Biblical Eldership Church Leadership

Why This Book Is Needed

cludes with the exhortation, “Obey your leaders, and submit to them; for they keep watch over your souls. . .” (Heb. 13:17). This book is about those who keep watch over the souls of the Lord’s people, those whom both Paul and Peter commanded to pastor the flock of God (Acts 20:28; 1 Peter 5:2). This book is about the church elders. My first encounter with church elders occurred when I was a young teenager preparing for confirmation. During confirmation classes I told the minister about my conversion to Christ, which had taken place the previous summer at a Bible camp. He was so intrigued by my youth ful, exuberant testimony of Christ that he asked me to share my story with the church elders. So I met with the elders and told them about my new relationship with Jesus Christ. They sat speechless, looking totally puzzled. I was saddened by their response because I realized that they didn’t understand what I was saying. That experience left me with little confidence in the elders or the church. My next encounter with church elders, however, was altogether dif ferent. While attending college away from home, I was invited to a church that taught and practiced authentic biblical eldership. The e1 ders of this church took seriously the New Testament commands for elders to be biblically qualified and to actively shepherd the flock of God. They provided strong leadership, loving pastoral care and disci pline, sound Bible teaching, and humble, sacrificial examples of Chris tian 1iving.As a result, they were highly esteemed by the church. The inspiring example of these men first awakened in me a positive inter est in the subject of church eldership. Later, while attending seminary, my growing interest in eldership was vigorously challenged. During a class on church polity, which stubbornly resisted any notion of an elder-led church, I asked the pro fessor, “But what do you do with all the Scripture texts on elders?” I n his magisterial epistle to the Hebrews, the inspired writer con-