Biblical Eldership Church Leadership

Hebrews: Obey Your Leaders

[elders] and deacons unto them that should believe. And this they did in no new fashion; for indeed it had been written concerning bishops and deacons from very ancient times; for thus said the scripture in a certain place, 1 will appoint their bishops in righteousness and their deacons in faith.3 And our Apostles knew through our Lord Jesus Christ that there would be strife over the name of the bishop’s [elder’s] office. For this cause therefore, having received the complete foreknowledge, they appointed the aforesaid persons [elders], and afterwards they [the apostles] provided a continuance, that if these [elders] should fall asleep, other approved men [elders] should succeed to their [elders’] ministration. Those therefore who were appointed by them [the apostles], or afterward by other men of repute [elders] with the consent of the whole Church, and have ministered unblameably to the flock of Christ in lowliness of mind, peacefully and with all modesty, and for long time have borne a good report with all—these men we consider to be unjustly thrust out from their ministration.4 Although I Clement says nothing about the presence of elders in Rome, the assertion that it was the apostles’ regular practice to appoint a plurality of overseers (elders) implies that the Roman Christians agreed with and followed the same pattern. The Epistle to the Hebrews, written thirty years earlier than 1 Clement, refers to a plurality of leaders only, not to a single leader. The joint function of these leaders, described as keeping watch over the spiritual welfare of the readers, suggests the work of the church elders that we have observed throughout the New Testa ment (James. 5214,15; Acts 20:28; 1 Peter 5:2). The first Christian community in Rome was comprised of “Jews and proselyte members” who had heard the gospel in Jerusalem on the day of Pentecost (Acts 2210). Jewish Christian communi ties outside Jerusalem would most likely pattern themselves af ter the mother church in Jerusalem (James 5214), and the Roman Christians would have known that elders were established among the Christian Jews in Jerusalem.

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