Lectures 1 and 2: Church Administration - Dr. Tom Pennington

We want to begin to talk about the biblical foundation of oversight many churches and their leaders think that the issue of how the church is organized or its structure is unimportant but in reality it's crucial it's crucial even secular organizations understand that organizational structure determines how people think and how they act let me say that again organizational structure determines how people think and how they Act in that organization organizational structure is crucial and if structure is important to secular organizations then certainly the structure of the church should be very important to us Strock in his

book you'll you'll read this quote he writes some of the worst havoc wrought to the Christian faith has been a direct result of unscriptural forms of church structure only a few centuries after the Apostles death for example Christ's churches began to assimilate Both Roman and Jewish concepts of status power and priesthood under Christ's name an elaborately structured institution emerged that corrupted the simple family structure of the apostolate churches robbed God's people of their lofty position and ministry in Christ and exchanged Christ's supremacy over his people for the supremacy of the institutional Church what Strock is

saying is structure matters the structure that shortly after the death Of the Apostles began to be put in place caused unexpected and unintended consequences in the life of the church so it matters now I want and I'm not going to spend a lot of time here because you're going to read this in stocks book and this isn't my primary purpose today proving a plurality of leadership to you but let me just touch on a couple of things if you look at the Hebrew words involved with elders the most common New Testament word obviously Is elder

and if you're going to understand that word the early churches were primarily Jewish and they're under standing of the word and the office of Elder would have come from what not the secular culture around them but from the Old Testament and the concepts of Elder as they appeared in the Old Testament now don't misunderstand me I'm not saying that the Old Testament elders are equivalent to New Testament elders in the church they are not but the concept The basic understanding of what they would have understood by the term elder is informed by the Old Testament

and their understanding of the Old Testament so if you want to see what was in the minds of the Apostles it was what they read in the Old Testament is they look at elders the two primary Hebrew words the first is Zhou cane it simply means old mature age is usually in the plural it's used 178 times in the Old Testament about a hundred of those times it's used As a technical term for those in authority the other word is seed it's an Aramaic word and it's plural most of the time it occurred in fact

all the times occurs it means gray-headed it occurs five times in the Old Testament all in Ezra after the Exile this became the sort of Aramaic substitute for the Hebrew word that was used prior to the Exile these two words together are used in some interesting context let me show you the Old Testament pattern the Jewish Mindset of elders there were elders of houses or families plural a family had elders each family had a plural number of elders cities had elders there were the elders of the city who met at the city gates and even

nations had elders in fact if you look and you'll I'm not going to go through all the verses you'll have these in the syllabus that you get at the end of the semester and I'm just touching on this just to put this in your mind the concept of a Plurality was what the early Church Jewish leaders thought of because that's what they were importing in their understanding from the Old Testament there were a number of elders in each family there were a number of elders in each city and there were a number of elders in

each nation when you look at the nation of Israel you had the elders of Israel that phrase occurs often in the Old Testament the elders of Israel other nations by the way had elders Genesis 50 verse 7 shows us that in other places but in Israel this group existed by the time of Moses you find it a number of times in Exodus for example as early as Exodus 316 and x2 this 429 you run into this group called the elders of Israel it continued in the monarchy as an advisory body you see it alongside the

prophets even though there was a prophet and even though there was a king there was there were the elders of Israel that were often sort of giving Their viewpoint setting forth their perspective on things and again these verses will be in your notes in your syllabus that you'll get they were influential during the Exile you find it in Jeremiah and Ezekiel and after the Exile this other word kicks in and the elders of Israel are still providing leadership to the nation during the Maccabee in period and the Gospels and acts the elders of Israel were

the Jewish Sanhedrin which of course they Believed traced back to the 70th by Moses or by God under Moses in numbers 11 what's my point clearly when Jewish people thought of elders the immediate concept that came to their mind was a plurality of godly leaders within a given context with this kind of history it was only natural for the concept of elder rule to be adopted by the first churches all of which were primarily Jewish but in addition to this Old Testament pattern there are a number Of New Testament passages that set forth this concept

of a plurality of leaders and again I'm not going to go through all of them in detail you're going to be exposed to a lot of them in stocks book as well as in atoms but let me just mention a few things all the way back to the Jerusalem church you see this throughout the passage is dealing with the Jerusalem church that elders played a dominant role in the life of the church in Jerusalem and even in the in Jerusalem Council in acts 15 and when you come to that passage in fact let's turn to

acts 15 for a moment acts 15 notice verse 4 Paul and Barnabas come down from Antioch and says verse 4 when they arrived at Jerusalem they were received by the church in the Apostle Church singular and the Apostles and the elders plural one church with a plurality of elders James of course the half brother of Christ becomes a key leader in the Jerusalem church he he's an influential figure in this acts 15 account notice what he says in the epistle that bears his name in James - excuse me James 5 verse 14 he says this

if there are individuals who are sick call for the elders plural of the church singular now remember James is writing to whom those Jewish believers that had been dispersed probably because of the persecution of Herod Agrippa in acts 12 so these Jewish believers been spread all over the the World at that point and he's writing this letter to them it's probably the first of the New Testament epistles and in the first of the New Testament epistles as this letter circulated he says if someone's sick in the church let him singular let him call the elders

plural and we won't get into all of the other issues in that verse but that's the point I wanted to make in acts 14 verse 23 you have the first reference to the Gentile leaders of the church At the end of Paul's first missionary journey but really at the beginning of his ministry it says he appointed elders plural for them in every church singular and in fact there's an interesting use of cotta they're distributed use distributive use of the preposition that could be and could be translated this way having appointed for them church by church

elders so one of the key steps in organizing a new church in Paul's mind was appointing elders this was Paul's Pattern in acts 20 17 you have of course the the incident with the Ephesian elders and he meets with the elders and they're a plural number of elders and in acts 20 verse 28 he tells them this be on guard for yourselves and for all the flock singular among which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers plural so the church in Ephesus had a plurality of godly men leading and pastoring it and when you get

to Timothy first Timothy remember Timothy's in Ephesus in first Timothy 5:17 you find there's a plurality of elders still the same as when Paul met with them in acts 20 Philippians 1 as he begins the book he identifies Paul identifies two offices Philippians 1 1 overseers plural and deacons both of those words are plural but there was only one church in Philippi you remember how it started a very small number of people and fifty years after Paul wrote Polycarp writes to the church singular in Philippi and Tells them to obey their deacons plural and elders

plural Titus 1:5 this is a familiar one Paul writes to Titus and he says for this reason I left you in Crete that you would set in order what remains and appoint elders plural in every city singular as I directed you many other examples then I'm not going to take the time to go through I just wanted to expose you to just a handful of the verses in the New Testament that support this concept of a Plurality of godly men leading each individual local church again you'll be exposed to that in great detail in stocks

book but here's the question and this is where there's disagreement okay I see the basic pattern in the New Testament but is that a requirement for the church today is that a mandate that my church has to follow I would argue that absolutely it is for two reasons first of all because of the purpose of the pastoral epistles the pastoral Epistles were written to church leaders with instruction about life in the church what's the theme of first Timothy what verse identifies the theme of first timothy 3:15 look it up 1st timothy 3:15 in case i

am delayed i write so that you will know how one ought to conduct himself in the household of God which is the Church of the Living God the pillar and support of the truth and within the pastoral epistles which were given for that purpose the evidence is clear Paul Is insisting on a plurality of leadership so logically if those books are given to us to show us how to conduct life in the church and if they're insisting on a plurality of godly leadership and that's the only pattern then therefore the logical conclusion is that that's

a compelling mandate for us secondly apostolic Authority the Twelve Apostles probably established elder rule in the Jewish churches you already saw that in acts 15 6 the Apostles were very heavily involved in the Jerusalem church and they had established a church that had plural number of elders you see the same thing in James 5:14 James as an apostle a representative of the Jerusalem church and the apostles there says this is the way it's to be Paul established elder rule in the Gentile churches we saw that in acts 14:23 this is what he did on his

first missionary journey and then Paul commanded Titus to appoint elders in Every Church Titus 1 5 so apostolic Authority says this is what we should do - if the Apostles are commanding that this is what is to be done to those who were following them then we have no reason to reject that command there's no compelling evidence to overturn those clear commands to the followers of the Apostles and the mentors of the Apostles that have been passed down to us you have as I mentioned the 12s examples the Apostle Paul's example in the the Apostle

Paul's command to do it in Titus 1:5 so I would argue that not only is the evidence clear in the New Testament that there were a plural number of leaders ruling each church but that is a mandate for us that's an obligation a requirement that each of us has is that the church should have a plurality of godly men leading it now the question comes so who are these godly men to be how are their responsibilities described and this is where we get to the heart of The issue and we'll have to get there next

time and that's this why is it that I as an elder as a pastor should feel any responsibility for anything except preaching and teaching in prayer I mean what about Acts 6 we're going to talk about the Greek words involved in identifying the leaders of the church and the significance those words have in determining our function and we'll look at acts 6 as well and last some significant questions and I think in the End you will see this and I'll leave you this to think about the elder each elder who is a part of a

local church bears the full responsibility for everything that happens in that church we started last time talking about the biblical foundation of oversight and let me just briefly review with you what we talked about we first of all began by looking at the fact that the leadership of the New Testament church involved a plurality of godly men and we looked at The evidence in several categories first of all sort of the Jewish mindset going in to the church we looked at how the the term elder a common term in the Old Testament how it's used

and how that would have informed the New Testament church leaders perspective on elders they're not let me just restate this I'm not saying that the elders in the Old Testament are equivalent to New Testament elders I'm merely saying that that was that would have informed their Understanding of the concept and it was always a plurality of godly men leading in various context whether it's a house or a family whether it's a city nation and then we looked at the New Testament examples and a number of passages briefly not in detail you'll be looking at many

of those that should go through stocks book and finally we said not not only is that example of plurality of godly leadership clear in the New Testament but there is in fact a mandate For that you can argue that not only is the example there but it's required of us to follow that example and we laid that out in several ways the purpose of the pastoral epistles it's laid out by Paul himself also apostolic Authority Paul commanded that elders plural be established in each church singular and we have no reason to disregard that that clear

command that Paul gave we have the 12's example as I mentioned before Paul's example and Paul's command to do It Paul's example of course being on his first missionary journey when he appointed elders in each of the churches now where I want to go today is we basically said find there is a plurality of godly leadership and each of the New Testament churches and that is a mandate for us that there is a plurality of godly men in church I want to look more specifically at who those men are to be and there are essentially

three Greek Words that identify these men and I want to look briefly at them with you and we're going to end up on the word that has the most is informs our understanding of church administration most at the end let's start with the word press butor Ross elder this has two primary uses in the New Testament it either speaks of a man an older man by virtue of age an old man or an older man for example first Timothy 5:1 it's used that way or it refers to the title for a Community leader a title

for a community official an elder with the second usage there's no specific age that remains attached to it in other words to be an elder you didn't have to be a certain age but there is implied in this word maturity dignity experience and honor something that obviously doesn't come at the youngest of Ages so there is an aspect of age but no specific age is established it simply implies maturity it's used 28 times this word press Pewter oz in the Gospels and acts to describe the Sanhedrin it's used 12 times in Revelation to refer to

the 24 elders those who are representatives in the book of Revelation of the redeemed people of God and it's used 19 times in acts and the epistles for a unique group of leaders in the church the office that we refer to as elders and the one we looked at last time in detail whether there is a plurality of these men in each of the individual churches 19 times In acts and the epistles it's used to describe that group of men in the church so that's the first word as I said you'll learn these in more

detail and the books you're reading I just want to give you an overview of them and land on the lat to really inform our understanding of administration the next Greek word is coin shepherd or pastor as it's also translated the noun form occurs 18 times in the New Testament speaks of actual Shepherds that is keepers of animals it also refers to Christ in several passages and one time it's used of church leaders that is the noun form one time of church leaders it's translated pastor in most English versions in Ephesians 4:11 the Greek construction puts

these two words together it emphasizes the Shepherd's primary role teaching or feeding the sheep he is to pass to be a pastor teacher one who feeds the Sheep by teaching them the Verb form of of this word by the way let me say that that emphasizes the pastor's primary role but the verb form used three times in the context of church leaders and it's used in John 21 16 where Christ commanded that Peter you remember Shepherd his sheep he uses those three expressions 10 Shepherd and tend the flock or the sheet he uses this the

verb form of this word to Shepherd also in acts 20:28 remember when Paul meets with the Ephesian elders and he Reminds them of their responsibility to Shepherd the church acts 20:28 and then finally 1st Peter 5:1 and 2 Peter charged the elder scattered across Asia Minor to shepherd the flock of God now the final word is the word that brings us to the heart of what we're going to talk about this semester this is what gives us a philosophy of oversight that we have a responsibility beyond teaching and that's the word the Pisgah pass translated

in the new American Standard Is overseer some versions also translated as bishop it's this word is a very interesting word in secular Greek it was used for any official who acted as a superintendent a manager a controller or a ruler especially used of local officials in the Greek society when you look back at the Septuagint this word is used for a group or I should say not the specific word of Pisco Paz but the family of words the verb form and so Forth this word group is used to describe the activity of army officers in

numbers 3114 of tabernacle administrators and numbers for and again these references will be in the notes that you'll get at the end of the semester so you don't have to get every reference I give you I'm just making sure you know that I'm being honest with you here supervisors of the temple repair and second chronicles 24 tabernacle Administrators I mentioned in numbers for temple Guardians in 2nd Kings 11 and city supervisors or mayor's in Nehemiah 11 so it has a the family of words surrounding this word of Pisgah pause has a broad meaning in the

Old Testament and that would of course have informed the New Testament understanding the leaders of the New Testament church would it form their understanding of what this word meant how it was used it's used only five times in the New Testament Episcopal says one time of Christ in first Peter 2 the other four times it's used specifically of church leaders especially used in reference to Gentile congregations they would have been familiar with this term as well because it was such a common secular word like Ephesus for example you find this word now when you look

at this specific word it basically is a general sort of word that means supervisor manager our guardian I want you to turn to a passage that will I think open up our understanding of this word a little more turn to first Timothy 5 verse 17 this verse further develops this concept of oversight or managing or supervising it uses not the word episkopos but it uses a synonym first Timothy 5:17 uses a verb form of a synonym the elders who rule well are to be considered worthy of double honor especially those who work hard at preaching

and teaching The elders who rule well the Greek word for rule is Pro estate me it means to put before our to set before our it's our as it's translated to rule it's also translated the same word that's translated rule here in first Timothy 5:17 is translated several other ways in the New Testament for example in Romans 12 8 it's translated as leads and it refers to the gift of administration this word rule is translated manages in first Timothy three four and five in Fact just flip over one page to first Timothy 3 verse 4

he must be one that is the elder who manages his own household well household is boy cause he manages his house his household well manages is pro estate me it's also used in first Timothy 3:12 look at down at verse 12 deacons must be husbands of one wife and good managers for their children in their own households it's interesting there if you notice there to rule or be good rulers or managers of their two Things people children and household implying everything else that makes up their household their responsibility goes be just people to everything else

that's involved in running a household and their ability to manage or to rule in that sphere determines whether or not they're qualified to do the same thing in the church now go back to first Timothy 5:23 manage oversee the elders who ruled well Are to be considered worthy of double honor especially those who work hard at preaching and teaching the word especially the Greek word Melissa it's used 12 times in the New Testament eight times in Paul's epistles every time Paul uses this word and there's a list of them and they'll be in your notes

every time Paul uses this word he uses it as a subset of what's come before so whatever follows especially is a subset of what has come before so in this case you have Elders especially so here's a subset of the elders this is now some of the elders who do one specific thing especially those who work hard at preaching and teaching what's his point let me tell you what this verse is teaching us number one it's teaching us that all elders are supposed to rule manage lead oversee everything that goes on in the life of

the church secondly it says that some elders rule particularly well thirdly this verse tells us that While all elders are to be able to teach first Timothy 3:2 some seem to be particularly gifted at it and who labor at it who strive at it work hard at preaching and teaching so all the elders rule some rule particularly well the elders all are able to teach but there seem to be a subset of the elders who give themselves to teaching and preaching now I can tell you frankly that's exactly how it works out at Grace Church

the way it works out is those who Are particularly gifted at teaching and preaching out of the elders tend to be the staff elders those who are given double honor that's not to say the other elders can't teach they all are gifted teachers and you've heard some of them they are all able to teach but they're not they don't that's not where they give their all of their labor to teaching and preaching that's just the way it's worked out here and it reflects the first Timothy 5:17 intent I think so Elders as overseers this word

episkopos elders as overseers are to lead administrate manage supervise those are all synonyms the Church of God that's part of your responsibility you see when you when you signed up for this job you thought all you were going to do was teach but that is not what this word says this word says you are to oversee both people it's used in that context definitely but not just people you also oversee everything else the household if You will just as your to oversee your own household as a as a husband and father to be qualified to

be in leadership in the church so you are to oversee everything that goes on both the people and everything else that goes on in the life of the church the household of God that's your responsibility and that's mine as well now I know the immediate reaction to this is well what about Acts 6 that's why I signed on I get to give myself to Teaching and preaching let's look at acts 6 it's often used to argue that elders should not touch anything administrative but should leave administrative tasks to the Deacons and only be involved in

prayer in the Ministry of the word let's see if that's what it teaches ak6 you're familiar with the background so I'm not going to I'm not going to set up the whole story here for you when you come back six though that argument is used Because it says basically the Apostles in this passage are the elders and the Deacons in this passage are these these six are they're like the Deacon office found in first Timothy three well many commentators agree that this passage Act six does not deal with the offices of elder Deacon but only

a sort of foreshadowing of them nevertheless let's for a moment assume that that is true that the elders in this passage or the Apostles in this passage rather like the Elders and the Deacons in this passage are like the Deacons in a church let's assume for a moment that's true only in a foreshadowing sense I believe they're really here but just for the sake of argument stay with me now watch what happens even if you grant that this passage deals with Church offices it only confirms that elders have a sort of Episcopal responsibility to oversee

every aspect of church life and must exercise it let me show you how this Works note the following oversight functions of the Apostles in this text first of all they fielded the problem the Hellenistic Jews felt left out they brought the concern to the Apostles so the Apostles fielded the problem secondly the Apostles determined the key issue was a shortage of manpower apparently there was some discussion among the twelve they decided that what was really the problem here is we need People to do this ministry so the Apostles decide that people are the solution a

shortage of manpower then they determined that the solution to the problem was to appoint some men to solve in that excuse me to serve in that ministry to appoint to serve in that ministry they decided how many men were needed noticed the 12 say we want you to select seven men so the apostles decided the problem was shortage of men pipe manpower we are Going to determine how many men you need you need seven we're going to decide the qualifications for those men notice the Apostles say they need to be men of good reputation full

of the Spirit verse three and of wisdom and the Apostles decide who's going to select these men they say alright we want you to select these people and while the text doesn't mention any outcome of this situation you can bet that there's every reason to believe the Apostles followed up with The Hellenistic Jews to make sure the problem was being adequately cared for here's what I want you to get the only thing the Apostles said they wouldn't do in this text is they wouldn't notice in verse four we're going to vote ourselves to Ministry of

the prayer and the Ministry of the word verse two it is not desirable for us to neglect the Word of God in order to underline this serve tables what the Apostles said they wouldn't do is actually serve in that Ministry but everything they do through this passage underscores oversight they did everything that that a good overseer would do as I'm again they filled the problem they determine what the problem was it was shortage of manpower they determined the solution was men they determined how many men they determine what qualifications the men would have they decided

who would select them in and as I said there's every reason to believe they follow up on it to make Sure it was adequately operating that is the function of oversight or supervision or leading or managing so Acts 6 definitely does not undercut or undermine our responsibility to be involved in everything that goes on in the church not doing the work of ministry but overseeing everything that happens ultimately the buck stops at our desk in our lap it's our responsibility as leaders in the church as elders as those who've been called as episkopos to Oversee

life in the church and everything that happens there so now when you look at these three words then elder overseer and Shepherd they all refer to the same office and the same person and I give you a number of reasons in your notes I'm not going to belabor that I think you're probably all convinced of that that those three terms all refer to the same office I'll give you one good reason and that's acts 20 uses all three of these terms Interchangeably from in acts 20 verse 17 notice this flip over a few pages from

where we were acts 20 17 from my lead as he sent to Ephesus and called to him the elders there's our first word press beuter Ross the plural and then down in verse 28 speaking to that group of men he says be on guard for yourselves and for all the flock among which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers there's episkopos to Shepherd there's the verb form of POI main so all three terms are Brought together interchangeably in this passage and there are a number of other reasons for seeing these three terms as describing the

same office but what exactly does this summary tell us first of all elder refers to the character of the man he's to be spiritually mature Shepherd and overseer refer to function a shepherd what does a shepherd do you know you can you can talk a lot about what it means to Shepherd if you start with animals what does it mean to Shepherd sheep essentially you can reduce a chef of literal animals functions 2/3 to feed the sheep that's his primary duty you can get away with a lot of things as a shepherd but if you

don't feed the Sheep you're not going to be a shepherd very long same is true in the spiritual world a Shepherd feeds a shepherd protects and a shepherd heals and that's true with a shepherd in the sense that we've been called to as well he feeds he protects And he heals in other words deals with problems and issues and people's lives and overseer describes the other function that we have and that's to rule or have charge over both people and everything that happens in the church so what are your responsibilities as an elder elder implies

that you're spiritually mature if you're going to serve as an elder as a in this office then there's a degree of spiritual and normal human maturity that qualifies you For that and you will serve in basically two ways as a shepherd teaching or feeding protecting and healing the sheep and as an overseer one who rules or manages or administrates everything that goes on in the life of the church those are your functions so that's the foundation for why a group of pastors who want to teach the Word of God are sitting in a class on

church administration because you can't do part of your responsibilities and ignore Other parts of your responsibilities you can't say well you know the Lord it's the it's the teaching I really signed up for I'm just going to get somebody else to deal with the rest of this God doesn't give you that opportunity part of your function is to serve as an overseer and episkopos again very important distinction that does not mean that you do all of these things in the life of the church it means that you oversee them you manage them You're supervising them

both people and all the functions that go on in church in the church yes sir question you know that's he's asking about the difference between lay and staff elders how do those responsibilities that are all of ours flesh out specifically that's a very good question and actually one that we'll get to in the next session I'm covering which will start here shortly so I think I'll answer that question in just a few minutes right yeah the Question is is double honor does that have something to do with pay yes it does there's almost certainly in

that phrase double honor the expression of that has to do with monetary remuneration that does not mean let me say that that does not mean that it wouldn't be appropriate for grace to pay all of its elders it doesn't there there's nothing that says somewhere thou shalt have staff and thou shalt have lay others it's just practically worked out That way and it seems that it worked out that way even in Ephesus when Paul writes Timothy and says there are those who labor at teaching and preaching and there those who spend a lot of their

time ruling and they're to where that considered worthy of double honor and that is a financial expression anything else before we move on alright so you've been called not only to work with the other elders in your church to Shepherd your people but also to rule or manage Everything that happens in the church and my hope this semester is to give you the tools with which to do that to take the second function of the office that of an overseer and sort of fill out your understanding of all the practical ways that that needs to

be accomplished in our culture it was a lot simpler in the New Testament church they didn't have building codes but we do and we've been commanded to do to obey every ordinance of man for the Lord's sake so you have to be aware of those kinds of things or you have to at least be aware that there's a question there and get somebody who really does understand it to help you one or the other so that's what my goal is this semester is to at least expose you to these areas of oversight that that are

outside of most of your preparation and that is learning to exegete and put craft a message and deal with the theological issues that the Scripture brings up practically deal with people and their problems and so forth so this is a class intended to sort of round out your responsibilities before the Lord serving in the office of Elder any other questions before we go to our second discussion all right then I want to move now to and I told you I would kind of do this we may not make it through an entire lecture in one

class and we might be segmenting it up so we're going to kind of change gears now And move to and move to a different issue and that is the biblical philosophy of ministry the biblical philosophy of oversight we could say specifically a biblical philosophy of oversight now that you know you're supposed to be overseers and what that means how should you approach that well first of all let me give you some guiding principles some guiding principles of biblical oversight we start of course with the assumption that God has set the standard for our service in

Scripture whatever this is to be God has established whatever our responsibility is and overseers to be God has established the standard in the scripture itself with that in mind let me lay out a few guiding principles the first in understanding oversight a biblical understanding of oversight is that every elder is responsible before God to fulfill his biblical role as an overseer we just look That in first Timothy 5:17 the idea of ruling a synonym of oversight and we saw that even in acts 6 a passage that's often used to illustrate the opposite every elder this

is his responsibility this is one of the functions of the office secondly pastors serve individually as overseers of assigned areas of ministry within a delegated authority the key expression here is delegated authority you see there's a temptation for church leaders to abuse Their authority look at 1st Peter chapter 5 you're familiar with this passage Peter writing to elders the churches that have been scattered says in verse 1 therefore I exert I exhort the elders among you as your fellow elder and witness of the sufferings of Christ and a partaker also of the glory that is

to be revealed Shepherd the flock of God by the way this is one of these passages that has all three words in it notice elder in verse one Shepherd The verb form in verse two also exercising oversight there's the third word group that describes our responsibility but notice what he says we're to do it verse three not as lording it over those allotted to your charge but proving to be examples to the flock this speaks of a sort of domineering a domineering manner instead of being examples there are a lot of ways this is accomplished

I have a little pet peeve one of the ways that Elders go beyond their their authority is when they go beyond the teaching of Scripture there are a lot of elders and you may have come from a church like this where they feel perfectly at ease telling you who you should marry I mean not that they ought to be in the Lord and that they ought to be spiritually minded but who beyond that specifically you should marry telling you what car you ought to drive what house you ought to live in and what Job you

ought to take that happens regularly and there are a couple of churches I could name that I think most of you would even be aware of where that happens that is way beyond the authority given to an elder in fact if I could just crawl on my soapbox here for a moment unrelated to this particular lecture where does your authority as an elder end right here I would even argue that it ends to some degree before you get to the Back page of Scripture and here's what I mean there are certain things that are clearly

taught in the scripture and that godly men through the history of the church have agreed on there you can perfectly wheel Authority because God has spoken and it's clearly understood but there are a few things that aren't as clearly understood you ought to be more careful in those areas of disagreement we're good and godly and wise men down through the history of the Church have disagreed you ought to be more careful in exercising Authority and oversight in those matters than you would and those that are clear and settled somebody comes into my office and they're

wrong on the gospel I can I can exercise authority from the scripture on that issue but if if they come in with another issue that's something that's been hotly debated down through the history of the church I can still tell them clearly what I think the Scripture teaches but I'm not going to wield Authority if you will to the same degree on that matter that I would on one that's clear and there's nearly universal agreement on does that make sense let me show you a sort of a theme verse of mine my father-in-law first showed

me this he was professor a Bible for 50 years he's at home now dying of cancer probably within the next week or two but this is a this is a passage that I first saw in his Greek class by the Way I didn't marry his daughter because he was such a good teacher I married her in spite of him just for the record no I respect him deeply but notice first Corinthians chapter 4 first Corinthians chapter 4 you may want to underscore this make it a theme for your in verse six there is a very

unusual use of the Greek article Paul writes now these things brethren I have figuratively applied to myself a nopales for your sakes so that In us you may learn now after the word learn in the Greek there is a an article before not to exceed what is written the use of that article is to introduce a common saying of the times a common understood saying what was the saying man who pair Haga craft I not beyond what has been written not beyond what has been written in the early church there was a saying that was

commonly used and understood and that is that as believers we were not to go beyond what Has been written that's where our Authority stops you have no right to tell people what to do if you can't show them chapter and verse in the scripture you can tell them you think something is wise you can tell them to beware but you cannot tell them with authority what they ought to do if you cannot show it to them from the Word of God clearly taught you've all heard of the kinds of pastors who are dictators in fact

there's one pastor who shouldn't be a Pastor who said I'm not only the dictator in my church I'm the only Tator compare the biblical example of a plurality of godly men we have an authority and authority based on Scripture that has been delegated to the elders of a church not to one individual elder but to the elders as a group who oversee that church with that in mind I want you to take a look at this this handout I get a couple of you guys to help me Thank you this is something that a few

years ago the elders put together the elders of grace church it's called a summary of staff lay elder relationships roles and responsibilities this goes to the question you raised about so what is it exactly that staff elders do and what is it exactly that lay elders do and how does that work let me just as you're getting that let me walk through the presuppositions that We came up with that are at the top of the sheet presupposition number one the final human authority and responsibility for the church resides in the underscored entire elder board not

in any individual elder our group of elders so we serve in a delegated authority Christ the chief Shepherd has called a plurality of shepherds in any local congregation and he has given them a delegated authority collectively to oversee everything that goes on in the Life of the church neither Lane or staff elders have greater intrinsic authority the key word is intrinsic an elder is an elder is an elder whether you're paid or not doesn't matter number three practically the entire board that has been given that delegated authority cannot make every ministry decision or discharge every

responsibility I mean that makes sense right in a church our size there's no way the elders can be making every Decision that pertains to every department in the ministry that goes on in every area of Grace Church so because of that number four the entire board delegates its authority and responsibilities to members of the staff groups of elders or individual elders so the entire board has a delegated authority from Christ to be the ones responsible for this church and then the entire board realizing it can't do everything alone delegates the authority That's been delegated to

it as a group to individual elders to staff and so forth very important that you understand that philosophically and biblically now with that in mind how exactly then do we flesh out here at grace the relationship between staff and lay elders this isn't inspired this is something that has been worked through through the years here and I think you'll find it useful when you're having to work this out yourself Just as the church is to be led by a plurality of godly men it's always desirable whenever possible for each area of ministry in the church

to be led by more than one godly man so when we look at let's say student ministries here at Grace Church we said as an entire elder board we don't think it's good for one elder to be leading that the principle of plurality if it's good for the church as a whole it's good for each individual area and department of The church as much as we possibly can so with that in mind we said let's have a plurality of godly men at least two in every area of ministry in the church so with that in

mind we said we need to form a sort of ministry relationship between laying staff elders and that working relationship we say here number two is fluid informal and natural instead of permanent and formally assigned in other words I don't have an elder that's assigned a lay older that's Assigned to me that we're going to work together instead a lay older decides that he feels he has gifts and strengths and the areas in which I oversee and he attaches himself to me and we work together sometimes that may last for a year or two and that

elder maybe for example he served in children's ministries and then his kids get a little older and he feels like it would be helpful for him to be involved in student ministries or perhaps his kids Are now out of the house and having gone through it successfully he feels he needs to attach himself to student ministries in my case the lay older that's attached to me is Rob Iverson as the chairman of the board since my responsibility on the staff side sort of mirrors his on the on the bored side so it's it's fluid and

formal and natural now the current relationships are and again these are not biblical they're just the way it's Worked out here they're a couple of councils that is a group of elders who work together in a ministry area such as echo that sense for elders council handling outreach and grace community school school council and these councils of elders a group of elders three four five in some cases even more address major issues such as philosophy focus and strategy they don't they don't run the day-to-day operations of the school nor do they run the day-to-day Operations

of outreach there are responsibilities instead are the oversight begin there's also a staff lay pairing and I mentioned that a staff elder and a layout or who work together in a specific ministry and then and by the way this isn't a sort of police responsibility that's not like lay elders are working with staff elders to keep them honest if an elder is an elder then there's an assumption that their character is what it ought to be and if It isn't then that needs to be addressed as the Matthew 18 issue and and if they don't

repent then we're told in first Timothy five how to deal with it there to be rebuked before all and to be dismissed from the board and possibly even from the church if there's a failure of repentance but instead it exists for mutual encouragement and for accountability working together and then there's an individual assignment elder whom the board asked to work in a Specific ministry on occasion someone with specific gift specific strengths that the entire board will say we'd really like for you to be involved over there and and be and give your wisdom your expertise

to that area so that's kind of how it works here here at grace there's question yeah the question is and I'm going to repeat the questions for the tape as well that's why most of you heard that but just for your information I'll do That each time or try to remember to do that each time the question is regarding where did the idea of lei elder come from it isn't a clearly taught thing in Scripture except it's implied to some degree in first Timothy 5:17 because there seemed to be a group of elders who labor

it teaching and preaching and they're the ones who are given double honor they're the ones who are who are paid which implies that there's some who are either paid less or who are not paid At all and practically in the history of the church that's the way it has worked out so it's not a clear biblical mandate that there be there have to be lay elders it simply has practically worked out that way so as I said earlier you can pay all of your elders they can all be staff there's nothing in scripture that forbids

that but there seems to be the hen in 1st Timothy 5 that there were some who were at least paid more and maybe others who weren't paid at all yes Sir having a little bit more of a spirit of deference to to to the other elders the ones worthy of double honor just because in that passage their role is said to be ruling well and teaching and preaching practically how does that work out even in this context all right the question concerns is there a sense in which lay elders find themselves deferring or perhaps should

they defer to those who are staff elders who are paid because They're the ones who labor at teaching and preaching as I said in this document or I say we I said I've crafted what a group of elders created and what the entire elder Board approved is an understanding of how we operate here at Grace Church but essentially the intrinsic authority is no different between lay and staff and therefore there's there should be no deference in that sense if they feel strongly if a lay older feels strongly about something He should speak up he can

contribute to that every every bit as much as I can now simply by virtue of experience and or certain skills for example skill in the in the languages in Greek and Hebrew not all the lay elders in fact most of them would not have that training some of them have some exposure to that but not to the same level as you would have her I would have and so in some areas there tends to be a deference but frankly there can be a deference the Other way as well some if there's a if there's a

man who for example we have a man on our board who who's an attorney in legal issues we defer to him he's al al der and so it works both ways it really is a deference to the area of experience and wisdom and skill and it depends on the issue at hand but yes I mean that happens in terms of the elders response to Jon all the elders staff and lay that he wheels a great deal of influence because of his experience in Ministry because of his knowledge of the scripture and that's as it should

be you'll find instructs book there is the principle of leaders among leaders Peter was always the spokesman of the 12 although intrinsically they had the same authority all right the elders before I go on let me say well let me just finish let me just finish this briefly and well this is where we'll end today this summary of staff flailed or roles I've included Some specific roles and area of responsibility for example the pastoral staff ultimate authority for the following duties rests with the entire board but it is the primary responsibility the pastor's immediate staff

supervisor hiring disciplining firing reporting relationships evaluating disciple so in other words in my case I'm the executive pastor there are a number of division heads who who report directly to me the entire board Has delegated the responsibility for the immediate oversight of those men to me mine's a delegated authority however notice be depending on the nature of the situation the immediate staff supervisor includes his counselor lay old or partner in the discussion and decision and if the situation requires he informs in seeks direction from the entire board so in my case an issue comes up

let's say what the problem staff members got to be dealt with reporting to me or Anywhere in the staff I always bring both John as my immediate staff supervisor pastor and Rob Iverson as the one who works with me on the lay side into the loop on those issues so that they know what I'm thinking where I'm heading they can give me counsel and direction if they choose to do that or they can they can approve whatever I'm doing whatever direction I'm heading and basically it works out the same way the oversight of the rest

of the church That's a delegated authority to specific individuals and again the board is brought into it if it warrants it if the level of the situation warrants it and then regarding personnel issues in payroll this is a very important one ultimate authority for the following decisions rests with the entire board but because of potential conflicts of interests and to meet various regulations the entire board has delegated the primer Responsibility for these issues Thule elders only that's because it would seem pretty self-serving for us as staff pastors to be voting on our own salaries but

that doesn't mean that lay olders have some some intrinsic authority over staff elders it simply means the entire board has chosen for wisdom sake to delegate that to others and you'll see some other areas they're spelled out but I hope that helps sort of spell out the relationships at Grace Church between Lay and staff does it always work perfectly no it's a it's not a perfect world it can be a little messy around the edges at times but it works very well overall in shepherding the Church of God