Tonight we are going to take a break
from our normal through the Bible study on
Wednesday night.
We are going to take a look at
something that is topical in nature.
If I were to give a title for
this message, which I usually don't feel I
am very good at giving titles, I would
call it the Moses style and the Jesus
style.
The question I am seeking to answer is,
should a senior pastor or should a team
of elders lead the church?
This may be a question that is of
no interest to you at all.
You may feel like you want to go
to sleep tonight and take a nice nap.
Well, I am glad that you have come
anyway.
You can get some refreshment from your time
of sleep.
But for most of us, and I think
for all of us, this should be a
question of some importance.
For no other reason than simply put, you
want to know that the church you attend
has a biblical form of church government.
Through the history of the church, there are
classically three forms of church government.
These are known as Congregational, Presbyterian, and Episcopal.
Congregational means that the leadership is entrusted to
the majority vote of the congregation.
When it comes time to make decisions, when
it comes time to exercise leadership, you take
a majority vote, the 51% or the
60% or whatever it is prescribed in
the bylaws, that is what carries the day.
That is the Congregational form of church government.
Secondly, you have what is known as the
Presbyterian form of church government.
Now, that really does not have anything to
do with the Presbyterian denomination, though of course,
as you would expect, by and large, Presbyterian
churches have this form of church government.
But the Presbyterian form of church government comes
from the ancient Greek word for elder, which
is presbyteros.
That means that leadership is entrusted to a
group of men, or sometimes not men in
today's culture, it can be women in today's
culture, though I would not regard that biblically,
but in today's culture, there are women elders
in many churches.
In any way, it is this group of
elders or presbyters that lead the church.
They are the ones entrusted with leadership.
So we have Congregational, we have Presbyterian or
elder-led church government, then finally we have
what is known as the Episcopal church government.
Now again, this does not have anything to
do with the Episcopalian church, though you might
expect that many Episcopalian churches might have this
structure, at least in name.
But the word Episcopal comes from the ancient
Greek word that is translated in our Bibles
as overseer or bishop.
And that means that leadership is entrusted to
an overseer, to a man who leads the
church.
So basically, you have three different forms of
church government, Congregational, Presbyterian and Episcopal.
Leadership by the congregation as a whole, leadership
by a group of elders from within the
congregation, or finally leadership by one person, typically
the pastor who leads the church.
Now at different times and at different places,
any one of these three forms have been
more or less popular.
For example, in some countries, especially European countries,
most all churches are Congregational.
I found this very interesting in many of
my travels, especially for example in Scandinavia.
My particular knowledge is in Sweden.
Most every church there in Sweden comes from
a Congregational form of church government.
Now in America, I think that the predominant
form of church government is Presbyterian.
I would have to say that in my
opinion, most churches in America are elder led,
although I don't have any statistical data on
that, really that's just a guess of mine.
But you could talk all day long, what's
the European favorite, what's the American favorite, what's
the Asian favorite, but we need to realize
that this isn't a matter of American opinion
or European opinion or Asian opinion.
What really matters here is what does the
Bible say.
That is the most important question for any
of us to ask, isn't it?
What does the Bible teach on this very
important question of how church leadership should be
exercised and what sort of structure should it
have within a body?
Now I'll just cut to the chase and
give you my bottom line opinion on what
the Bible says.
The bottom line is simply this, there is
no precise direction given on how churches should
be governed in the New Testament.
Now we're given many titles for leaders.
We're told that there's elders, we're told that
there's pastors, we're told that there's deacons, we're
told that there's apostles, we're told that there's
overseers.
But their relationship to each other and their
relationship to the congregation is not really detailed.
I mean, you're going to look high and
low through the New Testament to find a
place that says elders should be subordinate to
pastors or pastors should be subordinate to elders
or apostles or this or that.
Now we certainly have the eminence of the
apostolic office and Apostle if you would say
with the capital A, that passed from the
scene with the New Testament apostles.
But we do have to say that when
you take a look, a careful, honest look
at the New Testament, there is no specific
form of church government laid down.
Now Jesus and the apostles never told us
about any kind of detailed structure or arrangement
for church leadership to put in place.
Instead, what Jesus and the apostles emphasized was
the heart of leadership.
They told us what kind of men should
be leading the church.
We're told with the heart that they should
exercise leadership, but we're really not told very
much about structures at all.
Now there have been many great scholars, biblical
scholars and historical scholars who see this point
very clearly and I'm going to quote to
you just a few of them.
For example, the well-known church historian Philip
Schaaf, writing in his History of the Christian
Church, he says, At the same time, Jesus
laid down no minute arrangements, but only the
simple and necessary elements of an organization, wisely
leaving the details to be shaped by the
growing and changing wants of the Christian church
in different ages and countries.
Do you see what Schaaf is saying there?
Jesus and the apostles, they laid down no
minute arrangements.
They just left sort of a flexible structure
that could be adapted as the needs arise.
Here's another well-known historian named Williston Walker.
His well-known work, A History of the
Christian Church, has for many years been sort
of a standard textbook.
I think it's sort of passe in the
minds of a lot of people now, but
it's a good work.
And in A History of the Christian Church,
Williston Walker writes, No question in church history
has been more darkened by controversy than that
of the origin and development of church offices,
and none is more difficult owing to the
scantiness of evidence that has survived.
It is probable that the development was diverse
in different localities.
Not all early Christian congregations had identical institutions
at the same time.
In other words, what's Williston Walker telling to
us?
Well, Professor Walker is letting us know that
there was no universal form of church government,
that there was an adaptability of structure and
form from place to place.
Let me quote to you one more scholar,
a favorite of mine, a biblical commentator and
theological writer known as Leon Morris.
By the way, let me throw a little
plug in for Leon Morris.
I think that he writes spectacular commentaries, and
if you're interested in deeper Bible study and
want to get your hands on a good
Bible commentary, put your hands on anything written
by Leon Morris.
But this is a writing of his from
a Baker's Dictionary of Theology under the heading
of Church Government.
Leon Morris writes, It is better to recognize
that in the New Testament church there were
elements that were capable of being developed into
the Episcopal, Presbyterian, and Congregational systems, and which,
in point of fact, have so developed.
But while there is no reason why any
modern Christian should not hold fast to his
particular church polity and rejoice in the values
that it secures to him, that does not
give him license to unchurch or disfellowship others
whose reading of the evidence is different.
In other words, Leon Morris is saying, listen,
you can find some scriptural support or some
precedents for any one of these forms of
church government, and if you want to choose
to exercise it and if you want to
enjoy the particular advantages of that form of
church government, fine, God bless you.
But Leon Morris would caution us, and I
would echo his caution, against saying that your
form of church government is unbiblical.
Your form of church government is heretical.
Let me just sort of share with you
my opinion here.
I believe that God deliberately left the specifics
flexible when it comes to church government and
structure so that they could adapt to changing
people and changing situations.
You may have a situation where a church
is being planted among people where there is
no leadership, and where there is nobody capable
to take leadership of the church, then maybe
a community of elders or a group of
people, it is the best way to lead
the church.
But perhaps that would change over time as
godly men would arise within that church family,
men of vision, men of the word, men
of prayer, who could rise up and lead
the church effectively, and maybe it would be
proper then for the church to transition into
a place where a single pastor led that
church family.
Again, I think that God deliberately left the
specifics flexible so that they could adapt to
changing people and changing situations.
So therefore, if somebody wants to have a
congregational, or an elder led, or a pastor
led, or a form of church government, I
won't dispute any of those biblically.
Now at the same time, let me say
this, I may have convinced many of you
that I am sort of wishy-washy on
this whole subject, and that I don't prefer
any one form of church government, or think
that any one form is any better than
the other, and I don't want to give
you that opinion at all, because I believe
that definitely among the three forms of church
government, people led, elder led, and pastor led,
that one of them is clearly preferential.
One of them is clearly best.
I believe that one of these forms is
definitely to be preferred, and it is the
form of government that we practice here at
Calvary Chapel.
Now let me read you a quote from
Pastor Chuck Smith of Calvary Chapel at Costa
Mesa, of course.
He says in his book, The Philosophy of
Ministry at Calvary Chapel, he says, We feel
that this is the form of government God
desires for his church.
Jesus Christ is the head of the body,
the church.
He established the episkopos, or bishop, who we
call the pastor, who is responsible to Jesus
and who must recognize and bear the responsibility
to guide and direct the ministry of the
local church, guided directly by Jesus Christ.
Under the pastor, in some cases, you have
the assistant pastors, equivalent to the priests under
Moses' rule.
So I would agree with Pastor Chuck on
that, and by the way, I don't agree
with it because Pastor Chuck said it.
I agree with it because my own reading
of the scriptures and my own understanding and
experience in church life bears out exactly what
he says to be true, that the preferential
form of church government, the form of church
government that we practice here at Calvary Chapel,
has Jesus Christ as the head of the
church.
And then under Jesus is the pastor, who
you might call the overseer, or the bishop
in biblical terms, the episkopos, if you want
to use the ancient Greek word.
He is responsible to Jesus, and he must
recognize and bear the responsibility to guide and
direct the ministry of the local church.
He's helped by godly counselors and godly helpers
around him, elders and their assistant pastors there
to help him execute what needs to be
done within the church.
But there's no doubt that God calls one
man to lead the church in our form
of church government, and that man is the
pastor.
Now, you should know that there are some
people who say that the form of church
government that we practice at Calvary Chapel is
not biblical.
Usually this comes from people who believe in
elder-led churches.
They will say that the Bible supports only
their form of church government.
And what I want to do in this
message is show two things.
You may be wondering, when is he going
to get to the Bible, and when is
he going to stop giving the history lesson?
Well, we'll talk about the New Testament passages
that talk about these areas in just a
few moments.
But I want to do two things in
this message.
First, I want to show you that the
pastor-led church government is totally biblical and
supported by the New Testament.
Second, I'll spend just a few minutes speaking
about why I think it is a better
form of church government than the other two
forms.
However, I want to remind you again that
my quarrel or my dispute isn't with those
who want to practice congregational or elder-led
church governments.
If that's the form of church government that
you want to practice, God bless you, do
your best with it.
However, I think you can find some biblical
precedent for those forms.
Nevertheless, I believe that the predominant and most
effective form of church government in the New
Testament is pastor-led.
Now in teaching and writing about church government,
Pastor Chuck shows how the leadership structure of
Israel under Moses is one example of a
biblical pattern for our form of church government.
And because he uses the structure of Israel
under Moses as an example, some people like
to call this model of church government, Moses
-style church government, or the Moses principle church
government.
You should know that I've never heard or
read a place where Chuck Smith uses those
titles.
Maybe he does, maybe he doesn't.
I really don't know.
But I know that he definitely uses the
governmental structure of Israel under Moses, if you
want to call it the theocratic kingdom, when
God was the king and Moses was his
representative and the overseer over the nation, Chuck
definitely uses that as a model for church
government or as an example of church government
for Calvary Chapel.
Now, some of those who use those titles
want to twist the words of good men
to make their own point.
And some people just like to criticize the
Moses style by saying that it's either unbiblical
or just for the Old Testament.
I've run across it from time to time,
place to place.
The people will say, you have the Moses
style of church government, or the Moses principle.
Well, you should be in the New Testament,
brother.
You should follow Jesus' example for church government.
And to that I heartily say, Amen.
Let me tell you something, and you'll see
this clearly in the time and the word
that we're about to spend in just a
few moments.
The pattern of church government exhibited and exampled
by Moses in the Old Testament is exactly
the same pattern and example of church government
modeled by Jesus, modeled by the apostles, and
modeled by the successors of the apostles.
It's the same.
So when I told you that the title
of this message was the Moses style or
the Jesus style, I want you to know
that I believe they're the same.
I believe that the scriptures tell us that
they're the same.
Now there are some strong critics of this
kind of church government.
There are some very strong critics of the
kind of church government that we practice at
Calvary Chapel.
There are some who believe that the modern
concept of the pastor is unbiblical.
They would exhort every pastor to resign their
post, and that they should adopt what they
believe is to be a biblical church government.
And usually what they mean by that is
ruled by elders and without any pastors.
Or if there are pastors, they say that
none of them should be a senior pastor.
And all the pastors should just work together
as a team, and none should have any
authority or any responsibility or any accountability over
the other, or be an overseer over the
entire congregation.
Well let me say this.
I am the senior pastor of Calvary Chapel
of Simi Valley.
You should know that I never really emphasize
the senior aspect of my title and how
do I refer to myself, or how I
prefer others to refer to me.
It's just fine with me if somebody calls
me David.
They don't really have to call me Pastor
David, though it's a nice show of respect
and honor when they do, but it's not
like I'm around waiting for people, or it's
not like I really notice if they don't.
But especially I don't feel like people need
to go around calling me Senior Pastor David.
You know, I just don't think that that's
really necessary.
But at the same time, I don't have
any hesitation in saying that I am the
senior pastor of this church.
I am the one with overseeing authority at
our church, and all the other pastors, all
the other staff, all the other ministries, whatever
they may be, few or many, they answer
to me.
So it's my pleasure to you tonight to
explain to you why I have no intention
of resigning my post.
And it's even more of a pleasure to
explain why single pastor or senior pastor leadership
is a biblical form of church government.
Now as I said before, when you look
at leadership structures in the early church, you
just don't find much at all to guide
you.
You won't find instructions on how many elders
you should have, and what their specific responsibilities
should be, and how they should relate to
the pastor and so forth.
You won't find the minutes of an elders
meeting recorded in the New Testament.
What you will find is a lot of
teaching on character.
So here's a principle that I would really
like you to grab a hold of, and
that's simply this.
The godliness of leaders is far more important
than the structure of leadership.
I believe that very strongly, and I want
to say it again.
The godliness of leaders is far more important
than the structure of leadership.
Now sometimes when people have problems in churches,
especially personal conflicts with those in leadership, they
want to blame not only the leaders, but
also the structure.
And the bottom line is that any church
government can work, and work well, depending on
the godliness of the people in the structure.
What I'm trying to say is simply this.
You can find plenty of horror stories from
any side.
You can always find a pastor who rules
like a dictator.
And then you can always find the elders
who run the godly pastor out of town.
And then you can find the congregation that
stands in the way of true vision and
growth.
When you want to prove your point, sometimes
people will do the very false assumption of
comparing the best of one system against the
worst in another system, and that's totally unfair
and unwise.
For example, they'll say, well I want to
prove to you that the system of elder
-led church government is superior.
And so they'll take a church where the
church is being run by a dozen godly,
godly men.
Just wonderfully godly men.
And then they'll compare it to a church
where it's pastor-led, and the pastor is
an ungodly man and a man of disreputable
character.
Now what you're doing is you're comparing the
best of one environment to the worst of
another.
And that's just no way to make a
comparison.
You could turn the tables very easily.
A godly pastoral leadership, a church led by
him is going to be far more effective
and far more working under the Holy Spirit's
direction than will be a church of elders,
ruled by elders I should say, if they're
not godly men.
And so I want you to understand that
oftentimes people do this in discussing this issue.
They'll want to compare the best of one
system to the worst of another, and you
just can't do that.
Now we have to admit though, that there
are unwise and occasionally ungodly pastors who rule
in a manner contrary to the Scriptures.
Now finally we're going to open up our
Bibles here tonight, and I want to read
you from 1 Peter chapter 5 verses 1
through 3.
Listen carefully as I read this to you.
1 Peter chapter 5 verses 1 through 3.
The elders who are among you I exhort,
who am a fellow elder and witness of
the sufferings of Christ, and also a partaker
of the glory that will be revealed, shepherd
the flock of God.
Now that word for shepherd is the same
word as pastor.
Pastor the flock of God which is among
you, serving as overseers, not by compulsion, but
willingly, not for dishonest gain, but eagerly, nor
as being lords over those entrusted to you,
but being examples to the flock.
And friends, let us admit that there are
senior pastors in pastor-led systems of church
government who don't follow these instructions from 1
Peter.
They're not serving well as overseers, they serve
for dishonest gain, they're lords over those entrusted
to them, and they're not being good examples
to the flock.
We should also recognize that there are foolish
men in the pastorate sometimes, men who don't
take counsel from elders, men who don't take
counsel from other godly people in the congregation,
and they're headstrong, and they simply plot their
own destruction.
Proverbs 11, verse 14 says, Where there is
no counsel, the people fall.
But in the multitude of counselors there is
safety.
Proverbs 12, 15 says, The way of a
fool is right in his own eyes, but
he who heeds counsel is wise.
And then Proverbs 13, verse 10 says, By
pride comes nothing but strife, but with the
well-advised man is wisdom.
Well, there are some pastors who don't take
this instruction from the word of God, and
they reject the godly advice, they reject the
counsel of people around them.
And those do not make, I should say,
and I want to emphasize this point strongly,
these ungodly or headstrong or stubborn or pastors
of low character.
Their foolish actions do not make their form
of church government unbiblical.
It only shows that they apply it in
an unbiblical and foolish manner.
And I would say that the same thing
is true for other forms of church government.
The renegade, dictatorial elder who wants to pull
strings behind the scenes, the elder who comes
to the pastor when the pastor comes and
takes the church for the first time, and
he says to the pastor, Well, pastor, let
me tell you something, I've outlasted many guys
before you, and I'm going to be here
when you're gone, I want you to know
that I'm running things around here and not
you.
That dictatorial, headstrong elder, he doesn't discredit the
elder form of church government, he just shows
his own heart to be wrong, not his
form of church government necessarily.
Now I do believe that the pastor-led
leadership structure is a biblical form of church
government, and I'm going to carefully explain why
in just a few moments.
But I also believe that the New Testament,
and I'm emphasizing this point again and again,
you might be tired of me repeating it,
but I want to really get it through
our minds, that the New Testament doesn't tell
us enough about church government to say that
this is the only biblical form.
I really have no disagreement with those who
favor elder-ruled congregations, or those who favor
congregational-ruled congregations.
My only disagreement is with those who insist
that elder-ruled or congregational forms of church
government are the only New Testament forms.
You see, those who hold a dogmatic, elder
-rule-only view of church government, they beg
the question.
They rightly point out that elders were appointed
in many New Testament churches, and they assume
that they know what that means.
They know that they're prominent in leadership passage
of the New Testament.
But in no place does the New Testament
explain just what the relationship between the offices
of elder, deacon, overseer, bishop, and pastor are.
The people in the elder-rule camp assume
that they know, and their faulty conclusions are
based on those faulty assumptions.
Now I think that the biggest problem with
the elder-rule-only group is that they
neglect the clear models of leadership presented in
the New Testament.
Now there isn't much teaching on specific leadership
structures, but there is abundant modeling of leadership,
and most of these models point towards a
pastor-leadership structure.
So let's take a look at some New
Testament examples consistent with senior pastor leadership.
The first example I'd like to challenge you
with is the example of Jesus.
Consider just for a moment, what was the
Jesus structure of leadership?
When a destination had to be chosen, when
a decision had to be made, how do
you think Jesus decided it?
Did he leave it up to a majority
vote of the disciples?
Maybe of the entire multitude of disciples, the
100, 120 that followed him around.
Do you think he took a vote of
the congregation, so to speak?
No.
Do you think Jesus took a vote of
the elders?
Let's say those were the apostles with him,
or even the inner circle of the apostles.
Many people say that Peter, James, and John
were sort of an inner circle of the
disciples.
Did Jesus take a vote of them?
No.
Jesus led.
Now certainly he led with love.
Certainly he led with humility.
Certainly he led of sensitivity, and there was
no doubt that the leader of the group
was Jesus and no one else.
Now I know what some people might be
saying in their mind right now.
They might be saying, well listen, pastors aren't
Jesus.
And you're absolutely correct.
But let's just admit something right up front.
If there is a system of church government
modeled in the ministry of Jesus, it's not
congregational rule.
It's not elder-led rule.
It's pastor-led forms of church government.
And I want you to remember what Jesus
said in John chapter 20, verse 21.
John chapter 20, verse 21, Jesus said, So
Jesus said to them again, Peace to you.
As the Father has sent me, I also
send you.
No, not for a moment do I think
that I'm Jesus.
And any pastor who goes around thinking that
he has the same authority that Jesus has
is mistaken.
But friends, I want you to get the
point here.
Jesus said, just as the Father sent me,
so I'm sending you.
Would it surprise us that Jesus had ordained
for the church the same form, the same
basic system of government that he exercised in
his own ministry?
First and foremost, Jesus is the example of
a pastor-led form of church government.
Secondly, you have the apostles.
Consider the apostles for just a moment.
How did Paul lead in Ephesus when he
was there for three years?
Do you realize that Paul stayed at the
city of Ephesus and taught there for three
years?
Acts chapter 20, verse 31, Paul says this
to the Ephesian elders.
He says, Therefore watch and remember that for
three years I did not cease to warn
everybody night and day with tears.
Now I'm asking a question that can really
be only answered if you're familiar with the
New Testament, and if you're familiar with this
man, Saul of Tarsus, who we came to
know as the Apostle Paul.
What kind of man was he?
What kind of leader was he?
Do you think that when Paul served for
three years at the church of Ephesus that
he just left things up to a congregational
vote?
Do you think that Paul stepped back from
leadership and said to the elders, well, you
know, guys, I'm no more important or no
more than any of you.
You just decide what you want, or we'll
decide it together, and my voice doesn't have
any more meaning than you.
No.
Everything we know, the entire tenor of Paul's
ministry as described in the book of Acts
and as described in his letters makes it
tough to believe that he was only one
among a group of elders with no greater
voice than any other elder had.
Paul was a leader, and Paul led.
Again, I know what some of you might
be saying.
You're saying, well, pastor, do you think that
you're Paul?
Do you think that you're an apostle?
And the answer is no.
I don't think that I'm the Apostle Paul,
and I don't think that I'm an apostle
in the same way that Paul was.
Yet at the same time, I believe that
I am simply doing what Paul told me
to do.
1 Corinthians chapter 4 verse 16 says, Therefore
I urge you, imitate me.
Paul said to every believer that they should
follow him as he follows Jesus Christ.
And so should it surprise us that the
form of church government that God has ordained
and blessed for the church today, the senior
pastor or the pastor-led form of church
government, that it was exemplified in the ministry
of Paul and the other apostles.
So far we have two examples.
The ministry of Jesus, the ministry of the
apostles.
Let's look at a third example.
These two men, Timothy and Titus.
Now you sort of see a progression.
First, of course, you have Jesus, the Lord
of glory, the head of the church, in
fact.
It doesn't surprise us.
And then we have the apostles.
But then there is another third critical step
in this progression when we come to Timothy
and Titus.
They weren't apostles.
And of course they weren't Jesus.
But yet they still exercised the same kind
of authority coming forth from a single man
the same way that Jesus exemplified and the
apostles exemplified.
You see, Timothy was stationed in the city
of Ephesus.
Titus was stationed on the island of Crete.
And how did Timothy function in Ephesus and
how did Titus function on Crete?
Did they really serve as just one elder
who was equal among others?
Or did they assume a role more like
the model of senior pastor leadership?
Of course they did.
Now why else would Paul leave them with
the authority to appoint elders themselves?
That's what it says in Titus chapter 1
verse 5.
He says, For this reason I left you
in Crete that you should set in order
the things that are lacking and appoint elders
in every city as I commanded you.
Get that point.
Paul says to Titus, I left you in
Crete.
I want you to set in order the
things that are lacking.
I want you to appoint elders in every
city as I commanded you.
Paul left them with the authority to appoint
elders.
They were given this authority to evaluate and
to choose elders.
And some people might call Timothy and Titus
today dictatorial senior pastors.
But clearly they followed what God directed them
to do through the inspired apostle Paul.
So you see, Timothy and Titus, we have
no evidence at all that they worked just
as one leader among a group of leaders
in a church.
Not at all.
These were men of bold leadership.
And they were in charge of putting the
church in order.
They were in charge of leading the church.
And they were in charge of appointing elders.
That's three examples so far.
Jesus, the apostles, and Timothy and Titus.
And next we come to the example of
James in Jerusalem.
Now, James in Acts chapter 15 is a
clear example of single pastor leadership.
Now, among the elders of Jerusalem and the
others gathered in Acts chapter 15, James is
clearly the one who takes the lead.
And maybe you remember the whole situation there
in the book of Acts chapter 15.
The situation is simply this.
There had risen a huge dispute in the
church over this matter of how is a
person saved.
Must a Gentile first become a Jew before
he can become a Christian?
And there were some who were from the
sect of the Pharisees, Christians who came forth
from the Pharisees, who said that a man
can't become a Christian until he first becomes
a Jew and is circumcised and comes under
the law of Moses.
Well, what about this whole issue?
How would it be decided?
And what they decided to do was to
call a council in Jerusalem.
And so you had apostles, you had elders,
you had great dignitaries and leaders from all
over the Christian world at that time gathering
together in Jerusalem for a council.
Now, if there was any time where they
just would have decided something on a congregational
level, that would have been it in Acts
chapter 15.
But in Acts chapter 15, James is clearly
the one taking the lead.
He even states the decision of the case
in the emphatic words, Therefore I judge.
Let me read that to you from Acts
chapter 15 verse 19.
James stood up and he said, Therefore I
judge that we should not trouble those from
among the Gentiles who are turning to God.
You see, the words there are very strong.
James is standing up and saying, Okay guys,
I'm ready to make a decision.
Now, if James had no more leadership than
any of the other ones there, if this
was just sort of a college of elders
or a congress of elders and apostles together,
they would have had every right to say,
James, who do you think you are for
deciding this?
No one man is going to decide this.
We're all going to agree on this together.
But instead, James stood up and he said,
Therefore I judge.
And indeed, the ancient Greek grammar there presents
it even more strongly.
One of the wonderful commentaries I have is
the Expositor's Greek New Testament.
It's a commentary not on the English text
of the Bible, but on the ancient Greek
text.
And in the Expositor's Greek New Testament, on
Acts chapter 15 verse 19, they explain how
the ancient Greek presents it very strongly as,
I determine or I resolve.
This was a very strong statement from the
apostle here, James, and he made the opinion.
Commentator Adam Clark rightly says about this, he
says that the rest either argued on the
subject or gave their opinion.
James alone pronounced the definitive sentence.
And friends, this was James' leadership at work
in the context of reliance on the wisdom
and the counsel of others present.
Now in addition, when the decision of James
was published, it was presented as the mutual
decision of everybody present.
In Acts chapter 15 verse 25, when they
wrote a letter to the congregations explaining their
decision, they said, not that it seemed good
to James, they said it seemed good to
us.
James led.
And everybody else acknowledged and supported his leadership.
And they said, James, you're a wise, godly
leader.
Your decision is our decision.
And James' leadership was supported by all present.
This is one of the striking examples of
pastor-led forms of church government in action
in the New Testament.
So far we have four.
Jesus, the apostles, Timothy and Titus, and James.
Now for our fifth one, I'm going to
take you to sort of an unusual place.
Unusual.
Because if you're familiar with this issue at
all, and if you've ever heard somebody try
to explain the case for elder-led church
government, they'll always take you to Acts chapter
20.
So let me take you to Acts chapter
20, and let's take a look at what
they say there in Acts chapter 20.
In Acts chapter 20, Paul is on his
way back to Jerusalem.
And he had spent three years in the
city of Ephesus, and then traveled away, and
now was passing somewhat nearby as he was
coming back through on his way to Jerusalem.
And because he was somewhat near the city
of Ephesus, he wanted to meet with the
elders of the city of Ephesus.
Now, in the minds of many people, the
elders of the city of Ephesus are the
prime example of an elder-led form of
church government in action, because Paul is speaking
to the elders, and he's addressing them essentially
as pastors.
As a matter of fact, in Acts chapter
20, verse 17, it says, For Miletus he
sent to Ephesus, and called for the elders
of the church.
And so you have this very dramatic, this
very wonderful scene in Acts chapter 20, where
Paul is speaking to the elders of the
church at Ephesus.
And because the word elder is present, many
people assume that it speaks of what they
envision of as an elder rule structure.
But to say that elder rule structure was
the form at the church of Ephesus makes
huge and erroneous assumptions about structure in the
early church.
Now again, this is a critical point that
many elder rule advocates missed.
When Paul spoke to the Ephesian elders in
Acts chapter 20, they assumed that these elders
were a group that presided over a single
Ephesian congregation.
But what they're doing is they're sort of
thinking that, OK, well the church at Ephesus
met in one place.
No, there they are.
They met at one big place.
Maybe a few hundred, maybe a thousand believers
in the city of Ephesus.
We know that there was at least some
kind of sizeable Christian family there.
And so you have one large congregation in
the city of Ephesus, and there the elders
presided over that single large congregation.
Friends, that is a totally erroneous assumption.
When Paul called and spoke to the Ephesian
elders in Acts chapter 20, he wasn't speaking
to elders who presided over a single large
congregation.
He spoke to elders who most almost certainly
presided over individual home churches as sort of
pastors in their own right.
You see, Acts chapter 20, verses 17 through
32, addresses these overseers, these bishops who were
called to pastor the church in Ephesus.
Now not all elders were bishops or overseers
who functioned as senior pastors, but certainly these
particular ones were.
And Paul addresses these elders, who were not
collectively elders of a single large Ephesian congregation,
but they were individual pastors over small Ephesian
home churches.
As a matter of fact, if you want
a reference to this, 1 Corinthians chapter 16,
verse 19 tells us that there was specifically
a house church in Ephesus that met at
the home of Aquila and Prisca.
And in Romans chapter 16, verses 3 through
5, it mentions another house church in the
home of Aquila.
These house church structures were the normal way
of arrangements in the early church.
Friends, the early church simply didn't have buildings
where even 70 people could gather together.
If you take a look at ancient architecture,
you had to be very wealthy to have
a home where either 40 or 50 people
could gather together.
And so if we want to estimate, or
maybe I should say guesstimate, that the church
in the city of Ephesus was anywhere from
500 to 1,000 people strong, what you're
talking about is dozens of house congregations, anywhere
from 20 to 30 in size.
And this is what made up the church.
And the Ephesian elders that Paul addressed were
the individual leaders over those separate congregations.
Now the organization of these early church congregations
into house churches made it necessary to have
elders serving effectively as what we would call
senior pastors over these small congregations.
And perhaps there would be several elders functioning
as these roles of overseers and bishops in
any given city.
It wasn't so much later that most Christians
even had the capability of meeting together in
large congregations.
Now certainly some of the elders would not
be qualified as overseers or bishops of home
churches, and some would be and some wouldn't
be, but they would assist those who were.
The elders of Ephesus in Acts 20 were
pastors of house churches.
I want you to notice something else, and
very significantly.
In Philippians 1, verse 1, Paul makes no
mention at all of elders when he writes
to the church of Philippi.
He says, I'm writing to the overseers and
to the deacons.
Undoubtedly, he means those who were in leadership
over the different individual home churches of Philippi.
All right, let me go on to another
idea here, and that's the sixth one.
It's the idea of assembly leadership in Greek
and Hebrew culture.
Now for this, we'll have to take a
look at some ancient history.
You see, leadership in the early church is
described in both Hebrew and Greek cultural contexts.
The word and the idea behind elder is
essentially Jewish.
That's a word and a concept that comes
from Jewish culture.
While the idea of overseer or bishop essentially
comes from Greek culture.
The term shepherd had a legacy in both
cultures.
Now how do these terms and their cultural
understanding help us to understand the structure of
leadership in the early church?
Well, if you want to talk about elders
among Jewish congregations, synagogues if you will, synagogues
were led by a person known as the
head of the assembly.
He was the presiding officer.
He maintained order.
He removed disturbances.
He distributed ministry positions.
He selected scripture passages.
He fixed the topics for sermons and was
in many cases the caretaker of the building
itself.
Usually there was only one head of the
assembly in each synagogue, and in each synagogue
there would also be elders, presbyters, who functioned
as an advisory council to the head of
the assembly.
They assisted him in his leadership in the
synagogue.
The synagogue elders were helpers there to help
the head of the assembly do the leadership.
So what I want you to see is
the idea of a head of the assembly
being counseled and supported by a council of
elders was familiar to synagogue structure.
You find this pattern in ancient Jewish structure
in the synagogue.
So when they brought the same structure over
to the church, it wasn't anything unusual.
You also have examples in Greek culture.
The words deacon and overseer have a clear
Greek cultural root.
There was an office of overseer in Greek
culture, and in some ways the Christian office
was patterned after this example.
Basically, the overseer was the one who had
protective care over those he watched over.
And when the New Testament speaks of an
overseer in the singular, it's entirely consistent with
the pastor-led form of church government.
So what I want you to see is
we're clicking off of quite a few examples
here.
First of all, we have the example of
Jesus.
Secondly, we have the example of the apostles.
Third, we have the example of Timothy in
1 Timothy.
Fourth, we have the example of Titus in
Titus 1.
Fifth, we have the example of James in
Acts 15.
Sixth, we have the example of Jewish synagogue
structure.
Now I want you to see that we
also have the example, number seven, of the
use of overseer in the singular in the
pastoral letters.
Now, in the three pastoral letters, these were
letters written to pastors, written to young ministers.
You're talking about 1 Timothy, 2 Timothy, Titus,
and sometimes people throw Philemon in as one
of the pastoral epistles.
It really isn't a letter written to a
pastor, but it's sort of off in its
own category, if you will.
I want you to notice that whenever Paul
speaks of the overseer or of the bishop
in 1 and 2 Timothy or in Titus,
he always speaks of them in the singular.
For example, 1 Timothy chapter 3 says, an
overseer must be blameless.
He doesn't say overseers must be blameless.
Titus chapter 1 verse 7, he says, for
a bishop or an overseer must be blameless.
Again, there's another emphasis right there, very clearly,
how overseers are presented in the singular.
In contrast, deacons are presented in the plural.
1 Timothy chapter 3 verse 8 says, likewise
deacons must be reverent.
So Paul was fully capable of referring to
overseers in the plural if he wanted to,
but he didn't want to.
Whenever he referred to leaders, these single pastor
leaders, so to speak, in the early church
he referred to them in the singular because
they probably operated as individual leaders over house
churches.
As a matter of fact, you should know,
and this might be sort of an uninteresting
idea to some of you, but I think
it's a little bit interesting.
This idea is used by liberal scholars to
late-date the pastoral epistles because they can't
bring themselves to believe that there would be
this emphasis on single pastor leadership in the
early church.
But it was there.
You can't use this to late-date.
This was how the New Testament church was
run.
Now what I want you to see is
that it's extremely significant that in the pastoral
epistles Paul makes reference to the office of
pastor or overseer in the singular.
It's kind of funny because I read books
on this subject, of course, and one of
the books I read on this subject is
a work called Biblical Eldership by a man
named Alexander Strach.
It's a good book, and I'll talk about
it a little bit more later, but I
don't agree with his conclusions at all.
Alexander Strach, in his book Biblical Eldership, it
just sort of cracks me up how he
makes a great deal of the fact that
most often when the term elders is used
in the New Testament, it's used in the
plural.
You know, to refer to a group, and
he really wants to emphasize it.
You're talking about a group.
Not one man.
He finds it very significant that elders is
referred to in the plural.
However, he finds no significance in the fact
that overseer is mentioned in the singular.
Now, in my mind, you can't have it
both ways.
If it's important that elders is always mentioned
in the plural, then it has to be
significant that overseer is mentioned in the singular.
And I think it is important.
Now, next, as another evidence in the New
Testament of the pattern and the example of
a senior pastor or pastor-led forms of
church government, I would point you to 1
Peter 5, verse 2, where Peter says, Shepherd
the flock of God which is among you,
serving as overseers, not by compulsion, but willingly,
not for dishonest gain, but eagerly, nor as
being lords over those entrusted to you, but
being examples to the flock.
See, what I want you to notice is
in 1 Peter 5, verses 2 and 3,
Peter looks at overseers and he says, Don't
lord it over the people that are entrusted
to you.
Now, there's two things in there that I
think give two separate evidences that senior pastor
leadership was practiced in the early church.
First of all, it's Peter's exhortation that they
not lord over.
This really isn't an instruction that you have
to give to a group of elders because
you just expect that the others will keep
the one in check.
But Peter addresses overseers and he says, Listen,
you don't lord over.
You have the potential to do that in
your office.
You have been given significant authority, significant responsibility,
and you have to wield it in a
godly way as a servant, not lording it
over people.
Friends, if the senior pastor office had no
potential of that kind of abuse, Peter would
have never given the instruction.
And for a final reason, I want you
to notice a simple word in 1 Peter
5, verses 3, where he says, Nor as
being lords over those entrusted to you.
1 Peter 5, verses 3 speaks of those
entrusted to you.
More literally, in the ancient Greek, what Peter
wrote was this, The portion allotted to each
individual overseer.
He was signifying that each pastor mentioned in
1 Peter 5 had a portion of God's
flock allotted to them by God.
A portion that they were called by God
to lead and to oversee.
You see, that's completely consistent.
One man is allotted, so to speak, a
place of leadership in God's community and God
will hold him responsible for how he leads
within that place.
Well, I want you to see that there
are even a few other examples from church
history and from the scriptures that I could
bring up, but I think that this suffices
it for this evening.
You know, I am troubled every time I
hear of a pastor who acts in an
unwise, dictatorial way, of a senior pastor who
refuses to make himself accountable to others, who
refuses to listen to godly counsel and leadership,
who ignores the clear instruction of 1 Peter
5, verses 1-3.
But that shouldn't make us write off the
idea that senior pastor leadership is used of
God in a powerful way.
Because, friends, as we've seen tonight, the New
Testament precedent is there.
Now, I know that the elder rule only
crowd is frustrated because the New Testament doesn't
use the word pastor enough for their liking.
They sort of wait around and wonder, well,
why doesn't it say that pastor so-and
-so should lead this and that?
But, friends, what I want you to see
is that the model of pastor-led churches
is throughout the New Testament.
It appears far more frequently than some envision
as elder rule.
You ask yourself, very carefully now, when in
the New Testament do you see a committee
or a group of elders leading anything?
Anything!
From beginning to end!
Even in what you might have thought was
the prime example, the prime example of the
Council of Jerusalem, the Apostle James stands up
and takes leadership in that situation.
Friends, what I'm saying is, at the very
least, we have far more definitive and far
more frequent examples of pastor-led leadership structures
in the New Testament than we have for
elder-led or than we have for congregationally
led.
Let me remind you what they are again
that we've spoken about tonight.
We have the example of Jesus.
We have the example of Paul and the
Apostles.
We have the example of Timothy in 1
Timothy.
He had the power to appoint elders and
deacons himself.
We have the example of Titus in Titus
chapter 1.
He had the power to appoint elders and
deacons himself.
We have the example of James in Acts
chapter 15.
He made the decision at the Council of
Jerusalem, which the rest supported.
We have the example of the Jewish synagogue
structure.
We have the use of overseer only in
the singular, in the pastoral letters.
And we have the idea that pastors have
the potential for lording it over in 1
Peter chapter 5 verse 3, and that pastors
have congregations allotted to them in 1 Peter
chapter 5 verse 3.
Now in the books that I've read advocating
elder rule, again such as this book known
as Biblical Eldership by Alexander Strach.
I find it fascinating how they deal with
each one of these cases.
And you know how they do it?
I know that I'm not doing justice.
If you really want to know what the
man says, you should read the book yourself.
Although let me say this.
I think that that book Biblical Eldership by
Alexander Strach is both a good and a
bad book.
It's a good book in the way that
he does a marvelous job of telling men,
men, step up to the plate in your
church and take leadership.
And that's something that men need to hear
today.
Men are shirking leadership that God would have
them take in their churches.
And God would have them take in his
kingdom to move forward his work.
That's a needed message in the church today.
And I think Strach does a good job
of developing that message in that book Biblical
Eldership.
However, I think he does a very poor
job of advancing and defending the idea of
elder-led church government.
And in each one of the examples that
I've given you right here, you know what
Strach would say?
He'd bring up the example of Jesus and
he'd say, Well, you can't take Jesus.
He's a special case.
Then you bring up the apostles and Paul
and Peter.
Well, you can't take them.
They're a special case.
And then you bring up the example of
Titus and Timothy.
Well, you can't take them.
They're special cases.
Well, what about James?
Well, he's a special case too.
You see, it's pretty easy just to go
along and say, Well, everything that goes against
my argument and everything that supports the ideas
of the other guy, they're special cases and
don't apply in our situation.
And obviously, I think that's the wrong way
to do it.
I think that Strach's book is an interesting
example of a book with both good and
bad, but in that book I find a
lot of special pleading and begging the question.
But the models remain, and they demonstrate while
there isn't enough in the New Testament to
say that one form of church government is
biblical to the exclusion of others, certainly the
models for strong pastoral leadership are clear and
present.
And as I did at the beginning, let
me do so again at the end.
I have no disagreement with those who prefer
an elder rule structure instead of a senior
pastor structure.
My only disagreement is with those who claim
that the senior pastor structure is unbiblical.
However, let me say that I am absolutely
persuaded that the preferred and the most effective
form of church government is pastor-led.
I think that there is a dynamism and
there is an effectiveness and there is an
energy and a boldness in pastor-led forms
of church government that excel over other forms.
Now, please, I am not trying to say
that an elder-led form of church government
is doomed or cursed or destined to fail.
Not at all.
There are many marvelous, wonderfully working churches that
operate with an elder-led form of church
government.
But I think that either they are just
kidding themselves about their form of church government,
or they are rising above the challenge of
having an elder-led form of church government.
You see, and this is why I am
talking with you now in this last brief
portion about why I think senior pastor-led
church government is preferred.
I mean, you might say, well, David, you
just presented a case that it is one
among many.
Why is it any better?
You see, I believe that it is the
best because, well, for no other reason.
How about just this?
It is the most honest.
Do you want to know the David Guzik
theory of leadership?
And this is just one, and I am
sure it is not unique to me, but
I have never heard anybody else say it
in exactly these terms, but I am sure
many other people have.
I believe that when you get right down
to it, leadership is always about one man.
Always.
Now, you can say, well, you see, we
have a congregational form of church government, so
it is not about one man.
It is all about the congregation.
But listen, you know that within that congregational
form of church government, there is one leading
man in that congregation.
There is Brother Jones off to the side,
and when Brother Jones stands up and makes
his opinion known, he is so respected among
the other people in the congregation that he
is going to carry the majority vote his
way.
Now, you can tell me that that is
a congregational form of church government, but you
know and I know that Brother Jones is
leading that church.
Now, you can say, well, that is not
how it is on paper.
That is not how we have it structured.
But you know, according to human nature, that
is just how it operates.
Then again, you can have another form of
church government.
You can have elder-led church government.
And there you are.
You can say, well, nobody has more than
one vote than another, and they are all
equals at the table, the elders and that.
But listen, you have Elder Jones at that
meeting.
Please, I hope nobody thinks I am picking
on anybody named Jones or anything.
But you have Elder Jones there at that
church elders meeting.
And when Elder Jones makes his opinion known,
he is so respected and so admired by
enough of the other elders that a majority
goes his way.
And so you can talk all day long
about it being an elder-led form of
church government, but Elder Jones is the one
leading that church.
Now, I think, why not make it just
be Pastor Jones?
Why shouldn't you be up front about it?
And let the man who is out there
teaching the word and leading and feeding the
flock, let him be the one to lead.
Is he a pastor or is he not?
Let me tell you for a moment that
I could not bear to pastor a church
where they said, Pastor, just feed us, don't
lead us.
If I wanted to do that, I'd go
and teach at a Bible college somewhere.
I mean, that's not out of the question,
but if I'm going to teach in a
church, I'm going to lead there as well.
If I'm going to be the pastor and
teach the church, then I'm going to be
the pastor and lead the church as well,
and I won't be a hireling who is
hired or fired at the whim of a
group of men.
So friends, it's really that simple.
Those who teach should also be the ones
who lead.
You see, the senior pastor form of church
government simply recognizes the dynamic that one man
steps up to leadership, and ideally, it gives
it the kind of accountability that it deserves.
Now let me say this in conclusion.
I'm sorry for every believer who has ever
had a bad experience with church government, whether
their bad experience was with a pastor or
an elder or someone else in the church.
But the idea that senior pastor-led churches
are unbiblical or inherently dangerous, that's simply false.
I know that as a pastor, I work
in cooperative submission with our elders, and I
would never be foolish enough to disregard their
counsel.
I may not agree with it on every
point, but I never disregard it.
Now perhaps not all pastors at all times
work this way, but when they fail to
do it, it's a reflection of their own
wisdom or lack of it, not a reflection
of the structure itself.
God has used the pastoral leadership model to
accomplish great things for his kingdom in a
godly way, and he's going to continue to
do so until the Lord Jesus returns.
So friends, I recommend to you the system
of church government, the example of church government
practiced by Moses, yes, but also by Jesus,
also by all the apostles, also by Timothy,
also by Titus, and also by numerous other
examples in the New Testament.
Let's go forward together to advance God's kingdom
in these things.
Father, we pray that you would put a
blessing on our church leadership.
Father, it feels a little funny delivering this
message because in a way, it might be
taken that I'm advertising or that I'm promoting
my own position.
So Lord, with this message tonight, I humbly
ask you, God, that you give me a
unique protection and a unique enabling, a unique
empowering, an unction, if you will, Lord, to
fulfill the ministry that you've given me.
Father, that is the passion, I pray, that
you would raise up many, many hundreds, if
not thousands, of praying Christians to support me
in fulfilling the ministry that you've given to
me.
Not for my good, Lord, though I would
want good for me to come out of
it.
Lord, do it for the glory of Jesus
Christ and for the good of his people.
We pray this in Jesus' name.
Amen.