Hope you hang around and jump into other discussions here. Your insights are quite good.

steve

I thought I would throw in my two cents worth … and thanks for visiting my blog. what follows, is only an overview and not a comprehensive treatment.

The Early Church

According to the New Testament account, the first century Churches were shepherded by local Elders, who were called and set apart by the Lord, to provide oversight. The Elders themselves, although enjoying local autonomy at the individual assembly level often looked to each other and to certain ‘ascension gift ministries’ – Eph 4:11 (usually those who founded the Church), for mutual accountability and support. Such a combined Eldership, often embraced the broader challenges facing the early (city) Church collectively.

The 1st Century Churches met regularly in private homes. The believer’s homes proved to be ideal in providing opportunities for relational intimacy, more effective teaching (interactive dialogue rather than a lecturing style monologue) and mutual accountability; and led to a more vibrant and authentic (unforced) ‘church life’ in which close friendships were forged and nurtured.

This of course is not possible in todays much larger, rigidly structured, and tightly programmed, institutional church ‘events’. Some may argue that such needs can be met in the contemporary church ‘Home Group’ structure.
However, this belies the fact that the ‘Home Church’ was the vital hub of relational Church life in the first century; while larger combined gatherings (which came later) simply added a further dimension to the Home Church gatherings.

Today we have reversed this emphasis, so that the regular Sunday ‘events’ are the main focus and ‘Home Groups’ simply reflect the needs and desires of the institution.

Church Leadership

It is important to remember, that the ascension gift ministries were never seen as the leaders of the local Churches once local Elders were appointed. Rather they were seen more in the light of ‘fathers in the faith’ who continued to have the best interests of the Churches in mind.

The Lord Jesus gave gifts to the Church (Eph 4:11); ‘to equip the saints for the work of the ministry,’ namely: apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors and teachers. And along with local Elders these are to provide leadership or oversight to the Church.

Although much has been written in recent times, concerning these ‘ascension gifts’; much of what has been portrayed, has often revealed a strong ecclesiastical or personal bias on the part of the author rather than a correct interpretation of scripture.

For example, it is misleading, to apply the term ‘Office’ to these gifts; particularly if such a rendering implies a title and serves to strengthen the case for a ‘hierarchy of church leadership’; this is not merited by scripture. It would be more correct to see these gifts expressed as a ‘function’; a service if you like, rather than a claim to titular authority.

In fact, the ascension gifts are not formal positions as the term ‘office’ might imply. The Greek text has no definite article connected with any of the gifts in the Ephesians 4 passage or elsewhere in the New Testament. And they are never used as titles. In his Epistles, Paul often introduces himself as ‘I Paul an apostle…’ i.e. ‘I Paul … [whose function to the body of Christ is to serve as] … Apostle [i.e. sent one].

Today we often wrongly read into this: ‘I … [the Apostle] Paul inferring title…’ Such a rendering of scripture is misleading and has more to do with our particular ecclesiastical paradigm and desire to perpetuate it.

When the ascension gifts emerge in an authentic expression of church life, their primary function is to nurture and equip the believing community towards spiritual maturity, unity, and service.

The word ‘office’ in Acts 1:20; Romans 11:13; 12:4 and 1Timothy 3:1, 10, 13 is a wrongly applied. In Acts and 1 Timothy, the word has no equivalent in the Greek text; it was simply ‘added’ by some translators [rendering the passage as a transliteration rather than a translation].

In the Romans passages, the Greek words should be rendered ‘service’ and/or ‘function’. To suggest a meaning that indicates a position that one fills is therefore quite wrong. And perhaps has more to do with trying to defend the (unbiblical) hierarchical style of Church leadership.

Senior Pastor

Few today would realise, that the so called ‘office’ of Senior Pastor, is an invention, a contrivance, of man. Historically its antecedent was the ‘Bishop’ who originally, according to scripture; was simply an elder or overseer; (these terms were used interchangeably to describe the same function in the early Church).

However, in the Church’s drift away from that of being a ‘living, dynamic, Spirit-led organism’ towards the corporate style organisation or institution of today; this function was eventually, and wrongly given the status of ‘office’ and ‘elevated’ to that of a superintending minister presiding over the local elders.

This sad development simply paved the way for a ‘corporate style takeover’ of the Church which has continued over the centuries until the modern day Church bears little resemblance to its first century counterpart.

Hopes this helps…

You didn’t muddy the waters here, and I so appreciate the humility with which you have discussed these things. I hope I come across with a similar humility.

May God continue to bless you as you serve Him. I look forward to more interaction on other topics as we go forward.

how can one truly honor and respect…one that they don’t really know? This is certainly a drawback; I have no argument here, because when I started at the church I now serve, and having served only this church as pastor, I feel just now, having been here five years, that I have moved beyond the “trial period,” so to speak.

Nevertheless, I did feel loved and respected, just simply because of the “office” itself and still do; but the root problems you have fingered seem only rectifiable by a change at the germinal level.

How much more will people be inclined to truly honor, respect, and be persuaded by one that they have shared life with, fellowshipped with, seen raise his family, etc. etc. etc.? Yes…with time. It took a good while for the folks I serve to warm up to me, but I imagine it is that way with any pastor.

As far as 1 Tim 3, I have always understood it as a “pastoral” epistle, Timothy as a “pastor,” and the qualification passages were for pastoral leadership; I was taught that way at SEBTS (Drs. Owen and Matthews). But after reading several posts of yours, Alan’s, and Raborn’s, my interpretation of that passage may not be entirely correct; not wrong, but certainly I have not taken it as far as it can go. I don’t know yet. I have probably superimposed my understanding of church, as the institutional or traditional model upon it, and gone from there.

I do not see that traditional church is precluded but neither is the more organic, simple model either; Gordon and I have that in common, and I do think you see it that way too.

OK. I hope I have not muddied the waters. As always, I am grateful for the conversation.

Sorry to make you late for church! hehe

You said: “And, if it is true that the current usage of the position of pastor arose at some point in the history of the church after the 1st century, what was the need it was addressing, and is that need still in existence today to be addressed in this fashion?”

That thought got me thinking and reminded me of one of the things that *I* personally believe about homeschooling. Humor me for a minute here …

Many years ago these were not a lot of books, there were not a lot of educated people. Getting a higher educatin was very expensive – almost out of arms reach for most people. If one was to learn their 3 Rs one needed an instructor, someone to teach them.

The average family couldn’t just pick up a book and start teaching their children because either the parents weren’t educated themselves or they had no books to teach them from. So … another person was needed who was educated, who had access to the books, and that person taught the children.

But is that necessary now? Books are plentiful and the vast majority of parents are educated enough now to teach their children, at the very least, the 3 Rs. Aside from getting into all the other reasons why we homeschool, since this in no way is the topic here, this is one of the reasons why we homeschool. There is no need for my children to have someone else teach them when I am more than capable of teaching them at home with all the books I own or can buy or have access to, and all the knowledge that I have (LOL). Yet we still believe that we have to send out children off to someone else to teach them because we are incapable of doing it ourselves.

Do you see where I am going? I see your line of thinking here that perhaps the current office/position of pastor did arise from a need in the past. Perhaps, just for arguement’s sake, one reason might be because many people were uneducated and many people did not have access to the Scriptures at all or in a language that they could understand, or they simply didn’t understand the Word and believed that they needed someone to teach it to them (especially considering the history of the church).

But is it necessary now? Is it necessary now for me to *depend* on someone else to preach to me each week and tell me what God’s Word says? I’m in no way saying that the “senior pastor” is an evil thing (please don’t misunderstand what I am saying). But many years ago people were spoon fed the Scriptures for the reasons I mentioned above. And here we are still today with most Christians depending on the weekly spoon feedings for nourishment for their souls when they have access to the Scriptures and ability to read them and to understanding them for themselves.

Just a thought …. (please don’t read anything into what I did or didn’t say — just thinking out loud here … and it’s early … and now I must run because I am way late for church!)

I think, in all honesty, I’d like to see a bit more defense (both biblically and experientially) of the conventional models from you or others who may be so inclined to disagree with my analysis or my proposed alternatives. Unless I’ve been missing it, I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone answer my charges that the conventional system keeps people stunted in their growth.

Maybe it’s the fact that it’s after midnight, or maybe I’m just feeling weary today. But I want someone to show me where my analysis is faulty. I want to be proven wrong!

I don’t want to just entertain possibilities that the current pastoral role evolved over time, without being shown why it’s still the best way for us to minister to people today.

You’ve told me before that you believe it’s biblical. Are you reconsidering that position? If not, can it be both biblical and potentially evolutionary in its development?

Where did monologue-style preaching in the church come from? And why should that be the norm? I want to see some defenses of these things.

I’m not looking for someone to just pat me on the head and tell me I’m right. (You’re not doing that, by the way, which is great!) But I want some substantial evidence to the contrary if there is to be a contrary position.

You and I have discussed preaching before, and you believe that when Paul told Timothy “preach the Word”, he meant something similar to what you and many others do (and I used to do) every Sunday. Why? Help me see that!

You acknowledge my use of the word “organic”, but then counter with something that is “synthetic”. Before we discuss the synthetic, I want to know what is organic about the conventional model?

It’s things like the above paragraphs that make me feel a bit like things are being brushed aside. I just want to understand your position better. That’s all.

I was thinking about doing a blog on my views concerning eschatology… Based on your last reply, It would seem that we have at least one thing in common on that subject already…;-)

Be blessed…
Brandon