The Product of Pentecost: Birthmarks of the Newborn Church (Acts 2:41-47)
CrossWay Community Church
November 4th, 2018
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Ecclesiology
On the Interplay Between Congregational(ism) & Elder-Rule
The Issue:
The Bible teaches that elders are the governing office of the church. They are tasked with leading, managing, and overseeing. However, in the New Testament we find that the congregation is incredibly involved in the church’s affairs, and may, according to some, be seen as serving a governing role.
The question then is how these two things relate to each other. In many churches it is assumed that the elders lead, yet the congregation also exercises some expression of involvement or governance. So who leads (or governs), the elders or the congregation? And if both, how so? How do those two relate?
The below outline seeks to present various models of how this question is answered. It also seeks to present the various Biblical and theological content that potentially impinge upon this issue.
Assumption:
The Bible speaks to our ecclesiology. Polity is not a matter of Biblical indifference or a subject where the Bible leaves us open to organize ourselves as we like (contra. other traditions). We believe the sufficiency of scripture extends to the fact that the Bible guides us on how we as a church are to be governed.
This is why we look to scripture on these matters. We look to them for instruction here. Its voice is what determines our polity. Continue reading
Must Elders Be Old? (Or, Can Elders Be Young?)
The following is from a correspondence I had with some area pastors over the question, Must those who hold the office of elder (aka: pastors, overseers) be old. Or, in other words, can they be young? Does the term “elder” necessitate a certain age criteria?
On the age of elders:
The word undoubtedly comes from the Jewish context, in which it refers to the leadership office within the Jewish community. The term seems to originate from the fact that those leaders were generally the aged and experienced men in the community.
However, the word seems to come to serve as something of a technical term for that leadership office, not necessarily implying in any absolute way a certain age requirement. (We want to avoid the etymological fallacy here of equating etymological origin with meaning.) This seems to be the type of use that is carried over into the New Testament church context, where it serves as a technical term for the leadership office.
But don’t hear me wrong. The terms used for the office seem to convey something of the meaning and nature of the office. So, for example, the parallel term “overseer” implies that this office is one of oversight. Likewise, designating the office as “elder” implies a certain wisdom and experience. (So, whereas the terms “overseer” and “pastor” seems to designate something of the function of the office, “elder” seems to designate a qualification to the office.) And no doubt (cf. 1 Pet 5:5) this sort of wisdom and experience implied by the term “elder” often does come with age (although age does not guarantee this maturity any more than youth makes this impossible). So I don’t think it’s entirely moot or irrelevant to consider the age of potential elders.
But, especially when we note the context of the church as a “spiritual” community, it becomes clearer that the sort of wisdom and experience in view here is likely that of one’s Christian faith. So for example, an older man who newly coverts would not qualify, even if he is an “elder” in terms of his physical age. This is made clear when Paul says that an elder cannot be a recent convert (1 Tim 3:6), which seems to show that it is a candidate’s “spiritual” experience that is in view in the idea of “elder.”
On the other hand, this implies that a young man may be qualified if particularly wise and experienced “spiritually.” Paul seems to assume this when he tells Timothy not much to allow anyone to look down on him for his youth (1 Tim 4:12). He also assumes this when he gives instruction to elders on how they are to relate to those who are much older than them (1 Tim 5:1ff), which implies these elders must be relatively young, or at least much younger than many of their congregants (so not the “elders” of this community as far as physical age).
Again, this is not to say that age is not a relevant factor. Often times experience does come with age. But I would hold that the Bible does not outline age as an absolute requirement (or qualification for that matter), given the sort of maturity in view — primarily “spiritual.”
Doug Wilson wrote a good article on this here.
The Church for Mission vs. the Church for Consumption
The following is an excerpt from my sermon The Church: Myths and Misconceptions (Part 1) delivered at South City Church, 7.30.17.
The Biblical reason we join and are a part of a church isn’t because a particular church offers the “goods and services” we want and like — making the church into something like a business, and us into its customers or consumers. The church is a people, a community. And the reason we join and are a part of this church community is for the sake of advancing our collective Christian mission — together.
When we become consumers, church becomes about “what I get out of it.” And when that happens, what determines “how I chose to do church” (or, as we might say, where I choose to “go to church” — as if church is something you “go to”) is what suits my preferences, what I like, or what meets my perceived needs.
In such a model, the church becomes a place where I come to be served. The pastors and the staff are the ones who do the ministry (rather than everyone). “It’s their job. They’re the ministers,” we say. “My job is to receive and be served.”
The Church as Committed, Communal Life
The church is not an institutional network of services and programs. The church is a people, a community of which to be a member, a family.
The help and support it offers is not like that of a drive-through: come and get your “fix” when you decide you need it. The sort of help and support it offers is one that is found through committed relationships and the regular, consistent, habitual, mundane (yet exciting), ordinary (yet supernatural) means of grace — God’s people prayerfully applying God’s word to one another.
We live in an instant gratification and give-it-to-me-now sort of culture. But we should know better here. Life’s not as simple as that. Our brokenness is more entrenched and complex than that.
