Biblical Eldership Church Leadership

The Acts of the Apostles

the temple and the holy vessels and the selection of the high priests” (Antiquities 20, 14).

In the New Testament, the verb is used in a compound form to convey the meaning “chosen beforehand by God:” “God raised Him up on the third day, and granted that He should become visible, not to all the people, but to witnesses who were chosen beforehand [procheirotoneo'] of God, that is, to us” (Acts 10:40,41). In 2 Corinthians 8:19, the only other place in which the verb is used, the churches chose a well-known brother to travel with Paul: “and not only this, but he has also been appointed by the churches to travel with us.” Although the procedure for choosing was undoubtedly different from that ofActs 14:23, the word itself does not indicate a difference. The point is, cheirotoneo’ means to choose or to appoint, with or without reference to a show of hands. The context is perfectly clear that appoint is the only possible meaning in Acts 14:23. Consider the following two points: (1) The first contextual indicator that appoint is the intended meaning of the verb is its subject, “they.” Certainly, the word they refers to Paul and Barnabas, not to the churches. If interpreters insist on the root meaning of the verb (they had stretched forth the hands), then the subject must be the voter, because the subject can never preside over the votes of others. The action is always predicated of the verb’s subject (cheirotoneo' is here in the active voice, not the middle). Therefore, only Paul and Barnabas raised their hands in voting, not the church. But such an interpretation doesn’t make sense. Henry Craik (1805-1866), an able student of the Hebrew and Greek languages and co-pastor with George Muller, remarks: The verb cheirotoneo’ so far as I am aware, is nowhere else employed in the sense of electing or appointing by the votes of others. Had the historian told us that the members of the Christian communities chose their elders by vote, we should have necessarily understood him to mean that they themselves voted for his appointment. No such statement is made in the passage under review. I cannot, therefore, rest upon the passage as evidence for popular election (New Testament Church Order, [Bristolz W. Mack, 1863], p. 51).

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