Volume 37 Number 11 July 1995
Recently I heard a man talk about the organization of the church. He spoke of elders and gave scripture. He spoke of deacons and gave scripture. He spoke of the local preacher and gave no scripture. While the concept of the local preacher is accepted by thousands as scripturally valid, the Bible speaks of no such function.
In a periodical not long ago, one writer listed a series of "things as a preacher I had learned." One item:
The New Testament speaks of every saint as a priest, a preacher, a minister. Nobody was the priest, the preacher, or the minister of a New Testament church. The mature church was "saints in Christ Jesus with the bishops and deacons" (Philippians 1:1). Employing a minister was as unknown as holy water and sacred beads.
The inclinations toward apostasy lurking within the early church contained the embryonic stages of clergy development. Paul told the Ephesian elders that there would be those of their own number who would "arise, speaking perverse things, to draw away disciples after them." (Acts20: 30). The elders themselves were the pastors of the church. Churches of today are often misled by the preachers because the preachers are really the pastors. Under such arrangements, the eldership seems less important and it is not surprising to find compromise on the qualifications of elders as cited in the article quoted above.
Since the elders were the scriptural pastors, any unscriptural pastors could develop only as the true pastors themselves apostatized. As early as 52 A.D., Paul predicted that some would fall when he wrote, "the mystery of iniquity doth already work" (II Thessalonians 2:7), speaking of the failing away from the organizational purity of the church.
The Philippian church with its saints, bishops and deacons had not yet hired a minister or made one of its elders "the bishop" when Paul wrote to them in 62 A.D. They apparently maintained a scriptural organization for quite some time. As late as about 120 A.D. we find Polycarp writing to them:
Later in the same letter Polycarp says:
Ignatius, who died around 110 A.D., seems to have been among the first to advocate the office of bishop as distinct from that of the elders. Paul spoke to the elders of Ephesus in 58 A.D., but fifty years later Ignatius wrote to the same church and spoke of the elders, but also of the bishop of the church:
Only a few years after the death of the last apostle, a number of churches had developed the bishop as a governmental office above the elders. Ignatius speaks of the bishops at Magnesia, Tralles, Philadelphia & Smyrna, as well as Ephesus. Interestingly, his letter to Rome is the only one in which Ignatius fails to mention the bishop.
The clergy developed very slowly, with one of several elders becoming bishop over his own congregation. The next step was the monarchial bishop over several churches in an area, then ultimately the universal bishop or pope. All of this development centered in simple additions to the government ordained by the Head of the church. The "local preacher" of today is a similar departure.
"4. The church has not and will not be saved by big name meeting and lectureship preachers, but she depends on all those dedicated unnamed local preachers who continue to serve out of love for the Lord."
Another observation listed later seemed to me connected to the preceding:
"9. There has probably been more compromise among conservative brethren on the qualifications of elders than in any other area."
"Therefore it is necessary to refrain from all these things, subjecting ourselves to the elders and deacons as to God and Christ ... The elders must be tenderhearted, merciful to all, bringing back what has gone astray, visiting all the sick, neglecting neither widow nor orphan nor poor man, but always intending to do what is right in the sight of God and men, refraining from all anger, partiality, unfair judgment, keeping far from all love of money, not quick to believe anything against anyone, not severe in judgement, knowing that we all owe the debt of sin." (To the Philippians 5:3ff).
"I am greatly grieved for Valens, who was once an elder among you, because he so fails to understand the position that was given him."
Apparently the elders at Philippi worked as true pastors as late as 120 A.D. While Valens did not understand the office, the other elders were serving as faithful shepherds. The Philippian church got along without a hired minister for several generations, and Paul and Polycarp never indicated that one was to be desired, or that the church depends on the local preacher.
"It is proper for you to run your race in harmony with the mind of the bishop, just as you are doing. For your deserving body of elders, worthy of God, is attuned to the bishop as the strings are to the harp ... If the prayer of one or two has such power, how much more that of the bishop and the whole church has! ... So let us be zealous not to oppose the bishop, so that we may be submissive to God." (Ignatius to the Ephesians 4&5).
In 58 A.D. the elders were the pastors of the Ephesian church. Fifty years later they were attuned to the bishop as the strings to the harp.