Biblical Eldership Church Leadership

Notes

appoint, install, with the apostles as subject” (Bauer, A Greek-English Lexicon ofthe New Testament, s.v. “cheirotoneo,” p. 881). “In Acts 14:23 the reference is not to election by the congregation. The presbyters are nominated by Paul and Barnabas and then with prayer and fasting they are instituted into their offices. . (E. Lohse, “cheimtoneo',” in Theologi cal Dictionary of the New Testament, 9 (1974): 437. RP. Bruce, Answers to Questions (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1972), pp. 29,30. William Kelly, Lectures on the Gospel of Matthew (1868; repr. Denver: Wilson Foundation, 1971), p. 166. Ignatius, Ephesians, 1. Unless otherwise stated, all quotes from the early Apostolic Fathers are taken from The Apostolic Fathers, ed. J.B. Lightfoot and R.J. Harmer (1891; repr. ed. Grand Rapids: Baker, 1984). Thomas D. Lea and Hayne P. Griffin Jr., 1,2 Timothy, Titus, The New American Commentary (Nashville: Broadman, 1992), p. 109; see also Campbell, The Elders: Seniority Within Earliest Christianity, p. 172. Campbell, The Elders: Seniority Within Earliest Christianity, p. 172. RP. Bruce, “Lessons from the Early Church,” in In God’s Community: Essays on the Church and Its Ministry, eds. David J. Ellis and W. Ward Gasque (Wheaton: Shaw, 1978), p. 155. \Mlliam L. Lane, Hebrews 1-8, Word Biblical Commentary (Dallas: Word, 1991), pp. liii, 1v; Paul Ellingworth, Commentary on Hebrews, New International Greek Testa ment Commentary (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1993), p. 26; Thomas Hewitt, The Epistle to the Hebrews, Tyndale Bible Commentaries (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1960), p. 34. To the Ephesians, 1. A growing trend in biblical studies today explains the structure of the local church in terms of the Graeco-Roman household structure, which was the original social context. According to this line of thought, the senior head of the family and owner of the house in which the church met would naturally be the leader of the house church. In order to own a house large enough for a congregation to meet, the household head would most likely be a well-to-do, educated person. By society’s standards and customs, he or she would serve as patron of the group, leading the house hold in prayer and worship and administering the group’s finances for its needy members. The leadership of such a house church was then based on seniority and social status as was the case in all Graeco-Roman and Jewish households. R. Alastair Campbell writes: So long as the local church was confined to one household, the house hold provided the leadership of the church. The church in the house came with its leadership so to speak ‘built in’. The church that met in someone’s house met under that person’s presidency. The householder

17.

18.

19.

20.

21. 22.

23. 24.

306