Protection and Ssntification of Spiritual Leaders
We come now to two, extremely significant
reasons for and benefits of pastoral leadership by a council of qualified
elders. First, the shared leadership structure of eldership provides necessary
accountability protection from the particular sins that plague spiritual
leaders. In turn, this protects the spiritual character of the local church and
the testimony of the Lord's name. Second, the eldership structure provides peer
relationships to help balance elders' weaknesses and correct their character,
an essential component in the sanctification process of spiritual leaders.
Leadership
Accountability
English historian Lord Acton said, “Power tends
to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely”. Because of our biblical
beliefs in the dreadful realities of sin, the curse, Satan, and human
depravity, we should understand well why people in positions of power are
easily corrupted. In fact, the better we understand the exceeding sinfulness
and deceitfulness of sin, the stronger our commitment to accountability will
be. The collective leadership of a biblical eldership provides a formal
structure for genuine accountability.
Shared, brotherly leadership provides needed
restraint concerning such sins as pride, greed, and “playing god”. Earl D. Radmacher,
chancellor of a Baptist seminary in America, writes, “Human leaders, even Christian
ones, are sinners and they only accomplish God's will imperfectly. Multiple
leaders, therefore, will serve as a 'check and balance' on each other and serve
as a safeguard against the very human tendency to play God over other people”.
It was never our Lord's will for one individual
to control the local church. The concept of the pastor as the lonely, trained professional—the
sacred person presiding over the church who can never really become a part of
the congregation—is utterly unscriptural. Not only is this concept
unscriptural, it is psychologically and spiritually unhealthy. Radmacher goes
on to contrast the deficiencies of a church leadership that is placed primarily
in the hands of one pastor to the wholesomeness of leadership when it is shared
by multiple pastors:
“Laymen . . . are indifferent because they are
so busy. They have no time to bother with church matters. Church administration
is left, therefore, largely in the hands of the pastor. This is bad for him,
and it is bad also for the church. It makes it easier for the minister to build
up in himself a dictatorial disposition and to nourish in his heart the love of
autocratic power.
It is my conviction that God has provided a
hedge against these powerful temptations by the concept of multiple elders. The
check and balance that is provided by men of equal authority is most wholesome
and helps to bring about the desired attitude expressed by Peter to the plurality
of elders: “. . . shepherd the flock of God among you, not under compulsion,
but voluntarily, according to the will of God; and not for sordid gain, but
with eagerness; nor yet as lording it over those allotted to your charge, but
proving to be examples to the flock (1 Peter 5:2,3)”.
In addition to providing close accountability,
genuine partnership, and peer relationships—the very things most imperial
pastors shrink from at all costs—shared leadership provides the local church
shepherd with accountability for his work. Church leaders (like all of us) can
be lazy, forgetful, fearful, or too busy to fulfill their responsibilities.
Thus they need colleagues in ministry to whom they are answerable for their
work. Coaches know that athletes who train together push one another to greater
achievement. When someone else is running alongside him or her, a runner will
push a little harder and go a little faster. The same is true in the Lord's
work. That is one reason why the Lord sent out His disciples in twos.
Peer Relationships
One of the deep joys of my life has been to
share the pastoral leadership of a church with a team of dedicated pastor
elders. As partners in the work of shepherding God's precious, blood-bought
people, we have sharpened, balanced, comforted, protected, and strengthened one
another through nearly every conceivable life situation. I do not hesitate to
say that the relationship with my fellow elders has been the most important
tool God has used, outside of my marriage relationship, for the spiritual
development of my Christian character, leadership abilities, and teaching
ministry. The eldership has played a major role in the sanctification process
of my Christian life.
Shared leadership can provide a church leader
with critically needed recognition of his faults and deficiencies and can help
to offset them… We all have blind spots, eccentricities, and deficiencies. We
all have “a fatal flaw”. We can see these fatal flaws so clearly in others but
not in ourselves. These fatal flaws or blind spots distort our judgment. They deceive
us. They can even destroy us. This is particularly true of multitalented,
charismatic leaders. Blind to their flaws and extreme views, some talented
leaders have destroyed themselves because they had no peers who could confront
and balance them and, in fact, wanted none.
When a single leader is atop a pyramidal
structure of organization, the important balancing of one another's weaknesses
and strengths normally does not occur. Note the strong language Robert
Greenleaf, author of the book Servant
Leadership, uses to convey his observations:
“To be a lone chief atop a pyramid is abnormal and corrupting. None of us are
perfect by ourselves, and all of us need the help and correcting influence of
close colleagues. When someone is moved atop a pyramid, that person no longer
has colleagues, only subordinates. Even the frankest and bravest of
subordinates do not talk with their boss in the same way that they talk with colleagues
who are equals, and normal communication patterns become warped”.
I believe that traditional, single-church
pastors would improve their character and ministry if they had genuine peers to
whom they were regularly accountable and with whom they worked jointly.
An Apostolic Directive
Since Paul established the elder structure of
government among Gentile churches (Acts 14:23) and, most likely, the Twelve established
it among Jewish churches (Acts 15:6; James 5:14), the New Testament writers
assumed eldership to be a fixed, apostolic institution. In Titus 1:5, Paul
tells Titus and the churches that a church is not properly ordered until
qualified elders (plural) have been appointed. So he orders Titus to install
elders: "Appoint elders in every city as I directed you" (Titus
1:5b). By doing this, Paul is going against customary cultural practices
because both the Jewish synagogue and Greco-Roman society commonly practiced
one-man oversight. Thus Paul's choice of the elder structure of government is
intentional. He is not simply accommodating himself to current social norms.
His instruction to Titus establishes an apostolic directive that should be followed
by Christians today.
Many scholars contend, however, that only the
instructions about elders, not the elder structure, are universally binding on churches.
They say that Paul's instructions regarding the qualifications of an elder are
binding but that the structure is not. By making this distinction, they can
eliminate the eldership structure from the church and apply the biblical
instructions to their self-appointed institutions—the clerical structure or the
singular pastorate. But this is an erroneous distinction. How, for example,
would a critically important passage such as 1 Timothy 5:17, 18 apply to the
singular pastorate? This instruction makes sense only in the context of a
plurality of elders.
I conclude, therefore, that the instructions
given to elders and about elders, as well as the eldership structure itself,
are to be regarded as apostolic directives (Titus 1:5) that are normative for
churches today. Ladd is quite wrong when he claims that “there was no normative
pattern of church government in the apostolic age, and that the organizational
structure of the church is no essential element in the theology of the church”.
We would do well to heed Alfred Kuen's sober
warning against doubting the full sufficiency of Scripture in order to direct
the practices of our churches today. Kuen, a Bible teacher at the Emmaus Bible
Institute in Switzerland, writes:
“Has not the history of twenty centuries of
Christianity proved that the plan of the primitive church is the only one which
is suitable for all times and places, is most flexible in its adaptation to the
most diverse conditions, is the best able to resist and stand against
persecutions, and offers the maximum of possibilities for the full development
of the spiritual life?
“Each time that man has believed himself to be
more intelligent than God, that he has painstakingly developed a religious
system ‘etter adapted to the psychology of man’, more conformable to the spirit
of our times, instead of simply following the neotestamentary model, his
attempt has been short-lived because of failure due to some unforeseen
difficulty.
“All heresies and deviations in the church
spring from the abandonment of the Scripture and of the model for the church
which they present”.
In short, as Alfred Kuen concludes, “the
churches established by the apostles remain the valid models for churches of
all times and places”.
Conclusion
A filing cabinet drawer full of objections can
be raised against pastoral leadership by a plurality of elders. For the
Bible-believing Christian, however, the real issue is this: is pastoral
leadership by a plurality of elders biblical? Is it apostolic? It is my
contention that it is! Both the apostles, 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, then, to take away the elders' God-given mandate.
Yet that is precisely what most churches have done by applying the apostolic
mandate to shepherd the local church to a single, professional pastor and by
subordinating 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.
We must admit, however, that most traditional,
clergy-led churches will find pastoral leadership by a plurality of qualified
pastor elders to be difficult if not impossible to implement. So, to try to
implement biblical eldership will require two conditions. First, each local
church and its leaders must be firmly convinced that eldership is a scriptural
teaching. Second, the local church must be committed to make the difficult,
personal changes necessary in order to make eldership work for God's glory.
These two conditions, of course, are essential
when implementing any unfamiliar or difficult biblical practice or doctrine. If
you were to ask, for example, "does marriage work?" many people would
answer that it doesn't appear to be working. So should we discard the institution
of marriage and look for something better? No! The marriage institution is
God's will for the human race, as revealed in the Bible. So, in order to make
marriage work we must first believe it to be a biblical teaching and then be committed
to making it work. Only then will marriage work. The same conditions hold true
for implementing a biblical eldership. We must believe it is scriptural and be
committed by God's help to making it work effectively.
To be sure, the incorporation of pastoral
eldership into the local church is not the cure-all for every problem.
Eldership creates its own problems, and these must be understood and
continually addressed. However, 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.
