Biblical Eldership Church Leadership

Paul ’s Letters to the Churches

friend Ignatius,22 he refers to himself simply as Polycarp in his own letter to the Philippians. He clearly places himself with the elders: “Polycarp and the presbyters that are with him.”23 From these two let ters, we can conclude that in Paul’s day and for the next fifty years there were only two recognized groups of officials at Philippi: over seers (who are elders) and deacons. There is no evidence of the three office bearers that are found in the second century (overseer, elders, and deacons).24 Paul’s usage of the plural nouns indicates that Philippi had a plural ity of overseers and deacons. The use of “overseers” (plural) has pro found implications. In one stroke, the plural form utterly confounds later theories of church government. However, in their efforts to ex plain away the plurality of overseers in the church at Philippi, some scholars claim that there were several congregations in Philippi, each of which had a single overseer. But this view has no basis in the text or in the historical record, as we have already shown (see chapter 7, page 142). Fifty years after its founding, Polycarp writes to the church (not churches) at Philippi and counsels it to submit to its deacons and elders. Although Paul singles out overseers and deacons for special men tion in his greeting, he speaks to the whole community throughout the body of the letter. Without this brief, introductory reference, there would be no way to know, either from the rest of the letter or from Acts, that the Philippian church had overseers and deacons. It is clear that the overseers and deacons are accorded no elevated status above the con gregation. The letter is written “to all the saints. . .in Philippi,” and the terms “overseers and deacons” are subjoined to this phrase. The shep herds can be mentioned after the sheep because they are also part of the sheep. They are first among equals, not clerics over lay pe0ple. Contrasting the obvious organizational changes that took place in the second century with Philippians 121, John Eadie succinctly con cludes: “The mention of episkopoi in the plural, and the naming of both classes of office-bearers after the general body of members, indi cate a state of things which did not exist in the second century.”25

IDENTIFYING THE OVERSEERS

The first Gentile Christians and their leaders utilized the com mon Greek title, overseer (episkopos), to describe their community

177