Biblical Eldership Church Leadership

Paul’s Letters to the Churches

emotionally draining, time-consuming, and often monotonous and discouraging. It requires a great deal of personal dedication and sacri fice. The prepositional phrase “among you” shows that the labor is on behalf of the local congregation, not labor for personal employment. These brethren were working hard in the church. So a biblical elder ship is not a church board that conducts business for two or three hours a month—it is a hard-working, pastoral body. It might appear to some readers that Paul refers to three separate groups of individuals in verse 12: those who labor diligently, those who direct the congregation, and those who give instruction. How ever, the structure of the Greek clause makes it clear that one group of individuals who discharges three functions is the intended meaning.5 Furthermore, the second and third terrns—leading and instructing— most likely explain the first term, “diligently labor.” These brethren, then, labor at leading and instructing. The plural forms of these three present participles should not be overlooked. A team of men labors at leading and instructing the con gregation. Highlighting this point, Scottish theologian and biblical com mentator James Denney (1856-1917) writes: “At Thessalonica there was not a single president, a minister in our sense, possessing to a certain extent an exclusive responsibility; the presidency was in the hands of a plurality of men.”6 These brethren worked hard to provide leadership for the congrega tion. The clause “have charge over” translates the Greek word prohiste’mi, which can range in meaning from “lead,” “preside,” “gov em,” and “manage” to “support” and “care for,” or can combine the ideas of caring for and leading.7 Paul uses this term in other places to describe a father’s management of the home, a spiritual gift, and the work of the elders: 0 He uses prohistémi to describe a father’s management of his fami ly, particularly the proper control of his children: “He [the elder] must be one who manages [prohiste'mi] his own household well keeping his children under control with all dignity (but if a man does not know how to manage [prohiste‘mi] his own household, how will he take care of the church of God?” (1 Tim. 324,5). In this usage, prohistémi combines both the ideas of ruling and pro viding care.

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