Biblical Eldership Church Leadership

Appointment of Elders

have to replace outgoing members of the board. We have a quota to maintain.” Thoughtless, lazy, and prayerless procedures such as those described above weaken our churches and demean the eldership and deaconship. Evaluating an elder’s or deacon’s fitness for office should be done thoughtfully, patiently, and biblically. The Scripture clearly states that no one is to be appointed to office in a hurried, thoughtless manner: “Do not lay hands upon anyone too hastily” (1 Tim. 5:22a). Once a man is appointed to the pastors’ council [eldership] he serves as long as he desires, functions in the work, and qualifies. It is unscriptural, harmful to the church, and demeaning to the elders to set limits on the time period a pastor elder can serve, or to limit the number of elders to a fixed number. If there are eight men in the church who love and desire to be pastor elders (1 Tim. 321), then there should be eight men functioning together as a pastoral council. Lawrence R. Eyres, a Presbyterian minister and author of The Elders ofthe Church, reasons biblically when he warns against tenn-eldership and arbitrary elder quotas: Then there is the matter of competition for office, as when there are more nominees than there are offices to be filled. This is an inherent danger where sessions [elderships] are organized with term-eldership and a fixed number of places to be filled in each class. To set a fixed number of elders is a dangerous precedent. . .if a man is ready to serve Christ’s church as an elder, by what arbitrary rule is he to be kept back because another man is also ready? If the Holy Spirit makes men elders, then the church ought to be ruled by those men the Spirit has prepared.10

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