Biblical Eldership Church Leadership

Hebrews: Obey Your Leaders

community in Palestine, which is a well-recognized view, then elders definitely would be included under the designation “leaders.” If the letter was written to Rome, which is the majority opinion among schol ars today, elders should still be considered as a part of the designated leadership of the church. There is ample, compelling evidence sup porting the existence of congregational leadership by elders in Rome at the time Hebrews was written: 0 We know from the book Shepherd ofHermas (ca. AD. 140), the so-called Pilgrim ’s Progress of early Christianity, that represents well the state of Roman Christianity in the first quarter of the second century, that a body of elders—not a single overseer— presided over the church in Rome. Hermas states: “And after wards I saw a vision in my house. The aged woman came, and asked me, if I had already given the book to the elders. . .. But thou shalt read (the book) to this city [Rome] along with the el ders that preside over the Church.”1 In addition, the term over seer is used twice by Hermas, but it is synonymous with elders and is always used in the plural.2 0 In Ignatius’s letter to the church in Rome in AD. 115, he makes no mention of a Roman overseer (bishop). This is a radical de parture from his other six letters in which he refers to a single overseer. - In AD. 96, the church in Rome wrote a letter to the church in Corinth, which is erroneously entitled, The Epistle ofS. Clement to the Corinthians (also called 1 Clement). The letter demon strates that there had been a close relationship between the two churches. What is of paramount significance to us is that the let ter of 1 Clement exhorts the Corinthians to submit to their elders because the elders had been established by the apostles and pre scribed by the Old Testament Scriptures: The Apostles received the Gospel for us from the Lord Jesus Christ; Jesus Christ was sent forth from God. So then Christ is from God, and the Apostles are from Christ. . .. So preaching everywhere in country and town, they appointed their first fruits, when they had proved them by the Spirit, to be bishops

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