help help understand an elder/non-elder distinction in the NT. More to the point might be social and religious comparisons (or metaphors) in the apostolic period and milieu or in the NT itself, but I am not going to propose specifics here (e.g., wrt family or volunteer organizations or slavery or the military). And in principle (to which I think hedrick was leaning) Protestants generally do not regard the church as the source of religious authority the way RC's do whatever pet popish pastors there may be among Protestants in practice. Nor are business management styles necessarily advisable for the church in all respects (e.g., wrt rigid equality of reciprocation or reliance on implicit threat or purely economic concerns), again even if there is overlap.

In the NT, exhortations to honor and obey elders and leaders (e.g., 1 Thes. 5:12, Heb. 13:17) would seem sufficient to warrant agreement with hedrick above that "informally, I guess laity makes sense." Brothers and sisters or fellow laborers in the gospel or disciples might be alternative and equally valid terms.