In this second episode of a three-part series, pastors Derek and Cliff consider the many benefits that a church and its leadership will experience when they maintain a plurality of elders.
Transcript
Derek: Welcome to the With All Wisdom podcast. My name is Derek Brown and I’m here today with Cliff McManis. We are both pastors and elders at Creekside Bible Church and professors of theology at the Cornerstone Bible College and Seminary. And today we are going to talk about church leadership specifically. We’re going to talk about elders and the need for churches to have a plurality of elders. But before we get to our topic, I would invite you to check out WithAllWisdom.org where you’ll find a large and growing collection of resources, audio resources including this podcast, videos and articles all rooted in God’s Word and aimed at helping you grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. Now on to our topic. If you’ve been in more than one church during your Christian life, you’ve likely seen different forms of church government from one church to the next. In this episode, we want to make a biblical case for a particular form of church government, focusing on one important aspect of that church government. Specifically, we’re going to argue for a form of church government that consists of two offices, elders and deacons. And in this form of church government, the elders are the pastors, spiritual leaders and overseers of the congregation who are assisted by the deacons who serve in various administrative and practical capacities. But our focus in this episode and other episodes in this series is going to be on the elders, specifically on the issue of the number of elders that should be overseeing a given church. In other words, we’re going to make a case for a plurality of elders and demonstrate both biblically and practically why churches must structure their church leadership with a multiplicity of elders, not just one pastor elder or even a senior pastor with other pastors who do not share the same authority as a senior pastor. So Cliff, let’s begin with the biblical data. Can we really make a case that scripture requires a plurality of elders in the local church?
Cliff: That’s the key question, and some would say it’s a debatable question and that we actually can’t answer that with a definitive yes or no, as you and I both know. There are people out there like that. We would say yes. And I think part of the answer of us saying yes with great confidence is we believe in the sufficiency of scripture and all the implications of the sufficiency of scripture, but also the authority of scripture. So those are two doctrines that are going to come into play of those who don’t agree either with our view of a plurality of elders or our view that we can say with confidence we believe the Bible lays out that model. So yes, we need to have a plurality of elders in every local church because it’s commanded in scripture and it’s also explicitly modeled in scripture is what I would say. And it starts with Jesus. He’s the head of the church. He started the church. He founded the church. He died for the church. He purchased the church. He sustains the church, which also, I mean, that alone, when I said that Jesus started the church and began the church, what I mean is we believe it began in the New Testament on the day of Pentecost, and that already separates us from like our Presbyterian or Reformed brethren who would say no, the church existed in the Old Testament. So already we’ve got a huge difference in terms of church polity right there. And we’d say no, that was the theocracy of Israel. We believe the church and everything about it starts with Jesus in the New Testament because after all, he said in Matthew 16:18, and that’s kind of the plank or the foundation of everything in ecclesiology that we’re talking about is when Jesus prophesied to his apostles in the last year before he died, he predicted and said, I will build my church. So in the verb there, it’s future tense. The church didn’t already exist when he said that, as some Reformed theologians would say. They would interpret what Jesus meant was, I will continue to build my church. Note that the verb is future. Take it at face value. I will build my church. The church didn’t exist. He’s going to do it. And it’s his church. He used that personal pronoun, my. So everything about it is his. He owns it. He will plant it. And like I said, he purchased it with his own blood, as Paul tells us in Acts chapter 20. He’s the head over it. He’s the Lord over it. He owns the church. And then he laid the foundation with the apostles and gave them all the instructions of how to structure and run a church. And then through his grace, he preserved that all in scripture. So we have it as well. Jesus is the key. And I just believe that Matthew 16:18, we got to start there when Jesus said, I will build my church. And he told us how he was going to do it. And actually, he modeled that by starting the first church in Jerusalem, which we see in the book of Acts, in Acts chapter 2, when the church began. And Jesus started the church through his 12 apostles. So that right there, who were the leaders of the first church that ever was planted, the Jerusalem church? It was the 12 apostles together in tandem as a leadership team. And they had shared leadership. And that was Jesus’ plan. He’d been training those men for three plus years during his ministry for the purpose of having them be the leadership team of the first church. So that’s our model. It starts with Jesus.
Derek: Excellent. So then going out from that, going out from the Gospels and the example of Jesus, what do the epistles say specifically in where Paul is going to give Timothy and Titus instructions specifically about church government and who should lead and how the church should be led?
Cliff: Yeah. So Jesus, those first 12 apostles that became the first leadership team of the local church. So we really need to emphasize that. The church at Jerusalem was the first local church. And if you look at the leadership structure, it had a plurality of leaders. That’s undeniable, regardless of what your view of church leadership is today. And you would have to agree it was the 12 apostles. And I would say the 12 apostles functioned as elders because Peter in 1 Peter 5 identifies himself as an elder along with other elders who are in churches. So they were the first deliberate model. Some who don’t agree with us would say, oh no, that’s just descriptive of what was going on. It’s not prescriptive. It’s not a mandate. That’s just how it happened in the first century when the church was beginning or growing. So we’re not bound by it because it wasn’t a dictate or command given to later churches. I’d say no, Jesus modeling that for us for a purpose because this is how he wanted his churches after that to function. And because that’s true, he commissioned the apostle Paul as the apostle to the Gentiles aside from the 12 apostles and gave him divine revelation, commissioned him to be a church planter. He planted more churches than anybody in the first century. And he did it Jesus’ way. He was following Jesus’ orders because that’s what he said. When Jesus called him in Acts 9, he literally told Paul, you’re going to be my servant and you’re going to do what I tell you to do. And Paul admits he was an apostle of Jesus Christ, an ambassador of Christ. He represented Christ and everything that he did. And as far as divine mandates and dictates, he was doing in the name of Jesus Christ by direct revelation. And so wherever Paul went, he was planting churches in the same way Jesus planted the first church in Jerusalem, namely that is with the goal of raising up a plurality of elders in every local church. And so if we look at the epistles, just getting directly to your question, what did the epistles say about this aside from the gospels? If you look at Paul’s 13 epistles, both at the model of his ministry and then also the commands he gave, it is clear that he advocated a plurality of elders in every local church. So, for example, Titus chapter 1 verse 5, Paul gives an explicit command to Titus, who’s an overseer and shepherd there in Crete. And he was a co-worker with Paul for many years. And he left Titus the church in Crete and gave him the mandate, commanded him to appoint elders in every city. So it’s a plurality of elders. You need to have a plurality of elders in every city, and that’s a command from Paul the apostle. It’s not an option. It’s not a preference. It was a command really from the apostle Paul who was speaking with the authority of Jesus Christ through the Holy Spirit. So that was a mandate. So that’s not just descriptive. That was prescriptive. Here’s what you must do. Plant a plurality of elders in every city. And then in Acts 14:21 through 23, where Paul and Barnabas were out planting churches in all these cities, they discipled people, and then they trained and raised up leaders and went back to those churches. In Acts 14:21 to 23 recounts, Luke tells us that Paul’s habit was to go back into all these churches that he planted, raised up leadership, and appointed elders in every church, a plurality of elders in every church. In Titus 1, it was elders in every city. But here in Acts 14:23, it’s a plurality of elders in every church. And that exactly parallels what Jesus did at the first church in Jerusalem, a plurality of a team of leaders. So Paul is completely in sync with what Jesus did.
Derek: And to just point out the obvious, what you have in both cases is the word elders in the plural. So it’s not just elder, solitary, it’s a group of elders. It’s always plural.
Cliff: It is always plural. We appointed a senior pastor in each church, or we appointed one bishop in every church. It’s always a plurality of elders. And like you said, whenever the word elders, presbuteros in the Greek, whenever it’s being used in the New Testament in reference to a local church, it is always in the plural. So like in Acts chapter 20, Paul calls the elders of the church of Ephesus for an elders meeting. Philippians 1:1, he’s writing to the church at Philippi, to the overseers or the elders, well, the bishops and deacons, but that term is synonymous with elders in terms of the leadership. So, but that’s just a good little exercise to encourage people to go and look in your Bible concordance and look up the word elder, elders, and always in reference to the local church. It is in the plural.
Derek: Yeah. I mean, just a few more examples. First Timothy 4:14, Paul is telling Timothy, do not neglect the gift you have, which was given you by prophecy when the council of elders laid their hands on you, elders. First Timothy 5:17, let the elders who rule well be considered worthy of double honor, especially those who labor in preaching and teaching. And so we’ve already seen Titus, we’ve already seen in Acts. It’s just an excellent point, Cliff. It’s very easy. Even if you don’t have a Bible program on your computer, you can just get online and just search the word elders in the New Testament and you’ll see plenty of examples of that being used in the plural with regard to the local church.
Cliff: Yeah. And in addition to, you know, Paul came a little later, maybe five plus years after the church in Jerusalem was started. So even before Paul, Peter is modeling a plurality of leadership. He never called himself the senior pastor or the bishop. If you read the book of Acts, you will note that it either says Peter and the apostles or it just says the apostles in terms of ruling and shepherding the people. Literally one verse says that Peter speaks basically with or be on behalf of the apostles. So it was a joint decision. Again, it’s shared leadership. That’s the testimony of Acts. But explicitly in 1 Peter 5, when he writes his epistle, Peter says to the elders, plural. And then in the book of James and James 5, James probably being one of the earliest New Testament books written, probably to a Jewish Christian audience between 45 and 50 AD. And in chapter 5, he refers to the plurality of elders in your congregation as he’s talking to the people. Go see your elders. It’s not go see your senior pastor.
Derek: It’s just second nature, you might say, in the New Testament. It’s just assumed there’s a group of men, not just one. Just to read that, that’s a great verse that you mentioned in James 5:14. Is anyone among you sick? 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.
Cliff: I was doing some reading on this recently, Derek, for not only this podcast, but also I’m teaching ecclesiology right now at the seminary. So we’re dealing with this church polity with the students in class and so reading a lot of systematic theologies and different opinions and perspectives. And rarely do I see those who are opposed to what we’re talking about this. And there’s two main ways it’s opposed. We’re saying a plurality of elders in local church. I would say that we believe, some people call it elder rule. I prefer maybe elder led or elder shepherd. A plurality of elder shepherding is our model. It’s not synonymous with the Presbyterian model at all. I mean, there’s some similarities, but it’s very different. But there are those who believe one guy should be running the show, or he’s a senior pastor or whatever they call him. Or there are those who believe it’s the congregation that is ultimate and the authority, congregationalism. But there are churches that have a plurality of elders who still believe in congregationalism and congregations have the ultimate rule. And we don’t believe that. We believe in a plurality of elders who have delegated authority from God, a team of elders at each local church, and they’re responsible for shepherding God’s local church. And we have, we believe in the autonomy of the local church. But it’s a shared leadership. And that’s how we operate our church. And we think we’re operating according to the biblical model. But I think of Mark Dever, who I highly respect, and he’s got a lot of good stuff on ecclesiology, but he explicitly says in a couple of his books that even though they have a plurality of elders at his church, he says three times on one page, in the end, the ultimate authority in every local church is the congregation. And even on his flow chart, in terms of the hierarchy of power, the elders are under the congregation. And that is not what the Bible teaches. And he does not discuss this simple verse that I think is pretty clear, and that’s Hebrews 13:17, a familiar one with our church. It’s part of our membership process. Talking to the saints in the local church, it says, obey your leaders, plural, and submit to them. Obey your leaders, plural. What that means is obey your elders in your local church is what it’s talking about. This is the congregation. That’s their obligation. So on the flow chart of the hierarchy of power, the congregation is not above the elders, not according to Hebrews 13:17. The author goes on, obey. That means literally listen to them, because they’re speaking the word of God authoritatively is what it means. Obey or listen to your leaders and submit to them. Do what they tell you to do. And so far, it’s in keeping with scripture. For they, that is the elders, the shepherds, the pastors, the overseers in your church, the leaders, they keep watch over your soul. They pasture you, they shepherd you as those who will give an account. And so we have a higher authority as elders. We’re accountable to Jesus. He’s the head pastor, senior pastor. Let your pastors or leaders do this with joy and not with grief, for this would be unprofitable for you. So congregation saints, if you’re not submissive to your pastors or elders that does not please God. It’s unprofitable.
Derek: Yeah, that’s right. It’s not, doesn’t make their job happy and it’s not good for you.
Cliff: Yeah.
Derek: You said something interesting a couple of times, and I remember when you first said this, I don’t remember when you first said this, but when I first heard you say it to me, and it’s always struck me as such a helpful way to say it. And you said that Jesus is the senior pastor. Now you say it that way specifically because there are, is a model that has one man as the senior pastor. And can you just comment a little on that? Why do you call Jesus the senior pastor?
Cliff: Yeah I frequently say that because I think it’s explicitly taught in scripture. First Peter five. Peter, who was an apostle, but also a pastor and shepherd, an overseer, a leader in a local church. But as an apostle, he had authority over other churches rather than just one, which was true of apostles, not bishops who are not apostles. But apostles did have jurisdiction over more than one church, which is, that’s where Episcopal churches and the Roman Catholic church get confused. They say the pope has jurisdiction over many churches. Well, he’s not an apostle. One of the apostles have that authority. Elders, pastors were just, uh, had a local authority. But anyway, so Peter’s writing and he says, first Peter five, one, uh, therefore I exhort the elders, plural among you. There it is. As your fellow elder. So he acknowledges he’s an elder, too. He’s a shepherd. He’s a pastor and witness of the sufferings of Christ and a partaker also of the glory that is to be revealed. Shepherd, the flock of God, pastor, the people. That’s what that means among you. That’s in your local congregation, exercising oversight. That’s the word for bishop or overseer doing it not under compulsion, but voluntarily according to the will of God and keeping with scripture and not for sordid gain. You shouldn’t be trying to make money through the ministry, but with eagerness, nor yet as lording it over those allotted to your charge. You’re not supposed to be having a heavy hand of people in your church. You’re not their boss. You don’t rule their life. You’re not a micromanager. You’re a servant. But proving yourselves to be an example of godliness and humility to the flock. Verse four, here’s the key. And when the chief shepherd appears, you will receive the unfading crown of glory. Who’s the chief shepherd? My new American standard appropriately has capital C for chief and S for shepherd because it’s referring to Jesus Christ. Ephesians, Paul says, he’s the head of the church. That’s synonymous with senior pastor, but here Peter is explicit because the word for shepherd in the Greek is the same word for pastor, literally. And Peter’s word for chief literally means senior. You put that together, it says, when the definite article senior pastor appears. I don’t know where in the world in church history we got that confused and started calling men, human, fallen, frail, sinful, compromised human beings, the senior pastor of the church. That’s really usurping the position of Christ. He is the senior pastor. We’re accountable to him. He’s the judge. We’re servants. We’re under shepherds. We have no authority of our own. It’s only delegated authority and it’s limited delegated authority. And we’re accountable to him for that stewardship of authority. He’s the senior pastor, the only one. He died for the church. He purchased the church. It’s his church. He said, my church in Matthew 16. And that at some point in history, maybe three centuries in, I believe that title was usurped to a human being first in the role of the pope, the papa, who is literally called the universal shepherd of the church on earth, which would mean the chief shepherd. So the pope literally usurps the role in the glory that belongs to Jesus alone. The pope is called the head of the church. And Ephesians says, no, Jesus is the head and he’s the only head. So this is very dangerous, I think, because nowhere in scripture is any man called a senior pastor. And nowhere is it modeled that a man is the senior pastor. This is fabricated. And unfortunately, plenty of people and a lot of good men have adopted this title for themselves.
Derek: And framing it that way actually makes it kind of a big deal. It’s not, this is not really an issue where we can kind of agree to disagree. There’s some serious ramifications for not only how you frame it for your congregation, but how you think about it personally as the leader in that church. I have a friend who pastors a church and they very deliberately on their website, and I think I’ve showed you this website, on their website, they have the roles of all the pastors and the senior pastor is Jesus. Now they don’t have a picture for Jesus, but he is the senior pastor on their website. It’s pretty cool.
Cliff: That is awesome. I have a friend, we have a mutual friend who used to be an elder at our church. He’s in Hawaii now and he candidated at a church there and they were without a pastor for about a year. And they were saying they had been without a senior pastor for a year. And when he was the candidate and he let them, they let him preach in his sermon, he literally said, well, I just want to say one thing. You haven’t been without a senior pastor for a year. Jesus is your senior pastor. I don’t know if you knew that, but he hasn’t been missing. And I’m not going to be your senior pastor if you hire me. So very cognizant and conscious of that reality. And I agree with you, this is not a small deal. I’m going through the gospel of Luke preaching and my last sermon in Luke 17, Jesus is literally talking to his apostles who would be the first pastors and elders of the first church. And he literally told them, oh, by the way, when you start the church in about a year, here’s how I want you to think of yourself as the leaders of the church. This is Luke 17 verse 10. So you too, when you do all these great amazing things on my behalf as apostles in my name and through my power, but you’re only doing things that I commanded you to do, when you think about yourself, here’s what you need to think about yourself and say about yourself. We are unworthy slaves. We have done only that which we ought to have done. Unworthy slaves. That’s a far cry from the implications of what a senior pastor is. That’s what we should put on our website under our names as elders. We are unworthy slaves. As a matter of fact, that word for unworthy is translated in Matthew 25, same word as worthless.
Derek: Wow. And to your point about the apostles and Peter, and you’ve already said this in the verse you referenced in 1 Peter 5, but he calls himself a fellow elder. He just alongside of these other elders, I mean, he’s Peter. He’s Peter the apostle. If anyone, he could lay some claim to a more lofty title, and yet he says, I’m a fellow elder, same level as you guys.
Cliff: I didn’t even think of that. That’s a great point because that’s definitely different than him saying, I’m the first among equals here. But you’re right, if you look at the Greek word used there, fellow elder, it does mean equality. We’re on the same ground, same footing.
Derek: Wow.
Cliff: We’re below Jesus.
Derek: That’s remarkable. Well, Cliff, do you have any more biblical data that you would like to give here before we go into our next section, which is we’re going to move into a new episode. We have another topic we want to cover under this discussion of a plurality of elders. Any more biblical data that you want to offer?
Cliff: I do. I think it’s important to note that Jesus deliberately planned on laying the foundation of his church with a plurality or a shared leadership through the 12 apostles. By the way, at the first Church of Jerusalem, in Acts chapter 11, all of a sudden you’ve got the apostles and the elders are ruling together, making all the decisions. And then James, the half brother of the Lord, is also added to the mix. So you’ve got the 12 apostles, the elders, there’s a plurality of them, and James are all shepherding together in that local church. So that was a compound plurality of leaders in that church. But what I wanted to note here was Jesus’ model of a plurality of elders or shared leadership was not new with him. I think he just carried this over from God’s model in the Old Testament because elders literally is a carryover from the Old Testament. You could see it in the synagogue in Jesus’ day, but it didn’t start there. It actually started with Moses. So you can go to Exodus chapter 3 and all of a sudden elders enter the scene, who were kind of side by side with Moses when God chooses him. And I think here’s one of the places where God formalized a plurality of elders or shared leadership in the Old Testament in the ministry of Moses. It’s in Numbers 11. I’ll just read a couple of verses because it’s so key. Numbers 11, they’re wandering around in the desert. He’s got maybe a million plus, maybe some people say two million Israelites or Hebrews on his hands, by himself. And they’re complaining a lot, and it’s overwhelming. And Moses is getting weary. And so in Numbers 11 verse 10, it says, Now Moses heard the people weeping, this is after they were complaining, throughout their families, each man at the doorway of his tent. And the anger of the Lord was kindled greatly because the people were grumbling. And so Moses was discouraged or displeased. Verse 11, So Moses said to Yahweh the Lord, Why have you been so hard on me your servant? And why have I not found favor in your sight, Yahweh, that you have laid the burden of all these people on me? There it is. He had to shepherd all these people by himself. Verse 12, Was it I who conceived all these people? Did I give birth to all these people? He’s being sarcastic with God here. Was it I who brought them forth that you should say to me, just one guy, carry them in your bosom as a nurse carries a nursing infant to the land which you, God, swore to their fathers? Where am I to get meat to give to all these people? Again, almost two million people. For they weep before me, saying, Give us meat that we may eat. Verse 14, I alone am not able to carry all these people. I think this is what every local church pastor should admit, that he should say, You know what? I alone am not able to carry and shepherd these people, because it is too burdensome for me. For if you, God, are going to deal thus with me, please kill me at once. Moses was a little dramatic. If I have found favor in your sight, and do not let me see my wretchedness. And the Lord responds to his prayer, even though it’s somewhat sarcastic and dramatic. And Yahweh said to Moses, Gather for me seventy men from the elders of Israel, men that you know, so vet them. So there were qualifications. And then God promised, when you bring these seventy men together, that I’m going to send down my spirit, verse 17, who’s upon you to be my leader, then I’ll take the same spirit and put the spirit upon these seventy men, so that they shall bear the burden of the people with you. Boy, that’s the key to plurality of leadership, shared leadership. I could not imagine being the sole pastor here at this church, Derek, where we are all by myself. It would crush me.
Derek: Exactly. And to your point, straight out of this text, if you apply the principles here to what we see today in terms of so-called pastoral burnout, Moses himself said he was ready to die. And there’s a lot of pastors who are feeling the exact same way, precisely because they don’t have the plurality of elders supporting and helping.
Cliff: Yeah. And they shall bear the burden of the people with you, shared leadership, so that you will not bear it all alone. That’s awesome. So the first plurality of elders in the ministry team were actually ordained by God himself with the Holy Spirit. And this is 1400 BC when God established this. And if you read the Old Testament, from 1400 BC all the way up until the time of the close of the Old Testament with Nehemiah and Ezra, the elders are still there. The plurality of elders helped Joshua when Moses left. The plurality of elders were counselors to King David and Solomon. The plurality of elders all the way up to the days of Nehemiah helping him, providing counsel, and Ezra. So God established it, and God’s leaders leaned on the plurality of elders all throughout Old Testament history.
Derek: Yeah. And I said earlier that you could get online, go to your Bible search program and type in the word elders and look it up in the New Testament. You should also look it up in the Old Testament. That’d be helpful too, because the point is that it’s a plurality of leadership all throughout scripture. And I think that would be very helpful. Well, this has been a great introduction, Cliff. We’re going to come back in another episode, and we’re going to talk about how you can see God’s wisdom in requiring a plurality of elders. I think it’s just abundant evidence of God’s wisdom in structuring church leadership this way. We’re going to talk about that in the next episode. Please check out withallwisdom.org if you haven’t already. And until next time, keep seeking the Lord in his word.