Biblical Eldership Church Leadership

Peter’s Instruction to the Asian Elders

as they observe them, glorify God in the day of visitation (1 Peter 2211,12).

If all Christians are to be holy as God is holy, it is particularly im portant that church leaders be holy. If the elders function with greedy hands or unholy egos, the flock will be defiled and will stray from its holy path. Jesus repeatedly taught His disciples to act toward one another in a humble, loving, sacrificial, and servantlike manner. He rebuked pride ful ambition, covetousness, and half-hearted devotion. Since elders must shepherd God’s flock in a distinctly Christlike way, Peter reiter ates some of Jesus’ teaching—even using some of the same terminol ogy found in the Gospels (Mark 10:42). The following three adverbial contrasts indicate the wrong and right ways to shepherd God’s flock. NOT UNDER COMPULSION, BUT VOLUNTARILY: God doesn’t want reluctant, unwilling shepherds to care for His people, so Peter warns against an elder serving “under compulsion.” Peter doesn’t deny Paul’s teaching that divine compulsion in service for God is necessary (1 Cor. 9216). However, in this instance, he uses the word “compul sion” in a negative sense, meaning without God-given motivation (2 Cor. 9:7; Philem. 14). If a man serves as an elder because his wife or friends pressure him to serve, or because he is trapped by circumstances, or because no one else will do the work, he is serving “under compul sion.” Lenski captures the spirit of Peter’s thought well when he says elders are not to serve “like drafted soldiers but like volunteers.”7 In contrast to serving under compulsion, Peter emphatically says that elders are to shepherd the flock “freely,” “willingly,” and “volun tarily.” Those who oversee the church “voluntarily” do so because they freely choose to serve. It is what they want to do. John Henry Jowett (1863-1923), the famous British preacher and former minister of Westminster Chapel in London, masterfully expresses Peter’s point: “One volunteer is worth two pressed men. I am not quite sure whether the proverbial saying is pertinent. . .. On the high planes of spiritual service no number of pressed men can take the place of a volunteer.”8 The willing spirit that Peter speaks of is “according to the will of God” (literally, “according to God”). Glad, voluntary service is God’s standard. It is the way God expects things to be done. God is not a

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