Biblical Eldership Church Leadership

Paul ’s Letters to the Churches

tradition which had developed in the meantime—when he maintains that Paul and Barnabas ‘appointed elders...in every church’ (Acts 14:23; cf. especially 20217-35), for this is not borne out by the letters of Paul himself.”2 Despite what these scholars have said about the absence of any men tion of elders in Paul’s letters to the churches, elders are addressed in the opening of Paul’s letter to the Philippians, where he uses the alter native title, overseer. Paul writes: “Paul and Timothy, bond-servants of Christ Jesus, to all the saints in Christ Jesus who are in Philippi, including the overseers [elders] and deacons” (Phil. 121). So it is not accurate to say that Paul never addresses elders in his letters to the churches. To claim that Acts, even in part, is historically unreliable and that 1 Timothy and Titus are fictitious Pauline letters is to deny the doctrine of divine inspiration, which in short states, “All Scripture is God breathed and is useful for teaching. . .so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work” (2 Tim. 3216a,17; NIV). If Luke records that Paul appointed elders and spoke to the elders (an event to which Luke was an eyewitness), when in truth he didn’t, then Luke’s history is detrimental to the truth and misleading to the people of God. How could the first Christians have confidence in Luke’s his torical record, which claims to have “investigated everything carefully” (Luke 123), if it states that Paul appointed elders when in fact he did not? Moreover, those who deny the authenticity of 1 Timothy and Titus and the historical reliability of Acts have an incomplete, skewed pic ture of Paul and his churches. If we are to accurately understand Paul and his church practices, we must trust the complete historical record as delivered by the Holy Spirit of God. This record includes Paul’s nine letters to the churches, his inspired letters to Timothy, Titus, and Philemon, as well as Luke’s inspired historical accounts. Paul’s so-called failure to specifically address the elders in his let ters to the churches can be explained by his profound understanding of the new covenant people of God. Because all members of the local congregation are saints, priests, and Spirit-empowered ministers, all are responsible for life in the community. Therefore, Paul’s customary practice was to address the whole community of saints when he wrote letters to local congregations. The New Testament offers multiple ex amples of this Christ-centered ecclesiology in practice:

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