As I gather some thoughts from my studies in Acts, I will share some about pastors. This first post is about elders in the church.
“Confirming the souls of the disciples, and exhorting them to continue in the faith, and that we must through much tribulation enter into the kingdom of God. And when they had ordained them elders in every church, and had prayed with fasting, they commended them to the Lord, on whom they believed.” (Acts 14:22–23)
Part of that encouragement to stay in the faith was ordaining the elders. While it has been different to see churches with a “plurality of elders” in the churches I grew up in or around, the opposite would have been true for the saints of the New Testament times. As I preached through the book of Acts, this was a hard point to miss.
In the Scriptures, there are multiple terms used for pastors:
Pastor, Elder, Bishop.
“Elder” is the most common title used. But they all refer to the same office.
That these are the same can be seen clearly in Acts 20.
“And from Miletus he sent to Ephesus, and called the elders of the church.” (Acts 20:17)
Paul is addressing a group – the elders (plural) of the church (singular) in Ephesus and then in verse 28 we read:
“Take heed therefore unto yourselves, and to all the flock, over the which the Holy Ghost hath made you overseers, to feed the church of God, which he hath purchased with his own blood.” (Acts 20:28)
To illustrate the terms can be used interchangeably, and that there were not some hierarchy like some have imagined with the bishop being over the elders, etc, notice:
“Paul and Timotheus, the servants of Jesus Christ, to all the saints in Christ Jesus which are at Philippi, with the bishops and deacons:” (Philippians 1:1)
Again, one church, the church at Phillipi, with a plurality of bishops.
In the book of Revelation, there are letters addressed to the angels of the churches. Some commentators and preachers assume these are pastors. Maybe so. I don’t believe this is accurate. John had been banished to an island. Why not take the book literal and assume these letters were written to messengers who carried the letters to those churches? But assuming these angels are pastors using a term that is not used anywhere else to describe pastors, does it prove that the plural pastors of Acts is not true? No.
One of the churches in Revelation is Ephesus. Addressing the letter to one pastor does not mean there were not others.
Is a church still a church if they have only one elder? Absolutely! Same as a church being a church without a pastor. But let’s be honest about the Scripture and not try to make it say something that’s not there just because it doesn’t fit our traditions.
Plurality of elders is not commanded in the Scriptures, but it is clearly very common in the New Testament. I believe the reality is that God blesses some churches with one man and others with multiple men. We have got to follow the Biblical model all the way, including knowing the qualifications of elders as outlined in Titus 1, 1 Timothy 3, etc. Biblically, it would be wrong to ordain the wrong man “just to get a plurality” but it is also wrong to slander or cut fellowship from a church who has more than one elder “because we have never done it that way.”