For the Bible-believing Christian, the real issue is this: is pastoral leadership by a plurality of elders biblical? Is it apostolic? We believe it is!
“Where in the New Testament do we find references to the ordained (reverend-clergyman) pastor and his advising elders? We don’t!”
Both Paul and Peter mandate that the local church elders pastor the flock of God (Acts 20:28; 1 Peter 5:1-2; cf. Titus 1:5). We have no right to take away this mandate, yet that is precisely what most churches have done. They have applied the apostolic mandate to shepherd the local church to a single, professional pastor and subordinated the eldership to the pastor.
Where in the New Testament do we find references to the ordained (reverend-clergyman) pastor and his advising elders? We don’t! We find only pastor elders mentioned.
Yet most traditional, clergy-led churches will find biblical eldership (pastoral leadership by a plurality of qualified pastor elders) to be difficult if not impossible to implement. So, implementation will require two conditions:
- Each local church and its leaders must be firmly convinced that eldership is a scriptural teaching.
- The local church must be committed to make the difficult, personal changes necessary to make eldership work for God’s glory.
If you were to ask,, “Does marriage work?” many people would answer that it doesn’t appear to be working. But that doesn’t mean we discard the God-given institution of marriage and look for something better! To make marriage work we must first believe it to be a biblical teaching and then be committed to making it work. Similarly, to make biblical eldership work, we must believe it is scriptural and be committed to making it work effectively with God’s help.
Incorporating pastoral eldership into the local church is not the cure-all for every problem. Eldership creates its own problems, which must be continually addressed. But when properly implemented, biblical eldership:
- allows the church to be what God designed it to be,
- fosters the spiritual development of the leading men within the church family, and
- honors the teaching of God’s precious Word.