Biblical Eldership Church Leadership

Notes

was ex hypothesi a person of standing, a patron of others, and the space where the church met was his space, in which he was accustomed to the obedience of slaves and the deference of his wife and children. Those who came into it will have been to a large extent constrained by the norms of hospitality to treat the host as master of ceremonies, es pecially if he was a person of greater social standing or age than them selves. The table moreover was his table, and if any prayers were to be said, or bread or wine offered, the part was naturally his to play (The Elders: Seniority Within Earliest Christianity, p. 126.). There is, of course, some truth to Campbell’s theory. However, the New Testament Christian community and the apostles were not slaves to Graeco-Roman household patterns or Jewish synagogues. When writing to the church in Ephesus, Paul quotes a popular saying that the first Chris tians had developed, “if any man aspires to the office of overseer, it is a fine work he desires to do” (1 Tim. 321). Paul certainly concurs with this saying, but adds that a church overseer must be properly qualified before he can serve as a church overseer (1 Tim. 3:1-7). It is important to note that the apostolic qualifications for Christian eldership (overseership) do not list wealth, social status, seniority, or ownership of property as a re quirement. Any mature, godly male could serve as a church elder (over seer) (1 Tim. 3:1-7). If a person opened his or her house for the church to meet, that did not, at least by apostolic standards, automatically make that person the spiritual leader of the group. The newly founded Christian congregations were governed by God’s Spirit and Christ’s apostles. The apostles set the standards for these newly formed congregations by their distinctive, Spirit-inspired teachings (Acts 2:42; 1 Cor. 4217; 11234; 14237,38; 1 Tim. 3214,15). Thus the first churches were not simply reorganized synagogues or standard Roman or Jewish households. They were the Spirit-indwelt households of God that followed new standards for worship and community relationships. By trying to explain eldership in terms of the Roman household pattern or the Jewish community elder, of which we know very little, Campbell distorts the apostolic, New Testament eldership, which is distinctly Christian. Gooding, True to the Faith: A Fresh Approach to the Acts ofthe Apostles, p. 360. The N1V Matthew Henry Commentary (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1992), p. 529. Richard Baxter, The Reformed Pastor (repr. Grand Rapids: Sovereign Grace, 1971), p. 7. Michael Green, The Second Epistle General of Peter and the General Epistle ofJude, Tyndale Bible Commentaries (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1968), p. 149.

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