MESSAGE FOR FEBRUARY 16, 2003 ON BIBLICAL LEADERSHIP III

 

            This morning we once again take up the topic of biblical leadership in Christ’s church.  The major treatments of this topic in the New Testament are in the Pastoral Epistles, specifically First Timothy and Titus.  In these letters, Paul is writing to his apostolic representatives whom he has sent to the churches in Ephesus and Crete.  One of Paul’s major concerns in both letters is the establishment of qualified, godly leadership in the churches.  He lays out the qualifications for elders and deacons in both epistles. We have addressed several questions about New Testament eldership as we have surveyed the New Testament for an understanding of this important area.  We have seen that the words translated “overseer,” “bishop,” “pastor” and “elder” are interchangeable in the New Testament.  Although some systems of church polity draw sharp distinctions between those terms and offices, the New Testament treats them as being basically the same entity.  We have discussed some misconceptions about New Testament eldership.  It is not having one senior or solo pastor who is THE paid minister responsible for the general ministry of the church--that is not found in the New Testament.  The eldership in the New Testament is always plural to allow for healthy accountability, balanced leadership and adequate leadership resources to be able to feed, care for, lead and protect the flock according to a BIBLICAL model of shepherding.  A biblical eldership is not an authoritarian group of dictators who ruthlessly control the affairs of the church, but is rather a servant leadership comprised of spiritually mature individuals who are willing to lay down their lives for the flock.  Finally, biblical eldership is not the sole property of any denomination.  As we will see more today, eldership runs deep in Baptist history as well as other denominations. 

          Last week, we discussed the authority of the eldership.  We quoted Paige Patterson; president of Southeastern Baptist Seminary who said the authority of the eldership is “substantive, but not unlimited.”  First Timothy five assumes the elders will be “set over” the affairs of the church.  That is, they will direct the church under the leadership of her Head, Jesus Christ.  We looked at the issue of authority and church leadership from Hebrews 13:17 that says, “Obey your leaders and submit to their authority.  They keep watch over you as men who must give and account.  Obey them so that their work will be a joy, not a burden, for that would be of no advantage to you.”   That clearly invests within the eldership substantial authority--a level of authority many in the church may not be familiar with.  We noted that Paul says in Romans 13, “there is no authority except that which God has established.”  Just as the authority of the state and the work place comes from God, so too is the authority in the church and Paul says, “...he who rebels against the authority is rebelling against what God has instituted, and those who do so will bring judgment upon themselves.” 

          We noted one reason why God invests the elders with authority is because he also invests them with great responsibility.  Hebrews says the elders “...keep watch over you as men who must give an account.”  Because the elders are in a unique way responsible for the health of the flock, God gives them the authority needed to provide leadership.  To give a pastor-eldership responsibility but little or no authority is to sentence them to complete ineffectiveness.  Though the elders have authority in the church, they are never free to usurp the preeminent authority of the Word of God and if the elders clearly violate a Scriptural teaching, their authority is illegitimate and must not be followed.  Where God speaks clearly in the Word, there MUST be submission to the authority of Scripture, period.  We also said there was another limit placed on the elder’s authority--the congregation.  In one sense the authority in the church is the congregation because they have the opportunity to select the eldership who will serve and in our church review them each year.  We see this kind of congregational authority in the 6th and 15th chapter of Acts. 

          This week, we want to pick up where we left off last week with answers to more valid questions about Biblical eldership?  The first question this morning is one answered more by church history than the biblical texts.  That is: “If it is so clearly found in the New Testament that churches should be led by a plural eldership, then why isn’t every church, (and we will focus on the Baptist Church tradition) practicing it?”  That’s a reasonable question.  If the eldership is so clearly biblical, then why don’t more churches that claim to be under the authority of scripture govern themselves this way?  Before we answer the question, we must first state the form of church government with only one elder who is identified as “the pastor” and a board of deacons that is seen in many Baptist churches is a more recent development and is more prevalent in Europe and America than in other parts of the world.  When you survey Baptist history in particular, you find that Biblical plural eldership WAS the prescribed form of church rule for approximately the first 300 years of our tradition.  At the risk of boring you with readings from historic documents, let me read to you portions of some historic Baptist confessions to illustrate this.  First, listen to a short quote from Article 20 of A Declaration of Faith of English People Remaining at Amsterdam 1611:  “That the Officers of every Church or congregation are either ELDERS, [plural] who by their office do especially feed the flock concerning their souls, Acts 20:28, 1 Peter 5:2,3 or DEACONS: Men, and women who by their office relieve the necessities of the poor and impotent brethren concerning their bodies, Acts 6:1-4.” There we see a clear pattern of elders who feed the flock and deacons who serve as ministers of mercy.

          In The Second London Confession of 1677 and 1688 we read, “...the Officers appointed by Christ to be chosen and set apart by the Church...for the peculiar Administration of Ordinances and Execution of power, or duty which he entrusts them with, or calls them to, to be continued to the end of the world, are BISHOPS or ELDERS [plural] and DEACONS.”  This is the pattern we see throughout the New Testament.  Finally, let me cite a document that represents the specific heritage of the denomination to which this church belongs.  The Swedish Baptist Confession of Faith (Stockholm) of 1861 which dates from much later than the first two documents says in article nine, “We believe that a true Christian church is a union of believing and baptized Christians, who have covenanted together to strive to keep all that Christ has commanded, to sustain public worship, under the guidance of the Holy Spirit to choose among themselves [not imported, paid professionals] SHEPHERDS or OVERSEERS [plural] and DEACONS...”  I hesitate to spend time reading sections of Baptist confessions, but I think it is important to know that although those of us here TODAY may not associate a plural eldership with Baptist churches, for much of the history of the Baptist movement, a plural eldership was not thought to be unusual and was even included in the confessions of Baptist denominations.

          The question remains, why isn’t every church practicing this form of church government?  The answer is far from simple, but one historic reconstruction as to why plural eldership became more and more the exception instead of the one pastor/multiple deacons goes like this:  Over time, as the health of churches deteriorated (as church history teaches they invariably do), the churches found there were fewer and fewer so called “laymen,” that is—non-vocational men who were willing or able to meet the high qualifications of the eldership.  That is, there weren’t as many men who were willing or biblically qualified to do the work of the pastorate.  Given this, churches by default, not by design began making the elder ministry a solitary one--“THE pastor.”  The ministry of the deacon was typically perceived to be less demanding and intimidating—it was seen to be more accessible to people without formal training.  The result was that a context developed where there were many people who were willing to be deacons but few desiring to be elders. 

You have to wonder if that is one reason Paul says in 1 Timothy 3:1, “Here is a trustworthy saying:  If anyone sets his heart on being an overseer, he desires a noble task.”  God knows that it is more demanding to be an undershepherd than a deacon (as valuable as that role is in the kingdom) so he encourages potential elders that it is a noble thing to want to be an elder.  God seems to be saying, “You don’t need to be scared by the eldership—it’s a good thing to want to be an elder.”  As the church gradually defaulted to a one professional pastor form of government, problems in the local church ministry began to surface.  Those problems resulted from the fact that (as we have said) one man cannot possibly perform all the tasks biblically given to a plural eldership—if he tries he will either burn out or do a lousy job.  So, what happened when you had ministries within the church these solitary elders couldn’t do or do well but still needed to be done?  Answer: the deacons gradually began doing elder-type ministries without being qualified elders.  That brought further erosion in the local church ministry because when the deacons started doing elder work, the work that had been biblically designated to the deacons was still necessary but was not being attended to because they were doing more and more of the elder-type work. 

So what as done to supposedly solve this dilemma?  The trustees were created and they began doing much of the work the New Testament stipulates for the deacons.  This group began to take charge of the responsibilities in the areas of church facilities, finances and other physical matters.  This is what happens when any organization, let alone the church of Christ, begins to deteriorate.  Responsibilities begin falling to people who are not qualified and to compensate for this more layers of bureaucracy are created to spread out the responsibility to more people.  This chain reaction began because there were not enough men qualified or willing to do the work of the eldership. In response to that shortage, the churches simply contrived a new, unbiblical system of church government that was necessitated by a lower level of commitment on the part of those who should have been elders but were unwilling.

          What SHOULD have been done in response to the shortage of willing elders was NOT to tinker with the biblical church government system.  Rather, when there weren’t enough people willing to shepherd God’s flock, instead of changing the structure to accommodate their compromise, there should have been a call to repentance so God would make the spiritual changes necessary to cause men to joyfully fill the office of elders.  Instead of making the spiritual changes that were necessary, history tells us the churches made political changes and in so doing effectively gutted the practice of New Testament eldership.  This is the way our sinful flesh does things.  The lazy, idolatrous flesh says, “Let’s not ask the hard questions like, “why are there fewer men willing to be elders and what do we need to do about it?”  No, the flesh wants to re-structure so as to create the perception that the root problem is not in our hearts but with the way we organize ourselves. 

Rather than go to the heart, the flesh always wants to build a better mousetrap.  Let’s restructure, reconfigure so instead of facing our sinful compromise head-on we can wallpaper over the symptoms of an underlying spiritual problem with administrative reforms.  Contrast that to the way the Holy Spirit works.  The Spirit seeks to expose sin and bring it under the word of God and the cross where we can die to our laziness and the idolatry which influences us to put a 1000 things ahead of our call to radically minister in Christ’s church.  The sad legacy of this fleshly solution to a spiritual problem is the church of Christ has people in leadership who are functioning in roles they are not qualified for and a singular eldership has evolved that is in no way able to meet the needs of the flock.  The enemy loves this arrangement because it results in 1.) overworked, burned-out shepherds, 2.) a spiritually unqualified church leadership that is insensitive to the word of God and the leading of the Spirit, 3.) men who are truly called and anointed to shepherd Christ’s church are kept standing on the sidelines while “the professionals” do that ministry and 4.) churches are significantly under shepherded which leaves them more vulnerable to the attack of the enemy.

          This fleshly dynamic is not an uncommon one in the church and it is not limited to this area of church government.  We see it all the time in the church.  God’s standards for the church are incredibly, supernaturally high in all respects.  When we are confronted by those standards in the Scriptures, whether it is in the area of personal ethics or how to run Christ’s church it is much easier to lower the biblical standard by distorting the biblical texts to conform to a lukewarm spiritual climate than it is to ask the hard questions and repent of unbiblical practices.  This lowering of standards can be done quite simply under the rationale of “making church ministry more manageable for today’s busy world.” That sounds much more palatable than, “We have a significant spiritual problem and we must repent of our lukwewarmness,” falling on our faces before a merciful God, crying out for him to change our carnal hearts. 

That’s the biblical response when we see a sharp variation between what the Scripture teaches and what we are living.  When that is not regularly done, subtle, gradual changes move into the church, which take it further and further away from the biblical standard.  Because this change has happened so gradually, it is possible for us to sit here in 2003 and view the prevalent status quo of church government--one pastor and a deacon board doing elder-type duties as being God’s standard when it is not.  As we have seen, the Scripture does not teach that model. The status quo in this area of the church has in many cases not been challenged in America for over a century because people have a natural tendency in the evangelical church to equate the status quo—what we are doing at the present with what is in the bible.     

          A.W. Tozer wrote of this tendency of uncritically accepting the status quo more than 30 years ago. He says,  “Most people, if they happen to be in any church anywhere, accept the status quo without knowing or caring to inquire how it came to be.  In other words, they do not ask, “Oh God is this of you, is this divine, is this out of the Bible?”  Because it was done and is being done, and because a lot of people are doing it, they assume it is all right.  Then songs are written about it, and it gets into magazines.  Pretty soon people are called to it, and the first thing we know we have got a situation that is not of God.  It is not according to Scripture, and God is not pleased with it at all.  Rather, he is angry.  Yet we do not know it because we do not like the word “change.”  The change took place slowly, before we arrived on the scene, and we think because it is everywhere, it is therefore right.  We accept the status quo, the existing state of affairs, and say, “This is it,” forgetting that history demonstrates that religions invariably degenerate.”

          Because there is this natural tendency toward degeneration in the church in a fallen world, the church is called to regularly re-evaluate itself and ask the hard questions.  “Is this biblical--Is this of God?”  We must stop making the status quo equivalent to the word of God.  It may not be.  When we find a deviation from this book, we need to be brought back under the authority of the word of God even if it means changing something that we have held precious.  Change, when it is a change to recover a biblical practice, is not only good--it is absolutely essential.  When we come to the issue of church government and you see a system that is not a plural eldership, somewhere along the way there has either been compromise or misunderstanding.  This might have occurred long before we were even alive but we must to bring the New Testament model of leadership back into the church.

          A second question concerning New Testament eldership is: How many elders should there be within a local church?  We’ve already affirmed that the eldership in the New Testament is always plural.  But how many should there be?  In light of what we’ve just said, it behooves us to ask, “what does the Bible say?”  There is no text that gives any specific number and there is certainly no text in the New Testament stipulating that there must be one elder for every such and such number of people.  What the text does do is give two stipulations that imply “the number” of elders any church should have.  The first stipulation comes from verse one we read earlier.  “If anyone sets his heart on being an overseer, he desires a noble task.”  The first stipulation is that the number is in part determined by the number of men who have a desire to be an elder.  This seems obvious but we shouldn’t miss this in the text.  And, as you have probably already noticed, if the qualifications for eldership in a local church are consistent with the scripture, you will NOT have an over abundance of men who are jumping over pews to volunteer because it is a significant commitment and it places the person in a place of high responsibility before God and not everyone is called to that place. 

          The other stipulation is implied in First Timothy chapter three and Titus chapter one where Paul lays down the qualifications required to be an elder.  That is; the number of elders in a church is determined by the number of men who are qualified to do the job.  If you have a church where there are only four or five men qualified for the position, the maximum number of elders that church will have is four or five.  You NEVER put a person in leadership who is not biblically qualified to take that position.  If that were not true, Paul would not go to the trouble in the two places he teaches on eldership (in First Timothy chapter three and Titus chapter one) to take pains to delineate the qualifications necessary for elders.  The greater the responsibility attached to a position, the greater the danger is in putting someone in that position who is unqualified for it.  And there is no position in the church with more responsibility before God than the office of elder.

          This is why some churches that do have elders end up shooting themselves in the foot by constitutionally requiring a set number of elders.  When you require a set number of elders, you are assuming you have at least that number of qualified men in the church to fill that office as it is biblically defined and many churches have no business making that assumption.  The response to this may be, “how can a church function with only four elders?” The answer is, go with what God has given you and pray that God would move in our church to raise up more elders and make whatever spiritual changes are needed to raise up more elders. 

That places the burden on GOD where it belongs and not the church to come up with a system that is not biblical in order to keep the ministry machine running.  If hearts are lukewarm things aren’t supposed to run smoothly—there is SUPPOSED to be a searching of hearts to discover the problem—not the creation of an administrative fix to obscure the problem.  So often, we want to “help God out” and change his system to compensate for our sin.  What he wants us to do is trust him and his word and when it isn’t working, ask Him to show us what is wrong and repent of our sin where necessary.  There are other questions about eldership we will raise as we begin to look at the qualifications for eldership next week.  May God give us the grace to bring our lives and our church into conformity to God’s word for God’s glory.

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